Quarth (NES, Konami, 1990)

Tetris is probably the most repetitive game ever. You can deny it to try and protect it's honour, but then again, why would you, it's a 20 something year old game made by Russians.

On that well informed note, allow me to say this: I do not like games you cannot complete. I always preffer to be able to take the game on and beat it, by hook or crook. This is especialy annoying with games with a plot, moreso if the plot involves "saving" someone or rescuing something or vice versa. It just makes the whole act of playing the game seem utterly pointless because, you are not going to save that princess, or ever defeat the evil wizard and save the planet. You're just going to lose and the game's going to laugh at you.

This is level 0.

So when I ran across this tetris-clone that you could complete, I thought I'd at least give it a go. The first level started off promising enough, and I was given the option to play as a bell shaped ship with two angels attached to it for some reason, so I assumed there was at least some creativity involved.

I was wrong.

The main gimmick of Quarth is simple. You auto-scroll through a level and shoot blocks out of your front, trying to complete non-rectangular shapes into the one true proper shape, and you go through 10 brief sections, 0-9, after which you have completed the level and can move on.

This is level 9

And for the first couple of levels, it was fairly entertaining. But then, as the levels wore on, the only thing that seemed to change was the speed the level goes at. There were still the five basic shapes, and slowly but surely it dawned on me that this game wasn't getting any different any time soon. And in true cheaply made game fashion, it never did.

The only thing this game offers in the later stages is frustration at the near impossible task of filling in the spaces in the relatively short time you have, not aided at all by the slow movement of your ship from one end of the screen to the next. You can't even practice to know what's going to happen, because the blocks more or less generate randomly. And the moment you're faced with a screen primarily made up of horizontal blocks on something like level 9 you can kiss your rump goodbye, because unless you have perfect turbo button/d-pad coordination, as well as use the quickest and most direct "strategy", you'll simply lose a life and die.

And this is.....level five......yawn.

Sadly, the "special" blocks that actualy would be usefull in this situation, ergo those that stop the scrolling for a limited amount of time, appear very rarely, so I'm not quite sure what strategy I'd advise.

Finaly, the game is just not interesting. All the levels look the same (level 0 and 9 even have the exact same level border), each level has the same exact blocks as every other level, there are no added features or hazards beyond the rarely appearing colour blocks, of which only one is of any use in the later stages of the game, and most strikingly of all, there's no background. Ever. The graphics look pretty sub par, and this from a game released in the same year as Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu and the Chip and Dale NES game just to name a few.

Overall, I found Quarth to be repetitive, difficult to beat in later stages, and just plain archaic looking even by contemporary standarts.

The Gadget Twins (Sega Mega Drive, Imagitec Design Inc. / GameTek, 1992)

I love shooters. You will hardly find a person who likes a good shooter more then me, especialy if it's somewhat unusual, because let's face it, alot of space shooters are realy boring unless they have some original designs here and there, and as for plane/jet shooters.....

But this game isn't realy a shooter. It's more of a flying platformer without platforms where you never get any good ranged weapons. It's basicly a game where, in order to hit anything, you have to get right in it's face and punch it. Alas, that isn't the only problem. You see, you automaticaly keep shooting in one direction until you change it.

And then there's the bosses. Their movesets, coupled with all these problems would be more then enough, but nearly each and every single boss takes a small eternity to get to rid off. The first end boss takes 12 hits with an upgraded fist to take down one bar of health. And he has four.

Dude we just barely met !

Only when you get the anvil can you kill some of the bosses slightly easier, but then you have to wait to get an opening to avoid being bumped into, something the bosses love to do. Finaly, the shop system realy stops being able to sell you anything new by level 3, so by the end you'll have hundreds of coins and nothing to spend them on.

This, plus the rather boring bonus levels, make a possitively interesting game boring. The bosses are usualy very boring looking and seem like they have something better to do somewhere else. The only exception is


















I think this guy realy likes the view.

However, I think I'll let this guy express my general impression of this game.

