Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Video Game Review #403: Ecco the Dolphin

Ecco the Dolphin
Sega CD


Nostalgia Factor:

I know what you're thinking. "Hey Dan. Didn't you already review Ecco the Dolphin back in 2020? Wasn't it your 237th video game review?" Why yes. Yes it was. But that was the Sega Genesis version of the game. This is the Sega CD version.

Growing up, I was always curious about Ecco the Dolphin for Sega CD. I heard it had new levels, new music, and added FMV sequences not available for the Genesis version of the game. Not owning a Sega CD, however, made it pretty much impossible for me to verify these claims.

Fast forward to 2022. My RetroPie has nearly every game on it from the Sega CD era - Ecco included. Figured now was as good a time as any to come give it a look-see. 




Story:

Call this lazy review writing if you want, but I don't care. Go back and read my review of Ecco for the Genesis if you want a full plot synopsis. This game is a port, so its story is exactly the same thing. You know what? I'll even save you the extra click and just copy and paste it here. Who's lazy now??

"I have to say, this is one of the most unique video game stories I have ever encountered. You play as a playful, happy dolphin named Ecco. Ecco is swimming along with his pack and enjoying life when one day all nearby life is sucked out of the ocean into a giant funnel cloud. Ecco is left as the sole survivor, and he swims off to explore the sea in the hopes of recovering his lost pack.

Ecco’s journeys lead him across the ocean to the lost city of Atlantis. Reading ancient glyphs, Ecco discovers that a mysterious alien civilization named the Vortex has been feeding off of Earth’s oceans for 500 years. Ecco uses ancient Atlantean technology to travel 55 million years into the past, to help his friend the Asterite find his missing orb.

Returning to present day, Ecco gives the Asterite its missing orb and is rewarded with the abilities to both breathe underwater and to damage the Vortex with his sonar ability. Ecco returns to the point in time where his pack is sucked into the funnel cloud, and makes sure he is sucked up with them this time around. Fighting the Vortex on their own turf, Ecco defeats the Vortex Queen and vanquishes the threat once and for all…. (or at least until this game’s amazing sequel).

Pretty different, huh?"




Gameplay:

Okay. Maybe I am the lazy one.

"This game takes place from a 2D side-scrolling perspective. Controlling Ecco, you can move through the water in all directions. One of the buttons increases your speed as you swim. Another is an attack that launches you toward enemies so you can smash them with your bottle nose. The last button control controls your sonar. You can use this sonar to talk to other sea creatures and interact with ancient glyphs. Hold down the sonar button to use echolocation, which gives you a brief, undetailed map of the area. As the game goes on, you can use your sonar to damage enemies. Just don’t expect this ability right away.

There is a learning curve to this game. You will need to jump out of the water and over obstacles from time to time, and the trick to this involves building up speed and timing your charge attack at just the right time (and the right angle) to launch yourself out of the water. All my friends struggled with this when I was a kid, and I think that’s one of the main reasons none of them liked this game.

Another thing that makes life difficult is your oxygen meter. Ecco is a dolphin, and dolphins need to come out of the water to breathe oxygen. As you play, your oxygen meter will slowly deplete. Run out of oxygen, and your health bar will start to rapidly drain. So if you want to be successful playing this game, you’re going to have to keep that oxygen bar replenished or you will not last long. Not only are you solving puzzles, exploring, and fighting enemies, you have to do it all against the clock. Another reason people probably think this game is just SO difficult.

I hate to be that guy, but I never found this game to be that hard. You have to be patient, you have to make sure you’ve got enough oxygen, you’ve got to keep track of where you have been and where you need to go. It really isn’t that bad at all. I do have to acknowledge that the end of the game is pretty tough. The Vortex tunnel and the ensuing Welcome to the Machine stage are extreme trial and error and can get frustrating fast. If you die against the game’s final boss, you have to go back and do it all over again, too. Oof."

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about the differences between the Genesis and the Sega CD versions of the game. There really... aren't that many. The music is the most noticeable, but we'll get to that in the sound portion of my review. The FMV sequences don't add much to the game. The extra levels are probably the thing that stands out the most. Gameplay is unchanged. Really, everything else is completely unchanged. Did the original game give you a mid-level continue system when you died, so you didn't have to replay the entire level over again? If not, that is something new - not that I had to take advantage of this too often. I'm somewhat of an Ecco pro, after all.

The new stages themselves are barely worth discussing. I almost didn't even recognize them as new stages when I first hit that section of the game. It's basically more of the same. Most of these stages involve swimming around a maze-like reef area where there are lots of sunken ships. These stages take you deeper into the ocean than normal. but there are plenty of those invincibility crystals around to refill your health and your oxygen meter.

I hate to say this, but these new levels don't add much to the game.




Graphics:

This game looks identical to the Genesis version of Ecco. I expected to see some graphical upgrades, but there were none to be found here. Not that the game really needed any upgrades. I think the underwater scenery is breathtaking, and that this is clearly one of the best looking Genesis games ever made.

Everything is carried over perfectly to the Sega CD. The colors, the crispness of the backgrounds, the smooth dolphin animations, that eerie sense of atmosphere when you are poking around on the bottom of the ocean floor. It's great. You can't really improve on perfection, can you?




