The Outfoxies (Arcade)

Long before Nintendo had the idea of having its characters jump around platform deathtraps shooting each other in the face and hitting each other with bats, Namco had the same plan. The difference is that their implementation of it was way, way more awesome.

The Outfoxies is a simple tale: a group of assassins is pitted against one another, and only one can survive. Players must navigate levels based on real-world environments and use their wits and an arsenal of weapons to kill each other deader than cow pies. Its how this is achieved that makes Outfoxies remarkable. Players not only shoot, stab, and grenade one another, they can use everything in their environment as well. For instance, as you fight your opponent on top of a building, the roof gives way. You fall into a restaurant and fling scalding soup and champagne bottles at one another. Meanwhile, the building is flooding, and electrified water is rising toward you. In the circus level, you can machine-gun clowns and circus elephants, knock you enemy into the tiger pen, or sucker-punch the ringmaster and take his bullwhip. If your adversary counters you, you can escape via trampoline, and of course, the clown-launching cannon is fully functional. Perhaps the most amazing level is an airplane, with mannable gun turrets and a pilot's chair from which you can actually control the pitch of the level- sending your enemy hurtling to an early death if you're lucky. As you battle, bits of the plane give way, creating deadly pitfalls. The cargo hold is even full of sliding crates that can crush the unwary.

As awesome as having bloody gunfights while destroying vast maps full of destroyable environment and helpless animals is, Outfoxies has some problems. Hit detection with level elements, especially in the rotating airplane level, can be dodgy. The game also pans out to show more of the level as the players get further apart, and its scaling engine scrambles the screen pretty bad. That said, this game contains possibly more mayhem and undirected carnage than any game ever made and is totally worth your (and a friend's) time.

7/10

Zero Tolerance (Genesis)

Last time, I talked about a Genesis FPS that kind of sucked. Amazingly, despite lacking any 3D hardware of any kind and in spite of being generally limited in the graphics department, the Genesis actually had kind of a bunch of FPS games, and this one is actually pretty good.

Zero Tolerance tells the totally original tale of some military types heading to space to battle an alien invasion. You can choose from a bunch of commandos, all of whom are exactly alike, then you get dumped into a big space station with a bunch of monsters and a metric ton of bullets. The game is pretty good looking- the engine smoothly draws textured walls (ray casting, I assume) and the open view of space above, coupled with big rooms, creates a feeling of being in a pretty open environment. Enemy sprites are pretty sharp looking, and features like opening doors are well realized. Gameplay is pretty rote "find keycard find bullets shoot stuff find exit" material, but it was the 90s so we can forgive that. Controls are smooth and responsive. One nice feature is a persistent minimap which helps you find your way around.

As an aside- this game is pretty tough. But it's a fair kind of tough, unlike Corporation.

7/10

Corporation (Genesis)

Corporation is an innovative FPS that predated Doom, yet contained neato concepts such as an inventory, neutral NPCs, and readable material. The promising gameplay mechanics of Corporation are betrayed by totally godawful graphics and brutal unfairness, but hey, that's what you get when you play old games.

Corporation sees you, the player, busting into a corporate facility with a ton of guns to do... something. I don't know what, the in-game story is really weak, and I'm lacking the novel-length manual I'm sure the DOS release came with. Operating strictly on the cliched guideline that big business = bad, the player must shoot their way through floor after dimly lit floor while hunting mcguffins and occasionally interacting with some source of text there to lull them into thinking the game isn't just about killing.

Corporation certainly looks sharp for a Genesis game, with well-realized sprites and polygonal walls. Unfortunately your dude moves like a brick with wheels, enemies can shoot you from beyond their draw distance, and ammo is scarce, meaning that you die cheaply, a lot. The frustrating gameplay makes it hard to overcome the fact that, while Corporation looks good for its time and hardware, it's all a bit gray and samey, and the crummy Genesis audio isn't doing it any favors. There are a lot of forgotten FPS gems out there, from the crazy-deep Cy-Clones to the witty and surprisingly fun Strife, but there's not much reason to play this one.

3/10 (Don't feel bad, Virgin, your Disney games were good)

Let's Go Jungle! (Arcade)

Let's Go Jungle! is a fixed-lightgun rail shooter. Aliens was a fixed-lightgun rail shooter. Because of this you may assume that Let's Go Jungle! is totally awesome like Aliens. It's not.

Players take on the role of a young couple who are left stranded on a jungle island when giant spiders kill their (grotesque racist caricature) guides. With no way to defend themselves but two AK-47s and the power of love, players must set out to kill pretty much every living thing between them and the nearest Ramada.

Power of love, you say? What's that about? Apparently, this game was designed with actual couples in mind (which is dumb, no woman has willingly gone in an arcade since 1983) because in between acts the protagonists get all lovey-dovey and you get rated on how good you are as a couple. Seriously. If you both shoot the same creature? You understand each other as true friends. Protect your significant other from that lunging monster-leech, and you're clearly a loving partner. This can get a little uncomfortable if you aren't playing with your real SO, especially since the sit-down cabinet has privacy drapes.

Gameplay is pretty lackluster. The guns are ridiculously hard to aim accurately and don't want to aim at the far sides of the screen. There seems to be some smoothing that distorts how your aim tracks as well. There are a few fun quick-time events where players must move the guns around to do stuff in-game, but they're way too easy and don't add much to the whole affair. The graphics are pretty, but look oddly like those of the Sims games.

Overall Let's Go Jungle! is a pretty forgettable game. Not as fun as its premise would imply, or as exciting as it's genre demands, it's like a real trek through dense forest: frustrating and tedious.

4/10 (It'd be lower but player 2 is kind of hot)

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

There's a good game hidden inside Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, but you have to ignore the hype to play it. The box for this game would have you believe you're playing some kind of 5th-grade Might and Magic fanfiction, a dark, edgy game with blood and guts and killing and evil and death and also grit and nastiness. You won't be. The game has blood and stabbing and whatnot, sure, but it's not extreme or edgy or any of that. It contains wizards with silly voices, maidens fair, cuclopses (cyclopi?) and all that fun stuff you'd expect from a fantasy game.

If you actually were expecting BloodKillHackcorpes: The Deathening, well, you'll be let down.

DMMM casts you in the mold of a generic fantasy hero who gets bounced around between incontinent old men performing quests. You get a hot spirit familiar who lives in your head because, you know, Halo, and you find and master an array of weapons. You also level up, learning various traits to become stealthier, stronger, or more magical. It's basically a fantasy Deus Ex, which suits me fine- it's certainly better than Deus Ex 2, so it works as a sequel, at least as well as Bioshock worked as a sequel to System Shock.

The big hook of this game is supposed to be combat, and it is pretty great. There's an Errol Flynn pirate movie swashbuckling feel to fighting in this game, as you hurl debris, trip your enemies, and kick dudes off of things. Or into things. Or over things. Kicking quickly becomes your most valuable attack, due to its power to propel your enemies into the many, many, many environmental traps that abound in this game. You can also block, do special melee attacks, and cast all sorts of fun spells. You can even sneak, which is a viable option because enemies can dish it out at least as well as you in most cases.

So if you can ignore the "there's blood and murder and EEEEEEEVILLLL" hype, this is a pretty fun FPS-RPG-action title. Just remember that F makes your dude kick, and you'll be fine.

7/10

Trace iPhone game

Trace is a very cool game which is available on the iPhone's apps store. It's a platformer as well as a puzzle game. I believe I got this one for free but I can't remember, I would probably still pay a couple of bucks for it though if I had to.

In Trace you draw your platforms using the touch screen of the iPhone. You move your character (a stick person) through the level using touch controls and maneuver through objects by drawing platforms at various locations, lengths, and steepness.

There are several levels and some of them can be very challenging. The game is also fun for kids so if you feel safe handing your son or daughter the phone for a bit, they will get a kick out of it too. All in all, a very well done and thought out game. I hope they add more content in the future. 8/10

Marky Mark's Make My Video (SegaCD)

Mark Wahlberg is famous today for hosting PBS shows for old people and starring in M. Night Shymalan's The Happening, a film so exceptional that it totally swept the 2008 academy awards. But as a young man, Mr. Wahlburg was known for being a racist PCP-addicted criminal, and rapping under the name Marky Mark. He was pretty big in the wretched 90s, but something else was even bigger- Sega.

Few people played any SegaCD games at all but those who did may remember the Make My Video series. These games challenged players to mix their own videos from really awful canned footage and ugly special effects to make a movie that  a specific NPC would enjoy. Cool idea, but a video game console only slightly less powerful than a really good calculator wasn't the place for it. The video looks like a scrambled porno channel, and the sound, for coming off a CD, is pretty tinny. And oh boy, are there loading times.

Kids unlucky or dumb enough to own MMMMV could pick between 2 or three Marky Mark tracks, then splice their own videos from a mixture of real video footage (Mark Wahlburg without a shirt) and odd stock clips (I made a video for Good Vibrations that was nothing but cats in harnesses boxing each other and Michigan J. Frog). Then you turn these videos in to you in-game parents, principal, the girls smoking in the restroom, and a professional boxer who just hangs out at your characters' school. Please them, and you win.

MMMMV boldly tried to take advantage of CD media to deliver a new experience: making trippy videos for a lousy rapper to impress your dad. All it really succeeded in doing was making Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective look good, but that's still quite an achievement.

1/10 (Play the INXS one instead)

Mechwarrior (SNES)

It's the 1990s. The Internet has yet to ruin tabletop gaming, and the game on everyone's lips is... Magic the Gathering. But if you wanted to play something more sophisticated, there was the Battletech/Mechwarrior franchise. These games combined DnD sensibilities with giant robot action and the overall flavor of the Dune books to create an exciting role-playing universe for gamers.

The only problem was expressing the game world to those playing. It's all well and good to say "you are looking out of the cockpit of a big robot and walking on people" over a cluttered table while swilling Mountain Dew, but it lacks oomph. The obvious thing to do was to make a video game that simulated the Mechwarrior experience.

Early DOS attempts produced interesting games that were less about combat and more about hiring and managing groups of mech mercenaries. Strategy was all well and good, but gamers wanted to jump into big robots and murder other big robots containing their friends. Of course the was the arcade game, but that was a virtual-reality simulator cabinet monstrosity that couldn't come home very easily.

The SNES Mechwarrior initially seems very impressive. The engine renders pretty large Mode-7 landscapes, with features like water you sink down in, and jumpjets you can take off with. You can use your war money to kit out your giant robot with an assortment of neat weapons, and choose between different sorts of missions as you pursue your parents' killers.

The problem is that the gameplay is totally lacking. The water lowers your camera, but you don't slow down or encur any defense bonus. Jumpjets lift you up, but your enemies can aim up too and there are no environmental encumberments that jets let you skip- the map is totally flat. Every mission basically boils down to "kill everything before it kills you" except for base attack missions, which are more "kill the base and ignore everything else."

Weapons could lead to good technical variety, but they don't. The only weapon you need is short range homing missiles, and the more the better. Just waddle your robot up to the enemy and hold the trigger until you win. This strategy works for basically the whole game, and grows more effective as you buy robots with more armor and more room for ammo.

The variability of missions is also a weak point. Aside from the fact that there are only about 10 maps in the game (and again, none of them functionally different) you are penalized for taking too many missions on- neglect the "leads" you get from NPCs too long and you get a game over as your targets escape you. Not that money matters, once you strap on the highest number of missile tubes and buy the biggest mech, you're done.

The SNES is the first console that could approach true 3D in a meaningful way, and a number of games for it had great real and simulated 3D- Mario Kart, Star Fox 1 and 2, and a pretty competant Doom port all demonstrated that the SNES could do 3D action. Mechwarrior tries valiently, but its neat universe and promising play are undercut by a lack of variety and dull, repetitive action.

If you liked Mechwarrior but want more variety, check out Crimson Skies. No, not the steampunk air pirate game (although that is fun), the WW1 SNES shooter where you have to take down the Red Baron. It plays a lot like Mechwarrior, but with a lot more depth and complexity.

5/10

Sword Master (NES)

Did you like the combat in the second Legend of Zelda? If the answer is yes, you're sick. But the good news is, there's a game for you anyhow, Sword Master.

The epic of Sword Master is pretty familiar: knight meets girl, knight loses girl to evil magician, knight follows girl while transforming into a wizard. The game has a nice low-fantasy Golden Axe vibe to it, but suffers in the gameplay department. The hero (let's just call him the Sword Master) can only walk right, Mario 1 style, and moves like a real knight in shining armor- kind of awkwardly. Fortunately, you can hack in all different directions with your sword, which is important since evil comes from everywhere to kill you. Spiders drop from trees, bats fly right at your head, and wolves go for your junk almost constantly. The game gets truly frustrating when ranged enemies show up, who can blast you to atoms before you get close enough to put them down, and on a few occasions when you have to make tough jumps (the Sword Master has no momentum or air control).

Combat can be pretty fun. You juke in and out, performing different sword swings and trying to line your shield up with enemy attacks. Some attacks are too heavy to block, and a few should be eaten for the sake of sticking in the fight. Fights with other sword-and-shield enemies play a lot like a fighting game, until the projectile enemies come out.

Worth noting: your dude can turn into a wizard. You should only do this in select boss fights, because the wizard form can dish out good ranged damage, but is weak on the offense.

Sword Master looks and sounds fantastic for an NES game. There's parallax backgrounds, decent music, and many characters have sampled grunts and yells when they attack (the hero sounds like he's swearing). But the pretty veneer can't disguise a brutal game. Everything is faster than you, most enemies have more health than you can ever manage, and any environments other than flat paths are nearly impossible to navigate without memorization. The first time you play this, you'll probably die harder than Marley the comically misbehaving dog before you even get through the first level. That said, I have beaten the game, so I know it can be done, and you feel pretty awesome once you do. A lot of it is luck- getting a random health potion drop mid-level can make all the difference.

To game dorks: I know there's an experience point mechanic that relates to the Wizard form and your HP and stuff, but it never seemed to help or hinder me much. So I didn't talk about it.

6/10 (7/10 if you are really patient)

Snake, Rattle, and Roll: it Sucks to be a Snake

Snake, Rattle, and Roll is an oft-overlooked part of Rare's NES canon. While bad games like Battletoads and the unfortunate Battletoads and Double Dragon (there were also 16-bit ports) captured gaming public's imagination, Snake, Rattle, and Roll went under the radar.

That's not to say it didn't suck. But it still had its charm.

Snake, Rattle, and Roll is the story of two snakes (Rattle and Roll, get it?) who want to go to the moon. Because they are snakes, they can only do this by climbing a big mountain. Snakes are idiots.

Gameplay takes place on a 3/4 isometric playing field, and is very complex- the ability to jump vertically (and in one memorable level, swim) makes this game essentially three-dimensional. Of course, the NES having the limits it does means you don't go behind much stuff. Thank God for that, because the game is hard enough when you can see where you're going. This is one of those fun games where everything can kill you. Touch some pointy rocks? You die. Get stomped on by one of the many hopping foot monsters that inhabit this game? You die. Cliffs are your biggest adversaries, since falling off of one means you die too. At first the levels are pretty open and explorable, but this gives way to nightmare hellscapes made of ice (yes, it makes you slide) where every surface is slanted, all the pathways you can take are razor-thin, and there's wind. Oh, and little shover-arms keep popping out of the walls to knock you straight to hell. And sawblades come out of the ground at random. And there's rockslides. And a lot of the levels make you struggle against rushing torrential rivers to get anywhere. And did I mention wind? It's also worth pointing out that every level has a timer, usually a short one.

If all this sounds like Marble Madness, well yeah, it's kind of the same. Except you're climbing up in defiance of gravity, and it's less fair. It's also much longer. Marble had about 5 levels, and Snake has like 12. And they're big. Really big. At first you have health, gained by eating little living balls called Nibbly-Pibblies (really) and must fight enemies, but the game pretty quickly dispenses with all of that in favor of giving you no health and letting the levels kill you. There are still Nibbly-Pibblies to be had, but in each level they gain a new means of mobility. At first they just hop around stupidly, but by the end they strafe you mockingly on tiny rotors, daring you to eat them.

