Category: Written Reviews

Fun little trivia: prior to your purchasing of Star Soldier R, there’s a little warning letting you know that the game comprises nothing more of 2 modes: one mode lasting 2-minutes and 1 level and a second mode lasting 5 minutes and 2 levels. And there’s also a quick shot mode that gauges how fast you can mash a button. That screen, right there, tells you everything you need to know about the game. There’s no campaign to play through, there’s no hidden secrets to discover, and there’s no storyline to follow. The object of the game is to score points and hopefully make onto an online leaderboard. And that’s it.

For the most part, the fact that they were nice enough to give you a brief-but-detailed description of the game’s actual content is rather helpful in determining whether it’s worth your 800 Wii Points. For those looking for storylines or a long enduring gaming experience, turn away now because that’s not what this game is all about. Not at all. It’s about how many points you can score within a short amount of time and how your score compares with everyone else in the world or in your own country. Beyond that, this is a really lightweight package that won’t appeal to anyone looking for intertwining stories and 20 hour gameplay sessions.

So all that’s left are those who are big fans of space shooters and enjoy leaderboards. Is this worth 800 Wii Points? Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Star Soldier R is (at the time of writing) the latest entry in the long-running Star Soldier series of shooters by Hudson Soft. As previously mentioned, the game is fairly lightweight, comprising of the aforementioned two Time Attack modes (or Caravan modes, as it’s usually called) and Quick Shot modes. During these two modes, you have an unlimited number of lives and can die as many times as you would like, but must complete the game’s two levels within that amount of time, while the while racking as high of a score as you can by blowing up as much crap as humanly possible. Once time expires, your score is tallied and ranked with the rest of the world to see how well (or how badly) you fare.

That’s it, that’s all.

You’ve got a couple methods of controlling your ship; either with the Wii Remote, Wii Remote & Nunchuk combination, or Classic Controller. These work fairly well, but I found that using the Classic Controller works best with this game. The Nunchuk configuration is somewhat awkward after a while and the Wii Remote’s D-Pad is the best ever devised. With the Classic Controller, everything seems to work well. The game itself is typical Star Soldier fare; you can collect power-ups to increase the amount of bullets you shoot, force pods to defend your ship or attack others, and you can even control your speed. In that respect, Star Soldier R does follow the series’ legacy rather well.

Graphically speaking, Star Soldier R looks fairly good with some crisp visuals and effects, but nothing amazing or mindblowing. They’re not an eyesore, to say the least. There’s virtually nothing in terms of slowdown or clipping issues – as far as I’ve seen thus far. The sound in Star Soldier R is not great… don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, but it’s merely average. Indeed, past Star Soldier games have had much better background music and it’s unfortunate that the music here isn’t on par with previous titles. But that’s okay.

Overall, Star Soldier R is best suited for those who are obsessed with rankings and leaderboards, since that’s pretty much the whole point of the game. If you’re a fan of shooters or Star Soldier specifically, you’ll probably want to give this game a go for a quick fix of SHMUPing action – and in terms of a quick fix, that’s Star Soldier R’s main specialty. The only gripe is that the lightweight nature of the game does very little to actually justify the 800 Wii Point price tag, but then again, it does gives you ample warning and what it does offer is done rather well.

Recommended for shooter fans, leaderboard fans, and those with money to burn.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (Everything looks solid and crisp – no slowdown or clipping)
Sound: 6/10 (Pretty generic background music, but otherwise sounds okay. Nothing to complain about really.)
Gameplay: 7/10 (Various control methods, tried-and-true Star Soldier gameplay still holds up well)
Challenge: 6/10 (Levels themselves are moderately difficult at best – it’s all about the points, baby)
Replay Value: 5/10 (Depends how obsessed you are with leaderboards and rankings)

OVERALL: 7/10

Sonic Classic Collection, the latest collection and re-releasing of classic 2D Sonic games from Sega, comprises the first four Sonic titles on Sega Genesis; the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles. In addition to these games, you also have the lock-on variant games Knuckles in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles openly accessible from the start without having to unlock them after meeting certain conditions. Along with those games, you have a rather modest collection of Sonic-related illustrations that have been featured in countless other Sonic compilations as well as various other sources… including the Internet.

And that’s about it. No extra games or hidden features. What you see is what you get with Sonic Classic Collection and for the most part, this is actually not too bad. It more than makes up for the shoddy GBA port of Sonic 1.

Now it should be noted that these games aren’t port overs – they are basically a set of ROMs running off an emulator. As such, there might be cases of graphical blurring or some slowdown issues. But that doesn’t really distract from the gameplay unless you’ve logged in many hours on the original Genesis cartridges. All the Sonic games included play, look, and sound pretty much the same way as they did way back when… and for the most part, the games control rather well with the DS Lite’s dinky D-Pad. It’s a fairly decent emulator with no major complaints on my part.

