A Couple of Conquerings

Race Driver: Grid

Last week I finished Race Driver: Grid (alternately known as just GRID). After the drying-up of new racing games from Japanese developer Genki, I decided I needed to try a new route (heh) to get my racing fix. I did some investigating, reading reviews and playing demos before finally settling on GRID, Codemasters mixed-discipline racer.

Codemasters has a lot of racing games under their belt, including the extensive TOCA Race Driver series of which GRID is supposed to be the most recent chapter. I've looked in on TOCA at different times actually buying one for the PS2 at one point, but it just didn't catch my fancy. It emphasized sports and touring cars which are my favorite forms of formal real-life racing, but the narrative in the game just didn't click with me. I really like racing games making things personal. It is one of the reasons I think Genki's driving games have it all over stuff like Gran Turismo or Forza. But TOCA puts you in the shoes of a specific character with specific motivations and that, perversely compared to other types of games, actually served to de-immerse me. But my understanding before buying GRID (and demonstrated in a demo) was that it personalised your experience (gave a loose narrative or leveling up experience) without slapping it into a drama.

Obviously the particulars of this game must've clicked for me because I've just played it through. It was actually one of the most immersive video games I've ever played racing or otherwise. Codemasters absolutely hit on the formula for making it about YOU with a fun ladder to climb through the ranks, but without forcing in some melodramatic story points. The drama is on the track where it really counts, but pretty exciting during down time too, when you are managing your sponsors, or seeing that you've been challenged by the everpresent villains of the piece, Ravenwest Motorsports. A big part of this is the mechanism whereby the in-game speech addresses you by your real name... a feature officially labeled 'creepy' by my kids, but that really made everything in the game much more personal and affecting.

And then there is the driving itself. There aren't tons of cars. There aren't a lot of tracks. But each car is so lovingly detailed. Each track is so realistically presented. The sounds and bumps when you are jostling in the pack, particularly if you have an over the hood or in-car camera view (look at that shit, the pic I posted at the top of this entry). And the radio communication from your crew chief and your on-track teammate, though repetitive and sometimes inaccurate, is pretty well done. It is unbelievable how intense the driving got at times. Codemasters also made a couple of decisions about the opponent AI that I have to applaud. It had some drawbacks which I'll detail below, but this is one of the few times outside of Genki racers where I felt almost like there were people in those other cars, complete with mistakes made and tempers lost. Most racing games the opponent drivers just hew to the racing line as if there was no one else on the track. They will robotically race the same way every time. In GRID, opposing drivers sometimes push hard to get ahead of you and then neglect to check up enough in the next corner and skid wide, sometimes crashing outright. If you're in the back of a twelve car pack it might seem you'll never get past everyone, but the opponent drivers fuck each other over so frequently, that you'll almost always have a shot. Compare to typical driving games where cars form packs and because they don't spin out, AND because damage isn't taken into account really, the way you usually have to get through the pack is by unrealistically crashing and grinding your way through them.

Not only do you not need to do that so much in GRID, but given that this game DOES model damage, you really can't. Or at least you really have to be judicious about it. I also give props to Codemasters for not (seeming) to rely on rubberband AI. This is the annoying tendency built into racing games for computer opponents to suddenly exhibit supernatural abilities when they fall behind. You can see it in some other types of games too, most notably fighters where a computer-controlled opponent plays twice as fast and pulls out inhuman combos when you've beaten them in the first round of the possible three. In GRID when you get ahead you can stay ahead by the same interval if you keep driving consistently.

All that being said, the game has some annoyances, and they are tied to some of the same things that make the game great. GRID has the appearance of a simulation-style racer as opposed to a so-called arcade racer, but it IS actually skewed to the quicker arcade-style model. There is no tuning. So when you pick a car, if you don't like how it handles, tough shit. You can't change it. All you can do is get by until further in the game and more cars are unlocked.

This rarely presented a problem for me, but there were a few categories of races that made me wish for tuning. On the one hand, it's nice that the cars do all handle with noticeable differences. On the other, a driver wants to emphasise one thing or another in a car, making changes for certain tracks or variables like weather conditions. With GRID if the car you are driving is too slippery to be really effective on a twisty track... you gotta suck it up. In most sim-style games you could use the suspension settings to dial this out of the car. The compensation in GRID is that each individual race can have its difficulty turned up or down. So while I felt a bit guilty about it, after struggling with open wheel cars and club car races (Tuscan TVRs drive like little lead ingots on skis), later in the game I notched the difficulty down one pip. I just don't have the time or wherewithal to learn the nuances on the classes of cars that handle so radcially different to all the others. Turning down the difficulty turns down the speed and aggressiveness of the opponent drivers so that if you don't drive quite so accurately you don't suffer as much for it.

The flip-side of the driver AI: GRID models and reflects damage. It isn't comprehensive enough to drive the game into full-on realistic simulation territory, but it is significant. Through all the years I've played driving games damage modeling has just not been a real factor. Most games just haven't done it. It requires intense processing power, particularly if you want multiple makes and models of automobiles in one race, AND you need the car manufacturers to agree to it if the game is based on street cars. Most car makers are not all that keen for a game to show their car flipping around with the doors and tires flying off. TOCA games did show some damage but it didn't affect performance much. In this generation of video game consoles we now have the power to model damage extensively and realistically... even to the point of wreck debris littering the track laps after the original accident. I've always thought prior to this that I wanted damage modeling. It would just add that much more realism and drama. Playing this game shows me it isn't an all-good addition.

