Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 10

Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 10:15 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Dungeons and Dragons: Eye of the Beholder
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Year: 2002

Dungeons and Dragons has played a big part in my life. My brother and I played it one afternoon in our basement when I was maybe 8, and then I remember my brother, my sister, my brother-in-law, and I starting a campaign, and as we were rolling our characters, I rolled a guy with only 2 hitpoints. I wanted very badly to be a fighter, and when I saw my champion was going to start the game with a mere 2 hitpoints (which meant a moderately stiff wind could kill me), I threw a big fit and didn't want to play anymore. That is the extent of my tabletop D&D experience.

So wait, how could D&D play such a big part in my life with so little playing experience? Well, it wasn't the tabletop game that did it--it was the PC games. When we got our first Windows machine in the fall of 1991, it came with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Secret of the Silver Blades, one of the legendary "Gold Box" games published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) in the late 80s and early 90s. Craig and I played the crap out of Secret of the Silver Blades, which we discovered was the third game in a series of four. So we bought up the rest of the series and played the crap out of those, too. Exploration took place in a 3D first-person perspective, while combat took place on a 2D third-person overhead battlefield. It was a great, addictive mix of dungeon crawling and turn-based strategic combat. You could also transfer characters between games, so when you beat one game with your seasoned party of adventurers, you could import them to the next game and continue with all of your accumulated wealth, equipment, and experience.

Our love for Dungeons and Dragons computer games established by the wonders of the Gold Box games, Craig and I looked for more D&D adventures to consume. One game that we avoided, however, was something called Eye of the Beholder. The exploration was in the traditional first-person perspective, but so was the combat. For whatever reason, the thought of not fighting on the big 2D battlefield was really off-putting to Craig and me, so we never got Eye of the Beholder, even though I've never really heard anything bad about the game.

Enter Eye of the Beholder on Game Boy Advance. Released a whopping 12 years after the original PC version, the GBA port attracted Craig and me because it used a 2D battlefield-style combat engine like the old Gold Box games. Craig tipped me off that a Target near where he lived was selling the game for 10 dollars, so I told him to get a copy for me.

Naturally, it took another eight years for me to get around to playing the thing.

Best way to get a party of adventurers to explore your disgusting sewer system? Send the prettiest girl in town to ask for help.

You enter a long, dark corridor. Get used to it!

I don't live in the apartment with the giant spiders anymore, but thanks to games like Eye of the Beholder, I still get a chance to take them on every now and then.

The story goes like this--the city of Waterdeep is in trouble. Various evil forces are emerging from beneath the city, so its leaders (most notably an attractive, well endowed noblewoman, on whom the game places noticeable emphasis) hire your party of do-gooders to enter the sewer system and figure out what's going on, and eliminate any bad guys along the way. You'll battle kobolds, fishmen, giant spiders, the Drow, and other nasty critters as you progress through sewers, caves, and underground cities and temples before finally tackling (what else?) a beholder named Xanathar in the game's final confrontation.

The good thing that Eye of the Beholder has going for it is that it's a Dungeons and Dragons game reminiscient of the Gold Box games. There's nothing quite like diving into a dungeon, blasting spiders and the undead with fireballs, and trying to figure out whether I should equip my cleric with a +3 Scale Mail or a +2 Chain Mail. Character customization is incredibly deep, there are tons and tons of items, spells, and skills to choose from (granted, about 90% of those are completely worthless, but the rest of it is dang good stuff), and slicing your opponents to ribbons with a "Longsword +1 +3 vs. Undead" is satisfying even from a bird's eye view.

So I thought this game was great, right? Well...no. Not really. It's okay. The nostalgia factor is there, and so are the classic D&D elements. The problem here is the adventure itself. I'm not sure how the PC, Super NES, or Sega CD versions of Eye of the Beholder compare, but I felt like there just wasn't enough to this game. Once the dungeon crawling starts, there is minimal interaction with characters with the exception of the two dwarven settlements under the town, and the occasional bad guy who taunts you before starting a fight. There aren't any towns to visit, no interesting NPCs, no side quests (there are other things to do besides the main quest, but you have to do all of them to open up more parts of the main quest), and little variety. Even though the majority of any D&D video game is exploration and combat, it tends to stay pretty interesting. In Eye of the Beholder, however, things actually get a little repetitive. There aren't enough types of enemies, and the levels, while maze-like, are usually pretty straightforward. You get the occasional switch puzzle or teleporter maze, but for the most part, you're just exploring yet another long, dark corridor. As I write this, I keep trying to convince myself that all the other D&D games I've played are the same way, but they're not! There's just so much more variety and enjoyment to the other games. Again, maybe the other versions of Eye of the Beholder are more enjoyable than the GBA port. I should certainly hope so, judging by the warm reception they have received.

I told you about how much I love the 2D combat engine of the Gold Box games, right? I mentioned that it was THE thing that drew me to this game, right? I guess I should have known that it would end up being completely underwhelming. Compared to the SSI combat engine, this one is horrendous. Movement is sluggish, both targeting and movement are awkward (characters can only move in four directions, as opposed to eight), and there is no way to see the statistics of any enemies, or even any of your characters waiting for their next turn to roll around. On top of all of that, most of the corridors in this game are two characters wide. So when you're wandering down the nearest long, dark corridor and stumble upon a pack of carrion crawlers, only the two guys in the front of your party will be able to do any melee combat because the rest of your party will be stuck behind them. If you have any more melee fighters, they'll be stuck with nothing to do (unless some enemies have snuck up on you from behind, in which case the guys in the front of your party will be left with nothing to do). I realize that this problem can be avoided with some decent strategy and forethought (it pays for all of your guys to either have a ranged weapon or be able to cast some ranged offensive spells, even though it seems like they miss pretty often with their ranged weapons), but it gets pretty annoying feeling like at least half of your party has nothing to do at any given moment.

The biggest detriment to this game, however, is the menu system, which is poorly organized and difficult to navigate. You can only view the options, skills, and status of one character at a time, which leads to a lot of scrolling through all of your guys to get to the rogue in the back row so she can disarm the trap on the treasure chest in the middle of the big, inconspicuous chamber. Along those same lines, one time I was wandering through the dungeon for a few minutes and got into a fight, only to find out that my cleric had died from wounds sustained in the previous fight, and I never even knew it! I didn't bother to check the status of every character in my party after the fight was over, so how was I to know? If I could have just seen the stats of all of my characters at once, it would have been much more evident that he needed some help. I would blame the limited buttons available on the Game Boy Advance for the crappy menus, but I've played tons of RPGs on Game Boy and on numerous other platforms with a similar number of buttons, and all of these games had simple, easy-to-manage menus. They just didn't do a good job on this game. On top of the poor menus, there is also no group inventory--each character has to carry his or her share of the party's loot, so you'll waste a lot of time trading items back and forth because Merlin needs that Wand of Ice Storm that a fishman just dropped, but his inventory is full, so Conan has to pick it up, and then Merlin has to trade 20 Darts +1 to Eowyn so that Conan can trade the Wand of Ice Storm to Merlin. Come on guys--you made this game in 2002. Even in those days, video games were way beyond having menus that are this clunky.

Fortunately for Eye of the Beholder on GBA, the throwback feel of the game and the fact that it is a Dungeons and Dragons game make up for a lot of its shortcomings. I was pretty bored and frustrated at times, but other parts of the game (namely character creation, casting devastating magic spells, and controlling my frontline warriors) were decently fun, and the track record of the previous D&D video games I played previously kept me going. If you're a D&D fan or a hardcore role-playing gamer, you may enjoy this foray into the Forgotten Realms. Overall, however, this ain't the greatest game out there, and you may want to try to find the PC, Super NES, or Sega CD version for a better experience.

Oh yeah, and your reward for killing Xanathar and saving Waterdeep? You get to see another picture of that pretty girl while the credits roll. Gee, thanks.

