Zemeckis - 1, Mayans - 0

Seriously, how daft do you have to be to think the Mayans could call cut when clearly Zemeckis showed us the epicness that will be 2015? Besides, I would have been royally pissed off if the world ended and I still hadn't conquered Dark Cloud completely. Doesn't matter. I was hoping to have the game finished by the end of the year, but thanks to the agonizing knock-down drag-out that is the Demon Shaft, it doesn't appear to be the case. Ugh...

What does that leave me with? Nineteen finished games for the year? What a piss-poor year in my own personal gaming department. Well, not really as I did finish some fantastic games this year and really, a lot of my time was spent playing various other titles that have been an absolute blast - just haven't finished them, and/or really fought to finish them.  Games carrying the flags for Forza Motorsport and Formula 1 especially fit the bill. Others include the original Super Smash Bros. which I finally got my hands on this past year or some odd gems like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for the Intellivision and most recently, Street Fighter x Mega Man. But what really slowed me down this year is I spent a lot more time focusing on my game collection which has expanded by leaps and bounds. Systems more than doubled and games are simply spilling off my shelves. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing - I know my wallet would say it's a bad thing.

The end of the year isn't about mindless chit chat though. It's a time to reflect on those games that stunned me or excited me beyond compare. It's about those games that I had a genuine blast playing through no matter how good or bad they ended up being when all was said and done. It's about those games that I'd go back and play again from start to finish without a second thought. Yea, it's about those games. Sadly, the pickins were few this year. However, of those games beaten, there were some absolute joys which made for a fantastic little list of favorites. But first, I feel I must start with an special honorable mention. While it certainly doesn't belong in the top of the year listings, it definitely deserves its time in the spotlight for other reasons.

Honorable Mention: Super Columbine Massacre RPG!
-Despite it's shoddy gameplay, it's a total psychological mind-bender straddling a thin line between game and art and does so marvelously.

10. 7th Saga
-Just another turn-based RPG that stretches on into oblivion, or is it? Ok, I guess it is, but with it's unique "competition" presentation and eerie sprite set, it feels like something more than just your average Final Fantasy clone.

9. Dungeon Explorer
-A simplistic reinvention of Gauntlet's top-down hack n' slash model but souped up with some action adventure/RPG stylings giving the game a more worldly feel.

8. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
-Honestly, if I didn't put this on here, I can imagine the grief I'd get. But seriously, it's Ocarina of Time. It's not the best Zelda, but it is a pretty damn good game and along with Banjo-Kazooie made me realize the N64 isn't that bad of a console after all (as he says through grimaced expression).

7. Jet Moto
-I can't quite pinpoint why, but for me, this game just exudes hours of fun. Even as a kid when I was forever outwitted by the beast that is Ice Crusher, I'd simply enjoy hours of running randomized championships to my heart's content. And after beating the game for Beat All Games, I spent the next few days running randomized championships again loving every minute of it.

6. Crystalis
-Simply incredible action adventure game from start to finish, this was the first "new" NES game I came across, i.e. I never played it growing up, that really grabbed me and managed to leave me wanting more - even with the final boss being a disheartening pushover.

5. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
-After four back-to-back playthrough's it's tough to remain excited over this game, however seeing the Western Heartlands come to life is enough to make me want to pop the disc in once more. And while it does have it's problems, notably boss fights, it's a solid hack n' slash that vividly dishes out typical D&D canon.

4. VIP and Wall Mix 1: ASCII Art Edition
-It's likely nostalgia that makes me return to this game time and time again, because it certainly can't be all the ugliness, dependency on glitches, lopsided difficulty, errant design and so on and so on. But then again, that's all part of the charm that somehow makes this the most enjoyable and memorable game in the VIP and Wall series. Of course, the others befall the same issues, but it never feels as campy as is does with the game.

3. Sonic the Hedgehog
-My very first known memory of the Sega brand is thanks to this game which helped redefine what's possible outside of the safety net of Mario and all his Nintendo friends. I believe I can still name the Genesis-era Sonic games as the best series of all time, and Sonic the Hedgehog is part one of four of that brilliant little period in gaming history.

2. Super Mario Bros. 3
-And while Sonic the Hedgehog may be helping push my favorite series along, it'll still never achieve the definitive greatness that is Super Mario Bros. 3. I cannot possibly recount the number of times I've tackled this game nor can I even hint at how many more times I'll likely do so in the future.

1. Katamari Damacy
-Wait! Something dares trump SMB3? Well, if anything were to do so, this is the game to do it, and totally deserves to at that! Much like VVVVVV, Katamari Damacy focused on a solitary gimmick and ran with it. Add to that one of the greatest game soundtracks ever, a fascinating world full of...well, things, and incredibly addictive gameplay making you (as in me) itch to immediately move on to its sequels, well it's not that hard to see why it's trumped the whole year's worth of game's beaten.

NES - Super Mario Bros. 3

Haiku-Review:

crazy Koopalings
transforming kings; stealing wands -
fear my hammer suit

Additional Comments:

Another Christmas day, another joyous romp through the incredible Mushroom Kingdom.

Without a doubt, this is my all-time favorite NES game, and quite possibly my favorite game period. From the very first time I played this as a kid in the now long distant 1990, through the countless full game playthoughs, mindless mucking about with random custom Game Genie glitchiness, and even up through my most recent encounter - I just love everything about this game. It was and still is the pinnacle of Mario platforming in my mind. Hell, it was and still is the pinnacle of platforming games in general.

Super Mario Bros. 3 didn't necessarily reinvent the wheel when it came to Mario games; rather it perfected it. Sure, most people would argue that Super Mario World was actually the game to do so, but there was something about Super Mario World that felt lost in translation to me - at least compared to SMB3 and the original Super Mario Bros. This third installment in the "Super" franchise reminded us of why we loved Super Mario Bros. to begin with - the happy-go-lucky run 'n jump tomfoolery that was flat out missing in the first sequel. But then again, as I mentioned in my comments for Super Mario Bros. 2, SMB2 wasn't a Mario game to begin with. SMB3 calmed our nerves over the agitation that was SMB2 much like A Link to the Past sedated our wants for a "traditional" top-down Zelda game. Sure they experimented a bit with SMB2 (if you can call quickly re-skinning a game to alleviate the post-SMB demand for a sequel experimenting), but Nintendo knew all along that Mario should stick with his roots: turtle-hopping, playing the part of Liquid Plumr as he traversed the Mushroom Kingdom, and just all in all giving Bowser a quick kick in the pants. And with SMB3, that's exactly what we got - classic Koopa stompin', Princess rescuin' action; not some crazy allegoric litany about the struggles of onion farming.

But it's more than a simple platformer. SMB3 was one of those rare games that had a profound impact on me - that special wow factor that only the greatest of the greats manage to achieve. At the time, the game could do no wrong and it took many years before that glassy-eyed view disappeared, but I still have trouble finding fault. Whenever I bring up the game nowadays, I think others believe that I've fallen into the pit of nostalgia. I won't deny this, but I also won't admit defeat especially when I can sit down on any given day and simply have fun playing this game, even if its the nth time I've done so.

I've heard the reasons why SMB3 doesn't actually deserve the title of greatest NES game or greatest Mario game, or heck, even good NES game or good Mario game. And honestly, I completely understand some of these reasons and can see them myself. Complaints such as levels are too short, too simple, too empty, uninspired, unimaginative, repetitious, the superfluousness of certain items, the uselessness of said items, that certain items just aren't fleshed out very well relative to abundance or lack thereof within levels and levels being representative of only the basic items, and on and on. For me, there's only two complaints worth a damn - the general weakness of World 5 and the frog suit. Everything else is sub-par attempts at trying to bring down a great game with no good reason. It all sort of reminds me of the over-the top nit-pickiness often executed by certain angry video game nerds when they're trying to battle a game even though there's really nothing to attack, yet entertainment demands otherwise. C'est la vie I suppose.

I know the most common complain is that the levels feel uninspired and generally just contain bad level design. While I find myself easily considering this for the second half of World 5, I think the rest of the game works just fine. Sure there's a couple levels here or there, namely World 4-4, that come across as lazy, but none of them ever drag the game down. The second half of World 5 doesn't either, but it's definitely a lull compared to rest of the game. Otherwise, the levels are a joy to explore, even those that are extremely straightforward. As far as the shortness of the levels, I've always thought that the lengths are appropriate. After being a part of the SMWC community for a number of years, I have gotten use to longer, more complex level design and have almost come to expect it in all of Mario's adventurous fandangos, but whenever I return to SMB3, it's like a sigh of relief knowing that the end is only a hop, skip, and a jump away.

Regarding some of the more unique power-ups, sure some of them only show up for brief glimpses and we never get to experience them in full glory, but I think that's part of the charm. The Tanooki suit or the hammer suit would lose its oomph if we had continual access to them. Allowing them to appear in quick snippets makes them seem all the more powerful - almost intimidating striking a certain nervousness in the player as they desperately try to hold onto the power suit for as long as humanly possibly. Unfortunately, two such suits are a bit hampered by this: Kuribo's shoe and the frog suit. I say unfortunately, but perhaps fortunately is just as appropriate when it comes to Kuribo's shoe. I've always gone back and forth over this item and the fact that it only appears once, in 5-3. Of course, I've always wished it had appeared again or at least was offered as a carry-over item, but then again if it had become too common would it still be so special? Eh, I think it should have at least made a second appearance in World 7. The frog suit on the other hand I've always viewed as a failure. It's purpose is fantastic, but the game never really offers you the chance to make full use of it. While the Tanooki suit, hammer suit, or heck, even the super leaf are applied as power-ups, the frog suit is more of a physics adjuster.  Yes, there's a couple spots in World 3 where the usefulness of the frog suit can shine, but at the same time, it really doesn't as it's just as simple to go frogless. If they had made a couple more areas throughout the game that could take advantage of the frog suit, I'd see no problem, but as is, it's just not enough to really justify it. But again, this doesn't actually drag the game down in any way. It just happens to be a weak point that also happens to be fully optional.