If you can endure the horrible difficulty level, Snake is a pretty fun game. The music is hoppin', the level design is creative, if twistedly evil, and the art is very nice for an NES game. There's some new (horrible) trick in each level to keep you guessing, and dying, for a long time.

PS: when you finally make it to the end, good luck with the final boss. You poor sap.

6/10 (8/10 if you like pain)

Waaugh ‘Ammer Forty-Thousant Dawn a’ War Two by Relic an’ THQ, Reviewed by Thumzup da Critik

Oi! All you gitz lissen up! You gots to ‘ear about this here game, an’ whether it’s worth yer teefz. So lissen good, savvy? ‘Cause Thumzup da Ork is ‘ere to give yas the lowdown.

Dawn a’ War Two is da sequel to da bestsellin’ Dawn a’ War, which was a right and proper bit o’ dakka an choppin. ‘Cept for the third expansion, which was not in da least bit Orky an’ pounded da final nailz in Ironlore’s coffin.

Dat was a long sentence. I’s getting’ airs from my fame.

Dawn a’ War Two is a  real-time-tactics game. Dat means dat instead a’ buildin’ about five hunnert turrets and hidin’ out on a hill all day long, you gots ta take it to the enemy, an’ crush some skulls. Dat’s Orky! Dakkadakkadakka! So if ya played da revolutionary World Waaugh Two game Company a’ ‘Eroes (by da same boyz) an’ thought it was fun? Den dis ‘ere is da game fer yas. Ya gets one hut, a ton a boyz, and ya go raise da roof on the other gits. Waaugh!

A lotta gitz been feedin out rumors, how good da campaign is ‘cause it’s part RPG and ya can play wit’ two boyz, ‘stead a’ just yerself. That’s pretty nice, an’ it’s fun ta get ta know yer boyz ‘fore dey get stuck in an’ fulla holez. What these gitz don't tell ya is that da campaign is a gross distortion of da known facts. You play as eight or twelve humie gitz, an ya dakkas up a whole planet a’ Orks, not to mention da Eldar an’ some purple snake-monsters. Dis is a gross mis-representin’ a’ da facts an I had ta quit in disgust. But, da campaign is executed all smooth like, an’ there’s obvious tactics, even if you are only playin’ as spineless, no-good ‘umies.

Multiplayer, dat ain’t been discussed so much yet. Dat’s 'cause, as much Dakka an’ Choppa an’ Stompa an’ Bomba an’ Tanks an’ Rockitz an’ WAAAAAAAUGH as der is, der ain’t much. Da game only ships wit’ eight stinkin’ deathmatch maps an’ four stinkin’ armies! It’s common knowin’ dat Relic loves expansion pakz, so you can be sure more’s on da way… Fer a few teefz.

The armies ya do get is da same as in da campaign, only ya gets ta play ‘em all. Da humies gets da fewest boyz, but the biggest shootaz an’ the most brainz. Dey’s straightforward an’ pretty easy to learn. Da Eldar are like da humies, only they’s got no meat on em’ an can’t take a good choppa. Dey’s all about runnin an gunnin so if yer sneaky dem’s fer ya. Den dere’s da purple space bug lizard thingies. Dey gots a bunch of special powers. Use 'em good and you can’t be stomped, but attack ‘ead on an’ you’re dead. Some gitz say dey’s overpowered but I say dey ain’t.

“But Thumzup,” ya sez. “Ya left out da best army a’ all!” No I didn’t, you idiots! I was savin’ it fer yas! Dat’s right, da Orks is back, and badder than eva! It’s da sad truth dat Orks wasn’t so hot in Dawn a’ War, but dey are now! Ya get tons of boyz, all kinds of sneaky tricks, an affordable units ta keep da other fella guessin’.

I gives this game seven outta a possible ten ‘cause it’s got pretty graffix an tons a fun dakka. I’d give it a eight or a nine, but there just ain’t a ton of stuff multi-player wise. Maybe soon we’ll get us a map editor an da user community will knock out some more maps ta play, den da game’ll be a betta value… But shame on dem boyz at Relic fer countin’ on us to do da rough stuff!