Quick Thoughts: Krusty's Super Funhouse (Sega Genesis)

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room once again. What's that you say? Nobody has been reading this blog actively for three years, and the only reason you found it was because of a random Google search of video games and now you're just continuing to read out of sheer morbid curiosity because it's probably a Friday night and you're sitting in a dark room with a computer and nothing else to do? Well, then this blog is just right for you! No judgment. I'm actually sitting in a dark room on a Friday evening typing at this very moment. Just bear in mind, I only update it in short spurts over the course of months because I have no time to do anything fun anymore.

Anyway, today I wanted to talk about another one of those games from my childhood. You know the type; it's the kind of game that your cousin owned and the two of you played it nonstop, despite the fact that it probably wasn't a very good game. Or maybe you rented it from the local video game rental store for the weekend just to see what it was like, and that one weekend back in June of 1993 was the entire extent of your time playing it. It's not a game like Super Mario Bros. or the Legend of Zelda or Sonic the Hedgehog, which were classics that are still talked about and played endlessly to this day. No, this was the kind of game that not very many people had, but you developed a special connection with it over time, simply because it reminds you of your youth. And one such game, for me, is Krusty's Super Fun House for Sega Genesis. But before we discuss that, let's talk about The Simpsons.

So, what could possibly be said about The Simpsons that hasn't already been said at some point over the last 30 years? It's one of the longest running television shows of all time and its cultural footprint is massive. Whether you love it or hate it, you can't deny the sheer gravity of its presence; everyone knows the Simpsons, everyone has seen at least one episode at some point in their lifetimes, and everyone has seen the Simpsons somewhere other than on television- in film, in merchandise, and yes, in video games. There's a huge amount of Simpsons games, almost as many as some of the most popular video game franchises. Perhaps the timing was just right- what many would consider the "golden age" of the Simpsons, that being the early to mid-90s, was also a period of time when the video game market was exploding.

Anyway, Simpsons games were all over the place. If you're a gamer and you haven't played any of the home console ones, you most likely have at least played or seen the 1991 arcade game, a beat 'em up made by Konami. I personally had two growing up- The Simpsons: Bart Vs. The World for the NES, and Krusty's Super Fun House. Bart Vs. The World was a pretty bad game, as AVGN will tell you. Krusty's Super Fun House, however, has always had a certain special appeal to me. It was a game I played very often as a kid, and even though it might not be the best game in the world, I'd probably consider it one of my nostalgic favorites- as in, it takes me back to the good old days every time I play it. So, let's step into the fun house for a bit and check it out.

I'm going to focus on the Sega Genesis version since it was the one I had as a kid, but as far as I know the SNES version (and every OTHER version of this game that came out for just about every console at the time) is nearly identical. While the game is set in the Simpsons universe, it was actually the first video game in the franchise that did not focus on the Simpsons themselves, but rather the lovably cynical Krusty the Clown, a frequently reoccurring character on the show. The Simpsons themselves do appear as minor characters in the game, but I'll get to that in a moment. The game is centered around Krusty, who must rid his "fun house" of an infestation of rats by leading them into machines in which they can be squashed, vaporized or sliced to pieces in a true display of good old-fashioned cartoon violence. The rats simply walk back and forth and as Krusty, you must place blocks and create pathways for them to walk into the aforementioned death contraptions. Clear a level of all the rats, and you're finished and it's on to the next one. The pathways you must create get much more complicated as the game goes on, often requiring you to build multiple pathways and run back and forth all over the level to do so.

So, it's basically a platformer-puzzle game, pretty much in the literal sense in that you must solve puzzles by literally building platforms, very similar in idea to a game like Lemmings.