Even when I try to seek something discriminating out, I still can't. The "weak" levels of World 5; the "uselessness" of the frog suit - so what? Neither ruin the game. Maybe I'm still looking through rose-colored glasses, but frankly I don't care. As long as I continue having a blast every time I pop this game into an NES, I'm going to continue loving it, and I've very likely going to continue loving it more than any other game as well. From the playful graphics to the unique map system (Ok, I'll admit that Super Mario World perfected the map system, but SMB3's map system had an overall better look), to the power-up bank, the mini-games, the first time I laid eyes on World 4, the clever vertical climbs in World 7, the tanks, the airships, the secrets, the...the...just everything. Oh! And the music? This is yet another game where I could easily list the entire soundtrack but I suppose I'll just post a few. It's a hard decision, but I'll throw out Grass Land, Giant Land, and Ending.

In conclusion, Super Mario Bros. 3 = Pure Fuckin' Win!!!

Rating: 5 Jugem's Clouds out of 5

GEN - Risk

Haiku-Review:

world domination
but there's no option to cap -
world aggravation!

Additional Comments:

Board games done up in a video game format is such a silly premise - well, to most gamers at least. To people like me who enjoy games purely as a single player venture, not so much. These electronic recreations perfectly fit the bill when I have a strange desire to play something like Chess, Monopoly, or in this case, Risk, but have no real desire to play them as traditional "family-style" board games. The best part is that's it's damn near impossible to really lose the sense of the game, no matter how reliant on other players the game may be. Board games are typically simple endeavors that can easily be imitated electronically. Unfortunately, primitively programmed AI will never compare to the real deal.

For Risk, as bound by its set of traditional rules, it never deviates from the sense that indeed what I'm playing is a perfect representation of the board game. Of course, to help alleviate potential boredom from what can be an almost mundane strategy game under certain circumstances, the player(s) are treated to either an animated scene depicting battle or a mini-game to replace the intangible dice rolls. I found this to have its pros and cons. While the actual board game can become tiring over time as borders constantly shift back and forth, Risk as a video game immediately embarks on a ride through the doldrums. Yes, its a simple, yet enjoyable strategy game...in theory, but it doesn't quite work the way games like Civilization or Nobunaga's Ambition do. The biggest difference is that these games offer a great deal of control and interaction on the player's part. Risk, however, has little to no interaction. But comparing it to the board game, its fairly identical - except perhaps for the dice rolls depending on how you play.

The problem with Risk, when you take away the social aspect of players carefully considering their front lines and proposing under-the-table treaties, the game is incredibly monotonous. Armies move here, armies move there and eventually it's all back to square one. It's a whole lot of mindless back and forth, especially if you use any sort of capping rule. But the friendly competition among friends keeps the game running and even manages to overshadow how little gameplay there actually is. In the Genesis variation of Risk, this minimal scenario can easily be seen if you chose to forego the animated sequences and/or mini-game. Sadly, I found this to be the best way to play as it quickens the pace of the game tenfold. Unfortunately, the epic feeling of the board game is lost at this point. Instead, it's just a bunch of armies quickly shifting across continents. While strategy is still there, it feels hollow. The animated sequences adds some tension, but can quickly drag the game out. I found the same to be true with the mini-game. It adds a breather to the monotony by getting the player interactively involved, but it too lacks any substance and feels as though the developers shoehorned it in at the last minute. Much like the animated sequences, it's enjoyable for a few minutes, maybe more so since the player actually has something to do here - attempt to kill the opposing armies with an infinite volley of cannonballs. But it becomes just as tiresome as the cutscenes. It's depressing that the most bare-boned, non-interactive variant exudes the most enjoyment.

My biggest gripe though is the inability to set an option to cap armies per territory. In the past, I always found capping produced better strategy while playing the board game. Allowing for unlimited armies favored how you played your cards far too heavily and where you sat in the turn rotation. Basically, the game becomes far too luck oriented as opposed to being deeply ingrained in strategy, especially in Expert mode. Eh, I suppose you could call it strategy, but putting all your eggs in one basket and hoping to blitzkrieg the entire world in a single move isn't really strategy. I call it a mad gamble. But really, this comes down to the difference between playing the computer and playing actual people. The computer's going to be far more one-sided in their tactics which in turn forces the player to become a one trick pony as well. It'll do for some fast-paced, world domination action that'll be over in a matter of turns, but frankly it disillusions the reality of what Risk is meant to be: a cunning strategy game where mighty empires fall and rise again, only to fall once more.

Overall, if you want to experience the game for what it is, play the actual board game. But if you're looking to play as a single player venture or just have some time to kill, you could do far worse. While the game is a near perfect replica, the experience isn't. However, I'm fairly confident that the multiplayer nails it on all fronts, especially given that it does allow up to the traditional six players. Still, I'd imagine being able to physically roll dice, move armies, and argue borders will trump the video game any day of the week.

Nano-Rant:

What's with some of the highly inaccurate backdrops? Greenland is a vast sandy desert, as is most of Canada? Or is Parker Brothers the almighty oracle predicting the world of tomorrow where global turmoil has annihilated the glacial icecaps and retrogressed technology forcing us to use horse-mounted cavalry once again? Who knew Risk was so post-apocalyptic?

Rating: 2 cannonballs out of 5

FC - Exed Exes

Haiku-Review:

to battle insects,
chance a marvel suggestion?
insect repellent

Additional Comments:

Exed Exes? What the hell is Exed Exes? Well, from the best that I can make out, it refers to a minimal variety of extra-terrestrial arthropods - well, that and the obvious: an arcade port for the Nintendo Family Computer. Huzzah! After picking up a classic red & white Famicom, I naturally had to get my hands on some games as fast as I could. I found a couple CIB games for cheap, one of which, Exed Exes, caught my eye purely for its primitive STG style.

Ever since the Touhou series educated me to the brilliance of the shooter genre as an instant classic, I've gone bananas over any STG I can get my hands on. Still to this day I can't understand why I begrudged them so much over the years. They're just loaded with mindless excitement. Well, that is except for those titles that just somehow miss the target. And unfortunately, Exed Exes is one of those titles.

First off, there's a lot of issues with the game, however a good chunk of it can be written off thanks to its 1985 release date - we're talking the very beginnings of the NES here. Flat, boring graphics? So what? Mediocre enemy patterns with minimal count? It's to be expected. If this came out in 1990, then I'd question the standards, but for '85, it's looking pretty good. Ok, maybe it's not as beautifully rendered as the original arcade: Savage Bees, but again, it's to be expected. Did we seriously expect to see a pixel-perfect port? The problem is that the game tries to replicate the original arcade with all the wrong reasons in mind - much like Alien Syndrome. Then again, it's a fault of early gaming, relying far too much on high scores. In the arcade, the concept works wonderfully. In fact, it seems strange to give an arcade game an ending. But on a console, it comes off as vacuous; tedious even.

This is the single biggest culprit of Exed Exes' downfall: tedium. For the first few levels, it's passable as a mediocre shooter; even with the sluggish control, lack of weaponry, and constant feeling of déjà vu. Of course, any shooter can fall victim to constant repetition, but it's never felt as apparent as here. If the game at least offered some variety of weapons, or hell, even backgrounds, I could probably tolerate the fact that every level is basically the same thing over and over - the same variety of insects in the same boring patterns. And despite what some might call a difficulty increase as the game progresses, it's hard to claim as such. Sure there's added insectoids fluttering about, or more bullets slowly ambling across the screen, but with history consistently repeating itself from level to level, the supposed increase is negated by total predictability. Within the levels, most of my deaths were a fault of laziness more than anything. When you have infinite continues that resurrect you right at the moment of death, or even a little later on down the road if you let the timer ride for a bit, why not? The game promotes sloth. Maybe I'm just taking advantage of the situation and I should actually try for those high scores - see if I can produce some of those absurd scores that would have won me a special label back in the day. But considering that every level is pretty much identical and there's no end in sight - fuck it.

Endless games on consoles are just...bleagh. While I can tolerate the idea on the earliest of systems, it's hard to swallow on the third generation of games and beyond. There's no sense of fulfillment, and Exed Exes is a prime example. While popular opinion places the end of the game, from a definitive sense, at Round 16, it seems to be one of those situations where aggravation likely gets the better of the player and saps the will to continue on. Placing the end at Round 16 does make sense though since it's just boss after boss after boss and starting with Round 17, the levels start repeating - as if they haven't done so already. I played up to level 25 (I think it was) out of curiosity, at which point I ran through another gauntlet of bosses. "That's enough for me," I groaned in exasperation. In Savage Bees, the game ends when the player reaches ten million points. Seems like an odd way to end a game if you ask me. So what, our insect overlords decided enough is enough and pulled out? But Exed Exes doesn't appear to even allow for ten million points considering the maxed offering referenced in various locales is 9,999,900. Well, that's a ripoff. Can't even win via the arcade's nutty high score method. Oh, but I could have won a special Royal member sticker...in 1985. Bah!