Sound:

This is the area of the game where I was the most apprehensive coming in. The Genesis Ecco has what I consider to be a near-perfect soundtrack. It's haunting, atmospheric, and beautiful when it needs to be. It really helps instill this sense of both fear and wonder in the player regarding things you'd encounter out in the ocean.

I've read reviews of the Sega CD version where people have said that the CD soundtrack is better, and is a technical marvel that fits the tone of the game like a glove. I read the same thing about Batman Returns, another Sega CD port of a Genesis game, and I found that I actually enjoyed the Genesis music much, much more than the "improved" Sega CD version. I was worried the same thing was going to happen here.

Turns out, I didn't have too much to be worried about here. I really enjoyed this game's soundtrack. It fit the action onscreen perfectly. Tonally, it is a bit different from the Genesis version. I don't think this music is nearly as haunting or foreboding. If anything, it is more "wondrous" in its tone, making the ocean out to be something beautiful and mysterious rather than scary. There's one track in particular that gave me goosebumps when I first heard it. I'll post the entire soundtrack below and let you decide for yourself. The song that I like is Track 7 and can be heard at the 21:37 mark.




Overall:

I got what I expected from this game. New levels, a few extra cutscenes, and an alternative soundtrack that is quite good in comparison to the original game.

That said, this is still pretty much the exact same experience you'd get playing the original version of Ecco the Dolphin. If you liked that game, you'll like this one. If you didn't like it, this version won't change your mind.

The new levels don't add much to the game, nor do the cutscenes. So for me, the definitive version of the game really boils down to the soundtrack. That is the deciding factor. Which soundtrack do you like the most? That's the version of the game you'll probably end up favoring.

It's a really close call for me. While I like the beautiful CD quality music found here, I slightly, slightly prefer the Sega Genesis soundtrack. Like I said, it has this haunting and otherworldly feel to it that I think really adds to the dark tone of the game. The CD version has terrific music as well, but I won't come away from the game with many of these songs stuck in my head. Maybe it's a nostalgia thing, and if I had grown up with this version of the game rather than the Genesis version, my opinions would be switched.

But really, it doesn't matter too much. These are both fantastic versions of the same game. It's going to get the same score as the Genesis version from me. 

If you have the means to play both, please play both - and let me know which version you prefer. They are too close in my mind for me to make a definitive call. I look at them the exact same way: they are both really freaking good games, and you can't go wrong playing either one.



THE GRADE:
A




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Video Game Review #402: Half-Life

Half-Life
PlayStation 2




Nostalgia Factor:

I have a long, strange history with Half-Life, despite the fact that until this week I had never played the game for more than a total of one hour. Back in 2003, I rented this game from Blockbuster Video along with Grand Theft Auto III. I really liked what I saw of Half-Life, but my time with it was cut short after one night of playing.

My girlfriend at the time was sent to the emergency room during a routine checkup, because her platelet levels were at a life-threateningly low level. I remember rushing to the ER to be by her side, completely forgetting about the games I had rented back at home. She ended up staying at the hospital for several days before being discharged, and I slept in the room with her every night. When we came home, I had to return Half-Life and GTA III to Blockbuster despite barely having had the chance to play them.

I'd end up buying a used copy of Half-Life for the PS2 a few years later for the bargain price of 11 dollars. Never actually got around to playing it though, until now. I'd say this game has been in my possession for at least 15 or 16 years.

I've heard all about Half-Life and how it has gotten such rave reviews over the years. Many people consider this to be one of the greatest first person shooters, if not one of the greatest games of all time. I've always wanted to dive into Half-Life, and honestly I don't know what kept me from doing so. I'm someone who enjoys delayed gratification, so maybe I was just waiting for the right, most perfect time to check this out.

That time has come. It's 2022 - 21 years after Half-Life's initial release for the PlayStation 2. How would it hold up after all that time? Mop Up Duty rolls on through 2001.




Story:

You play as Gordon Freeman, a scientist at the Black Mesa Research Facility. The game begins on the eve of a big experiment. You walk around the facility - talking to people, checking things out, and preparing yourself for your big day.

The experiment goes terribly wrong, and a rift to an otherworldly realm full of terrifying monsters rips open in the middle of Black Mesa. Gordon grabs a gun and begins his journey to escape the overrun facility. But wait! The US government swoops in, sending soldiers not to rescue you, but to kill all survivors in an attempt to cover up the incident.

Gordon is now fighting to stay alive against both human and alien invaders. After fighting through the facility, Gordon enters the other realm and kills the massive creature in charge, saving the world from being overrun by these monsters. It is then that Gordon is confronted by the G-Man, a mysterious figure he had seen wandering the halls of Black Mesa.

The G-Man says that thanks to Gordon, the other world (Xen) can now be conquered by humanity. Just from the way this guy talks, you can tell he's up to no good. And if human history has taught me anything it is that humanity is only going to exploit and misuse whatever they find on Xen. The G-Man gives you the option of joining him or declining his offer. The game ends with either you stepping into a portal to join the G-Man, or you being dropped weaponless into an alien battlefield, surrounded by enemies with no way to defend yourself.

The credits roll.

