Play Impressions (8/1/08)
January 8th, 2008
Since I am on holidays I am using every break that I get to sit down and seriously play some games. Lately I’ve been playing a lot of retro titles as they are easy to get into and don’t require me to dedicate long hours of play time. As for mutliplayer myself and a group of friends have been madly addicted to Mario Kart 64. One of us bought it on the Wii’s Virtual Console and it plays fantastically with the Gamecube pad. Out of the 8 or so games that I am currently multitasking through I have selected 2 that I want to write about:
NeoGeo Battle Coliseum
I’ve had this game sitting on my shelf for a few months now without having really sat down, chosen my tag team and coming to grips with the fighting system. The first thing that I noticed was the blatant lack of quality presentation, it almost screams cheap at you. But once I ran through all of the available fighters and chose my fighting duo (K’ and Kisarah Westfield) things quickly got a lot better.
NBC basically plays out like a streamlined version of King of Fighters XI. There are less intricacies within the fighting system and the quality of sprites is inferior. But the advantage of NBC is the varied character selection (from selected SNK games) and the tag team based combat. The mix of characters definitely helps the combat feel more varied as each set of characters feels different. For example the Samurai Shodown characters use blades while Marco from Metal Slug has a variety of cool gadgets and weapons.
Although there doesn’t seem to be much lastability, I found the fighting itself to be very enjoyable and I think that I will come back to this game even once I have unlocked the 5 secret characters.
I think that gamers whom are more accustomed to simpler combat will enjoy this one more than King of Fighters. They don’t need to worry about being overwhelmed by the daunting complexity of more “hardcore” fighting games and can still enjoy the perks of playing this type of game. The only problem here is that this game for some reason doesn’t support the analogue sticks of the PS2 which is likely to turn non arcade stick owners off this title.
Wrecking Crew
Wrecking Crew is a super simple little puzzle game and was one of the first games to feature Mario. Mario works for a demolition company and as part of his job its up to him to demolish 100 buildings. These buildings take the form of each of Wrecking Crew’s level. Instead of just using a crane and ball to demolish the buildings you are equipped with a sledge hammer and must knock down each ladder and brick wall individually.
All of the 100 buildings on offer has a different internal structure of platforms and ladders. The trick is to knock down the right objects in the right order so that you can then access the other demolish-able objects. For example if you knock out a ladder which you need to later use to reach some brick walls then you are screwed and can’t finish the level. You also need to avoid various enemies in the environment which again change the way you finish each level. This whole premises makes Wrecking Crew feel very much like a puzzler rather than a platformer.
I’m currently 45 levels through and its taken me a few hours to get this far. Initially I thought that I could clock this one up in no time but it doesn’t look like its going to be that way. Each level shows its own bit of level design genius which requires a different method of competition.
My Christmas Present to You:: Super Mario Land 2 Retro VIDEO Review
December 22nd, 2007
With only a couple of sleeps left until Christmas I thought that It’d be a great time for me to share a surprise that I’ve been working on recently. Over the past few weeks I have been fiddling around with some video software so that I can start releasing video content for the website.
After much time wasting I finally figured out how to get everything to work. So over the past few days I’ve started and finished my first production with long time friend and retro gamer; Matty Jay. Basically I wrote the text and edited the video while he did the voice work. Now, this is our first ever attempt at video production and overall I am very happy with it. Although we definitely want to lift the standard for our next piece. Undoubtedly our biggest problem (much like an amateur video production people) was with our voice recording, we went through 3 microphones and should have planned our recording better. We did it all in one good take rather than 3 or 4 perfect segements which means that Matt made a few slight mistakes. Which I then tried to cover up when editing the audio but (perhaps) just made it worse. ><
But it doesn’t matter, we can fix these problems for next time. So here is our retro video review of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. You can watch the You Tube stream below:
Merry Christmas guys, I’ll continue to post content over the next few days. We’d love to hear any sort of constructive feedback from you readers.
Retro Review – Turok Rage Wars
November 30th, 2007
When a lot of people think about FPS games on the N64 they often draw their minds back to thoughts of Goldeneye or Perfect Dark but during the console’s era the Turok series was also a popular FPS franchise for the system. Following the success of Turok 2 developer Acclaim decided to create a multiplayer based Turok game instead of finishing off the trilogy. This game was Turok Rage Wars.
Summary
Turok Rage Wars is a bit like Quake 3 compared to the other Quake games; everything here is based solely on the death match formula, you know so because multplayer is the first option on the selection screen. So obviously you’ve got a hoist of multiplayer options. As for the single player, you select a character and follow a map like layout in which you select what levels you wish to play. For the most part this is linear but as you unlock more characters the routes will become more open. You can also play the single player co-operatively with a buddy. As you’d expect (being a Turok game) theres a nice selection of interesting weapons at hand.