Codemasters knew bashing around trying to race without getting your vehicle disabled was going to be tough, particularly on scads of gamers weaned on Gran Turismo, where you can literally ride on an opponents doors all the way around a tough corner. So even though AI drivers can screw up in GRID, the developer still included a now-famous time-rewind function that lets you to roll back up to ten seconds of driving to allow yourself to re-drive to avoid a bad slip or game-ending accident. The lower you set the aforementioned difficulty setting the more of these rewinds a player gets. As I've said in previous posts there's no way a racing game can simulate a lot of the tactile aspects that really help a driver in real life and this game also shows the limitations on duplicating the visual aspects. Because gamers don't have four screens set 360 degrees around their seat, you've got a button for looking back, and the right stick lets you turn your virtual head to look out the side windows. But compared to the glancing, quick-snap method one uses in real-life to acquire and process all the information; mirrors, rear window, side windows, guages, road feel, etc... the different views in-game are highly disorienting and I found myself basically NOT using them. Since the AI players presumably DO have all of the computer's awareness of what is going on around them, essentially they get the benefits of 'using' all the views correctly, the rewind function is a really cool way to offset this advantage.

So with a rewind function, AI drivers that screw up, adjustable difficulty per race, and pretty good fixed tuning on all cars I gotta say GRID ironed out pretty much every potential frustration while still presenting a fun, challenging game. The only real unaddressed gripe I have with the game (and one a GRID sequel could easily fix) is that the computer opponents seemed 'dim' in how they treated some car types, particularly the prototype cars. In muscle car or touring car categories there is, in real life, a certain amount of jostling and bashing for position, particularly in the first turn of any given race. The cars are built similar to street cars, have sheet metal skins, and don't go uproariously fast. But prototype cars are purpose built race cars usually with a lot of carbon fiber and aluminum. They are fast and tremendously expensive. Yet in GRID, the AI drivers were bashing me around the same as in touring car races. Needless to say the results of a mild shunt at 190 miles per hour in a lightweight prototype are hugely different to one at 60 miles per hour in a fat Dodge Challenger. In the open wheel races the opponents seemed aware that you can't just smash the huge fenderless tires into each other, but in prototypes this sort of care was sorely lacking. And minor though it is, it grated because I really REALLY like real-life prototype racing a la the various Le Mans series LMP categories.

I would highly HIGHLY recommend this game to racing enthusiasts. It does so many things right, I find racing even after completing the campaign to be almost as fun as when I started. My son feels the damage makes the game too difficult... yet he is compelled to try because it just FEELS like the closest thing to being in a race yet. Great stuff. A word of warning though: I'm not really much of an online competitive player so I can't comment on how the online versus racing is... but I've read that it is pretty rough. All versus gaming online suffers from so-called 'griefers' the people who deliberately try to wreck other players' experience. GRID with its damage and its ability to easily wreck out of a race seems a prime target for this sort of abuse. There is a code that allows one to turn damage off, but I don't know how prevalent the use of it is. I didn't get access to the code until I finished career mode, so GRID doesn't give you THAT easy out during the single player campaign.

Illbleed

In a completely opposite direction we have Illbleed for the Sega Dreamcast which I finished nearly the same time as GRID.

Illbleed is one of those titles that on paper doesn't read like it would be a very good game, particularly to modern gamer sensibilities, but the weirdness was so compelling that it just forced me on and on to get through it. 'Kusoge', literally 'shit game' in Japanese is a term used to describe a game that is low-quality or has serious deficiencies and yet is considered fondly or seriously by some segment of the gaming community. That might be for character/licensing reasons, uber-difficulty, nostalgia, or a bizarre sense of humor. Illbleed isn't literally a kusoge in MY book, but it is just the sort of game that could be to some gamers and mostly for its strange, borderline disturbing, plot and visuals coupled with weird mechanics. It is certainly NOT unplayable or beyond-belief difficult.

In simplest terms it is a third-person survival horror action game. Unlike early Resident Evil episodes, the camera is only fixed during combat. Most of the time it follows around behind your avatar. This means that the game can't really use a forced viewpoint or unseen areas to provide shock scares. You can move your view to wherever you wish, so nothing is going to jump out at you like RE's famous window-breaking dogs. But Illbleed does manage creeping menace pretty well, at least at first. After a while, when you've got a good handle on healing item stock and how mortal your character actually is, much of the suspense and anxiety goes away, but the narrative gets wacky and unpredictable to make up for it.

The story is that you are navigating your way through the various areas in a deadly horror-themed amusement park. There is a cash reward (in game terms, duh) for doing so, but the money is secondary to rescuing your friends who went in ahead of you. Originally, your character Eriko had zero interest in going to the park because your Dad used to run a haunted house attraction himself and you've been there and done that. This of course, makes you the ideal person to go rescue your friends when this amusement park appears to have gone all lethal. Eriko is basically skeptical and has nerves of steel.

