BurgerTime - Nintendo Entertainment System

Here is my very first video review! BurgerTime on the NES. Enjoy!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9iln0sGIeM

Demons to Diamonds - Atari 2600

Out of the large library of games on the Atari 2600, most of my favorites are located in the paddle controller games. The intensity of head-to-head combat in Warlords, the luring simplicity of Super Breakout, or the strangely addicting Circus Atari, always had me coming back for more. However, there is one game that stands as my all time favorite single player paddle controller game, and that game is Demons to Diamonds.

Demons to Diamonds didn’t have a very large following as some games on the Atari 2600, but this doesn’t mean that the game doesn’t have much to offer. The object of the game is simple: you shoot demons, they turn into diamonds, you collect the diamonds. You control a ship at the bottom of the screen, similar to the one in Space Invaders. Many demons will spawn in the rows above your ship and your job is to maneuver and shoot them.

There are two types of demons in the game: red and blue. Your objective is to shoot only the red ones, which will subsequently turn into diamonds, which you will want to shoot for points. If you shoot a blue one, it will transform into an indestructible grey skull which will then shoot you with projectiles. This makes it much more difficult to strategically annihilate the red demons.

The game starts off pretty simple, but increases in difficulty very quickly, making the game rarely get boring. The further you progress, the faster the demons will reproduce and the harder it will get to shoot around the blue demons that manage to get in the path of your laser. This brings me to another small, but interesting aspect of the game: your weapon. Rather than shooting a typical projectile shot like in most shooting games (Galaga, Space Invaders or Galaxian), the laser you are armed with extends from your ship, making a continuous laser beam from your ship to your target. This makes it much harder to shoot the demons and diamonds that are located in the furthest row back. You will have to account for all the traveling blue demons in the lower tiers so that they don’t end up walking into the path of your laser.

My favorite aspect of the game though, has to be the two player option. In the two player option, the second player controls a ship on the top of the screen, shooting down. You may choose to either play cooperatively, shooting demons and collecting diamonds, or you may play competitively, shooting around blue demons and taking down your opponent. Playing cooperatively opens a whole new play experience, so if you have a friend that wouldn’t mind playing an overlooked Atari 2600 game from the early 80s, I really encourage you to give it a try.

I give this game a strong recommendation to anyone who owns a 2600, and if you don’t own one, then let this be my reason for you to add one to your collection. The game is pretty common, and can be found for relatively cheap. I got my copy at a pawn shop for two dollars. If this option isn’t available to you, then pick it up on Amazon for a dollar with a little extra for shipping. Either way, you should totally pick this one up...you’ll be thanking me when you do.

Go ahead and check out some gameplay. You deserve it:

FantaVision - Sony PlayStation 2

[Before I begin the review, I would just like to announce the launching of the new Rodey's Review Forum! It's a forum designed for discussing everything music/gaming. I'd love to hear your opinions on the games/albums I review, so go on over to the forum (the link is in the right side-bar), register as a user, and start giving your opinions!]

Well, it’s that time of the year again; the time of the year to go out and celebrate the independence of the United States of America. When it comes to the Fourth of July, there are a few things that snap into an American’s mind: family get-togethers, cookouts, grandma’s homemade potato salad, and of course, the fireworks. Yes, what better way to celebrate your country than to shoot large, brightly colored explosives into the air at the mercy of a large crowds ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’? In order to follow our country’s traditional path, I’ve decided to review a game solely based around the concept of detonating these awe-striking bursts of light.

FantaVision was a launch title on the Sony PlayStation 2, meant to show off the graphical capabilities of the system. Though the game was put together beautifully, the game wasn’t praised most for its stunning visual presentation, but more for its incredibly unique gameplay. However, before I get into the gameplay I want to discuss the game’s introduction.

This game has one of the strangest intro videos I have ever seen in a video game. It shows the title of the game next to a young girl dressed in a school-girl type outfit, sitting happily on a crate. Allow the intro to progress long enough and...well...you get this...

First off, I have no idea what is in that package, and why the girl is so happy about it, but I’m just going to assume that it is a copy of FantaVision. Secondly, could they have at least showed the kids how to hold/use the controllers? I mean, the girl has both her thumbs on the analog sticks and two of her fingers on the L and R buttons. You only use the left analog stick in the game and the L and R buttons aren’t used in the gameplay at all. Either way I have no idea what kind of message they were trying to portray in this introduction, but now that I got that off my chest, let’s get to the actual game.

