Well, I was looking forward to
reading any of the Attract Mode submissions, but unfortunately, nobody sent any
in. I dunno if I did a bad job explaining the concept, or if I just didn't
advertise it well enough (I'm not so egotistical to think that nobody skips this
column), so I'll try a different approach:
YOUR THOUGHTS
HERE.
I'll even give
people a topic to write about if you want one. Lately, I was reading a
video game blog, and I saw an interesting term: Neo-Retro. Now, Neo-Retro has no set
definition, but it conjures a lot of ideas to mind. Neo-Retro is mostly
being applied to the indie gaming scene, but I would even apply the term to
games like the New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS. So I wonder: can
the Neo-Retro appeal to general retro gamers? Does a game have to
literally be retro for us to enjoy it, triggering the nostalgia of originally
playing the game way back when, or is Neo-Retro simply a fad that is being used
to crank out relatively easy to make games with interesting and unique
twists?
If you have any thoughts about this, or any other retrogaming
related topic, submit them to me through the link above, and the best one will
be presented here in this space next month. Enjoy the issue!
The Many Faces of . . .
Sir Lancelot
by Alan
Hewston
We continue our
string of 25th anniversary tributes, with the many faces of "Sir Lancelot", a
game that resembles much of the arcade game "Joust". We've got the same
mix of systems as last month, with some of the same XONOX, double-ender carts
paired up with "Robin Hood". Once again, all versions were released, and
since all versions are of similar rarity, none will be disqualified.
Fortunately, you can play a few of these via a multi-cart and I assume all via
emulation. With XONOX only having a limited run on these carts (just
before the Crash), it was unlikely that Williams, who released Joust, would fire
up their lawyers to suit this small fry third party company. Atari, on the
other hand, who owned the home rights was probably licking their chops on this
one.
Just like the arcade game Joust, your flying beast moves and
flies about the screen in an attempt to knock out the other flying beasts.
But a few Joust ingredients are missing - there's only 4 or 5 enemies total, no
eggs to collect, no eggs to hatch, no ledges to stand or run on, no bonus
rounds, and no head-to-head play. There's no lava pool below the regular
battlefield, but there is on the second screen. There's also no arm of
lava that can reach out at you. What has been added are a variety of
4 different enemies, one per level - the Flying Snakes, the Monster Bees, the
Killer Dragonflies and the Invisible Invincibles. Those final ones are
very interesting as they are nearly invisible, and remain your only enemy for
the duration of the game. Your mount is the famous flying horse,
Pegasus. After you knock off the Dragons minions on screen one, take on
the boss, Dragon in his castle lair.
Home
Versions: All home versions were released by XONOX, with the Atari 2600 being
the 1st.
Atari 2600 cart 1983 by Anthony R. Henderson for XONOX, Rarity
7 Colecovision cart 1983 by unknown for XONOX, Rarity 6 Commodore 64 disk
1984 by unknown for XONOX, Rarity - unknown Vic 20 cart 1983 by unknown for
XONOX, Rarity 6
Rumor Mill & Classic Era Sequels:
None
I forgot to mention last month, that there are estimated cart
rarities for both the single and double-ender carts on some systems. For
example, the 2600 has a rarity 7 for both types - so one might guess the overall
rarity of finding a 2600 cart could be a 5, making it easier than the Vic 20's
rarity 6. Regardless, no cart version was extremely rare or easy to find - so as
usual none have been disqualified. But . . . the C64 disk rarity is
unknown, which in my experience - is probably an 8 or 9. And on that note
. . .
C64 screenshot - courtesy
of Gamebase64.
Lost Faces Review
Wannabe: C64 After saying the C64 disk is probably the rarest, I have
bad news. My original C64 disk and its backup will not load so I had to
drop it out this time, but I'm not disqualifying it. I've not
played the game more than a couple minutes, back in 199? and so I cannot review
it from memory. I do hope to some day download the ROM, convert it to
diskette, and then soon after provide scores for this port in a Lost Faces
review. I've spotted some bad things on the C64 screenshot, below,
indicating at best lesser medal is in the
works.
Sir Lancelot has some of
the same carts as seen last
month.