It should be noted that the ROMS for Sonic 2 and 3 (and 3 & Knuckles) have been altered somewhat to remove the two player mode and option menus. This means a lack of multiplayer options, restricting the games to a single player experience only – which will no doubt disappoint some player hoping for quick 2-player games. Also, the removal of menus makes it more difficult (almost impossible) for the old cheat codes to be implemented, forcing you to “tough it out” the old-fashioned way. This may or may not bother some people.

Another annoying aspect is that the pause function is on the touch screen rather than mapped to the Start Button or any other button on the handheld. It’s not a crippling issue, but it’s a truly awkward implementation of something as simple as a pause button. Oh well.

Also in the case of Sonic & Knuckles, its unique and dramatic mid-boss theme was replaced with the messy mid-boss theme from Sonic 3. Strange.

To make up for the changes, a quick save function was implemented to the Sonic games that didn’t originally have one (i.e. Sonic 1 & 2, Sonic and Knuckles, and Knuckles in Sonic 2). This essentially allows you to save your progress and restart at the beginning of the last act you saved at. I haven’t fully tested this, but the quick save function does save any Chaos Emeralds you may have collected along the way. The sole drawback is one save per game, but that seems to work fine.

As Sonic 3 and its lock-on cousin already have save functions, they didn’t get the quick-save function, but that’s alright. They work just fine as is.

Overall, this is a fairly solid collection of Sonic games that show the series’ high point and in all honesty, Sonic on the go is always a good thing. Those who were long-burned by Sega’s butchering of the GBA port of the original Sonic many moons ago will find that Sonic Classic Collection does a fairly good job in redeeming the stain from Sega’s sleeve. Even though they’re merely emulated versions, I suppose that’s the best we could hope for in regards to maintaining the purity of the classic Sonics. Given the last time Sega attempted to port over classic Sonic to a Nintendo handheld, this collection more than makes up for it.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (true to the Genesis originals – although some blurring may occur)
Sound: 7/10 (some minor audio issues and one changed tune, but otherwise well accurate)
Gameplay: 8/10 (classic Sonic fun plays good – missing multiplayer and sound test)
Challenge: 7/10 (all the Sonic games offer a fair, moderate challenge – seeking Emeralds is also fun)
Replay Value: 7/10 (lack of multiplayer disappointing, but Sonic games are still fun)

Around August 2008, I picked up a used Dreamcast and several games along with it. Among the crop of games I got was Fighting Force 2. Of course, when I saw the game, I was ignorant of all the bad press it got… So I pop the game in the Dreamcast and for some reason the bloody thing didn’t read. It just kept going to the Dreamcast menu screen thing. So in any case, for reasons I have yet to comprehend (and yes, the disc was thoroughly cleaned), I couldn’t play the game. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise or divine intervention. Doesn’t matter now. All I know is that among the small library of games, I had one dud in my collection.

Now as luck would have it, someone had a working copy of Fighting Force 2. And given that I really wanted to see for myself if I missed anything despite the bad press, I borrowed his copy and gave it a go. A couple days later, I returned the copy of the game and offered my friend a box of matches and a small container so he could burn the game away as well as the sin of having picked it up.

Yeah, that should tell you everything about my thoughts on Fighting Force 2 and I could end the review right here. But I’ll keep going.

For the most part, Fighting Force 2 takes the rather harmless-but-ultimately-boring gameplay mechanics of the original Fighting Force and shoves it down the proverbial black hole of doom to regurgiate the awful mess we’re stuck with today. Instead of four different characters with varying stats and attacks, you’re stuck with one character and he moves like a turtle… quite possibly slower than that. To make up for the slow speed, your character has the ability to make everything he touches explode into a ball of flames after a few hits. What sense does this make? Absolutely none. Does it help my chances? Of course not.

And for some odd reason, the exploding chairs yield weapons such as pipes and guns which can be used against your enemies, who are easily subdued by these weapons that are literally laying all over the place. Indeed, your only real difficulty in Fighting Force 2 lies in the awkward controls, jittery camera (not too bad in large rooms, but problematic in smaller ones), and overall generic gameplay that proves to be a fine test in how long you could fend off boredom.

Looking for a game with great sound? Look elsewhere. While the sound quality on Fighting Force 2 is admittedly crisp and clear for the most part, there’s very few bits of music to be found here and what’s there isn’t all that memorable. The only real positive I could give this game is in the graphics. Aside from some clipping issues, the game looks fairly good… by Playstation standards. By Dreamcast standards… it’s tolerable at best… Perhaps I’m being too critical. The models and environments are neatly rendered, but not much more than that.