One of the other biggest factors to Exed Exes' miserable drowning in sub-mediocrity is the total lack of upgrades and additional weaponry. From personal experience, I only ever came across two types of weapons besides the default solitary bullet: a dual "spray" and a triple "spray." I use the word spray lightly as they weren't sprays at all - just a simple trick of appearance to make you think you're firing a spray when all you're really doing is just firing an improved shot. Unfortunately, I only saw the triple spray once, and it's very possible I was imagining it, and if that's the case then I only ever saw a single upgrade type. Pathetic. In addition to the nearly, non-existent upgrades, the chance to score an upgrade is even more remote. The chance for a weapon upgrade seemed to only show every second or third round, and only once in a given round at that. However, weapon downgrades seems to be all the more plentiful. What fresh bullshit is this? It's Fester's Quest all over again! First off, the game is incredibly stingy with weaponized gifts, and most of the time they're floating within a plethora of bullets and nearly invincible dragonflies - well, nearly invincible against the plane's default bullet. As a result, I pretty much lost any upgrade immediately. And if I didn't I was guaranteed I'd snatch up one of those god forsaken downgrades by accident. If the game's going to be such a dick regarding additional weaponry, why bother?

It's funny, this feeling of disregard and raging apathy seems to be a common theme in this game. It's like the developers didn't even try. I haven't played Savage Bees myself, but based on what I've read, it's far superior to this. And if that's the case, how could they have fucked it up so bad? It's one thing for an arcade port to feel lackluster thanks to hardware limitations, but again, much like Alien Syndrome, hardware limitations cannot possibly be at fault here. Exed Exes is a disgrace to the shooter genre in general. It plays slow and clunky and is run amok with exhaustive level design. I could possibly see some merit in the two player mode...maybe - not much, but a slightly improved experience over single player, and that's about it. Even the music becomes this abrasive entity drilling away at your ears. Actually, it's not that intolerable. There's a certain enjoyable quirkiness to some of it, but after hearing the same three pieces ad infinitum it become incredibly grating. Overall, it's a bland game that added absolutely nothing to the genre.

Rating: 1.5 member stickers out of 5

PC - Super Columbine Massacre RPG!

Haiku-Review:

to judge in blindness
is to judge negligently
despite contention

Additional Comments:

I feel it's only obvious that I'm treading a thin and dangerous line by not only playing, but admitting as such and commenting on the so-called "trivialization of a heinous act" that is Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. But I also feel that the aforementioned line is a product of highly presumptuous naysayers who refuse to see the forest through the trees. Regardless, the controversy that surrounds this game nearly alienates it from any other controversial title before or since. The title alone is enough to trigger disgust over such a concept - that anyone would dare recount the events of April 20th, 1999, never mind that it's all done through the eyes of Harris and Klebold themselves.

I'm not here to smear or praise the work as a product of entertainment showcasing a terrible event in recent history, although I do have to question why that's the first avenue taken by so many considering other forms of media appear to be perfectly acceptable means of deliverance. I can hypothesize two plausible reasons: media as art vs. media as entertainment and presentation through inspiration vs. presentation through factual events (despite the copious amounts of artistic license rampant throughout the game).

Common opinion seems to be that video games are generally accepted as pure entertainment - video games masquerading as anything else is just unheard of. To a point, I've held the same belief pretty much my whole life. Video games depicting abstract reasoning and/or expressionism is simply ridiculous. They're fundamentally tools of an entertainment industry which could never be perceived as art. Super Columbine Massacre RPG! may very well be the first game I've come across that's genuinely made me rethink how I view video games within the multimedia world. This game is unlike anything I've ever played, and it not only made me think, but it affected me in ways that no other game has. I'm not talking about pure disgust over the appalling nature of the beast. There was a certain surrealism to it all that stirred up a bizarre duality of emotion. Surely it takes more than pure entertainment to cause such a reaction. But then, those who are quick to judge could certainly rank offensiveness as such a model that could trigger some degree of emotion outside of simple recreation. Perhaps, but it certainly wouldn't subject the player into a strange existential breakdown as they try and make sense of the odd love/hate relationship with the game thanks to the terrible unease, yet curious exhilaration of gunning down room after room of high school students. In a way, the game not only forces us to reinvent our boundaries, but to also question why we would or wouldn't blur the line to one side or the other.

But disregarding any philosophical bullshit that can be shoveled on, there's an obvious black mark that Super Columbine Massacre RPG! suffers from as opposed to some other media releases that can essentially trace their roots to the same event. Unlike numerous movies, such as Elephant, which is a work of fiction inspired by the events of Columbine, Super Columbine Massacre RPG! relives the actual events - well, as much as a 16-bit RPG can. But then, given the amount of artistic license including numerous conversations, quips, and alternate reality depictions including a foray into a Hell populated with assorted denizens ripped straight out of the Doom universe, is it truly factual? So there's a number of authentic photos and the like, but is it really that much different from the "inspired" works of the film industry involving school massacres? It makes me wonder if the game would have squeaked by with minimal fuss if Ledonne had released it without ever showing pictures of Harris and Klebold as well as removing any conclusive evidence that the game is a recreation of that particular shooting. Honestly, the game would probably be lost in the dark recesses of the internet; never having raised a pip despite the obvious representation of a school shooting.

That's enough picking, prodding and debating over the game's existence as a highly contentious piece of reenacted history. What I would like to know: for all the controversy the game created, is it even worthy of it all? I'll be the first to admit that I wanted to play the game after watching Machinima's Top Ten FTW Most Offensive Games EVER video. Of all the games they showed, Super Columbine Massacre RPG! instantly piqued my interest. There were two things that immediately caught my attention about this game. First, it was based on the shootings at Columbine which has always intrigued me in and of itself because of how the media and numerous other collectives tried to alienate and damage the reputation of so many things that at best could have been culled as inspiration - at best. For example: violence in video games, violence in music, and gun control laws all befell a contemptuous eye as they were all targets that could easily be smeared without just cause. Secondly, the game was presented in a 16-bit overhead RPG format. This was enough to draw me in. If Ledonne had made it as an FPS, I would have skipped right over it - not interested. Now, you want to talk about an incredibly offensive depiction of Columbine, an FPS would be the way to go - not a Final Fantasy inspired RPG. Heck, if it weren't for the abominable FPS format that was utilized in another top ten offensive pick: Ethnic Cleansing, I'd probably give that one a go too, if not for anything else; the gall that it actually exists. I have a sneaky suspicion that makes me a bad person, but whatever.

There was one little hiccup that had me worried though. The game was created in RPG Maker. I've seen some impressive work done in RPG Maker, but we're also talking about software designed with a novice game maker in mind allowing for simple script creation. As a result, the game more or less plays exactly as I imagined. As far as top-down RPG's go, there's no wow factor to set it apart. There's nothing that we haven't seen before in say, the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Warrior series, or even the Phantasy Star series. It's all very recycled and even becomes monotonous, almost tedious, especially when you're sparring against Doom's likenesses in Hell. The battle system is far too unbalanced and almost comes off as hokey. Yet I feel as though I can't actually complain about the issue. For the sake of story, the battle system has to be unbalanced which unfortunately makes for an incredibly easy game. Granted, depending on how you approach the first half of the game, the initial battles in Hell can either be an absolute handful or a anticlimactic cakewalk. Suggestion: kill every damn kid you see!! Oh god, did I really just say that? *runs away*

As lopsided as the game is, which just completely drains the game of any hope of fun, RPG-y goodness, there is one thing this game not only did right, but damn near perfected. Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, if not for any other reason, is a game I'd recommend for its incredible sense of mood. I don't know if it just me being a  product of the 90s and getting all teary eyed listening to Thirty-Three (no matter how midified it is), but this game nailed it. The overall atmosphere of the game - never mind the 16-bit graphics, the egregiously composed midis, or the horrific storyline - gels like no other. Ledonne's artistic vision, whether intentional or not, matched music to imagery so seamlessly and really struck a few chords emotionally. If anything, it helped push the game over the undefined line between art and entertainment in regards to the video game industry.

So the question still persists - is it worth it? As a game, no. There's a certain enjoyment about the first half despite it being wrought with juxtaposed emotion, pathetic ease of play, and very non-intuitive situations. The second half's a bit more of a bitter pill to swallow. If you've acquired the proper weaponry or upped your stats enough, it's playable, but unfortunately crosses the line of ease far too quick, and by that point, the denizens of Hell become nothing but an annoyance, especially since Hell is a giant, unforgiving maze. Essentially, there's far too much dragging it down to call it enjoyable in the sense of a game - disregarding the whole Columbine tie-in. But as something that rises above the preconceived notion of "video games equal _____," it does so brilliantly. I could never recommend Super Columbine Massacre RPG! as a game, but can easily do so as a psychological excursion that proves to test one's limits on popular opinion concerning entertainment-based media, artistic expression and offensive disrespect - not to mention an introspective assessment of one's self in regards to the inevitable clash of enjoyment and disgust. Basically, if you want to hate on it, play it first to understand why exactly you should or shouldn't hate it; if you want to play it, don't. It sucks.

