Series Review: Super Monkey Ball

Game: Super Monkey Ball Jr.
Console: Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Developer: Sega
Release Date: 4th April 2003

The third game in the Super Monkey Ball series behind 1 and 2 (which I'll be discussing in my review of SMB Deluxe), Super Monkey Ball Jr. attempted to take the fun of the console installments of the series and put them into handheld form. Although not as long or complex as its console counterparts, the game still allowed players to enjoy multiplayer modes and minigames.

The concept of the game is to steer a monkey inside of a ball through maze like levels without falling off. The player can choose to collect bananas as they go for a chance to get more lives. With 3 main sets of levels as well as 1 bonus set for a total of 65 levels, 4 multiplayer minigames and 4 characters to choose from the game isn't short of things to do. Some of the extra features require unlocking however it's not too hard to do once you're playing the game.

There's a little preview of each level before you attempt them, and in the simpler levels its easy to see how to get to the goal. The level of challenge increases quickly between Beginner, Medium, Expert and Master with the latter two taking a lot of skill to get any way into. You're given a fair amount of lives and continues with which to attempt levels though, and the time limits are generally fair (with the exception of Master Mode). The levels are pretty well designed and can be good fun.

The minigames include Monkey Bowling, Boxing and Golf. Bowling is pretty fun and easy to control, and challenge mode is a nice addition. Boxing mode sees a free for all between competing monkeys to knock each other off the level and score points; this is probably the best multiplayer experience. Finally, Golf doesn't play quite as well as the others with the control and level design feeling a bit underwhelming. It's a good attempt at a minigame idea but poor execution.

Graphically the game isn't particularly detailed but it doesn't seem to be an issue with the simple style of levels and characters. It's easy enough to see where to go, and the only real graphical issue is the draw distance which can be fairly short at times. There's only one or two tracks to accompany gameplay which is disappointing, but understandable due to the restrictions with the game cartridge.

Overall Super Monkey Ball Jr. is a decent attempt to work the console game onto a handheld. With a good amount of levels and minigames included as well as decent level design and bonus unlockables, it makes for a fun experience even if it doesn't provide the same number of levels as the console version.

Rating: 61/100
Grade: D

Game: Super Monkey Ball Deluxe

Console: Sony Playstation 2

Developer: Sega

Release Date: 15th March 2005

More of a collection than a new game in the series, Super Monkey Ball Deluxe combines 114 stages from the first game, 140 from the second and 46 exclusive stages as well as 12 party games from the first two installments. Upon playing some of the levels in the game, it became clear that Super Monkey Ball Jr. had taken a lot of its stages from the first two games in the series. 

The aim of the game is much the same as that of the handheld version, although now there are two main game modes; Story and Challenge. Story mode allows you infinite tries at completing 10 stages from a selection of 20 to progress through the game's story. Challenge mode gives you a set number of lives and continues towards completing a set number of stages across a specified difficulty. 

Strangely you're only allowed to control your monkey with the left analog stick, which feels quite different to the d-pad on the Game Boy. It's not so much difficult to control as harder to get used to than the previous control system. The camera can also be a little troublesome at times, as any movement of your monkey will change the camera angle slightly which means at times it will be facing entirely the wrong way. 

The level design is generally good although taken mostly from the first two games in the series. As the story mode progresses the levels get significantly harder to a point where it's difficult to find 10 out of the 20 that you're able to complete. Challenge Mode has a slightly better idea of it's own difficulty level with beginner, advanced and expert modes fitting their names well. 

The minigames features are a mixed bag of concepts that work well and others which aren't quite as good. Monkey Race, Fight, Billiards, Baseball and Bowling are amongst the best games included and are fairly self explanatory. Fight is probably my most recomended mode, with boxing gloves extending from players monkey balls in order to knock other players off the play area. Monkey Target feels a little like a Mario Party style game, as you attempt to launch yourself toward a target and score points for where you land. 

Monkey Golf, Soccer and Tennis are three sports based minigames that don't work as well as they could but could hold a little multiplayer fun. Monkey Shot and Dogfight are shooting based minigames; one with a gun and one in an aeroplane. Both modes are fairly well presented and work well as concepts. The final game on offer is Monkey Boat which has almost broken controls and doesn't work well at all. There's a good selection of games on offer in Party Mode, but not a consistent level of quality. 

Graphically the game looks nice on PS2, especially compared to the handheld version of the game. While cartoon like and simple in essence the game remains sharp and colourful. The music in the game isn't particularly memorable and there's not a large soundtrack but it fits well and there's still more variety than in the handheld game. The sound effects used can be somewhat irritating after a while, especially on certain levels and minigames with the monkeys emitting panicked cries far too often. 

Overall this is pretty much the definitive version of Super Monkey Ball with its 300 levels and 12 minigames. While it can get a little hard to complete at times, there's enough easy levels to play around with and the only real downside is that you're not allowed to try all of them in Story Mode. The minigames offered are hit and miss but more often than not hold at least a little fun. If I had to recommend a console game to own from this series it'd be this. 