Sir Lancelot Home Version
Similarities - except those in < > all home versions have no choice of a
difficulty setting, but all have a choice of starting at (practicing) any of the
4 levels of play (too bad there are only 4 as this game could be so much better
than Joust); the difficulty of each screen, enemy type and level builds up from
level 1 to 4 <Vic (gets hard too quickly)>; each level has 2 action
screens with unique backgrounds, but these backgrounds are the same <CV
(screen one changes 2 times - nice)> from level to level; after you defeat 4
or 5 of the Dragon Lord's minions (screen 1 outside the castle), you then you
move to screen 2 (inside the castle) and then after defeating the dragon inside,
you advance to the next level, with level 4 being the most difficult; the action
then remains at level 4 for the rest of the game; to dispose of the Dragon's
flying minions, you must hit them with your lance while flying forwards and
above them; if hovering, hitting them at equal height, or when flying backwards
the result of the conflict usually results in a tie and both are bonked away
from each other with some increase in their speed; getting hit by their wings
(even if you are above them), or contacting them when you are lower usually
results in your death; like Joust, you'll bounce off the ceiling and can fly off
(wrap around) the edges of the screen; of course you maneuver just like Joust -
pressing the fire button every time you want to flap the wings, otherwise you
fall downward; you maintain your current L/R direction and speed unless you
alter it, or bump an enemy; while pressing the fire button, move left to fly
left (but also upwards), move right to move right (but also upwards), if you do
nothing, you'll gradually descend; there's lots of animation for all your's and
the other beasties wing's flapping, but no animated drama or gore to any death -
they just disappear; the winged minions begin in a set formation with each at
their own height (altitude); eventually when one is vanquished they can shift to
different altitudes; the enemies gets smarter and harder to eliminate and
eventually they become and remain nearly invisible for the duration of the game;
once the skies have been cleared, you then move inside the Dragon's cavernous
castle, where you have a limited time to save the princess (before she
dies) and you too some time shortly thereafter, unless you pierce the dragon in
his belly (or thereabouts); the target you are trying to hit on the dragon gets
smaller each level; you cannot wraparound the screen, so be careful as you
bounce, or maybe try to bounce to keep yourself moving; the Dragon will breath a
ball of fire or acid downward which if touched will stun you (unable to flap
wings for a few seconds); this breath weapon as well as the dragon's wings are
animated; if you fall downward low enough, you'll hit the lava/acid pool below
and lose a life; this pool is constantly rising <CV (the dragon gets lower,
the pool is stationary)>, so eventually it <CV (or the Dragon)> will
consume the princess, and one of these will soon eliminate you as well; as
occurs outside the castle, if you die, you are given a new life, provided you
have one in reserve;
Sir Lancelot Home Version Similarities
continued. Except those in < >: your remaining lives are always
displayed, but not the level you are on; fortunately there is never a chance for
a double-death as you are placed is a safe haven; at the start of each screen,
or new life, you can remain on the ground and as long as you do not move, there
are no consequences; outside the castle you can do this at any time, just land
and the minions cannot fly low enough to harm you; - at least I tried this for
10 minutes or so; despite no actual pause button, you can thus pause at many
times during the game with no consequences; but inside the castle, once you
move, you cannot take a brake, the dragon will attack and/or the pool will begin
to rise; after a new life, the dragon screen resets completely, whereas the
minions outside will remain eliminated and/or at various heights as they were;
when you land you'll hear <Vic> a misleading sound effect, as if you
scored some points, but you're just coming to a screeching halt, no sliding like
Joust; you score points for each minion bonked, and can earn a much larger score
for each if you eliminate them in rapid succession; the rapid strike score
increases with each successive minion, but only occurs if the hit occurred
within approximately 1.5 seconds of the previous hit; the dragon is worth quite
a lot of points, much more than a minion, but less than the rapid strikes of 2+
minions, and the princess is worth significantly more points than everything;
inside the castle, you earn a miniscule amount of points for every 1.5 seconds
you survive - hardly worth milking this; so you really want to defeat each
dragon quickly to save the princess to maximize points relative to staying
alive; with each increased level, the scoring of enemies ramps up to the maximum
at level 4; for every 100,000 points, you earn a bonus life, up to a maximum of
six; like Joust, there is quite a lot of randomness with al the beasties in
flight; there are no Joust like ledges outside the castle; inside the Castle,
there is a ledge for both the princess and you to begin on, and you can land
<CV (no landing once you take off)> any time to rest; no version has a
full musical score, but there are a fair amount of sound effects to be heard;
these effects include: flapping wings, landing <Vic>; defeating an enemy,
getting defeated yourself, having a tie or equal collision, rapid hits
<Vic>, end of round <2600 & Vic>, lava reaching a deadly height
<CV>, new life <2600 & Vic>, dragon fire ball, bouncing off
<Vic>, and some random background noises. Too bad they did not add
more levels to the game, with even more differences in enemies, a slower ramping
up in difficulty after say 16 or 20 levels.
Bronze
Medal: VIC-20 (35)
Vic 20 screenshot courtesy
of Moby Games.
My first reaction
was the game is just too harried and hard. The action is so fast and hard
to follow, and coupled with some questionable (varying) collision detection,
that it is hard to learn what you are doing, and then poof - you're playing the
next level. With only 2 other ports, this one grabs a cheap medal.