The game has 5 different overworld levels, each of which has a number of sub-levels within it ranging from 8 to 14. The objective within each of these levels, as I mentioned before, is to exterminate all of the rats by getting them to walk into one of the extermination machines. Simple as that. And who is controlling these machines? Why, none other than one of the Simpsons themselves! So they are technically part of the game, but really are more or less just relegated to being background objects. Anyway, the rats won't simply walk into the extermination machines- no, they wander around just out of reach of one, usually below a raised up platform. So how do you get them into the machine? Scattered around the levels are numerous blocks, which you can pick up and transport. By pressing down when you are standing on top of one, you can carry it to another part of the stage and drop it there, as long as there is nothing above you that would block it. Rats will climb up on top of blocks, so you can effectively create "stairs" using two or more blocks that the rats will walk up to their doom. You can also use them to block off certain areas, create bridges, or just give yourself some added jump height.

The puzzles get more complicated as you progress, but a majority of them simply boil down to "build some stairs."

At first, things start off simple- rats walk around on the floor, the extermination machine is somewhere a step above them, and you create a step stool for them using the block. They walk up, you wait for all of them to get smushed, and it's on to the next level. However, things start getting much more complicated as you progress. Later on, there will be tubes everywhere that the rats can fall into which transport them to other parts of the level, fans which blow them all over the place, jars to put them in and carry around, and combinations of the three that get very intricate. Levels are usually forgiving, in that you'll be able to attempt a puzzle again when you screw up- however, in later levels, more often than not, if you mess up on a puzzle and rats fall into somewhere that you can't get them out of, you'll need to start over again from the beginning. It can get frustrating, but after a little bit of problem solving through trial and error, that feeling of getting everything right and then watching the rats get exterminated is pretty satisfying.

The graphics are decent for the Genesis. Everything is very colorful and cartoonish, much like the show the game is based on. The Simpsons themselves don't move much when you find them; they'll pretty much just push a button and smile while the rats are obliterated in front of them. However, they're represented well enough. Krusty himself also looks pretty good and faithful to the show, but he is very...small looking. Kind of like a tiny architecture of himself. Also, the music is okay. It's nothing spectacular, but it's goofy sounding and appropriate enough given the source material. One annoying thing about the music though is that each overarching world has its own music theme that plays through every single sub-level within it, so it starts to get quite old after a while when you've heard the same tune over and over again.

Some of the familiar Simpsons characters show up, but they don't do much besides providing some silly means of annihilating the rats in the background.

It's definitely a fun game with enough puzzle solving elements to keep you interested, but there are a lot of small, tedious details which begin to build up after a while that detract from the overall experience. For one thing, the rats walk around very slooooooowly. Sometimes you'll be sitting there for quite a while just waiting for all of the rats to walk to where you need them to be. Then, once they do, you have to sit and wait while every single individual rat gets squashed before you move on. Then there's the issue of transporting objects. So, as I mentioned, you'll need to move a lot of blocks, fans, jars, and pipe pieces around, especially in the later levels. However, there's a major hitch- you can only transport one object at a time. So, if 4 block are all the way on one end of the level and you need to bring all of them to the other end, you'll need to go back and forth 4 times just to get all of them to the right place. It would've been way simpler if you could carry at least more than one of them at a time.

Only being able to carry one item at a time (as seen in the upper left corner) can get really frustrating. In this situation, only one item is needed, but later on a majority of the time you'll spend in each level is just relegated to moving items back and forth. One. At. A. Time.

The combat system is also a little counter-intuitive and frustrating at times. Enemies don't pose that much of a threat to you, as most of them just wander back and forth in simple patterns and don't actively attack unless you get close to them. You can destroy them by throwing tiny pies at them, which serve as your only attack. However, you can only hold 10 pies at any given time. You can often find more of them inside of little purple blocks that are scattered about levels, but these are finite, and if you've found them all and used up all 10 of your pies, you're basically screwed as far as defending yourself. The pies fly out in an arc in front of you and sometimes it can be a bit hard to hit your mark, so you'll likely end up wasting a few, and because you're limited to just 10 pies at a time, that leaves very little room for error. It would've been nice if the game was a bit more generous on ammo, or just made it unlimited.