Story
I don’t even think that there is a story in this game and if there is then its not really interesting.
Gameplay
Death Match
Turok RW boasts a nice selection of multiplayer match customization which is terrific. Unfortunately its nothing on the scale of Perfect Dark but there is more than enough on offer here to satisy fans of the genre. To give you an idea of the game’s scope, here’s some stats ripped straight from the back of the box:
- 36 multiplayer levels
- 16 weapons
- 8 game modes (4 multi/4 single)
- 4 players per game
Acclaim seem to love everything in multiples of 4.
In terms of multiplayer game modes you have Death Match and Team Death Match (called Bloodlust), Capture the Flag and Frag Tag (characters turn into monkeys). So all standard FPS game modes, its unfortunate that Acclaim didn’t introduce any new game modes here. A little bit of innovation here would have gone a long way. Also the level selection is based on the game mode, so if you want to play the Frag Tag game mode you can only play Frag Tag on ‘Frag Tag only’ maps. Much like other FPS games each stage has a special power item which will give you some sort of power for a limited amount of time in Turok RW they call it a Power Core.
Game Speed
Something that I noticed when playing this game with my mates is how slow Turok RW feels compared to Quake or Perfect Dark. This can often make combat feel old and sluggish. Although as you progress in the game you unlock faster characters which does fix this to a degree.
Weapons
What makes Turok RW so interesting is it’s creative assortment of weaponary. You’ve got your standard pistol, shotgun and rifle configuration but theres also some really creative weapons in here. I’m talking a flare gun, boomerang, plasma rifle, freeze gun (which slows down characters speed) but my favourite has to be the inflator. As the name suggest when you hit people with this gun it increases their size. On secondary fire you can charge up a shot and watch them inflate until they explode. Awesome. What Turok 2 fans will notice is that instead of the standard crossbow you have the Tek Bow and your default weapon is now the Warhammer.
All of the weapons are split into categories, so each player has 2 standard guns(shotguns, pistols, rifles), 2 science based guns (plasma gun etc.) and 1 explosive based gun (rocket launcher etc.). In single player your weapon selection is predetermined depending on the character that you are using. But in multiplayer you select which weapons you want to use per category.
The weapons overall are fairy balanced and its clear that a lot of thought has been put into not only balancing these weapons but also designing them to look and feel right. And it definetly shines through as its the game’s main highlight.
Highlights
As I mentioned before the weapon selection in this game is superb and is definetly the main highlight of the game. The game’s textures also looks much more crisper than other FPS games for the console (even Perfect Dark). Although its not hard to see why as the game arenas are kept in doors and generally feel quite small and cramped. The game can also take advantage of the N64 expansion pack although it isn’t necessary.
I think as a package this is definetly something that multiplayer FPS fans should be happy with. With 4 dedicated players this game is a blast. It capitalizes on the multiplayer strength of the N64 which is definetly a good thing. Its also a lot more stable to play than Perfect Dark as it stays within the limits of the console’s requirements.
If you’ve played a Turok game before then you’ll know that the game is littered with dinosaurs. Because of the nature of this title this isn’t so. Thankfully this has been fixed as you can unlock a raptor. Unlike the other players the raptor is restricted to their claws as their only weapon(also has a powerful swipe for a secondary function). The raptor can move around much faster than all of the enemies. These attributes actually ensure that the raptor doesn’t out balance the character set.
Lowlights
Unfortunately Perfect Dark had to come along and blow this game out of the water. More guns, levels, options, modes, bots. To this day Perfect Dark remains one of the most customizable console FPS games around. Its hard not to recomend Perfect Dark over this.
The main gripe for the multiplayer would have to be the small stages and 4 player restriction. Most of the stages early on in the game are just a giant square room with some stairs and corridors. Later on these go outdoors and contain various gimicks to make them more interesting. But you are still walking through the same not too interesting environments, they lack natural creatures like fish, even plants aren’t included. So it makes the environments feel very hollow and lifeless. The 4 player restrictions apply to bots as well so you can never go beyond a total of 4 players.
The single player can also get a bit tiresome as the majority of levels have the same goal of fragging bots, the tight and enclosed areas don’t really make it any more interestig either. When you are playing one on one it gets a bit frustrating trying to hunt down that one last bot through the maze like environment.
Conclusion
Turok Rage Wars is a great addition to the Turok series, in its glory days on the N64. It also capitalizes on the strength of the system which is good to see. For Turok and FPS fans this comes highly recomended but for everyone else theres Perfect Dark.
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