I've been noticing that this review section is getting a bit popular, and people have been asking me if they can take the reviews and post them elsewhere. Yes, of course you can, so long as you give me attribution, iz all, I don't mind at all. Feel free.
Now, first things first - this game looks drop-dead-gorgeous on my Voodoo. I'm just not used to seeing smooth, hi-rez 3D graphics at a high frame rate, with everything turned on. Llovely. With a Voodoo in my box, I certainly don't give a toss that I don't have MMX on my old p5-166... the 16 tracks on POD are rendered in a fluid, truecolour stylee that llooks just llovely slipping by at a simulated 170MPH. Some of the tracks are truly spectacular - you find yourself just wanting to turn around and check out the view...
The racing action is keen, too. 7 other players, who may be computer or human-controlled, race on each track. I suspect some of the neatest stuff about this game I haven't seen yet - there is the ability to extend the game by downloading extra cars and tracks off the Net (very cool!) and, best of all, to engage other humans over the Net. This I haven't tried yet, as I deeply fear how addictive it is gonna be. Perhaps tonight I'll log on and take the Yakly ship for a spin.
Speaking of the ships, the default cars are OK, but a neat feature is that you can tweak the parameters yourself and make a car that handles just the way you like it. Each car is allocated a certain number of points, and you are free to distribute them between various aspects of the car's performance attributes, and test the results on a test track, until you have a car you're happy with. Set up a good ship, and you'll have no trouble caning the opposition every time on the default (Easy) setting.
Placing first on all the tracks opens up the Reverse Tracks mode, which is more interesting than the Reflect option you get on some driving games - you actually race backwards around the tracks, so that the turn timing and sequence is different, and shortcuts and jumps which worked the right way around might now become inaccessible or more tricky.
Best of all, this game is a really good "zoner". You know the score - smoke up, turn down the lights, put on some good techno, and do it until your arse and thumb get sore...
If you like driving games, and you have a Voodoo board, then POD is highly recommended. Multiplayer network play, infinite extensibility via download from the Net, and cool racing action over tracks that would not look out of place in any arcade - show this one to your Nintendo-64-owning mates and you could well engender a touch of envy, methinx. Show 'em a little Voodoo!
Illegitimate spawn of Tempest notwithstanding, this game is sufficiently different that there's not too much redundancy in getting a copy of this even if you have Tempest. Instead of shooting down into a web, in this game you zoom down a tube, either on the inside or the outside, and the bad guys swarm up the tube to get ya. You have to jump over or destroy obstacles, and collect tokens that yield powerups in the age-old shoot-em-up way. The graphics are smooth and psychedelic, as one would expect, given the memetic heritage. Rounds are broken up by a weird "Orbit Mode" where you disengage from the tube and battle a boss floating in space.
The action is smooth, the psychedelicness is easy on the eye, and the shooting action is fair, intense and engaging - another good game for the zoners amongst you. If you enjoy abstract, into-the-screen shooters - and if you're reading this, the chances are that you do - then Nanotek Warrior is definitely worth a spin on your Playstation.
However, if you can let go of expecting it to be like Turok and accept it for what it actually is - the nicest-looking version of Doom, with bilinear filtering all over the place, a smooth frame rate, lots of bad guys on screen, lots of all-new levels, and a nice creepy soundtrack - you'll start to have fun and enjoy yourself. All the old Doom bad guys are there, although they have been given a cosmetic update - the first time you see some of these guys you won't recognize them! Not that you have to, of course - just shoot them anyway :-)
Although the basic Doom play mechanic has now been superceded by the likes of Turok and Quake, well, Doom is Doom, and Doom is undeniably a good game. Play it in the dark, with the sonics cranked up loud, and you'll have a good time, and a sore arse, before you know it.
This game is predicated on a scenario that is, I have to admit, extremely unlikely - a robot lorry carrying a pair of malfunctioning nuclear missiles has gone awry, and is heading blindly back to base without regard for any obstacles it might encounter along its way. Should it run into anything, the missiles will explode, precipitating nuclear winter and the end of mankind, and it'll all be your fault, because your mission is this: to demolish, via any means available and using a variety of different vehicles, all the buildings and structures that lie in the way.
Basically, it's an excuse to tool about some nice 3-D worlds in a variety of funky mobiles, and blow the crap out of everything. The slowly advancing carrier lends a feeling of urgency on those levels where you are tending to the primary mission, as you rush to destroy the obstacles that impede its passage. One neat thing is that, if you fail the mission, you can watch a replay from the point of view of the carrier - it's quite amusing to watch yourself scuttling around, trying to clear the way, and spotting the fatal mistake that you made that led to annihilation...
The first few levels are quite straightforward, but as the game progresses the levels get more tricky, requiring dextrous control of the vehicles and puzzle-solving under pressure. Once the carrier has passed through a level, you can re-enter at your leisure, taking your time to explore and pick up extra bonus points for destroying all buildings, activating lights called "RDUs", finding hidden passages and vehicles and entrances to bonus rounds, and rescuing scientists. There is an entertaining variety of vehicles to drive - bulldozers, dump trucks, the General Lee out of the Dukes of Hazzard, rocket-firing gyro bikes, a couple of large mechs, even boats and trains and cranes. The graphics look as cool as you might expect - everything is nicely rendered, bilinear filtered, and smooth.
As you progress, you open up a number of challenge rounds, which might take the form of a race in which you can choose your preferred vehicle, or a challenge to destroy a certain number of structures in a given time. One of the bonus rounds actually has you driving a bulldozer around a giant pool table, attempting to push boxes of TNT into the pockets!
Original, fun, challenging, polished as Rare games usually are... if you're looking to score a good N64 title, look no further.
Enter the code "RBNSMTH" on the cheats entry page, and a new cheat will be activated that allows you to turn on Invincibility, give yourself all the weapons and unlimited ammo, and give the characters unusually large heads.
Turn them on, go into a level and get ready for some serious fun. In particular, check out the following cool stuff you can do:
Play corpse football using the Grenade Launcher. Kill them deadly! After you've blown away an enemy, carry on throwing grenades at the corpse. See how many times you can blast it into the air, streaming blood, before it eventually disappears. Blast it onto the rooves of buildings. Juggle multiple corpses. Get yer own back! Endless fun. :-)
Trip out on the amazing groovosity of the effects of some of the weapons. These things aren't just pretty - some of those weapons, the first time you see them, you will just be going oh my God, oh my God... outstandingly trippy... try getting the fusion cannon and just staring up at the sun and let off two or three consecutive rounds... groove on those shockwaves propagating... oh man, major tripout time. These guys were right on my wavelength with those weapons effects. Amazing. Smoke a big fat doob beforehand if possible. Outstanding stuff.
Check it out. Major cool.
First off, the "bad" news: Turok is a Doom/Quake/Duke3D kinda game. This fact alone has been sufficient to damn the game in the eyes of some reviewers, and I have, much to my amazement, seen a decidedly luke-warm review of the game in one well-known gaming magazine. Now I have had cause myself to regret the overpopulation of the Doom-genre with half-baked wannabe clones, and that still pisses me off. But the genre isn't about to go away, and when it's done really well, it's still a ton of fun. And Turok does Doom really, really well.