And that leads me to another issue. You can get a secondary weapon, which is basically a cannonball you can shoot that ricochets off of ceilings and walls. It can be used on enemies and is stronger than the pies, but unlike them, it also has a secondary function that's absolutely necessary to progress. In certain levels there are breakable tiles that you'll encounter that you'll need to blast through in order to move forward through the level, and the cannonball is the only thing that can break through them. However, you get even less cannonballs than pies- only 5 as opposed to 10. And because the cannonballs ricochet in a zig-zag pattern, you'll usually need at least 2 to clear a path. Often times, you'll fire one off and it will follow the exact same pattern as the first, leaving you unable to move forward unless you launch another one from a different angle. Just like the pies, if you run out of cannonballs, you aren't getting any more and you'll have to restart the entire level if you want to try again. This whole aspect just seems really unnecessary and annoying, and it would've been a lot easier if there were some other way to break open the tiles, you were given more cannonballs than just five, or they just did away with these breakable tiles to begin with.

Whichever jackass decided to program the cannonballs to only move in a zig-zag pattern can eat an actual cannonball.

There's also no indication of how much health you have left. Krusty can be damaged in two ways- taking hits from enemies, or dropping from too great a height. The former makes sense, but the latter doesn't really, given that this is a platforming game where jumping and falling are pretty much fundamental mechanics of the game. It doesn't happen too often, since you do need to fall from a really big height in order to be hurt by it, but why even include that at all? It kind of feeds into this game being very tediously slow at times as I've already mentioned, since you'll sometimes need to wait quite a while for rising platforms to reach you at a great height instead of just jumping down and hurting yourself. Anyway, back to the health issue, the only indication you get that you're running low on health is that when you're standing still, Krusty will start heavily panting. But even then, it's impossible to tell how many more hits you can take before you die. You can replenish your health by finding various fast food items inside the purple boxes I mentioned before, but again, you'll have no idea how much you'll be replenishing your health, if at all. A simple health bar would've really made that a lot more clear.

Finally, a lot of things are just plain strange. Sometimes, for example, you'll manipulate a puzzle in such a way that you won't be able to recover from a mistake, and as such you'll need to reset the entire level and start over. Fair enough, but how do you do that? Pressing the start button and having a menu that would allow you to do so would be the simplest option, but instead, you have to go back to the entrance door to the level, AND THEN press start (which pauses the game) and the C button to exit a level. Oh, and think that's explained in the manual? Nope, not at all.

Also, there's a simple password system to pick up where you left off, but it's so poorly implemented that it might as well not even be there. As I mentioned earlier, there are five "worlds" in the game, each with a different number of sub-levels within them. It would be nice if you were given a password between each sub-level, but instead, you're only given a password once you complete all the sub-levels in a world. And by "complete," I mean you have to kill all the rats in the level AND find all the secret areas, AND THEN make sure to collect ALL of the bonus items in the secret area. Yeah, there's plenty of those in the game. Once you do all of those things, the level will be locked for good and you can move on. After dealing with all these issues over time, it wears on you and kind of makes you not want to play anymore. But since passwords are only given to you between worlds, you have to soldier through every single level in each world if you want to make any progress.

The password system works, but it still requires you to devote massive amounts of time to the game in one sitting.

So, picking up this game without ever having played it before and having to deal with all these issues, yeah, I could understand that you might have more fun chucking the cartridge into a bonfire instead of playing it. However, as I mentioned, it's more the nostalgic appeal than anything that makes me enjoy playing this game. It's always interesting to me how games like this one, or Blasto for PS1, or Ghostbusters II on NES, which are not very good games at all still manage to get enjoyment out me simply because I liked playing them as a kid (and are not-so-coincidentally games I've already reviewed here). If you can manage to get past all of tedious issues that it has, you might enjoy the puzzle solving element a lot. But if you're a Simpsons fan and you're looking for a better gaming experience, try the arcade version instead. You can never go wrong with that. Thanks for reading.