Brian's Rating: 4.5 Longswords out of 10

[Images courtesy of Gamespot.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 9

Thursday, August 5, 2010 - 9:23 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Faxanadu
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Year: 1989

Faxanadu escaped me for the longest time. I didn't know anything about the game as a kid, but based on the one incomprehensible screenshot that kept showing up in Nintendo Power and in the J.C. Penney Christmas catalog--the one with a guy holding a knife and standing in front of a tree--I knew I had to have it! They tricked me into buying Dynowarz the same way; what 7-year old kid is going to say no to a screenshot of robot dinosaurs killing each other? Dynowarz should have been the greatest game ever made, but we all know how it actually turned out. (I beat that game in a weekend when I was a little kid, by the way--a telling indication that they didn't try hard enough. I should have listened to my brother when he told me to spend that money on Snake's Revenge instead, but I guess that game didn't turn out to be all that great either, in hindsight.) However, much like The Adventures of Bayou Billy and Kid Niki: Radical Ninja, I had to settle for a screenshot of Faxanadu, and nothing more.

Get used to not having enough "golds" to buy all of the items you need.

The drab colors will make you feel like you're crawling through a neverending pile of dirt and crud for much of the game.

Nothing says boss like a giant inhuman skull with legs.

I didn't purchase Faxanadu for another 18 years. Amanda and I found it at a video game store for four dollars. Amanda said the girl working at the store that day gave me a dirty, suspicious look when she rang me up because the picture ID on my debit card was grossly out of date and didn't have any facial hair. I didn't care--I had acquired a treasure that had eluded me for almost two decades, a game that had achieved mythical status based solely on the fact that, as a kid, I thought that one screenshot of the game looked really cool. Plus, if I really was using somebody else's debit card, that girl at the counter should have been thankful that I was only buying a video game with it, and not a Ford Focus...or a 20-foot long sub sandwich.

Naturally, after hunting down said treasure, I let it sit on the shelf for another year and a half before playing it. This is the same reason why I can't buy new games anymore--it's pointless to spend sixty smackers on a new release when it's going to be buried under a pile of old video games and dirty towels for two years before I finally remember that I bought it, dig it out, and fire it up.

Faxanadu is a side-scrolling action RPG in the same vein as Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link or Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest. You travel from town to town, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons, and leveling up your strength and equipment along the way. It's the story of a wandering elf (that's you!) who returns to his home town to find it in ruins. The elf king fills you in on recent happenings: a fallen meteorite has awakened The Evil One, who has in turn corrupted the once-peaceful dwarves, transforming them into hideous monsters and driving them to war with their former allies, the elves. The Dwarven menace has left the land in ruins and the World Tree a poisoned, dying mess. It's your job to go and fix everything The Evil One screwed up.

The first thing I realized about Faxanadu was that I wished I had the instruction manual. The in-game narration and dialogue is atrocious--I couldn't tell if the king was sending me out on an epic quest to save the world or to pick up his breakfast from the convenience store down the street. Much like Castlevania 2, the townspeople you'll run into are all either a bunch of liars, or the tips they give you don't make any sense. There are a few genuinely helpful folks around, but I spent most of the time scratching my head at their cryptic remarks.

The color schemes in this game are bland and earthy--lots of browns and drab greens. I'm sure part of this is due to the limited color palette of the original Nintendo, but I can understand the game designers possibly using this scheme on purpose to reflect the quasi-environmental theme of the game, what with the dwarves trying to kill the World Tree and such. There isn't a great deal of variety in the backgrounds or environments, but they're not bad for a game of this era.

The play control is stiff, but that's not really a bad thing because much of the time, it actually feels pretty realistic. You can't jump twenty feet in the air, and you have to get a long, running start to leap across wider chasms--your character will actually pick up speed as he keeps moving, rather than the player holding down a button on the controller to speed up. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but if you can make the necessary adjustment, play control won't detract from the experience.

Exploration is tricky. The game is linear overall--there is an area of wilderness that connects each town, but each wilderness area has numerous dungeons to explore (some of which have nothing of value in them) and a lot of branching paths. I know I missed some items along the way, but I guess I didn't miss anything too important. There are also keys that open certain doors, but you have to buy keys at a key shop in town. Finding a locked door and having to backtrack to the nearest town to buy a key to open the door got irritating fast, so I started making sure to keep plenty of keys in my inventory at all times. It limited the number of health potions I could carry, but it was probably worth it to avoid all those extra trips to town.

Now, let's talk about equipment. One of the nice touches of Faxanadu is the fact that when you switch to a new piece of equipment, the character sprite reflects it. If you buy new, heavier armor, you will get to see yourself wearing that armor once you put it on. It's a lot of fun to see your guy progress from wearing rags and wielding a dagger at the start of the game to full combat armor and a dragon-slaying sword by the end. It's a major pet peeve of mine in games like this when you spend hours and hours collecting cool new items, but your character's appearance never changes, despite the fact that you're wearing a hulking suit of armor and bristling with weapons by game's end. I realize many games (particularly the old ones I am fond of reviewing) have certain limitations that prevent this sort of aesthetic, so when it is included, I get pretty excited.

Speaking of equipment, expect to do a lot of grinding to be able to afford all of the stuff you'll need to buy. Enemies are plentiful and respawn whenever you leave the screen, so earning gold is not an issue. Combat, on the other hand, gets irritating fast. No regular enemies in Faxanadu pose much of a threat head on, one on one. However, you will rarely find yourself in such a situation. Enemies are frequently waiting for you at the top of a ladder or at the bottom of a long drop, and they start wailing on you as soon as you're within range. There are oodles and oodles of spots where you can't avoid getting hit. I hate this. It's not a mark of a challenging game--it's an example of poor enemy placement and cheaply ramping up the difficulty level. If a game is going to put me in a situation where I'm going to take damage, it at least has to give me the means necessary to avoid taking that damage. Similarly, a number of bosses in the game fire so many projectiles at you that you literally can't avoid them--you have to hope that you have a good enough shield and enough health potions in your inventory to stay alive until the onslaught subsides long enough for you to get some hits in. The boss fights become battles of attrition rather than battles of skill. Again, these are not fun or challenging--you essentially just have to outlast the boss, which can be exciting, but also kind of lame. At least the boss designs were pretty cool.

Also, there are long passwords with numbers and upper and lower-case letters in them. They're not too bad at first, but the passwords get longer as you get deeper into the game, and it felt like I was taking down a new one every ten minutes or so. I assure you, I don't miss the days of writing down a password incorrectly and having to replay part of a game unnecessarily. Take your time.

Faxanadu is a really mixed bag. The phrase "painfully mediocre" keeps coming to mind as I write this review. Parts of the game were really fun and left me wanting to drop all responsibilities and play like a man possessed. But other parts of the game just couldn't end soon enough. It was fun overall, and worth the four dollars I paid for it, but it didn't leave me with much of a sense of satisfaction when I beat it. If you're into action RPGs, you will probably get some enjoyment out of it, but you're probably better off sticking with something a little more well refined, like a Zelda or Metroid installment.

Brian's Rating: 5.5/10

[Images courtesy of GameFAQs.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 8

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 10:49 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Bionic Commando
Platform: Xbox 360
Year: 2009
Game Ranking: 72.92%

The NES Bionic Commando was one of the first games added to our 8-bit library back in 1990. I don't think I played it much at first, probably because I was afraid of everything when I was little, so I elected instead to watch my brother play it while I wistfully tromped around the room pretending to be the Bionic Commando. Until Craig got the hang of it (get it? He has a bionic arm and grapples onto things), I recall the game being incredibly difficult. It seems like he was stuck on Area 5's nigh-Tower of Babel for a week or more, and we couldn't figure out how to get continues for the longest time. Craig's rage-induced cries of "I love it when I die!" got so under my skin sometimes that they would bring me nearly to tears--I must have been too young to understand sarcasm. I remember waking up from bed in the middle of the night one time to hear the grappling of a bionic arm, and I snuck down the hallway to find Craig battling the Albatross, a screen-sized behemoth of flying death machine unlike anything I'd ever encountered in my meager video game-playing experience. I remember crying when Craig finally did beat the game--I can't explain that one, except that maybe I was really happy for Craig that he beat the game after so much hard work and frustration.