The Gameplay is very good (7) clearly that of the original 2600 Sir Lancelot,
plus the dragon maneuvers a lot more in 2-D to add to the value of the
game. The dragon also stays off the screen a bit, adding a bit more
randomness to the encounter. But Sir Lancelot is a bit large and the
graphics larger, making for a little less overall room to move and plan your
attacks. The physics are the worst here as well, with humongous (laughable)
transfers of linear momentum. Overall, the pluses outscored the minuses
and on a finer point scale the Vic would have the best gameplay score.
Addictiveness (6) is not bad but the collision detection is erratic, and really
hard to tell exactly how you eliminate each enemy. You can clearly see that your
colored portion of your character did not touch the enemy, but it still counts
this as an unfair death to you. That plus the bizarre physics were enough
to lower the score a point. Then factor in the jumpiness and shakiness of the
action, too fast of action, along with the increased difficulty and I dropped it
another point. It is just unforgiving and if you get good at playing, the
majority of the time you'll play versus a flickering dragon, or invisible
opponents ad infinitum. Despite no actual pause button, since it is so
easy to take a brake, I did add +1 to all versions as if they had a pause.
The Graphics (6) were decent with a good bit of color variety, nice animation
and graphical variety. And although there is some detail, the characters
are then too large. The displays are OK and the at least you character was
multi-colored. The dragon flickering is bad, but the lava rising is probably the
best. There is a title screen, an attract mode and a game over text.
There is no musical score, but the Sound (6) is fine, with an end of game jingle
and nearly all of the sound effects. Missing are the rapid hits, bouncing, end
of round, new life, and landing effects. Controls are perfect (10). F1
resets the game.
Silver Medal: Atari 2600 (38) My first
reaction was this makes for a decent third party 2600 game. The Gameplay
(7) is effective, scoring the same as the others, but on a finer point scale, it
would finish last. One setback is the dragon simply moves left and right
across the screen - not up and down. There is an attract mode, not quite a
demo, where you see the minions flying and hear the random background
effects. The enemies do not change their altitude, and the Princess does
not die until the lava completely envelopes her. I'm probably a bit
generous on the addictiveness scores here. They're all borderline, like
5.5, 7.5 & 7.5. So I may be generous giving the Addictiveness an (8)
impressive. It does have fun game elements, a gradual increase in difficulty,
and the already mentioned chance to take a brake in the action. The
Graphics (7) are pretty good, with a great amount of color variety, decent
amount of details, nice backgrounds and good graphical variety. The
animation and displays are fine and nearly everything is multi-colored.
The Sound (6) is good enough to keep your interest, with nearly all the effects
- missing only the new life, end of round, and end of game. The Controls
(10) are perfect.
2600 screenshots outside and then inside the castle - courtesy
of AtariAge.
Gold Medal: Colecovision
(41)
Colecovision screenshot
courtesy of Mobygames.
My first reaction
was it clearly does everything well and easily wins the gold. This port is
atypical of most CV games, since it is the easiest to learn and play at level
4. The Gameplay (7) is very good with everything from the 2600 but now
there are 5 enemies and more variety in their attacks. There is no place
to rest inside castle, so once you take off, there is no resting that
thumb. The Addictiveness (8) matches the 2600 score, but the collision
detection is a bit off, being a bit too easy to survive here. Odd that
they took out the CV ability to pause, but you can still brake before you begin
each screen's action. The Graphics (9) are outstanding, with more enemies
a flight, and the addition of 2 more backgrounds (3 when outside the
castle). There's plenty of good wing-flapping animation, including the
fireballs. The details are good, with excellent backgrounds, great color
variety, everything is multi-colored and the displays are fine. The Sound
(7) is very good with the title screen music and the end of round and end of
game jingles. The only missing sound effect is not needed, since the lava
never rises to the critical height. Controls nearly perfect using the
standard CV controls (10). If the action were any faster, or if you
struggle a bit, you can still start the game and then swap to a 2600
controller.
Acknowledgements, Updates and Errata since last
month. I think that this game would have been significantly more fun to play
if they would have spread out the difficulty a bit more and had 6 levels to get
to the maximum difficulty. Special thanks to Steve Tucker and I am again
plugging ATARIMAX.com and his wonderful CV 128-in-1 Flash Multi-Cart, which
allowed me to enjoy this fun game on my own CV system. Thanks go to Matt G.
from Cinci who traded me the Atari 2600 manual of Sir Lancelot (for my collage)
at the CCAG 2006. I've been asked to provide past Many Faces of Reviews for
the Game Trader Magazine. I finally got around to doing that. So
look for some of my reviews to be revised and made available on this fancier
medium.
First off my apologies to our
readers and staff for missing the previous issue due to sudden illness.
While the majority of NES arcade ports concentrated on classic easy to port
arcade titles of the early 1980's, from time to time a then current arcade
release would find its way to the platform. This doesn't mean attention to
detail and true quality wasn't crafted into the simpler single screen arcade
conversions by any means. A look at previously reviewed games such as the
Donkey Kong series proves that when done right, classic arcade games on the NES
could hold their own against the first run titles of the time. Yet a
current hot commodity in the arcades was looked at as a license to print money
in cartridge form. Couple that with a pop culture juggernaut on the level
of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and you have the formula for near instant
guaranteed sales, regardless of what the finished product may be.