Surgical Strike for the Sega CD-32X: a mystery finally solved

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room, where we go looking for the truth about obscure games that nobody has cared about for over 20 years (and even back then they probably didn't care). I apologize once again for not posting anything in a while, I've been studying to take a big test soon and video games have kind of taken a back seat. However, I did just get my tax returns back recently, and as such I planned on going on a video game spending binge pretty soon, so once I come back with a massive haul, I'll do a nice big post about it. For now though, I want to revisit a certain unanswered footnote in gaming history that has bugged me for quite a long time: the mystery of Surgical Strike for the 32X.

If you read my post from a while back about completing the 32X library, you already know my feelings about this long lost game, but I'll give a quick recap if you don't feel like reading that: back in the 90s, when Sega was still desperately trying to keep their doomed add-on consoles chugging along, a number of CD games were released that utilized both the Sega CD and 32X simultaneously with the Sega Genesis to produce the "ultimate" gaming experience.

While that description is obviously questionable, what isn't questionable is that five CD-32X games were indeed released for the console, which were all just slightly upgraded versions of their original Sega CD counterparts. None of them are very interesting in their own right and they pretty much proved to be the last dying gasps of a console that had overstayed its welcome in the market. However, where our mystery begins is with an advertisement on the front of a Sega CD game called Surgical Strike, which touted a free copy of the advanced CD-32X version for gamers who sent in a mail-in coupon included with the game. Unsurprisingly, very little hype was generated for this, and the CD-32X version was never even put into production. Or...was it?

As you may know, I'm somewhat of a 32X aficionado, if you will. Yes, I know the thing is pretty much a mushroom-shaped hunk of garbage, but it just has this odd appeal to me. I can't really explain it. Anyway, that appeal is what inspired me to collect all 36 games that were ever released for it, as well as a few that weren't even released in America. However, my quest for completion has always had this one strange caveat to it: what about Surgical Strike for the CD-32X?

The reason I ask this question is because many websites, including GameFAQs and Wikipedia, list Surgical Strike as an official CD-32X release. However, it is one of four games that is listed as exclusive to other countries (the other three being Darxide and FIFA '96 in Europe and San Goku Shi IV in Japan). This piqued my interest while collecting, since I'd obviously have to obtain it in order to have the complete worldwide collection, right? However, in all my years of researching, I was never actually able to confirm that the game was ever released at all. I was able to procure copies of FIFA and San Goku Shi, and though I don't have a copy of Darxide, I have seen it floated around for sale on rare occasions. However, I have never once seen a copy of Surgical Strike for sale, and any pictures of it I have found on the internet all seem to be of the same beat up copy. This led me to believe, for a while, that the game was never actually released in Brazil and that the one copy that has cropped up in pictures from time to time was likely just a prototype or something. However, it seems I was wrong.

While surfing the random dark corners of the internet, I happened to stumble across this article from two years ago, which did a fantastic job outlining the very mystery I just described. It provided a wealth of historical background and testimonials from insiders of Sega's South America distributor Tec-Toy, who were said to have released the game in 1995. Indeed, as the article points out, the game was released in 1995 in very limited quantities. Considering the economic turmoil of Brazil in the 90s that was described by the article, it seems like a small miracle that it even managed to happen at all. That being said, it's no surprise that only 500 units were sold, according to the article. That would certainly explain why it has scarcely ever been seen or spoken of over the last 20 years.

An already obscure and quite frankly mediocre game released in minuscule quantities into South America, for a combination of three different consoles that I'm sure exceedingly few people even had in Brazil 20 years ago. It's no wonder very few copies have ever seen the light of day.

However, this does confirm a very strange and fascinating mystery that I've long kept in the back of my mind. It also leads me to believe that if one were to ever get their filthy little hands on such a rarity and add it to their library, they might have the greatest and most distinct 32X collection the world has ever seen. While I can't even imagine what the logistics involved in attempting to hunt down a copy would look like, one can always dream. And if there's multiple copies out there, who knows? It's good to always stay open minded. And you know what, a quest isn't a quest without some shining light at the end of the tunnel with mysterious and mythical properties attached to it. Thanks for reading.

Collection Additions Volume 8: Genesis vs. NES

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.