Firstly, the graphics are spectacular. This is the first third-party game that genuinely gives the N64 hardware a good workout. There is some fog-in to avoid popup of objects in 3D, but generally the mist effect is quite atmospheric and tastefully done and in fact adds to the atmosphere of the gameplay in many circumstances. Textures are interpolated and smooth, motion is fluid, and the framerate is high in all but exceptional circumstances.
One aspect of the graphics that really impressed me, and appealed to my geek-sense, is the use of realtime particle systems - with nontrivial, translucent objects at each particle, not just a pixel. That may sound like gibberish to the non-nerd, but believe me, you'll notice it in gameplay. It basically means that effects for explosions and weapons are calculated on the fly instead of just whopping a pre-rendered "explosion" sprite on the screen. The upshot is - blowing things up has never been so much fun, or so spectacular. Huge screen-filling explosions, smoke, circular shockwaves propagating out from detonation sites - it looks gorgeous, and provides a mighty satisfying psychedelic, pyrotechnic accompaniment to your frenzied arse-kicking of the monsters.
Which brings me nicely to the gameplay. Yes, it's definitely Doom - but in much larger worlds, populated by a variety of nicely-rendered 3D baddies. You can actually look into the eyes of the enemy soldier as you nail him with a shotgun at close range. Any fears about Nintendo being overly censorial of violent gameplay are firmly laid to rest in Turok. Blood spatters everywhere, pooling on the ground and spattering the brickwork behind some poor unfortunate who's just found the wrong end of your automatic shotgun. It dissipates into the water following the demise of those bastard leaping things that always annoy the piss out of you in watery caves. Best of all, it spurts from the jugular veins of mortally-wounded monsters, as they jerk and twitch and gurgle obscenely in their ugly death-throes. The first time you nail a bad guy in the jugular, you will laugh out loud as he writhes in extremis and the red red krovvy flows and copiously redecorates the stonework. Unless you're offended by that kinda stuff in a videogame, of course - depending on the profundity of your sensibilities you can either set the blood to be green, or even turn it right off (boo! spoilsport!). And you have a massive and over-the-top arsenal of weapons with which to effect this carnage. From a simple knife up to nuclear fusion cannons, and covering just about everything in between - Turok offers more ways for the player to deliver severe hurting to his enemies than just about any game I have seen. Weapons increase both in destructive power and in visual groovosity, as the aforementioned realtime particle systems are deployed in increasingly lavish abundance. The control system is a little strange at first, but after a couple of games becomes second-nature, and allows for easy strafing and circling of enemies whilst keeping the weapon trained - an essential strategy in any Doomesque game. Where there is cause for jumping - and there is a fair bit of platform-play in the game, more so than in Doom - again, after a little adjustment period (when you will fall off slabs and fall into lava and swear copiously) jumping accurately is easily possible. I certainly found the controls to be way better than, say, SOTE. Once you really get the feel for the controls and start to kick serious arse, you'll love it.
The levels, as I said before, are vast - way bigger than a Doom level. There are many hidden areas and goodies to find, and you can look all around and up and down as you walk, run, strafe, climb, jump and swim your way thorugh the levels. There are eight levels total, which may not sound like many, but as I said (twice now), they are totally massive. I'm exploring level 3 and a little bit of level 4 at the moment - I got the l4 key, but the boss of level 3 kicked my arse, so I'm concentrating my attentions there for the moment - but I think it'll be a few more games before I see the end of the game. Plenty big enough, anyway.
Bottom line - if you are willing to ignore that stupid review and go ahead and get this game, you'll enjoy a first-person shooter that's spectacular, fluid and precise to control, contains much humourous and enjoyable violence, and which has particle systems to die for. And, perhaps more importantly, a game that's challenging and a ton of fun.
Games like Turok are what you bought your N64 for.
I shan't bother going into a huge amount of detail about SMK, since everyone in the known Universe is probably fully aware of the essence of the game, anyway. The original SMK was one of my favourite titles on the original SNES, topped only by the ultra-awesome F-Zero. The game has translated well to the 64-bit environment, with proper 3D tracks and improved weapons. Control is as you would expect from a Miyamoto game - easy to get into, with little tricks and touches you can apply once you feel confidant in the game. The 16 tracks are playable at three levels (50, 100 and 150cc), plus an "extra" mode where the tracks are x-reflected. The reflected mode becomes available once you get the Gold Cup in all four classes in 150cc mode.
Some have criticised the game for not being enough of a pure test of racing skills, and it's true, picking up and using your weapons is just as important as a good powerslide in this game. However, the original SMK was weapons-oriented too, and if you liked that game, you'll surely love this version. The weapons system has been upgraded - you can now get multiple green and red shells, which orbit around your kart until fired, and act as a shield whilst in that position - you can put your shells out and effectively use your kart as a weapon by just bumping into racers who are hassling you. You can also pick up another weapon and have it in hand while your shells are out. You also get multiple speed-boost mushrooms, your usual bananas and bunches of bananas, lightning bolts and Super Stars. (The computer players also now get weapons like Super Stars... it pisses me off when I hear the bloody Super Star tune approaching and one of the other racers zooms by, clipping my kart on the way and sending me flying).
Two-player-mode is a hoot - it's satisfying to be able to yell "eat red shell, you scumbag!" at a human opponent and nail him up the ass with a seeker :-)... Battle Mode is fun too, with three terrains to choose from in which to slug it out. I haven't tried the 3- and 4-player modes yet, but I am certainly looking forward to kicking the arses of a few mates when the opportunity arrives.
Be prepared to swear a lot playing this game. The computer opponents are quite ruthless, and will be out to make you eat banana. Too many times you can be coming home in first place, then you get bananad, spin out and do something stupid like fall into the water and end up limping in fourth or worse. And that Princess is a right slag I can tell you. She always somehow seems to slip by and thinks nothing of letting you have it with a timely banana. As a matter of fact all the other players are complete bastards except Yoshi, and I hate them all, and I shall not rest untill I have bananad them, each and every one :-)
I am also pleased to report that Nintendo have completely redeemed themselves for the lack of cows in Pilot Wings. SMK has a track called Moo Moo Farm where there are lots of fat, cute cows standing around at the sides of the track. And they go "moo" as you drive past. Very nice and bovine.
Great fun, great party game. But I still can't wait for F-Zero 64... drool... slaver...
Okay, here it is:
The game is basically Tempest 2000 with extra PlayStation-oriented graphics effects, plus a few extra enemies (that I've seen so far, I'm at level 47) and some subtractions, which I will get to later. The Webs are rendered with translucent, warping textures in the panels instead of the Gouraud shading of the original, and shots fired down the Web light up the textures in a most pleasing manner. The whole game scene is rendered in a persistance/blur field, which is cranked up at certain times (such as firing your Superzapper) and which makes everything go a bit psychedelic, which is what we would expect in any game based on T2K :-). There is also a mild plasma around the edges of the screen that is subtle but tasty.
The pixel-shatter explosions and effects in the original have largely been replaced by polygon-based effects, which, combined with the aforementioned blur field, look very nice indeed, and when the going gets hectic and lots of things are blowing up (as they should be in any good game) the display becomes agreeably trippy. The "2000" and "Excellent" messages are now rendered in a translucent plain font - which looks OK, but I think I still prefer the shattering originals.