The game that follows on is, by turns, funny, creepy, and puzzling. Like a dream or a bad drug trip filtered through Rob Zombie's garish take on B-movies. The tale in each area is a take on a horror or fantasy movie plot cliche, but each level plays out in a unique and hallucinatory way. By the time I was done with the game I'd seen faces pushing out of blood puddles, pieces of pork and chicken chasing me around on a giant grill, a tree that eats people, and a parody of Woody from Toy Story battling a huge demonic version of Sonic the Hedgehog. The pic above is a spider boss with a head for its abdomen. All of this is interspersed with overly-copious amounts of bloodletting and an awesome soundtrack.

If you're like me all that stuff would only drive you on to seek out and play the game. Hell, that's exactly what it did in my case. But there are complications. I bought this game during the actual shelf life of the Dreamcast. I started playing it soon after, but the play mechanics were off-putting. Illbleed isn't actually about running, jumping, and shooting the ghoulies. It requires a methodical, exploratory approach. Eriko has all kinds of vital signs that need to be monitored. The game tracks her heartbeat, blood loss, health, etc. And keeping all of this stuff within safe levels is quite an exercise. The game also gives you a pair of night-vision goggles called a 'horror monitor'. You use this device to set off traps and scares ahead of time so that Eriko won't be shocked or injured when she actually gets to the triggering point.

When I originally started playing the game, this all seemed a huge load on the player and not really what I was after in a horror-themed game. But recently when I felt like playing something 'different' I gave it another go. The Dreamcast is capable of some pretty astounding visuals (think Ikaruga), but a lot of the console's titles have sort of glossy early PS2 graphics... which is appropriate considering the DC just precedes the PS2 chronologically. Illbleed is hardly cutting edge visually. In fact, it's pretty ghetto. But most of the time, that only adds to the games charm. Same thing with the mostly crap voice acting. Climax/Crazy Games is obviously not a big budget game maker, but in Illbleed's case a lot of the cheesiness seems very much deliberate. Only Eriko really looks and sounds 'normal' with a polished character model and mostly okay vocals, an anchor amongst all the confusion and strangeness. I think the choices made in the game just reflect a very Japanese take on the appeal of low-grade horror films... and LSD trips.

Once the player wraps their head around the not-at-all-obvious way exploring is done with the horror monitor, and the way one has to monitor Eriko's life signs like a crack trauma team, there are still some really odd choices the designers made in other ways. Sometimes these choices just fit right in, like playing jump rope with a murderous doll. Other times the mechanics seem needlessly old-fashioned and can be pretty frustrating. Mostly this comes from combat. The controls are a variant on the old Resident Evil scheme and they come with similar movement and collision detection problems. They are functional and the game usually gives you a way to get out of combat encounters (a rescue helicopter!!!!), but this game isn't so old that a more workable fighting system couldn't have been implemented. There are a number of places where it seems Eriko just can't connect with an attacking enemy, but of course they have no problem ripping the shit out of her.

The save points are also really infrequent. This doesn't normally bother me because I kinda feel today's gamers with insta-save all over the place are being enabled right past a video game's challenges. But in Illbleed, even accustomed to Eriko's precarious life functions in the first few levels (you get the hang of managing them), the deliberate pace of the game meant huge stretches of time between save points when I really needed to quit out and get onto the business of the rest of my life. A few times I had to leave the DC on to do something else, which sucks because the game penalises you monetarily, the longer you take getting through a level... and the clock ticks even if the game is paused.

Anyway. Through all the quirkiness, this time I persevered and was rewarded with a game experience I won't soon forget. There are multiple secrets I missed, and I didn't get the best ending, but I felt pretty triumphant just getting through such a bizarre, often confusing video game. I had to consult an online walkthrough twice to figure out what the game actually wanted from me. Now that I understand so much more about how the vital signs and horror monitor work... not to mention being much more practised at fighting... I could see myself having at this again to do better. I wouldn't say the learning curve is super steep, it is just that the game, and what it expects from the player, are so different to everything else out there. And the manual is pretty much no help at all.

Illbleed is like a lot of the movies I watch when it comes to defining its target owner. Not something I can just recommend to anyone, but with the right audience the positives would outweigh the frustrations. If you have fair patience and really liked Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, then this is probably the game for you.

Fly The Friendly Skies of Unit--, uh, Sega

Two games played recently:

Panzer Dragoon Orta for the Xbox. This game frickin’ rocks. I loved all three PD games on the Saturn. Sega’s Team Andromeda had created this amazing alien world, enthralling yet almost totally unlike ours. As a lot of players probably know the first two games are rail shooters and the third installment is an RPG. These games were done so well that they corralled a lot of players that were not fans of those genres into playing and enjoying them.

Flash forward to 2002. The PD series has a new game released for the Xbox, Panzer Dragoon Orta. If there were one game on that system that could’ve enticed me to buy it, this was the game. Alas, I was too busy spending money on games for my PS2, and buying stuff for my consoles even older. When I eventually bought an Xbox 360, Orta was one of the first things I investigated being able to play.

There were complications, not least of which was my having to buy a vastly more expensive Japanese copy to run on my JPN Xbox 360. But it was well worth it.