One man hijacks an entire helicopter convoy in one of the cooler, more difficult sequences of Bionic Commando.

Nathan Spencer has skills galore, but it always comes back to swinging.

Being a genuinely good game and the source of so many good memories (and the fact that you get to explode Hitler with a bazooka), Bionic Commando cemented itself as one of my favorite games of all time. However, as I got older, I yearned for more arm-swinging action. When my family got the internet, I discovered there was a Game Boy sequel, which I have never played. I got Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, a Game Boy Color re-imagining of the franchise, for my birthday one year, but I haven't beaten it--the game (at least my copy, anyway) has a bug that sometimes causes it to lock up on the pre-level equipment selection screen. (I need to try it on my Game Boy Advance sometime and see if it works better there than it did in my Game Boy Color, but that is beside the point.) I needed more. In fact, I even had a dream that Bionic Commando came to the original Xbox, and I watched footage of our bionic hero traversing an ice cave and fighting a large ice monster (which actually sounds a lot like Metroid Prime).

Finally, I heard the big news that a new Bionic Commando was coming to consoles. I wanted to buy it right when it came out, but I didn't have any money because I spent it all on McChickens and Hawaiian Punch. Fortunately, I got the game for Christmas at the end of the year--it was already a budget title thanks to awful sales and painfully mediocre reviews. But you know what? It's not that bad, especially for a fan of the franchise. It's not perfect, especially where the plot is concerned, but I got hooked...literally (haw, haw). Let's check it out.

Set ten years after the events of the NES Bionic Commando (and its recent re-telling, Bionic Commando: Rearmed), a group of terrorists called BioReign has dropped a weapon of mass destruction on Ascension City. They control the ruins of the city and seek something called the Carrion Device for their nefarious purposes. "Super" Joe Gibson springs Nathan "Radd" Spencer, the Federal States of America's hero from the original game, from jail and drops him into Ascension City to retrieve the Carrion Device before BioReign can find it. Why Spencer was in jail is something I'll cover later, but that's the gist of the game.

Sorry, Capcom, but this is the only Nathan Spencer I'll ever control.

First thing's first--before I even started playing the game, I put in the secret code to get the classic skin from BC: Rearmed. I'm one of those purists who made a big stink about Nathan Spencer's radical, dreadlocked meathead redesign. When did that happen?! I don't know what test audiences were looking at this game, but if they showed it to me, the red-haired, sunglasses-sporting, green fatigued Bionic Commando of old would have been the default option. It seems a little out of place in an otherwise dark game from time to time, but otherwise, it was SO cool to bring the Nathan Spencer I grew up with to this generation of games.

Like its predecessors, the big gimmick going on in this game is the swinging and grappling abilities of the bionic arm. Spencer pulls himself up the sides of buildings, swings across gaping chasms, grabs enemies and objects, and inflicts untold damage to lots of personal property with his awesome bionic arm. It took a little bit of getting used to, but once I had it, it was easy to get place to place via the arm. (Assuming I timed things correctly, which I didn't. Often.) Being that this is the primary aspect of the game, I think they did a pretty good job with the arm mechanics. Patience and good aim are important to successful use of the arm, much in the same way it probably would be in real life, so if you can master these traits, the arm is a lot of fun to use.

Also, like most games, the fun factor skyrocketed once I figured out the combat. At first, I naturally tried to run into every horde of enemy soldiers guns-ablazing, only to die like the dog of the federation I am. Several trips to the "Game Over" screen later, I realized strategic use of the bionic arm, as well as other skills and equipment, could be used to handle large groups of enemies from afar or with otherwise greater ease. Spencer can use the arm to latch on to bad guys and drop kick them into the nearest bottomless pit, knock cars and other debris into dopes not paying attention, or swing the arm around in a circle, knocking any terrorist scum around him for a loop. There is also the "Death from Above" ability, which lets Spencer jump off a really high perch and crush enemies waiting below. Oh, and grenades...they'll usually get the job done. Effective combat allows you to complete certain in-game challenges (Defeat X enemies with a certain weapon or technique, for example), which unlocks handy rewards like upgrades to the amount of damage your weapons can do, or the amount of ammo you can carry. Creative problem-solving is rewarded and deeply satisfying, sometimes so much so that I spent more time sneaking around trying to dispatch enemies in the coolest way possible than I did progressing through the game.

One of the many throwbacks to the old Bionic Commando is the inclusion of a number of remixed musical tracks from the original. The composer did a great job of fitting the classic tunes into the atmosphere of the game. This game has a number of "adrenalating" moments in which something really cool is going on, like a fight with a helicopter or a stand against a seemingly limitless number of foes, and the music builds to a climactic, heroic fanfare that sent shudders of excitement through my body, my indicator as to whether or not music is being used effectively in a game. There are a few instances of no action in which the music is sort of generic and repetitive, but as long as something exciting is going on, there is excellent music there to accompany it.

Another cool thing going on in this game, as well as in BC:Rearmed, is that we get a deeper look into the Bionic Commando universe. The original Nintendo game had some backstory, but a lot was left to player speculation and imagination. This game fills in some of those holes, for better or for worse.

I've generally praised the game so far, but there is, unfortunately, some real crapahoola at play here, as well. For example, while much of the game is action-packed and intriguing, other parts do drag. There are a number of underground caverns Spencer must endure to avoid enemy encounters or irradiated areas. It's logical for him to stay out of sight, but it also makes for some boring gameplay. Why did they include these sequences in the game? They could have been cutscene fodder, if they absolutely needed to be included. Similarly, there are some swinging sequences that seem thrown in just for the sake of swinging around. Like I said, swinging is the primary aspect of the game, and that's fine so long as the swinging actually makes sense and doesn't seem repetitive or unnecessary.

Additionally, the mood of the game is really dark and has none of the fun atmosphere or innocence of the NES game. They could have made a bright, colorful, campy sequel that would have fit the style of the original, but instead chose a darker path. It's not necessarily bad, but it is a violent, angsty, profanity-laced adventure, which isn't always necessarily my thing. Fortunately, the game doesn't take itself completely seriously, as made evident by some of Spencer's goofy dialogue (voiced by Mike Patton of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, and whatever else).

[SPOILERS BELOW! DO NOT PROCEED UNLESS YOU WANT IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS REVEALED!]

Finally, and the biggest killer of this game, is the plot, which doesn't make a lick of sense. Spencer was put in jail for not hunting down and killing two bionics per government orders, and then Super Joe lets him out to fight the terorists and find the Carrion Device. (Think Snake Plissken in Escape From New York.) Once Spencer retrieves the device and brings it to Joe, Joe abruptly turns on Spencer and reveals himself as the leader of BioReign. Uh-oh! You've been working for the enemy all along! Ugh. If that was the case, why does Joe have to send Spencer in to get the Carrion Device? Why doesn't he just let Spencer rot in prison and have his goons go get it? It's not like Joe doesn't know where it was--he helps direct Spencer to the proper location. Not only that, Joe doesn't even bother to explain why he's working for the bad guys. It doesn't make any sense. The only explanation I can think of is that Joe did a lot of work to keep bionics in a good light, and perhaps felt betrayed when the FSA discontinued the program, believing bionics were too dangerous. BioReign does believe in bionics, so it might make sense that he would want to work with them. However, the Super Joe I know from the old game wouldn't make that kind of turn, sorry to say. These two points really messed things up for me, and I don't normally get that picky about plots, so I feel these were some pretty major oversights, unless there's just something that I'm missing. They didn't ruin the game, but left me a tad perplexed and definitely shook me out of suspension of disbelief.