Thankfully what we ended up with would at the very least be a well attempted
recreation given the limitations of the home hardware of the
time.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was arguably one of the most popular
arcade games of 1989, heck if you were under twelve years old it most certainly
was the most popular arcade game of the day. It was with good reason
too. There were few gameplay experiences as entertaining as being crowded
around the arcade cabinet with three of your friends, each playing as one of the
heroes in a half shell. I can't think of another arcade game I spent as
much money on back during its original release. Of course that was the
idea of a beat 'em up, to eat quarters while the players were blind sided with
gameplay that required constant repetitive input and uneven odds. None of
us cared about feeding the machines though. It was the 'Turtles, it had
beautiful graphics ripped right out of the popular cartoon, great sound design
that was comprised mostly of remixes of the catchy theme song, tight controls
and of course the ability to play with friends and make new ones as people left
and joined game progress. All these things make it a perfect candidate for
an arcade to home transition. Since an original Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles game already existed on the NES, arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was
released on the NES platform as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
in 1991.
For the conversion to the NES hardware certain limitations would
come into play as they always do. The first and most obvious being the
graphics. The NES simply cannot replicate the color richness and detail of
the arcade original. Yet looking back what surprised me most about this
has nothing to do with the actual game at all but instead how Nintendo's inhouse
propaganda magazine, Nintendo Power, attempted to explain the drop in visual
detail and color. According to Nintendo Power it all had to do with the
NES outputting in RF and arcade monitors outputting in true RGB. A
technical explanation isn't necessary as it has very little to do with the
graphical capabilities of the NES and why Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looks the
way it does on the home console. Not to say that the visuals on the NES
version are bad. Everything is there for the most part: the different
types of Foot Clan soldiers are represented, the stages carry the same theming
and design, boss enemies look and behave how they should - it just looks like
there's a thin layer of grime over everything. While not as vibrant as
what you'd see in the arcade a real effort was made to recreate the backgrounds
and level design, again it's just nowhere near as sharp. Then there are
the infamous Pizza Hut signs throughout the game that were added in the NES
version. Almost anywhere there was a sign or billboard in the arcade
original it is now an advertisement for Pizza Hut. Even some stages that
don't have walls for billboards will have Pizza Hut signs stuck into the
ground. Of course not-so-hidden advertising in games is common today but
this is one of the earliest mainstream
examples.
Since original
control was a joystick for movement and a pair of buttons for jumping and
attacking, the NES control pad is a perfect candidate for home control
recreation. It all works as one would expect it to and while the controls
are mapped out the same as in the arcade, there are some very slight differences
in attack range and delay when performing a jump kick for example. This is
nothing that can't be overcome after a few minutes of play but it does feel over
all stiffer than the original. Audio however does suffer on the NES.
While a good effort is put forward to recreate most of the music it's simply not
of the quality present in the arcade version. However the biggest audio
loss is that of the voice clips that were sprinkled throughout the original
game. Originally every boss would speak a couple lines when the end of a
stage was reached, sometimes engaging in a short witty conversation with one of
the turtles. While this little banter has no effect on the game itself, it
did further round out the original package and make the game feel more like the
animated series. Every time a character would speak there would be a text
bubble near them as well. In the NES version only some of these text
bubbles are present and of the ones that are there a few of them have been
changed. It seems like pure laziness to have some of the text bubbles
there for select game events yet not have them be present for things like boss
introductions. This also lends itself to some of the intermission screens
being dissimilar with different layouts, alternate text and again, no spoken
audio. Granted that spoken audio is on the edge of the NES hardware
limitations but at the very least it could have all been supplemented with text
bubbles, which were originally there anyway.
Konami knew of these
limitations and attempted to make up for them by reworking a few areas of the
game and adding two totally new NES exclusive stages. While it may sound
like nothing other than a hype machine, there truly are some differences that
make the NES version both a more difficult game as well as a longer one.
Right away, the first stage takes longer to complete than it did in the arcade
since the level was originally much shorter with only one staircase to
pass. Things are pretty much the same until after the sewer area with
Baxter Stockman. Upon completion of the sewer area, a new stage begins
with New York under a blanket of snow and ice due to the actions of a mutated
polar bear named Tora. Over all this stage is rather uninspired and feels
simply like filler as opposed to adding something to the game. After
Tora's defeat and the thawing of the city, the game picks back up in the parking
lot area from the arcade original. However the end boss of this area has
been changed. Instead of fighting both Rocksteady and Bebop together,
April is now guarded by Baxter Stockman's mutated form, Baxter the Fly.