It’s truly unfortunate that Eidos and Core dropped the ball in porting over this game over to the Dreamcast. It seems like they just copied-and-pasted a Playstation game onto a GD-ROM disc, did a couple minor touch-ups, and BOOM! Brand new game. Now, I understand a number of Dreamcast games that started off as Playstation games were like this, but it’s hard to believe that the quality was just THIS bad. It seems like whoever was working on this simply didn’t care about the final product.

Anyone who is looking for a good Dreamcast game should not be picking up Fighting Force 2. Anyone looking for a further fix of Fighting Force should just play the first game again. Anyone looking for a fun activity should just stare at the wall… yes, staring at a wall is MORE FUN than Fighting Force 2.

BREAKDOWN
Story: 2/10 (the story is unmemorable and dull – not much to it)
Graphics: 5/10 (the graphics are okay – slightly higher-resolution version of a Playstation game, but that’s about it)
Sound: 2/10 (little music, repetitive grunts and explosions, please make it stop)
Gameplay: 1/10 (touchy, awkward controls – boring gameplay – unstable camera)
Challenge: 2/10 (weapons all over the place make this a cinch to beat – if you want to)
Replay Value: 1/10 (just play the original Fighting Force instead)

OVERALL:1/10

Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 is considered to be the single most disappointing home conversion of an arcade machine in the history of video computer electronic entertainment. No matter how bad any other home port turned out, it didn’t contribute to the near-decimation and annihilation of the North American video game market. Is that a bit of stretch? I’d like to think so, but others do believe this statement and looking at Pac-Man as ported to the 2600, it’s not hard to see why.

While the original Pac-Man was something of a disaster, the same cannot be said for Ms. Pac-Man, which got a fantastic port on the Atari 2600. It still got that strange color scheme with the blue background, but the game somewhat resembles Ms. Pac-Man as it appeared in arcades. The sprites are a little more refined (even though there’s still that flickering issue), the mazes are almost similar enough, there’s fruit bouncing around and not vitamins, the sound effects are fairly close to matching the original sounds (as opposed to the previous port’s strange deviations), and the gameplay and functionality is similar to the arcade version. Everything still looks blocky, there are no dots but dashes, but that’s to be expected considering the system. The important thing is that when you pop this in and you look past the visual differences, you know that you’re playing Ms. Pac-Man and not some perversion of computer programming that tries to pass itself off as genuine.

Much like the arcade version, Ms. Pac-Man sports up to four different mazes, which increases the variety and challenge in the game and is an overall improvement over the original Pac-Man, which only had one static maze. Your main goal is to eat all the dots, lines, whatever the case may be and move onwards. You don’t have the intermission sequences that play every couple levels or so, but the core elements are there and… again, it’s a huge improvement over the previous port… which wasn’t very good.

There’s not much more I can add to the matter; it’s Ms. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 and it’s the port that people wished Pac-Man got. Everything that went wrong in that game is done right here and you can’t ask for more than that. Not mention that this is just a fun game to play. Ms. Pac-Man is a game you can find all over the place and deserves a good home among your Atari library if you have one. Great game, give it a go.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (more refined sprites, closer accuracy to source material)
Sounds: 7/10 (sounds closer to what you’d get at the arcades)
Gameplay: 8/10 (plays and functions similarly enough to the arcade game)
Challenge: 8/10 (four mazes provides more variety, challenge)
Replay Value: 6/10 (plenty of fun to be had here)

OVERALL: 8/10

Hat Trick… by definition, it’s attained when a single player scores three goals in a game. I guess the name makes sense considering the game is essentially one-on-one ice hockey (or two-on-two if you count the goaltenders). Unfortunately, that’s the only semblance of hat tricking that you’re going to be getting from this game… a game that is less super than the box cover implies.

Originally a fairly popular arcade game released in 1984 by Bally Midway, Hat Trick makes a somewhat smooth transition to the Atari 7800 by replicating the arcade experience with little trouble. Each game lasts about three minutes and the goal is to score more goals than your opponent before time expires and the zamboni machine comes out. In essence, it’s the most basic form of ice hockey you could get. A fair enough concept for a 1984 arcade game, but a bland concept for a 1987 home video game system.

For the most part, the game is playable, responsive, and relatively simple to learn. Both your player and goalie are controlled by the joystick, while the buttons shoot the puck. The set-up works well enough and the game isn’t necessarily broken or anything, so that’s fine. The graphics in Hat Trick are decent enough; everything looks like what it should and the simplistic nature doesn’t really distract nor does it enhance the game. The sound is somewhat alright, although the jingles are irritating to say the least.

Hat Trick is best played with two players, because the computer on Novice level is an absolute joke. Alternatively, the Expert level is fairly competent and takes some skill to defeat.