Furthermore, Spencer is dogged by a sniper throughout the game, and he finally reveals himself near the end, and tells Spencer that they have similar goals. The sniper then leaves and never returns for the rest of the game! What was the point of even including him when he does literally nothing except talk to Spencer one time? Hardcore Gaming 101 points out in their review of Bionic Commando that the sniper's name is revealed in the credits to be "Thomas Clarke," one of the guys from another Capcom game called Mercs, and that Joseph Gibson, alias Super Joe, is also in Mercs, which is an interesting twist. Based on the ending of the game, it looks as though a sequel had been planned that may have revealed some of these questions, but we'll probably never get it since this game did so poorly and Grin, the developer, ultimately shut down. (Though the BC: Rearmed team has re-formed and is making a sequel to that game. Will we get some answers there?)

Then there's the whole "Spencer's missing wife is IN his bionic arm" thing, which I apparently didn't find as ridiculous as everybody else, probably because I was already deeply confused by Super Joe's turn to the dark side.

There's no real final boss, which is kind of disappointing. Instead, on your way to busting up your old pal Super Joe (which is a cutscene instead of a boss fight, for whatever reason), you rip apart a number of these vulture robots (part of "Project Vulture," which is powered by the Carrion Device) by successfully completing some button-pressing sequences. And then you get the ending, and that's it. Where's the final boss?! Those are a big part of video games for me. Points OFF!

In conclusion (geez, finally), I had a lot of fun with Bionic Commando. My expectations were set so low by the dismal reviews that I was expecting a real piece of crap, and ended up being pleasantly surprised by what truthfully is a quality and enjoyable game. Like I said back at the beginning, it has its flaws, but as a fan of the franchise, I was very happy to get another installment. It's not the NES original or BC:Rearmed, but it did the job for me.

Brian's Rating: 7/10

[Images courtesy of GameFAQs.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 7

Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 8:32 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Convention: Midwest Gaming Classic
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Year: 2010

In late March, my brother Craig and I attended the 2010 Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee. Our last gaming convention was the 2002 Classic Gaming Expo held in Las Vegas. I'm pretty sure we both had a good time there, playing arcade games for free, browsing the gaming museum, watching the Minibosses live, and buying up sought-after classics from the dealers. (Well, except for the part where I bought Doom for Atari Jaguar, and when I got it home, it ended up being a copy of Alien vs. Predator, a game I already had, mistakenly packaged in a Doom box. That part wasn't fun.)

Craig enters his initials on the Berserk high score screen.

The game room!

I had similar expectations for the Midwest Classic. Craig and I pulled into the parking lot of the Sheraton hotel, and were greeted by a large Midwest Gaming Classic welcome banner, dudes walking around in Street Fighter shirts, and pickup trucks with pinball machines strapped into the beds. Oh yeah, it was a gaming convention, all right. I took only a couple of pictures, but in hindsight I wish I had gotten more. Most of the rooms were pretty dark and crowded, however, so I wasn't sure how well they would turn out. Anyway, on with the show.

We registered and picked up our free goodie bags (which were only okay--the only worthwhile items inside were an Irides: Master of Blocks magnet and a bottle of hot sauce) and began navigating the hotel. We first stumbled upon the game room, which was reminiscient of an old arcade and overflowing with arcade cabinets and a huge variety of pinball machines, some of which dated back to the 1960s. Some of my all time favorite arcade games--Q*Bert, Berserk, and Ms. Pac-Man--were present, and I was very proud of myself for setting the high score on the Berserk machine as quickly as I could. That high score ended up being smashed by five or six other people, including my brother, by the end of the day. I got as high as third on Q*Bert, but didn't get a chance to play Ms. Pac-Man. I did, however, also play Crystal Castles, Kangaroo, and the utterly unforgiving Centipede, which I remember being much easier on the Atari 2600. I was a little disappointed that of the selection of arcade games available, a number of them were either out of order or had some sort of graphical glitch that all but killed my interest in playing them. Fortunately, the number of working games present made up for it.

Surprisingly satisfying, meanwhile, were the pinball machines. I've never really been that interested in pinball, but it was a lot of fun to play the older machines. Craig mentioned how a lot of the newer machines are too fast, and I tend not to like them because they almost all have some dumb movie license attached to them. It's very hard to make myself want to play a Demolition Man-themed pinball machine, no matter how good the machine may be. The older machines, however, rarely have any licenses attached to them, and literally have all the bells and whistles attached--knocking a ball into the bumpers gets you that classic, appealing *ping-ping-ping* sound, the sound a pinball machine is supposed to make. One interesting note to add--there was a Guns 'n' Roses pinball machine with a Guitar Hero guitar wired to the flippers, so you had to play the guitar to keep the ball in play. Neither of us played it, but I thought it was kind of a nice touch.

Right outside the game room, the convention was hosting both pinball and video game tournaments. We saw on the convention website that there was a competition in which players could try to beat World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. as Fire Mario in the shortest time possible. We practiced some the day before the competition, and Craig and I were both able to finish the level with around 325 left on the clock. The first guy we saw enter the competition at the convention finished with 335 left on the clock, so it didn't take long for us to realize we should probably just save our money. Craig insisted that I enter the Raiden tournament because he thought I could win. I am pretty good at Raiden (well, the first level, anyway), but I decided not to enter. I don't really know why--I just wasn't feeling it. Convention jitters, I guess.

Our next stop was the museum and family game room areas, which had a very nice display of pretty much every video game console ever made, with the possible exception of some of the Pong consoles. Craig and I are both huge nerds and know all about the history of video games, so we made quick passes through most of these rooms. (Craig stopped briefly to play Gorf on Atari Jaguar, however.)

Benheck.com, famous for console modifications, had a room in the basement of the hotel, where we discovered one of his latest creations, the Bill Paxton pinball machine. Complete with artwork and audio from numerous Bill Paxton movies, this machine is extremely impressive and, from what I understand, made almost completely from scratch.

Last, and the best part of the convention in my opinion, was the enormous dealer room. This place was a hit. We got in early when there weren't very many people, but within about 15 minutes, every dealer had people shoulder-to-shoulder looking their booths over for that rare treasure or missing collection piece. It was so much fun to check out all the booths, comparing prices and finding the best deals, and digging through shelves and boxes and piles of old games. It proved to be somewhat competitive, too--one guy bought a copy of Contra right out from under me while I was considering buying it, and I planned to buy a copy of Mega Turrican for Sega Genesis from another booth, but the guy in front of me in line snagged it! Nevertheless, Craig and I both found a lot of stuff we were looking for. I found U.N. Squadron and Flashback for SNES; Section Z, Journey to Silius, and Startropics 2: Zoda's Revenge for NES; Streets of Rage 2 and Mutant League Football for Sega Genesis; Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for N64; and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness for Playstation 2. I also took some of my games along that I no longer wanted (trying to trim the collection to games I actually want to play) and found the guys at Warpzone Video Games to be very eager to do some trading. I didn't get rid of everything I wanted off my shelves, but I definitely feel like I got rid of some nuisances and got some great games in return. We probably ended up spending a couple of hours just searching the dealer room, and it was a really good time.

The 2010 Midwest Gaming Classic easily surpassed my expectations. It had everything I was looking for--lots of arcade games (and pinball), a huge and competitive dealer room, and a lot of people very enthusiastic about both classic and modern games. Mostly I just enjoyed getting to go and do something extra nerdy with Craig. Our love of video games is nerdy enough as it is--it's when we hit the video game convention trail that things really get out of hand. I don't know what he thinks, but if it works out, we may have to make a return trip to this convention next year.