The Webs themselves are a variety of different shapes, typically less angular than the T2K webs - and there are more of them. Whilst having more webs is nice, I think that on the whole the web shapes are a bit tamer than in T2K - I would have liked to have seen more of the folding-onto-themselves type that were such bastards in T2K. So far I haven't come across any "hate webs" - in T2K every now and again you'd come across a web that was *such* a bastard, you'd always say to yourself, "God, I *hate* this bloody web!" and it'd often be a sticking point, and you'd get a most excellent feeling of relief when you got by the sucker. I kinda miss the hate webs. Mind you, maybe I'll discover some above level 47 :-)
The audio is of course improved from the original T2K, being as the choons are now delivered from the CD-ROM, allowing the use of the upgraded versions that were on the T2K audio CD. Those tunes still kick ass! Can't beat a nice drop o' techno for a game like this. Some of the audio FX have been changed, and by and large the new FX are good - nice solid meaty samples. The only noise I don't like too much is the noise that the Pulsars make - I reckon it should be much more deep and threatening ;-)
Okay, on to the gameplay. Now, I am going to make some criticisms here, but don't get me wrong, I think they've done an excellent job on TX3 and I like it a lot, and indeed I rate it as one of my 3 fave PS games (Wipeout XL and Robotron X being the other 2). I'm bound to be a little hypercritical of some things, because this *is* more or less my game with some embellishments and changes, and hey, you gotta love your own :-).
Your claw looks a bit nicer IMO than the one in T2K, and moves nice and responsively just like it should. The lasers are now more colourful polygon objects - the Particle Laser in particular is a lot beefier-looking than in T2K. The basic gameplay is exactly as in T2K - blast enemies coming up the Web, collect powerups to get points, goodies, and access to one of the three Bonus Rounds.
The powerups come in the usual T2K sequence, starting with the Particle Laser. There is one extra powerup beyond the Warp Token - something called a Super AI Droid. And speaking of the AI Droid, at this point I am going to have my first moan.
They've lobotomised the AI Droid! The poor thing has no "I"! Instead of targeting enemies on the Web, the poor enfeebled thing just follows you around and hovers over your ship with no autonomy of its own! This ruins one of my favourite strategies in T2K - when you got the Droid and knew how it behaved, you could more or less leave it alone to handle one part of the Web while you concentrated on defending another part. It was a great comfort to know it was there looking after your ass. Now, you have to lead it by the nose everywhere you go - which makes it perfectly useless in one of the situations where the old Droid used to be so useful - if you are trapped in a corner with enemies at the top of the Web and you don't have Jump Enabled yet. The old Droid would pick the enemies off the Web rim for you and hopefully buy you the space and time to get ahold of that Jump powerup. The new Droid just sits and wibbles over your head, and the baddies march in and get you!
I think he may get some of his brain back if you get the Super AI Droid powerup, but by then you're usually near the end of the wave anyway, and don't really have time to feel the benefit before you're done on that Web. As it is, I miss having a smart Droid terribly, and it's taken the fun out of "Yes, Yes, Yes!" powerups. I'd rather have my Particle Laser straight away than that useless droid. I'm sorry, guys, but minus points for an AI droid that isn't I. :-/
The usual crop of enemies are there and on the whole behave as they should. The Demon Head has been replaced by a similar enemy that fires a blue thing at you when shot - I actually preferred the look of the Demon Head though, but that's a minor quibble and largely a matter of personal taste. There's another enemy that looks a bit like a delta-wing aircraft that takes several shots to kill. Fuseballs are now rendered as squiggly kinda white things - I would have liked to have seen each arm of the squiggle be a different colour, like in the original, but again, that's a matter of taste. However, and I'm going to have another bit of a rant -
They've emasculated Pulsars! In T2K, when a Pulsar reaches the lip of the Web, it splits in two and the pieces hurtle around the lip - a real sphincter-tightening occurrence if you had Jump, and certain death if you did not! The X3 Pulsars just behave like Flippers when they reach the top (which is what happened in original Tempest, but which is a bit boring). A Pulsar or Pulsar Tanker nearing the top in T2K used to be a source of ABJECT TERROR for the player, and dealing with them early was a major impetus to the gameplay. Now, they are not to be feared at all, so long as you don't get caught in the lane when they pulse. I *miss* that terror, and I get a little nostalgic twinge whenever I see a Pulsar getting near the top and I don't get scared at all. I don't really hate Pulsars like I used to, and I think that's a shame.
Another difference in the gameplay is in the behaviour of the Particle Laser and Spikes. In 2K, the Particle Laser makes very short work indeed of Spikes, eroding them almost instantly. In X3, it has no discernable increase in efficiency over the standard laser when shooting Spikes. This means that Pulsars over a spiked lane become a lot more dangerous. Now, I can see that maybe they wanted to deliberately make Spikes more of a bother in X3 - fair enough. But it's a big flaw that the same thing now happens in 2000 Mode - the Particle Laser does not kill Spikes like it should. I sincerely hope that they haven't made the same mistake in the other versions of the game for the Saturn and Windows, because those are being sold as straight T2K, and the fact that the Particle Laser doesn't nail Spikes properly alters the balance of the gameplay considerably. (This is the reason I *wish* that they had shown me the conversions prior to release - I could have trapped silly errors like this).
The Bonus Rounds are as in T2K, although I find them a bit more difficult (I think the tail in the Particle Tube sequence disappears waaaay too fast when you're off the track, and it also doesn't look quite right - it should taper more). One oddity is that in Bonus Round One, the Jupiter texmap sequence, the background starfield is for some reason drawn on *top* of the texmap instead of behind it, which looks a little strange. The feedback effects in Bonus Round Three (and, indeed, throughout the game) are a lot faster and smoother than on the Jag - but I found the rings a bit harder to see in BR3 than they were on the Jag.
Overall, though, despite these cavils, the gameplay rocks along at a blinding pace just as it ever did, and it's even more spectacular than before, and benefits from having less slowdown when there are a lot of enemies onscreen than the poor old Jaggi did. Anyone who is familiar with T2K will settle right in and score a good half-mill first time out. Those who missed out on the joys of Jaguar ownership
Other, minor things that bugged me:
- They took out my rotating yak-head and replaced it with boring corporate logos! Boo! Hiss! hehe...
- They took out my yak-head Web! Waaaa!
- 2K mode should not have been hidden. And the code for accessing it - I could have understood some bovine or ungulate reference, but "yiff!"? That sounds like a dog with a cold doing a wet sneeze! Wassap with that??
Only minor silly things really. The only things that really annoy me are the new uselessness of the AI Droid, the less-than-terrifying Pulsars and especially the Particle Laser not shooting Spikes properly in 2K mode - that one was a big "oops".
As I hope you can tell, I actually like the game a lot, and I hope I haven't appeared overcritical. I do think that I have isolated some of the reasons why some Jag T2K diehards have been a little critical though - it's not all just sour grapes; there are some significant differences that alter the balance of the gameplay in a way that may not be to everybody's taste. I would say that that's fine, there's a 2K mode for those that prefer it - but the particle laser/spike anomaly shifts the balance of the gameplay in that mode too, which is definitely not how it should be.
Moans notwithstanding, a fine variant on the Tempest/2K theme, that looks and sounds wicked and which will have your thumb aching and your retinas smoking :-)
There is a lot to like about TX3. The implementation is nigh-on flawless - I really like all the new graphics FX, fast and funky feedback and blurfields, textures in the Webs, and lack of slowdown when there's a lot going on on the screen. The coder's done an excellent job. My only criticisms are based on the modifications to the gameplay.