I’ve gone through the game completely once. Averaged a B grade across the ten levels. The difficulty is, if my memory is correct, similar to the earlier PD games, but clearing the game is a lot easier owing to it saving your progress. There are a lot of (skippable) cutscenes, but I find the PD world so interesting that I let them roll. The additional mechanics include a boost/brake element that took some getting used to. It feels clumsy at first, but the game never requires really split second timing with it until near the end. This chapter also gives you three dragon types that you can switch between on the fly, all upgradeable as per your dragon in PD Saga (Azel).

The graphics and music are phenomenal. Even considering the Xbox isn’t a current-gen console, these design elements are still very impressive. Definitely a ‘wow’ game.

If you liked the old PD games, getting this is a no-brainer. It is like the Saturn games but slicker looking and with a couple of easily-handled complications. Interestingly, the original Panzer Dragoon opens up on completion of the game, but it doesn’t play nearly as well as the one on an actual Sega Saturn disc.


Skies of Arcadia for the Sega Dreamcast. I don’t play RPGs all that much, but this is one I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time… I got it when it was a current retail title.

Skies is an old-fashioned game. Its turn-based combat, simple color magic system, and linear plot would all be considered quaint now. At the time it was thought pretty amazing for its graphics and the ship combat system. Having delayed all this time actually getting around to playing it, that quaintness is actually kind of a draw. Besides the obvious retro aspect, the game is just very positive. Vyse and crew are very well designed and charming. Despite the blocky visuals, the characters are more expressive than most any ‘more realistic’ game you’d buy new today. The music is good too, but not spectacular considering all the epic scores spanning all the RPGs one hears now.

Despite the occasional grim dialogue from the villains, the can-do attitude of the villains and the bright, decidedly non-gritty environments just makes a great change of pace from the constant angst permeating video games. I like me some angst too, but this game reminds me when the fun was the thing, not the drama.

Skies isn’t without drawbacks. Famous for the frequency of its random encounters, this is a real pain in a game that emphasizes exploration. It is fun to sail about the world trying to find cool locations and landmarks, but you won’t even have time to get into an exploratory segment before you’re dropped into yet another fight. Happens in the ships and happens on foot in the dungeons. While this hasn’t killed the game for me, as it has some players, it definitely has had me sighing resignedly more than once. I understand there is an item that’ll reduce random encounters while ship-board, but I don’t have that wonderful piece of kit yet.


I’m also not loving the ship combat. This is one of the big draws for the game in reviews, and while it is innovative, and on the surface interesting, the battles are too drawn out considering the so-so level of excitement, for me at any rate. It also doesn’t help that I suck at the ship battles. I don’t out-and-out lose most of ‘em, but I usually take way longer and incur a lot more damage than I probably should. I just can’t really get the hang of the process. Probably for the same reason I can’t ‘get’ stupid Bejeweled 2.


I can see the appeal of the ship battles. The game does enough things well to keep these or the random battles from making me give up. That barely sounds like an endorsement, but the good things are REALLY good things. I look at my stack of games to get to playing and while they will probably have lots of moments to enjoy, not many look to actually convey a positive, uplifting outlook. Enh, some of this has to do with the class of game I run with. If I was more into Pokemon or Kirby, I wouldn’t think this was so unusual. See the Super Mario Galaxy games for a similar upbeat outlook, but SMG games aren’t RPGs with swords and killing!

Anyway, for an old-fashioned RPG experience WITH swords and killing, Skies of Arcadia is a fun time. This looks to run about 50 hours and I think I’m a little less than one-third into it.

(image kyped from HG101)

Past Blast Continued

More video games from the past I’ve dug up from storage:

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the Sega Saturn. 2d platformer. Everything they say about this game is true. I’m not a huge fan of the Castlevania series (blasphemy!), though I can understand the greatness. THIS is the Castlevania game to own if you had to buy just one. So… uh, that’s why I own it. Just the one. I will probably fork some dough over for Rondo of Blood at some point, so I can play through this game’s nearly-as-good prequel. Still pics might make it look like ‘just a platform game’ but that doesn’t begin to describe all the cool items, amazing music, dark atmosphere, and intimidating boss battles. It’s the usual ‘versus Dracula and his minions’ plot, but its pulled off about as well as it ever has been and maybe ever will be.

Panzer Dragoon

Panzer Dragoon for the Sega Saturn. 3d rail shooter. Graphics for this game haven’t aged all that well. You can see how ambitious the images were for their time, and the design of the world is cool, but as is usual polygons haven’t held up as well over the years as sprites seem to. Sprites can manage ‘charm’… polys usually just turn ugly. Nonetheless, if you can get past the scruffy graphics the gameplay, sounds and music are pretty badass. Nowadays Oorta is the standard bearer for Panzer Dragoon games… and rightfully so. But this is where it all started, and its still pretty cool.