Brian's Rating: A-

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 6

Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 9:54 AM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Pac-Man Championship Edition
Platform: Xbox 360
Year: 2007
Game Ranking: 82.73%

My first experience with Pac-Man was the Atari 2600 version. While it seemed okay when I was four years old (and because it was the only version of Pac-Man I knew at the time), I can't really say it left a lasting impression on me. I had Jr. Pac-Man later, and it was pretty good, but it, too, was left behind. We got a Nintendo, and then a Sega Genesis, and Pac-Man's competition was just too much. Movies and TV shows frequently used its sound effects when somebody was playing a video game on camera, and it would remind me of the flickery, blue-screened and otherwise uninspired Atari port, but it didn't exactly make me want to bust out the old 2600 and play a game. Pac-Man was old news.

This ain't your dad's game of Pac-Man! (or other, similarly irritating tagline.)

I was on a trip with my parents somewhere back when I was probably in middle school or so, and we stopped at a gas station to use our respective restrooms (unless it was one of those fillin' stations with the one bathroom with the key with the hubcap attached--then we all just went to the one bathroom) and get a soda for the road. There was a Ms. Pac-Man machine tucked away in a back corner of the building. Curiously, my father inserted a quarter and began to play. Now I had never known my father to be very big on video games. I saw him play Super Mario Bros. maybe once or twice, and I have one distinct memory of him playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! But aside from those few instances, Dad would rather go build a workbench, build more things on the workbench he just built, analyze politics, go bass-fishing, take a long and winding vacation, fall asleep on the couch watching baseball, or otherwise solve the world's problems than he would play video games. (And let's face it--as much as I like video games, he's got the way better end of the deal making that choice.)

Anyway, there was my dad, standing in front of the Ms. Pac-Man machine, biding his time as the opening fanfare played. He began to navigate the first maze. I stood awestruck, like a little kid seeing the terrifying school nurse-who-doubled-as-the-lunchlady for the first time.

He was cruising through Ms. Pac-Man. He probably made it through the first three or four levels with no trouble whatsoever. After that, I'm pretty sure he started dying on purpose so we could get back on the road, because Ms. Pac-Man really went down in a heap all of a sudden. Back in the car, I asked where he learned to play like that, and my mom started telling stories about how they and my aunt and uncle used to stay up until the wee hours of the morning playing Atari. I couldn't believe my parents would ever do something so ridiculous as stay up late playing video games. Who did they think they were?! (Nevermind the fact that I was probably up late playing Final Fantasy VI or some such nonsense as soon as we got home from that very same trip.)

That incident with the gas station Ms. Pac-Man machine began my obsession with Pac-Man games. Be it Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, or even Chomp (a mediocre clone of Pac-Man), I'd play it. I played Pac-Man games enough that I could set high scores in machines at the local bars and pizza joints. True, sometimes the speed-up cheat was in play, but it didn't matter--it was all still Pac-Man, and it was great fun being the jerk who toppled Drunky McDrunkerson's alleged "high" scores at the downtown watering holes.

Then I took a trip to Chicago and was introduced to something totally new. My brother and I were relaxing after a day out on the town, and he turned on his Xbox 360, a console I had never played before. He navigated to something called Pac-Man Championship Edition and placed the controller in my hand.

"Try this," he said simply.

My initial impression is that it was Pac-Man with a 5-minute time limit (or 10-minute, depending on what mode you play). Then I realized that clearing the board of dots did not start a new level--eating the fruit on the screen would cause more dots to appear, and the goal was to achieve the highest score possible before time expired. You got a score multiplier for eating lots and lots of dots without dying, and you could also get huge scores by eating ghosts with a power pellet, then eating another power pellet before the first one expired and then eat more ghosts, thereby starting a chain of perpetual ghost-eating. There were cool visuals, updated music, six different modes of play, and--most importantly--a leaderboard that tracked your high score and zillions of others' high scores from around the world. The competition was no longer limited to the machine at Breakaways downtown--I could compete against zillions.

I didn't get a whole lot of time with Pac-Man CE on that initial play, but it wasn't long after that that I purchased my own Xbox 360 and quickly added Pac-Man CE to my library. I was determined to set a high score that would not only impress hot girls who came over to my house (luckily one was impressed with me, but I don't think the score had anything to do with it), but also make the competition throw their Xboxes out the window.

In time, it became a science. My roommate Rick and I would sit and play the game for entire evenings, analyzing ghost patterns, making improvements and adjustments to our routes, assessing whether eating ghosts or not dying was more critical to high score, and otherwise trying to find every means possible of squeezing another thousand points here and another thousand points there into those five short minutes of gaming chaos. It got to a point where I could tell within the first minute of the game whether or not I had a chance to break the high score. Our dedication was incredibly nerdy, but undeniably fun. I can't remember devoting so much time and brainpower to what appears to be such a simple game.

My quest for a high score finally topped out at around 420,000, and it's been there for almost two years now. I can't beat it. It was in the top 100 once upon a time, but now I think it's somewhere between 130 and 140. I still try to break it every now and then. I've come close, but I can't quite get back to that plateau. But I know it's a great game and an obsession because I'll always keep trying. It's always in the back of my head that I might be able to do it this time.

Brian's Rating: 9/10

[Images courtesy of GameFAQs.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 5

Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 8:57 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled
Platform: PlayStation 3
Year: 2009
Game Ranking: 52%

Hey, this game isn't old! 2009?! That was, like, last year, wasn't it?! Don't let the recent release date of this game fool you--it's actually a remake of an arcade game from 1991 that is hailed by every gamer my age as being one of the greatest arcade beat 'em ups of all time. Unfortunately, I've only played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time one time, at an arcade on a family vacation somewhere along the line, although I cannot remember which one. It seemed like a good game, except I remember being irritated because there was some braggart watching me play and telling me how great he was at the game. I guess he was out of quarters.

The Original

The Remake

Besides that one instance, I never have played the original Turtles in Time. It seems like it was never in any of the arcades around here, all of which seemed to have had the original TMNT arcade game up until around 1998, when arcades were well on their way to becoming unprofitable. If it was around here, it was either always being played, always out of order, or always had puke all over it from bad Chuck E. Cheese's pizza. The game was also ported to the Super NES, and I have looked for it, but have never found it. I did play the very similar Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist on Sega Genesis, but it's not quite the same.

The plot is your typical Ninja Turtles adventure--Krang steals the Statue of Liberty, Shredder sends the Turtles back in time, and they have to fight their way through the past, into the future and eventually back to the present to save the day.

I don't actually own this game--I played it at my friend Thomas' apartment along with Amanda and our friends Pat and Megan. But we did beat it, so it's eligible for review. Let's get started.

Turtles in Time Re-Shelled is a pretty standard button-mashing arcade beat 'em up, a genre of which I am particularly fond. If I ever feel the need to single-handedly (or with three friends, at the very most) beat the crap out of an entire army of bad guys, I just pop one of these into the handiest console and get started. There's very little science or strategy beyond which player needs the health power-up the worst--take your pent-up aggression out on the endless armies of foot soldiers. Which, on that note, Pat brought up the excellent point of just how massive the Foot Clan's budget must be to front the money to build all of these robots. We were also feeling particularly peeved when it wasn't good enough for Shredder to send us back in time. Oh no, he just had to go and send legions of foot soldiers back in time to kill us, as well. You know, in case we found a way back to the present. I guess. Seems to defeat the purpose of sending the Turtles back in time in the first place, but who am I to question the logistics of a 1980s/90s cartoon bad guy?

However, like every arcade beat 'em up, the boss fights are completely unfair, designed as such to suck as many quarters as possible from the loose pockets of early 90s American youth. With the exception of Baxter Stockman and Metalhead, the first two bosses, every boss fight is pretty much guaranteed to degenerate into the Turtles getting a few hits in, then getting completely flattened by the boss. Repeat until the boss is dead or until the players are broke. Fortunately, the home console version doesn't suck quarters, but it's still irritating.