It's understandable that the designers wanted to make a game that had extra gameplay features, above and beyond T2K. I think I can see the direction they wanted to go with it, and I'll go through the modifications that they made, and offer my suggestion as to how they might have achieved similar things without impacting the gameplay so much:
They wanted to add more Webs. Yes, of course, I totally agree that adding more Webs is an excellent thing to do. I do think that they should have left in some of the "milestone" Webs from T2K in the appropriate places - like that bloody little 4-pointed star that was always such a bastard! - and then, yeah, add new Webs up the wazoo. I like the fact that the first 16 Webs are the original Tempest ones - I wish I had had a working Tempest game when I wrote T2K!... "Hate Webs" were major milestones in one's progress through T2K - I would often get email or meet people who would proceed to curse me roundly for some Web or other - "that bloody bleedin' level 63, you sadist!" kinda a thing. Gave the game a bit of character. As it is, the Web shapes are quite nice, but I am up to level 55 now and not one is particularly burned into my brain yet.
They wanted to make Spikes more significant. Okay, I can see why they might want to do this - Spikes are hardly an issue in T2K once you have the Particle Laser, whereas in Theurer's original they are a lot more of a problem. Now I happen to like the mastery over Spikes that a Particle Laser gives you, and I would have made the transition to "hard" Spikes happen more gradually as you progress through the game. In the early levels Spikers would produce normal "green" Spikes that the player could mash easily with the PL, as per usual. As the player progresses up the Webs, there would be an increasing probability that a new Spike created by a Spiker would be a "hard" Spike - of a different colour - which would be slowly eroded even by the PL. This would have brought Spikes back into the equation more, but provided a more gentle transition from the original T2K style of gameplay.
They wanted an extra AI Droid powerup. Fine, yes, I agree! But doing it by actually destroying the function of the original Droid is, I have to say it, just cheap. I would have made the extra Droid powerup give you just that - an extra, second AI Droid that fought alongside you and the existing one! I'd have also made each enemy launched into the Web from then on actually be *two* enemies, to tweak the difficulty up a bit to balance your improved firepower, given that the PSX can sustain a lot more baddies on screen without slowdown. Getting to the extra AI Droid powerup would then be a pile of fun, coz you'd be kicking major ass and things would get well busy with things exploding everywhere, plus you'd be rewarded by more points because there'd be twice the enemies to kill until the end of the wave. You'd finish the wave in a blaze of glory and exploding baddies with a big smile on your face screaming "Eat that, suckers!" at the screen. As it is, if you get that second AI Droid powerup, all you get is a minor feeling of relief that at least your AI Droid now works like it should have done in the first place. Ho-hum.
They wanted to make Pulsars less intimidating! The only reason I can think of that they did this was to balance the fact that they have arbitrarily hardened all the Spikes. This makes it harder to nail Pulsars and Pulsar Tankers before they reach the lip, and maybe they thought that it was then too much to have Pulsars be such a threat at the rim. In my scenario with the gradually-increasing amount of hard Spikes, I'd have left the Pulsars fully functional, and okay, they'd be even more terrifying at the higher levels - all well and good :-). In fact I would have emphasised the terror of a Pulsar reaching the top - with a meaty audio effect when they split at the top, a nice big lens-flare-type explosion, pulse that fuckin' blur-field... WHUMP! - flash - extreme psychedelicness - terror... and I'd have had the sparks running around the top rendered with some wicked blur or translucency effect... and you'd be jumping and yer sphincter would be twitchin' and then when you nailed the sparks there'd be a BIG adrenaline rush and feeling of "YES!!"... hehe... that terror/relief/rush cycle is part of what gives the game its bollocks and keeps you locked in.
In conclusion, I can see that they wanted to make some additions to the gameplay, but I reckon they should have done it by having the T2K gameplay as a subset, and then enhancing certain elements, as I have outlined above. Altering the game by "wussifying" elements and then, in the case of the AI droid, getting an extra powerup in there by just restoring things to how they should have been in the first place, strikes me as a bit of a cop-out. I am truly disappointed that I was not allowed to be involved with the final tweaking and balancing of the gameplay - TX3 is an excellent game as it is, but I feel with a few more tweaks we could have made it into the best Tempest ever, which is what it should have been. I can't understand why I was not involved even to a small degree - I wouldn't have asked for any extra money to give advice, since I'm getting royalties anyway it would have been in my own best interests to help make the game as good as possible. If you're going to make a game based on someone else's design, it just seems like common sense to consult with the original designer, especially if it isn't going to cost you anything except a couple of CD-R disks and a bit of email.
And I could have fixed that bug in the 2K mode. I was looking forward to playing what should have been the best 2K around too - smoother, less slowdown! - but due to the spike anomaly, it doesn't play quite right. And why no hiscores for T2K? C'mon, all you had to do was feed in another data structure...
Oh well... TX3 is still a very good game, and one of my top 3 PSX picks. It's definitely the smoothest, best-looking Tempest yet, and still highly recommended. I can't help thinking that it could have been the best Tempest ever though...
Never mind - I keep thinking that a new version of Tempest would be a most excellent showcase game for That Which I Am Working On Right Now. I haven't mentioned it at work yet, but I'm sure we could work out some kinda deal with what remains of Atari... Tempest 3K... now I've got an idea or two about that I can tell you ;-)
The other games on the pack are: Centipede, Asteroids, Super Breakout, good old Cattle Zone, Missile Command and of course Tempest. Whereas a lot of these are available for free via PC emulators, it's nice to have them all in one place, and that the sound works in all of them (as it usually doesn't in most PC emulators except the great new release of Spicer's arcade emu).
Imagine Wembley Stadium filled to capacity. Okay, now imagine that the crowd all drop their pants and bend over, so that all you can see is a sea of arses. Now, imagine all the DM's sold in trendy shoe shops in Northern California in the last year directing a swift kick at all the arses in Wembley Stadium, and you will have some idea of how much arse this game kicks. This game kicks like a giant herd of hot, sweaty mules, and no mistake.
The game remains faithful to the original design, to a large degree - with the significant difference that everything is now in polygon 3D instead of sprites. Now I was skeptical of how well a game like Robotron would translate to 3D - after all, it's essential to be able to see clearly all around your player.
RX handles this well though - after an admittedly shaky couple of games while I got used to the new perspective on things, something clicked and I was on the old Robotron groove, bigtime. Once I felt that feeling kick in I knew I was gonna be in throbbing lust with the game.
As you move your guy (he's called "Ugine" and in fact has a similar hairstyle to that of the Great Man Himself at the time that I met him) around the arena the camera angle changes, so that you can always see enough space around him to deal with trouble (of which there will be plenty, rest assured). It's true that at times you can't see the entire screen at a glance, as in the original, but that doesn't really detract from the gameplay - you just have to be prepared to fight your way around the arena and scout out the situation. It takes a few games to get used to this, but it's well worth the effort. Once you've got it down, you'll be in shoot-em-up heaven. :-)
Your enemies are the old familiar cast you know and loathe from the original, and all are recognisably 3-D counterparts to their 2-D progenitors. Grunts, Hulks, Brains, bloody bastard bleeding Spheroids and scum-sucking Enforcers, damnable Quarks and irritating Tanks - they're all here. In fact, this being X, there are four types each of these horrors, with successively more hostile mutations of the basic types being unleashed on the higher levels. I haven't seen 'em all yet - and I moisten my Y-fronts when I think of what's waiting for me on the high waves, coz the lot I've encountered up to level 27 have got enough attitude, mark my words.