Nano-Rant:

Looking at it purely from a gamer's perspective, I can't even begin to express how pissed I was after reaching Nietzsche without the required copy of Ecce Homo. Worst part is, there's no way to rectify this flagrant misuse of item requirement without restarting from the beginning. The problem is, at no point is it made clear that an item will be needed to progress, and unlucky for us, a little exploration is required to find said item. Hell, I didn't even know items held any merit in my first attempt - you mean that copy of Doom and Mechanical Animals served a purpose? Sure did. Dammit....

Also to note, because I had to start over at the beginning to track down Nietzsche's book, the game unfortunately lost all its charm on the second go 'round. Now it could partially be thanks to my newly annoyed state, but everything that made the game pop emotionally the first time now felt blasé. Even the outrageousness of it all came off as nothing more than sterile indifference. And it's a shame too as it more or less tainted my perception when it came to the game's ending.

Rating: 2 boxes of Devil's Food cake mix out of 5*

*Please note that I'm rating this game purely from a gaming standpoint.

Terrible Twos

Good grief, two years!? Really didn't think I'd still be churning out curt opinions regarding various games. Surprisingly, thanks to Beat All Games, my affinity for gaming has grown tenfold and I've gotten myself back on track in regards to collecting video games and consoles - something I haven't touched since the early 2000s.

Unfortunately, while my collection has grown, my wealth of games beaten has not. If anything, the rate of games being knocked out of the park has diminished radically. For this reason, looking back over the past year, I think to repeat 2011's anniversary post would be silly. Sure, there's been some great games played since last year: Sonic the Hedgehog, Katamari Damacy, and Ocarina of Time to name a few, but with only twenty new games posted within that span of time, I can imagine my top/bottom 5 differing only slightly. Then again, maybe not as those three games alone could easily place within my top 5. However, looking through said twenty games, my bottom 5 would likely remain the same.

For this reason, I decided to create a different list as this year's anniversary bonus. Numerous times, I've mentioned being in the middle of several games - well, actually, I'm in the midst of playing quite a few and have been for some time. Thing is, some games become far too tedious and boring for me to find the will to continue or some games suffer from such massive flaws that the aggravation gets the better of me. Other times, I just sort of forget about some games and sadly they fall to the wayside out of no fault of their own. Well, I'd thought I'd go ahead and list some of those games and say a quick few words about each. While I'm not going to list every game I'm fighting my way through, I thought I'd just list some of the more notable ones - notable in that there's specific reasons why I'm moving forward with them or not. My plan is to give a quick thought in 25 words or less - we'll see how that goes though. And somehow, I imagine that I'm going to raise quite a fuss with a few particular titles and why they've managed to land themselves on the back-burner.

And since this isn't meant to be any sort of best of the best type list, I'll be listing these in alphabetical order. Additionally, for the sake of 2012, I'm going to round the list off to a nice even twelve. I planned on listing only ten games at first, but there were a couple additional games that I really felt should be addressed as well. Honestly, I think I have a few more I'd like to talk about, but twelve will do me nicely.

---

Game: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Platform: Mattel Intellivision
Notes: While surprisingly fun, this is one of the few Intellivision games where the controller is really getting the better of me.

Game: Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse

Platform: PC
Notes: Confusing and completely lacking of true TSR merit, I am appalled that this dares carry the AD&D branding.

Game: Disney Epic Mickey

Platform: Nintendo Wii
Notes: While enjoyable for the most part, I'm completely bewildered over what type of gaming experience I should be getting out of this.

Game: Ecco the Dolphin

Platform: Sega Genesis
Notes: An old, old favorite; unfortunately the puzzling difficulty and length has gotten the best of me every occasion I've attempted it.

Game: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition

Platform: PC
Notes: Sadly, this game bores the fuck out of me and I just can't drive myself to continue on despite all it's report and grandeur.

Game: Fable: The Lost Chapters
Platform: Microsoft XBox
Notes: Going in, I had high expectations, but never have I had a game make me so angry over design and simple mechanic flaws.

Game: Forza Motorsport 4*

Platform: Microsoft XBox360
Notes: Very likely the best console driving "sim" game ever conceived - to date - and eats up far too much of my time, though I'm not complaining.

Game: Formula 1 2011*

Platform: Microsoft XBox360
Notes: After Forza, any other driving game seems second rate, but then again, this is Formula 1 and I just can't pass it up.

Game: Heroquest

Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Notes: Interestingly, the very first game I started playing for Beat All Games but since it's nothing more than a broken prototype - yea.

Game: Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition

Platform: Nintendo Game Boy
Notes: Came close to finishing it until I realized I skipped over some stuff that's a bit irreversible now - a fault in strategy guide reliant games.

Game: Shadow of the Colossus

Platform: Sony PlayStation 2
Notes: Honestly, I am dumbfounded that this game is so highly respected - sure the colossi fights are amazing, but as a whole the game is lackluster.

Game: Shenmue

Platform: Sega Dreamcast
Notes: What is this I don't even...

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*Before detailed-oriented demons knock my backwards usage of M before Z, please note that I listed the two racing games out of order purposefully.

SMS - Alien Syndrome

Haiku-Review:

hostages detained
by a scourge of mutant heads;
time to set the bomb

Additional Comments:

Alien Syndrome is a game in which I'm completely unfamiliar with its origins and/or console kin. I've never played the original so as far as Alien Syndrome's port worthiness, I cannot say. Same goes for ports on other systems such as the NES, the Commodore 64, or some of the more archaic gaming computers. However, I'm under the impression, based on what I've read, that the original arcade was a thrilling maze shooter. How much of that excitement carried over to the Master System? Well, also based on what I've read, the game fell victim to the shortcomings of hardware limitation. But you know, that's to be expected with any arcade port. You have to be willing to accept a port as an inferior game, but sometimes there are those rare occasions where a port can manage to stand on its own. Turtles in Time comes to mind. Yea, it's no way near as incredible as the arcade, but as an SNES game, it's simply brilliant. While I can't attest to Alien Syndrome being likewise, I think it's safe to say that in a way, I'm rather fortunate that I have no prior relationship with the game outside of the Master System. In that respect, I can look at the game as an SMS title on its own accord. Otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised to fall in line with the other naysayers out there.

So what of it, then? Alien Syndrome is an...interesting(?) little maze shooter to be sure. I'm not sure if interesting is the right word - maybe quirky? On my first few casual attempts, I found the game entertaining enough to keep my interest, but eventually, the fidgety controls paired with the randomized spawns irked me enough to put the game down and play something else. The controls have a certain lucidity, but I'm not entirely sure if it's the game or the Master System's awkward d-pad. I just couldn't find a comfortable way to  play this game - with thumbstick or not? I haven't had this problem with any other Master System game to date, but here it remained too much of a focal problem. Movement felt sluggish, yet strangely loose as a result, especially in the boss battles. It felt like I was fighting the controls more so than the monsters that inhabited each ship and I often lost lives in easily avoidable situations.

After several hours of fighting a losing battle, I couldn't take it anymore, and sad to admit, I moved on to MEKA. Suddenly, the game felt more fluid using my PS2-style controller. Does this make me a bad gamer? Probably. Do I care? No - especially with Alien Syndrome; mostly because this is one hell of a tough game. The levels aren't all that difficult, but the boss battles are merciless. On my initial attempts, it took me forever just to come to terms with Squime. Sounds hard to believe given that his weakness is more than obvious, but his hitbox seemed very amorphous. The difficulty, and faulty hitboxes, eased up on some of the mid-level bosses, but Mr. Mimi was an atrocious harbinger of death. Even on an emulator, it took me several hours and countless deaths to understand this ugly visage of doom. Once I realized an optimal tactic, I still had that dreaded timer countdown to worry about. Without the timer, Mr. Mimi is completely unforgivable, but with the timer, he's nigh on impossible. It takes far too many hits to kill him, and unfortunately since Urania is nothing more than a boss room, there's absolutely no chance to acquire any weapon upgrades. Yea, you have to kill Mr. Mimi with your weak-ass space pistol. Bullshit!!

Alien Syndrome was one of those games that when I finally beat it - of which I only had 10 seconds or thereabouts left on the timer - I promptly gave it the bird. It's a needlessly brutal game that not only gave me hell on the SMS but on an emulator as well, and to be honest, tools are irrelevant at this point. It reminded me of playing the SNES version of Battletoads on an emulator...with tools! Ok, tools helped me get past Speeder Bikes for once, but Tracktors pushed me into a maelstrom of unforgiving rage. Thing is, Alien Syndrome is not needlessly difficult in terms of an arcade game where lives matter. Heinous difficulty is required to keep children feeding endless amounts of quarters into the machine. One hit kills, limited lives, and creatures with nearly infinitesimal health is the norm. There's a lot more substance and meaning when proving victorious in an arcade game, especially if limited funds are used. Console ports don't quite carry the same prestige. Sure, there's a sense of pride when taking down an incredibly difficult console game, but there's no personal loss other than time to balance out the victory. Consoles don't offer that feeling of quarters well spent, so I have to wonder why ports are adamant about keeping one hit kills, limited lives etc. in tact. Overall, it feels like Alien Syndrome tried to remain true to its arcade origins for all the wrong reasons.

I'm not complaining about the difficulty because I have an aversion towards freakishly hard games - I don't. I'm complaining because the difficulty is highly mismatched and based on arcade-style mechanics that serve no purpose in its present form. And it's this more than the off-kilter control or even the somewhat stale gameplay that I credit an overall dislike towards this game. However, I can imagine the original arcade game working very well, even if the levels do tend to stagnate as you progress. I hate to chastise a game mostly for difficulty, but this game ended up feeling so lopsided and finished up on such a pinnacle of frustration. In the end, I regret playing the game further than the first or second level. My initial reactions, while not great, were reasonable enough to enjoy the game as a decent, yet quirky maze shooter. Sadly, all of that washed away as I insisted on beating the game. If I had to recommend the game, I'd do so purely as a 1-level demo; nothing more.

