Many moons ago I played a game by Sega called Panzer Dragoon Saga II, a fantastic rails shooter. Later they released a game called Panzer Dragoon Saga, one of the first RPG's I ever played and one of the most memorable. The first game in the series was called Panzer Dragoon. I played it years after it was released on PC - it handled poor and looked in desperate need of a visual overhaul. When I saw there was a remake I thought it was worth a look.
I love food but I might love sweets even better. Refreshers were something I really like growing up, which is unusual as I don't really like lemon or lemon flavoured things. There are tough, chewy, full of colouring and sugar - simply put they are bad for you. Things you enjoy during your childhood are not always the same as those you like as adult. Strangely while Refreshers have enjoyed their high point there is still something great about them now. Playing Panzer Dragoon had the time of this game and indeed series seen its day?
Story
The story is set a thousand years in the future, the once densely populated Earth has been reduced to almost nothing. It is no surprise that weapons of mass destruction were the cause of the issue. Civilization seems to be made up of small towns and nations, and the ruling force is known as The Empire. They are already starting to take over but their latest discovery is ancient weapons which could change everything.
Moments into the game's intro sequence someone riding a dragoon kills another in front of your eyes. The dying rider chooses you to take charge of the dragoon and simply tells you to follow the dragoon, he knows where he is going.
Overall the story is sparse yet intriguing and continues to develop as the series continues. When all is said and done you don't really get much of a story from any arcade rail shooter but this one certainly piqued my interest.
Visuals
Panzer Dragoon was originally released on the Sega Saturn in 1995, at this time polygons were being used to help create visuals. The visuals could sometimes look clunky and even ugly but at the time they were pretty damn good. While the newly remake Panzer Dragoon Remake cannot hope to rival today's visual marvels it is also far cry from the original release twenty-five years ago. The colours used in the game are quite vibrant especially during the forest episode, the games look pretty smooth and it is easy to see how much time and effort MegaPixel Studios put into the game.
Overall the visuals are massively improved over the original release and while the remake may not be as impressive as some of newer games on the market it cannot be overlooked how much effort has gone into this remake.
Music
The music is classic Sega, warm and whimsical sounds, it is reminiscent of the music of Studio Ghibli. The music is composed by Yoshitaka Azuma, who worked on Panzer Dragoon Orta and Saori Kobaishi who worked on Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sonic Drift 2, Nights Into Dreams, and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz.
The soundtrack runs just shy of an hour, it features some great tracks including; 'Main Title', 'Sudden Turn', 'Departed Souls', 'Imperial Capital Set Ablaze' and 'Conclusion'. Overall it's a fairly solid soundtrack that really is a classic example of early Sega Saturn music.
Gameplay
Panzer Dragoon Remake has the same mechanics as the original but with some improvements. Essentially the game is an arcade rail shooter, which is really fun as you don't see any nowadays. There are two weapons; your pistol and the dragoons lock-on lasers, the lasers are far superior to use on enemies with the exception of one of the bosses.
While you are stuck on a rail you can, and need, to bob and weave to avoid structures and incoming projectiles. The radar is a big help in this regard, not with structures but enemies as you can see where they are coming from and act accordingly.
Overall the gameplay is simple and fun - the only issue I ever ran into was that the lock-on lasers could be slow to recognise targets on occasion. There is a lot of replay value as there are a number of difficulty setting and even a Pandora's Box menu which can really change the game.
Final Thoughts
So, after a few hours of play how did I feel? Pretty damn good. The game really played on my nostalgia and made me giddy to play Panzer Dragoon Zwei (which hopefully will be released later this year). The story is interesting, the visuals look pretty solid for an older game, the music reminds me of a simpler time and the gameplay is a lot of fun. Overall this one gets a solid 4 out of 5
Ah, Sonic. One of the first games I ever played was Sonic The Hedgehog on the Sega Master System, it was tough at the time but really fun. I have continued to play Sonic games over the years some good and others...well not so much. I recently saw a trailer for Sonic Forces which gave me pause, seemed a little darker than normal, an interesting villain and though maybe it would be worth a play. Recently I saw it second-hand and thought to myself why not pick it up?