Rating: 73/100

Grade: C

Game: Super Monkey Ball: Touch and Roll
Console: Nintendo DS
Developer: Sega
Release Date: 17th February 2006

In the third handheld installment of the Super Monkey Ball franchise, the DS's touchscreen is added as another method with which you can control your monkey. Whilst this is innovative and can help to add precision movement in certain stages of the game, I mostly found myself using the d-pad of the DS due to its ease of use and a few difficulties with using the touchscreen as a mode of control.

Stage-wise Touch and Roll is different from the other two games with 12 worlds containing 10 stages each and no story whatsoever. Once all of these stages are complete, the credits play and new worlds are unlocked after 3 world completions. The difficulty curve of these worlds is fairly steep with a few semi-impossible stages here and there.

The level design is generally very good with some re-used ideas from previous games. There are some new ideas which is nice to see, considering the content of the previous two games was based on two Gamecube games. The top screen is used to display the level as is usual in Super Monkey Ball games and the bottom shows time remaining, lives, bananas, and speed as well as a monkey icon which animates as the player moves.

The 6 party games included are generally good with only one new addition to the selection, Monkey Hockey. This works well with the touchscreen and although a little difficult is fairly enjoyable. Other than this most of the party games remain unchanged with bowling, racing, and fighting included. As is common in this series, the choice of modes feels a little narrow with challenge, practice and party games being the only options.

The game's graphics look really nice and although hardly high definition they work well with the overall cartoon feel of the game. There's a much wider selection of music to accompany play than in previous installments also which makes a nice change. The voicing of the monkeys seems less annoying than in the other games too, with less vocalisations in general to interrupt the gameplay.

Overall this is the game that convinced me the series works best on handheld, with its well designed challenge mode that allows for short bursts of play as well as longer campaigns. The party games are probably the only feature which seems lacking in this version. Other than that this makes for a good addition to the series but also reaffirms my worries that save for graphical developments most versions of Super Monkey Ball are essentially the same thing.

Rating: 73/100
Grade: C

Series Review: Grand Theft Auto - Part 3

Between the last part of this series review and the games I'm about to review, comes Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which I gave a seperate review due to its scale and revolutionary new features. The two games which followed it revisited the locations of GTA III and Vice City respectively to give a new perspective on events before those of the two games.

Game: Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Rockstar
Release Date: 6th June 2006

Bringing the series back to Liberty City and it's three islands which are plagued by transit problems, Liberty City Stories has a familiar protagonist in Toni Cipriani. Having completed missions for him in GTA III (set in 2001), we get a glimpse of how he rose up the mafia ranks to become second only to Salvatore Leone. The game is set in 1998 and has a few clever references to future events such as motorcycles (which were banned in III), Lazlow says that soon LCFR will feature Chatterbox 24/7 and the player must help Donald Love to become the media mogul that he is shown as later on.

The story begins with Toni Cipriani coming out of hiding and needing to prove himself to the mafia who have provided him with somewhere to live. As the player continues to do missions, Toni gains their trust and helps them with various gang issues and personal problems. Some of the cast are familiar from GTA III, and others are newly introduced and manage to die off before getting the chance to live long enough to see the events of the earlier game.

The types of missions featured in the game will be familiar to fans of the series; there's a lot of driving people around, shooting anyone who gets in your way and doing ridiculous things for other people's gain. Although I didn't have a particular favourite mission in the game, there weren't many that I disliked or found too difficult. With 70 main story missions there's no shortage of things to do in the game, but it doesn't last as long as you might think with 10-12 hours being a fair estimate of the time it takes to complete.

Controlwise the game is pretty similar to other 3D GTA releases; driving feels very much like GTA III used to, with no flying of planes included. There's auto targeting available, but it's less effective than San Andreas's targeting as it glitches out every now and then and fails to target or shoot people who are attempting to kill you. It's not something that happens too often in game, but it's enough to fail a mission or two for players.

There are a few other glitchy moments in the game which make it seem a little more rushed than other installments of the franchise. I had some trouble with getting stuck in the ground, and a garage door repeatedly failing to open. Admittedly, the game was ported from PSP to the Playstation 2 so this could account for some of the problems. Overall though it feels much more like a PS2 game than something for a handheld.

In terms of vehicle choice and features the game feels a little like GTA III+. There's new cars and minigames bu they're nothing massively new and only enhance the feeling of the game a little past that of GTA III. For those that haven't played the previous games, it'll feel like a step backwards from San Andreas but there's a lot of clever references and updates to the older game style to enjoy for those that have.

Graphically the game isn't that different from GTA III; it's got the same style of graphics and HUD. Improving the graphics of the game would have seemed strange with the events set before those of GTA III. Musically Liberty City Stories has the most unremarkable soundtrack of the entire GTA series as none of the radio stations really have any great songs and I find myself listening to the talk radio station most of all. The voice acting in the game is fairly good although the animation in the cutscenes isn't quite up to its standards.