Naturally, no Jarvis game would be complete without some Humanoids to rescue, and so the Last Family - Mom, Dad, Mikey and new guy Grandpa - put in an appearance. These hapless individuals wander around aimlessly, powerless to do anything except mosey about in a daze, and it's up to you to rescue their sorry asses for big, spinning vector bonus points. The Hulk Robotrons perform all manner of unnatural things on your Humanoids, usually involving dicing, shredding, hideous screams and a pool of blood on the arena floor. The Brains reprogram them and send them off as Progs to kill you. If you can get to them first and keep from dying, then it's big bonuses for you. And that's what we like, isn't it - lots of shooting and big bonuses...
Robotron X innovates in that it actually has polite Humanoids. If you listen carefully you can hear them thank you when you save them from a bloody end in the thick of battle. (Actually, as I recall, my own Humanoids in D2K were not too bad with the etiquette either).
Control is via the joypad (which actually isn't too bad, once you get used to doing directional fire off the four right-hand buttons) or, and this is really the way to play, via 2 stonking big joysticks, one in each joystick port. The ideal way to play is as follows:
Gameplay is intense. Unlike in original Robotron, enemies continue to rez in throughout the wave, as in Defender. I guess more than 100 robots onscreen at once in 3D would be a bit overwhelming! As in the original, every fifth wave is a Brain Wave - at least up until the late 20's levels, where Brains start appearing any old time. Spheroids are particularly terrifying, as if not shot immediately they will start generating Enforcers, and too many Enforcers in the arena will seriously piss on your fire. (Strange but true observation here - the Type 2 Enforcers, otherwise known as "bloody bleeding little yellow bastards" or "fucking little poxy gits" make a shuddering kinda noise that is exactly the same as the noise that Landers used to make when shot in my first poxy Vic-20 game, Andes Attack. Now I seriously doubt that anyone would sample a Vic-20 effect to use in a Playstation game, but it could be that the coder coincidentally used the same basic technique - alternating a low descending tone with an ascending noise generator - to make a sound, but whatever, the resemblance is uncanny. I went thorugh hours of "shit, I know that sound from somewhere" before I remembered - I had heard it only recently, playing with the Vic-20 emulator).
The beauty of this game is that it puts you into that excellent trance-state that you used to get on the original - where everything else is brutally forced out of your consciousness by the sheer intensity of what is transpiring before your bulging eyeballs. The Robotron wire is a mix of adrenaline and sheer terror that is one of the finest and most addictive vibes in all of videogaming. Once you reach that point of competence, when you no longer evacuate your bowels at the mere sight of an Enforcer and you can break through to flashes of brilliance... where the world is going to Hell at a million miles an hour all around you but somehow time distorts, and you're aware of everything in the Universe and you've got the skills and a fucking big gun to deal with it... you're cranked and haven't dared to blink for the last minute, but you're dancing the dance of the Xenocide, delicate touches on the sticks carrying you safely through the psychotic mayhem of the arena, dealing electric death with random precision on all sides... and then that bloody bastard c*** from hell Enforcer nails you with a shot along the wall, and you are very glad you no longer live with your mother, because she would be deeply mortified at the mere thought that you had even heard the stuff you'll be swearing...
You will know addiction. You have been warned.
There are so many cool things about this game that I could sit here and ramble on all night about them. There are powerups - extra lives, shields, even a 3-way shot like in Llamatron - the only thing I could have wished for is a Smart Bomb, again like in Llamatron. It was always great in that game when you had a screenful of Grunts and then you grabbed the Smart and they all just went away. Hehe...
The only thing that really pisses me off about the game is that you can't abbreviate the "Game Over" animation of a Grunt stomping on Ugine. As the Great One, Creator of All Things Good and Ultimate Video Game God, once said to me when I was working on D2K: - "A player who has had a bad game wants to redeem himself immediately". Which is to say, when they finally smear your ass all over the arena floor, you're itching for revenge, so when Game Over comes around you just wanna go jab, jab, jab on the Start button and get back in there. Of course there is going to be load time on the PSX, but why make it worse by making us wait for that poxy animation too? (Actually it's pretty funny... the first time you see it.)
However that's just nitpicking. Basically, RX is the shit, no messing. It's like a drug, and it will alter your state of mind and get you high. Like I said in the Sony games newsgroup: another classic makes the leap. With this and T2K/X, Playstation gamers have some mighty fine zapping available right now. Good old-fashioned ultraviolence. Buy. Enjoy. :-)
The game consists of various levels with a predominantly Doom-esque slant. There are also levels where you pilot a vehicle - the first level is particularly nice, where you get to pilot a Snowspeeder against Probots, AT-STs, and the giant mechanical camels themselves, AT-ATs. This level recreates the feel of the Hoth battle sequence from out of "Empire Strikes Back" so well that one feels one ought to be able to land the Snowspeeder, get out, and go make indecent advances to a Taun-Taun. The first time you bring a camel to its knees by ensnaring it with a towline just like in the film, you will know deep Star Wars joy.
Subsequent levels include shooting TIE fighters and bombers in the asteroid belt, a close encounter with an Imperial Star Destroyer, dlying speeder bikes down Beggars Canyon, and lots of Doom-style exploration of Imperial bases. The samples are right out of the films, down to the screams of dying Stormtroopers and the (oh so important) sound of lasers and blasters.
And the game looks beautiful. There are times - like in the level where you're leaping from train to train as you make your way through a giant junkyard - where you have time to just look around at the scenery and the scale of everything that's around you, and it's just gorgeous. It really does have the feel of a Star Wars movie. It lacks the intensity of Quake or Doom on the sections where you're on foot - but that was never a part of the Star Wars scene, mowing down huge herds of demons. It was more sneak around and snipe at Stormtroopers - and on the higher difficulty settings, where fewer hits kill you and there are more adversaries, tactical play becomes a lot more important than just leaping in with lasers blazing and trusting you'll find a medikit soon.
I can see that there is some cause for criticism - I shall have finished the game soon, I am most of the way through playing through on Easy, and I have had the game a day and a half. But I know it's a lot harder on the other difficulty modes, and it's so atmospheric I'll totally enjoy playing through the levels, even if I have seen the surroundings before. But the bottom like is, if you like Star Wars and videogames, you will enjoy this game. Even when you've beaten it, you'll want to go back and play just because it's so pleasurable to do so.
If I could have added anything to it, it would be a score. That would have added even more to the replay value, because even if you finished with all the Challenge Points on the Jedi difficulty setting, you could still go back and try to improve on your score.
Quibbles notwithstanding, SOTE is a gorgeous game. If you love Star Wars, and you also want to impress the bollocks off your mates, it's an essential purchase.
Now if only someone could come out with a controller like in the Atari Star Wars coin-op for the vehicle sequences... I would die happy with a big erection. :-]
The game is spectacular. The transparency effects in the water are real jaw-on-the-floor stuff. The rippling pools in SM64 were some of the most stimulating graphics FX for me, and in WR you get to play your whole game on the water. It looks drop-dead gorgeous, and handles nicely via the analog controller. On some of the levels where the weather is a bit rough the only thing missing is the spray in your eyes.