FantaVision is a puzzle game that shares concepts with many puzzle games before it, but although the concepts are similar, the actual game play mechanisms are what make it a game of its own. The object of the game is quite simple: fireworks (or flares) will shoot onto the screen and you need to point your cursor at them in order to capture them. Once you capture three flares of the same color in a row, you may hit the circle button to detonate them. You will be rewarded points depending on how many flares you had and how you went about detonating them. If you take too long to capture and detonate a flare, it will disappear, resulting in a “missed flare.” Missed flares will decrease your play time bar, which will end the game if it is completely depleted. Inversely, successfully detonating flares will result in the play time meter filling up.

Now, what would a puzzle game be without giving the player the ability to gain more points through the use of chains? Chains of points can be achieved in many different ways in FantaVision. One key way of doing this is through the use of the wild flares. Wild flares are multicolored flares that can be used as any color flare you want it to be. By linking two pairs of two different colors with a wild flare, you essentially give yourself two interconnected rows of three. For example: if I was to capture two blue flares, but all that was left on the screen was a wild flare and two oranges, I could capture the wild flare and then proceed to capture the two orange flares and detonate my chain. This technique is called a “daisy-chain.”

The other way to achieve combos is to use your detonated flares to detonate other flares in its path. If you were to detonate a set of green flares, and another green flare were to pass through the explosion caused by this set, it would instantly detonate on contact, causing a “chain reaction.” If many of the same colors are surrounding each other, chain reactions provide a quicker, more strategic way of clearing the screen and racking up points.

On top of the many ways to chain your points, the game has many other interesting aspects. There are many different kinds of flares that each detonate a different way. Some detonate in circles where others detonate in a willow-like fashion. There are certain flares that even detonate and release other smaller flares to detonate again. There are also items that you can collect that can raise your play bar, and stars which, when enough are detonated, can bring you to the Starmine bonus round; where for a certain time limit, flares will come out faster and more abundant, allowing the player to gain big chains of points.

FantaVision also contains a two-player head-to-head mode, where two people compete to see who can achieve a certain amount of flare detonations before the other. Game play gets more competitive in this mode since two more items are introduced: one that will shrink the opponent’s playing field (subsequently enlarging the user’s) and an item which allows the user to swap fields with other player. This two player mode does a great job at adding incredibly competitive measures to an otherwise uncompetitive game.

All in all, FantaVision is one of those puzzle games that is really easy to learn, but incredibly difficult to master. The one player mode, although short (only eight levels) is long enough to allow you to build some decent skills, and once those skills are achieved, the two player mode can keep you going for a long time. Aside from that the game has many levels of difficulty and even a handicap you can set against yourself for even more of a challenge.

Since the game was a launch title, you can find it for incredibly cheap. I got my copy for two dollars at a local game store. If you are fan of puzzle games, and are looking for something a little different than your typical Tetris or Columns style gameplay, give FantaVision a try.

I hope you all have a great Fourth of July, and I’ll leave you with a fireworks show presented by FantaVision itself! Enjoy!

Zombies Ate My Neighbors - Sega Genesis

If you are looking for an obscure yet incredibly awesome game, have I got one for you. From its title to its never-ending array of unique environments, enemies and weapons, Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a game that even to this day is one of a kind. I’ve literally been playing this game all week and I can’t get over how much fun it is. Let me explain how it works.

You start the game by selecting a character. You can either play as Zeke (left controller) or Julie (right controller). The game plays like a top view run and gun. The object of each level is to save your neighbors from getting killed by hordes of stereotypical horror-movie monsters. There are ten neighbors scattered around each level for you to save, and in order to exit the stage you must save at least one. Seems simple right? Well, here’s the kicker. You continue the next level out to save the same amount of neighbors you saved in the previous stage. So if you were only able to save five of your neighbors in stage one, you will only be able to save a maximum of five neighbors in stage two. If two of your neighbors get killed in stage two and you saved the rest to complete the level, then you will start stage three only able to save a maximum of three. There are 48 levels in the game (not including the 6 bonus stages and the credits stage), so you can see that it is imperative to save as many neighbors as you can in each stage, otherwise its going to get really difficult down the road.