This isn't a horribly deep game as far as story goes. It reminds me a lot of Doom - where a dimensional rift brings creatures from Hell onto a space station, and the main character crosses through the rift to destroy the creatures at their source. It's basically the exact same thing here. What interests me the most is the G-Man and what happens from here. I also have Half-Life 2 in my collection, so I can't wait to check that out soon. From what I have heard it is supposed to be even better than this game - and I liked this game a LOT. It must be quite good.




Gameplay:

This is one of the most polished first person shooters I have ever played. Walking, running, jumping, climbing, strafing, looking up and down: all of this is very smooth and extremely easy to do. The only things I didn't like were climbing up and down ladders (I ended up accidentally falling to my death a small handful of times) and the fact that you have to cycle through all your weapons to find the one you want. There's no radial menu as far as I know, and pausing the game does not bring up any kind of weapon select option. These are relatively small gripes, however, as otherwise this game is a complete blast to play.

I'd highly suggest checking out the tutorial before actually diving into the game, as all the controls are broken down quite extensively. There are no in-game instructions once you actually start playing, so it is important to be as well-informed as you can before fully committing.

Half-Life's introduction is quite iconic. Even though I only played this game for an hour or so back in 2003, I still remembered the train sequence. It does a great job introducing you to the game environment and really giving you an idea of the scope of your adventure and how cinematic it will be.

Once you get off the train, you wander around the lab, talking to people, taking in the sites, and getting in your armored suit in preparation for the big experiment. Just being able to walk around, check things out, and explore what felt like a fully lived-in and occupied environment like this was a huge deal for me back in 2003, although it might not seem like much by today's standards. Still, I bring this up to give you an idea of how big of a trendsetter this was when it first came out.

Once the experiment goes haywire, the real game begins. You wander around a crumbling lab environment as alien enemies start to come after you. At first your only weapon is a crowbar, and I have to say that this is one of the better melee weapons I've ever encountered in an FPS. I don't even bother fighting with my fists in Goldeneye or Doom, but in this game the crowbar feels like a potent and viable option for whacking some aliens in the head.

As the game progresses you pick up typical FPS weapons. A handgun, a shotgun, grenades, an automatic rifle - that kind of thing. You can also start using the alien tech against them, which I found to be quite awesome. And of course you are exploring a lab, so expect to find some high-tech weaponry to use that had previously been under lock and key.

Unlike most first person shooters of the time, there are no "levels" to be found here, at least in the traditional sense. The whole game flows seamlessly from one area of Black Mesa to the next. It's a pretty linear game, but it never quite feels that way. The illusion of freedom you are given is a thing of beauty.

Along the way you'll encounter security guards and scientists who can help you out. Scientists will give you a health boost, or maybe open a door for you that you couldn't open otherwise. Security guards will fight aliens side by side with you, although they are mainly fodder and don't live very long. The help is always appreciated though!

Half-Life is on a completely different level from every other first person shooter I've played. I don't know if I have been able to properly put it into words how fun this game is. It's cinematic, the action is smooth and fast-paced, it's not broken up into cliched levels like you see in Doom or Wolfenstein. Everything flows together wonderfully. It is just... perfect. And something that you have to actually play to truly appreciate.




Graphics:

This isn't a flawless looking game, but I still think it looks quite good. I love the cinematic feel of the game. I could easily see this being turned into a movie or TV series. The atmosphere of the game is incredible. It's easy to believe this lab really exists, and that it is populated by scientists and doctors. Just walking around the main office and the locker room and the break room when I was younger filled me with a sense of "holy crap!" unlike any other game before it.

The environments range from well-designed to bland looking at times. I guess it is hard to make corridors and tram areas look too detailed, considering how many of them there are in the game. My biggest complaint with the graphics is in the NPC design, particularly the scientists. The same three or four character models are used over and over again. It was a bit jarring for me at the beginning of the game when I was walking around and seeing the same scientist over and over again in different areas of the lab. One of the scientists even morphed from an old white man with glasses and a receding hair line to a black man with greying temples right in front of my eyes.

Some of the later areas where you travel to Xen provide a much-needed visual break from seeing the same thing over and over again. I love the alien vistas and how breathtaking the background scenery can be. The monsters look like something straight out of a Lovecraft story or an Alien movie, and I am 100% there for it.




Sound:

I'll get my complaining out of the way immediately: the scientists' voices! They are so nasally and whiny. They all sound like they have a stick up their butt, and they all have exactly the same voice. Thank god most of them get wiped out at the beginning of the game because having to listen to them for an extended period of time would have been torture.

Other than that, I don't have any complaints. The atmospheric effect of the sound as you wander around this broken laboratory is terrific. All the ambient sound effects are perfect and really make the game's environment feel quite real.

I like the way your enemies sound as well, whether you are hearing the radio chatter of the troops sent in to kill you or the telltale noises of the aliens in your vicinity. With a few exceptions, you always know when someone is near you that you need to be on the lookout for.

There isn't much music in the game, but when there is it is usually because some big event is happening or is about to happen to you. It really makes the intensity level go up when the music starts to play. Oh crap, what's about to happen!



 
Overall:

This is a GREAT game. The best I have played in a long time. Why on Earth did I wait nearly 20 years to truly give this game a shot? The hype is 100% correct. You need to play Half-Life. If you've never played it, put down what you are doing and pick it up now!