Things continue more or less the same until after the boss fight against the
first stone warrior. Instead of going directly to the Technodrome after
the battle, a new stage is presented that takes place inside a New York
high-rise. Thankfully this new stage feels like some real thought and
planing went into it. The graphical detail and design here is far more
solid than any other part of the game, with cool moments such as tiger paintings
coming to life and leaping off the walls. The boss at the end is the
Shogun Warrior who also has a unique design and the battle against him is
different and entertaining. After that the game rejoins in the Technodrome
where things continue as they did in the arcade, right down to the final
battle.
As arcade conversions on the NES go, one could do far worse than
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game. Yet the game still feels
like it falls short from providing an entertaining experience on par with its
arcade counterpart. The graphics, audio and play control all have obvious
flaws. I suppose that if only one of these was lacking the game would
still be fine but the combination of all of them are what ultimately pulls this
title down to the level of a mediocre home conversion. The NES port also
only supports a maximum of two players while the four player arcade cabinet was
part of the game's original draw. The big problem is simply that the
original is such a great game. Beat 'em ups had existed before but the
lush graphic detail and comic book style of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made it
a showcase of arcade game design at the time. Since the arcade original
was so detailed and fluid no matter how good the NES version could have been, it
had a big game to replicate. While it's a good effort and is still a fun
game to play on the NES, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game is
simply no substitute for the arcade original.
I don't know about
the rest of the contributors to Retrogaming Times Monthly, but in the past six
months or so, my columns are "spur of the moment" deals. When I first
started, I had plans to write more diverse articles than simply about the Apple
II gaming world. I've somewhat succeeded but talking about gift giving and
the 30th Anniversary of the Apple II.
But recently, due to a
combination of being busy, a little tired and maybe being a procrastinator, I
have coming up with ideas and writing articles on the spur of the moment.
It's funny, despite being written in less than a day, the articles have
generally seemed ok to me. Hopefully you readers have not minded the typos
that have occurred because I like to write the articles in a text editor and
they don't have spell checks. Writing in MS Word is fine, but I like to
keep things simple.
In any case, my
latest "spur of the moment" article is influenced by a movie that came out two
weeks ago (as of the writing of the article) and which I saw last night.
The movie is "The Forbidden Kingdom", the kung-fu action/fantasy film which
stars two of Asia's biggest kung fu stars, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Both
men, despite being huge stars in Asia and having some cross-over success in the
United States, have never worked together on the film. For your
information, I liked the film and would give it a 7.5 on a 1 to 10 scale.
It's worth catching if you are a action/kung fu fan.
Thanks to watching
the film last night, I will focus on one of the biggest 80's kung-fu/action
games ever. The game was called Karateka and was programmed by Jordan
Mechner and released by Broderbund in 1984. It was initially released for
the Apple II and then ported to other systems.
If you're used to
more recent kung-fu fighting games like Street Fighter (and others), you will
likely be disappointed. Karateka is a simple sidescrolling game that is
more like Double Dragon than Street Fighter. You do not have multiple
moves or special powers. Your player can either run or side straddle when
he is fighting someone. Your player has six combinations of fight
moves: Kick-High, Kick-Middle, Kick-Low, Punch-High, Punch-Middle, or
Punch-Low.
While Karateka is an action game,
you do have a goal to complete. The evil warlord Akuma had kidnapped
Princess Mariko. The player's goal is to rescue the Princess by fighting
through a slew of bad guys (and some other obstacles) before finally facing off
against Akuma. If you defeat Akuma, you and the princess will live
happily ever after. Well, one word to the wise. Approach your lady
with some respect or you will be in for a rude surprise. Don't say I
didn't warn you!
My initial experiences with Karateka was that it was a
fun game and I had fun beating the bad guys. However, at one point in the
game, I was simply unable to proceed. It took me quite some time to figure
things out. I won't mention at one point my problems came around, but I'm
sure you'll figure it out when you get there. Once I got past that one
obstacle, the final showdows at the end of the game can be frustrating.
However, if you can get by those obstacles, you will feel very happy in
completing the game.
For an Apple II game, the graphics, sound and
music were solid and used well. The programmer, Jordan Mechner, followed
up on his success of Kararteka with a game called the Prince of Persia (also
released on the Apple, maybe I'll discuss this at a later time). The
Prince of Persia spawned several sequels which were not released on the Apple
II.
This
month, my guide writing efforts focused on eight particular games, many of which
are quite memorable, and some of which are a little obscure, but almost always
just as good. I recommend that you try out each one, even the ones you may
never have seen before. Let's get to it.
Castlevania is a game that
needs no introduction. As the defining whip snapping, vampire hunting
action game, Castlevania sees Simon Belmont going up against zombies, Medusas,
Frankensteins, mummies, grim reapers, and Count Dracula himself. We often
equate all of these monsters as standard members of the horror movie genre even
though each of them have entirely different points of origin around the world
(mummies from Egypt, Medusa from Greece, Dracula from Romania, etc.)