Top Banana (Commodore Amiga, 1992, Hex)

I am not the one to diss a game for being weird. I previously wanted to create a segment specificaly devoted to such games, but have found others have done a far better job of it, so I decided to stop. But I do enjoy a particularly tripy game every once in a while.

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about scumbags
destroying our planet - rugby players.

Top Banana isn't one of them. Oh sure it can be described as being weird, but then again, that doesn't mean it's automaticaly playable.

First of all, from the moment you turn this thing on, you wouldn't imagine it's supposed to be an enviromental game. The presence of chainsaws and evil radiation logos is pretty much the only connection I can think of. Gameplay wise, you have to climb up verticaly through the level to escape the ever rising water level, kind of like Rainbow Islands, only infinitely less playable. In your way stand a whole bunch of very poorly drawn enemies that most of the time you only have the vaguest idea of what they represent (I only assume the thing throwing coins at you is some kind of evil tycoon/capitalist person, because the sprite itself looks less human then the main character of Non Human). Your main mode of attack (read:only) is to throw hearts at enemies. There is exactly one upgrade to this, and this make them actualy have some range, but is taken away the moment you get hit.

The third boss. Because.....pilots are inherently evil right ?

The items themselves are a realy oddly designed: in order for them to do anything, you have to shoot them, then they grow big and then you can collect them. If you try and pick them up without shooting them first, they hurt you. There are three items: the shooting target (weapon upgrade), fawcet (stops the water for a short while) and finaly, the flower, which activates platforms....yeah I didn't notice them at first myself and ended up screwing myself over.

I know it's hard to see, but there's three enemies ontop
of that middle platform. Scout's Honour !

Now, whenever you get hit by an enemy, or an item that you haven't shelled, you not only take damage but fall through the platform you're on. Oddly enough, getting hit makes the water recede (not sure why, but not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth).

Probably the biggest flaw the game has is your jump. There's no way to jump lower then usual, which 90 % of the time means you're going to hit an enemy as high as two platforms above your starting position, and get hurt. For a game that supposedly boasts that it's just as good as Mario or Sonic on the box, this is realy shameful.

World 4 adds backgrounds that consits of 70 % of
mutlicoloured squares nearly indistinguishable from the
backrground - because the game wasn't hard
enough to make out.

Adding insult to injury the second world adds a section where you have to get up to a certain height before your seperate "radiation" bar runs out, or you take dammage. The reason these are so annoying is because not only does the level invert colours, but it also speeds up by 50 plus %, meaning that getting ontop of moving platforms in that very short and very merciless time limit is a chore. But this wouldn't be so bad if these were only present in the "atomic" level, but no, we have an annoying "innovation" and by god we're going to use the ever living heck out of it ! Out of 12 levels, 9 of them have this segment.

Then there's the bosses. Not much to say, except they seem realy random. The first three have very easy patterns of just jumping up and down across the screen (none of them attack you in any other way) which you can easily sneek under. Only the last boss recquires you to actualy use the platforms present to jump over him.

And finaly, even though on the screen you have two hearts peeking from behind your score, this does, in fact, mean absolutely nothing as you are only given one life to finish the entiere game.

And after all that, what is your reward ?

Looking at this for fifteen seconds and then inputing your high score.

God this was a waste of time.

Cyber Cop (Commodore Amiga, 1991, Energize)

I wasn't going to review this one, but in the end, I thought, why not, it certainly deserves some "attention".

First off, you'll probably not feel to comfortable if I tell you the best part of the game is the title screen. And then you find out out through some comments it's apparently rip offed from a painting by a certain Boris Vallejo. Not knowing the man nor his work I can't confirm or deny this, but looking around the net hasn't revealed anything too similar to this, so if anyone could shed some light onto the subject, I'd be glad.

Anyway you start off the game in a promising enough environment. You find the word "pods" written on the screen with a number attached, so you decide that these have to be your mandatory collectibles, so you set off finding them. You'll find out the game scrolls back and forth between screens without problems. But by the third screen you will probably run into an enemy positioned smack dab at the edge of the next one. There's nothing much you can do about that, as the enemies, who constantly respawn, follow you into whatever screen you're on. Now this isn't too bad until you collect all the "pods" (which look more like cd's to me, but I digress) , you decide to turn around. And once you fight your way all the way to the other end of the level, you'll have collected maybe a third of the recquired number.