I like soup, it can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Not sure what to eat? Have some soup. Feeling a little sick and not sure what your stomach can handle? Have some soup. Have next to no money but need to fill your stomach? Have some soup. I have tried quite a lot of soup, some has been really enjoyable and some have not. I recently tried apple and herb celeriac soup, what does that look like you ask? Imagine if an apple could poop, that's the start of it and they pour hot wallpaper paste over it. It doesn't look great, but as my dad always said to us growing up 'don't turn your nose up until you have tried it'. So, I tried it. Since then I have done my best to put that horrible experience behind. Playing Sonic Forces I found myself asking was this my apple and herb celeriac soup or did I need to try it before turning my nose up?
Story The nefarious Dr. Robotnik has a new scheme cooked up. Okay, yeah I know technically he was and always has been called Dr. Eggman, it is the West who created the name Dr. Robotnik but it what I grew up with. He has created Infinite a being who can change reality, which to be fair is pretty nifty ability. Defeating Infinite and Dr. Robotnik will be tough but don't worry he will have plenty of friends including the original Sonic (the real Sonic in my eyes). There is also a new character which you can create, the story focuses a lot around them, yay.
The story is a pretty cool idea but never quite manages to reach its full potential. The addition of a new character feels unneeded especially as there are already some fairly meh ones in the Sonic Universe without adding another. The game likes to subtly jackhammer home points like 'we can do anything if we just work together' and 'you can't defeat because you are evil and don't have any friends'. Of course, my favorite line is said by Tails at the end of the game where he says 'true dat'. True Dat? True Dat!? What?! Did they want to make him sound like a dad trying to sound cool? Well done you did it.
Overall the story could be worse but it could also have been better. TRUE! DAT!
Visuals Onto the visuals. They were pretty good, using some classic looking levels Sonic fans will be familiar with like Green Hill and Chemical Plant Zone. There are new zones like the Mystic Jungle and the Eggman Empire Fortress, which are quite colorful. Sonic has always been good at keeping the levels colorful even when you are somewhere dark like an evil fortress where almost everything can kill you.
Overall the visuals are probably one of the stronger elements of the game and managed to keep me entertained during my time playing.
Music The soundtrack is upbeat, a little too much so and feel like listening to One Direction or another boyband from the West. This is surprising as Japanese composer Tomoya Ohtani composed it and has done so for many over the Sonic games for over ten years including; Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes and Sonic Generations to name but a few. The soundtrack is over three hours longs which for a game this short feels overly long. I wasn't a huge fan of the soundtrack and perhaps that because the aim was to attract newer younger fans rather than long-standing Sonic fans. Even if that was the goal it still felt a little too upbeat, imagine a hyperactive child bouncing off the walls - it is fun for a few minutes but gets old fast.
Gameplay The gameplay is a mixed bag. The newer version of Sonic has a lock-on attack as we have got used to over the last few games. The original Sonic focuses on his dash attack ability used in the classic games. I bet you want to play as all the cool characters from the series, no? You want to create your own avatar which is nowhere near as cool? The game focuses a lot on your homemade character, initially, I was like okay this might be okay but really that's not who I want to spend my time using.
Customization has become massive in games over the last number of years. I don't understand it for the most part. There is so much focus on it that it waters down the overall content. If you have a car in a game it makes sense to customize it but having accessories for your characters that provide no benefit seems pointless. Sonic Forces focuses a lot on this and I was not a fan of it.
We have all got used to ranking systems in games, normally you go from D or E ranking all the way to S ranking. It makes sense and helps you focus on getting better. If I died nine times on a level you would think, damn you are getting an E ranking for sure, no I got an S ranking. The most basic of systems is broken this badly, how, why? This was not my first experience of this happening.
Remember collecting rings, hitting one hundred and getting an extra life? I do, Sonic Forces does not. Once you hit one hundred rings they are no longer counted, there are no lives, there are no continues. There is no sense of achievement in completing levels at all. The boss on occasion over a mild challenge but nothing crazy.
Overall the gameplay can be fun but Team Sonic seemed to have forgotten what made Sonic so great. They have added in new things that don't work or are unneeded and overall ruined the experience. The gameplay panders to the Fortnite generation where more time is spent on what you are wearing than the actual gameplay itself.
