mini game corner

Mini Game Corner [X-Men Day]: X-Men (PlayStation 3)

Dr. K4 Comments

To commemorate, the culmination of their long-running and successful X-Men movies, 20th Century Fox declared May 13th as “X-Men Day”, a day to celebrate all things Mutant and X-Men and celebrate Marvel’s iconic collection of superpowered beings who fight to protect a world that hates and fears them.

Released: 14 December 2010
Originally Released: 31 January 1992
Developer: Backbone Entertainment
Original Developer: Konami
Also Available For: Arcade, Mobile, and Xbox 360

A Brief Background:
After Stan Lee and long-time collaborator Jack Kirby introduced the X-Men in 1963, Mutants have featured prominently not only in Marvel Comics but also in videogames. The first X-Men videogame was essentially a vertical shooter on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but the characters saw their greatest early success in arcade ventures and team-based brawlers. Indeed, in 1992, the arcade scene was still a popular staple of the industry and beat-‘em-ups were at the forefront of that; the biggest names in this genre were Capcom and Konami, who pumped out licensed and first-party titles and defined a generation. X-Men was one of Konami’s most celebrated efforts; based on the vastly different pilot episode of the incredibly popular X-Men animated series (1992 to 1997), X-Men’s widespread acclaim was matched only by its scarcity. The title never made it to home consoles and it would take about twenty years for it to finally be ported from the arcades. This digital-only version was praised for its nostalgia, though criticised for being far too easy, and was sadly delisted from digital store fronts in 2013 due to licensing issues and hasn’t been seen since.

The Plot:
Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto leads an all-out war against humanity with an army of Sentinels and his human-hating loyalists, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, even kidnapping his old friend and rival, Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X, and the X-Man Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat. It’s up to the X-Men to use their unique Mutant powers to topple Magneto’s forces, rescue their allies, and put an end to his mad schemes!

The Review:
X-Men is one of the quintessential arcade beat-‘em-ups from the heyday of the era, allowing up to six players to battle it out across eight stages beating the crap out of an unending series of robotic or animalistic enemies and vying to be top of the leaderboards. The controls are as simple as you could want from a game like this: you use Circle or Square to attack, landing a series of combos with each button press and attacks that are unique to each character, jump with X, and perform a jumping attack by pressing Circle or Square in mid-air. When enemies are on the ground, you can press Circle or Square to pound on them or press Square when close to most enemies to throw them across the screen or into other enemies for good crowd control. Unfortunately, there’s no dash attack here and few other attack options available beyond pressing Triangle to unleash your character’s Mutant power, which will drain a bit of your health or cost you a “Mutant Orb”. These attacks are unique to each character and will wipe out all enemies on screen, but have some limitations; James “Logan” Howlett/Wolverine and Scott Summers/Cyclops’s Mutant powers are great for clearing what’s right in front of you but you’ll want to pick Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler of Piotr “Peter” Rasputin/Colossus if you want to target enemies all around you. Unlike other beat-‘em-ups, there are no weapons to get, no crates or barrels to smash, and no interactive objects to aid you (there are no explosive barrels here, for example); hell, there aren’t even any health pickups to find. Supposedly, the Japanese version of the game does have them, and other pick-ups that are dropped by defeated enemies, and I didn’t see one when I did a quick check after my first playthrough.

Plough through endless robotic enemies using the X-Men’s uncanny Mutant powers!

Indeed, despite its much-deserved reputation as one of the greatest arcade games of all time, there’s not much that makes X-Men particularly innovative. Its appeal comes down to the enjoyable mindlessness of its action, the colourful visuals, and the atrociously entertaining voice acting. The goal here is little more than to travel from the left side of the screen to the right, ploughing through disposable enemies until you reach the boss of each level. You’ll need to watch out for hidden turrets, cliff drops and lava pits, and a bunch of palette-swapped Sentinels who throw rocks, detach their hands, or fire projectiles. They’re joined by bulkier robots armed with cannons who fire missiles, low fireballs, or high laser shots, lizard men who attack with their tails or breathe fire, and even anthropomorphic mud and plant monsters and robotic arms, though these enemies are constantly recycled and become quite samey quite quickly, even when they’re riding in on trucks or these weird gun-toting cyborgs on treadmills. The environments are a bit hit and miss, too; the opening city is suitably wrecked, there’s a thunderstorm raging in the background of the cave stage, you’ll see the Giant Sentinel, X-Jet, and the captured Professor X and Kitty in other stages, but few levels were as visually interesting as the wild jungles of Island M and lava-filled dangers found in “The Trap”. You’ll be transported up and down lifts, as is expected in a beat-‘em-up, but won’t really be battling a host of enemies in these sections; there is one part where you’re confronted by a missile-spewing wall, but you don’t actually have to destroy it, and the only character with anything close to an idle animation is Wolverine, who sheathes and unsheathes his claws when left standing (but don’t linger too long or the game will punish you with an explosive death!)

Magneto’s monstrous Mutant minions are itching to welcome you to die!