The tracks are interesting and challenging, with varying water conditions, tides, and obstacles (like the horrible pointy-up bits of wood sticking up from the lake on the Drake Lake course, or the tea chests and two-by-fours that some thoughtful soul chucked into the water on the Marine Fortress track). The computer-controlled players are challenging on the higher levels, and don't think twice about knocking you off your jetski and zooming off into the distance while you vomit brine. You can play 2-player split screen (but notice how the horizon of the waves shortens drastically in 2P mode - well, I suppose something had to give).
Musically, of course, the game can't hold a candle to WOXL. The two games are quite different anyway - WOXL is all hard-edged combat racing, whereas WR is a lot more light-hearted. For pure adrenaline I still prefer WOXL, but for pure eye-candy and a good, challenging race with interesting physics WR can't be beat. Definitely a must-buy for the N64 crowd - Ghu knows there's not a lot of choice right now.
The Voodoo board seems like a pretty poky beast, and there are a good few games lined up that support Voodoo enhancements. No doubt you'll be reading about a few of them on this page in subsequent months :-)
Now it's pretty hard to improve on perfection, but somehow the creators of Wipeout XL
have managed it. Better graphics, killer weapons, improved controls, more tracks, and
a killer techno soundtrack make for an absolutely orgasmic racing experience like no
other. You'll be wanting to stick this in your PS, load up on your favourite neuroenhancing substances, darken the room and crank up the stereo and race until
the cows come home and go to bed with you. WOXL has a slightly simplified control
mode compared to the original, and anyone who has played original Wipeout, indeed
anyone who has even been in the same room as someone playing original Wipeout, will
urinate from a great height on the first two tracks. By the time you get to tracks 5 and 6 though, you'll be grateful for the improved ship handling; complete the first Challenge and activate Phantom mode, and you're gonna have a real race on your hands. The speed of Phantom Class is just awesome, and the two tracks associated with that Class are gnarly indeed, with dim tunnels, flying leaps, 90-degree airbrake turns into solid walls, and lots of opportunities for falling off the edge into oblivion.
One excellent new twist is that weapons can now kill, as opposed to just temporarily stunning the opposing ships. The delicious arsenal of arse-kicking devices includes 3-way and rear missiles, plasma bolts, electrovolts (which are just like the old Shockwave), Quake Disruptors which send a massive wave flying up the track, scattering ships left, right and centre; and the Autopilot, which enables you to zip through tricky turns at otherwise unfeasible speeds.
All of these hurting devices are rendered making heavy use of the Playstation's excellent transparency effects, as indeed are many aspects of the game - the plasma trail now emitted by the ships is quite gorgeous. Speeding down a dark tunnel chasing the plasma trails of the racers ahead is a beautiful and hypnotic sight. WOXL is one of those rare cases where eye, ear and thumb-candy all come in heaping measures.
There is something very satisfying about being on the final lap in third place, coming into the home straight, and unleashing a QD on the first- and second-place runners, sending them flying and allowing you to streak home. Likewise being just behind the guy in first place and nailing him up the ass with a plasma bolt, enabling you to cruise in for the gold and also hear the deliciously satisfying droid voice announcing "Contender Eliminated"... hehehe... I can't wait to play this game in link mode.
All this ultra-speed, mega-violent, silky-smooth mondo-addictive racing action is accompanied by a goodly sample of fine British techno, with such luminaries as the Prodigy, FSOL and the Chemical Brothers putting in an appearance. Basically this game is the best thing there is on the Playstation, and will keep you nailed to your controller with your eyeballs hanging out, in a cold sweat until the wee small hours. F-Zero 64 is going to have to go some to top this. I hereby declare WOXL to be the Ultimate Dog's Bollocks Racing Game of All Time.... at least for now. If racing games get much better than this I am gonna have to start wearing a condom when I sit down to play, so as not to mess up my pants! :-)
Lack of bovines notwithstanding, the game is a lot of fun, 'specially if you liked the dexterity-missions kinda thing on the original game. Some of the missions are pretty damn hard, especially the death-dive off the cliff in the hang-glider (which takes a lot of bottle, I smeared myself all over the hill several times before I finally got my 95 points) and those bloody jetpack missions with the bouncy balls (especially the Pilot level ones)... however, PW64 also demonstrates that the N64 isn't perfect - try crashing in one of the farm-area fields, and sometimes you can see some really ugly worst-case aliasing and tearing of textures on the ground.
Bubble Bobble I haven't played nearly so much, given that I missed out on getting addicted to that first time around, except for a brief flirtation with the coin-op that was in Mrs. Platypus's bar on Corfu last time I went to Greece. I know it has kinda cult status and gives every appearance of being a fun game, so I'll have to give it a bit more playing and see if it gets its hooks into me.
Of course what I am really drooling for - probably more than I did even for the N64 and Mario - is the upcoming release of Wipeout XL. The original Wipeout is the reason that I have 2 Playstations (for link-up mode) - and XL is purported to be considerably improved, and with an excellent line-up of top techno choonz to accompany the action. I hope that this time the US release has the same tunes as the UK one - I really miss that Leftfield track when I play my US Wipeout.
However, it remains to be seen what Nintendo are going to do with F-Zero on the N64... after all, WipeOut is pretty heavily based on F-Zero. Maybe F-Zero 64 will end up replacing Wipeout as the Ultimate Dog's Bollocks Racing Game of All Time. We shall see (and have a pile of fun finding out)...
You see, what you absolutely have to do is go out and buy two nice big PlayStation joysticks, jack them into the PS and set up Robotron so it can be played as God Himself intended - one stick to move, the other stick to fire. You will then get to play one of the most intense and satisfying shoot-em-up games ever made in a most perfect mode. You will know serious addiction. Turn off the lights, sit on the floor with one stick either side of you, and prepare for a long session and a numb bum. You will experience deep joy and utter addiction. You'll be a one-man robot killing machine, at one with your on-screen persona. You will grok the nature of pure playability. You will be in videogame Nirvana.
However I am waiting and drooling for what I really want, which is the next version of WipeOut :-)
However, there is one difference between MCs 1 and 2 that I do not altogether approve of. In MC2, the designers have provided an easy source of extra mana in the form of groups of defenceless, non-aggressive targets that may be killed at will for their mana. These targets take the form of herds of bleating goats that I can't quite bring myself to kill. I prefer to come up really close behind them and.. well, actually there isn't a command for that, but it's a nice thought, anyway :-)
There you go... more next time...