Final Thoughts So, after six hours how did I feel? Hollow, and like a small part of me died. The story was so so, the visuals were pretty good, the music was...next, and the gameplay just wasn't that fun. Perhaps in another dimension, I like the game but not in this one. Overall this gets an underwhelming 2 out of 5
I'm a Sonic fan, which can be tough sometimes when poor quality games keep being released. But, I like to keep faith that they won't all be bad. I liked Sonic Generations, Sonic Mania was pretty decent and I have quite enjoyed Sumo Digital's racing series. Recently they released Team Sonic Racing, and I was excited to try it.
Hot chicken baguettes are huge in Ireland, but nowhere is the love bigger than here in Cork. It's not hard to get a hot chicken baguette but the quality can vary massively from place to place. Sometimes the chicken can be dry, the cheese not fresh, the roll might be close to being stale, but when the ingredients are right, it's perfect. Playing Team Sonic Racing I found myself asking was this the perfect hot chicken baguette?
Story
Story? I know what you are thinking, it's a racing game is there really need for a story? The answer is no, no there is not. Sonic and some of his associates are sent an invitation from an alien being called Dodon Pa to compete in a series of races. Rather than ignore it they blindly go to meet Dodon Pa, and even though they don't trust him they decide to compete in his races because...reasons. The dialogue and voice acting is terrifyingly bad.
Overall the story is poor and unneeded and I have nothing positive to say.
Visuals
Swiftly moving on from the story let's take a look at the visuals. Similar to Sonic All-Star Racing, and Sonic Transformed the level designs are vibrant and fun. The only issue as such is that in some levels it can be difficult to work out where the track starts and ends, especially in the lava levels.
Overall Sumo Digital does a great job of the visuals, with very minor issues.
Music
The soundtrack is an upbeat rock soundtrack, it's fun and has a 'we can do anything if we can work together' feel. The soundtrack is created by Japanese video game composer Jun Senoue who is the lead guitarist and songwriter of Crush 40. His previous works include; Sonic Heros, Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic Hedgehog 3, Daytona 3, Burning Rangers, and Sonic Adventure 2 to name but a few.
It's a meaty soundtrack that runs at well over three hours. There are many great tracks which all help in creating a fun feeling when playing.
Gameplay
Onto the hot chicken. The gameplay focuses on working as a team of three to help win races. This can be done by sharing powers ups, following the trails left behind by the leader of your team and slingshotting around them. If you do this throughout the race you can pull off an ultimate attack which helps propel your team into, or close to, the lead.
Finishing races and challenges provide credits that can then be used to purchase upgrades for cars. Some are purely cosmetic and others will help give you the edge in races.
There is an adventure mode, which has a lot to be desired. The out and out and races are a lot of fun and even the destruction missions are fun, but the others got old quick for me. I think the real issue for me is that they rehash the levels a lot. I think it would have been great if they had included some of the levels from the previous games similar to Mario Kart.
Overall, if you ignore some of the elements of the adventure mode it's pretty solid but somehow doesn't quite offer the same fun as the previous the games in the series.
Final Thoughts
So, after twelve hours how did I feel? Ummm, well...not bad. The story was woeful, the visuals are pretty good, the soundtrack is upbeat and fun. The gameplay is pretty good and while it would have been nice if they didn't reuse the tracks as much the team element is a lot of fun. Overall this one gets a lukewarm 3 out of 5
Despite not using my Nintendo 3DS very much, I do really like it, I just have difficulties finding games I really want to play on it. Well over a year ago I saw Project X Zone 2: Brave New World in GameStop, I checked out the back of the box, liked the style, and the idea of playing a game with a multitude of characters from different game series. I went home checked out a little more about it, and then finally decided to buy it. It has taken me a long time to finish the game, but I finally got there, so here's my review of Project X Zone 2: Brave New World.
Who loves peanut butter?! I really love it, it's tasty and works well in chocolate, biscuits, cakes, doughnuts, and sandwiches. One of my favorite ways to enjoy it is between two slices of bread, sometime I might even toast the bread depending on my mood. Throw in a large mug of milk, and I feel like happy little kid again. Admittedly it's rather simple, but it is great comfort food. Playing Project X Zone 2: Brave New World I found myself asking was this a simple tasty sandwich with milk or was it just simple?