Castlevania blends all of these concepts into a gothic tale of a single man
whose only purpose in life is to put an end to Dracula's reign of darkness
before it begins. I doubt that those who constructed this first version of
Castlevania could have foreseen the longevity that the title would have as a
series, with new games be developed for the Nintendo DS to this day. The
original Castlevania, in fact, was remade no less than 4 times, with one of
those remakes being released as Super Castlevania IV for the SNES. While
Konami of America tried to reconcile the time line of CV1 and CV4, Konami of
Japan (and the Japanese market) were content to accept the new version of the
game as a remake, considering that they had seen similar remakes appear on the
MSX and X68000 home computers, and in the arcade as well.
Commando is probably another
game that needs little introduction. There was something about this game
that captured a lot of attention from teenaged arcade goers. One could
attribute that fact to the game's one-man army concept and violence, but in
truth, I think it was Capcom's excellent control design that allowed for such
fluid play, and allowed you to truly feel like a one-man army, wreaking havoc in
an entire enemy base. For a game that was fairly complete to begin with,
it's interesting to see how much Capcom added to it for the Famicom, and later
NES release of the game. Capcom saw fit to include hidden bunker entrances
that had to be bombed open with grenades. Inside of these bunkers, you
would usually find hostages which you rescued for bonus points, but on occasion,
you might find gun or grenade power ups, or even gas-filled death traps from
which you had ten second to find the hidden exit or perish. While these
did add to the games content, they didn't necessarily enhance the game's
fun. I often felt that my attention was pulled away from making my way
through the enemy forces to finding all of the well hidden bunker entrances in
order to maximize my point and power potential.
Castlevania
NES
Commando
Terra Cresta is a vertical
shooting game that I wrote a short minimal guide for. Terra Cresta follows
in the footsteps of much older game Moon Cresta. Moon Cresta attempted to
enhance the Galaxian/Phoenix experience by providing the player with multiple
ship components that would expand the player's firepower the longer he or she
managed to stay alive. Along with the expanded firepower came a much
larger, and therefore vulnerable, space ship. Terra Cresta attempts to do
the same as Moon Cresta by expanding on the typical Xevious-like vertically
scrolling shooter in the same way. By passing certain outposts along the
terrain, the player could collect ship attachments that expanded both the
player's firepower, and exposed area. If the player managed to survive and
collect all five pieces, the ship would briefly turn into a blazing
phoenix. Unfortunately, that form could never be reentered unless the ship
pieces were all lost and collected again. Terra Cresta doesn't have any
true stages, or an ending, but it is a significant challenge that even today's
shooter experts would probably enjoy.
Bump 'n' Jump is an
older arcade game that Data East developed in 1983. It's a surprisingly
fun and addictive game. There's just something satisfying about bouncing
your car high up into the air, and landing on top of an opponent car in order to
squash them. The original arcade game depicted many similar scenarios, one
stage after another, with the difference between them being a change in the
seasons. Like Commando, the NES version of Bump 'n Jump (known as Buggy
Popper in Japan) attempts to expand on an already well developed concept, but
adding relatively little fun to the game. On the Famicom and NES, you now
have to watch your fuel gauge, as it may empty if you take too long to complete
the stage. Oil drums are encountered on the road, not as obstacles, but as
small allocations of fuel that should be collected. A story of a kidnapped
love was added to the game, although it plays a negligible role in the actual
game play.
Terra Cresta
Bump 'n
Jump
I was never a big
wrestling fan, but even I can remember playing with Pro Wrestling when the
game was released early in the NES's lifetime. At a young age, I only had
a fuzzy concept of how the input could be manipulated to create different types
of moves. I often felt lucky when my wrestler executed a particular move,
as I thought it was largely out of my control. Having grown up alongside
the burgeoning fighting genre created by the popularity of Street Fighter II, I
now have a far greater appreciation for the sophistication of Nintendo's design
of Pro Wrestling's controls. The ability to execute nearly 12 different
moves with just a direction pad and two buttons is pretty amazing, considering
that many of the moves are context sensitive. The biggest flaw, however,
with the overall design of Pro Wrestling, is the decision to force the player
into 15 matches that are nearly 5 minutes in length before allowing the player
to face off with the final boss of the game. In a worst case scenario,
that's 75 minutes of playing straight with no opportunity to save or
continue. Alas, I have never summoned the patience to make it all the way
to face the Great Puma.