Quick Thoughts: Paperboy For Sega Genesis

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. If you had an NES when you were a kid, it's likely that you either owned or at least have heard of the game Paperboy. Originally released as an arcade game in 1984 and then ported to the NES in 1988, Paperboy is about as simple of a concept for a game as you can get: you deliver papers to houses each day of the week. However, the gameplay was a whole lot more than just that- you can gain or lose subscribers depending on how well you do, you have to avoid a ridiculous array of obstacles such as runaway tires, construction workers, breakdancers, and even the grim reaper himself, and it takes quite a bit of skill to land every paper on a doormat without breaking a few windows or smashing into anything yourself.

It has a distinct arcade style to it, and by that I mean there's less emphasis on a story or anything and more on getting the high score and testing your skill and accuracy. However, unlike many other arcade games that didn't make the jump to home consoles very gracefully, Paperboy did just fine on the NES as a game and is still very fun to play to this day. It's not a perfect game and tends to get a little boring faster than other games, but it's one that I've always enjoyed ever since I was a kid and can still pick up any time I get a chance.

However, what I want to talk about today is the Sega Genesis version of the game. Released by Tengen (the company best known for making those weirdly shaped black NES cartridges) in 1991, the Genesis port took a number of liberties with the game that make it quite different from the NES version I've been accustomed to for most of my life. I was actually a bit surprised to find out that the game was even released on Genesis at all, let alone that it was different from the NES version in any way. I've owned it for quite some time but haven't had much of a chance to play it until recently, so I have a few thoughts on it while it's fresh on my mind.

Well, it's not drastically different from the NES version. The general gameplay, controls, sound effects and music are all pretty much the same. However, there are a few upgrades in this version which make it pretty interesting (going from 8-bit to 16-bit, this should be expected). Firstly, a major difference is that there are now three distinct difficulty levels that can be chosen right off the bat- easy, medium and hard modes. This balances out the difficult a bit better than its NES counterpart, which had no selectable difficulty settings.

As I mentioned before, the graphical improvements are nice. Characters have a few added frames of animation, colors are more vibrant, and there seems to be a lot more "going on" at all times. For example, you can be riding down the road and there will be tires rolling at you, a man jackhammering, cars driving down the street, and kids riding bikes all in the same area. This increases the difficulty a bit too, as you'll be fighting to focus on landing a paper on a stoop while avoiding all of the obstacles at the same time. 

There seems to be a lot more things happening at once in the Genesis version as opposed to the NES version. I mean, how are you supposed to avoid an old lady pushing a grocery cart, not get run over by a car, smack a burglar trying to break into a house with a paper for extra points, AND deliver a paper to the house at the same time?

Another added effect in the Genesis version is the inclusion of digitized voices, a pretty novel concept at the time. Your character will frequently comment on how you are doing (for example, saying something like "what a great toss!" when you land a paper in a mailbox, or "one less customer" if you smash a window) and will also do so whenever you smack into something. By far the funniest thing he says, which I could not stop laughing at, is when you run into the drunk guy. Yes, there's a DRUNK GUY hobbling around as an obstacle in this game. Even better- when you hit him, your character will say "man, that guy's wasted!" Now that's amazing.

Yup, that guy in the suit is plastered and the game knows it. That's honestly the main reason I wanted to do a review of this game.

It's definitely a fun game, but sort of falls victim to the same problems as the original as well. The 45° perspective does give the game challenge, but also makes it fairly difficult to time your paper toss correctly most of the time. Also, there seems to be just too many things to run into, even more so in the Genesis version. You'll constantly be dodging obstacles, sometimes having to choose between not even attempting a paper throw or losing a life. However, there's actually less of a penalty for not throwing any papers- in fact, as long as you keep one single subscriber on the block of 20 houses, you can just keep playing and only have to deliver to that one house. Sure, you won't get as many points, but who cares? It's not like a high score is saved or anything, unlike the arcade version. Pretty ironic in a game where the primary objective is supposed to be delivering the papers, right?

Anyway, so that's Paperboy for Sega Genesis. Fun game, generally regarded as a classic, tends to get old a tad quick, but definitely good for a laugh when you crash your bike into a drunk pedestrian. Thanks for reading.