This may be my favorite first person shooter of all time. I was trying to think about what could be better than this one. Wolfenstein? No, too simple. Goldeneye? No, too flawed. Doom? Iconic and classic, but not as fun as this. Far Cry? No. Halo? No. BioShock? No. Turok? Hell no. I think the only game that really comes close is the original Quake. I love that game. Even then, I can pretty easily say that Half-Life is better.

So yes, this is my favorite first person shooter of all time. And no, I am not saying that because "everybody loves Half-Life". Everybody loves it for a reason. It's a damn good game. And you know what excites me? Its sequel is supposed to be even better. I can't wait. Bring it on!



THE GRADE:
A+




40th Birthday Mop Up Duty Celebration Tour:




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2001:
Half-Life (the review you're reading)

And up next:
Batman: Gotham City Racer 
for the PS1


For a complete index of all my past posts and game reviews, click


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Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Video Game Review #401: Virtua Cop

Virtua Cop
Sega Saturn


Nostalgia Factor:

1996. Blockbuster Video. 14 year-old Dan furiously pedaling home on his bicycle with a copy of Virtua Cop in his backpack. Life was good. I had the game for three days, and I played it endlessly over the course of that weekend. 26 years later, those three days remain my only experience with the game. I'd later go on to purchase Virtua Cop 2, which I still like to pop in from time to time. But the original Virtua Cop? It's been a minute, to say the least.

Due to the how difficult it is to get your hands on Saturn games these days, I never thought I'd be able to play this game again. Enter emulation. This is one of those cases where I don't feel guilty about emulating one tiny bit. I'm just glad to be able to play the game.

Would Virtua Cop stand up 26 years after my last experience with it? Let's dive in, shall we?




Story:

I'm sure Virtua Cop has some kind of storyline to it. If so, it is never explained in-game. You play as a cop (or a pair of cops if you are playing this with a second player). You make your way through three stages, shooting bad guys and eventually taking down the head honcho of whatever crime syndicate you're trying to bring down. The end.




Gameplay:

This is a very simple game. You don't have any control over your character. You just move a cursor around on the screen. This cursor represents your gun's sight. When an enemy pops up, you shoot them. Double-tap the reload button to reload your weapon when you are out of bullets - or pre-emptively, which I found myself constantly doing as I made my way through the game. More bad guys will pop up, and you shoot them. Occasionally an innocent civilian will appear in your line of fire. You want to avoid shooting them, or you will lose one of your lives.

You can tackle the game's three stages in any order you want. I just play them from easiest to hardest. At the end of each stage is a boss character. I actually found the medium stage's boss character to be the hardest, probably because of the respawning enemies that show up while the boss is hiding from you.

If you notice the colored ring around the enemies that is shown in some of these screenshots, you may wonder what that represents. It's actually a timer of sorts. When the ring turns red, the enemy will fire at you, and likely hit you. So you want to aim for enemies with the ring around them first before firing at other enemies on the screen. Ignore them, and you'll likely be dealt some damage.

One thing I liked about the game when it was first released, which seems silly now, is how interactive the environments are. I constantly found myself shooting at windows, barrels, and parked cars - often to the detriment of my own character's health. You have no idea how many times I'd be firing away at some windows when an enemy would pop up on the other side of the screen and shoot me before I could reload and move my cursor over there. Never learned my lesson, though. Shooting at things is just too much fun! And you never know when they'll be hiding a secret weapon or item.

Speaking of secret weapons, as I said they usually appear when you destroy a box or something in the background. The only useful weapon I found was the automatic. It's so fun mowing down enemies one after the another after another. You can pick up a magnum or a shotgun but they seem to work the exact same way your handgun does. I never really saw the point, but I still went out of my way to collect them. If you get shot once, though, you lose your weapon. So be alert!

The default setting in this game is three lives with three continues, which is ridiculous. You'll burn through all of those halfway through the game. There's just no way to avoid getting shot sometimes. Usually I tend to play a game using its default settings, the way it is intended to be played, but in this instance I cranked it up to nine lives and nine continues. I'm never going to be a master of this game, and I am okay with that.




Graphics:

This game looks really good. There's none of that blotchy pixelization or ugliness that plagues a lot of games from the 32-bit era. Everything is very smooth and colorful and cartoon-like. I enjoy all the enemy animations, and how they react differently depending on where you shoot them.

This is going to be a weird thing to compliment, but I like the reflective surfaces in this game. Like when you see the background reflected in car windows or shiny surfaces. This effect is used the most in the medium stage. I don't know why, but I really enjoy seeing this. 

I'm weird. I know. You don't have to tell me.




Sound:

This game sounds very good, too. The stage music is catchy. The sound of gunshots isn't too loud and obtrusive. I like the little yells of agony from the computer characters when you shoot them. The bad guys and the civilians. This whole game just has that classic mid-90s Sega feel to its music, as well as its graphics. And that is a good thing.




Overall:

I had an enjoyable, if very short, time with this game. Cranking your credits and lives up to nine apiece was definitely the way to go for me. I can't fathom trying to trial and error my way through this game with the default number of lives and credits. No thanks.