Overall GTA: Liberty City Stories makes for an interesting prelude to the events of GTA III and provides a nice way to rediscover Liberty City without having to replay the earlier game. Full of the usual tongue-in-cheek humour and references to earlier games, it fits perfectly with other installments of the series and has one of the strongest plots of all the games. It's score here reflects its similarity to GTA III but also that it has enhancements and improvements upon that formula too.

Rating: 85/100
Grade: B

Game: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Rockstar
Release Date: 5th March 2007

The second GTA prequel to be ported from PSP, Vice City Stories explores the islands of Vice City in 1984, 2 years before the events of the GTA: Vice City. The game makes several changes both to the ideas from the first "Stories" game and the game on which it is based. While the overall gameplay is much the same in most places, there's a new assets system with which players can buy property and build a crime empire, and the handling of cars in the game is much closer to that of San Andreas.

The story revolves around Victor Vance, brother of Lance who stars in Vice City and makes an appearance in this game too. Victor is attempting to make money to support one of his brothers who is unwell and after getting kicked out of the army, turns to a life of crime to do so. Along the way he meets various other financial burdens and is seemingly constantly in demand for all manner of missions.

Variety in the missions you're given may sound like a good thing, but the easier missions such as racing ATV's for a fun night out and taking a friend to pick up baby clothes soon get tiring. The more serious missions tend to be a lot harder than those of Liberty City Stories, often asking ridiculous things of the player such as many difficult objectives in a row, or losing 5 wanted stars after a long mission.

The storyline of the game isn't much better in this respect; most of the characters you meet are useless to Vic's main quest and only provide more obstacles to his actually being able to support anyone. Despite the fact that this game has less missions than Liberty City Stories it seems to drag on far longer without much need to, and there's so many different minigames and side quests that the story seems to lose focus because of the need to introduce you to all of them.

The business acquisition in the game can best be described as a mix between the original Vice City's purchase system and San Andreas's Turf war system. To take over a business from a rival gang you must destroy a car in front of their premises, and then shoot all of the defending gang members. Once a building is yours you can choose which type of business you wish to run from it. From time to time other gangs will attack, requiring your attention to defend the business. With 30 businesses overall in the game, it seems like something added to pad it out, more than because it was a good idea.

Usually in Grand Theft Auto games a few sensitive issues are addressed with some social commentary or parody of sorts. These parts are to be taken with a pinch of salt and perhaps carefully considered as to what the developers are trying to say. In Vice City Stories, this approach is altered slightly as nearly every social issue imaginable is addressed in an almost uncomfortable manner, unlike other games in the series. This seemed to be a little distasteful and almost an indication that they had run out of ideas.

Graphically the game is pleasing to the eye and there are some crucial updates from the original game whilst retaining the feel and look of the older game. The choice of music on radio stations is very good and possibly one of the best in any Grand Theft Auto title of the 3D universe. General voice acting is good and adds to the lively feel of the game's streets. The presentation of the game is very much its best feature with a high overall standard to it's look and sounds.

Overall however, the poor plot and mission range as well as the lack of focus and overabundance of side missions and objectives makes Vice City Stories difficult to enjoy as much as the original game. With 59 main missions it's not a very long game but feels much longer than it needs to be and side missions only really serve to pad out the game, in case its length is compared to Liberty City Stories near perfect pacing.

Rating: 68/100
Grade: C

With these two prequels signalling the end of the 3D era of Grand Theft Auto games it's important to remember how far the series came. The transition from a top down view to 3rd person also marked the transition to being a best selling series with 75.1 million copies of 3D era games sold. While GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas were the main titles to peak gamer interest, Liberty City Stories made for an interesting take on events preceding III and its a shame that Vice City Stories couldn't finish the run of extremely good games on the same level.

Rush Series Double Header: San Francisco and LA Rush

Game: San Francisco Rush Extreme Racing
Console: Sony Playstation
Developer: Midway
Release Date: 28th February 1998

Originally an arcade title, San Francisco Rush was brought to N64 and Playstation by Midway. Featuring 4 tracks and a choice of 4 cars, there were a few modes added in addition to those from the arcade. Despite this, the game doesn't escape the feeling of being simply an arcade game ported to home console. The single race modes finish right after the race and return you to the start screen.

The general theme of the game is racing around San Francisco, much like Cruis'n USA but contained in a single city. The cars are a fairly standard box shape and the only difference between them is their speed and handling. This means that two of the most important aspects of a racing game, theme and vehicles are fairly bland and bring nothing new to the genre as a whole.

In addition to single race mode there's a sudden death mode, grand prix mode, explosive mode and extreme mode, all of which just feel like variations of the single race mode in some way rather than being their own experience. The racing view is fairly cluttered with a checkpoint time in the top right, map on the right, with your position in between the two, course time on the top left, speedometer at the top and the positions of other racers on the left. Although these can be turned off, a lot of them are unnecessary anyway.

