Collection Additions Volume 4: 80's movies and other Genesis wonders

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. For this week’s addition of collection additions corner, I’m taking us back to the late 80’s when action movies didn’t need to have much substance or even make much sense, because as long as they were violent it was all good. And this translated to video games pretty well, because hey, violence in video games has never been an issue with anyone, right?

Anywho, I have admittedly always been a Genesis person all my life. Yes, I’m aware Nintendo always had the superior consoles and better games, while the Genesis is repeatedly the source of much internet mockery these days. And that’s fine, it may be the cool thing to do nowadays but I still will always have a soft spot for the Genesis and its cheesy marketing campaign about whatever it did that Ninten-didn’t.

So, while I was having a look at my collection yesterday I decided that I didn’t own nearly enough notable Genesis games to talk about while I defend the black hunk of plastic and that I needed to change that. My Genesis in mind at the local video game watering hole, I picked up four of what I estimated to be “higher end” Genesis games (honestly, based on their price tags) to hopefully help round out my collection a bit. So let’s take a look at what I got.

That's Predator 2, Robocop Versus Terminator, Shadow of the Beast, and Sub Terrania, four fairly uncommon Genesis games that I've never played before. I gave them each a quick test, so here's my thoughts after 10 minutes of each:

Predator 2

So I'm a huge fan of the original Predator, and I even enjoy the inferior sequel a lot too (yes, even with the perpetually pissed off Danny Glover). I wasn't expecting much from a movie based game, but honestly this one was unexpectedly a lot of fun. As Glover's character Lt. Harrigan from the movie, you run around in an overhead 3rd-person view gunning down every gang member and drug dealer in sight in search of hostages throughout stages. Where's the predator, you might ask? He pops up occasionally, shining his little red target down and blowing away hostages if you aren't fast enough. The controls are responsive and despite a lot of enemies flooding the screen at once, their bullets are fairly easy to dodge. There's also plenty of health to retrieve to save yourself before you die if you are hit too many times. If the predator kills too many of your hostages it's game over..and I honestly wasn't able to figure out how many "strikes" you get, so to speak, before that happens, but I'm sure a quick look at the manual would probably tell me. One funny thing is that when enemies die, tons of drug paraphernalia spills all over the street and you pick it up for points, kind of like "Narc" for the NES, and a big "no drugs" sign appears on the screen. Yeah, for you younger readers out there they were really pushing these anti-drug things on kids back in the 80's and 90's. Another weird thing about this game is the music. It's just...really unfitting, given the plot of murderous drug gangs and killer alien assassins. I don't know, just listen for yourself. I don't even know what kind of game that would be appropriate for. Anyway, anti-drug narratives and odd musical choices aside, this is a really fun game. I was a little disappointed to find out that it's only one-player, as it would've been a ton of fun to play with someone else. Regardless, I'll definitely revisit this one sometime in the future. Oh, and one more fun thing about this game- check out the cover:

Now that's violent. Awesome, but violent. Weren't parents making a big stink about Mortal Kombat during this era? Why wasn't anyone crying about this game?

Robocop Versus Terminator

Besides an endless barrage of anti-drug messages, another thing that was big in the 90's were these so called "versus" comics. Many of them were by Dark Horse comics, but I'm sure there were others I don't know about. Anyway, these comics usually pitted some unlikely foes against one another in ultimate battles to the death, for example Alien vs Predator (which spawned two movie adaptations) and even Batman vs. Predator! Don't believe me? See for yourself! Isn't that fucking metal!? Anyway, another big one was Robocop Vs. Terminator, the two big sci-fi cyborg movies of the 80's (and as an aside, wouldn't that have made a sick movie?). And what better than to make a video game adaptation of such a radical concept. So, Robocop being the "good guy," you take control of him in a side scroller where you just point, shoot and duck, simple as that. The graphics are really nice, and enemies explode in a nice fountain of blood when shot (again, with the gratuitous violence). Controlling Robocop is a bit stiff, since he doesn't jump very well and can only point his gun forward or at a downward or upward angle. it's also pretty easy to die, which I did several times in the first stage. Not the best side scrolling shooter, but nice to look at and you can't deny that the concept is awesome, at least.

