saloon girls, guns, gold
face stampedes, redskins and Rose
so...Contra goes west?
Additional Comments:
I came across this game a few months ago. Knowing nothing about it, I looked it up on the net and it sounded interesting - an old west shoot 'em up - so I figured I'd give it a chance. Upon seeing the Konami logo, and based on the few screenshots I had seen, I had some good feelings about this game. And surprisingly, just one level in, I wasn't let down. It immediately made me think of Contra, albeit not as strong out of the box, but still warming up to that very distinct Konami-style shoot 'em up platformer. The levels impressed me right from the start and only got better as the game continued, each containing a myriad of creative traps and gimmicks relative to the setting. Not only that, but the graphics are just stunning. After all, it's rare to find a game that actually pulls a western theme off with finesse, and I think this game did just that. Oh yea, and check out some classic arcade-style, orchestra-hit filled goodness that can really get some gun-totin', hootin' n' hollerin' excitement happening with the theme from Simon Greedwell's Stage.
However, I do have some gripes. First and foremost, I wish I could have played the game multiplayer. Just like Contra, I could tell that the fun factor would jump exponentially with two or more players tackling each stage. You just sort of feel a tad lonely having to plow all these gunslinging, roughhouse clones down on your own. But I guess that will have to wait for another day. And so it goes....
But unfortunately, I have some other mud to sling: the controls. Now maybe it's just my particular set up I'm using - a Logitech Rumblepad 2 G-UF13 controller (what, did you think I was actually tracking down full-size cabinet versions of these games? Ha! Although, I won't lie, I certainly wish I had access to an old coin-op of Sunset Riders), but the jump control just felt sluggish, which really began to hamper my progress during the later boss battles where easy bullet dodging proved embarrassingly difficult. The progression from ducking to jumping felt to crawl at a snails pace so much so that I had to find alternate evasion strategies, especially during the Paco Loco battle. But what's odd is that everything else control-wise was spot on. Movement and shooting had no issues, even without the auto-gun, which by the way was a very cool feature. Typically in arcade games, especially any sort of shooting game, button mashing just to fire a weapon is, for lack of a better phrase, fucking stupid, but here, it worked. The fact that you had to earn a gun or set of guns with auto-fire capability was very cool.
I do, however, have to complain about the lack of bullet spread. Overall, the rate-of-fire from the enemies seemed depressing compared to that of Contra's enemy force. Again, maybe it's on my end - perhaps I should have looked into some dip switch flips regarding difficulty, but other than the late level bosses and Chief Scalpem's stage, the game came across as too easy. Seriously, outside of the boss fights, I was lucky to see maybe 10 bullets in a given stage with the addition of some dynamite here and there. For the most part, my in-stage deaths were mostly attributed to foolishly walking off a cliff or falling victim to a trap that I didn't see until it was too late. Although, like I said, Chief Scalpem's stage proved its worth and then some, harassing me with an endless volley of flaming arrows.
Other than that, and honestly, as sluggish as the jumping felt at times, the game is tits - the stiff control is just me being nit-picky more than anything. Now granted, it's not as amazing as the Contra series, which is definitely the most comparable game, it's great nonetheless. Really, and this seems to befoul Konami every now and again, it's just a shame the game is so short because I wanted to keep playing when it looped back around after the staff-roll. I guess I'll have to try and track down either the Genesis or SNES port and see how they stack up - or should I say so I can get some more SSR playtime in?
Nano-Rant:
I just have to know, who the fuck are these people that can endure a 100 rounds, yet it only takes one bullet to kill me? Ah, video games, how I love thee....
Rating: 4 saloon girls out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment