Video Game Review #483: The House of the Dead

The House of the Dead

Sega Saturn

Nostalgia Factor:

I've always been interested in playing The House of the Dead, but it is just one of those games that, for one reason or another, never came across my path. I never encountered the arcade unit out in the wild. My local Blockbuster didn't have the Saturn version available to rent. It wasn't at any video game stores to purchase either. It was like it didn't exist in my universe.

Well here we are in 2023, and I've finally discovered the means to play this game: through its rom on my PC. While I've always heard it is a poor port, I haven't played the arcade version, so I don't think that will sway my opinion of it. I'm willing to give it a shot to see if it can stand out on its own.

So did it? Continue reading for my full thoughts.

Story:

Nothing is really explained in the game's introduction sequences. This must be one of the game's you need to read the instruction manual in order to figure out what is going on. Well, I didn't have one, so I had no idea what was happening. It is fairly easy to figure out, though.

You play as a special agent, and you are dropped into a zombified area located outside a mansion. You have to rescue scientists and head inside the mansion. You shoot your way through several stages full of grotesque creatures until you get to the end of the game, where you encounter an evil scientist named Curien who is behind it all. Defeat his final creation, The Magician, and you've beaten the game.

Gameplay:

Before we go any further, I will say that I did not play this game with an actual light gun - the way the game was intended to be played. I had to use a standard controller. And I have no problems with that. Aside from Duck Hunt, I don't think I've ever played a home console light gun shooter using the light gun. It was always too expensive of an accessory for me as a kid growing up, so I became used to just using a controller. In fact, I think at this point of my life I actually prefer it.

Now, I knew coming in that this was a light-gun shooter, but even still, I was shocked at its similarities to Virtua Cop. The cursor moves the same, the controls are the same, the play mechanics are the same, the sound effects are the same, the little voice that says "reload!" is the same. This is essentially a Virtua Cop game but with a zombie skin over everything.

If you've played Virtua Cop, you should have no problems picking this up and getting the hang of it right away. An enemy pops up, you shoot them. You see an innocent civilian, you don't shoot them (or you lose a life). When you run out of bullets in your chamber, you reload. There are things in the background you can shoot as well, to give you things like extra lives. That's really all you need to know. If this kind of thing appeals to you, you'll probably like this game. If not, feel free to just go ahead and skip this, as you aren't really missing anything.

Of course, there is a little bit more to the gameplay that I haven't mentioned yet, most notably regarding the branching paths. The path you take to get to the end of the game vastly differs depending on how many scientists you save. Let's say you just save one in the first level. The game might take you a different route than if you'd saved five. Same as if you'd only saved two or three. This does add a lot of replay value to the game, checking out all the different branches you missed on your previous playthrough. Ultimately, the gameplay is so similar no matter which way you go that I didn't even bother checking out all possible routes. They all take you to the same place in the end, anyway. But it is a neat feature.

Each stage ends with a boss fight. On the surface these fights should be entertaining. In reality, they are more than a little annoying. For example there is one boss that has a weak point on his chest you have to shoot. I don't understand what is up with the hit detection, but sometimes I'll be hitting him in that spot dead-on and it won't register - and then I take unnecessary damage. Other times, it works fine. Not really sure of the rhyme or reason for this. It happens on pretty much all the bosses, too. Which leads to my biggest gripe about the game: its difficulty.

I've never had so much trouble completing a simple light gun game before. Normally I can beat them in one or two attempts. If I'm struggling, maybe three or four. Not this one. I tried to make my way through arcade mode a countless number of times, but I kept running out of lives and continues - mainly because the bosses did so much damage to me when my shots weren't registering. The stages themselves actually aren't too tough. It's the dang bosses that are annoying as hell.

I ended up turning the difficulty all the way down to easy, as well as upping the number of lives and continues I could use. Eventually I beat arcade mode and watched the credits roll. Woo hoo! But wait, now there was "Saturn mode" to tackle. What is Saturn mode? Annoying. That's what Saturn mode is.

It is basically the exact same thing as arcade mode, except now you can pick from multiple characters to play as. These characters all have some kind of handicap, though, which makes the game even tougher. The first person I picked only had three bars of health instead of five. WTF? I could barely beat the game on easy mode with five health bars and a shit ton of lives and continues. How did they expect me to beat the game with just three teeny health bars?

Another character used a different type of gun that I simply was not enjoying at all. I didn't even bother to complete Saturn mode or try any other characters. I was done with this game.

Graphics:

The Saturn port of House of the Dead mainly gets a bad rap because of its terrible graphics. Playing through this game, I didn't think its graphics were too bad. It looks like a Saturn game. Jagged edges, blocky pixels, surface textures that look like a freaking scrambled mess. I grew up with games that looked like this, so nothing in the game was off putting to me. I love it. The Saturn is the console that really, really tried - but couldn't. It sure tried, though.

As rough around the edges as this game is, its graphics don't make it unplayable. You can clearly tell where you are, where you are going, and where the enemies are. The ability to shoot things in the background gives each level a tiny little extra bit of depth. 

I know a major complaint people have is that the zombies have green blood, as opposed to red, which is what the arcade has. It definitely changes the tone of the game. It gives it more of a cheesy, almost b-movie comical feel to it, as opposed to it feeling a bit more serious or gory. There is a cheat to turn the color of blood to red, and I had to try it out on one of my last playthroughs. I have to say I'm with the critics: I prefer the red blood!

I promised I wouldn't let the arcade game effect my opinion of this version, but just for shits and giggles I looked up the arcade version of the game on YouTube. Yeah. It looks much better. I can see why people weren't happy with this port. Judging this game's look on its own merits... it looks fine. I've seen worse. Putting it against the arcade game, it definitely does not look good.

Sound:

The music is pretty good, although I'm not sure it fits the tone of the game. It's very energetic and upbeat as opposed to scary. I still like it, though. If you've played Virtua Cop, the sound of the gun firing and the bullets ricocheting should be familiar to you. So should the "reload!" voice as well.

The voice acting is god awful. It's hard to hold it against the game, though. I think it's charming, and it fits the B-movie aesthetic perfectly.

Overall:

I want to like this game. I don't mind the bad graphics or the cheesy voice acting or any of that stuff. I find it charming. The gameplay is passable. Very reminiscent of Virtua Cop. The whole branching path aspect is pretty neat. The game does a lot of things correctly. But is it any fun?

That's where I'm struggling with things. I like Virtua Cop. I gave both games in that series respectable scores (B and B-). This game is a Virtua Cop clone. I should like it, right? Not really.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly where it is that the game misfires for me. The obnoxious boss battles? The bad hit detection? The lack of any kind of save feature? All of the above? Probably that last option.

Arcade mode is the better of the two single player modes here. I don't know why anyone would want to play Saturn mode, aside from completionist reasons, and to see all the different endings. I guess I get it. But to me the game is not fun enough to even bother with these things. I wanted to be done with it after beating arcade mode. My poor thumbs couldn't take anymore!

The game's insane difficulty was a bit of a turn off for me. I had to crank the number of lives and continues to maximum AND turn the difficulty down to easy in order to even have a chance of completing arcade mode. This absolutely should not be. Yeah, I know. "Get good!" Well, I am a fairly good gamer and I was having quite the difficult time playing through this game on its default settings. Maybe if the game had been more fun. I'd be willing to sink more time into it.

The tedium of having to restart the game multiple times from the beginning when I'd lose quickly made things turn from being "kinda fun" into very obnoxious. It's a shame, because as I said, I really wanted to like the game.

So I guess the critics were right. This is not a good game. I won't go out of my way to say it sucks, or anything like that, but I do think it ranks as a below average title. It's review score will accurately reflect that.

THE GRADE:

C-

All my other Saturn reviews so far:

Alien Trilogy

Astal

Bug!

Burning Rangers

Clockwork Knight

Congo the Movie: The Lost City of Zinj

Daytona USA

Deep Fear

Die Hard Arcade

Fighters Megamix

Guardian Heroes

Nights Into Dreams

Panzer Dragoon

Resident Evil

Solar Eclipse

Sonic 3D Blast

Sonic R

The Legend of Oasis

Virtua Cop

Virtua Cop 2

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

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Vide Game Review #482: Legend of Legaia

Legend of Legaia

PlayStation

Nostalgia Factor:

Back in the late 90s, I remember receiving a demo disc in the mail for a game called Legend of Legaia. I had never heard of the game before, but I remember thinking the art on the disc sleeve looked cool. I was a video game obsessed teen back then, always hungry for something new, so of course I immediately popped this in and checked it out.

I remember playing through the demo and being wowed by it. A turn-based RPG with Final Fantasy VII-esque graphics about a small town cut off by a mist that was filled with monsters? Yes please. I vowed to myself I'd buy the complete version of the game and play through it. Little did I know it would take me nearly 25 years to finally get around to doing so.

Did I miss out on a great game? That is what we are here to find out.

Story:

There is a lot of lore to soak in before you actually begin playing the game. Humanity was once reliant on objects known as "Seru". It is a little unclear at the beginning what these Seru actually were. Little AI controlled robot companions? Apparently they were something that people wore on their arms.

One day a mysterious mist rolled in. The mist activated these Seru and turned them into killing machines. Most humans were either killed or turned into Seru themselves. Fast forward ten years to the beginning of the game. You play as a young man named Vahn, who lives in Rim Elm, a small village that is walled off to the mist. When the wall is breached, Vahn activates a power from the once dormant Genesis Tree located in the village. Empowered by the Ra-Seru (a helpful entity that resides in Vahn's Seru armband and guides him along the way), Vahn fights off the attackers and sets off on a journey to activate all the Genesis trees around the world, which help to keep the mist at bay.

Along the way, Vahn is joined by Noa and Gala, two other people that have been joined with the power of the Ra-Seru. They are the heroes that were prophesized, because you can't have a JRPG without some of those. 

The story takes some wild twists and turns, including traveling to the past to collect something you need in order to beat the bad guys. Noa finds out that her family were responsible for the creation of the mist, and the main villain at the end of the game turns out to be her brother Cort.

This is only a small recap of the game's events. There is a lot more to be found here, but I don't have time to recap it all. You want to hear about it, read the Wikipedia summary. Or better yet - just play the game.

Gameplay:

I'll just immediately kick things off with my biggest complaint: the game's speed. It effects literally everything and is impossible to ignore. The game is slow, and I mean slow. The dialog boxes, the combat, menu selection, map traversal, loading screens, everything. Biggest offender has to be the battles, though. Holy crap are they slow. It doesn't help that this game has a very high encounter rate, and that magic spells force you to watch a long animation sequence similar to summons from the Final Fantasy series. Even just a basic healing spell takes 45 seconds to a minute to complete. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Since I was playing on a PC, and not original hardware, I was able to speed things up to three times the normal speed. That made things so, sooooo much more tolerable. I don't know if I would have been able to make it through this without it. Without the ability to speed up time, this game would have scored in the C- or D range for me. Not because the game sucked, but because it would've been such a drag to play. Look at my review of Grandia. I gave it a D+. I didn't even think the game was really that bad, but the slow speed and the long loading times completely squeezed every ounce of enjoyment out of it. That almost happened here. Which would have been a shame, because underneath all the slowness is a really solid game. 

Moral of the story? Don't play this game on its original hardware. Find a rom of it. You'll thank me later. Also, I am basing my review of the game around the way I chose to play it: with the ability to speed up battle sequences and save the game at any point I wanted. As a result, its final score will be much higher than it would have been if I'd played it on a regular old PS1.

The standard gameplay itself is nothing you haven't seen in other RPGs. Walk around town, talk to NPCs, buy things at stores, upgrade your equipment, sleep at inns, etc. Battles are randomly generated. They are also pretty standard for an RPG. Walk around on the map, get pulled into a turn-based battle, pick your action from a menu. At the end of the fight, you gain money and experience. 

What's different about the combat is that it is combo-based. A good comparison would be Xenogears. When you select to attack, a menu comes up with all the different moves you can make, each one corresponding to a direction on the d-pad. You would then press (for example) something like up, up, down to initiate a combo attack. Or you can pick auto attack where the computer does it for you. As you gain experience and level up, you learn bigger, more powerful combos. Your combo meter is pretty tiny, so in order to make it bigger you have to select "spirit" when it is your turn to attack. Spirit not only makes your combo meter bigger for your next turn, it also greatly increases your character's defense for the turn. Don't just ignore the spirit option. I did for a long time and it made the game very difficult. As soon as I started using it and began to master the mechanic, everything became so much easier.

Each character has a set of magic spells they can use. You learn these spells from enemies as you defeat them. So when you use the spell, you are essentially summoning the enemy to come cast it for you. I really wish they cut out the massive summoning animations, as each of them take way, waaaaaay too long to complete. A simple magic attack that takes five seconds would have been so much better. The fast forward feature definitely got used a lot during these battles.

Bosses are super hard. I don't think I've played an RPG as hard as this one. As a result, you are going to find yourself grinding quite a bit. Get that fast forward button ready! This game would have been insufferable and borderline unplayable without it. You spend so much time grinding. So much time. Luckily since I sped it up, it wasn't too terrible. I might have to play all my JRPGs on my computer now for this very reason. Imagine if I'd played Grandia this way. I might have actually liked it.

Graphics:

I understand that people don't really like the graphics from this era of gaming, but I really enjoy the way this game looks. The characters have that blocky, Final Fantasy VII feel to them. Environments are not pre-rendered, but fully 3D. The closest comparison I can come up with in my mind is Xenogears - but I would say that this game's graphics are not as good.

What I do like are the cool atmospheric moments this game creates. This is a very mystical game that is rooted in magic and the otherworldly, so some of the moments you experience (like when you are flying through space or visiting the world of the Seru) really look super cool.

Sound:

While I would not say it is on par with the all-time great JRPG soundtracks out there, Legend of Legaia still has some pretty solid music. The various themes you hear, such as the battle theme, the world map theme, and the songs you hear in different villages and locales are all great. Unlike other games where their music goes in one ear and out the other, this game's soundtrack will stick with you... for a while.

Sound effects are good, too. Really nothing too special to report. I guess if there is one annoyance as far as the audio goes, it would be the noises the characters make when they attack. Noa in particular. But I won't say it made me turn down the volume or anything like that. Just me being nitpicky.

Overall:

I had a very good time playing this game. It took me a while to get past the slow speed and the grindiness of it, but once I figured out I needed to crank up the speed to x3, the game really took off for me.

I like the story, as weird as it is. It felt like it had some real stakes to it. The characters are rock solid, too. Maybe not the deepest or most well-developed cast in RPG history, but they all have something about them that makes them special. Now that I'm done playing the game, I actually kind of miss them! And I miss the game itself, too. That must mean it was pretty good.

I would recommend playing this game, 100% But be warned: find a rom if you can. This is a C- title at best playing it without the fast forward feature. It is just too much of a painfully slow moving grind. But if you can speed things up and improve its "quality of life" features, why wouldn't you do it? Underneath the slow speed is a really fun and engaging game. It has its fair share of sucky parts (like the tower where you have to play minigames to earn coins) and I can't say that the entire journey from beginning to end was always a blast to play. But I liked it well enough.

THE GRADE:

B

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Video Game Review #481: Batman: The Video Game

Batman: The Video Game

Sega Genesis

Nostalgia Factor:

Prior to tonight, I had played this game at exactly one point in my life: a random weekend back in the mid 90s. I had rented this game from Blockbuster Video. I remember staying up late at night, trying to beat this game. While I don't remember much about the game itself, I remember liking it and I do remember being able to beat it.

Ever since I discovered how to emulate, this has been a game I've wanted to return to. I'm a big fan of Batman video games, and of all the countless Batman titles out there, this is one I am relatively unfamiliar with. I had only played it for one weekend over 25 years ago. Would it still hold up after all this time? I reckon it is time to find out.

Story:

This game follows the events of the first Michael Keaton Batman movie. In fact, it follows the movie much, much closer than its NES counterpart, which I reviewed back in 2022. The entire plot of the film is laid out in the game's opening sequences if you do not press anything when the title screen comes up. Effective, I suppose. By doing this, the game developers didn't have to worry about putting cutscenes in between each stage. Just lay it all out right away what you're going to see in the game!

Gameplay:

This is a pretty typical 2D side scroller of its time. Controlling Batman, you use the d-pad to move your character around. As far as I know, there isn't a way to run. So Batman can move pretty slowly at times. There is a punch button, a jump button, and a "throw batarangs" button. Stages mainly consist of moving left to right, defeating enemies as they appear. You make it to the end of the stage and fight a boss character. You beat him, you move onto the next level. So on and so forth.

Although the gameplay sounds very cut and paste, this is still a pretty fun game. The challenge level is just right. I'd recommend cranking your number of lives up to seven, as you have to start a stage over from the beginning when you run out of lives. This isn't an overly tough game, but three lives isn't quite enough to get through some of the more difficult stages, especially with how quickly some enemies can drain your health meter. You can be playing a near-perfect game and then die multiple times in a matter of seconds.

You also have a grappling hook, as is typical for many Batman games that came out in the 90s. This grappling hook isn't used much here. There are stages where you need to ascend to another level above you, but that is about it. This isn't like most Batman games that involve a lot of jumping, swinging, and precision platforming. There is some of that in the game, sure, but most of the focus of the game is on the combat.

There is a flying stage later on in the game, where you control the Batplane as it shoots down the Joker's poisonous balloons. You also get attacked by helicopters and other flying enemies. It's a fun stage. It is a little difficult, but its shortness makes up for that. If you can just stay alive for, like, two or three minutes, you have got this in the bag. This is really the only stage I remember from when I had played this as a kid. There's also a stage where you drive the Batmobile and blow up enemy vehicles, but there is nothing special or memorable about that one.

There really isn't much else to talk about. This is a pretty basic platformer. But that's not a bad thing. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game. I wouldn't say this is the greatest game of all time or anything, but it is a good way to kill a few hours. I even played through it twice for this review. Can't be that bad, huh?

Oh, I almost forgot one of my biggest gripes. In the Axis Chemical stage, there is a pipe that explodes as you walk over it. You have to jump off of the pipe over a pile of boxes in your way. If you should happen to fall, there is literally no way to get past those boxes, and you have to intentionally let yourself die so you can start the level over again. WTF kind of game design is that? (Edit: I played through the game one more time after writing this review, and found that the grappling hook was able to pull me onto a small piece of pipe remaining from the explosion. So you can get past this part normally. Huh. I had tried the grappling hook previously. Wonder why it didn't work!)

Graphics:

This is such a mixed bag, graphically. There are some stages that look great, like the Batplane level up above. And there are stages that look like they could have come from the NES, like the museum stage I posted a picture of below.

Batman himself is unimpressive. This is probably one of the worst video game Batmans I have ever seen. He doesn't look cool or badass or anything. He just looks derpy. I'll take the purple NES Batman over this any day of the week. Enemies themselves look fine. The driving stage looks good. Like I said, some stages look okay. Others don't. 

Sound:

This game has good music, not that I remember any of it. I remember it fit the tone of the game well. Some tracks almost gave off kind of an Ecco the Dolphin vibe. I can dig it. It is nothing that will stick on your head or go on any of your video game music playlists, though. It serves its purpose and that's about it.

Overall:

I can easily recommend this game to anyone interested. It's not a must play title by any means, but if you like Batman and you like 2D side-scrollers, you should like this. It's fun, there is some variety, it's  challenging. And it's Batman! It checks all the boxes.

This is a game that I can see myself returning to in the future. Let's say it is late at night and I only have an hour or so with nothing else to do. Not enough time to invest myself in a longer game, but just enough time to make a run at this one. Perfect. Compare this to Mischief Makers, my last review. It was a game I liked, but a game I'll probably never play again. I'll definitely play this one again.

THE GRADE:

B-

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Video Game Review #480: Mischief Makers

Mischief Makers

Nintendo 64

Nostalgia Factor:

Mischief Makers came out in 1997, when I was just a sophomore in high school. This was a magical time to be alive if you were a gamer. I had a Saturn, a PlayStation, and a Nintendo 64, and every single weekend I would rent a new game for one of these systems.

Unfortunately, my gaming obsession started to affect my grades. I didn't do homework, didn't complete any assigned projects, didn't study for tests. All I did was game game game. Towards the end of my sophomore year, I remember renting Mischief Makers with the intent of devoting an entire weekend to it. I was able to beat the game fairly quickly. I remember I had just started up a second playthrough of the game when my mom came in the room, saying she'd just gotten a call from my health class teacher in high school. There was a big paper due that I had not submitted. If I didn't submit my paper, I was going to fail the class. As long as I submitted something, I was probably going to pass. My mom made me turn off the game and get to work on that project immediately. I never played Mischief Makers again.

At the time, I was really angry with my teacher for calling my house on the weekend. What a bitch. I thought it was so invasive. What happens in school should stay in school, right? In retrospect, I am glad she did. If I hadn't submitted that paper, I probably would have flunked out of high school. I graduated with exactly the number of credits needed to graduate. That half credit from health class would have kept me in school another year, which is a terrifying thought.

Every time I think of  Mischief Makers, I remember how my time with the game was cut short because of that phone call. I remember that more than the game itself. I decided to take a walk down memory lane and revisit this game, nearly 26 years after the fact. I was 15 years old the last time I played this. How would I like it at the ripe old age of 41? Let's find out.

Story:

This game's story is... interesting to say the least. It's funny, I just reviewed a different game from Treasure last week (Guardian Heroes) and that game's story is just as insane as this one. I remember that Gunstar Heroes also has a wacky story as well. Is this a trademark of Treasure games?

Anyway, you play as a robot named Marina. Marina has to rescue Professor Theo from the "Clancer" aliens who keep kidnapping him over and over again to bring to their Emperor. The story is very comical and lighthearted, filled with an eclectic cast of characters. It is nothing too deep or serious. In fact, you probably won't remember a single thing about the storyline a few weeks after you finish playing this game. The storyline is just a vessel to keep things moving along. They try to make it entertaining, though, which is appreciated, although I feel that some story sequences drag on for far too long, giving me mild Undertale vibes. We get it. You're trying to be cute and funny. But can we just play the game, please?

Gameplay:

This is not your typical 2D platformer. Most games of the genre focus on things like shooting, combat, and precision jumping. Most games also give you a set number of lives and continues that you have to use to beat the game. Not Mischief Makers. 

This is a slower paced platformer makes you use your head. It's almost like a puzzle platformer. You can't attack your enemies. Jumping on them does not do anything. The main focus of the game is on grabbing things. Grab your enemy and throw it, or grab something and throw it at the enemy. You also jump and grab these floating face things as you play. You can use them as simple grapple points when you are trying to climb. You can also shake them to see if they open up any paths through the level. Sometimes these faces zip around the stage on tracks, and you have to grab onto them so they can take you where you need to go.

There is an overhead map in between stages that marks your progress. Pass a stage, move forward a space on the map. Most stages are fairly short. In fact, some are downright laughably short and can be beaten in less than a minute. Others are longer and require more thought and time when solving their puzzles.

There are also boss stages scatted throughout the game. Boss encounters quickly became something I looked forward to. They require a lot of strategy. You have to recognize the enemy patterns while finding what it is in the environment that you need to use to inflict damage on them. For example, for one boss you may need to pick up the small enemies and throw them at him to damage him. For another boss, you might grab onto the boss's weapon, pull it away from him, and use it against him. The game's standard stages are not very challenging, so I always looked forward to going into battle against these bosses and discovering their weaknesses.

There is some nice variety in the stages. One stage I will remember fondly is the stage where it is like the Olympic games, and you have to play through a series of different competitions. Although combat is limited, the puzzles themselves always seem fresh. The boss encounters do a nice job mixing things up as well.

While I wouldn't say Mischief Makers is a great game, or anything close to a great game for that matter, I can't deny that I still had a solid time playing it. It did just enough to keep me invested until the very end.

Graphics:

Most people playing this game in modern times will fall into two camps. They'll either be able to appreciate that this game looked good for its time, or they'll just say it looks like outdated crap. I fall into the first category. No, this isn't a beautiful looking game. In fact, I'd say some older titles that were released on 16-bit consoles (like Rocket Knight Adventures, Speedy Gonzales: Las Gatos Banditos, etc) look better. The character design is flat out weird looking, and the sprite animation is somewhat clunky and pixelated.

What the game gets right is its mix of 2D character and 3D environments. It doesn't always work, and you can very much tell that this type of art style was a work in progress for its time. But it does a lot of cool cinematic things that you didn't see back then. Some zooming in and out, some cool special effects. The makers of the game definitely had a very specific, lighthearted tone in mind when developing this title. And the artwork and the graphics are a perfect match for that tone.

Sound:

There is not much that is memorable about the game's music. I just finished playing it last night and I already could not hum a single tune from the game for you. I don't remember it being bad, though. It seems to fit the quirky and cheerful mood of the game.

What I will remember are the funny voice acted lines. "Shake, shake" and "Help me, Marinaaaa!!" are some of the highlights of the game for me. Very fun.

Overall:

This is a fairly average game. It doesn't really do anything poorly, but it doesn't do anything that is too remarkable, either. It's a decent puzzle solving platformer with some good boss battles. I suppose I could use this space to gripe about the game's ending. As you play, you collect white crystals, which are hidden in each stage. When the ending starts playing, it shows how many crystals you collected in the top left corner of the screen. The number of crystals starts going down, like a timer counting down. Once it hits zero, the ending cuts out and it goes back to the title screen. So unless you have collected every white crystal in the game (I believe there are 52), you can't see the true ending. I collected, like, 15 of them. I looked up the full ending on YouTube, because I sure as shit wasn't about to go back and get them all. I hate when games arbitrarily make you go back and find collectibles before you can see the ending. Jet Force Gemini, Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins: I'm looking at you! Add Mischief Makers to that list as well.

Gripes aside, I didn't have a terrible time playing this. But if you wanted to skip over this game, you would not really be missing much. I'd classify my time with Mischief Makers as "slightly above average." And you know what that means....

 

THE GRADE:

C+

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Video Game Review #479: Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3

PlayStation 3

Nostalgia Factor:

This is a game I have been itching to play for a very long time. I've heard nothing but good things about this game over the years. People say it is the best Far Cry game. People also say it is one of the best games of the PS3 era.

I've played the first two games in the Far Cry series, and I liked them both. The first game was an okay but ultimately forgettable experience. The second one was much better, but bogged down with things that were really annoying. It laid the groundwork for this game, however. So how would I feel about this one?

Spoiler alert: this is easily my favorite game in the series so far. Read on for my full thoughts.

Story:

This game has a pretty decent story. You play as Jason Brody, a rich frat boy who is out partying and seeing the world with a large group of friends. They are on vacation, skydiving onto on a remote, tropical island when Jason and his friends are taken captive by Vaas - the game's main villain. You may recognize him from the artwork on the cover of this game. I'm familiar with the artwork, but I was in shock when I saw which actor played him. As soon as I started playing this and I heard him talk, I was like: "Hey! That's Nacho from Better Call Saul!" He plays a pretty good villain, too.

Jason escapes Vaas, but his brother is killed in the attempt. Jason is taken in by the Rakyat, a group of natives to the island. They are in combat against the pirate group led by Vaas. Jason is recruited to go to war against Vaas and rescue his friends from captivity.

Spoiler alert: Vaas is defeated about 3/4 of the way through the game. Maybe even less than that. This is when you seek to liberate the island from its true enemy. Someone above even Vaas on the criminal food chain: Hoyt. The diabolical rich guy pulling all the strings. If you are comparing this to Star Wars, Hoyt is the Emperor and Vaas is Lord Vader.

After Hoyt is defeated, Jason gathers his friends to escape the island once and for all. But then you're faced with an interesting decision: stay on the island and bang the super shmexy Citra for the rest of your life, or leave the island behind and escape with your friends? I chose the first option. Heh. Jason proceeds to kill all his friends, and then he himself is killed by Citra after he impregnates her. Hope it was worth it, yo. I mean, Citra was pretty darn hot.

I didn't even mention the mythical aspects to the game's story. As you play, Jason gets stronger and draws from the magic of the island. He gets tribal tattoos that give him power. He sees visions occasionally throughout the course of the game. This isn't a game that sticks to a "real world" plot. There is definitely a supernatural element to be found here, and it really blends well with the setting and the theme of the game.

Gameplay:

I came into this game right off the heels of playing Days Gone on the PS4. Coming off such a smooth-controlling game like that, it took me a little while to get used to this game's controls. The camera feels very loose as you walk around the island. The driving mechanics come across as herky-jerky. Combat is a confusing affair. My initial impression from the first hour I spent with the game was that it was a mess.

But the more time I sank into this game, the more I began to understand its mechanics. And once things had completely clicked in my mind, I began to have an absolute blast with this game.

It is an open world title. The majority of the map is open to you immediately. You can go right to the mission markers or you can visit other areas if you'd like. There are collectibles aplenty to be found, such as secret chests and hidden relics. There are several radio towers in the game that you have to scale, and once you reach the top you survey the area and fill out that area of your map. I think of them like the Tallnecks from Horizon Zero Dawn. The towers get progressively harder as you play the game. Getting to the top of them becomes almost like solving a puzzle in its own way.

In addition to the radio towers, there are enemy camps you can liberate. There are special timed challenges where you look to take the top score against your online friends. There are also timed "race" missions where you have to deliver supplies from one end of the island to another before the timer runs out. In this game you are rarely stranded out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do or nothing to find. There is always something to do somewhere. The game lets you freely use fast travel, which is such a major blessing. You can get around the map pretty quickly and easily in most cases.

Don't let the fact that this game takes place on an island make you think that the game's map is small. It is not. The island is big. Think Ghost of Tsushima big. Okay, maybe it is not that big. But just as that game can handle being confined to an island, and this one definitely can as well. And there are a lot of activities crammed onto this island. In addition to what I've already mentioned, there are side quests, hunting missions, bounties to collect, plants to scavenge, and safe houses to collect where you can upgrade your equipment. Oh, and there are vehicles everywhere. Cars, jeeps, boats, jet skis, even hang gliders. You should never be in want of a vehicle to hop into if you have somewhere to be.

If I had to pick the area of the game I liked the least, it would be the combat. Stealth is very important in this game, but the way stealth is handled is genuinely not good. Or maybe I am just not that good at the game? I was constantly getting spotted, no matter how hard I tried to be stealthy. Seeing how if you are seen, the enemy can call for reinforcements that make the battle drag out ten times longer than it needs to be, I hated that I was so bad at stealth. It made some areas of the game so much more difficult than they really needed to be.

The shooting itself is a bit weird. When you pull out your weapon and press the left shoulder button, it auto-locks on the nearest enemy you are pointing at for just a split second. The right shoulder fires your weapon. This little "assist" got me through some pretty tough areas. My aim is always crap in games like this, especially when your enemies are running around all the time. If you aren't using the lock on feature, things can get hairy. I found the controls to be very herky-jerky, making it quite difficult to line up my shots properly. I also found that if I didn't take care of them right away, enemies had a way of encircling me and draining my health meter fast fast fast. There were so many instances where I was on a roll and thought I was doing very well, only to be killed in a matter of seconds by enemies I didn't even know were there.

Here lies my main problem with the combat: its unfairness. For the most part this is a fairly balanced game, but when it gets hard, it gets hard. Trying to raid camps caused probably the most grief for me. It is very frustrating to have to redo large chunks of the game over again when you die. I lost count of how many times I was down to one or two enemies left, and then I had to start the whole thing over again. Enemies can take you out so freaking fast. And they pop up with almost no warning. Throw in the clunky aiming and you can see why this would cause problems. I hate how there is so much wildlife that can kill you, too. I had missions interrupted multiple times by freaking bear attacks out of the middle of nowhere. It is annoying when you are traversing the map, just trying to make it from point A to point B and you are attacked and killed. Some of these enemies are no joke. A cheetah can drain your health in one attack. And they are so hard to lock onto and shoot! So many times my animal battles devolved into me spinning around in all directions, waving my knife frantically around in front of me.

This isn't a game you can expect to pick up and dominate immediately. There is a learning curve. It offers a steady challenge. And yes, there is a lot about the game that is frustrating and unfair. I found myself shouting at the TV more times than I care to admit. And that is not something I do normally. I probably haven't done it since, well, Far Cry 2. But this game definitely improves on that one. Looking back, Far Cry 2 was a solid game that I enjoyed (for the most part), but this game takes everything about that second title and improves upon it tenfold. Far Cry 2 walked so Far Cry 3 could run.

 

Graphics:

Initially I was a little put off by the game's graphics. I guess that is what happens when you go from playing a current gen game like Days Gone to a game from 2012. Jagged edges, some choppy animations, some occasional slowdown. Once I was able to mentally get past all that, I didn't even notice it anymore. Small technical matters aside, the game looks pretty darn good for something that is eleven years old.

The island itself and all the beautiful scenery are the stars of the game. Everything looks just so lush and vibrant. The presentation of the game, such as the cutscenes and the mirrored title screen, is amazing. This entire game is a very cinematic experience. I'm sure a remaster for current gen consoles would look incredible. I mean, it looks good enough already.

Sound:

This game has some great music and sound effects. While the game mainly relies on ambient sound effects, the music (when it is present) fits the tone of the game perfectly. The Flight of the Valkyries makes two appearances in the game, and both appearances are fantastic - particularly the second one. The voice acting is great too. Vaas is a famous video game villain for a reason, and all the supporting characters are well-acted too.

Overall:

The reviews were right: this is an awesome game. It took me an hour or two to fully become invested in the game, but once that happened, I couldn't put this down. It is fun, addicting, and has a map full of stuff to do. It blows the previous two Far Cry games completely out of the water. I can't wait to play its DLC (Blood Dragon) and all the other Far Cry games now. 

If you haven't played this, what are you doing? I consider this to be an absolute must-play. It definitely has its annoying and frustrating moments, which is keeping me from giving it a perfect score. But this game is almost as good as it gets.

THE GRADE:

A

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Video Game Review #478: Guardian Heroes

Guardian Heroes

Sega Saturn

Nostalgia Factor:

I remember renting Guardian Heroes from Blockbuster Video when I was in high school. I had never heard of the game before, but there was nothing else I wanted to play at the video store. Not wanting to go home empty handed, I took a flier on this game. Boy did it turn out to be a great surprise.

I absolutely loved this game, and I must have devoted my entire weekend to playing it over and over again. Most of the time with beat 'em ups you only play through them once or twice. But this game had a complex story with multiple branches you could take as you made your way through the game. You'd experience different story events or get to play through different stages each playthrough, depending on your choices. There was an infinite number of ways to play through this game.

Outside of that one weekend back in 1996, I have not returned to Guardian Heroes. So that means it has been about 27 years since my last time through it. Wow.

Would I find that the game is just as fun and addicting now as it was when I was a kid? I'm SO ready to jump in and find out!

Story:

I don't remember much about the game's storyline from when I had originally played it, aside from the fact that I liked it. Playing through it in the present day, I thought it was alright, but nothing groundbreaking. Keep in mind that I did not have the instruction manual nearby - and the game doesn't do a good job explaining things in the beginning. So forgive me if I get a few details wrong.

The game focuses around a ragtag group of warriors known as the Guardian Heroes. One of the Heroes discovers an ancient and powerful sword that summons a giant, gold-metal plated warrior that joins the Heroes in combat and has to follow all their orders. Kind of like the Terminator in T2: Judgment Day. The evil Imperial forces attack the Heroes, but their new and powerful friend the golem helps drive them away.

Shortly after, the group is confronted by a wizard who explains that long ago, there was a battle between the sky and earth spirits. Humans sided with the sky spirits to defeat the earth spirits. Now this wizard wants to use the sword and the golem to battle the sky spirits and defeat them, leaving humanity as the only race of beings on the planet. You end up battling and defeating this wizard, and then taking the battle to the sky as you look to defeat the sky spirits as well. At least, I think that is what was going on. Not gonna lie - the story starts out promising but quickly devolves into Kingdom Hearts-ish nonsense the rest of the way.

Now, I've already mentioned how the game features multiple branching paths. This plays a big roll in the way the story unfolds. Each new game starts out the same, but after you flee to the cemetery you are faced with some choices. I don't remember exactly what they are, but they are something like: take refuge in a nearby village, attack the enemy forces, or flee. Depending on which choice you take, the game takes you to a different stage. After you beat that stage, you are then presented with a list of choices to make. The choice you make here takes you to another different stage. So on and so forth. So you can play through this game multiple times and take a different path each time, and get a vastly different experience from your last attempt. I think that is quite awesome.

For this review, I attempted to play through the game four times, and I was only able to beat it three times. Three of my four playthroughs took me down a similar story path against the sky spirits. The fourth, however, barely even delved into the spiritual side of things - and was more based around fighting bad human characters. From what I have heard, there are five different endings. I think I saw just two of them. This just shows you the level of depth and replayability there is to be found here.

Gameplay:

Before you start playing this game, I would highly advise you look up a move list for each character online. This isn't like Final Fight or Streets of Rage where you just have an attack and a jump button. This game has a fairly complex battle system that will swallow you up if you aren't prepared coming in. The first two times I played this in the present day, I came into without even realizing there was a move list out there. I kept getting my butt handed to me. Playing sessions devolved into mindless button mashing. Using save states, I was able to beat the game with Han (the big blonde guy). After this, I decided to play without save states and picked the guy in the green outfit (Ginjirou). I could barely make it through three or four stages, I kept dying so much. Eventually I ran out of lives and continues. It was a frustrating, button mashing affair. I said to myself: man, this game is not as good as I remember. And I set the game aside and didn't return to it for several months. With how excited I'd been to play this game, my initial impression of it was of extreme disappointment.

I finally came back to the game a couple days ago and decided to finish it off once and for all. I looked online to see what it was I'd been doing wrong on my previous attempts, when I saw that each character had a unique list of special moves that I didn't know about before. With a full list of moves on-hand, I played through the game with Nicole, who is a mage character. Learned how to use all her spells, and most importantly how to heal. I made it through the entire game with still three or four lives left to spare. My Serena attempt wasn't nearly as successful. I died a bunch of times in the first few levels and had to resort to using save states to ensure I made my way through the rest of the game. So there is definitely a difficulty difference between the characters that you choose.

Combat is definitely unique as far as beat em ups are concerned, but I can't say that it was put together very well. Your standard attacks do almost nothing to your enemies. Even stringing together big combos while never letting the foot off the gas, it takes seemingly forever to kill even the most basic enemy. Kick em, punch em, knock them into the air, do a spinning jump kick move that strings together four or five hits in a row as they are juggled in the air, and then slam down on top of them as they fall to the ground. That sequence takes like 30 hit points off of their 600 hit point gauge. It just feels really futile at times. And there is often so much going on onscreen that gameplay devolves into hectic, wild button mashing. So many times I was like "what is going on?!!!" as I played this.

Learning when to use your magic is essential to mastering this game. But even your magic doesn't seem like it does as much damage it should. Oftentimes I found myself just running away from the enemies and letting the golem take care of them. That is not optimal game design. Great beat em ups have you laying waste to your enemy, to the point where you feel like the ultimate badass. Never in this game did I even come close to feeling like a badass. I don't mind that there is a strategy element to this, but when I'm in battle with an enemy and it feels like I'm contributing nothing to the fight (as the computer AI controlled character does most of the dirty work), it just does not feel like great design.

Enemies love to swarm you on all sides, and string together giant combos that drain nearly your entire freaking life gauge. Seriously, enemy AI is very cheap in this game. Luckily, you can block their attacks and jump away to a different plane to get away from them. In this game, rather than having free roam as you make your way through the levels, there are three different planes you can hop back and forth between: the low plane near the front of the screen, the middle plane, and the far plane in the very back. Jumping back and forth between these planes is something you'll learn to strategically do in battle.

I feel as if this game would have been so, so much better if it had a better combat system. I like the magic, I like the fact that you level up, I like how you can use skill points at the end of each stage. But the combat itself. Why couldn't it have been more like something such as Golden Axe or Streets of Rage? It would have been so much more enjoyable.  

Graphics:

There are two ways to look at this game's graphics. The first way is to look at them with disdain. Why are the characters so pixelated? These animations are terrible. Look how ugly the characters are. There's too much going on onscreen!

And then there is the second way: Look at that artwork! I love how these characters are brought to life. This game is so unique.

I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I thought the game looked amazing as a kid, but as an adult I definitely see a lot of its faults. When I first returned to the game, I thought it looked hideous. The more I played it, though, the more it began to grow on me. Honestly, I lean more towards the ugly side, however. 

Sound:

This game has a good soundtrack. It is upbeat and jazzy at times. The music that plays during the story sequences is pretty memorable. I'm humming along with one of those songs right now. I don't think it is the greatest video game soundtrack ever made, but it is certainly unique. Like the game's graphics and its gameplay. Unique, unique. 

Overall:

I wanted to like this game more than I actually did. I had such fond memories of this when I was a kid. That one weekend I rented this from Blockbuster Video was such an epic weekend. The problem is that I didn't find the gameplay to be any fun. The story was interesting. I like the branching paths. I like all the decisions you can make. I like how you gain experience and level up your character. Everything seems like it is in place to make this one of the best beat em ups ever. Except for the gameplay, the most important thing! If the game is not fun to play, none of that other stuff matters. And unfortunately, the game just isn't that fun to play.

I came away from it very unimpressed. I only attempted to beat the game with four of the five main characters. I had absolutely zero desire to play the game with that last character (Randy). If only the gameplay had been better. Give Guardian Heroes the same fundamentals as something like, say, Turtles in Time - and you have an all-time classic on your hands. Instead, the game is mediocre at best. And my review score is going to reflect that. I could have gone even lower with my final grade, but I think a C perfectly reflects my completely middle-of-the-road opinion on this game. It is the definition of average.