Shadow Of The Beast

Now we're getting into some weird territory. I've never even heard of this one, but it looked interesting based on a few screenshots on the back. I also find it kind of interesting to check out games made by Electronic Arts, who were most well known for making sports games. Anyway, it is most definitely weird. You take control of some sort of unidentifiable purple creature just running to the right. The first thing you encounter is a large well, with huge flashing letters saying "IN" and arrows pointing toward it. So naturally, you enter. After a short text box appears telling you to descend a ladder, you go down...only to hit a dead end. Nothing is there blocking you, you just can't go down any further. So with literally nothing else to do you go back up, and the text box appears again telling you that you need to find a key for the bottom. What the hell is the point of that!? So, after this very pointless moment, you just head right, dodging all kinds of odd enemies who you'll find have ridiculous hit boxes- you need to be literally having to be touching pixels with them to punch them, in which case they'll almost certainly damage you first. You get 12 hits, but after getting hit again and again, you die...and that's it. No lives, no continues, nothing. One life, and you're back at the beginning with the well. I tried again, made it a tiny bit farther, but still found no well key anywhere. So at that point, I decided to move on to the last game.

Also, just a note on the back of the box...what exactly is "psygnosis artwork?" 

Sub Terrania

An interesting one for fans of shoot 'em up games. It's sort of like that, except instead of being locked in one direction, you're free to explore a level in your little ship. However, no objective is given, and you also run out of fuel. Pretty fast, too. So after attempting once or twice, I got bored and decided to go back to playing Predator 2.

So that's it for now, thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more gaming nonsense from me and as always, game on.

Obscure Game Review: Bug!

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Today we'll take a look at an odd yet fun little title for a console that had a distinct lack of just those, at least in America: the Sega Saturn. Ah, the Saturn. It may have received a pretty lukewarm reception here in the USA, but it did have a few quirky games among its mostly lackluster library. Among them was a weird little platformer called Bug!, which was one of the very few Saturn games I played when it was new.

As I mentioned in my review of Knuckles’ Chaotix for the 32X, my good friend always had all the Sega consoles when they were brand new, by virtue of his father working for Sega at the time. As such, I got to play a lot of these games in their heyday way back when, and one such game was Bug!. Though us young, easily distractible children often abandoned games pretty quickly when we couldn’t get very far, Bug! was one of those games that we persistently played despite never being able to reliably advance very deeply into it. Many years later, upon amassing a sizable video game collection and obtaining my very own Saturn, I procured a copy of Bug! and set out to complete a long forgotten game that had been in the back of my mind for years. And I was quite surprised by how even to this day, the game still holds up quite well. It’s certainly no Super Mario 64, but I think it’s a solid adventure-platformer in its own right and is definitely one of the better Saturn-exclusive titles. So that being said, let’s check it out.

The game begins with a pretty simple story- our protagonist Bug is living peacefully with his insect family, when suddenly a giant black widow spider named Queen Cadavra snatches up his entire family and hauls them off to be eaten. Having escaped certain death, Bug quickly sets out to rescue them, and the adventure begins. Er, I mean, the movie begins.Yeah, one kind of weird aspect about this game is that the entire plot is supposed to be…a movie. As in, all the characters are actually actors filming a movie. Transitions between different levels consist of Bug walking between sets, a director yells “Action!” at the beginning of every level, and even some of the powerups are movie-related (i.e. clapper boards are continues, an invulnerability powerup is called the “stuntbug,” etc.). I never really paid attention to this aspect as a kid, but now it just sort of makes me scratch my head. Why did it need to be a movie? Who knows, and honestly, it doesn’t have much bearing on the actual game other than an odd point of interest.

 The entire game is actually a movie, for some reason. Just go with it.

Anyway, as Bug you must traverse large, semi 3-D environments in search of the end goal all while fighting off armies of various insects. Why do I say semi 3-D you ask? Well, because the 3-D aspect is a bit…shallow. Your movement is restricted to the four cardinal directions- up, down, left and right. As you walk along paths you are “fixed” to the floor, only able to move north/south or east/west at any given moment. Some platforms are kind of free-floating, allowing you to jump either up or down to anything above or below you, but for the most part you’ll be on the aforementioned “fixed” paths. Additionally, Bug and all of the enemy insects you encounter are all sprite-based objects. Still, even without being truly 3D the game still manages to be a lot of fun. Each level is laid out like a gigantic hedge maze, with multiple routes to choose from in order to reach the end goal. There are so many different routes, in fact, that you could probably play a single level dozens of times and never take the same one to reach the end of the stage.

 Very often you'll face junctions such as this one with multiple directions to choose from as you traverse levels.