Story
The game takes characters from Capcom, Sega, and Bandai and has them working together to help stop the destructions of their worlds. The mission is simple, stop the bad guys summoning an ultimate evil. There are characters from: Resident Evil, Megaman, Strider, Darkstalkers, Virtua Fighter, Resonance of Fate, Streets of Rage, God Eater 2, Tekken, Soul Caliber V, and .hack// to name just a few. The characters are mostly arranged into teams of two, my favorites were Xiaomu/Reiji, Phoenix Wright/Maya, Kiru/Majima, Dante/Vergil, and Sheath/Saya.
The story, while good feels a little more complicated at times than it needs to be, but for the most part, this wasn't really an issue for me as there was so much great dialogue between the characters. There are jokes about other games, nods to the player, plenty of sexual innuendos, and just generally funny conversations. The only thing that initially threw me off were some of the in-jokes, that you would only fully appreciate if you had played all the games the characters were from, but as time went on it just made me want to go out and play those games. Overall though, a good story, with lots of fun dialogue.
Visuals
Handheld games sometimes suffer from poor visuals, this is certainly not the case with Project X Zone 2: Brave New World. When you are organising your characters on the field of battle they are in a chibi/8-bit style which looks really good, the designers picked a style that suited the 3DS perfectly. The conversations between characters are displayed well and gave a really dynamic feel, unlike some games that can feel quite static during dialogue sequences. The animation sequences when pulling off a special attack look fantastic, and I never grew tired of seeing them. One of the coolest things for me was the Dragonturtle MK 1, a mobile base that contains absolutely everything, including a games room!
Overall I can't fault the visuals in the game, for me I really like when game designers push a console to its limits, but without overstepping and creating a visual mess. I kept this section rather short, not due to laziness but more because one of the best parts of the game is the visuals themselves and didn't want to spoil anything.
Music
Being honest I don't think I have ever listened to a single video game soundtrack that contained such a colossal number of composers, arrangers, performers, and lyricists. To have such a talented number of artists working on one game is amazing, and while sometimes 'too many cooks spoil the broth' this certainly not one of those times. To me, music is just as important a part of a game as the story, visuals and the gameplay itself, if you don't feel the same way you may want to skip this section. Below is a list of all the people who helped create the soundtrack:
Chikayo Fukuda, a Japanese composer, lyricist, and arranger, her works include: .hack// and, Naruto TV Series, along with the video games Asura's Wrath and LieN.
Yuki Kajiru, a Japanese composer, she is also part of a duo with Chiaki Ishikawa called See-Saw, and another with Yuuka Nanri called FictionJunction. She has worked on a number of anime series including: Kubikiri Cycle, Sword Art Online, Reservoir Chronicle: Tsubasa and Noir.
Yoko Shimomura, a Japanese composer, lyricist, arranger, and performer, her works include: Street Fighter 2, Kingdom Hearts, and Xenoblade.
Masami Ueda, a Japanese composer, and arranger, he has worked on a number of video game series including: Biohazard Series, Devil May Cry Series, and Bayonetta 2.
Thomas Parisch, a German composer, and arranger, his works include: Resident Evil 6 Biohazard
and the anime series Prison School.
Laurent Zilani, a French composer, and arranger who worked on Resident Evil 6 Biohazard.
Kinuyo Yamashita, a Japanese composer, and arranger, who has featured on Video Games Live along with having worked on Castlevania 20th Anniversary Music Collection and Megaman X3.
Maskazu Sugimori, a Japanese composer, and arranger who has worked on a number of awesome video game titles including Ghost Trick, Vanquish, and the Gyakuten Saiban series (Phoneix Wright Ace Attorney).
Kohei Tanaka, a Japanese composer, arranger, and performer who has worked a number of anime series, and games including Sakura Wars, One Piece Music & Song Collection, Hayate The Combat Butler, Sega Saturn History: Saturn Was Young, and Gravity Rush 2.
Hidenori Shoji, a Japanese composer, arranger, lyricist, and performer whose works includes Yakuza 3, Code of the Joker and Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed.
Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Japanese composer, arranger, performer, lyricist and programmer who has worked on a number of video game titles including Outrun, Virtua Fighter 1, 2, Virtua Fighter Kids,
Burning Rangers, and Shenmue.
Yuzo Koshiro, a Japanese composer, arranger, lyricist and performer who has worked on both video games and anime including Bare Knuckle (Streets of Rage), Perfect Collection Ys Heaven's Sanctuary, 7th Dragon, and Misty Blue.
Rio Hamamoto, a Japanese composer, arranger, and performer who has worked on a number of video game titles including Soulcalibur 2, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, Tekken 7 and Ace Combat Assault Horizon.
Akhiro Namba, a Japanese composer, performer, and lyricist who worked on the God Eater Series.
Hiroyuki Kawada, a Japanese composer, and arranger whose works include Tekken 3, The Legend Of Valkyrie, and Beep Special Project.
Takuya Hanaoka, a Japanese composer and arranger who worked on the first Project X Zone, along with Shining Force Resurrection of The Dark Dragon, and Super Robot Wars.
The soundtrack contains eighty-six tracks and over fours hours of music. It is really good, I wanted to buy a physical copy of the soundtrack, but I had to settle for a digital download. There are so many great tracks, my favorites include:
Brave New World
Objection! 2001
You Will Know Our Names
Funk Goes On
Pressing Pursuit
Stair Of Time
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Opening
Burning
Volcanic Rim Stage - Oceania
Theme Of Ryu
Gentle Hands
Ride On Sea
Feast of the Damned
New World Project
Evil Profusion
Faster Than A Howling Wind
Accelerating Chaos
Ship Battle
Sega Saturn - Shiro
Vengeful Beauty
Angels With Burning Hearts
Engage The Enemy
Gameplay
Onto the peanut butter that makes up this sandwich! The game is best described as tactical, turn-based, roleplaying game. The game is not timed so you have all the time you need to plan before attacking. Once you make your move you will go into a classic fighting game view which has you pulling off simple combos to do the most damage to an enemy. In most cases you will have two characters working together on screen to defeat one enemy, it might sound unbalanced but it actually works perfectly especially considering the health bar of some enemies. If you are in close proximity to other characters you can call on them for help which can use to carry out powerful cross attacks. Once your XP bar builds up high enough you can pull over powerful attacks that will kill a lot of enemies, and in other cases severely damage them. Then onto the enemies turn, this times things play out a little different, when an enemy tries to attack you can defend, full defend or counter them. Of course, this is only possible if you have enough XP, and even if you do some enemies are able to ignore this. This, for the most part, is how the game plays out, with the exception of a fewer protect your territory missions.
At the end of each mission, you can spend some time shopping for weapons, equipment, and items, arranging your teams, and leveling up your characters. This is a big part of the game, as you can decide which moves to level up, in the early stages I put a lot of focus on improving the character basic attacks, and later focussed on their special attacks. Overall I found the system simple, and fun to use.
The game itself also has another element, skills. These can be used before moving a character, some of them allow you to move more spaces, enhance the attack, and defense of characters, along with a multitude of others. The strange thing is with the exception of the last few missions I didn't need to use them. I only died half a dozen times in the game, so overall I felt they were kind of unnecessary.
Most missions went okay with the exception of the last one, it took me a few tries to complete, and in the end, it took me over three hours to finish.
Overall some really good, fun gameplay with little to complain about.
Final Thoughts
So after over fifty hours how did I feel? A mixture of happy, and sad. Happy because after a long time of playing I finally finished it, but sad because I finished it. The story might be overly complicated at times, but the visuals were great, and I really like the gameplay. I am sad it's over but I had a great time with it, and might even play it again in the future. This one gets a solid 4 out of 5
As you can see below I have a new addition to my review, it's a happy monkey, created by my better half - thanks, Nolls. If I liked a game you will see him, if I the game was meh or didn't like a game you will see one of his friends.
Many moons ago, when I was just a child, I watched Disney's Aladdin. I remember being blown away, I loved everything about it, even the singing which generally I am not a fan of with Disney movies. I remember playing the game on the Megadrive, which at the time I found fiddley, especially the level where you are riding the flying carpet. Only in the last few months had I mentioned playing it when I was younger, my lovely better half Nolls purchased it for me as a Christmas present. Yay! I couldn't wait to play it again.