Super Star Force was my
surprise game of the month. I find it very difficult to write detailed
guides for vertical shooters. I find that all I can really do is explain
the mechanics of the game, and let the player's skill take over and get them
through each scripted level. So I was not prepared to write a detailed
guide to Super Star Force until I started playing it. I expected to find
an enhanced version of regular Star Force, but what I actually found was an
attempt to cross a vertical scrolling shooter with the dungeon exploration
portion of The Legend of Zelda, and a time travel aspect mixed in for good
measure. Super Star Force contains 8 time periods in which you pretty much
fly over the same strip of terrain. Therefore, it is possible to go back
in time, destroy some feature of the terrain, and return to a later time period,
only to find that you have changed some aspect of the stage. In many
cases, this means exposing the entrance to a dungeon, which you must dock your
ship with and exit in order to explore the dungeon on foot. Ultimately,
you must not only explore each dungeon in an effort to find all seven secret
time zones, but you must learn how to reveal each dungeon entrance. The
game provided decent hints in Japanese, but that doesn't do much good to English
speakers, so the guide that I wrote spells out most of the necessary steps to
complete the game.
Pro Wrestling
Super Star
Force
Milon's Secret
Castle is a game by Hudson Soft that I never had a lot of love for as a
child. I have come to realize that I didn't give it a very fair shake back
then. True, it is a rather difficult game that sometimes punished the
player for being curious, but it's built upon an interesting design that I came
to appreciate as I forced myself to explore the game more deeply. The goal
of the game is to explore different rooms of a castle from the floor that you
are currently on, in order to acquire items and power-ups that will help you
defeat the boss which guards the entrance to the next floor up. In the
process, you'll have to explore wells, reveal fake princesses as crows in
disguise, and fight some very difficult boss battles until you reach the fourth
and final floor. When you do, you'll have to figure out which of the four
boss characters is the real one in order to win the game. As you progress,
you need to find tiles of money to purchase valuable equipment, and honeycomb
tiles which increase your health. Once you have a better idea of how to
play, and better yet, how to survive, the game does become a little more
enjoyable. Still, it's not really one of the NES's top 20
games.
Moero Twinbee is better known in the United States as Stinger. Stinger, like
Milon's Secret Castle, is another game that I didn't give a fair chance to as a
child. I didn't really understand that the game, like the rest of the
Twinbee series, is meant to be more of a parody than a serious game. My
sense of humor was not sophisticated enough to realize that the vegetables who
were attacking me were meant to be funny. The other aspect of it that I
had difficulty with was the bell power-up system. At that age, I didn't
want to have to bounce a bell x number of times in order to get a
power-up. I wanted the game to just give me the power-up. Therein
lies Twinbee's sophistication as a game. As a shooter, it's not incredibly
difficult. The game doesn't overwhelm you with enemies or bullets.
Rather, Moero Twinbee, like it progenitor Twinbee, is an exercise in
multi-tasking. It's not about whether you can kill the enemies. It's
about how well you can fight enemies while bouncing a bell in the air, and
bombing ground targets, while attempting to stay alive. The more attention
you begin to pay to the bells that you are juggling, the more likely you are to
slip up and crash into an enemy. When it occurs to you what you just did,
you wonder how you could have been so stupid as to crash into a very slow-moving
and predictable enemy just as the bell you were hammering turns into the precise
color that you were attempting to collect. Moero Twinbee, unlike most
Twinbee games, features 3 horizontally scrolling stages out of its seven total
stages. The rest are vertically scrolling, which is traditional for the
series.
Milon's Secret Castle
Moero
Twinbee
Gaming Studies with the Tomy Tutor -- Jungler
by David Lundin, Jr.
Allow me to introduce my old
friend, the Tomy Tutor 16 Bit Graphical computer. Years ago when I was all
but four years of age one of these was brought into the home to much interest
and a bit of misunderstanding. I still have no idea why my grandparents
decided to purchase a Tomy Tutor. The marketing was for the most part
nonexistent, no one else owned one, and my only previous entry into digital
entertainment was playing my uncle's Atari VCS - which I took to fondly. I
don't remember which I got first, the Tomy Tutor or my Atari 2600 Jr. but I do
remember them arriving within the same year, the Atari at Christmas.
Either way the Tomy Tutor was occasionally connected to the black an white TV in
my grandparents bedroom. Later it would make it into my room along with my
shiny new Montgomery Ward 13" color TV which arrived along side my Atari that
glorious Christmas morning. As with many of the lower popularity home
computers of the time, the Tutor had a built in programing language, a tape
driven data recorder and the promise of many peripherals to come in the future -
that would never arrive. In Japan the Tutor was known as the Tomy Pyuuta
with a couple different hardware revisions that saw limited release. I'm
going to stay away from the technical aspects of the computer itself, simply
because I don't have a lot of technical experience with other home computers of
this vintage. Instead I'm going to concentrate on the games that were
available for the Tutor as they were always the main draw for me. A
handful of games were released on cartridge for the Tutor and they were
something the system did very well. The usual form of input was via a pair
of Joy Controllers. They used a disc similar to the Intellivision control
disc (but stiffer) for directional input, as well as a pair of fire buttons
marked SL and SR located above the disc. I thought we'd kick things off
with a look at my favorite game on the platform, as well as one of my favorite
arcade games, Jungler.