The AI is rubber banded to your performance if you're lagging behind, although it's possible to get far ahead of opponents. If you manage to crash in a race, you're picked up and transported quite a way ahead of where you crashed which seems a little unfair in places, especially as it can give computer players an advantage over you.

Graphically the game is poor with blocky cars and a lack of detail throughout the tracks; sometimes it's difficult to tell where you're going or what's going on with cars directly behind you due to graphical glitches and oddities. The music of the game is generally rock based with some guitar tracks on most circuits. It's inoffensive and fits well with the racing mood of the game, even if it seems like it's going faster than the actual cars.

Overall San Francisco Rush is both a poor racing game and a poor arcade conversion. The graphics and gameplay are unimpressive, there's not much choice of cars or tracks even with reverse variants of each. The extra game modes aren't all that different from regular play and don't really add too much extra to the game. It's pretty much the definition of medicore as a game; it works but hardly anything more can be said of it.

Rating: 36/100
Grade: E

Game: L.A. Rush
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Midway
Release Date: 21st October 2005

Released 5 years after the last installment in the Rush series, L.A. Rush took a different approach to the racing genre than previous titles. Replacing the arcade racing feel with a street racing theme which incorporated a licensed appearance from the West Coast Customs crew of Pimp My Ride fame, you'd be surprised to hear that the games were even in the same series. The new style is not dissimilar to that of Need for Speed Underground 2 or Most Wanted in places.

Upon starting the game you're greeted with a cutscene which clumsily explains how all of your cars were stolen by a man named Lidell and that instead of reporting a theft like a normal person, you're going to have to street race to get them back. The player character is named Trickz and has one the most ridiculous haircuts I've ever seen, it's difficult to really get into his mindset with such a shoddy storyline.

The city featured in the game has over 350 miles of streets and freeways but never really fails to feel dull and bland. There's supposedly different areas of the city and famous streets but for the most part it feels like a strange wasteland with lots of traffic. There are pedestrians too but your car will pass right through them, and they impact very little on the game. Races appear on the minimap and using the GPS system players can find and enter them.

All races featured in the game involve 3 CPU cars and the player, with no prize money going to 4th place, the entry fee returned to 3rd, and increasing amounts for 2nd and 1st. It's actually possible to complete most of the game without even winning any events. As you're allowed retry them any number of times, continous 2nd and 3rd place finishes will unlock the new races and allow you to progress despite no race wins occurring.

Other types of mission include "Acquire" where you're tasked with taking one of your cars back from Lidell, and delivering it safely to your garage whilst being pursued by an army of SUV's intent on destroying the car you're driving. Annoyingly you're also charged for the damage that is caused so longer journeys are a nightmare. Other than that there's rare instances of destructive missions that pop up, but aren't particularly good either way.

The police mechanics in the game are very poor and serve only to remind me how much better Need For Speed: Most Wanted is. Clipping any other car on the road, or damaging property gives you police stars which in turn give you police attention. Curiously though, speeding past police units without police stars doesn't attract their attention at all. When chasing players the police are pretty hopeless and losing them is far too easy. The only real time they're a pain is if they're bothering the player during a race.

A heavily promoted part of the game was the use of the West Coast Customs shop to "Pimp your Ride", however even this fails to live up to expectations with all customisation in the game done automatically. You drive the car into the bay, the theme tune plays, you're told what modifications have been made, and left to drive it away whether you like what's been done or not. Even games such as Juiced and Need for Speed Underground had a higher level of choice and customisation.

There's 50 cars featured in the game but most of them are either SUV's or Midway concept cars. The handling on nearly all of the cars is poor with little responsiveness and control. Winning races is only easy in the first part of the game due to the rubberbanding of the AI which allows players to go completely off course, take several wrong turns and still finish in 1st place.

Graphically the game isn't particularly impressive especially by the standards of 2005 with games like NFS: Most Wanted in direct competition with it. The cars featured don't look too bad until you damage them, at which point there's a sharp decrease in how real the game looks. The music featured on the game is a selection of forgettable rap and the voice acting in cutscene isn't bad so much as cringeworthy.

Overall L.A. Rush is a poor attempt at a racing game, with unresponsive controls, idiotic AI, repetitive races and challenges that you don't even need to win, a customisation feature that is particularly underwhelming and no real selling points to speak of. At best it could be called a poor man's Need For Speed, but even then it's not nearly worthy of that title.

Rating: 46/100
Grade: D

Game Review: Super Mario World

Game: Super Mario World
Console: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Nintendo
Release Date: 13th August 1991

After a trio of successful Super Mario Bros games on the NES, Nintendo set about developing a 4th installment of their flagship series. Adding the dinosaur that Shigeru Miyamoto had wanted to put into the games in the form of Yoshi, it began a new 16-bit era for the games which cemented their place as bona fide classics in the platforming genre. Combining great level design with hidden and bonus areas, the only new gameplay features are the spin jump, the feather powerup (giving Mario a cape) and the ability to float with it.