The main problem with Hat Trick is that as much fun as it was to play the game in the arcades, it’s significantly less so to play at home. Although the game is better than what you would find on, say, the Atari 2600, it pales in comparison to the hockey titles gracing the Nintendo Entertainment System, mostly notable Nintendo’s Ice Hockey and Konami’s Blades of Steel. In an age when it was possible to play video games that featured multiple teams to choose from and full 5-on-5 ice hockey games with the standard rules in place, Hat Trick seems a bit antiquated and lackluster.

Don’t get me wrong. Hat Trick is a competent enough game that plays well enough and can be fun for a few minutes, but isn’t neccessarily good enough to keep your attention for long. Don’t bother with this one.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 6/10 (recognizable players and goalies, decent but not great)
Sound: 3/10 (terrible music complements average sound effects)
Gameplay: 5/10 (straightforward and responsive; nothing more)
Challenge: 5/10 (very easy Novice mode, somewhat hard Expert mode)
Replay Value: 2/10 (you’ll drop this quickly for a better game)

OVERALL: 4/10

A quick look back at the history of STREET FIGHTER: The first game was released in 1987 and was a bleep under everyone’s radar for being frustrating to play despite presenting an innovative 6-button set-up. The second game came out in 1991 and wowed everyone with its smooth fighting mechanics and slick gameplay to the point where an entire genre of video game was born. And then… we got a whole bunch of prequels, updates, sidegames, puzzle games, and just about everything but a clear cut Street Fighter III. Jokes were made about Capcom not being able to count to three – which is actually quite funny in hindsight when you think about it, because this is the same company that has churned out Mega Man sequel after Mega Man sequel on the NES, which proves that they can count just fine, but let’s run with the joke for a minute, shall we?

When the year 1997 rolled around, it proved to be a monumental year for video games. Why? Because Capcom finally learned how to count to THREE… okay, joke over. And people were mixed in its reception. Some liked it, some hated it, but most agreed it was different from most Street Fighters played before… okay, not really, but still… at least they can count to three. Can’t wait until they count to Number FOUR!

Um, sidenote: It wouldn’t be until 2009 that Capcom would release a Street Fighter IV… which turned out to be Street Fighter II in 3D! Lame.

Anyway, all kidding and snarkiness aside, Street Fighter III was released and later got a slight revision called Second Impact… and then got another revision/sequel/remake called Third Strike, which is considered by most to be one of the finest fighting games ever developed and I have to agree. But in the interim, Capcom released both SF3 New Generation and SF3 Second Impact onto a Dreamcast disc almost appropriately titled Double Impact. Sadly, there’s no Jean-Claude Van-Damme to be found… oh wait.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Street Fighter III: Double Impact (Dreamcast)”

Vulgus is a 1984 vertical-scrolling space shooter and is best known for being the first-ever video game developed by Capcom, an obscure video game company that nobody’s heard of… they churned out a few arcade games that made tons of money… yup, never heard of them.

Right, back to the game…

Given that Vulgus is an early game, its mechanics are rather simplistic. You control a little spaceship and must battle alien forces attempting to take over the world in an endless struggle. Ah yes, one of those scenarios. Never gets old.

There are no power-ups or weapon boosters; only your basic cannon and a limited number of missiles (that you can collect more of along the way). There are various items, but these serve to alter the enemies you face, whether it be their speed, firepower, or ship design that changes. Without reading any instructions or familiarizing oneself with the controls, Vulgus is very easy to get into and understand. The premise is simple, the difficulty is decent, and the controls are competently responsive. So it’s a whole straightforward affair.

For a title that came out in 1984, Vulgus looks pretty decent with well-defined backdrops and smoothly-animated spritework. The levels are dull though; you’re on a sandy world, then over a body of water, then outer space, then the whole thing loops again, but with a new wave of enemies. The game looks fine for the most part, but it can get boring after a while.

The sound in Vulgus is the game’s sole low point. The sound effects used in the game are pretty bad and the “music” playing in the background is roughly ten notes long and also annoying. This “tune” is the only piece you’ll be hearing throughout the game and it keeps on going until the game ends… or until the power goes out. Whichever comes first.

Although it’d be difficult to find Vulgus at an arcade these days – finding an arcade is difficult enough these days, actually – it has appeared on a number of Capcom-released compilations, most notably the Capcom Classics Collection release on PS2 and Xbox. While the game is ultimately unspectacular and antiquated, it is a fine first effort from the company who would eventually spawn a dozen other popular franchises and is worth a few playthroughs at best. If you do get a chance to play it, then do so. You’ll actually like it… somewhat.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (decent graphics, but little variety)
Sound: 2/10 (droning tune and awful sound effects)
Gameplay: 9/10 (keeps it simple, controls well, competent gameplay)
Challenge: 7/10 (fairly difficulty by SHMUP standards, but constant)
Replay Value: 6/10 (dull, generic, but quite fun actually)

OVERALL: 7/10