One minor complaint I have is the reload button. You have to tap it twice in order to reload, and I swear to the almighty that this feature doesn't work sometimes. Half my deaths in this game were because I ran out of bullets in the middle of a fierce firefight, I double-tapped reload to fill my bullets, and then when I tried to shoot the next wave of enemies it said I still needed to reload. And then I'd get shot. I don't recall having this problem with Virtua Cop 2. Do you just have to press the reload button once in that game? I definitely feel that would have been the way to go in this one.

As I alluded to, this is a short game. I didn't set a timer or anything as I played, but I can imagine that this didn't take me any longer than 45 minutes to complete - if that. I can't imagine paying 50 or 60 bucks for this game back in the day, for something that only lasted 45 minutes. Maybe you can stretch some replay value out of this game by changing the difficulty or trying to master the game on a more limited number of lives. But that's not for me. I'm sure this game is fun to play with a second player as well, but you know me - I'm single player all the way. I can imagine that this adds some replay value to the game, though.

All in all this is a fun and charming little game. It's very shallow and doesn't offer much in the way of variety, so I can't give it too high a score. But it's nonstop fun from start to finish, which is a lot more than you can say about most games out there. Can I recommend Virtua Cop to anyone else? Yes, especially if you like light gun shooters. If not, you probably won't be missing anything if you decide pass on this one.



THE GRADE:
B-



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Monday, August 15, 2022

400 Game Reviews: What An Accomplishment



400 game reviews. I did it. It hasn't even been a year since I hit 300, so this has definitely been one of the most productive stretches of my blogging "career" by far.

As always, let's break down some numbers.

I reached 300 game reviews on October 4, 2021. That was 315 days ago. So by the numbers, that means I've been pumping out game reviews at the pace of approximately one every three days since then. Definitely above my normal average, but overall not too surprising considering I've been shifting my focus more towards retro games with my Mop Up Duty review tour. Most retro games can be beaten in a day or two, whereas most modern games can take weeks to complete.

Speaking of Mop Up Duty, I've been able to add a whopping 53 games to my Listing of every video game I have ever played. The purpose of Mop Up Duty has been to expand my gaming horizons and play some games I have never played before, so it is definitely succeeding on that front. I've made my way from 1982 through the year 2000. Up next is 2001 through 2022. Due to the length of some of the "newer" games I will be playing soon, I likely will only be playing one or two games per calendar year as opposed to the more traditional two or three.

I created this blog on January 1, 2015. That was 2783 days ago. After reaching 400 game reviews, that means I've averaged about one review every seven days. 

My most reviewed video game console is still the PlayStation 4, with 66 overall game reviews for this system. When I hit 300 reviews last year, my count was at 59. So in that timespan I've only reviewed seven PS4 games, which is definitely down from the pace I had been on.

My next five most reviewed systems are as follows: Genesis with 44. PS3 with 43. Arcade with 40. NES with 35. PS1 with 29. Looking back at my "300 Game Reviews" post, the arcade wasn't even in my top 5, so it has definitely made the biggest leap here. Apparently I haven't reviewed a single PS3 game in that timeframe, as it is still sitting at 43 reviews. Womp womp. 

My most reviewed gaming franchises are:
13 games - Resident Evil
13 games - Batman
11 games - Star Wars
11 games - Sonic (caved in and counted Mean Bean Machine as a Sonic game)
11 games - Mario
8 games - Contra
8 games - Castlevania
8 games - Final Fantasy

What are some notable classics that I haven't tackled yet? Super Metroid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Mass Effect, Metroid Prime, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Portal, Final Fantasy Tactics, Far Cry 3, Zelda: Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild are a few that come to mind. Half-Life also comes to mind, but that's next up on my Mop Up Duty tour, so it won't be left out for long!

Some other games I've been wanting to play lately include Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Death Stranding, Landstalker, Mr. Bones, Vectorman 2, Policenauts, Blast Corps, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and Punch-Out!! And this is in addition to continuing Mop Up Duty through 2022 and checking out a bunch of games I've never played before.

I can't wait! There's an endless supply of video games out there, and I want to play and review them all. It won't happen, but I can dream, eh?

Special thanks to anyone out there reading this blog. Aside from posting the links to my Facebook page whenever I finish a review, I haven't gone out of my way to promote it. If you are reading this, you're probably one of the few out there that are doing so. You are awesome. Hopefully you appreciate what I am doing here and you stick around.

If you're interested in past content, you can find a link to an index of all of my past blog posts below. 500 is my next major milestone. Hopefully you join me on my journey!




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Video Game Review #400: Star Wars: Rebel Assault

Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Sega CD


Nostalgia Factor:

My 400th video game review! Since Star Wars is one of my most reviewed gaming franchises (I've reviewed ten Star Wars games during the lifespan of this blog), I decided to honor it with my 400th review. You're welcome, Star Wars. I'm sure you appreciate this prestigious honor.

As a Genesis owner I was always fascinated by the Sega CD and its library of FMV based games. One of the main reasons I wanted to get a Sega CD was because of this game - Star Wars: Rebel Assault. Although my family would never be able to afford a Sega CD, I always knew that if I had the means to play this game someday I would find a way to do so.

That day has finally come. Would it be worth the long, long wait? Spoiler alert: not really. But read on for all of my thoughts.




Story:

Rebel Assault takes place during the events of the first two Star Wars movies. You play as an unnamed rookie pilot working for the Rebel Alliance. The first few stages of this game are training missions, before you are thrust into action on Tatooine.