Why Sonic 3 & Knuckles Is My Favorite Video Game Of All Time

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Today I'm going to talk about my favorite video game of all time, the nearest and dearest to my heart and one that I can always pick up and play, no matter the circumstances. It's a game from my childhood that was one of the first to make me love video games in the first place, and without it I might not be sitting here writing this right now. It's a game that's...actually two games, not one.

So let me get that out of the way right now, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is technically two different games: Sonic The Hedgehog 3, released for the Sega Genesis in 1994, and Sonic & Knuckles, released a little later that same year. Both games were originally intended to be one massive adventure, but due to hardware limitations the development team was forced to split it into two separate games. However, the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge was fitted with so called "lock-on" technology, allowing a cartridge to be plugged in on top of it. I'm still not really sure how this works technically, but I've always just gone with it. Anyway, Sonic 3 could therefore be directly connected to Sonic & Knuckles, allowing gamers to experience the entire adventure in all of it's originally intended glory. For this reason, I consider the two to be one game. Playing one without the other is like watching only half of a movie; it just feels wholly incomplete to me. So, I will pretty much be referring to the two as one game throughout this editorial. It's just Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and that's all there is to it as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, what is it about this game that I love so much? Is it just nostalgia, or is there something deeper beneath the surface? To answer that, we need to go back to the year 1995. Sonic The Hedgehog, both the character and the entire franchise, was at the height of popularity in the mid-90's. We all know that he keeps managing to sink to new lows nowadays (just as much as we all hope that "Sonic Mania" will change that), but back in his heyday, Sonic ruled the world. He had critically acclaimed games, not one or two but three different cartoon shows, comic books, toys, and an avalanche of other merchandise. On the gaming front, the Sega Genesis was battling it out with the Super Nintendo, which was churning out a seemingly endless barrage of it's own smash hit games. The Genesis had some pretty popular exclusive titles of its own, but it seemed as though only its' main mascot Sonic could stand ground with the likes of Mario, Link, Samus and Kirby. Sonic already had three hit games under his belt (the third being Sonic CD), and the Sega team needed to push him to new heights as the war of the 16-bit era raged on.

Maybe it was the fierce competition that drove the Sega team; I believe they had to have known that this game needed to represent their best work yet if it were to stand up to the juggernaut of Nintendo. What they eventually created was an overhaul of Sonic, keeping the original foundation intact while building on top of it. Sonic, Tails, and even Dr. Robotnik all sported new, slick sprites. Three new types of energy shields were introduced that added different special abilities, unlike the normal shield that appeared in the first two games. There was the fire shield that makes Sonic impervious to lava and fire and gives him the ability to do a mid-air dash, the electricity shield that attracts nearby rings and allows him to perform a double jump, and the bubble shield which lets him stay underwater indefinitely and lets him do a bounce jump on the ground for added height. Also, and perhaps most importantly, a new playable character was introduced with Knuckles the Echidna (which I've spoken about the overall importance of in my review of Knuckles' Chaotix).

But perhaps the best overall addition to the game as opposed to any of the previous ones was the progression of the story it told from beginning to end. Having a narrative in video games outside of manuals wasn't such a common thing, back in the days before things like extended cutscenes (or even voicework, for that matter). Obviously many great games pulled it off spectacularly, like the Final Fantasies and Zeldas of the world. What's more, even games like Super Mario Bros. 3 and Doom managed to have great stories with little to no dialogue at all. Sonic 3 & Knuckles falls into this category, as it's story is told entirely through the actions of the characters. As I mentioned you can get plenty of back story in the manual, but when we were kids nobody ever really bothered with that, and besides which all you need to know is shown to you through the use of clever little cutscenes throughout the game.