Mars Matrix

Mars Matrix for the Sega Dreamcast. 2d vertical shooter. Your go-to game if you want an STG that is so difficult you will want to throw yourself off a building. Perhaps only exceeded by Gigawing 2, Dodonpachi Daioujou, and Mushihimesama Futari. Graphics are pre-rendered sprites that simulate 3d objects but are kind of crude-looking, thought they move and animate smoothly. The more you play the more ships, credits, and power you can earn, but if you are a nutter for getting the 1CC you better be prepared to put an inordinate amount of time in on this. A manic shooter with unholy amounts of enemy fire, the gameplay system centers around a shield used to deflect whatever bullets you cannot (or don’t wish to for scoring purposes) dodge. With proper memorization, there is a rhythm to using the shield, and getting the enemies to drop the most ‘gold’ to max out your firepower and bonuses. This game is very fun, but the tenacity to keep playing enough to learn this rhythm… ehn, I probably don’t have that in me. This is one I will just have to admire superplayers on and never try to get the 1CC. I find Cave shooters (generally speaking) to be more involving, so my manic shooter mastery practice will mostly go there.

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master. 2d platformer on the Genesis/Mega Drive. Wow, is this a good game. I’d kind of forgot how good the Shinobi games could get. Much of the gameplay, the controls, Joe Mushashi’s abilities, etc. have all been done a million times, but they all just come together really well here. Joe controls so well and so intuitively that you will be negotiating even the most complex screens with ease. The only tricky part, and I was brutally reminded of this at the first boss during a recent go, is that to use the double jump you have to time the second press of the jump button right at the apex… and this can be hella-tough when you are being pressured. However, if someone wants straight up ninja action without all the sneaky complexity of Tenchu or the frustrating difficulty of (old) Ninja Gaiden, this is your game.


Chu Chu Rocket for the Sega Dreamcast. 2d action puzzle game. You must lead your mice onto an escape ship while avoiding the cats. This incredibly addictive game has two major modes. One is a frantic move-or-lose action game similar in intensity and speed to the Bomberman games. The other is more akin to the Adventures of Lolo on the NES where you have a pre-set board with cats and other obstacles already placed. You must use the tools given, then activate the board to see if the mice escape safely. Graphically very simple, but distinctive. This game is a really good example of Sega’s vision for a cute and family-friendly party game, as distinct from the many examples we have from Nintendo. Sega really did have some great innovative games, even if that seems to have fallen away from the company in recent years. Segagaga, Space Channel Five, Virtual On… they weren’t just Sonic and Shinobi. Chu Chu Rocket really worked well online too, years before all the online console stuff we get from the Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade.

Alien Front Online

Alien Front Online for the Sega Dreamcast, 3d third person polygonal shooter. A vehicle based shooter really from a third person perspective behind your tank or walker. An arcade game ported to the DC, this thing was a real showpiece for the Dreamcast’s graphics and it is still pretty impressive today. The objects themselves aren’t incredibly detailed, but the action is so fast, and so BIG. Tons of vehicles driving around, shit blowing up everywhere, and all kinds of cool weapons both human and alien. They even have an honest-to-goodness usable nuke in the game, and I can’t say there are many more satisfying video game moments than when you get to pop one of these off effectively. The gameplay, as is typical with arcade games, is kinda shallow, at least for home video game expectations. But the arenas are varied and interesting, and you can choose to play either as the invading aliens or the defending humans. This game also had online play. For the most part it worked pretty well, especially considering the pioneering role the Dreamcast had in actually forging this concept for consoles. Remember, the standard at this time was dialup. DIAL-UP. And I still remember decent lag-free games. The game also came with a microphone that allowed you a short segment of voice input every time you activated it. There was one evening of play I will never forget. Everyone on my team was saying the usual stuff, ‘go here’, ‘get that guy’, ‘don’t shoot at me’, etc. But one guy used his voice interval to just babble or shout incoherent stuff into the microphone. He was so weird, and he made some really hilarious noises, but he knew it was funny, and he’d keep doing it. That made most of the voices that followed him nothing but laughter. I could barely see what I was doing half the time from laughing so much. I hope that guy is still out there having a good time.

Guardian Heroes

Guardian Heroes for the Sega Saturn. 2d beat ‘em up. You don’t have to play this game to see how incredibly over-the-top it is. Just dig up a YouTube video and gape in awe at the madness. It is this kind of game that has fomented Treasure’s reputation for good play mechanics buried under impossible visuals. At base level, this game is akin to Double Dragon, Final Fight, or even Golden Axe. You walk along sidescrolling screens (generally headed right) beating up enemies as they appear. Most beat ‘em ups let you work in a few throws or combos to break up the monotony of just hitting the punch button. This genre has all but disappeared nowadays, but in its heyday it was huge. Mostly owing to their popularity in arcades. They are a great cooperative play experience, rather like playing a fighting game where you are partners with someone as opposed to being their enemy. In Guardian Heroes, the setting is a medieval fantasy (with some technology) world. The game has command-motion inputs like many fighting games, and multiplane movement like Fatal Fury, but these things weren’t unheard of in beat ‘em ups. Not being an actual arcade game with their hustle-the-quarters-quickly time constraints, Treasure also added in extensive dialogue scenes, choosable branching story paths, and RPG-like leveling up and character management. Now the game starts to look pretty ambitious next to a typical beat ‘em up, but where Guardian Heroes really sets itself apart is in the execution. The sprites for the characters and enemies are simply-colored anime drawings. But this simplicity allows for dozens of them to be onscreen at once, and for some really huge shapes to move quickly about the screen wreaking havoc. It is common in the game for you (and your buddies) to frequently be attacked by six or ten henchmen, one ‘captain’ with special abilities, and some giant robot with a screen-filling laser ALL AT THE SAME TIME. The chaos is unbelievable. With all of this, of course some visibility, and therefore control, is going to be sacrificed. You can’t always see where your character is and what they are doing underneath all the layers of explosions, bodies, and mayhem. But that’s part of learning the game. You have to learn to deal with it. And positioning yourself so that you can do what you need to is half the game. Simply awesome.


