Simon Lethbridge – Page 5

Fantasy Zone The Maze

All the enemies emanate from a circular generator, usually found in the middle of the stage. Each time it ‘charges’ it releases a batch of aliens but you can reset the charger, thereby delaying their arrival, by passing over it. Obviously this diverts your attention from collecting the coins though, and this must be done to finish the round (plus the larger, more valuable ones shrink down to small ones if you leave them too long), so you will inevitably have to contend with aliens to some degree.

Arcade Games

Simon Lethbridge

Gemini Wing

Your ‘tail’ of Gunballs following you around can be a bit distracting too, but this isn’t the hardest shmup in the world either. The sprites and backgrounds are both pretty varied, and the sprites in particular look nice. However, Tecmo missed some great opportunities as well. For example, the first stage takes places over a giant canyon of some sort. Some parallax scrolling here could’ve looked amazing and given the game a real sense of scope! Nevermind though, it’s still looks decent enough. The music and sound effects are pretty average though, it has to be said, and not something that you would even notice really unless you actually tried to.

Game Reviews

Simon Lethbridge

Wiz ‘n’ Liz

Collecting these items isn’t mandatory but it can be very useful. Gathering magic fruits will fill the magic-meter which, when full, makes that fruit available to mix magic spells with in Home Land. Each clock collected will add five seconds to you timer for the next stage / land, and stars can be spent on fruits, more clocks, and even extra lives in the shop, but only once you’ve worked out the magic spell to summon it! There are eight standard lands to play through (as well as one secret final land which you must earn the right to play) and they are all multi-tiered and based on some pretty standard themes such as Grass Land, Snow Land, Desert Land, Dead Land, etc. Each is also looped and the stages contained therein are timed, with the amount of time you start with being determined by which of the three skill settings you choose before play.

Neo Geo

Simon Lethbridge

Robo Army

Aside from the awful title screen (see above!), the presentation and graphics are pretty decent here for an early Neo Geo game. There are some cut-scenes between levels (which I’m afraid I can’t follow as I have the Japanese version of the game!), the sprites are big and nicely drawn, and the backgrounds are packed with detail for the most part and feature nice use of colours. The only problem is the lack of variety. Despite being set in pretty diverse locations, most of the levels have a very similar feel to them. The only moment in the game where it seems like the designers are trying to mix it up a bit is the rope section where you must climb down the screen whilst attempting to see off the many foes at the same time.

Game Reviews

Simon Lethbridge

Fantasy Zone

If there’s one thing that the Fantasy Zone games are known for, it’s their cute, garishly-coloured visual style. Whilst it would be unfair to focus just on that, it’s certainly easy to see where the reputation comes from! This is among the most colourful games I’ve played – some stages such as the first feature bright greens, pinks, and blues, whereas others such as the third stage are adorned in more restrained pastels, but the sheer variety in colours used throughout the game really is amazing.

Game Reviews

Simon Lethbridge

Drift Out

From the screenshots this game probably looks awesome, and it is pretty unique in the way that it moves. Unlike similar games where you simply steer the car around the track, here you steer the track around the car! It’s an interesting approach which kind of reminds me of F-Zero on the SNES (although non-3D, obviously), and can take some getting used to. However, Drift Out is a very tough game and it’s not just because of this! The courses look nice, featuring the type of backdrops you might expect to see – wooded areas, dusty tracks, desert areas, shallow water, mud, etc, but there are also a lot of roadside objects and it’s very easy to become stuck by one of these which pretty much ruins any chance of doing well in a race, and it’s this which is Drift Out’s main problem.

Game Reviews

Simon Lethbridge

Starfox

The gameplay takes the form of a 3D polygonal shoot ’em up and sees you and your teammates flying across various planets and through intervening sections of open space until you reach Planet Venom and ultimately destroy the ‘Core Brain’. There are three differing routes to your destination representing different difficulty levels and each features unique stages. You always start on Corneria and end up at Venom but even they have some differences depending on which route you take. You are always accompanied by your teammates who generally fly in formation behind you, but they occasionally break formation to pursue an enemy or if they are being pursued by one, and they often need your help (except the ultra-lairy Falco), but while you try you’ll have to be careful not to inflict friendly fire upon them (pay special attention, American gamers – hee hee!).

Game Reviews

Simon Lethbridge

Circus Lido

And therein lies the both the good and bad sides of Circus Lido. It’s a novel approach to the platform/puzzle genre, and has some great, pretty original ideas. The only problem is, it gets too hard, too quickly! I like to play games all the way through before I review them here, but I simply can’t finish this one. In fact, I doubt I can get anywhere near the end of it! This, combined with the game’s obscurity resulting in little online reference material, means I don’t really know a lot about it. I’ve no idea how many stages it has, for example, and there may well be other things I don’t know about the game that might make it easier.

