Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room once again. It's one of the great ongoing debates in the gaming community- which is better, the NES or the Sega Genesis? I think it goes without question the Super Nintendo was far superior than the Genesis in terms of graphical capabilities, audio output, game library...nearly every category across the board. And this is coming from somebody who grew up with a Genesis and has always personally favored it. But what about the NES? I think it's better to have those two head to head because there's a bit more equal footing. Yes the NES is only 8-bit compared to the Genesis' 16, but does the NES have more to offer with it's massive library of classic games?
Oh, I'm just thinking out loud. I don't really have an
answer there- I see the NES and Genesis in two fundamentally different
categories. I have feelings of nostalgia toward both of them and I don't really
favor one over the other. But I will say that I don't think the Genesis
deserves to be dumped on as much as the internet community likes to do these
days, ridiculous marketing campaigns with made-up technical jargon aside.
Anywho, I buy a lot of games for both consoles, which is
what I AM going to talk about today. Here we have Zombies Ate My Neighbors for
the Genesis, and Adventure Island & Donkey Kong Classics for the NES.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors isn't just the name of a fantastic dubstep techno song- no, it's a cult classic game that was released for both
the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis in 1993. You can have another debate
over which version is better (I'm sure the SNES version is), but once again I'm
avoiding that and sticking to what I have right in front of me, which is the
Genesis version. It's got everything you could possibly enjoy if you're a fan
of horror by taking the shlocky, B-movie feel of horror movies through the
50's, 60's, 70's and 80's and turning it into a video game. It's also well-renowned
to be one of the best 2-player games of it's time- as two young teenagers, you
have to fight off an army of zombies and save your dumb, oblivious neighbors
from being eaten. It's also a HUGE game too, with 55 levels in which you'll be
fighting not only zombies, but aliens, chainsaw wielding maniacs, vampires, and
more. You'll also be fighting these monsters in a diverse set of locations like
a typical suburban backyard, a supermarket, a football field, and even a medieval
castle. Levels all have goofy-sounding names like "Pyramid of Fear,"
"Dr. Tongue’s Castle Of Terror," and "Terror In Aisle
Five," reminiscent of 50's horror movies with sensationally ridiculous titles. Dr. Tongue’s Castle Of Terror, by the way, has music that's sort of
a 16-bit rendition of the theme from The Shining. How awesome is
that. Really, this game is probably one of the biggest tributes to classic
horror movies ever made. It's made even funnier by the fact that you're playing
as two kids battling zombies with things like squirt guns, fire extinguishers
and weed whackers. This is truly an excellent game and one I thoroughly enjoy,
if not for the huge amount of references to horror movies alone.
Switching over the NES side of the fence, we have Donkey
Kong Classics and Adventure Island. Donkey Kong Classics I believe needs no
introduction- its Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. packed into one game. Both of
these games were released individually as part of the "black box"series of launch titles for the NES, but this was the first time they
were packaged together as a sort of "value pack." Anyway, while I
would've preferred to have both of the originals (and I'm sure I will
eventually buy both of them either way), having them both together is pretty cool,
especially since I haven't played much of Donkey Kong Jr. in my lifetime.
However, even though it is an absolutely undisputed classic arcade game...it
gets boring pretty fast. Due to the hardware limitations of the time, it
doesn't have all of the levels of the arcade originals, leaving you with about
25% less of the full experience. And even if it did have every level, I still
feel like it would get old fast. The novelty of playing a game like that was
really meant for the arcades, where you'd put in a quarter and your friends
would gather around as you attempted to get your name on the high score board
for the whole world to see. At home...it just doesn't quite have the same
effect. Like I said, it's a classic game, but if you want more than 15 minutes
out of playing a game, you might be a tad disappointed.
Adventure Island is quite a different story. Released in
1988 by Hudson, the company I knew best for making the Bomberman games,
Adventure Island is a simple, fun little platformer that I never really knew
about when I was a kid, yet is often regarded as one of the NES classics. You
take control of the protagonist on a quest to save a princess on a remote
island, fighting various island creatures like birds, snails, and raccoons
along the way. Pretty standard stuff. Such as 2-D platformers go, you run from
the left side of the stage to the right until you reach the goal. Along the way
you can find powerups like an axe to throw at enemies and a skateboard that
lets you move a little faster. The problem with the skateboard though is that
you can't stop moving, which makes jumping on the platforms a bit trickier.
It'd be nice if you had a greater degree of control when you pick it up. It
actually seems to me like the game is meant to be played as quickly as possible,
as you are rewarded when you move through a stage swiftly and
punished when you don't. For instance, you have to grab different kinds of
fruits to stay alive, as your hunger meter will slowly decrease as you progress
through a stage. I didn't think that aspect of being stranded on an island
would be included in a game like this. Obviously it was way ahead of Metal Gear
Solid 3. Actually, it reminds me a lot of those endless mobile games
like Temple Runner, in which the goal is to just keep moving and stay alive. In
that sense it was REALLY ahead of its time. Anyway, I haven't played much of it yet
but it's fun and simple, so I'm sure I'll get a chance to give it more of a go
in the future.
Anyway, that's all for today's collection updates. Thanks
for reading and stay tuned for when I have something actually resembling more of a full game
review in the future.
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