For example, within the first 15 seconds of playing the game you learn that Knuckles is an antagonist, after he knocks Sonic out and steals his 7 chaos emeralds. It turns out that Knuckles has been duped by Robotnik into believing that Sonic is his enemy and is after the master emerald, the power source of the floating island where Knuckles lives and is the sacred guardian of. Things progress from there and on the sixth stage (and final stage of Sonic 3 by itself), you can see Dr. Robotnik's final weapon, the Death Egg ship, prepping for launch in the background of the stage. Much later on, Knuckles confronts Sonic deep within the caverns of the floating island, and the two clash while Robotnik stealthily sneaks in and steals the master emerald behind Knuckles' back. Knuckles then realizes that he's made a huge mistake to trust him, but it's too late- Robotnik knocks Knuckles out cold and retreats back to the Death Egg ship, which then takes off for space. The story unfolds further as you play onward, culminating in a thrilling final battle in space where Sonic must chase down and destroy Robotnik's robo-carrier, retrieve the master emerald and save the world once and for all. And to reiterate, this entire story is told through brief cutscenes and a bit of supplementary material from the manual.

 The Death Egg ship prepping for launch in the background of the Launch Base Zone, the midpoint of the game (or the finale of Sonic 3, technically).

For me, nothing since then has ever even come close to the scale of that grand final showdown. The game is as simple as running to the right, collecting rings and jumping on bad guys, but the story it tells and the way it tells it just makes it that much more complex. And I have to throw this out there too- the game just looks beautiful. I've spent a ton of time in my life making perler bead sprites (such as those pictured below) so I feel like I have an added appreciation for great spritework, which this game has no shortage of. Sonic and the gang have all new sprites from the previous games, and the levels and backgrounds through which you traverse are exquisite. Sure, Sonic's gimmick may be to "go fast," but ironically you might just enjoy the game that much more if you slow down for a bit and take everything in.

 If you've ever made perler bead sprites, you probably have an added appreciation for detailed spritework. I certainly do when it comes to those of Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

There's tons of little details you just might overlook if you pass everything by in a blur. For instance, have you ever noticed that in water levels such as the Hydrocity Zone, you can see the surface of the water as you emerge from being underwater? Or how about late in the game in the Lava Reef Zone, when for just a small moment you can spot the Death Egg Ship in the background, embedded in the rocks. Later on you'll get much closer to it, but this little tidbit teases that encounter and truly makes you appreciate the fine details that the programmers added in. But my personal favorite little detail has to be in the room where you fight Knuckles in the hidden palace zone, where a large mural is displayed in the background that alludes to the secret Doomsday Zone finale, which you can only access if you've collected all 7 chaos emeralds in the bonus zones. I was always too busy battling it out with Knuckles to notice it as a kid, but one day when I was playing through for what had to have been the thousandth time in my life, I finally noticed it and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a truly brilliant moment and one that just made me love every bit of this game that much more.

 The Death Egg ship masterfully tucked away in the background of the Lava Reef Zone.

 See that mural in the background of the Hidden Palace Zone? It's a small easter egg that hints toward the secret finale of the game and the first time you really noticed it, you probably, as they say, shat bricks.

Of course, I'm neglecting Knuckles & Tails' campaigns here. Knuckles' story take place after Sonic's and has you exploring completely different level routes. Naturally, due to Knuckles' ability to climb walls and glide, the game mechanics completely change and you find yourself doing a whole lot more exploring and experimenting. Knuckles also has a different final boss fight against a supercharged mechanized version Sonic called Mecha Sonic (sometimes also referred to as Metal Sonic). Knuckles' campaign in general is a lot harder than Sonic's. The alternate routes are trickier to navigate and bosses also have slightly different attack patterns that make them more difficult to attack. For me though, I've personally always favored Sonic's adventure over Knuckles'. I appreciate that Knuckles offers a totally different way of playing the same game, but I think Knuckles' game ends a bit anti-climatically, especially compared to Sonic's explosive final battle. As for Tails, he can hover about for a bit which is fun, but for the most part his campaign is entirely identical to Sonic's, with the major exception being that the Doomsday Zone is omitted entirely.

In all, it's sort of difficult for me to put into words how much I love this game. I know it's not the best game ever created, and probably isn't even at the top tier level as far as games are concerned, but for me it will always be #1.

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.