After the events of Super Mario Bros. 3 we're told that Mario and Luigi decided to take some time off and visit Dinosaur Land, the home of Yoshi who explains that his dinosaur friends have been kidnapped and imprisoned in eggs by the evil Koopas. It's up to the Italian brothers to save all of Yoshi's friends and defeat Bowser and his Koopalings through overground, underground, water and castle based levels.

Controls are similar to the NES Super Mario games, with the new spin jump mapped to the A button and running moved to Y. The shoulder buttons aren't used and it's really as simple as you can get in a platform game whilst including a few interesting features. The game as a whole feels well programmed and controls very well as you'd expect. With many different types of blocks and enemies across the game's 96 levels there's a lot to discover.

Most of the game's levels are overground, although there's a good selection of underground and water locations too. The challenge of the game steps up a notch with castle levels and particularly towards the end of the game but it's never out of the player's reach. In this way it reminded me of Donkey Kong Country in that the level of challenge was high but not too high. Most difficult levels can be completed with a stock of lives and some memorisation of the hazards.

The game is navigated through the map screen which shows each level and castle that is accessible. Levels with red dots have secret exits, and castles show a white flag once beaten. Players are allowed to backtrack and collect more lives/powerups to face the upcoming levels but there's no storage system for power-ups as in SMB3. This means that if you come up against a particularly difficulty level, the focus is more on memorisation than on using power-ups.

The overall level design is spectacular with almost perfect placement of obstacles, secret exits and challenging parts. The use of ghost houses and underwater levels which offer different gameplay features is good and not overused, and progressing through the main game feels like a quest of reasonable length. With 8 castles to defeat it's important that the action never slows down in any of the zones between castles.

Graphically the game is fairly basic most of the time, building upon elements of the NES games with more detail and attention paid to character sprites and the construction of levels. Enemies are nicely varied and it's fairly easy to see what needs to be done to neutralise them. The music of the overworlds is based off the central theme of the game, with castle themes and boss battles adding contrast to the sound whilst remaining within the general style of the game.

Overall Super Mario World is an excellent example of a platforming game with great level design, a good level of challenge which sits between difficult and achievable, and interesting enemies and power-ups which contribute to the mood and enjoyability of the game. The music and graphics are retro but of high quality and make sure that the game is still playable today without it feeling outdated; this is a true SNES classic.

Rating: 90/100
Grade: A

Game Review: Jet Set Radio Future

Game: Jet Set Radio Future
Console: Microsoft Xbox
Developer: Sega
Release Date: 25th February 2002

If you've read my Jet Set Radio review from a few months ago, you'll be aware of the general premise of the series. If not, then all you really need to know is that it's about youths on jet powered rollerskates called "Rudies" who form graffiti gangs and save/terrorise the streets of Tokyo-to. While Jet Set Radio Future isn't a direct sequel in terms of storyline (in fact, aside from featuring several characters from the original game, there's no mention of old locations or events at all) it follows a similar storyline to Jet Set Radio with a few slight changes to gameplay.

This time you begin by investigating why a statue was stolen by a rival gang. To get their attention, you spray their home turf with graffiti and then start to reclaim other areas of the city. One of your gang members is kidnapped and robots impersonate another of your friends before a plot to erect a giant evil statue in the middle of the city is uncovered, and it's up to you to stop it.

The player's central hub is at the GG's garage which is pretty much in the centre of the city, leading to 4 different districts, which in turn lead to 2 or 3 more locations. This is far more than was featured in the original Jet Set Radio. Missions usually involve spraying graffiti throughout an area of the city, and defeating rival gangs, or the police to advance the storyline. Players are allowed to come and go between unlocked areas as they please, even during missions as there is no time limit, unlike JSR. In a way this makes the game easier, but there are more demanding challenges featured.

The locations of the game vary greatly including levels based on a skyscraper district in the sky, an Egyptian theme, a rollercoaster, the lower levels of a sewer system and several other engaging and interesting places to skate around. Overall the level design is very good; there's always another part to explore and places where Graffiti Souls are hidden for extra rewards.

Controlwise some new tricks have been added from the first game; the ability to earn larger combos, handplant and boost dash have all made their way into the game. There's no way to make your character sprint but they skate a little faster than they did in JSR. The selection of playable characters has improved greatly, with many of the original game's cast included as well as new characters and unlockables also. There's still some issues camerawise, with the view being obstructed at points and walls popping in and out of existence, but they're not too major and don't happen too often.

Overall the gameplay is enjoyable and many different styles of combat have been added. Racing and tagging the backs of police and rival gangs remains in the game from the first installment, but Death Ball, and Flag Battles are new and exciting ways of facing off against opponents. The QTE like graffiti mechanism used for larger pieces of art in the first game has been removed and replaced with a simple trigger pull for convenience.

Graphically the game continues the cel-shaded look of the first installment with some minor improvements to objects and smaller details within the locations. It's a very stylistic game and on the whole it works well in establishing a consistent feel throughout the game. The selection of music provided is once again excellent and includes mostly electronic mash-up style songs by the main composer Hideki Naganuma, but also stretches to J-Rock and Hip-Hop.