THE GRADE:

C

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Video Game Review #477: True Lies

True Lies

Sega Genesis

Nostalgia Factor:

I remember renting this game when I was a kid, not really expecting a whole lot out of it. From the second I fired up the game, it proved me wrong. I started walking around the gala party in stage one - and no one would attack me or come after me unless I fired my weapon at them. Having NPCs walk around oblivious of your character is something that's normal nowadays, but back in the early 90s this was almost unheard of. In games back then, unless it was an RPG, if you encountered another character you were getting attacked immediately. 

It may not seem like much, but this small little touch stuck with me for a very long time. Whenever I'd think back on True Lies, my mind would immediately go to that first stage of the game. I played the entire game and completed it (and loved it!), but it was that first stage that stayed with me over the years.

I haven't played this game since that one weekend back in 1995. 28 years have passed. Would I still like the game or would I find that it had aged poorly? Let's find out, shall we?

Story:

This game follows the same basic plot of the movie, with many liberties taken. You play as special agent Harry Tasker as he combats a terror group led by Salim Abu Aziz. The stages follow the scenes you see in the movie. There's the aforementioned gala party stage (after which Harry is chased down a snowy hill by armed skiers), a stage that takes place in a mall, one that takes place in a park, etc. There are a few added stages that I don't seem to remember from the movie, such as a subway stage, an oil refinery, and a stage that takes place in China.

Not that the story really matters in this game. You run around and you shoot enemies and you blow stuff up. Everything else is secondary.

Gameplay:

This is a shooter that takes place from an overhead perspective. Unlike the overhead stages that you see in games like Demolition Man or Contra III, the action in True Lies is much, much smoother. It's not as frantic and fast paced. Enemies do not respawn, so you can slowly make your way through each level, picking them off one by one. A surefire way to lose is to panic and frantically run into an area that's swarming with enemies. You'll be surrounded on all sides and your health will be drained before you know it.

The stages in this game are very maze-like. You can backtrack, take alternate paths, and find secret areas. This isn't like Ikari Warriors or Guerilla War where you are just moving up on the screen. You have full control of your movement. The only comparison that really comes to mind is Die Hard for the Turbo-Grafx 16. But that is still not quite right.

Aside from the d-pad, you only use a small handful of buttons: the fire button, the strafe button, the dive button, and two buttons that allow you to cycle through your weapons forward and backwards. Gameplay is fairly simple. You see a bad guy, you shoot him. Well, aside from the first few stages anyway. They are populated with civilians, and if too many of them die you fail your mission. But for the most part this is a very straightforward shooter.

The game takes a while to get used to. As I was playing through this, I kept telling myself that I don't remember this game being so difficult. I was taking a lot of damage and losing a lot of lives. I was having a difficult time lining up my shots as well. It wasn't until stage five, when I started to learn how to master the strafe button, that the game clicked in my mind and I started to really have a good time. There's definitely some strategy that you have to use as you play. Keep firing ahead of you, take on enemies one at a time (if you can), and always, ALWAYS be ready for a surprise. Bullets and enemies seem to pop up off the edge of the screen out of nowhere when you are not expecting it. Strafing helps you immensely if you are struggling to line up your shot, as well.

These levels are huge, almost to the point where it is a fault. The game does not move along quickly. Some of these stages take more than an hour to complete. They are SO big. It is easy to lose track of where you are or where you are supposed to go. I had a miserable time playing through the subway tunnel level because I was having such a hard time navigating it. Luckily, I didn't have this problem with the rest of the stages. The dock stage and the China stage were two standouts for me in how the exploration is handled.  

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the stage where you fly a fighter jet. I know a lot of people seem to love this stage. I thought it was okay. It's almost impossible to avoid enemy fire, and I found myself dying over and over again. I had built up a pretty large inventory of extra lives, but this stage whittled them down to just two going into the final level. I was tempted to just reload the save state I made at the start of the level, but I decided I wasn't going to play the game that way.

All in all, the gameplay is a lot of fun! If you're into overhead shooters, you would probably like this. This is not my favorite genre of game, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

Graphics:

This is not a spectacular looking game, but it still looks pretty good, especially considering it came out in 1995. The stage design is the best thing about the graphics. That first stage where you are walking around at a party looks really good. Bookshelves, picture windows, dinner tables, grand pianos, some nice rugs and floor mats. I love the mall, too, and all the creative names they have for the stores you walk by. I enjoy the aesthetic design of the park, as well. All the levels look good, really.

Kudos to the enemy design. There is nothing special about the green and blue basic enemies you fight, but you do encounter a nice variety of foes along the way. The only thing that really looks bad is Harry himself. He is oddly proportioned and kind of grainy looking. He also swings his arm in a bizarre manner as he walks around. 

Sound:

The music and sound effects are nothing special. The first thing you'll hear when you turn the game on is its cheesy intro music. It sounds like a watered down version of something you'd hear in Vectorman. Get used to hearing this song, as it is used off and on throughout the game. It is very generic, along with pretty much all the other music in the game. One of the game's stages doesn't even have music. Good effort, guys.

The sound effects are equally forgettable, although they fit the tone of the game much better than its music does.

Overall:

I was surprised by how much I liked this game back when I first played it as a kid, and I'm just as surprised at how well it has held up nearly 30 years later. The large stages are fun to explore, and the challenge level of the game is just right. I always wanted to keep playing and keep pushing my way through this game. It is addicting and fun, and much better than the usual movie licensed crap you used to see all the time back in the 90s. 

Is it a perfect game? Not at all. You could make a case that the levels are too long, the shooting mechanics could use some work, the difficulty is a bit on the stiff side, and the music leaves a lot to be desired. These are all valid points, but I still think this game has it where it counts: the fun factor.

Check this game out if you're a fan of the genre and you have the means to play it. It won't be for everyone, but if you stick with it, you will hopefully find it to be a relatively fun and rewarding experience like I did.

THE GRADE:

B

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