It's then that you may realise that....the pods only appear, at complete random, when you collect one. An arrow will appear, showing you in which direction to go, but the pods can be on the complete opposite side of the level (I once counted 7 screens between two pods). While the constantly respawning enemies relentlessly chase you around.

And once you get to level 2 and beyond, you have to factor in undestroyable level hazards, like lasers, dynamite soaring ontop of you on balloons, spinning maces, drops of deadly water, the ocational landmine, mine carts, huge spikes, plus the projectiles of the enemies chasing you.

And after four mince-meat-making levels, it's just over. You don't even get any kind of fight with a final boss, nor any kind of ending. You just get a gool ol' fashioned game over, can input your highscore for all the various users of your own computer to see, and then replay again from the start.

Aside from the claims of plagiarism associated with this title, there's realy nothing here to enjoy. The game is a senseless trekk through one death filled screen to the next and then back again, there are only about three enemies who all look the same, your ultimate weapon upgrade obtained after the scene clearing laser is a useless grenade launcher that has no range, the levels are stock and uninspired and realy, the game is literaly nothing else then a walking simulator programed by someone who realy hates you.

Alantia (PC 98, 1988, Cross Media Soft)

I've always enjoyed Space Harrier. Sure some of the levels had recycled enemies in them, some bosses were a pain, the bonus levels weren't as fun as randomly destroying everything by ramming into it with a giant centipede-dragon-thing should be because of the controls, but still I realy enjoy this type of gameplay. Space Harrier, Space Harrier II, Panorama Cotton,Attack Animal Gakuen even Yaksa (Jinmu Denshou officialy) , I've enjoyed all of these to some decree. Sure, the last one had some annoying sections that were, in all honesty, pretty annoying (the teleport level comes to mind) and it was weird how you could go backwards and stop....in some levels and in others you inexplicably couldn't. But even so, I liked it, and I played it through to the end.

Level 5
Just.....level 5

Todays offering is more akin to Yaksa. Only where Yaksa was sometimes kind of annoying, this game is sometimes not god forsakingly agravating.

Alantia on the PC 98 is a Space Harrier type game, but more akin to Jinmu Denshou's model of walking instead of flying. That in itself wouldn't be such a bad thing.

But here's where the problems begin. Yes, problems. First and foremost of all, you can't go forward. At all. You can go left and right diagonaly, but you can't walk forward. This is one of the games' cripling flaws, as not being able to simply move straight ahead in this type of game is already going to cause serious issues.

But then we find out that we can only shoot while moving. So one in order to stay in more or less the same spot on the screen, one has to constantly tap right and left while pressing the fire button (shift) , praying he's gonna hit whatever is comming in to smack right into you. And 90 % of the time, your bullets will miss everything on screen.

The bonus level. Getting through this nets you an invincibility item that lets you cakewalk through level 4

Why ? Well, the game is absurdly anal about how precise you have to be to shoot anything. Literaly, your bullets are microscopic and aiming your damn crystal-rod-gun-thing is nearly impossible because of the aforementioned control issues. The only way to hit stuff you can't dodge is to hug either side of the screen, then lightly move forward and then immediately duck so that you'll be ducking in a diagonal position and fire. And even then being one inch off means that while the thing will smash right into you, you won't even scratch it.

So because of this, for most of the game you'll actualy be just trying to avoid all the enemies. Which is possible, unless there's a bigger formation that pops up in the center of the screen. Because even though the game recquires precition on the level of professional snipers to hit the enemies, they will often come in formation with huge camping holes that look like your slender sprite could just easily pass through. But no matter where you stand, you'll always get hit. The only times you can pass through a cluster like that is if you're lucky enough to just weave through diagonaly at the exact time....but realy, the sideways sniping strategy described above is your only real chance to have at least a 50 % sucess rate.

Finaly, the cherry on top of this trainwreck, if you get hit you get frozen for a second, unable to move....but you still take dammage, and taking this will freeze you again, so you can get hit some more. I've had my entiere lifebar taken out by a surprise kamikaze attack in less then a second.