I should also note that I'm most familiar with the original TMNT cartoon series, and probably the first four or five years, at that. This game came a little later in the Turtles' run, and has Tokka and Rahzar from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. I was already losing interest in the Turtles by this time, and never really took to this pair of villains. I would have rather seen Bebop and Rocksteady in this game, but eh...a minor nitpick. They are in the Super NES version, from what I understand.

There's really not much else to say here. These games are fun, and generally do have a pretty high replay value if my friends and I are in the mood to work together to punch, kick, and ninja attack everything in sight! As far as the Turtles in Time remake goes compared to what little I know of the original, it has received a nice audio/visual facelift, and there's a wider physical range of attack because the environment is completely 3D. Beyond that, it's pretty much the same game, which is probably the reason why it generally didn't score that highly in reviews. However, if you're a fan of the Turtles, and you don't have access to the original version, it's probably worth a try.

Brian's Rating: 6.5/10

[Images courtesy of GameFAQs.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 4

Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 7:20 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Maximo: Ghosts to Glory
Platform: PlayStation 2
Year: 2002
Game Ranking: 84.72% (B)

Upon realizing that there is no way I can beat games at a quick enough clip to do reviews literally every week, I'm expanding my rule of only reviewing games I've played recently to include all games in the last year. And if that's not enough, I may do some sort of special for every fifth entry or something like that that is not necessarily a review, but something video game-related. Thank you for your understanding, and now, on with the review.

Maximo is king of all the land. After fighting in a war, he returns home to find his queen kidnapped and his kingdom overrun by his former friend, Achille. Achille kills Maximo, but Maximo makes a deal with the reaper--Maximo will collect lost souls and give them to Death in exchange for an opportunity to return to life to slay Achille, rescue the queen, and restore order to his kingdom. Sounds exciting, right? I thought so, too.

Most reviews I've read for Maximo: Ghosts to Glory rate this game just slightly less than great. A couple of flaws here and there are all that keeps it from being placed in the upper echelon of most incredible games ever made. I'd heard good things, and when my friend Jon Reno was willing to part with it for five bucks some years ago, I scooped it up. Of course, it sat on my shelf for four years before I actually played it, but I was still excited the first time I delicately placed the disc in my PS2. Come on, this was the spiritual successor to the Capcom classic, Ghosts 'n' Goblins! You fight armies of undead! (One of my favorite pastimes, to the uninitiated.) It's classic action platforming! I was going to have so much fun! Right?!

Well, it was all right...I guess. But honestly, by the time I was done with Maximo, I was ready the drop the disc into the nearest deep-fryer. The game is hard, and not in the good way that Ghosts 'n' Goblins is hard. Maximo has the very bad combination of a clunky camera, overpowered enemies, and enough inconveniently placed cliffs and rivers of poisonous goo that make you feel cheated with each and every death. Killing monsters and grabbing coins were fun, but overall, I felt very underwhelmed by what was supposed to be one of the PlayStation 2's great early platformers.

There is one thing I should immediately make clear before progressing deeper into this troubling review: I'm really bad at 3D platforming, which is discouraging because I really like and am really good at 2D platformers. My lack of skill doesn't really matter too much in 3D games that take place in realistic environments, such as city streets. But in 3D games full of floating platforms, bottomless pits, lakes of fire, and other supernatural environmental hazards, my lack of depth perception and coordination in a 3D environment are a sure trip to the "Game Over" screen at least three or four times a night. I do believe there are some games that execute 3D platforming better than others, but as far as Maximo is concerned, I suffered a lot of cheap deaths from overly complex jumping scenarios. There was more than one instance in which you must jump from moving log to moving log to cross a stream, or must jump onto a ledge from a platform that not only floats up and down, but also rotates on an axis. Keep in mind, this ain't Frogger--you don't get a pleasant bird's eye view to execute these treacherous jumps. There was also a jump toward the end of the game from a very high platform, across a chasm, and onto another platform far below. I had to position myself just right on the high platform and aim for a specific spot on the low platorm, or Maximo wouldn't make it. In most of these cases, it was incredibly difficult for me to judge the distance to the next platform and took much irritating trial and error to finally get it right. To finally succeed was not at all satisfying because it didn't require any skill to get through the challenge. Instead, it was all overcoming lousy game mechanics and lack of camera control. I assure you, it is possible to design interesting and challenging levels without inserting nigh-impossible jumping sequences.

Secondly, let's talk combat. Typically, once I can figure out a game's combat and get marginally good at it, the experience gets so much better. It was easy enough to figure out Maximo's combat, but it doesn't matter because the bad guys are a little too overpowering. One skeleton or zombie is normally pretty easy to handle, but if you have to deal with a whole room of the walking dead, there are going to be problems. Enemies are also usually waiting to whack you upside the head on the other side of a chasm you have to jump over, which is always pretty irritating because you have no chance to recover from the jump before they're on top of you. The enemies have strong attacks and many have a shield with which to block your attacks. Maximo can find power-ups that will make combat significantly easier, such as an ability that allows Maximo to throw his shield Captain America-style and an upgrade that will increase the length of Maximo's sword. (Insert immature jokes here--I dare you.) However, you will of course accidentally jump off a cliff within a matter of minutes after obtaining said power-ups and lose everything in the process, having to start from the last checkpoint with minimal equipment. The game is very reminiscient of Gradius in that regard--your power-ups become very essential to your success, but if you lose them, you might as well start over from the last save, because you probably won't stand a chance without them. The bad guys are tough, and there are a lot of them. Even the stage select areas have monsters in them, for crying out loud! I haven't played too many games in which I could say I died while choosing the next level I would play, but Maximo is one of them.

Lastly, an already very difficult game becomes even more difficult in that saving your progress costs 100 coins. Not collecting enough coins or spending your coins on power-ups leaves you at risk of not having enough money to save your game if you need to stop playing to go to the grocery store or because a thunderstorm is raging outside. Not only that, but using continues requires that you pay the grim reaper a "death token," which you earn by retrieving souls for the reaper. Of course, if you can't afford to continue, you can always load from the previous saved game, assuming you had enough coins to save in the first place. If you didn't, and have no means of resuming your progress, you will probably remove the disc from your console and frisbee it into the nearest body of water rather than play through ground you've already covered. It really feels awful to navigate around so many bottomless pits only to find yourself having to navigate around them again because you weren't frugal.

Now let me tell you a little about Ghosts 'n' Goblins, a game in which death doesn't come from bad game mechanics, but from unforgiving monsters tearing unprepared players into tiny, squishy bits. When we were seniors in high school, my friend Lucas Walker and I spent an epic day at his house trying to beat Ghosts 'n' Goblins. We learned quickly that playing the game was going to require utmost skill, memorization, and perseverance. The game made us angry, upset, and very hungry for pizza rolls. We learned from our mistakes, memorized the patterns of monsters, and made extensive use of the game's unlimited supply of continues. I wouldn't say we ever actually got good at the game, but we were tenacious enough that we finally got to the last level and beat the game....

...only to find that the whole game had been a "trap devised by Satan," and that you have to play through the game twice to actually beat it. At that point, we were so geared up and enraged that we probably would have played through it the second time, but there was a snowstorm coming and I needed to get home. The game was admittedly very frustrating, and is widely considered to be almost impossible--few have the patience to play through the whole thing. I know Lucas and I didn't technically beat the game, but to make it through the whole game once was unimaginably satisfying because it took genuine skill and determination to do so. There were no cheap jumping sequences on tiny platforms specifically designed to kill us, and we never felt cheated when a monster did us in because we knew we could figure out the pattern and either get around it or defeat it with enough effort.

Maximo didn't have that quality. I realize that the developers were attempting to mimic the difficulty of the old classics like Ghosts 'n' Goblins, but it didn't turn out quite the same. Whereas Ghosts 'n' Goblins's style of difficulty encouraged Lucas and me to press on and overcome, Maximo's was just discouraging in that I felt like no knowledge had been gained from mistakes. It was all about judging jumps correctly, and if I succeeded, there was another tricky jump waiting for me afterwards.