You'll have to make your way through six different "worlds," each with 3 different stages and a boss fight. The "worlds" differ dramatically, from a grassy field to a desert to a frozen tundra. Along the way you'll encounter a wide variety of insect foes that will try to squash you in your tracks. There's a nice variety in the enemies, and they change accordingly through each overarching world- for example, in the grassy "Insectia" you'll be fighting a handful of common bugs like grasshoppers, snails and bumble bees, whereas in the underwater "Quaria" you'll have to take on moray eels, scuba-diving beetles and killer crabs. Enemies also vary in their attack patterns, as some will simply walk back and forth, others dive bomb you, and still others hurl projectiles like fireballs, electricity and even dung (by dung beetles, of course).

Enemies can be dealt with simply by jumping on them, but it's not always that easy.  Some of them are done away with by one jump, while others require 6, 7, even 8 jumps in order to be defeated. Thankfully, you'll be able to collect a few different powerups that aid in taking on the armies of bugs and such. There's zap, which as its name implies, grants you a short-range but powerful electrical attack. The only problem is that it's limited and tends to run out pretty quickly. However, there's also the spit-glob powerups, which do not run out and can be used until a level ends.

 The "zap" powerup is quite useful, but is limited.

These globs come in four different colors; the green glob is the standard one, allowing you to spit one glob at enemies at a longer range than the zap attack. Each glob equals one "jump damage" to an enemy, meaning that you can defeat them from a distance by jumping and then launching spit balls at them. Red globs give you a double shot spit, while rare blue globs give you a triple shot. Finally, there's purple globs that bounce along the ground until they hit something. Spit globs do not appear until the third world but once they do, green ones are pretty much given at the beginning of every stage from there on.

By jumping and spitting at enemies, you'll be able to safely attack from a distance.

 As I mentioned before, there's the "stuntbug" invulnerability powerup, and there's also a plethora of extra lives and continues scattered about in levels, usually in hidden, blocked off or hard to reach areas. In addition to all of that, there are a few large golden coins that are usually hidden throughout levels which can be used when collected to enter bonus stages in each level. These bonus stages will allow you the chance to gain an extra life or two and consist of various challenges like avoiding falling boulders, bouncing along mushrooms, and even racing Sega's very own mascot Sonic the Hedgehog himself! 

I didn't think a bug would be able to go toe to toe with the "world's fastest hedgehog"...

Finally, there's also a multitude of gems to collect in each level. Collecting them won't do anything for you in the levels themselves, but if you manage to grab 100 or more on all three levels of the world, after the boss battle you'll be able to enter a bonus game for a chance to earn an extra continue, which you will most likely need toward the latter stages of the game. Speaking of boss battles, they are pretty intense in scale. You'll have to go up against gigantic monsters ranging from a huge spikey-tounged iguana beast to a massive octopus that tosses fish at you (which, by the way, you'll have to swat back at him with a tennis racket. Give this game points for originality, if nothing else).

Just one of the boss fights in the game. Is it just me or does that thing look like the Pokémon gyrados?

The graphics are fantastic for the time and still hold up well today. As I mentioned both Bug and his enemies are sprites, but they are very nicely detailed and fluently animated. There's also a few short FMV cutscenes every now and then, which might have been impressive back in the day but suffer from that very mid/late-90's 3D animation look that isn't all that appealing these days. Like I said though, these are pretty scant and don't reflect on the actual gameplay. Each world has its own unique color scheme, fitting the scenery well- for instance, the desert levels are all filled with rustic-looking browns and oranges. The music is pretty good too. Nothing spectacular, but it has a few catchy tunes, such as the theme for Reptilia and Splot.

While everything I've described probably sounds pretty straightforward, the game is definitely not a walk in the park as far as difficulty. The early stages are certainly pretty easy, but as you progress the platforming aspect starts getting in your way, big time. The problem here is with the controls, which are also the biggest flaw this game has. It's a little hard to describe unless you've held a Saturn controller and played it for yourself, but basically the major issue is with jumping from platform to platform. Like I said before, your movement is entirely restricted to one of the four cardinal directions, but some platforms will be moving three dimensionally in space. That means that if you aren't very precise with your jumps, you'll miss and end up falling to your death.