Marshmallows are quite nice, they are soft, fluffy, sweet and remind me of being a child. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours. While I like the classic pink and white ones my favorites are probably the multi-coloured ones. They don't contain artificial colours, flavors and have zero sugar. Okay, that last sentence was a complete lie. The only downside is that you can't eat too many of them and you will feel really sick. Playing Aladdin I found myself asking had I eaten the perfect amount or did I have one too many?
Story
He is known by many names, Prince Ali, Street Rat, but his friends call him Aladdin or Al. A story about a boy living on the streets with his pet monkey Abu, trying to survive. The story used in the game is a little more straightforward than the movie. The first couple of levels you get to see Aladdin trying to escape the guards and survive before he is eventually thrown in the palace dungeon. There he meets an old who offers him a way out, as long as he will do him a small favor first. If some reason you missed one of the best Disney movies of all time I won't say anymore by spoiling the story.
The story is fun and there are moments of comedy in the game, but it is far cry from the movie. That being said I did enjoy the story that unfolded in the game. I really want to watch the movie now though, might watch it on my birthday (celebrate good times, come on).
Visuals
The game looks remarkable especially for one that is nearly twenty-five years old. There were two versions of the game produced, one on the SNES and the other on the Megadrive, the latter is considered the better of the two. This was due to Disney themselves playing an active role in the games design process after the original studio (Blue Sky Software) had failed to produce a complete product. Virgin Interactive helped to bring the game to life along with Sega.
One of my favorite animations in the game is when you hit Iago the parrot, his feathers fall out and he drops off the screen, it just looks really comical. In the desert level, Abu can be seen jumping excitedly up and down on the stomach of a guard who looks dazed. When Aladdin attacks the guards they drop their trousers and you can see their boxer shorts, another classic. The most imaginative level was when you are in the lamp, it is a lot of fun and very colourful. The only negative is the escape level which features a lot of yellows and reds, sometimes it can be difficult to tell where one ledge ends and another begins, leading to more than a few deaths.
Music
When I popped in the cartridge and powered on the Megadrive I smiled instantly, the first thing I heard was the opening of 'Whole New World' - which is a great song. The soundtrack for the game has some of the classic songs from the movie but are slightly reimagined, due to the sound restrictions of the Megadrive. The creators/reworkers of the score were:
Tommy Tallarico, American composer, musician, creator of Video Games Live, who has worked on over three hundred video games. Some of his works include; Earthworm Jim 1 and 2, Terminator, Unreal Tournament 2004, Robocop Vs The Terminator, Advent Rising, Mick and Mac as the Global Gladiators.
Donald Griffin, American Composer who works include; Mario's Time Machine, Rampage 2: Universal Tour, Jungle Book, and Cool Spot,
The soundtrack was great and I often found myself humming along to the songs, my favorite pieces included; 'Prince Ali' (Prince Ali! Fabulous he! Ali Ababwa!), 'Camel Jazz', 'One Jump Ahead', 'Rug Ride', 'Friend Like Me', and 'Whole New World'.
Gameplay
Aladdin may be short by comparison of today's games but it's certainly not lacking in gameplay. There are two weapons in the game, a trusty sword, and apples, it turns out apples not only keep Doctors aways but also guards, parrots and weird spirits. The combat generally works fine but I certainly found myself relying on apples over the sword as they were far more reliable and offered a good distance attack. The game has you jumping around quite a lot, as any old-school platformer does, unfortunately, Aladdin's jump is a little poor and certainly is nowhere near as impressive as his movie counterpart. The merchant featured in the film is hidden on different levels throughout the game, if you collect enough jewels you can buy more lives or continues, which can be really handy later on.
Two of the most memorable levels for me were 'Inside the Lamp' and 'The Escape'. The lamp level was fun and imaginative, it features Genies' body which is used to traverse the level, his head is on balloons that float around and his hands flick you to different areas. At the end of the level, you walk upstairs that is tongue, gross but still funny. The escape is memorable for a very different reason. It is by far the most annoying level, not only are there no checkpoints but it is often hard to tell where one ledge ends and lava begins. This resulted in me dying multiple times, and that's before you start jumping from one floating rock to another with exploding lava between them.