Nano-Rant:

There's supposedly a flamethrower upgrade in this game. I never found it. Guess I didn't look hard enough. Damn!

Rating: 2 brain-worms out of 5

NES - Fester's Quest

Haiku-Review:

a proposition:
force wide-angled gunfire
in cramped corridors

Additional Comments:

Fester's Quest is a game I never owned until recently, but somehow I played the hell out of it as a kid. I don't recall ever renting this game and I can't think of anyone who owned it so I'm a bit befuddled over the whole matter. What I do remember, however, is despite the countless hours I put into this game in my younger days, I never made it anywhere. I don't think I ever saw what lies beyond the initial sewer. Heck, I think the first time I even entered one of the 3D mazes was a few years ago while I casually played it via emulation. But then again, I may be imagining that and very likely confusing it with AVGN's video, which is rather depressing on my part. And the only reason I'm second guessing myself is that I didn't recognize any of the latter sections of the first sewer. Hmm, the more I think about it, I may have succumbed to claustrophobia within the initial sewer on that particular attempt as well. Damn!

Because of the limited ground covered I always thought that the house north of the starting point was the end of the game. Fester's Quest sort of fell into the same boat occupied by Battletoads. The beginning of the game was balls hard enough that it led to an errant hypothesis that the game can't possibly be that long. Who knew that there would be nine more stages after Turbo Tunnel? I knew for certain there were three more, but honestly, I thought that's all there was. Same here. I always thought Fester's Quest consisted of the first overworld area, the sewer area, a second overworld area (which was to the north of the giant ditch in the road), and that the end goal was the aforementioned house. Perhaps it's just naivety on my part, but in a way it made perfect sense given how fucking difficult it was to traverse the underworld.

I never completely grasped the upgrades and downgrades as a kid either, or so I assume. I naturally have to assume this because I don't recall ever obtaining anything better than a level four or five gun. No wonder I faced such adversity in the sewers - I never found myself with the proper equipment required for the job at hand. Sonuvabitch!!! Looking at the game now, I can only imagine that I was nothing more than ignorant when it came to simple gaming mechanics such as the upgrade/downgrade system used, but in my defense, the system is ignorant for existing in the first place. Yes, it's a clever idea, but given that gun levels one through six are entirely pointless in any given situation it renders the system moot outside of purely aggravating the player. If either the overworld/sewers were designed with some of the various guns in mind and/or the enemies, I could completely see the system working. Unfortunately, both the overworld and sewers consist of nothing but cramped conditions where nearly every gun's erratic spray is blotted out of existence. What kind of shitty ammunition is Fester using anyways? A lot of these elliptical or sine wave patterns would potentially be great in an STG with unlimited space, but in a close quarters labyrinth it's just asinine.

Once equipped with the proper upgrade, the game is a breeze. Even those replicating slimes are no match for a grade-eight gun. Ok, they still take some time to kill, but I personally fancy the gun over the whip in most situations. I know the whip is the more powerful and much preferred weapon (or at least the recommended weapon) and can pretty much annihilate anything in one or two hits, but I'll suffer the weakness of the gun if that means not having to fret over an accidental item pickup. Yea, what bullshit is this? Let's make a weapon that can pickup item drops, but let's make sure half of the item drops are weapon downgrades. It's like the programmers wanted to make the game as aggravating as possible at every turn. It's not frustrating, or difficult even, it's just a kick in the dick for the sake of dick-kicking.

But the crème de la crème has undoubtedly got to be the continue feature in regards to game progress. During my latest playthrough, I suffered three deaths; my first two completely legit. My first death happened shortly after the first sewer and had little effect on my disposition towards the overworld, but my second death, which happened within mere footsteps of the final boss, made me realize how idiotic both the continue feature and overworld design is. I see very little point in the continue feature as it stands. Sure, bosses don't need to be repeated and you retain what items you had upon death, but that's not really any consolation given the situation. You have to traverse the entirety of the overworld and sewer system all over again, plus any required 3D mazes. What the fuck!? Having a death early in the game, it's not that big of a deal, but dying within inches of the final boss and it's enough to make you throw the controller through the TV screen. Fortunately, when all is said and done, the game isn't actually all that long, but that's still no excuse. I just recently praised Dungeon Explorer for cutting out the bullshit of repetitive overworld exploration upon death, despite some of the confusion it caused. Why couldn't Sunsoft figure out such a novel idea? For instance after the first boss is killed, the ditch in the road could have been filled. Maybe some passageways could be opened up here or there. This game could have benefited immensely from such an approach.

As far as my third death, I committed suicide after realizing item replenishment was limited to boss kills and gift-giving family members, and well, I was already too far into the game to willingly backtrack for some potions. I stupidly assumed that items would be replenished after passing through the 3D mazes where bosses once resided. Eh, it sounded logical since I had to pass through the pointless buildings all over again, but alas, not so. And to be honest, I did attempt to backtrack, but I fell into a downward spiral of weapon downgrades which further lumped a bunch of anger onto my already monstrous shit stack from having to start at the beginning after being within an earshot of victory.

Needless to say, the developers managed to chock up everything that would have actually made the game brilliant and chucked it all out the window and instead implemented a cornucopia of moronic devices such as a meaningless upgrade/downgrade system, incomprehensibly incessant enemy respawn points that are especially frustrating with a downgraded weapon, and 3D mazes that serve no purpose other than elongating the game - they're not even all that labyrinthine. It's all a bit sad, really, because on the surface, Fester's Quest isn't that bad of a game. Unfortunately, it suffers from extremely noticeable flaws, such as the various gun sprays. It'd be one thing if this was a game made by someone like LJN, but we're talking about Sunsoft who seldom overlooks such a massive issue.

I hate to derail this game so much because I remember loving it as a kid, even if I never made it anywhere, and I still enjoy the game for some strange reason. But at the same time, I just cannot overlook all that is glaringly wrong with this game. If Sunsoft hadn't fucked this game up so much or you know, put it through some actual QC, I think the game could have easily been a top rated NES game. Even the music is lackluster. I'm wondering if I should bother showcasing anything, or if there's even anything worth showcasing. Guess I'll just pick something at random - maybe the Sewers Theme.

Nano-Rant:

The final boss is a pathetic joke!

Rating: 3 speedboats out of 5

SFC - Toride

Haiku-Review:

ancient constructs prized
within a magic mirror
thanks to tiles paired

Additional Comments:

Another guilty pleasure sweeps Beat All Games: first with Backgammon, and now with a generic Japanese tile game. I've always enjoyed Mahjong solitaire games, both for their simplicity and complexity. I remember playing Shanghai quite a bit as a kid, and while I'm certain I was alone on the idea that solitaire games were enjoyable, I didn't care. I came across a copy of Toride priced at a couple dollars. I was curious as to what it was and tried desperately to find some answers online. There seems to be very little information regarding this game out there, but as soon as I found out it was a tile game that wasn't Mahjong (yes, Mahjong, and Mahjong solitaire are two totally different games; unfortunately, we here in the west have been mislead for far too long) I was sold - especially since I don't own a copy of Shanghai. And speaking of Mahjong vs. Mahjong solitaire, you wouldn't believe how confused I was when I first gained access to some Super Famicom ROM's several years back and couldn't make heads or tails of these strange Gin Rummy-like games. Of course, everything being written in Kanji and Hiragana didn't help much either - in fact, it just obfuscated the situation that much more.

Fortunately for me, Toride's menus are easy to navigate and I can at least make plausible presumptions regarding the story. Everything else is strangely in English, which is something I've always pondered when it comes to Japanese releases. Why is there a good amount of text in English, especially in games that never saw a US or European release? I suppose I shouldn't complain as it does alleviate the obvious language barrier that can easily disrupt gameplay in other Japanese releases.

As tile games go, I enjoyed Toride. The game has an equal share of easy and frustratingly difficult layouts to solve. The story mode is mostly made up of easy to medium hard layouts whereas the single play has some exceedingly mindbending variations in the upper reaches. While some of the harder layouts proved their worth in the story mode, the reliance on vertical elimination wasn't near as apparent as it was in the single play matches. In fact, I didn't even realize that L and R served a very worthy function, which helped immensely with vertical elimination, until halfway through story mode since most of the layouts leveled out rather evenly.

Single match play is a beast of a different color. While the early going is incredibly easy, the latter stages are heavily reliant on vertical elimination, wild card tiles and ultimately hoping for the best when even L/R scrolling is of little help to see what lies below. This was especially frustrating with the red group of tiles. While the other three groups had more than enough tell-tale signs to determine a tile's insignia, well almost enough - fours and fives were often a gamble - the red grouping proved disastrous on more than one occasion. I played through single match play with time attack turned off the first time and I still struggled mightily with the latter stages. Discounting numerous failures, I spent upwards of ten-plus minutes on some of them. I couldn't imagine doing half of these stages with time attack turned on. Hmm, sounds like a challenge to me. Turning time attack on, I played through all of them again. While the déjà vu helped, I still faced failure after failure as I exceeded my hand in the upper reaches. But at the same time, having time attack on forced me to exercise both tile scouting and field elimination that much quicker and in the end helped as well.