Elemental Master for the Genesis/Mega Drive. 2d vertical STG. A really unique vertical shooter from Technosoft, the folks behind the Thunder Force games. Although your ship is actually a little sorcerer dude walking through the backgrounds, the scrolling is still forced and constant. So the game looks something like Gain Ground in still pictures but is really more akin to the plane/spaceship/flying person sort of shmup. You have a button that fires forward and back, along with a weapon change button akin to Thunder Force. Unlike most of that series’ chapters you don’t lose whatever weapon you have equipped when you get hit. In fact, you have a lifebar as opposed to three lives. This game just rocks. It is perhaps a bit too easy, but it has cool weapons, decent visuals for the 16-bit era, and an awesome soundtrack. In fact, the soundtrack is part of what elevates this game, for me, into the favorites tier. There are good tunes all the way ‘round, but when you first get to the bosses that transform from human to monstrous, the music and sound effects will raise the hair on your neck.


Cyberbots for the Sega Saturn. 2d fighting game. A flashy, if somewhat simple mech fighter from Capcom. Gameplay is a variant of Capcom’s standard six-button system, like Street Fighter or Darkstalkers. The robots are varied, and the artwork is decent… again pretty reminiscent of Capcom’s other fighting games. Although more serious than Darkstalkers, the robots can pull off the same sort of ‘impossible’ special moves, blasting or slicing with weapons their mechanical bodies couldn’t possibly contain. But it is all done very well, with lots of trash talking between the rounds. Looking at this, I’m guessing it was kind of the blueprint for higher profile mech fighters that came along like the Gundam Battle Assault series. The way damage, weapons, and movement are represented all look very similar. The hero/Ryu character in the game made his way to being an unlockable in the later polygonal fighter Techromancer (Kikaioh). A decent game, but it probably doesn’t compel anyone but Capcom fighting game completists or fans of mech-on-mech violence.

Zero Wing

Zero Wing for the Genesis/Mega Drive. 2d horizontal STG. This game is kind of odd compared to most shooters, but pretty typical of games from the developer, Toaplan. Famous for the bad Engrish that gave us, ‘All your base are belong to us’, this game plays in a slow-paced (R-type speed as opposed to Thunder Force speed) fashion with a conventional power up system. But like most Toaplan games it is solidly designed with a gradually ramping difficulty level, widely varying levels and enemies, and an weird, rough art style that makes for some strange and memorable bosses. The music is actually really good too. I kind of got hooked on this in an arcade, in some town I was visiting. I never got to play it to completion. So when I saw there was a Genesis version I jumped on it. The port is pretty good. It isn’t as detailed as the arcade version and it doesn’t have as many layers of background scrolling, but all the enemies and timing seem right (compared to what I remember), and the soundtrack is actually better… same tunes but less tinny arrangement and ‘instruments’. This game won’t win any awards for originality (apart from the ‘Weird Boss Award’) but it is a good example of an almost relaxing STG experience. Not easy per se… but not stressful either, even in the difficult sections of the later levels.

(as usual images stolen from HG101 and a few other sources)

Past Blast Froth Fest pt1

Some oldie-games cracked open for the first time in years. For a lot of these modern, spoon-fed, shovel-ware gamers need not bother. They can be harder than an angry black cock.

In The Hunt

In The Hunt- Sega Saturn. Graphically incredible 2D (sprite graphics) submarine shooter from Irem. Development team formed Nazca and made Metal Slug for the Neo Geo. So if you are familiar with that game you should have some idea what this looks like. In fact, Metal Slug in a submarine is probably an apt description. Mostly a shooter, it has the player controlling the scrolling like the run 'n' gun that Metal Slug is. The pacing may be off-putting for gamers expecting the forced scrolling of a typical horizontal STG, but I think the game's other details more than make up for it. Unbelievable animation and detail. Gobs of destructible scenery which is atypical for any 2D game, let alone a shooter. A game that shows all the Saturn's strengths. Only five levels long with the last two-thirds of the fifth level (the fucking volcanoes and beyond) really putting the stones to you. There's probably some trick to getting past all the lava chunks without losing a bunch of subs, but I haven't figured it out yet.


Assault Suit Leynos 2- Sega Saturn. Sprite-based sequel to Target Earth on the Genesis and Assault Suits Valken (Cybernator) on the SNES. A run'n'gun with platforming elements like those games. Unlike the other two games, the production values surrounding the game look shite. The FMV intro and the manual art look totally second rate. Check out the man-breasts on the protagonist! The game even feels truncated with only seven pretty short levels, which for a shooter would be typical, but for a run'n'gun is pretty weak. If you're going to have so few, they need to be longer to make it your money's worth, ie the aforementioned Metal Slug, which has levels that might be too long. Leynos 2, the game itself mostly makes up for all these shortcomings. You pilot a mech-suit with abilities lifted straight from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam (plots and scenarios largely lifted too, in all the games in the series). The graphics are pretty decent (sprites) with occasional huge bosses (like Gundam mobile armors), and a really neat weapon and suit customisation menu. It is an import only game, so plot details and conversations will be lost on the non-Japanese speaker, but the controls, though complex, are not difficult to figure out since the menus are in English. I could recommend this to Gundam fans or people who enjoyed the other Assault Suits games. It is easier than the earlier games because I think the idea is to play through it multiple times, getting better grades each time because you've earned better weapons and suits. There may be some additional level or ending when you earn everything, but I'm not that good at it yet. Internet info on this thing is bloody scarce, especially since it is a robot action game and not an effing dating sim.