3DO

Simon Lethbridge

BattleSport

Before you start a match, you can select from six different tanks, each of which varies with regards to its armour, speed, firepower, cornering etc. They can also perform small jumps, which are used primarily for avoiding enemy missiles, and they are also equipped with a radar which shows the location of the ball and your opponent. Each tank has an energy meter which is depleted by laser and missile fire. When this happens, the craft will be disabled for five seconds or so giving the aggressor a few precious seconds of peace to grab the ball and line up a decent shot.

Spectrum

Simon Lethbridge

Exolon

The marine is outfitted with the snazzy Exolon suit, a powerful exoskeleton equipped with a hand blaster and backpack grenade launcher, and it is these that will facilitate your progress. The screens, or ‘zones’, are occupied by a mixture of targets. Some feature aliens themselves who swarm from right to left across the screen indefinitely. These can be taken out easily with your hand blaster but there are also ground-based guns and missile-launchers which can only be taken out by grenades, and it’s the same for the non-hostile but still inconvenient obstacles which appear to consist of hardware such as satellite dishes as well as strange alien structures.

Editorials

Simon Lethbridge

Top Five Master System Shoot-em-ups

Shoot ’em ups have long been one of my favourite genres and one that I probably own most examples of. The fact that my recent ‘Top Five MegaDrive Shmups’ post has been my most popular yet indicates I’m not alone! I also seem to have sparked a craze for compiling shmup lists, with all and sundry now apparently listing their own favourites, including my friend Graeme (Jdanddiet) here! So, continuing the theme, I thought I’d return to my first console, and here’s my choices:

Editorials

Simon Lethbridge

Top Five PC Engine Shoot-em-ups

Until the PlayStation came along, this remained the most faithful conversion of this eternally worshipped, all-time classic yet seen (Lord knows why it never appeared on the MD, come to think of it, that could’ve been a cracking version). Despite the fact that it was initially spread over two separately released Hu-Cards, it was still hard to fault it. The graphics and music are near- faultless and as close to arcade perfect as anyone could reasonably expect, and the timeless level design and gameplay is faithfully recreated.

Arcade Games

Simon Lethbridge

Gun Frontier

As might be evident from some of the screenshots, Gun Frontier looks and plays a lot like some other well-known vertical scrollers, notably Flying Shark. It features the same sort of tanks, squadrons of enemy fighters, and ground targets such as gun turrets and buildings, and even some of the backdrops are reminiscent. Not that this makes it a bad game, of course, just not very original. Maybe that’s what the Wild West theme is in aid of.

Commodore Amiga

Simon Lethbridge

Kid Gloves

It’s a pretty simple game which sees you, as Kid, attempting to rescue your kidnapped girlfriend or some such nonsense. In order to do this he must make his way through the danger-filled, flick-screen world between him and his goal. Each of the screens are populated by various creatures and obstacles, such as pigs, goblin things, whirly blades, etc, which move in short, simple patterns, and some which remain still, such as fire.

NES

Simon Lethbridge

Bomberman

The first stage only features the most basic enemies which seem to be the ‘Floaters’ from the Speccy game I looked at recently, except here they’re called ‘Valcoms’ which look like balloons and don’t cause too many problems. As early as the second stage you’ll encounter the next type of enemy, a blue water-drip type creature called ‘O Neal’. The other enemy types (most of whom have equally obscure names) are apparently introduced one per level thereafter and include ‘Dahl’ which look like wobbly barrels

Sega Saturn

Simon Lethbridge

Baku Baku Animal

There are two play modes to choose from in Baku Baku (plus a secret third one) – Arcade and Ranking modes. Arcade mode is the same as the arcade version as you might imagine. Here, you will challenge a series of opponents until you get to challenge the Princess. Beat her and win the game! Arcade mode is also where the two-player action is to be found. The ranking mode is for one player only, and is more or less the same as the arcade mode except your opponents carry on forever.

Game Reviews

Simon Lethbridge

Shinobi

As previously mentioned, the poor, traumatised children being held hostage in positions of questionable strategic significance are apparently each in possession of a special reward that Joe will receive upon rescuing them. Unlike the arcade version in which Joe starts with shurikens before he obtains a gun, here the transition takes longer. His normal shurikens are first upgraded to a rapid-fire variety before being replaced by fast-firing knives, then small, bouncing bombs, before he finally receives the powerful gun, with each upgrade being provided by a child.