Overall, what can I say? It's Mahjong solitaire. Honestly, that's enough to make me happy and besides, as long as the puzzles are solvable, there's really no way to screw the concept up. Sadly, since the game is little known, there's very little information out there, and that includes music selections. The music isn't the best, but after a while a couple of the pieces definitely grew on me. Unfortunately, that's all I can really say about that.

Nano-What?:

Interestingly, while trying to dig up what little information I could about this game, I found that Toride has some skeletons in the closet. Surprisingly, Toride is a port of an arcade game. Well, I guess it's not that surprising given it's a Japanese game and you consider stuff like Pachinko - sure, why not? But apparently there were two versions of the original arcade: the one on which the Super Famicom game is derived and one which has replaced all the beautifully rendered temples and monuments with...erotica. Hmm. This isn't the first time I've seen this but I certainly have to wonder, especially since the "models" are all drawn as opposed to the digitized scans found in say Erotictac or Miss World '96 Nude - although I certainly wouldn't call that an advancement in technology on their part. But what really makes me wonder is why any of this exists in the first place? Were these developers that apprehensive about their product that they had to peddle smut in order to attract potential gamers or were they all just lowly smut peddlers with some minor programming skills that chose to gift a plethora of repugnant nudes on the heels of a less than desirable puzzle game? Fortunately, Toride is a functional game and rather enjoyable at that, but the idea to play it just to see some 16-bit nudity? No thanks. I suppose we can only be grateful that none of that transferred over into the SFC port.

Huh, who would have though that a tile game would lead to a discussion on badly digitized smut?

Rating: 3.5 skeletons out of 5

INT - ABPA Backgammon

Haiku-Review:

checkers lined on pips
lie waiting to hit a blot -
where is my home board?

Additional Comments:

Huzzah! Intellivision lives! Ok, maybe Backgammon isn't the best game to herald it in, but the system's clumsy controller has so far gotten the better of me as I continue to try and tackle Advanced Dungeons & Dragons on the upper difficulties. So, until I can master akimbo-like prestidigitation, board gaming it is. Again, I'm sure there's something else I could have played through first, but honestly, I like backgammon. There's a certain nostalgia that comes with the traditional form of the game as I used to play it all the time as a kid - backgammon, acey-deucey, and I think possibly a couple other variants. Nowadays, it's become nothing more than a forgotten memory, so when I recently picked up a healthy stack of Intellivision games, I just had to pick up Backgammon as well. Maybe it's not quite the same experience as the real thing, but as long as the basic rules are in play, I've no qualms about facing off with a thirty-plus year old gaming machine no matter how trivial the game may seem in terms of today's video gaming extravagance.

Unfortunately, for the benefits of Beat All Games, there's very little to say about the game. It's backgammon through and through. The rules are in place, and regardless of difficulty, it's the next best thing to sitting down with an actual backgammon board. If I had to point a finger at anything, it'd likely be the one thing that most differentiates a digitized emulation of the game from the real deal: the dice. No matter the game and no matter the hardware, digitized die rolls just feel...phony. This especially becomes apparent in Backgammon on Mode 2 where the computer seems to have a fairly high percentage chance of rolling doubles while the player has nil to none. I played Mode 2 twice, having lost the first round thanks to a fortuitous doubles roll by the computer on the final play - a round in which I didn't roll doubles even once. Now, it should be said that I've really no place to complain because it's completely plausible to play through a real game of backgammon without rolling doubles even once. But to have a relative similar dice rolling outcome in both rounds where I really had to fight to overcome the computer's wrath of doubles, I do have to question the integrity of the dice rolling algorithm used in Mode 2.

The issue is that I'm not completely sure if that is what should constitute a higher degree of difficulty - as least on it's own accord. But from a programmer's perspective, perhaps it is the easiest way to present two difficulty tiers. To contrast the two modes, Mode 1 plays out more like a head to head race, solely reliant on high dice rolls. Very little is done regarding "combat" as blotting is nearly impossible thanks to the high quantity of doubles. Mode 2, however, is heavily strategy laden. Since the die results aren't there, you have to rely on sacrificial blots, tactical hits and the off chance to prime. While my first attempt at Mode 2 nearly ended in victory, and rather easily at that, I had to fight like hell in the second round. Hits were consistently traded off, and in the end I had to make prime to ensure that I could get my remaining checkers around the board before the computer could. Thing is, it was a thrilling round to play - felt more traditional to playing a real player because there was a lot more strategy involved throughout. Unfortunately, the strategy didn't necessarily come down to the computer being particularly wily. It was all a result of the computer's onslaught of doubles compared to my near absence of them. Hmm....

In the end though, there's no real reason to complain. The game works on a fundamental level as it should. The luck of the draw regarding dice can boil down to exactly that - luck. Sure, the law of averages would likely play out a bit more in real life, but it did lend for some great rounds nonetheless.

There is one other aspect of the game that bothered me. While not egregious by any means, the placement of the home board caught me completely off guard. Unfortunately, due to the nature of play, the home board can either be to your left or right depending on which side of the table you're sitting on. I often played the game sitting on the side in which the home board resided on my right. I guess out of instinct more than anything, I wrongfully assumed such is the case here. This led to a couple of bad plays on my initial game. My anticlockwise fixation got the better of me; more than once I might add rather embarrassingly. From my perspective, it just seemed natural that my checkers revolve thusly, and despite spending some time contemplating checker direction and home board placement - again, rather embarrassingly - it still felt off to move my pieces against the grain.

Nevertheless, ABPA Backgammon is a fine digital replication of a fantastic board game. Still, I'd rather play the game against an actual player, but in the meantime, the Intellivision manages just fine as a temporary replacement.

Rating: 4 pips out of 5

TG16 - Dungeon Explorer

Haiku-Review:

a maze of castles

surround tiny villages -

lurking, Satan waits

Additional Comments:

Oh crap, I meant Natas! Natas!!! (...maybe no one noticed.)

Anyway, while looking through TurboGrafx's library for some games I can add to my collection, I came across Dungeon Explorer. I was immediately drawn in by the almost primitive, yet enriched variation of Gauntlet's tried and true hack 'n slash tomfoolery. I've always loved Gauntlet's kill or be killed attitude with Grunts and Lobbers incessantly bashing away at the heroes en masse. There's something about it that's just so juvenile, even more so than today's hack n' slash offerings, but that's the joy of it. It's simplicity at it's finest in regards to the genre: level after level after level of hundreds upon thousands of mindless souls just aching to be killed. And beyond that? Nothing. Dungeon Explorer, however, chose to investigate the possibility of enhancing the game with actual content and additional gameplay mechanics. There's more than just massacring everything in sight to be found here, or at least at first glance.

This is one of those games that grabbed me by the horns, but then just sort of lost grip as it progressed. In a way, I'd blame it on all of those fresh, new ideas: upgrading Gauntlet's Bingo card style overworld with Odessia's beautiful countryside and incorporating a new RPG style stat/HP increase, but then I'm not so sure. It could also be the downplay of the sheer number of enemies and the ease to erase any unwanted sprites with screen boarder proximity. Actually, while a help in certain areas, that was a big letdown. But first, I'll go into more detail regarding Dungeon Explorer's upgrades.

I think the greatest thing this game did to enhance the primitive hack n' slash of the 8-bit days was to add a true, interactive overworld. This alone brought whole new life to the game and is really what sold me. This alone made the game feel more akin to an RPG experience than the rather lackluster leveling system. Not only that, but it helped enliven the plot; making it feel more substantiated than simply decreeing that the heroes are searching each dungeon for the elusive ORA Stone. Walking from village to village and facing nasty denizens en route also helped tie the world together instead of simply transporting the hero from one dungeon to the next. Sure, this is nothing new to RPG's or even action adventure games, but for the Gauntlet style approach to infinitesimal monster creation, at least until the respective generators are destroyed, it not only opens up countless possibilities, but it makes the game feel wholly unified.

However, the overworld brought on a lot of confusion too. Granted, the game is conceptually a giant labyrinth, but I only ever felt that on the overworld. The dungeons themselves fell short of that standard, playing far too linear. Even Ratonix Dungeon, despite its dizzying array of staircase trickery, was incredibly straightforward. But as far as the overworld went, I always felt like I was overlooking something, fell under a spell of misdirection, or just flat out barking up the wrong tree. The confusion is an unfortunate  byproduct of the game's Continue feature. No matter the in-game progress, the hero will always begin in the same little inn in Axis Village, which is more or less the nexus of Dungeon Explorer's universe. Therefore, in an effort to eliminate as much cross-country reprisal as possible, the overworld is littered with shortcuts that are eventually unlocked when the time is right. Honestly, I applaud Atlus tenfold for this approach. With the exception of a couple minor excursions that need to be repeated if you meet an untimely end, they took great care to create effective bypasses where and when necessary. At the same token, it causes some doubt as you travel the land. Maybe it's just my own stupidity, but I never felt confident in where I was going during the latter half of the game. A couple of times, I think I managed to find my destination by sheer fortune. All in all, what should have been labyrinthine felt too linear and vice versa.