Ultraman Fighting Evolution Rebirth- PS2. 2D fighting game with polygonal graphics. Bought this one mostly for my son, based mostly on Youtube videos since, again, internet info (in English at least) is really lacking on gameplay details. Fortunately this turned out to not only be better than a license like this has any right to be, I found it to be fun enough myself to see it all the way through to the end. Which was good because my son is totally intimidated by fighting games, primarily because he doesn't feel up to the task of managing command inputs like the so-called dragon punch from Street Fighter, and with my going through the game first, I was able to coach him through finishing the game himself. There are no command inputs for this game, but it was still a hurdle to overcome his reluctance, despite the subject matter which he loves. The game does a really good job fitting in the particulars of the various Ultraseries which is no small accomplishment. With episodes and characters spanning forty years of television, plots that change the characters powers and weaknesses at the writers' whims, and all kinds of abilities like firing beams, transformations, wrestling, and super-strength, it was herculean to make a game that was even playable and somewhat balanced. I won't say it IS super-balanced, it isn't a 'formal' tournament-ready fighting game, but it works surprising well. The controls are slower to respond than the Street Fighter-type games (I'd say its more 'tactical' like early Samurai Shodown) but it conveys the giant size and massive impacts of the characters... much like the recent Godzilla console games Atari distributed. The TV episodes almost always end with a huge finishing move, and they've worked those into the game, even giving finishers to all the monsters, because unlike the shows, HERE the monsters can win. To help ease things for younger players, and because the game IS rather tactical (with a detailed plot for a fighting game) the game saves after every fight in story mode. The battle mode is more like the conventional fighting game, shedding the plot pauses and the saves. The overall sheen of the game lets the older Ultraman characters fit right in with the new ones and its really fun (if you're a fan) to explore these sorts of 'crossovers' between the series. Many of the characters and backgrounds need to be unlocked, so there's a lot of replay incentive. I'm letting a huge bias cloud my opinion, I realize. People who have no interest in Ultraman will likely not see any draw to this game. But Ultrafans will find this much cooler than they would probably expect, and shows what the license could be like taken seriously... well, as seriously as it could be. The game is somewhat easy, and experienced gamers should have no trouble getting to final boss... but that's when black cock strikes, and you fight what might be the award winner for most frequently regenerated lifebars/most transformations in a game. The final chapter goes on for scadloads longer than any of the other chapters and unless you figure out a certain secret for one of the the boss's forms, it WILL go on forever until your character just wears down and dies.

Flink

Flink- Sega CD. 2D platformer, sprites. Another amazing graphic masterpiece. Games like this and In The Hunt were the real catalysts for my 'No Love...' post from several days back. This is a thoroughly European game, contrasted against the overwhelming majority of Japanese games and a smattering of American ones. The style of this game brings to mind the detailed, characterful artwork of Brian Froud, Arthur Suydam, or Patrick Woodruff. Every leaf, every blade of grass delineated in loving detail. An amazing soundtrack to go along with it, partly owing to the CD format of the game. The gameplay is pretty basic, jumping, bouncing on enemies, or throwing objects at them-- standard Mario-style-- but additionally, there is mildly RPG-like magic system involving finding and mixing ingredients. Some of the more involved precision jumping sections can get frustrating because Flink's jumps cannot be controlled quite as well as say Mario or Sonic. But the immersion factor is just huge because of all the care lavished on this game. The opening intro alone will tell you the designers poured everything they had into the details, and the intro doesn't use any FMV or anything... it is the same sort of graphic design used in the game itself! Awesome game if you are one of the few (or the insane) who actually own a Sega CD.


Soul Star- Sega CD. 3D shooter, sprite-based graphics. The Sega CD was supposed to be a huge leap in graphics and sound from the Sega Genesis, but apart from more elaborate FMV intros and CD soundtracks they didn't really live up to the hype. Especially when so many of the early games were 'cinema adventure' games that set new standards for suckage. Eventually some great games did come out, and they had the expected super music quality, but only a select few like Flink above, or this one, Soul Star actually LOOKED like a big step up from the Genesis. Again Soul Star's gameplay, like Flink's isn't revolutionary, but it does it what it does pretty well. You pilot three vehicles, a spaceship, a hovercraft, and towards the end, a walker. Each vehicle has a different type of playfield with the spacecraft a rail shooter (see Space Harrier or Panzer Dragoon), and the other two working in more free-roaming areas. The graphics are pretty amazing. Smooth scaling, relatively high speeds, and cool enemy designs, particulary the mechs and bosses later in the game. Planets and ships in the distance gradually scroll forward as you play to become the site of the next level. The control scheme for the hovercraft takes a helluva lot of getting used to, but I enjoyed the game so much I stuck with it. The music is almost haunting in places. This is another game where the designers were obviously enamored with their idea and really went to town creating an immersive experience. I'm not a huge fan of films that are hung up on just their special effects, but occasionally a strong setting or artful cinematography can elevate a mundane story. The interactive nature of a video game means this sort of successful world-building can be even more successful.

