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