Finaly, the game plays more like Harrier. On level 8

So as you can imagine, the game is mostly unfun, frustrating, unfair and just downright annoying. I was stuck for a long time on level 2, simply because you have the boss attacking you by ramming into you wherever you are, while enemies and indestructible barries get thrown at you from both sides. Level 5 had you having to avoid attacks by two seemingly indestructible genies while trying to kill the boss in the back (acomplished by sideways sniping at the exact position to hit him while also destroying the genies' projectiles). Level 7 shakes things up a bit, in that you character gets put into a golden armour that turns into a plane. You can't shoot, so the whole level is mostly just an obstacle course, which is alot easier then previous levels, simply because you were doing the same thing up to this point, only it wasn't intentionaly programmed that way. Level 8 finaly fully emulates Space Harrier with you flying in the air in your armour, but even this level has shaky controls and hitting the boss isn't that easy.

After killing the guy you get to see the amazing ending and.....

Wish I had a clue what was going on.

.....eh.....the games' over.

Overall, I have to say that I find it tough to hate the game outright, but only because I actualy like the level design, enemy design and graphics. The programming on the other hand is just shite.

Baruusa No Fukushuu (X68000, 1990, Zainsoft)

Going into this game, I really wanted to like it. It has pretty good graphics, interesting character designs, and it was the first original game for the X68000 Home Computer I ever played.

But unfortunately, while I still do like it, I'll probably never play it again. And the reason for that is, well, the sword.

I see nothing sugestive, do you ?

Yes, you heard me, the sword. Why do I not like it ? Well, let's start at the begining. The first stage of the game starts you off on a ship where almost immediately you'll be hurt by zombies comming from the ground below you. And since there's never any indication, you just have to memorise where they come up in order not to get hurt. Then, after dispatching them, and the flying pterodactyl things that throw fire at you, the first boss shows up. A gigantic crab rises from the ocean by the side of the ship, and starts shooting bubbles. Filled with miniature crabs that you have to kill in order to have some manouvering space, because the crab pops up at different places each time. And here you will first come to realise the horrible truth.

This thing could only be fully screengrabed after a game over

The sword doesn't kill anything in one hit. Anything. Not ever a caterpillar. And if you soldier your way through level 1, this will only come to haunt you in level 2. Where you will have to deal with respawning enemies coming from both directions, some of whom aren't even on the same plane.

And here you start to realise yet another ghastly detail. You have no after hit invincibility. So an enemy can literaly drain your entiere health bar in 1.5 seconds. Plus, they sometimes bounce you back.

And here's the kicker. Level 2 introduces the gray orb "powerup". Previously you picked up a blue orb to regain health. The gray orb on the other hand takes it away. And just to put salt in the wound, 90 % of enemies on this stage only give health decreases. Only at the begining and at the very end can you get some health.

Gangrape already in progress

Do you see where this might get you ? Yes, you'll have your whole health drained by enemies coming from both directions at once, that don't die in one hit and that can knock you into a power down you didn't pick up but it hadn't dissapeared yet.

Still, if you somehow (and I don't know how) make it to the halfway point you can pick up the knife weapon, which makes things considerabely easier.

The next few levels get better, but level 6 does raise the bar by forcing you to dodge floating firemen, with their fireballs, multi directional lava balls, as well as arched shots from platform based enemies. And you also have to get the sword again.

I know, every molecule in your body is rebeling against it, but you have no choice. You cannot beat the game without the sword. You can beat the level 6 boss, quite easily with them, as well as the boss of level 7, but the final boss will just kill you before you even have a chance to hurt it.

Put simply, ranged attacks don't even harm the guy, so you may think you're getting somewhere, but you're realy not. Plus, you can't kill the gray dopplegangers he spawns on whatever side of the screen you're on fast enough (sword: 2 hits, blue fireball attack: 5 hits). And if you die here, you have to continue from the begining of level 7, which has no enemies that drop the sword, which more or less forces you to restart the game, because you simply cannot win.