There's also parts where some of the jumps you have to make border on absurd. Take this part for example: in certain areas there are a few giant slingshot-looking things where you'll have to press down on the D-pad and let go, allowing yourself to be flung forward. Sounds simple enough, but in other areas you have to slingshot yourself AND bounce on enemies in the air in order to make your mark. Then there's parts like the one pictured below in which you'll have to bounce on TWO enemies moving in different directions than one another. You need to wait until the extremely precise moment in which they both line up in order to safely bounce across and make it to the other side, and this is much easier said than done. This part is pretty late in the game and as far as I remember only occurs once, but it's still a major pain and unless you are absolutely perfect, you'll just die here over and over and over again.

You have to slingshot yourself across the gap, lined up perfectly, and with extremely precise timing land on both these flying bugs to safely cross to the other side. I've never been able to do it myself.

And therein lies another problem. I can't really blame this one on the game itself as much as I can on the Saturn's limited technical capacities, but there isn't much a save feature for this one. It's there, but it only saves automatically when you complete all three stages and the boss fight of a world. This is also assuming that your Saturn's lithium battery is still functioning (which, unless you've replaced it recently, probably isn't) AND that you have enough spare RAM to save the game (unless you have an external memory card for the Saturn, which to my recollection weren't nearly as widely available as those for its rivals the PS1 or N64). A password system probably would've been ideal in this case, but the developers chose this weird save system that doesn't entirely work in your favor, especially due to the aforementioned saving issues. That being said, if you are far along in the game and the jumping part that I mentioned before starts frustrating the hell out of you, you're likely to just give up and not look back; however, more often than not, this would mean that you'd have to start the game all over again if you power off the console.

For this reason, I've never actually completed this game myself. The crazy jump is in the first stage of the penultimate world, and unfortunately I have never been able to make it past there. I would love to one day, but right now this game simply remains an unbeaten and oft-forgotten relic of my childhood. A sequel was made but unfortunately was vastly inferior to the first, both in overall quality and charm. The Saturn died shortly thereafter and with it, Bug! died too. It's a shame because I would've liked to see a true-to-life fully 3D addition to the series, but sadly this was not to pass.

Bug! may have been a weird concept on a third place console that pretty much failed here in the US, but it's still a great game and one of the very few, in my opinion, that might just make the Sega Saturn worth it. It's certainly not a rare game by any stretch of the imagination, so if you've got a Sega Saturn sitting in a box in your attic, you might want to dust it off and plug it in if you get a hold of this game. If you're a fan of classic platforming action, it's got just about everything you'd want and more.

Collection Additions Volume 3: Extensions Galore

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. I apologize for the long leave of absence but after a much-needed vacation (and some recovery time afterward) I'm back to talk about games and and my never-ending and improbable quest to have the greatest video game collection ever. Now that I have a lot more free time I'm hoping to do more reviews of random games, plus updates every week on any game-related stuff I've bought. Anyway, let's jump into it today, shall we?

So yesterday I nabbed a pair of N64 games, plus some controller extension cords- one for the Super Nintendo and two for the NES. I know a lot of people are into wireless controllers these days, but personally I don't want to bother with that. Changing batteries, constantly charging them- I'd much rather be plugged right into the system without having to worry about any of that. So what's a gamer to do when you want to have a comfy spot on a couch without living in fear that you'll accidentally yank your console right out of the TV in the heat of the moment?

Thankfully, a ton of third party companies have emerged to save us from just that. I already have extenders for pretty much every console I have, including four for my N64 so I don't have to worry about three other people doing the aforementioned console yanking. I didn't have any for the NES though, mainly because the NES controller wire is pretty lengthy as it is. However, after some recent console rearranging I decided it would be a lot easier for me to just buy a few extensions and have the peace of mind that I wouldn't accidentally destroy my toploader NES one day. As for the SNES extender, I already had one so I figured I may as well grab one more, lest I ever have any two-player SNES sessions.

Now for the games- Doom 64 and Perfect Dark. Firstly, I should say that I absolutely love the Doom franchise. Doom is just one of my go-to games that I can always play whenever I want and still have fun with it, regardless of how many times I've beaten it in my life (which is probably in the thousands at this point). However, I must confess that I've never actually played Doom 64. I've known about it, but for whatever reason it always just flew under the radar to me. However, I've been determined to rectify that and now that I own it, I'm hoping to give it a playthrough soon. Might even be good for a review, wink wink.

As for Perfect Dark, I never owned it myself but I have played the multiplayer back in the day with friends. From what I gather, it's pretty similar to another classic first-person shooter Rareware game of the era, that being Goldeneye 007. That's good enough for me to give it a shot.

So that's all for now, but stayed tuned for more stuff coming real soon. Thanks for reading and as always, game on.