Overall it's difficult to score this game against its predecessor as there's a few improvements as well as some weaker areas when comparing the two. As the plots are very similar, the only real difference in this respect is that Jet Set Radio Future is a fair amount longer than JSR. While this does provide more gameplay, some of it does feel slightly repetitive. That's not to say that this isn't a highly enjoyable game though, it's a great sequel to a great game.

Rating: 89/100
Grade: A

Mega Drive TV Show Double Header: TMNT vs Power Rangers

Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist
Console: Sega Mega Drive
Developer: Konami
Release Date: 21st December 1992

Heavily based on Turtles In Time for the Super Nintendo which was also published by Konami, Hyperstone Heist was released around the same time also. Although in no way a direct port of the SNES game, the two games share a lot of characteristics and gameplay concepts which can be traced back through earlier installments in the series. With 9 stages in the SNES game, and 5 levels, each comprising of 3 mini-stages in the Mega Drive game there's many differences in storyline too (the turtles are spared the fate of being sent back in time, in Hyperstone Heist at least).

The plot of the game sees The Statue of Liberty as well as Manhattan Island being shrunk live on air as Shredder hijacks the airwaves to announce that he's in possession of the Hyperstone, and that this is only a small display of its power. With this broadcast, the turtles set off through the city of New York, its sewers, a mysterious ghost ship, Shredder's Hideout, the gauntlet and finally the Technodrome. Upon beating Shredder, the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan Island are returned to their correct size and location.

The game is in the style of a side scrolling beat 'em up, similar to that of the Streets of Rage series, however it features far more enemies, most of which are far easier to kill. Regular enemies are recolours of eachother (all working for the Foot Clan) with their outfits representing which weapons they are carrying. Aside from bosses and a few other special enemies, these are the only enemies that appear in the entire game. The AI is generally good with fast and reactive gameplay resulting in a good overall experience.

In the game's options it's possible to set the three buttons on the controller to any configuration you wish, which is a very nice feature. Personally I was pleased by this as I was able to set the game up to mirror the controls of Streets of Rage for jumping and attacking. Each turtle's special move is accessed by pressing the jump and attack buttons together, however it takes away 2 bars of health if it hits an enemy so it seems somewhat pointless, especially since the game can easily be completed without it.

Part of the second stage sees the turtles take to the seas in an enjoyable surfing level, and there's a good amount of variety in concepts throughout the game including environmental weapons and dangers such as laser beams and ice hazards. The bosses featured in the game can be fairly easily defeated once their pattern has been learned, but for beginners they may seem impossible with one mistake potentially taking a lot of health away.

The game doesn't really change between one and two player mode, no extra enemies or powerups are added and a second player may enter the game at any time. The bosses are certainly easier to defeat as in one player mode it can be harder to be in two places at once, but other than this there's no real change. That's not to say it isn't a fun two player experience though, with a nice difference in weapons between the turtles and no chance of damaging your team mate with your own moves, the game seems geared towards two players.

Graphically the game looks colourful and fairly impressive, even though Turtles in Time is generally regarded to be better looking. There's a choice as to whether the turtles appear in their comic book or animated series forms which is a nice addition and the backgrounds and overall detail is good. The soundtrack is decent as an accompaniment but nothing particularly special, but the real let-down in the audio department is the voice clips that are included as they are of poor quality. Hearing "Shell-shocked" as a muffled clip each time you die only adds to the frustration.

Overall Hyperstone Heist makes for an enjoyable Beat 'Em Up game to rival the likes of Streets Of Rage and Golden Axe in terms of gameplay at least. The bosses of the game are good and have a nice variety of moves, although the general enemies leave a lot to be desired even if they also have a range of moves. Best as a two player experience, the game boasts around an hour of fun for full completion, with lots and lots of foes to defeat. It's a definite classic even if its flaws mean that it's not quite up to the standard of the very best games of the time.

Rating: 84/100
Grade: B

Game: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Console: Sega Mega Drive
Developer: Banpresto
Release Date: 20th May 1994

Based on the television series of the same name, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is a tournament fighter (of sorts) featuring an arcade mode for single player action and a battle mode for two players. The story (if you can call it that) involves thwarting Rita Repulsa's plans to take back the Earth from the human race by sending a number of beasts down to fight the Power Rangers. It follows the same progression as the arcade mode of a tournament fighter, containing cutscenes between each battle.

Featuring 6 different colours of power ranger in total with slightly different move sets as well as the ability to control the Megazord and Dragonzord which are the transformer like robots which the Power Rangers morph into. With just 4 enemies to defeat there's a definite lack of characters you can battle, to add to the lack of playable fighters.