The final boss is Jafar, who is a pain in the ass. His first form isn't too bad but I did have to hit him a helluva of a lot before he changed into a snake. This form is really frustrating as he shoots flames across the floor and on the two small ledges. The ledge attack is the worst as it does not follow a pattern, stand on it for more than second and he will cook you like a chicken (mmmm chicken).
There is a lot of fun to be had, but the game is not without annoying parts, all in all though, I really enjoyed playing it again.
Final Thoughts
So after playing for fours hours was I feeling sick or nicely satisfied? Definitely the latter. The story is great, it looks good and music is fantastic. The gameplay is not always rock solid and could be annoying at times but certainly did not stop me playing it. For this old classic, I give it 4 out of 5
Let me start by saying I love Video Games! To date I have played well in excess of 600 Video Games which have come in all shapes & sizes. Growing up I was lucky enough to have a cool Dad who owned Pong (also known as Home Pong).
While Pong was by no means the first video game ever made it was arguably the first one to become a household name. It also brought to attention to a yet unexplored territory that we know today as the Games industry.
The first console my parents bought me was the Sega Master System 2. It came with Alex the Kidd in Miracle World built into it. Alex had a powerful fist he used to do everything from killing enemies, breaking blocks & of course playing jan-ken-pon (rock, paper, scissors). The idea was simple battle through a number of levels & save your long lost brother Prince Egle. Who is being held by the evil Janken the Great who has taken over the peaceful lands of Radaxian. A brilliant & challenging game! Unlike a lot of kids my first introduction to Sonic the Hedgehog was on the Master System not the Mega Drive. The game felt very different to the Mega Drive version & in some ways tougher (although to be fair it is a long time since I played it so in retrospect maybe it was just as tough). Sonic was & is still a brilliant character; if you ignore some of the bad games & some of his not so cool friends - Vector the Crocodile? When you are trying that hard it's not cool yo! I am just going to through out a few titles I really enjoyed before moving on; Double Dragon (played this alot with my Dad),Operation Wolf, Asterix, Bubble Bobble, Ghostbusters, Action Fighter & of course Paperboy!
Next up the Sega Mega Drive - 2! I love this console, so many great games, so many hours spent burning my eyes out my head staring at the screen! Where to begin.......I guess Streets of Rage! You get to pick from three awesome characters; Axel, Blaze & Adam - all with there own set of skills. The city has been taken over by Mr X & his Syndicate. Unwilling to bend over & take it any more these ex-police officers take to the streets & clean up the city. Of course it going to be tough as the city is littered with random building supplies, there are payphones which literally fall apart with the smallest touch & empty barrels of oil containing gold & collectible figures inside them - which strangely look like our hero's. To make things worse there are apples & turkeys left out everywhere which as we all know causes ants! Some of the local entertainers have lost their shit! We have guys who are supposed to just juggle but now they throw axes & fire. We have Dominatrix's roaming the streets whipping you any time they see you (there is a time & a place for this) & these punks who slide tackle you like your a damn ball! If you play only one game on this console then it has to be Streets of Rage I love the whole series & if you get the chance to play the Japanese version (Bare Knuckle) I highly recommend it. Outside of that there are gems like; Sonic & Knuckles which was awesome for many reasons. One of the best reasons is that it had a slot in the top of the cartridge which allowed space for another Sonic Game to be added to it. This then would completely change the game (check it out below).
Another great game was Micro Machines 2: Tournament Edition. You have 4 friends that want to play & you don't have the 4 player adapter - what will you do? No need to worry Codemasters made it a J-Cart giving you two additional ports on the game itself. A fun game, brilliant tracks, crazy characters & it even came with Game Invites to give to your friends & Certificates for the Winners.
I want to mention some other games that were just awesome as well before moving on: Stryder, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Mortal Kombat 3, ESwat, Desert Strike, Street Fighter 2, Bubba N' Stix, Earthworm Jim, Aladdin, Tiny Toons Adventure: Busters Hidden Treasure. A big shout out to Andrea Agassi Tennis- why? I am not a tennis fan - hell I am not a sports fan at all but this game is what got me & my dad playing Video Games together & I am thankful for it.