A good effort, but the only reason I finished this game was because I didn't want to feel like I'd wasted my time with it. It was too frustrating. There are two kinds of difficulties in video games: genuine difficulty and cheap difficulty, and this game is definitely an example of the latter.

Brian's Rating: 4/10

[Images courtesy of GameFAQs.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 3

Thursday, March 4, 2010 - 9:31 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Kid Icarus
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Year: 1987
Game Ranking: N/A

GameRankings apparently does not rate NES games. It does rate NES games re-released on Virtual Console or other platforms, but I played Kid Icarus on the original Nintendo, so that's the review I'm doing.

To me, Kid Icarus seems to be something of a lost classic. Some people laud this game as one of the greatest in the NES library and are flabbergasted that it only got one sequel, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, on Game Boy. Other people, like me, managed to miss the game entirely--I knew it existed, but I knew pretty much nothing about it until I used the internet to learn about it much later in my life. The only thing I knew about Kid Icarus is that he was a character on Captain N: The Game Master. I don't remember his role in the show at all at this point, so he mustn't have been that memorable of a character. (He was certainly no Simon Belmont...although, he was a much different character in the show than what I was accustomed to from the Castlevania games.

I came into possession of Kid Icarus when a friend of mine was giving away a bunch of old Nintendo games, and I got around to playing it a few months ago. I only intend to review games that I've played recently and have actually beaten. Even though I played this a few months ago, the memory of the game is still strong, so I'm still considering my experience with Kid Icarus recent enough to be eligible for review.

At first play, Kid Icarus feels much like a hybrid of Metroid and The Legend of Zelda--you have the run-and-gun style of play and the black background of Metroid, with the fantasy elements of Zelda. You play as Pit, an angel stuck in the underworld, whose job is to defeat Medusa, the Goddess of Darkness, in order to release Palutena, the Goddess of Light, who has been imprisoned by Medusa. Pit must collect the three Sacred Treasures that are capable of destroying Medusa in order to free Palutena and restore order to the land.

I gotta say, for being an angel, Pit is a pretty lousy adventurer. You would expect an angel to not die within the first three minutes of his sacred mission, but you must realize that this is a Nintendo game from 1987, which means it is...wait for it...way too hard! Pit is supposed to have the powers of Heaven at his disposal, but the arrows loosed from his magical bow only travel about three feet before they disappear. You're telling me Pit is sent to rescue the Goddess of Light with arrows that fizzle out before they can even get halfway across the screen?! You can get an upgrade later in the game that will increase the distance your arrows travel, but for at least the first quarter of the game, enemies are constantly within reach of smashing you like the creampuff you are because YOUR ARROWS VAPORIZE THREE FEET IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! I think the game explanation is supposed to be that the intense evil of the underworld is smothering your arrows, but that's clearly just some bullcrap the creative team came up with to pacify angry gamers.

The first three levels are beyond frustrating. You travel up vertical corridors on your way out of the underworld. In the meantime, snakes drop from the top of the screen, flying things divebomb from the top of the screen, octopi leap up from under the screen, and seaweed monsters burrow up from under the ground with little warning at the exact moment you step over them. The screen only scrolls up, so if you get knocked off a platform and fall beyond the bottom of the screen, you're dead, and the game is over. You get one life, so don't screw it up! There is a password system that will let you resume your progress if you die, have to stop and eat supper, or have to go to band practice, but it's long and complicated, so only use it if you absolutely must.

Once you make it past the first three levels (if you haven't run the cartridge through a table saw at this point), you get to the first of three fortresses. The fortresses are maze-like structures somewhat reminiscient of the labyrinths in Zelda. Each fortress is full of traps and monsters, and there's a boss fight if you can reach the end. Fortresses also nullify any upgrades you may have collected, so if you manage to collect the arrow-distance power-up, you'll lose it for the duration of the fortress. Again, I think it's supposed to be the powers of darkness smothering your abilities. I say it's the fault of a bunch of jerk programmers being unnecessarily cruel to unassuming gamers.

There are two really crappy things about the fortresses. You are given a map, but it doesn't work unless you find a shop in the fortress and buy a pencil. This will allow you to chart your progress on the map, but you can't see where you are! You have to buy another item--a torch--to see your current position on the map. This is all easily avoided by just drawing your own map in real life, and it also saves you money to buy health power-ups, which you'll probably need. The other crappy thing about the fortresses are these bad guys called Eggplant Wizards. They shamble around and chuck eggplants at you. If you get hit by one, you turn into an eggplant with legs. You can't shoot or do anything useful in this condition. The only way to fix yourself is to find the hospital inside the fortress (usually all the way on the other side of the fortress, at that), where they will remove the eggplant curse. What a hospital is doing in the middle of a fortress in which everything else is trying to kill you is beyond me, but what do I know?

I've been blathering on about how hard this game is for the last four paragraphs, but I'm past the negatives. If you can survive the first three levels and put up with the challenge of the fortresses, this is a really fun game. You'll also collect some upgrades later on, like fire arrows and the thing that makes your arrows travel farther, that make things so much easier. As I recall, I don't think I died on any level between the first and third fortress, which is pretty remarkable considering the dozens of times I died in the first three levels. At heart, this game is a pure, fun, platforming action game with a few RPG elements thrown in, such as leveling up and using money to purchase upgrades and items. On top of that, the final level plays like a Gradius-style shooter (complete with a big ugly final boss), and I loves me some shooters, so that's another big plus. There are a few memorable tunes, but the graphics and presentation are early-NES in quality and leave quite a bit to be desired. But that's okay because the game is still fun, and that's what's important.

Lastly, and most importantly--you know how I was complaining about how at the beginning of the game, you have to wait until the bad guys are right in your face before you can shoot them? You'll never have so much fun ripping through enemies as you will later in the game, when you can vanquish those same foes that gave you so much trouble in the early game. From all the way across the screen. With your long distance fire arrows.

Kid Icarus ain't perfect, and it's exceedingly difficult at times, but it's fun, challenging (even though I am frequently annoyed by the difficulty of games, it's also a quality I embrace), and still all right in my book.

Brian's Rating: 7/10

[Images courtesy of Wikipedia and GameFAQs.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 2

Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 10:03 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Game: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year: 2008
Game Ranking: 85.54% (B)

Hey, this game isn't old! Well, not to me, but it is to people already playing games from 2010! Holy crap!

I assure you I play more than just handheld games. It just so happens that I managed to beat two handheld games in rapid succession, so I figured they would be good candidates for thorough reviews.

I should probably let you know that the Castlevania series is somewhere in my top three or four video game series of all time. I've been fascinated with the Belmont Clan's eternal struggle against Count Dracula since I was introduced to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest somewhere around age six or seven. Combining action, horror, and fantasy elements created an engrossing environment that just seemed right. There was just enough swords and sorcery (or whips and sorcery, to be precise), just enough fear and apprehension, and just enough action-packed fun to create a unique adventure in video games, and I've never gotten enough of it. Throw in the fact that the evil head honcho at the end of the game is Count Dracula himself, and that his right-hand man is none other than the Grim Reaper, and the series becomes iconic.

But anyway, on with the game.

Seasoned Castlevania fans know that the series' gameplay has shifted from straightforward level-to-level action to more exploration-based combat since the release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in 1997. Instead of plowing through linear levels, players must explore vast dungeons and wildernesses to find items and abilities that open up more and more of the game world, like in the Metroid series. Order of Ecclesia follows this same formula. The game is a lot of fun, and features an absurd difficulty level not seen since some of the earlier installments in the series, as far as I'm concerned. It's a great addition to the series, although there are some aesthetic drawbacks that may disappoint some longtime fans (or ME, if nobody else).