This game takes some liberties with Star Wars canon, and I'm okay with that. For example, there is a Rebel base on Tatooine in this game, and as a fighter pilot you have to scramble to its defense as the Empire attacks it while simultaneously searching for the Death Star plans at the same time. You take the fight to the Star Destroyer before eventually escaping through an asteroid field. None of this happens in A New Hope, but due to the nature of the game I had no problems with them taking liberties with its story. You have to cram in as much action as possible, or what's the point? And who knows, maybe these things did actually happen, but just weren't shown in A New Hope because everything was focused on Luke and his friends. A huge stretch, I know.

A weird liberty I can't explain is the fact that the battle of Hoth takes place before the assault on the first Death Star. Like I said I can't really explain that one, but it is what it is. You just have to roll with it. The game ends, as expected, with the destruction of the Death Star. Instead of Luke Skywalker firing the kill shot, it's you - the unnamed rookie. Definitely changes the canon of Star Wars a bit, but seeing as how all these changes are contained to this one game, I can't complain too much. Simply flying cover for Luke would have been very boring. Who doesn't want to be the one to fire the shot that blows up the Death Star?




Gameplay:

This isn't a fun game. I'm going to get that out of the way right now. Most missions are what you would classify as "rail shooting" missions. What that means is that you fly on a set path, and you only have minimal control over what is going on with your ship. You mainly just control the cursor of where you are firing and the direction of the ship. For example, the first stage has you flying on a set path through a canyon. You can move the ship up and down or left and right to avoid crashing into the canyon's walls, but you don't have free range of movement. Like, you can't fly out of the canyon or turn yourself around if you wanted to. You can't even hit the brakes or stop your forward motion. You are always moving ahead. Other missions have you flying forward while you control the cursor on the screen as you fire away at enemies. Moving the cursor to the left or right slightly moves you in that direction, but really you are going on a set course straight forward with little control over your actual flight path.

This might sound okay to some people. Stat Fox 64 has missions like the ones I just described, and I heaped copious amounts of praise onto that game. Why is it different here? The controls. The controls are terrible. Simply flying your ship through a canyon shouldn't be as difficult as it is here. You are constantly being pulled around on the screen, seemingly at random. Just keeping your ship in the middle of the screen, away from the canyon walls, is a difficult chore.

Other levels are excessively easy and can be beaten with no trouble whatsoever. You move a cursor around on the screen and you shoot at targets. Woop-de-doo. The next level, the difficulty will spike and you'll be stuck - wasting 20 lives to try and get through it before finally succeeding. Then the next level will be super easy again. The game just can't make up its mind.

Two levels stand out to me as being outrageously frustrating. The training stage on Yavin - where you have to zip through a canyon while shooting targets on the ground is one of these stages. To keep your ship afloat, you have to constantly crank it upwards, or you lose control and slam into the canyon walls. But the targets you have to shoot are on the canyon floor. How can you stay low and shoot something on the ground when you have to pull up constantly to keep from crashing your ship? Very annoying. It took me a countless number of attempts to make it through this level. The other outrageously frustrating stage takes place on the surface of the Death Star. You have to skim around on the surface, shooting towers, lasers, and other Death Star defense mechanisms. But the game slows to a crawl here, becoming choppy and nearly unplayable. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason when it came to taking damage. I could be playing what I thought was a flawless run and then all of a sudden 75% of my health disappears in an instant. WTF? It took me dozens and dozens of attempts to get through this one level, through what I considered to be no fault of my own. Eventually I resorted to using save states and saving after every enemy I destroyed, in order to get through it. Completely unacceptable.

There were some missions I liked and considered to be fun, such as the Hoth missions, the Star Destroyer assault, or any mission that took place on foot. These missions were few and far between however. And I would consider "fun" tp be a relative term. Maybe fun compared to the rest of this steaming turd of a game, but on its own extremely shallow and lacking in substance.




Graphics:

I'm sure that for its time, this was considered a very good looking game. But by present day's standards? Yikes. Normally I'm willing to give older games a mulligan simply because of the technology that was available at the time these games were made. Look at my last review for Evil Dead: Hail to the King as an example. But this game just looks so bad to me. It's incredibly grainy and choppy. It's clear that it is overly reliant on playing around with the "newfangled" FMV-type technology than actually producing something that looks good. I understand wanting to capture the cinematic feel of the original Star Wars movies, but Rebel Assault fails on nearly every level.

Even the cutscenes in between stages are bad. They keep a lot of footage from the movie, but replace the characters' faces with moving animations that look just so horribly out of place. I almost bust out laughing several times when making my way through this game.




Sound:

Normally you can count on Star Wars games to provide quality music and sound effects, but Rebel Assault is pretty much a failure on this account as well. The voice acting is terrible. The music, while decent, only features extremely short clips as you are playing through each level. If a song ends while you are halfway through a level, there will be an audible pause for a few seconds before it starts up again from the beginning. Thirty seconds later, it happens again. And again. You can tell these are only short clips being played on a constant loop, and as a fan of the series I almost feel insulted by this.

Sound effects are okay, I guess. You really can't go wrong with the sound of blasters and explosions, can you?