Vampire Savior

Vampire Savior- Sega Saturn. 2D fighting game, sprite-based graphics. Third in the DarkStalkers series. It is not hard to find heaping piles of praise for this game on the internet, but its been a long time since I played it, so I'm adding my own droppings to the pile. Saturn version, arcade-perfect, playing to the Saturns strengths. Absolutely jaw-dropping art and animation especially when seen on today's flat-panel TVs. The gameplay is deep with an elaborate and satisfying system for the specials and supers. One of Capcom's best. Not as perfectionist-technical as Street Fighter or King of Fighters tend to be... its more for fun. But not as retardedly over-the-top as Marvel vs Capcom either. A good balance. With some of the greatest, but decidedly underappreciated characters in all of gaming. My son's lack of patience for games like this makes me want to sell him to the gypsies.


GigaWing 2- Sega Dreamcast. 2D shooter with polygonal graphics. Flashy, somewhat cute-seeming blast fest... until about thirty seconds in. Then it initiates you into the world of manic shooters (aka danmaku, 'curtain fire') with all the subtlety of a rigorous fisting. The manic shooter is a relatively modern variant on the old 2D STG, usually vertically-oriented. It is characterised by a small hitbox (collision area) for the ship (often just the cockpit), massive streams of firepower available to the player, and screen-filling amounts of neon-colored projectiles. I'll probably devote more 'blog space to specifics of manic shooters (or bullet hell shooters as they are often called) in the future. But suffice to say this one is right alongside the notorious difficulty level many manic shooters lay claim to. It has a shield/reflection system similar to Mars Matrix (another game by the same house, Takumi), but using it well enough to survive is an exercise in practice, practice, practice. Short, intense, difficult. It took me a long while to warm up to this game, so unlike the shooters I've been used to. Now I'm a manic shooter devotee. I'd say the biggest strike against the game is the unlimited continues. It doesn't matter how hard a game is, or how worthy of practice, if you can just 'credit feed' your way through it. I wish this had an option to limit the continues. There's no incentive to really work when the temptation to just hit continue (again) exists. I really like the method used by Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, and Border Down of 'earning continues' through play time. By the time you've earned enough continues to finish the game your need for them should have dropped. Gigawing 2 is not even close to being one of my favorite shooters, but its decent.

Cool Cool Toon

Cool Cool Toon- Sega Dreamcast. Rhythm game with polygonal graphics. I am definitely NOT a fan of rhythm games. The only one I even have near me is some chapter of DDR that I got for my kids (complete with dance pad). So I cannot claim to be any sort of fan or expert. This game, however, struck me as interesting when I first saw previews for it on import sites. It has a very quirky art and music style. The graphics are polygonal but in a very cartoony solid-color style, that sort of looks like a precursor to cel-shaded graphics. The music is equally offbeat, cover a lot of different musical styles. That could be plus or a minus for the game depending on how closed-minded you are about your music... all of it is sort of 'dancey' as you'd expect. No beat, no game y'know? Its a pretty cool as the title say. There's nothing else really like it. But the game incorporates analog stick movements in addition to button presses (no dance pad, its more akin to playing an instrument than placing dance steps), and therein lies the game's main problem. Control. Odd thing to say if you place it in context of most other rhythm (or music games like Guitar Hero) since control is the last thing you worry about with simple button presses. Cool Cool Toon requires precise exact movements of the Dreamcast's analog stick though, and this proves incredibly difficult and frustrating. There are no detents or 'clicks' as you guide the stick in the clockface directions during the game. So no aids to your the exact placement. You just slide around rather loosely. At first this is no problem, the pauses between beats allow some correction, but as speed and complexity ramp up, you'll wish abominable tortures down upon the designers' children. I guess like a lot of other activities it takes practice. But this control scheme seems needlessly difficult, literally problematic to the goals of the game. There are already grueling memorisation tasks in other parts. So this one gets a lot of points on style, but only people absolutely in love with that style, and so willing to tackle the incredible learning/practice curve should seek out this game. Note: the clearest screenshots of this game seemed to come from the Planet-SNK site, so that's where I filched this pic. The huge 'nexgam' logo is NOT in the actual game.


Street Fighter III: Third Strike- Sega Dreamcast. 2D fighting game with sprite graphics. As most people know this game is basically a clinic on how to do shit-hot 2D animation. The sprites are huge, move fluidly and are cool updates on the classic Street Fighter characters. Fans are split on whether this game or the concurrently available Street Fighter Alpha 3 game was better. I tend to fall in the Alpha camp. That game is just more fun. This one is much more restrained and technical, and I do think it is a great game, I just prefer the characters in Alpha and the greater number of options for your super bar and special moves. If you want a Street Fighter game that 'feels' realistic, this is your boy.

Okay, that's enough for now. More later.