Jungler is based upon an arcade
game of the same name designed by Konami in 1981. Gameplay revolves around
survival of the fittest among giant worms that reside underground. Each
level is comprised of a single screen maze with a large open vertical area in
the center as well as dead ends and hazardous worm traps. Up to two
players can take turns playing as the white worm that starts out in the center
of the maze. When the game begins two enemy worms will head into the maze
from the outermost corners. Movement is similar to Pac-Man in that your
worm will travel in the direction you press until you run into a wall.
Pressing another available direction will allow your worm to continue until it
once again becomes obstructed by a boundary. Each segment of a worm will
follow suit behind the head, which gives the game a bit of a Centipede
appearance.
Both the player
and enemy worms can shoot in the direction the head of the worm is facing.
This is where survival of the fittest comes in. Each time a shot makes
contact with the rear segment of a worm, the segment is destroyed and the worm
is reduced in length. Enemy worms that are equal or greater in length than
the player worm will be red. Enemy worms that are one segment shorter than
the player worm will be yellow. Finally enemy worms that are two or more
segments shorter than the player worm will be green. The length of each
worm is important because that's what decides who lives or dies. If the
head section of the player worm and the head section of an enemy worm run into
one another, the shorter worm will be completely destroyed. So the trick
to quickly eliminating enemy worms is to shoot away a couple of their tail
segments and then run into them head on. However the player worm can be
shot down shorter by the enemy worms as well, which is why the color coding is
extremely helpful. Once an entire wave of enemy worms is destroyed the
next level begins.
There are a couple exceptions to
the basic rules however. From time to time strawberries will appear at
specific locations in the maze. Eating a strawberry will add one segment
to your worm. An advantage can be gained by having a standard full length
worm eat a strawberry and gain one extra segment. This now larger than
average player worm will be longer than the fresh enemy worms, which will enter
the maze already yellow. Using this technique, a seasoned player can
quickly barrel through a wave of enemy worms and rack up a big score.
Speaking of big scores, if points are what you're going for then you may want to
destroy enemy worms with shots alone. Once an enemy worm is shot all the
way down to its last segment, the head, destroying the head will yield the
player 500 bonus points. Occasionally an enemy worm will get itself stuck
against a worm trap, which will eventually destroy the worm. This is an
excellent opportunity to come up behind the trapped worm, shoot it down to
nothing and pick up an easy bonus.
The game plays wonderfully with
the Tomy Joy Controllers and the control disc does a smooth job of translating
movements onto the screen. Either SL or SR button will cause your worm to
fire. The opening tune that plays during the attract screen is catchy and
is a good example of the rich sound the hardware can create. The same goes
for the end of level and game over music. In game the sound effects are
unique, it really does sound like a bunch of subterranean creatures are
scurrying around. The death sound is the unmistakable Tomy Tutor crash /
explosion sound effect that many games use, however it has been slightly
reworked to give it a more organic crushing sound. Graphics are sharp and
detailed and while the game isn't all that visually complicated, everything is
colorful and solid. Flicker and slowdown are both nonexistent, which are
rarely a problem on the platform. With the entire package working together
so well one ends up with a superb arcade action experience. It's not for
everyone (nor is the Tutor for that matter, considering how rare they are) but
Jungler is a great fast paced game that requires quick reflexes and a steady
trigger finger. Easily one of the best games on the platform and in my
opinion a smoother package than the arcade game it is based upon.
I hope to continue this column
semi-regularly whenever I have extra time. NES'cade isn't going anywhere
and if anything I look at this column as a way for me to make a second
submission to Retrogaming Times Monthly from time to time. I'd love to
review more Tomy Tutor games but sadly I only have three titles from the
catalog, the three that were purchased along with the computer many years
ago. If you have any spare Tomy Tutor or Tomy Pyuuta games you'd like to
sell me for use in future reviews, please e-mail me via the link in my name at
the top of this article. Thanks!
Game Over
Thanks for reading, and don't forget,
send in your submissions for Attract Mode! See you next
month.
But recently, due to a
combination of being busy, a little tired and maybe being a procrastinator, I
have coming up with ideas and writing articles on the spur of the moment.
It's funny, despite being written in less than a day, the articles have
generally seemed ok to me. Hopefully you readers have not minded the typos
that have occurred because I like to write the articles in a text editor and
they don't have spell checks. Writing in MS Word is fine, but I like to
keep things simple. 
While Karateka is an action game,
you do have a goal to complete. The evil warlord Akuma had kidnapped
Princess Mariko. The player's goal is to rescue the Princess by fighting
through a slew of bad guys (and some other obstacles) before finally facing off
against Akuma. If you defeat Akuma, you and the princess will live
happily ever after. Well, one word to the wise. Approach your lady
with some respect or you will be in for a rude surprise. Don't say I
didn't warn you! 