Overall:

In case you couldn't tell by my breakdown, I didn't like this game. Aside from a few somewhat enjoyable stages, nearly everything about this is bad. I don't think I've ever played a worse Star Wars game in my life.

If you're a loyal reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I played and reviewed Rebel Assault II for the PS1 approximately five years ago. You can read that review here. While Rebel Assault II shares a lot of gameplay traits with its predecessor, for the most part I liked that game. Even gave it a B-. This game is NOT going to get a B-. What makes it so much worse than its sequel, even though they share a lot of the same issues?

It's hard to say, considering I haven't played that game in over five years. But going from memory I would have to say that it lies in its polish. Rebel Assault II felt like a fun, exciting, new chapter in the Star Wars universe. The graphics were good. The music was good. The overall presentation was very strong. It even had an interesting storyline and strong characters to keep you interested. There were also far fewer frustrating, nearly impossible stages to be found. The gameplay on the whole is very similar to what you see in the first Rebel Assault, but a lot of its flaws were masked by bigger and better things.

Without that mask, the original Rebel Assault falls flat on its face. I can't say I will ever come back and play this one again, and for obvious reasons. It's just not a good game. Maybe if I had played this on the Sega CD back in the day, I'd be singing a different tune. But to me, this is just terrible. I really wanted to give it an F, but despite its flaws I wouldn't say the game is a 100% failure. Pretty darn close though.



THE GRADE:
D-


Is it possible to give it a D--?




A complete listing of all of my other Star Wars game reviews:
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter



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Video Game Review #399: Evil Dead: Hail to the King

Evil Dead: Hail to the King
PlayStation




Nostalgia Factor:

Growing up, I was a huge Evil Dead fan. I was also a big fan of the PS1. Naturally, you'd think I would have given this game a try, but somehow that just never happened. A lot of it is probably because this game received poor reviews. I had played enough bad movie to game adaptations by this time in my life, so I probably figured that this wasn't worth my time.

Well here I am in the year 2022. As an Evil Dead fan, I feel as if I owe it to myself to at least check this game out. Mop Up Duty closes out the year 2000 with Evil Dead: Hail to the King.




Story:

The Evil Dead movie trilogy has never been known for its strong sense of continuity, and this game definitely keeps that tradition alive. It takes place several years after Army of Darkness. Ash is still working at S-Mart, but he's been plagued by nightmarish visions of his time at the cabin.

Apparently Ash just never learns from his mistakes, as he decides, at the urging of his girlfriend, that it is a good idea to return to the cabin to see if he can get the nightmares to stop. Wait, wasn't the cabin destroyed and everything sucked into the portal at the end of the second movie? Guess not.

As you could have guessed would happen, everything quickly falls apart. Ash's severed hand returns and activates the tape recorder which summons the Deadites. Ash's girlfriend is swiftly taken away by them. Ash, alone in the cabin, sets out on a mission to recover the missing pages of the Necromicon, save his girlfriend, and banish the evil once and for all.

The story takes some twists and turns. Evil Ash returns. Ash is pulled into a portal (once again) to ancient times in order to defeat the evil. Hilarity ensues.

As silly as the game's story is, I have to commend it for staying faithful to the tone of the original movie series. Bruce Campbell even returns to lend his voice to the narration of the game, which makes it even more authentic. This game definitely feels like it could have been the fourth movie in the series.




Gameplay:

After the game's nice, cinematic introduction I was fully ready to embrace it. Seemed like it was going to be a fun, off-the-wall Evil Dead experience in the vein of the films. And then I started playing the game... and everything quickly fell apart.

You start out in the living room of the cabin. There's a fire burning, a deer head on the wall, the tape recorder on the table. You can see the cellar door in the corner of the room. You move Ash around via tank controls, very similar to what you'd see in a Resident Evil game. I was nodding my head. Okay, this is cool.

A Deadite popped up out of the ground. Okay, I can handle this. I fiddled with the controls and found a way to kill it, basically by running up to it and hitting it with a bunch of melee attacks. The Deadite disappeared into the ground. I started walking around, ready to explore the rest of the cabin. The Deadite popped back up out of the ground and started attacking me again. Since I had struggled with the controls a little bit, half my health was already gone. I killed it again... or so I thought. I started to explore the cabin once again when a Deadite popped out of the ground and started attacking me. I had to use my one and only health item since I was so close to death by this point. I finished off the Deadite (or did I?) and continued to look through the living room of the cabin. Another Deadite popped out of the ground.

By this point I said screw it and ran outside, where not one but two Deadites sprung from the ground, cornered me, and killed me. Game over - not even five minutes into the game.

I tried a couple more times, with very limited success. It quickly become obvious that the enemies infinitely respawned - making it almost pointless to fight them. I didn't mind the tank controls, but the combat was very clunky and hard to pull off. I took so much needless damage just from fighting the game's controls and its enemies at the same time. I tried to adapt, running from the Deadites and exploring on my own - but that didn't work very well either. You have to come to a complete stop in order to examine things. You can't just hit the action button as you are running, like in Resident Evil, and go out a door or pick something up. So if you are trying to move quickly, as you should do in this game if you are running from everything, you can't explore as thoroughly as you need to. Herein lies my biggest problem with the game.