The game takes place during a period of time in which the legendary Belmont clan of vampire hunters has vanished. This is a shame because it means no whip, the iconic vampire-killing weapon wielded by the Belmonts. I always thought the whip was such a cool touch in a world where swords are the typical melee weapon of choice for video game adventurers. The thing I don't like about a lot of the more recent Castlevania games is that instead of playing as a Belmont, or at the very least somebody trained by a Belmont, you play as some kid in the right place at the wrong time who must use new magic powers that have manifested themselves within to combat the risen evil of Dracula. I guess it might help some players better relate to the protagonist, but give me Simon Belmont any day.

Order of Ecclesia has a similar lack of interesting protagonist. You play as...um...well, crap; I can't even remember her name. Give me a second....

...You play as Shanoa, a member of a clan called Ecclesia that has risen in the absence of the Belmonts to combat Count Dracula. Shanoa is your typical impossibly hot girl born and raised to fight the forces of evil, an archetype that has sort of worn itself out. If that wasn't bad enough, events in the early game lead Shanoa to develop amnesia and have no emotion. You essentially tear through legions of bad guys with an empty vessel of human being--a killing machine. Not to say that's at all different from the Belmonts of the early games in the series, in which there isn't exactly much story involved. But the problem is that this game does have story--there's dialogue and development. Unfortunately, thanks to her condition, Shanoa's interaction with other characters leaves a lot to be desired--people try to invoke an emotional response from her, and she just doesn't get it. She's boring.

Despite the lackluster protagonist and departure from the Belmont family, this game is long, deep, fun, and hard. I only play handheld games on the road or while at my parents' house, and I was working on this one for about four months or so. I died a lot. In most of these portable Castlevania games, there's usually one or two bosses in each game that is a pain in the butt and may take five or six tries to beat, but otherwise the game is a breeze. Order of Ecclesia is the first Castlevania in a long time in which the regular bad guys proved to be extremely dangerous. Instead of zipping through corridors crushing any adversary in my path, I had to take my time and use a lot of strategy and changes in weaponry just to beat the common foot soldiers. If that wasn't bad enough, the bosses were frustrating enough to be reminiscient of the NES Castlevania installments. I remember terrible boss fights with a giant crab, a creature made out of shadows, a giant centaur knight, a guy with a gun, and the Grim Reaper, of course, who is difficult in every game. Each one of these bosses took at least five tries before I got it right, and involved a lot of experimenting with different weapon combinations. When I got to Dracula, he was so hard I actually had to go level up for a couple of hours before facing him with any chance of beating him. I haven't had to do that in a game in ages! It was very frustrating at times, but I appreciate games that don't skimp on difficulty--I get such a great sense of accomplishment when I beat them, even though I had to stop myself from ripping my DS in half in this case.

The weapon system is okay. You find weapons by absorbing the abilities of bad guys you kill. There aren't a huge number of weapons available, unlike some recent Castlevania games in which there are more weapons that you'll ever know what to do with. Most of those are pretty worthless compared to the game's best weapons, but just knowing you have access to such a variety is a pretty cool thing. You'll get good use out of most of your arsenal in Order of Ecclesia, but there are still a few duds you'll never touch again after trying once. The cool thing is that you can equip two weapons at once. The second weapon doesn't have to be a "subweapon" like a throwing dagger, either--if you want a big sword in one hand and a giant war hammer in the other, you can equip both and swing them one after the other. It usually does pay to be strategic with your weapon selections, though, or you'll end up getting smeared by a giant skeleton because you're trying to stab it with a rapier. Oops!

There are also a number of sidequests in addition to the main objective of killing the nefarious Dracula. Villagers you rescue along the way will ask you to go find their lost cat or kill 30 of a certain bad guy or bring a certain item back, and they'll repay you in some fashion if you complete the quest. The prizes you get usually aren't that great, but you get a sense of accomplishment from clearing the sidequests. However, I didn't finish them all because some of the later quests ask you to go to extremely dangerous areas to retrieve incredibly rare items that may or may not actually appear, depending on how lucky you are. Facing rooms full of spikes ands flames and killer demons over and over again trying to get that one item the town blacksmith wants and have it not be there at the end got pretty irritating after awhile, and I decided to move on. You can spend the time trying to collect every weapon and item in the game if you want, but that is a chore that should probably be left to the criminally insane, or for people who want to spend two years playing the same game.

The music is only okay, which is disappointing for a Castlevania game, which usually has great music that gets stuck in my head...well, forever. There were only two tracks in the game that I really liked and that are remotely memorable.

Overall, this game is a winner. A few issues keep it from being really good, but I still think it is among the best of the exploration-based Castlevania games.

Brian's Rating: 8/10

[Images courtesy of GameFAQs.]

Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games, Entry 1

Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 9:07 PM
[Update by Brian]
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I'd like to try a regular feature on this website on Thursdays called "Brian Plays Old (Sometimes Bad) Games." As you probably know by now, I am absolutely notorious for having a massive backlog of unfinished video games to play through. While my friends are plugging their way through Mass Effect 2 or Bayonetta, here I am stumbling through something like Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a 13-year old game. However, know that this is by choice--my goal is to beat every beatable game I own in the limited amount of time I have to play games. Or, if the game is not beatable, unlock everything in the game and/or set an unbeatable high score that will make my friends puke with envy and frustration. While this goal usually sets me back when it comes to not playing the newest, hippest releases, it also saves me a ton of money because I just wait for those games to get tossed in the clearance bin and pick them up at a big discount. (Except for good Wii games, which never get discounted because they still sell like bacon at an egg festival.) I have a running list of every new game that comes out that I want so I won't forget to buy it later.

These days, video games are like books, movies, comics, and every other form of media--there are so many out there that you'll never know or play all of them, and they're not all good, either. I intend for this column to be my account of what I've been playing recently for the benefit of those of you who may have missed out on these particular titles, and for those of you who are big nerds like me and just like reading about video games.

Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan
Platform: Nintendo Game Boy
Year: 1990
Game Ranking: 82.50%

Good gravy. This game is twenty years old?! I've got a lot of work to do if I still have to beat games this ancient.

My friend Blake gave me this game either when I bought a bunch of stuff from him, or when he was just getting rid of some old riff-raff. I picked it out of my Game Boy stash the last time I was at my parents' house, so I popped it into my Game Boy Advance SP and got to work.

I got nervous as the title screen appeared. My last and only experience with this game was at age 6 or 7, when my (then soon to be) cousin (by marriage) Shannon had it for his Game Boy and let me play it. I remember the game being difficult and unforgiving. Foot soldiers attacking from all sides, crap falling from the ceilings...this was definitely no Super Mario Bros., where goombas and koopa troopas were only coming at me from one side, and stuff only fell from the sky in the two or three levels Lakitu was in.

Age, however, appears to have some effect on a person's video game-playing ability. I was shocked to find that not 20 minutes after that first jolt of anxiety upon remembering that I had played Fall of the Foot Clan before, I had bested the Foot Clan in what has to be one of the quickest outings in my many years of video game-playing. I'd never played an easy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game before, and this one seemed...a little too easy. I was expecting Shredder to come back to life and make a fine paste out of me after the credits rolled, but it didn't happen. I lost two turtles along the way (I assume it's Game Over if you lose all four), but technically one of those was while I was still getting the hang of the controls and feel for the game.

Fall of the Foot Clan is a standard side-scroller in which you guide one of the turtles through five stages as you try to save April O'Neil, whose penchant for being kidnapped rivals even that of Princess Toadstool (or Peach or whatever she's called now). Meanwhile, foot soldiers, mousers, and other assorted TMNT bad guy mainstays attack you relentlessly from both sides. It's too easy and too short, but a lot of fun despite somewhat stiff controls. Good graphics of characters iconic of the TMNT franchise, detailed backgrounds, memorable and atmospheric music, and you get to swat endless legions of enemies with ninja weapons.

Brian's Rating: 7/10

[Images courtesy of GameFAQs.]