Controlwise things don't get much better, A is used for a normal attack, B for a fierce attack and C for dashing. The d-pad controls movement as you'd expect and there's a couple of executable combos but not as much as you'd expect for a fighting game. The fighting itself is pretty mediocre, there's no real feeling of satisfaction from beating an opponent and on the whole everything feels rather clumsy. It's possible to change the game difficulty from the options screen between level 1 and 8. The first difficulty level is incredibly easy, with 2 and 3 the most enjoyable before anything above 4 becomes impossible.

The cutscenes in the game are repeated between each battle; before the battle Rita is shown sending an enemy down to battle the Power Rangers, then she says you'll have trouble beating it when it's big, the Power Rangers team up and beat it, and the cycle begins again. This seems incredibly lazy when you consider that there are only 7 battles in arcade mode anyway, and the storyline was pretty simple to start with.

Graphically the game is fairly impressive and this is probably its strongest point; all of the fighters and enemies look good and the cutscenes feature some nice graphics. The music of the game isn't particularly special and doesn't feature anything related to the television show which is a little disappointing. The voice clips used in the game are the worst feature soundwise, as they are muffled and of very low quality.

Overall Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is an extremely disappointing tournament fighter with a limited selection of fighters, opponents and moves. Arcade mode's story is lazy and repetitive and the difficulty settings for it ensure that it's either far too easy or far too hard to complete. Two player mode is probably the most enjoyable feature of the game behind its graphics, but even these two positive points aren't enough to save it from being a completely mediocre experience.

Rating: 48/100
Grade: D

Game Review: Action Man Mission Extreme

Game: Action Man Mission Extreme
Console: Sony Playstation
Developer: Blitz Games
Release Date: 8th November 2000

Although not my first choice of PS1 title, Action Man Mission Extreme seemed interesting enough for me to check out for a review. Published by Hasbro interactive just as the Playstation 2 was about to change the modern perception of videogames, it wasn't given a massive release or promotional campaign but it did have the advantage of being released for $9.99 as a budget title of sorts.

The overall plot of the game sees Action Man attempting to stop Dr. X taking over the world with an army of 'Skullbots' which are incredibly powerful robots. Action Man does this via both vehicular and on-foot levels in which he destroys essential parts of Dr. X's supply chain and infiltrates bases to make sure that various things don't go to plan.

The vehicular levels involve driving many of Action Man's cars, motorbikes, and aircraft from an overhead view to destroy a set number of other vehicles, then collect a number of power ups from around the map, before changing vehicles to beat a boss to complete the level. The driving itself feels similar to that of the early GTA games although not quite as precise. The AI of enemy vehicles isn't particularly advanced and it's usually easy to find and destroy targets.

Collecting power ups feels like the weakest part of every vehicular level due to the fact that there's no real reason to be doing so, and to collect all of them it's required to use all of Action Man's selection of machines for that level. Helicopters and jetpacks used in these levels feel quite difficult to control and general don't fare as well as cars.

Action levels in the game involve guiding Action Man from a fixed third person view which is elevated and generally not particularly helpful in showing players what is around them. There's the option to switch to a conventional first person camera by pressing R2, but whilst doing this Action Man cannot move at all which creates difficulties with finding your way around the level. Interacting with objects and finding objectives is fairly easy however, with most things requiring a simple press of the square button to select the right equipment. Weapons are a mixed bag with scoped ones like the sniper and longbow proving invaluable in taking out enemy guards, and regular gun types proving difficult to use due to the third person viewpoint and not being able to move in the first person.

 The real problem with these levels however is how much you're guided through them by the game; after entering one base, the game stops for Action Man to remark that he needs to get up to the top floor. You're then given back control momentarily, only for the game to stop again and update your objective with "That crane may be able to get you where you need to go". There's hardly ever a chance to work things out for yourself which is a shame, and when there is it's the times you're really wishing for a clue on where to go. The boss battles in these levels reminded me a little of 3D Zelda games strangely, in the way you're expected to defeat the enemy.

Graphically the game is fairly disappointing in all aspects, even for the PS1. A lot of objects and textures are blocky and the cutscenes look only slightly better than the actual game. The vehicles are the best aspect of the graphics, from above as they're reminiscent of the GTA series for original Playstation. Soundwise the game has some decent voice acting and music, which seems almost above the standard of the actual content of the game a lot of the time.

Overall Action Man Mission Extreme plays a lot like a James Bond game at times, with a stealthy spy feel to it. With parts of other games mixed in, it feels like a melting pot of ideas, a lot of which still need some work. By around half way in the game it starts to get a little complex for kids to be expected to figure out what to do, but on the whole there's not a whole lot of appeal to other audiences. As a game it wasn't a big hit when it was released and it's not likely to ever be.

Rating: 55/100
Grade: D

Mega Drive Superhero Double Header: Batman vs Spider-man

Game: Batman
Console: Sega Mega Drive
Developer: SunSoft
Release Date: 1st October 1990

Listen to the game music as you read!