This is a game where you have to examine things, collect items, backtrack, and solve puzzles. I keep bringing up Resident Evil, but there's really no way around it; this game is clearly inspired by that series. It's damn near impossible to do any of the exploring that you need to do when you are constantly under barrage from the enemy. Even if you stop to fight them, they respawn in a matter of seconds - and then they are on your back again, doing damage to your character and draining your health. It is SO annoying.

I began to question whether or not I even wanted to continue playing the game. Clearly the bad reviews were correct and the game was a real turd. But but but the OCD part of me always demands that once I start a game, I have to finish it. Especially for the sake of Mop Up Duty. Think of the Mop Up Duty, Dan!

I kept at it. I took no shame in pulling up an online strategy guide on my phone. I relentlessly abused save states. If this game was going to be cheap and petty with its difficulty, I was going to fight back by being even more cheap and petty. And I did it. Eventually I beat the game.

I have to say that the game does get better the deeper into it you get. You start off with limited items and a poor arsenal of weapons at your disposal - while the enemies are very, very tough. As you make your way through the game, the enemies remain at the same difficulty level while you get tougher, collecting items, upgrades, and better weapons. I cruised through the second disc of the game, when you go back in time to ancient Damascus.

There are things about the game's design that I like. I like how the present day storyline isn't just limited to the cabin and a bunch of woods. The surrounding area is expanded nicely. There's a church with a graveyard, a scout camp, a forest maze, a bloody pig farm that looks like it came right out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The world of the game isn't too big or confusing, and all of its sections flow together nicely. It might have actually been fun to explore if you weren't constantly under attack from the Deadites.

The item system is decent. You collect weapons, health items, ammunition, and gas for your chainsaw arm. You can even forage for mushrooms and other things, and then craft them into health or fuel after you learn how to by reading in-game documents.

This game does do a lot of things right. It's just a shame that 95 percent of the people who give this a try probably won't make it through the first hour of the game. The controls and the early difficulty are just so, so horribly bad. Why did they think endlessly respawning, tough to kill enemies were a good idea? And couldn't they have come up with a better combat system? How about the ability to lock on? Half my attacks, either melee or with guns, missed their mark because you have to be lined up perfectly with your enemies in order to hit them. And you have to do it manually, with tank controls, in fixed camera angle environments. It's just not a good combination.




Graphics:

As far as graphics go, this may be one of the biggest mixed bags I have ever seen. Keep in mind that I grew up in the PS1 era. Games don't have to look perfect in order for me to appreciate them. This game is full of pixels, blurry backgrounds, and jagged edges galore. And I like it. The game does a great job of transferring the creepy atmosphere of the Evil Dead movies to life. Some of the environments I walked through were very spooky.

But I can't kid myself. This game is ugly. It's charming, yes, but ugly. The Deadites themselves are some of the laziest designed characters I have ever seen. Some of the background environments are blotchy, and it is almost like you're looking at them through multiple screen doors. Ash himself is blocky and jagged looking. He barely even has a face. The cutscenes are laughably bad as well, although I have to admit that is part of the game's charm. I don't think the characters' lips even move when they are talking, which is inexcusable for a game that came out in the year 2000.

If you're like me and you grew up in this era of gaming, you'll probably appreciate the graphics in a way similar to how I feel. If you are a newer gamer, you're going to look at this and say WTF?




Sound:

If there's a bright spot to this game's design, it is in its sound. Bruce Campbell automatically makes anything better, and you hear his voice for the entire game. I couldn't help but smile as he spouted one-liners from the movies, both as you played and during the game's cutscenes.

The music is haunting and atmospheric, really helping to sell you on the idea that you are stuck in this dreary and hopeless situation. When the action picks up, like during the boss battles, the music intensifies and rises to the situation. 




Overall:

The first hour or so I spent playing this game, it seemed like there would be no other choice than to give it an F. Even Bruce Campbell's presence and they way the game captured the feel of the films was not enough to mask its terrible, terrible gameplay. I almost didn't even want to continue playing the game, it felt so unplayable.

But I persevered. As I said before, I didn't feel one bit guilty about using an online guide and abusing save states because of the flawed nature of this game. Save points are few and far between, and you die A LOT due to its trial and error tendencies. I was not about to play through the same segments of the game over and over again due to cheap deaths.

As I made it deeper into the game, I began to enjoy it more. The story takes you to some fun places, and as you get a better grasp on the combat, everything begins to seem a lot more accessible. That being said, I can't imagine playing through this game without "cheating." I can imagine it would have remained a horribly frustrating experience that would have taken far too long to get through. I wanted to finish this game as soon as I possibly could.

I really can't recommend this game to anyone else. It's a mess. If you're interested in its story, just watch a YouTube playthrough of it. As far as Resident Evil clones go, this has to be one of the worst I have ever played. All things considered, there is a small part of me that is still glad I played it and was able to satisfy my curiosity about the game. I'll never play it again, but I'm still glad I did. Kind of.



THE GRADE:
D




40th Birthday Mop Up Duty Celebration Tour:




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2000:
Evil Dead: Hail to the King (The review you're reading)


Up next, I'm moving into the year 2001 with a game 
I've been wanting to play through for the longest time:
Half-Life!



For a complete index of all my past posts and game reviews, click



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