\
(:-) - Y a K
/
Okay, you may be thinking, Yak is pissing and moaning about odd little things, and not offering any constructive criticism. Well, here's my two cents' worth (jeez, I have been in America too long!)...Atari Arcade Greatest Hits - PlayStation
Speaking of things Tempestuous, the best way to experience the glory that is Theurer's original is to get this disk for your PlayStation. Atari Arcade is a collection of six of Atari's finest, running under emulations implemented by the Digital Eclipse people who did the excellent Williams emulators for Williams Arcade Classics. Original Tempest is there in all its glory, and since it's a straight emu, it's even better than the version on Windoze. One nice feature is that on the games that used a trackball or other analog controller, you can use a mouse plugged into port 2. Of course, what I really want is a trackball and/or rotary controller for the PSX - a proper rotary controller and an emulated Tempest would give me deep joy indeed.15 Dec: Numb Bum Weekend - Slave to the Playstation/N64 groove
Man, I have been a total gamehead this weekend. Real all-day-until-4AM kinda stuff... I just happened to have got my hands on a couple of choice games at the same time, and they've had me nailed to the controller all weekend.Robotron X (PlayStation)
Now this is my kinda game. If you've been reading this page recently, you'll have noticed that I have been drooling from various orifices in anticipation of getting this game. The original Robotron is such a classic - the epitome of the pure adrenalin-rush blasting game, Uncle Eugene at his best - that I figured if the guys doing the upgrade had more than two neurons to rub together and an ounce of soul, the result would surely be worth waiting for.Shadows of the Empire (N64)
Finally got my hands on this at the weekend (my, doesn't Nintendo distribution suck right now - although there are putatively 8 games available for the system, in reality if you actually walk into a shop to buy any there are only at the most 3 or 4...) and I have to admit, it's really very nice indeed. I know Next Gen slagged it for not being "deep" enough, and they said that control of the main character sucked... well I'm usually a platform game klutz, and I haven't had too much trouble telling the guy what to do. Admittedly the "film mode" camera angle does suck, but hey, you never have to use it :-)1 Dec: groovy games on the top tech...
Wave Race 64 (N64)
This is an excellent time for the gamer who is into racing games and who has a bit of spare wedge to drop on having the latest systems and their games... WR64 came out a couple of weeks after WOXL and it's been getting a fair deal of attention from the Yakly thumb.Descent 2 (PC with 3Dfx Voodoo board)
yeah, I went out and got me one of those Voodoo boards, being as they are the best game-oriented accelerator for the PC right now. It comes with a copy of Descent 2 enhanced for the accelerator, and it looks a proper treat on my PC, running full-screen in lots of lovely colour and with nice interpolated textures. The Doom-style of game sure does look one hell of a lot better once you get rid of those pixellated textures! The Voodoo does a fine job and the game looks amazing, running fast and smooth as you careen down the vertiginous corridors dealing hot laser death to all who stand in your way. I hadn't played Descent since the original version, and I was pleased to se the addition of the Guide-Bot, who, once freed from imprisonment somewhere near the start of the level, will shepherd you through the labyrinthine twists and turns of the mine. Cool. I have been a long time believer in putting AI in games that actually works for the player.PCVic (PC Vic-20 emulator)
I downloaded a large portion of the entire Vic back catalogue, but at the end of the day I keep coming back to the classics - Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time, Matrix, Laser Zone and Hell Gate :-). Although I do admit that Omega Race and Spiders of Mars do occasionally get a look-in.Robotron (out of Williams Arcade Classics, for the Playstation)
This has been getting a dust-off as I begin the process of cranking up my reaction-times to the level of wiredness that will no doubt be necessary when Robotron X releases on the PS... should be next week but it has been delayed once already...27 Oct: It's here, it's awesome....
Wipeout XL (Playstation)
Finally, after months of waiting and drooling, my most-anticipated game of the
year is out. When the original Wipeout came out last year, it addicted me utterly
with its excellent graphics, precise control and untraspeedy hi-tech racing action.
I played it until my thumb bled. I installed it on the Playstation back home in England
and all my mates and brothers played it until their thumbs bled.12 Oct: Fat Italian Plumber Time
Super Mario 64 (N64)
Of course I have been playing this, who hasn't? It's a lot of fun, Mario translates well to his new 3D environment, and it shows off some bloody nice effects on the N64 - particularly the black oil pool on level 6 and the "Stargate" - type water gate on level 9... most droolaceous. Had it a couple of weeks now, fitting in the odd few hours between work here and there, I am up to 57 stars and recently vanquished the second Bowser. I like it when Mario falls asleep and he starts dreaming of spaghetti and ravioli :-)Pilot Wings 64 (N64)
The *other* N64 game - not a lot of choice right now. I lloved PW on the SNES - it was the first game I got with my import SNES way back then, and the rotation and scaling blew my bollocks off at the time. This incarnation is substantially similar with the important difference that the world is no longer painted on a flat tile like in original Pilot Wings - it's all very pretty texmapped bilerped polys, with lots of interesting nooks and crannies to fly your jetpack into when you get bored doing the proper missions. I have only one serious complaint about the game world - where are the cows? I did what any normal beastie-oriented person would do when I got the game - that is, get the training missions out of the way and then go zooming off in the jetpack over the Little States island, heading out to the farm areas and flying low looking for polygon cattle, expecting to see a few antialiased cowhide textured polys and maybe hear a welcoming moo, and - nothing! Hey, come on Nintendo, we want more cows! (I just looked at some screenshots of Super Mario Kart 64, and I was relieved and gratified to see that the cows are definitely there).Bubble Bobble/Rainbow Islands (PlayStation)
I remember spending hours playing the excellent Graftgold translation of Rainbow Islands on my Amiga years ago, so when I saw this disk in my local EB I snapped it up. If you got into the incredibly-twee RI the first time around, this is just the thing to rekindle the addiction. There's even an enhanced version with prettier background graphics and translucent rainbows and bonuses, although the gameplay is exactly the same as the original, with all the hidden bonuses and powerups and all those weird things that you collect for bonus points - gems, bits of fruit, fried eggs, handbags and umbrellas, bits of cake, sweets, tiny pints of lager... what *were* the original designers smoking when they made this game??Namco Museum Volume 1 (PlayStation)
My most played game on this retro package is Boskonian, which I totally missed when it came out originally - it was never that common in the UK, although it seems to have been pretty well known in the US. It's a fun multi-way scrolling blaster that gets bloody hectic on higher levels, you really get to curse those bloody bleeding pink ships! The disc has a smattering of other Namco oldies, including Pac-Man and a perfect version of Galaga, which is nice. Of course I am now waiting for Volume 2 which, I believe, contains a clone of Xevious - it'll be worth it for that title alone.7 July: Worshipping at the Shrine of Eugene
Williams Arcade Classics (PlayStation)
I have been paying homage to my God with the PlayStation versions of these classics - all of Uncle Eugene's best creations in one place - llovely. The implementation of the package is a bit flashier than the PC version, with some nice rendered stuff introducing the collection; but the emulators and the video interviews with the guys at Williams are all there just the same. The games run fast and smooth. The only compromises appear to be that occasionally the sound FX are a bit choppy - the 'mutating' sound on Defender/Stargate is definitely a bit odd - and the vertical resolution of the screen has been lowered by discarding occasional scan lines, which makes some of the hi-score tables a bit weird to read (this latter problem may not apply to the PAL release, as PAL has a larger vertical rez). However, it's totally fun to sit for hours on one's arse in front of the PSX, violently worshipping the Great One by blasting away at Defender, Stargate (phooey to 'Defender II', it will always be Stargate to me) and Robotron... ahhh... Robotron...Amazingly enough, currently enjoying RAMspace on the Penty at 30 Jun:
Thrust (C-64, running under the PC64 emu)
Yes, an ancient addiction has reared its ugly head since I have been playing about with the emulators.