Now, 48 levels may seem a bit extensive considering the objective is the same in each area, but let me assure you it’s not. The creators at Konami put together such a large amount of differing environments and so many bizarre weapons at your disposal, it’s virtually impossible for you to get bored. You will be fighting off monsters in so many places: rural neighborhoods, shopping malls, ancient pyramids, medieval castles, vast deserts, business offices, toy factories and many more. Another awesome aspect of the game is the amount of monsters you’ll be seeing. The title is slightly misleading; you definitely won’t be saving your neighbors from only zombies. You’ll be fighting werewolves, vampires, huge blobs of goo, mushroom plant monsters, sand worms, three-story-tall babies, ants the size of cars, axe-wielding demon dolls, chainsaw murderers and almost every other horror flick monster you could dream of. How will you be killing these creatures you ask? Well let me tell you...

The weapon selection is simply amazing. In a way I like to think of it as a retro Dead Rising. You literally can use almost anything you find. You are initially armed with just a water pistol, but you can later freeze enemies with fire-extinguishers, mulch creatures with a hand mower and even blast creatures with a bazooka. And if that’s not crazy enough for you, you could pummel your enemies with dinner plates and kitchen utensils, blow up zombies with popsicles, pelt your foe with tomatoes, or even drink a special potion which transforms you into a monstrous killer with an explosive punch. You can also plant decoys to attract enemies and collect many other items that act as homing missiles against the hordes. Now it’s not just the existence of the weapons that is awesome, it’s the way you can use them. The game is very well supportive of the horror movies that it references. For instance, the vampires can be killed instantly with the use of the crucifix item. The werewolves also only need to take one hit from a piece of silverware for them to eat the dust. Speaking of cool weapon uses, the bazooka can change the environments a little bit, since it is able to blow through locked doors and walls...frickin’ sweet.

You’ll find that there is a port of this game on the SNES, but if you ask me, the Genesis port is far superior to its Nintendo counterpart. For one thing, Nintendo, being a family oriented gaming developer, demanded that the game have no violent content and no blood or gore. So, anywhere where there should be blood is replaced by green or purple slime. Sure it’s cute, but it’s just not authentic. The Nintendo version also has a button you need to press to bring up your radar, which can be a pain in the butt. The Genesis version keeps a transparent radar on the screen at all times. This makes for much easier neighbor searching since you won’t have to be constantly pulling up the map. Also, the amount of sprites on the screen is just better supported by the Genesis’s hardware capabilities.

So, is this one obscure enough for you? I guarantee almost anyone would be pleased with this game. Oh, and did I mention it’s two player compatible? A lot of teamwork aspects in this mode, but I’ll let you discover that on your own. This game is a little tougher to find and will probably run you anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five dollars. I got mine cartridge-only and it cost me 15 bucks. Is it worth it though? Hell yes. If you see this one anywhere, I would definitely pick it up. With over 48 levels to play through, you’ll be enjoying this one for a long time.

Next Review Coming Soon!

I'm having a few minor difficulties getting this post up, so check back tomorrow night for the review of...

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Zombies Ate My Neighbors on the Sega Genesis!

Contra - Nintendo Entertainment System

I’m not going to lie, when it comes to some of the “greatest” games on the NES, a lot of them are overrated. Tetris (unless it happens to be the Tengen version) fails to have a two player feature. Zelda II is an excellent game, but sometimes the hit detection can be ridiculous. Duck Hunt is a great arcade concept game, but the zapper isn’t exactly the easiest to work with sometimes. My point is, even the classics have their flaws. Although, there is one classic in particular that I can truly say contains no flaws in my mind; that game is Contra.

I guarantee that anyone who has owned an NES has at least heard of Contra. But for the off chance that there are some people out there who don’t know about this masterpiece, let me quickly explain. Contra is a classic side-scrolling run and gun with a twist. You play as a commando fighting through an endless wave of enemies until you reach the end of the game. A simple idea, but there are so many things that set Contra apart from any other run and gun game ever made.

The one hit kill:

One of the most talked about aspect of this game is its classic one-hit kill system. It doesn’t matter how an enemy hurts you; if you get hit, you’re dead. Three lives per level and three continues per game; once those are out, you’re done. Contra is widely thought of as being one of the hardest games ever made almost solely based on this idea. I’m willing to come out and argue that the game really doesn’t get too incredibly difficult until stage five, but nevertheless the game is not meant to be beaten in one sit in. You need to learn how to dodge enemy fire swiftly and easily. You need to plan ahead in later levels so you don’t find yourself getting hit while dodging another enemy. Near the end of the game you need to be on your toes at all times. This game really knows how to build its difficulty as you advance. Bosses get tougher, enemies become more frequent, and power-ups become harder and harder to achieve, which brings me to my next aspect of the game.