As far as the game's leveling system, I'm not sure if it has a positive impact or not. Yes, the idea of stat boosting is always fun - it create's a secondary goal of sorts. And coming from a background of pen and paper RPG's, there's just something about watching individual numbers progress over time; inching ever closer to that next tier where some great new power or ability suddenly comes into play. Unfortunately, most video games muck up the entire system which ends up forcing players to tirelessly grind away for experience points. Dungeon Explorer, however, took a completely different approach, more akin to that of Legend of Zelda where stat increases are done after defeating a dungeon boss. Except here, it makes the rest of the game feel a little hollow. I think this partially has to do with the heroes having separate ability ratings whereas in Zelda, each new "level" only brings additional health. Throwing abilities into the mix cries out for experience accumulation, but sadly it's absent. The further I pressed on, the more meaningless all of the monsters became. Ok, maybe I could obtain some magic after enough kills, but even that wasn't worth it. I eventually hit a point where I just felt like making a mad dash for the stairs. If I had the lives in hand, why not? Typically, the bosses were easy enough to dispose of on my initial encounter, so if I could manage to beeline my way to their lairs, hey, that's all the better. And unfortunately, that wasn't all that hard to do much of the time since Dungeon Explorer really tanked the quantity of creatures compared to Gauntlet considering generators were dispersed throughout the dungeons and overworld.

The general emptiness of the environments and questionable, almost feckless, usage of enemies made the game feel far more casual than it probably should have. While I did face a number of deaths and game overs, the game still felt far too easy. If it wasn't for the confusion that I faced at times as I wandered the world, I'd probably give the game low marks purely for difficulty, or lack thereof. I'm not saying games need to be hard to be fun, but there at least needs to be some challenge, which for me, this game had very little. Even the bosses proved elementary in their strategies. And to be honest, most of my deaths were caused by running the gauntlet without a care in the world. Why waste time killing everything, which serves little purpose to begin with, when I know I can sacrifice some extraneous life force to reach the boss all that much quicker. I know that I could make the same argument for nearly any game out there, but it's never felt more apparent an issue than it did here. And that's sad, because this is still a great game.

But I think what really bugged me the most is the total lack of intelligence and motivation with most of the monsters, especially the various goblins, wizards, skeletons, and other humanoids. While all the sprites are programmed with a basic homing routine to zero in their attacks on the heroes, they have an uncanny ability to be hampered by any sort of object, formidable or not. It's not just an issue of being trapped behind a wall, but for some reason, they all seem inclined to snag their clothing on the corners where they become trapped for all eternity, or at least until you turn your back. Wait. What? That makes no sense. They will charge you head on if you're looking them dead in the eyes, but they somehow lose their way if they fall victim to the various sticky walls, even if you're directly in their line of sight. It's like they're embarrassed by their misfortune and are waiting for you to look the other way so that they can at least retain what little pride they have left. What makes this aggravating though is that they'll clog up tight passageways while still managing to stay out of shot. That's all well and good if that's what was intended, but I'm fairly certain in this case, it was not. And no matter how much you wiggle your hero around, trying to draw the attention of the aloof beasts, they still stay put hugging the adhesive dungeon walls.

The music in this game is pretty fucking phenomenal though. The soundtrack really showcases the raw throatiness of the PC Engine - very similar to Sega's sound engine for the Genesis. For me, those two console were the peak of video game sound pumping out those nice sawtooth lows and square wave highs. Unfortunately, locating specific pieces from Dungeon Explorer to showcase isn't exactly easy, but I found a beautiful little montage showcasing some of the better tracks like Overworld, Dark Dungeon, and Dangerous Garden. Another terrific piece is the Main Theme. The first time I popped in my Hu-Card to ensure it worked; I damn near melted when I heard that song as the intro played out. This game is nearly worth the music alone.

Nano-What?:

Holy crap, the antagonist's name is Satan!? When's the last time I've seen that in a video game? Don't know if I ever have. Ok, his name is actually Natas, or at least that's what everyone calls him, but there is one point where he says, "I am Natas, King Satan." Makes me wonder if this game ever came under the hellfire that titles like Splatterhouse or Mortal Kombat faced during the political correctness and censoring of games during the 90s. Seems to me, it squeaked through without so much as a hiccup. Well done!

Rating: 3 milkshakes out of 4

SNES - The 7th Saga

Haiku-Review:

seven hidden runes
by the kingdom's best they're sought -
a race to be king!

Additional Comments:

When I first got into emulation some years back, The 7th Saga; along with notables, Flashback and Drakkhen, was the first game I plunged into guns a-blazin'. The only insight I had into the game was that it was an RPG, and very likely a turn-based one at that. Chosen haphazardly perhaps, the decision was made based on knowing the game by name, but knowing next to nothing about it. Obviously, with a veritable bounty of games at my fingertips thanks to emulation, there's so many other RPG's I could have nosedived into, but I'm also the one to veer towards those little known titles that hide in the shadows. Sorry, Secret of Mana, you've been snubbed. What a blasphemous asshole I must be?

Unlike my soured runs of Flashback and Drakkhen, I pushed on with The 7th Saga. Surprisingly, despite its flat, repetitive gameplay, I found the game enjoyable. True, it's no better than a mediocre attempt at a Final Fantasy clone, but the game had a certain quirkiness that I found myself attached to. Between the crudely drawn Mode 7 overworld, the Dada-esque collection of Engrish-named horrors, and the sort of Might Makes Right mentality among the heroes, it just felt worlds apart from any other RPG while still relying on the same stale mechanic that has plagued each and every turn-based RPG since day one. Somehow, these curious nuances elevated the game; not into something necessarily better, but something a tad refreshing.

Eventually, my emulated run hit a brick wall. Somehow I lost track of my priorities in the game and managed to corner myself in the northern confines of the continent with no inkling of where to go. (Not to mention, I think I deleted my .srm file by mistake at some point.) Ah well, until another day.

Here it is a few years later and what do I find but a physical copy in my game collection. Huzzah! Sounds to me like a perfect time to try and conquer this game once and for all. Second approach and I decided to use the exact same lineup as my first attempt: Valsu Saizer with Olvan Jaess as the companion. Not only is it a perfect balance between might and magic, but the two of them together are a total powerhouse team - surprising since white mages are rarely ever useful except in the early going. And despite Valsu only having access to a solitary offensive spell, it's still powerful enough in the end game to cause some damage - surprisingly more damage than Olvan can muster even while boosted with the aid of a Power spell. Huh. Heck, I had an easier time withstanding blows with Valsu than I did with Olvan and that...well, that just doesn't make sense!

While making my way through the game, I kept tabs on what some other people had said about this game and I saw the same two complaints time and time again: extreme difficulty and grinding abuse. On my initial playthrough some years ago, I faced the same challenges. I recall grinding a great deal after leaving Melenam and again between the kingdoms of Belaine and Telaine. Each new creature I faced proved to be the ultimate test of strength, and sadly I lost all too often. This time, however, I never truly felt challenged until the end game. Yes, I faced some tough opponents here and there that truly gave me a run for my money and I fell bravely in battle far too much - the church sure as hell got its fair share of money from me - but I don't think I ever reached a point where I'd call the game difficult. Even grinding fell completely to the wayside. The only time I ever felt as if the big toe of repetitive battle needlessly pressed down on me was before entering Gorsia's Tower, and that's only because I wanted to recoup some monetary losses I experienced during the battle with Gariso. Honestly, I had no real reason to fatten my wallet. But from a collective standpoint, I wanted the best of the best regarding weapons and armor, even if some of it wasn't wholly necessary, for example the Immortal Rod for Valsu. I never even used the thing so essentially it was an easy 40k down the drain.

Experience, ability, and power never betrayed me as I ran the course of the game. Even with my highly unorthodox route that I ended up using after landing in Dowaine, I always felt the leveling was exactly on par with the opponents presented. So I'm at a loss as to how the game lends itself towards such criticisms. Yes, most turn-based RPG's do fall victim of grinding - it's just in their nature - but I think The 7th Saga managed to find a balance to stay just a step ahead of the nefarious cycle. But then, maybe it's the combination I used. Knowing how well Valsu and Olvan compliment each other, that's a very plausible hypothesis as to how I steered clear of this horrible disease. Heck, I managed to overcome the same issue in Final Fantasy by manipulating my party's abilities in the early going and that game is wrought with the pestilence of grinding.

I never felt like the game was at fault at any point. Ok, maybe one thing weakened my perception of the game: the ever present Curative Moebius, but even that meagerly skewed my opinion. RPG's, especially those by Square and Enix, are notorious for cyclical healing reliance during battle to help elevate the concept of difficulty. Forcing strategy to single out a particular character as a dedicated healer is no fun no matter how much you try and sugarcoat it. Lengthening battles by these means is not difficulty; it's tiresome bullshit meant to extend the life of a game ad nauseum. Difficulty should not equate to taking massive hits from the enemy only having to use every turn to heal the incapacitated with a dedicated patron of the white arts. Having a character solely for that purpose is asinine. Yes, healing should be an essential mechanic to any magic-based RPG, but not to the extant that most game companies portray it. And I'm not complaining because of the so-called "challenge" that comes with cyclical healing - on the contrary, it's not challenging. It's nothing but tedium and an unpleasant game experience. But then you have to ask, is there an easy fix? Easy? Probably not, since we as gamers have taken for granted that healing is as easy as spending a sixpence down at the temple or loading the old pack with a plethora of curative concoctions from the local market. All in all, medicines and/or restorative practices are perhaps too easy to come by. Why should I worry about woe when I've got twenty canisters of aloe at my side? Except in this game, the ease of medicine is exploited even further which brings me to another point - not necessarily a gripe, but a worthy talking point.