Many an hour was spent in the old Yaklab with me mates clustered around a group of overheated C64s
all running Thrust... many curses and profanities were muttered as we struggled to shoot the tits and
manoeuvre our dangling bollocks through twisty passages (hehe... you'd have to play the game to
understand those references). Runs perfectly on pc64 and so I have been having a fine time relearning
the delicate touch on the controls that allows a true Thrust master to combat rampant bollock-swing in
even the narrowest passages.Headbanger's Heaven (Speccy, running under the Z80 Speccy emu)
I can't believe that I just spent an hour playing this very silly game, one of my earliest games for
the Speccy. It involves guiding this little bloke back and forth across the screen attempting to
collect both moneybags and blows to the head. It's inordinately silly, but somehow fun, in a twisted
kind of a way. Can you make it to Headbanger Class 1, or will you earn the shame-lladen rating of
Barry Manilow Class Five? I find it best to make two or three quick runs across the screen to collect
moneybags, which increases the score multiplier, and then hang around collecting blows to the head.
My top score is just over 25,000, which equates to Headbanger Class 5.
Distracting the YaK frrom his vital duties at 22 Jun 1996
Descent on the Playstation
Yeah, I know you can just play it on the PC but it's nice to have the whole thing all in one place that you usually go to play your games, and where it is not taking up valuable space on the HD (yeah, even with 1.6G I am nearly maxxed out here, between my DOS and Linux partitions - erk :-)). And it goes nicely with my boss new PS joystick that I got the other day. Although just llately I can't help but notice how primitive the PS tech is. All those big pixels. Hehe.Raiden Project on the Playstation
This has had the dust blown off it since I have the new joystick - finally I have the precision to dodge somea those really tricky bullet patterns that the bosses emit sometimes. Still a fine blasteroonie.Receiving undue attention at 11 Feb '96..
Magic Carpet 1 and 2.. Bullfrog (PC)
I got the first MC last year and had not an inconsiderable amount of fun playing it on my old 486.. and then, with the arrival of my new super-butch, most awesome oh yes indeedy, P-166, I decided to dig the old thang out again and have a go in the high-rez mode, which I had never had enough RAM to run on my old box. In fact, it was *necessary* to run the game in that mode as it was just *too* damn fast in low rez! Hehe.. anyway, it was as fun as I remembered and even prettier, so I took myself off to EB and picked up a copy of the sequel, which appears to be even better - I only got it this afternoon - the sequences in the caverns are excellent. MC is definitely one of the best PC blasters, IMO.Wipeout -= Psygnosis (PlayStation)
The logical successor to the great and extremely excellent F-Zero on the SNES. I set up a PS at the games room in Tadley while I was back over the hols, and without exception all my F-Zero-head mates and brothers took to it instantly. If you're looking for Formula One, look elsewhere; but if you're looking for an update to that F-Zero feeling, here's your boy.
Jacked in at 21 May 1995
Defender 2000 Classic Mode
Hehehe! With the decoupled controls and the sixbutton joypad - excellent! Hehe...Entering the Slot at 12 Mar 1995: don't flame me, but...
FIFA Soccer - EA (3D0)
- yeah, I know there are probably Jag people who would offer me a punch in
the bracket for even mentioning the spawn of Hawkins but... I have to be honest
about a good game when I see one, even if it's not on my llovely Jag. I bought a
3D0 mainly to have a closer look at what they were doing with the CD format,
what with D2K now going to be on CD an' all. Out of all the games I got with the
machine, FIFA is the best by an order of magnitude. The dynamic camera angles
are spectacular, the gameplay is easy to get into but with sufficient depth to allow
for skills to increase with practise, and the sound effects made me quite homesick
(the chants of 'Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land' when my Welsh team were 6-0 down to
England on my first game were particularly telling). The replay is fun too, allowing
you to relive that glorious moment when the ball smacks into the back of the onion
bag from a multiplicity of different angles. If we could steal one 3D0 title for the Jag,
this would be it. Doesn't mean that I forgive them for that poor excuse for a lightsynth
though....Newly In the Slot at 12 Feb 1995:
Descent - Interplay (PC)
I'd been hearing about this, so I FTPd the demo version off the net yesterday.
It's a lot of fun, I've spent a lot of the last 24 hours playing it. Basically it's
DOOM with spaceships. You fly a little ship around twisting, 3D mine mazes,
blowing up enemy ships and doing the DOOM thing - finding the exit, getting
pass cards, finding secret rooms etc. It's different in that you can fly any
way up; the extra degrees of freedom mean there are a few more controls
to learn, and the first few games you'll be bumping into things and flailing around
like a demented fly, but after a while it kicks in and becomes a great deal of fun.
It runs fine with full detail on my 486-66DX2, but you can turn off some of the
texmapping to make it run faster on less powerful PCs. Well worth the download,
and I expect I'll get the full version once I have finished the demo. In the Slot at 04 Feb 1995:
Magic Carpet - Bullfrog (PC)
Peter Molyneux's crew have really delivered the goods this time. MC is a
3D flight game that'll make your eyes bleed, the graphics are so gorgeous.
Most importantly, not only are the graphics and audio exemplary, but the
gameplay ROCKS. You pilot the eponymous rug around over land and sea,
dishing it out to various baddies and gathering up their energy, which lets you
build a whacking great castle and get lots of groovy spells which let you
dish it out even more. There are other guys out there also trying to build their
castles, and there's quite a bit of strategy involved - but don't worry, it's
easy to get in to, and provides a shovelful of sheer out-and-out zapkillfrenzy for
those of us who'd rather shoot first and ask questions later. It's pretty resource
hungry - 8Meg minimum - but if you've got the iron to run it, don't delay, buy today.
A little llama tells me this may be making the transition to the Jaguar. Yum, yum, yum.JagDOOM - Atari (Jaguar)
It's Doom, running fast, and you don't need a PC to run it on. Need I say more?Microsoft Arcade Pack for Windoze - Microsoft (PC)
Classics! Nigh-on perfect versions of Asteroids, Missile Command, Cattle Zone,
Centipede and Tempest. Sure, there are a few glitches 'coz of no doublebuffering
in Windoze, but these games are very faithful to their originals and therefore guaranteed
fun to play. My, but I'd forgotten what a little bugger the small saucer was in Asteroids...Val D'Isere Skiing and Snowboarding - Atari (Jaguar)
People have slagged off this game for 'not being 64 bit', whatever *that* means. Back here
in the real world we have a fun racing game which runs at a silky 60 frames; sure, it's not
desperately complex, but the fact is that it's a hoot to play. It managed to keep Ian Lightsynth
off of 8-Ball Deluxe for a whole evening, which is quite something. Some of the hill effects
are quite realistically vom-inducing! Cool.8-Ball Deluxe - Amtex (PC)
I llove a good pinball and this is the best, IMHO. Based on an actual real-world table; unusual
amongst computer pinball games in having a three-directional nudge that really is useful. Has
an unbelievably strong one-more-go factor. The sound FX are cool, too - sampled electromechanical
clunking of flippers and bumpers, and the voice... those phrases get llodged in your mind... Make the..
8-ball, corner pocket! Get the... Deluxe! Go for... Bank Shot! Run it in 800x600 for best effect.
Now, I just hope they do Black Knight, next...Defender The Arcade Game - Williams (Coin-Op)
Atari put one of these in my apartment. I've got calluses from playing it. Utterly, utterly awesome.