Batman for the Sega Mega Drive follows the plot from the 1989 Tim Burton film fairly closely, and features a mix of platforming, beat 'em up and side-scrolling space shooter gameplay styles in its 6 levels, with cutscenes to tell the story inbetween. In Europe at least, the Mega Drive version of Batman was in direct competition with the NES version which had been released 16 days before. This version did not follow the film so closely and featured different gameplay, but critical reaction was mostly positive.

The game begins with Batman beating up villains on the streets of Gotham, with gameplay similar to a beat 'em up. After he has gone a short distance, he faces the first boss and then moves onto a chemical warehouse at the end of which he encounters Jack Napier, who is second in command to a mob boss. In the movie, Napier is accidentally knocked into a vat of chemical waste, however in the game you actually get to kick or punch him into it, which is much more satisfying. Following being knocked into the chemical waste, Napier becomes The Joker and plots revenge upon Batman.

Following a level in the art museum where the player faces a particularly tough time with falling chandeliers and hitmen, (the timing is a little out, and it's hard to avoid both) you get to drive the Batmobile in a space shooter style level, on the road. After you avoid numerous bombs and vehicles there's a small platforming stage before taking to the skies in the Batplane. The goal here is to try and stop the joker from polluting the skies with Smilex, a drug which can cause people to die from laughter. The final level is set inside Gotham Cathedral and after fighting every boss again, you finally meet the Joker in the last battle of the game.

The controls of the game in both the platforming and shooter levels are smooth and easy to get used to. The level design sometimes halts Batman's progress a little but with a good amount of lives and continues, it's not too hard to beat the game. The combat controls could be improved a little with early enemies taking just one hit to knock down, and bosses becoming repetitive once the player has found the trick to beating them.

Graphically the game looks decent for Mega Drive, if a little lacking in detail. There's some parallax scrolling in the platforming levels, but the smaller sprites suggest that Sunsoft wanted to keep it closer to the NES version. The music for the game is pretty impressive with enjoyable tracks for each level of the game as well as the cutscenes. Personally I'd say that the soundtrack was one of the most enjoyable features of the game. The sound effects are fairly good, with nothing that gets annoying after a while and most things sounding as they should.

Overall while it shows its age and is of a fairly short length, Batman for the Mega Drive has enjoyable gameplay, great music and follows the 1989 movie plot far more closely than the NES version. With a mix of level types and a good difficulty curve, the game is still highly playable and something nice to complete in a single sitting. Later Batman games on the Mega Drive seemed to be much less critically acclaimed so this is about as good as it gets.

Rating: 71/100
Grade: C

Game: Spider-man
Console: Sega Mega Drive
Developer: Technopop
Release Date: 17th October 1991

Listen to music from the game as you read!

Released a year after Batman, and without any sort of movie tie in came Spider-man (vs. the Kingpin) for the Mega Drive. The premise of the game is clearly explained via cutscenes; The Kingpin has set Spider-man up so that the city thinks he's a fugitive, roping in help from Spider-man's most notorious enemies such as Dr. Octopus, Sandman, The Lizard, Hobgoblin, Mysterio, Vulture, Electro and Venom. 5 of these enemies have been given keys to a bomb which will explode and be blamed on Spider-man unless he can beat them and disarm it.

Consisting of 6 main stages, the game sees the player taking on the 5 keyholders with a limit of 24 hours of game time (about 3 hours or so in real time) to get to the bomb and defuse it. The sixth stage features Spider-man taking on all of the keyholders once again, before defusing the bomb and beating The Kingpin in time to save Mary Jane from a vat of acid. Not a bad plot for a game that wasn't related to any movie in particular.

The platforming in the game can be a little painful at times, even with Spiderman able to climb walls, swing from point to point, and perform gravity defying jumps. With enemies places fairly haphazardly there's often difficulties with the level design creating points which are a pain to get past. It's hard to know which direction you're supposed to be going in as well, as the level make for fairly confusing mazes. Enemies also seem to do a lot of damage and it becomes almost impossible not to die toward the middle and end of the game.

This is so much of a problem that I had to enter a cheat for infinite health and web, due to frustration and the fact that two hours are subtracted from the time for every time Spider-man dies. Because of this it doesn't take long for the bomb to go off if you're careless with bosses. Once the player has the hang of the bosses attack pattern, none of them really pose much of a threat and are almost boring, but until then they can be extremely difficult.

Graphically the game isn't much to look at; I even thought it was fairly close to Master System standards. The character sprites are small, although fairly well detailed for their size. Backgrounds tend to be basic and suspiciously 8 bit for a 16 bit console. Soundwise also the game tends to be fairly poor, the only real impressive feature is a realistic bass guitar sound on some tracks. There's no voice acting or clips features; all cutscenes are just scrolling text, although this may be for the best with the quality of the other audio.

Overall Spider-man is playable (with the infinite health/web cheat on) as a superhero game but extremely difficult in places. The gameplay, controls and level design can be almost infuriating and times and compared to Batman the levels feel a lot less rewarding. There's some decent ideas featured in the game but the execution is lacking and in the end that lets it down. The hunt for a decent Spider-man game continues...

Rating: 47/100
Grade: D