What I'd realy apreciate would have been the ability to have more then two weapons (you actualy can but the second weapon, a blue fairy thing, will dissapear after you use it enough) and that you can use the weapons from earlier in the game more often. Level 2 starts you out with a thunder beam attack pickup as well as an arching fireball attack, and yet none of these ever show up again.

Overall, I liked the game, enjoyed the enemy designs, but won't probably ever play it again due to how balls crushingly the game is at the begining.

Hell Fighter (NES, 1992, Sachen/Thin Chen ?)

Locating this game I was under the preconception that it was going to be crap. After all, it was so rare and unheard of, and I've had my fair share of issues with unlicensed/weird pirates games, plus the company that released it, while releasing tons of unlicensed games, programmed some of the more infamous games released by Colour Dreams.

So I load it up, fully expecting a badly programmed pixelated mess and am greteed with

It at least looks like someone tried.

In the very first level you also find an interesting ability. You're able to kick stuff right in front of your foot if you press down and attack, and you can use this attack to literaly kick humongous holes in the level, while Mario jumping staircases to pieces with your head. You can make a hole to the bottom of the screen and die, but that's kind of a given. Still, in most levels you can use this to your advantage, or to just dick around when you're bored.


Then you come to realise there are some small ball shaped things inside the blocks (calling them ball shaped sounds better then outright calling them "balls"), which change colour and the thing they do. Orange upgrades your knife attack, firts to a spread and then to homing, green gives you a fireballs (which I only really needed in one place, and which also doesn't seem to be able to get upgraded), red does god knows what, and blue gives you rotating shiels around your character (up to 2).

Only other thing you might find out in the first level - the select button kills you. Not sure why since this isn't a puzzle game, and I really only ran across a single instance where that might have been helpfull.

This boss is easy as hell to take out.....except after he dies he's really not dead yet. Or rather after he dies after he dies he's not dead yet and needs to be killed again to be made deader. If that make's any sense.

The game itself is a pretty simple platformer. Aside from the powerups, (those that aren't in the open can still be seen changing colours inside their respective blocks btw) there's nothing else you need to do. No rooms to enter, no hidden items to find, etc. so you won't probably get stuck.

The game isn't even that hard to be honest. Your homing is pretty much a game breaker, and you default-start the game with 8 lives.

The game does change up the playing fields though. You eventualy can't destroy the whole playing area anymore, there's deadly stalawhatsits hanging from the ceiling, huge rockets randomly embedded into the side of a cave that start to spew fire randomly (I can't even begin to imagine the backstory which resulted in these things being there), and one stage has these clouds that shoot out lighting once two of them meet up so you have to be altert at all times.

Level 4 has a crab who'se weak points don't really get hit by your homing shots, so this is the only spot in the game where using fireballs is recquired, and very speedily at that, seeing how you can't duck, and when the  crab waltzes all the way to the left (and jumping him's out of the question as he's too big and fat and juicy), his right hand (claw ?) dragon head thing (?) will smack into you when it comes down.

The level 3 boss is easy as cake, but can take a LOOONG time, even with your homing missiles. And seeing how he's chilling down below the bridge throwing potshots at you 90 % of the time, I really feel sorry for the guy who actually goes into this fight with the fireball.

Level 5 has you fight a boss standing on a huge chunk of bricks you can slowly chop away. A very easy strategy that I found online was to make a hole in the block, go in, and turn around when the dragon goes to the left and fire your homing shots. You can get stuck between tiles if you don't make enough room though (kind of hard as, as previously noted, you can't duck), so this is the only place where the suicide button comes in handy. Afterwards, just make sure you don't touch it again. Ever.

The last stage has a couple of standart platforming hazards, like huge spiked balls on chains, reversed conveyor belts, and crane's droping blue balls on your head. The final boss is a.......well it's a......sort of a.....

Giant alien skull brain with tubes throwing exploding laser spike balls at you while crying blood.

OF COURSE !

Overall, I'd actually say this is quite an enjoyable little game, and would infact recommend it to anyone interested.

(Sure beats Gallivan as far as variety's concerned)