Excellent weapon scheme:

What would a run and gun be without a good array of power-ups to collect? Contra does an amazing job at letting the player decide what power-up they want to use. No one weapon is the best in this game. It all depends on how you want to play the game. The machine gun has the fastest bullet rate and is perfect for constant shooting and plowing through enemy lines. The flame thrower has a great amount of power behind it and hits a great amount of area directly in front of you. The spread gun can make shooting far off enemies a lot easier with its extended range, and the laser gun has by far the strongest attack power, however, you cannot rapid fire with it, making it hard to kill quick enemies with. No matter what weapon you decide to go with, you will always have advantages and disadvantages with you. This is a really hard aspect to integrate into run and gun games, but Contra pulled it off brilliantly.

Level design:

Contra definitely went above and beyond to keep the player interested in the gameplay. The game starts off in a typical side-scrolling perspective, but once you make it to the second level, you are faced with a change. The perspective changes to a three dimensional aspect in which you move your character towards the background as if running through a tunnel. This forces the player to bring out their depth perception skills adding a new element to the game. The third level goes back to side-scrolling, but instead of going from left to right, the player now must scale a water fall, going from bottom to top. The forth level returns to tunnel view and then the final four levels go back to classic left to right. The last four levels keep the player pulled in by putting them into excellent environments. You play through a winter icecap, an industrial plant, a mine cart warehouse of sorts, and finally an alien lair. Simply put, it’s breathtaking.

Two Player:

Finally, if you get sick of this game on one player mode (which it will take you a long time to do), you can always grab a friend and play it on two player mode. This is where the game really shines bright. In two player mode it is just as simple as it sounds. Both players play through the game just like they would on one player, but this time they are both on the screen at the same time. This means that you must strategize with each other to achieve the goal of beating each level. If one player goes too far and begins to leave the other behind, the screen won’t scroll and this leaves both players vulnerable to attack from the sides of the screen. This mode of the game calls for great communication to be executed well. Both players must be quick on their feet and destroy the enemy as efficiently as possible. You can take it from me, this game gets really intense on the two player mode.

Famicom Version:

One last thing I’d like to say about this game is that if any of you have a Famicom and are looking for great Japanese counterparts to American releases, Contra is a great one to look for. The graphics in the game are amazing and the bullets, movement and enemy attacks are really fluid. Also, the music is so much more intense, it’s almost unbelievable. I have no idea why they made the game so much better in Japan, but they did, and if you get a chance, find this game on the Famicom and give it a whirl.

There you have it, my take on a classic game on the NES. If for some strange reason, you have never played this game before, then what the hell are you doing?! Get off your ass and kill some alien scum!

Toy Story - Sega Genesis

Disney has brought us many great movies in the past; movies that not only are entertaining for the children, but are equally entertaining for the adults. They always had that way of incorporating both child appropriate and subtle adult humor to their films. This is one of the biggest reasons why the movies are as popular and loved as they are.

Disney is also responsible for releasing some of the best video games of the retro era. From great NES titles like Darkwing Duck, The Little Mermaid and DuckTales, to great 16-bit games like Bonkers and Goof Troop, Disney never ceased to impress the retro world. These games can also be looked at as being as popular as they were for almost the same reason as the movies can. They were perfectly developed for both the child and adult player. The games consisted of simple gaming ideas that a child could get into fairly easily, but as the games progressed, the games became increasingly difficult and required a greater bit of skill that could pull in the older audience.

As I said, there were obviously many great retro Disney games, but there is one game in particular that I feel stands on a pedestal of its own. Based on one of my favorite movies, Toy Story on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis is in my opinion, one of the most diverse and innovative games released in part by Disney. Toy Story can roughly be called a platformer, but in all reality, you can’t categorize this game at all. The game consists of seventeen stages (sixteen on the SNES), only five of which could be labeled as true platformer levels.

The other types of levels that the game presents the player are overhead driving levels, in which you need to collect battery packs to keep your RC car from running out of juice while driving through sharp turns and fast straight-aways. There are two constant motion avoidance levels, where you are constantly moving from left to right (either on Roller Bob or Rex) avoiding enemies coming from behind you, in the air, and on the ground. The final level in the game actually acts sort of like a 2-D side scrolling flyer, where you need fly Buzz and Woody to avoid on-coming traffic, stop lights and trees. Of course there are also the occasional boss battles that can be pretty tricky and definitely require a bit of skill and precision. There is also a 3-D first person level with Doom style graphics in which you need to rescue lost aliens inside the depths claw machine (this level is only accessible on the Sega Genesis port). This incredibly diverse dispersion of levels makes sure that the game will never get old as you play through it. You’ll never find yourself getting bogged down by the same old enemies in the same old environments. It really plays itself like seventeen smaller games inside of one larger compilation, which keeps the game really interesting.