A very interesting element of The 7th Saga is the Runes. Essentially, these objects of power are what drive our heroes on - those who obtain all seven shall become king of all the lands. But not only do they carry a totalitarian dream; they also carry mysterious enhancements to help augment the bearer's own powers. Now that's one sweet deal and by the time you face Gariso, every stone is worth their weight in gold as they say. There is a downside to it all however. But what really makes the whole negative impact of the runes rather curious is that you don't even realize the problem until it's too late. With the freedom to use each Rune on the fly, they sort of negate the usefulness of a white mage. Again, this bolsters my original point that white mages are typically pretty useless in RPG's except in the early going. (Makes me laugh though since my main character was a...whelp, white mage. Ha!) Why waste magic when I have my runes? And sadly, you just sort of get used to it, that is until the safety net is pulled out from under you and suddenly those numbers next to MP matter a great deal. Strategy is no longer based on infinitesimal cyclical healing but rather, how much cyclical healing can I muster before I reach the comfort of the next inn? While personal magic and pharmaceuticals are still in abundance, it does at least bring some strategy back into the game regarding usage. Unfortunately, battles are still dragged down by needless convalescing, but by this point in the game you become pretty numb to it all.

As a final kick in the pants, the Runes play their swansong in the battle against Gorsia. Once you get the hang of how Gorsia's battle works, it's not that bad, but until you do, it's bloody murder. A whole lot of luck, against your favor, plays out in this battle since Gorsia enjoys flinging a home-cooked dark attack that easily causes twice the damage of even your hardiest warrior's HP. If it wasn't for the long ass trek to reach him, I probably wouldn't complain, but the cheapness of his battle strategy frustrated the hell out of me every time I had to spend an additional ten to twenty minutes making my way back to his humble abode. Thankfully, Valsu's speed capped out so I knew I had an extremely good chance of escape if needed - especially against those godforsaken Falocks.

But despite the aforementioned grievances, none of them were enough to drag the game down for me. Yes, it's a turn-based RPG which typically bore the hell out of me, but I never grew tired of this one. Even on my first attempt several years ago, I found the game enjoyable enough to keep pressing on. Unfortunately, I somehow backed myself into a corner and deleted my save. Otherwise, I'd probably have completed the game on my initial run. There's nothing exceptional about this game by any means and I can easily see why it's become one of the neglected titles from the SNES era. On the surface, it's a mediocre clone at best, but dig a little deeper and it's a unique RPG that pits hero against hero on a quest to be king. I'd say it extends its stay for a bit too long, but after experiencing the gameplay through two different perspectives regarding the Runes, I can appreciate it sticking around.

And finally, I cannot end without giving acclaim to the music. I love the music in this game, especially the overworld themes like Lux Tizer, Kamil Dowonna, or World Map. They're all so otherworldly in a strange sort of way - almost mystical sounding. And then there's brilliant pieces like the adventurous Mecha Glider, the quaint How to Cross an Ocean, or the snooty pomp of Grand Palace. With the amount of songs listed, I should have just linked the entire OST. Yes, The 7th Saga is yet another game where the entire soundtrack is nothing but ear candy from beginning to end. (Dare I sneak in Great Achievement, if for anything, at least a good laugh? Dare I do indeed...)

Nano-Rant:

While I can appreciate the over-extended stay, I do have to say that it came at quite a surprise. For as long as it took to reach what I thought was the end, I was appalled to find that the game continued on. Of course, I came to accept it as the reasoning appeared sound, however it left me scarred enough to think that the actual end was yet another segue into the ongoing saga that is The 7th Saga, especially considering the rather disappointing, yet shocking end. Talk about crying wolf!

Nano-Win:

If only I could express how much I laughed when I was first introduced to the post-Gariso battle music, Battle in a World of Fading Hope, and what do I see but an H.R. Giger-inspired Ghoul dancing erratically while hiding his face as if to say, "Don't look at me!"

Rating: 3.5 mosquitoes out of 5

GEN - Sonic the Hedgehog

Haiku-Review:

total game changer
for Super Nintendo hounds -
sold! Sega for life

Additional Comments:

In the beginning, for me, was Atari with the wood-paneled 2600. My mom picked one up at a tag sale when I was around six years old and I played the hell out of it. Of course, I was clueless to the existence of a video game industry beyond my own personal 2600 collection, but that's not really the point. I was more than ecstatic with the titles I acquired - certainly no complaints here - so much so that I eventually learned to play the first stage or two of River Raid blind. Heh, nowadays, I wouldn't have the patience to master such a kooky undertaking, what with the endless plethora of gaming at my hands. Then came Nintendo with the NES. I was sad to see my Atari go, but sonuvabitch, nothing could match the incredible new gameplay of Super Mario Bros. The exponential gravitas suddenly unleashed with the power of the NES was simply unbeatable. Fair enough, and as the years passed, Nintendo placed its deathgrip stranglehold around my neck as I saw no reasonable alternative to the SNES when it was finally unleashed.

For those that grew up in the post-16-bit era of gaming, the idea of a one-console household seems like nothing more than old folklore. Especially nowadays, the idea of owning less than two of the latest and greatest is just, well...absurd. But back then, you really had to put your faith in a company knowing that only one of the magnificent altars of pleasure would rest below your TV set. Nintendo had me hooked and the idea of jumping ship to see what Sega was all about was pure blasphemy. But for a friend of mine, he decided to gamble. I remember him telling me about his decision as if he had gotten the inside line on Sega's future. If anything, between the two of us, we'd have access to both an SNES and a Genesis, so why not?

Up to this point, other than hearing a few whispers about Sega's brainchild, I knew very little. I wasn't exactly hungry to play any of these "foreign" titles - after all I had such classics as Super Mario World, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV, F-Zero and Sim City to keep me busy. But the day came that I decided to cross the barrier and try out this strange game known as Sonic the Hedgehog. Holy crap on a crap cracker!! I remember the day vividly. My first experience with Sonic forever changed the way I looked at video games. Sure, it's nothing more than a simple platformer, but the hyped-up speed was for real. Not only that, but the game just popped. Sega's usage of color somehow felt brighter and more alive. For the first time, doubts of Nintendo's prowess began to infect my mind. Still, I stuck with the SNES, but to have my hands on a Genesis and this wonderful game dubbed Sonic the Hedgehog....

Eventually, a Genesis made its way into my household along with the game that left me drooling for so long. To this day, the Genesis-based Sonic trilogy (I consider Sonic 3 and S&K as a single game as it was originally envisioned) is still my favorite platforming series. It's hard to say there's something out there that's better than the likes of Super Mario Bros. 3, but the Sonic series is impressively entertaining. These are games that I will never tire from, no matter how many times I play them. And believe me, I've played them an ungodly amount.

Over the years, I've had a lot of friends feed me reasons why Sonic is mediocre at best. What those reasons are, I couldn't say. I've never been able to latch onto anyone's criticism as I've often found them to hold little water and/or bear menial, biased complaints towards Sega in general. Maybe I'm just biased myself. Whatever. As far as personal sour notes, sure I grumble over the slow-as-hell elevator segments in Spring Yard Zone or the inconvenient air timer in Labyrinth Zone or the whole existence of Scrap Brain Zone 3 as a Labyrinth Zone knockoff - ok, I'm more than a bit miffed at that one. But all in all, no matter the degree of disappointment in any of the above situations, I love this game to its very core. Well, Scrap Brain Zone 3 could potentially cause a worrying wobble. Seriously, Scrap Brain Zone has the coolest gimmicks while Labyrinth Zone has the lamest. They could have done so much more with Scrap Brain's material. Oh well.

What's more to say? I suppose I could go into more detail about why I think this game is awesome. The thing is, it's just that - it's simply put, awesome! The levels, the themes, the physics, the replayability, the exploration, the graphics, the music, it's all so amazing. I feel as though I'm snubbing the game in a way; sort of overlooking the technicality of it all and instead opting to fill most of this post with backstory. But in a way, that's part of the magic of Sonic the Hedgehog, for me at least. Not only is the game massively impressive and brilliantly fun to play, the game presented itself to me as that initial step into gaming beyond Nintendo. It got me out of my comfort zone and dared me to explore what else was out there. Nintendo's selection felt expected whereas Sega's repertoire danced the ragged edge. If it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't have moved on to the new and intriguing Sony Playstation; instead having kept my fingers crossed that Nintendo would once again hit one out of the park with its over-hyped Shitbox-64. Point is, how many other games have I been able to accredit with laying an incredible foundation for the future of gaming or somehow shaping it in a way yet unforeseen? Super Mario Bros. and...uh.... To make a comparison, despite my personal opinions on the matter, Sonic the Hedgehog did for me what I think Super Mario 64 did for the vast majority of gamers. Ok, so it's just another 2D platformer, but back in the day, it really was so much more than that and I think that's something that people, especially kids, nowadays will never understand.

Nano-Win:

There is absolutely no way I can finish this post without showcasing some music. Across the board, Sonic 1, 2 and 3/K, music is a thing of pure beauty. I know most all of the songs by heart and can typically hum any of them at a drop of a hat. Is that a good thing? Who knows? The entire soundtrack of Sonic the Hedgehog is golden and ideally I'd just list the entire thing. In fact, I think I will - WONG!! - but the songs that really strike my fancy are Marble Zone, Star Light Zone, and Scrap Brain Zone. Pure fucking win!!!

Rating: 5 CPU's out of 5