Since the game changes styles so often, it makes it a really difficult game to master. Most popular games that Sega was releasing at the time consisted of the same gameplay from start to end. This allowed the player to become better at the game as they progressed through each level, learning from their mistakes and correcting themselves in future stages. But this game does not allow for that, because once a style of gameplay passes, it’s over and either won’t be coming back for a few levels, or won’t be coming back at all. This forces the player to instantly switch mindsets and play the game in a new light after each passing level. So to say that this game is in any way easy, would be ludicrous (I myself have yet to complete this game. I’ve only made it to the sixteenth stage on the Genesis port).

I think it is also worth mentioning that the game’s levels follow the movie’s plot very closely, and don’t seem to stray from the original storyline at all (The game even incorporates a nightmare style boss battle with Buzz that was actually a deleted scene from the original film). Any portions of the movie that may be skipped in the gameplay are present in the in-between-level text scenes that continue the story from the wherever you had last left off. This allows the player to relive the movie as if they were actually piloting the whole film.

If you have never played this one, I highly recommend you do so. You can pick it up at any retro game store or pawn shop for less than five bucks, guaranteed. To close this review up I can safely say that Toy Story on the Sega Genesis is one of my favorite games on the system and quite arguably one of the most ingenious Disney games ever made.

Mario Clash - Virtual Boy

When I was young and I began discovering arcade games like Donkey Kong and Q-Bert, it didn’t take me long to realize that I had entered a completely different style of gaming.  These were games that were deceptively simple; games that had extremely simple concepts, but required a lot of skill and patience to master.  Of all the arcade games that were released onto the Nintendo Entertainment system, I always feel like there is one game in particular that is commonly forgotten, and that game is Mario Bros.

Unlike other arcade games at the time, Mario Bros. allowed the player to build strategies and offensive/defensive maneuvers rather than recognize patterns in level progression and layout.  It also allowed for much more replay value because of this.  The game is incredibly well put together and allows for great diversity in gameplay, yet it is only in two dimensions.  By adding a third dimension to the mix, the gameplay could reach a whole new level.  With that said, this brings us to this week’s game to review, Mario Clash.

Mario Clash is simply a revamped version of Mario Bros. with an added dimension to the play field.  You play as Mario, and you need to scale the 99 levels of the Clash House Tower and clear it of the baddies that have taken over.  Just like in the original Mario Bros. in order to destroy your enemies, you need to hit them with shells.  Since there are now three dimensions on the playing field, the variety of ways to destroy the enemies has evolved.  Some enemies now need to be attacked from the side by throwing a shell at them from the foreground to the background or vice versa.

The game also extends its variety of gameplay by adding a whole load of new enemies.  Alongside Spikes are now Thornys, Big Boos and even Pokeys.  Each enemy has a different way it needs to be destroyed, whether it’s by attacking it from the side, head on, or a combination of the two.

Mario Clash really does a good job mixing the three dimensional capabilities of the Virtual Boy into the gameplay.  You need a certain amount of depth perception to aim towards the front or the back of the playing field.  This makes the game slightly more difficult to master.  The game is just as deceptively simple as its NES counterpart, even to avid Mario Bros. players because of these added third dimension skill factors.

Depth perception is also a key factor in the coin collecting bonus stages.  Coins will come hovering towards the foreground where you control Mario.  You need to collect the coins that come towards the screen, but this isn’t as easy as it sounds.  The coins are placed at varying heights when hovering towards you, which makes it increasingly difficult to perceive where the coins are located.

On top of the excellent gameplay Mario Clash presents, the game’s graphics are done very well.  You won’t be fighting to make out enemy faces or graphics in this game.  Also, when you lose all your lives, a giant three dimensional Mario head presents you with you final score.  This Mario head is a perfect example of the three dimensional capabilities of the system.

In conclusion, Mario Clash is a great continuation of the Mario Bros. arcade game and I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed that classic NES experience.  The game unfortunately lacks a two player mode, but since the Virtual Boy wasn’t around long enough for a link cable to be manufactured, a two player mode wouldn’t have been feasible anyway.  The other problem with the game is that it was only released on Virtual Boy and can’t be found on any other console, this makes it really hard to track down [This game definitely deserves a Virtual Console release].  However if you have a Virtual Boy and don’t own this game, I highly recommend picking it up.  Chances are you won’t be disappointed.