Yet, the character and enemy sprites are big, colourful, and evoke both the comic books and the pilot of the animated series. The story, paper-thin as it is, is related through large, partially animated cartoon-esque sprite art and in-game graphics, with Raven Darkhölme/Mystique’s deceptive tricks and the Brotherhood’s explosive, boastful entrances being as notable a highlight as Professor X’s many words of wisdom. Of course, one reason X-Men is so fondly remembered is the awful dialogue, lovingly recreated here so as not to rob us of such meme-worthy statement as “X-Men! Welcome to die!”, “Magneto is in another place”, and “You’re dead, X-Chicken!” In terms of bosses, X-Men doesn’t offer much in the way of challenge or strategy and you can generally get by with a simple technique of jumping in for an attack, landing a quick combo, and jumping out of harm’s way, maybe landing a special attack if you have a spare orb or enough health. This is established from the first encounter with St. John Allerdyce/Pyro and is largely true of all bosses: they’ll burst into the scene, taunt you (leaving themselves vulnerable to an early attack), and use their various powers to whittle down your health. While Pyro is quite nimble and spams screeching flame projectiles and roasts you with a flame burst, Fred Dukes/The Blob is much slower, plodding about and landing big punches or swings with his spiked mace, causing the screen to shake when you knock him down for a few seconds, and tanking your hits. A version of the Wendigo is also fought, with it pouncing at you and performing a head grab/throw combo shared by subsequent bosses, such as Nimrod, another large, clunky, slow boss who’d rather waste time taunting you than attacking in an interesting way. Cain Marko/The Juggernaut is similarly large and cumbersome but makes up for it with a screen-crossing charge and a huge cannon that fires a large blast across the screen. There are also a couple of mini bosses to contend with, such as the mental bolt-throwing Emma Frost/White Queen, a battle against three Egyptian statues, several Pyro clones, and additional encounters with all previous bosses when battling through Asteroid M. You’ll fight Magneto twice; the first time, it’s Mystique in disguise and he/she’s limited to punches and kicks but defeating her sees you battle the true Magneto. This is the toughest fight yet thanks to his impenetrable shield, but his attacks are still limited to slightly faster and very powerful punches and kicks. He also likes to mock you, though, so you can get in a good combo in those moments, and you’ll be immediately trust into another playthrough after the ending and credits roll when playing the American version of the game.

Colourful visuals and fun bosses were offset by some repetitive backgrounds and enemies.

Yes, this version of X-Men allowed you to pick between the American and Japanese versions; the main difference between the two was that you get a free, non-health-sapping Mutant Orb after every boss in the American version, but you start each new life with one in the Japanese version, and there’s apparently more to pick up from defeated enemies in that version, too. X-Men also allowed for local and, at one time, online multiplayer, allowing up to six players to fight together like in the arcade days of old. You can head into the “Options” menu and turn smoothing on or off, set whether you want a wallpaper to fill in the gaps around the action, show or hide the in-game timer used for speed runs and such, change the screen size, and change where the player’s health and lives and score are displayed. Every time you clear a stage, it’s unlocked to select for next time, allowing you to pick up where you left off or freely jump to any level. While you strangely can’t change characters when you die (or, at least, I wasn’t able to; there was no way when the continue countdown appeared and the option was greyed out on the pause menu), you do get unlimited credits and you can test your skills on three difficulty stings: Normal, Hard, and Hardcore, with even more enemies swarming the screen on the harder settings. X-Men had twelve Trophies for players to earn, with Trophies popping when you used a Mutant power five times, earned at last 250 points in one game, completed it on Expert difficulty, and defeated Pyro without using your Mutant powers. Tougher challenges included beating Magneto with every playable character, finishing the game in 25 minutes or less, and being fooled by Mystique in a six-player game (which I achieved by mapping all six characters to one controller). Otherwise, that’s it; there are no skins, no new characters to unlock, and no additional game modes here; just the classic arcade machine in all its punchy, ridiculous, and colourful glory.

The Summary:
It’s such a shame that X-Men got delisted and hasn’t been made widely available for download since 2013; almost as much of a shame that it never came to home consoles back in the day and we were stuck with all those mediocre X-Men platformers. It’s a really fun game that ends just as things are about to become too repetitive and mindless, with a surprising amount of variety to each character despite the lack of pickups and power-ups. Each character plays a little differently (Nightcrawler is fast and has lots of elaborate attack animations while Colossus is much slower and bulkier, for example) and has some fairly good special attacks, though the lack of team-based moves and temporary power-ups is a bit of a shame. Similarly, the environments are quite bland and uninspired, especially compared to other beat-‘em-ups and even the colourful sprites on offer here. Considering the vast library of X-Men characters and enemies, there’s very little enemy variety (potentially because it’s more appropriate to have players smash up robots than people) and, while the bosses make up for this, there’s not much strategy to defeating them. I liked that there was a lot of voice samples used here, and in the engaging tunes, and the quality of the cutscenes was very much like a cartoon, which was very fitting considering the source material. Although X-Men doesn’t offer anything new to the genre and is, in many ways, inferior to other titles that don’t have the luxury of such a big licensing name being attached to them, it’s a short burst of entertaining fun that’s best enjoyed with a couple of friends. I’m really hoping Konami work out some kind of deal to make this accessible to new players sometime soon so I can revisit it again, maybe as a collection of titles or something, and add in some additional materials like concept art, the option for HD graphics, and maybe a couple of extra characters and game modes. If you missed out on playing this version of the game, which is nevertheless the definitive version, there’s always the Arcade1Up cabinet or…you know…emulation, the latter of which I’d highly recommend as this is a great game that should be more easily available to play despite its lack of core features.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Were you lucky enough to play X-Men when it came to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360? Have you ever played it out in the wild? Which character was your favourite and were you surprised by Magneto’s polite welcome to die? Do you agree that the levels and features were a bit sparse, or do you think there was just enough here to compensate? Would you like to see X-Men more widely accessible for modern gamers? What’s the worst (or best) videogame tie-in you’ve ever played? Which X-Men videogame is your favourite and how are you celebrating X-Men Day today? Whatever you think about X-Men, and arcade games in general, feel free to share your thoughts below or leave a comment on my social media.

Mini Game Corner [May the Sith]: Star Wars: Dark Forces (PlayStation)

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While May 4th is known the world over as Star Wars Day, many also choose to extend the celebrations of the course of three days, with one of them being the “Evil Star Wars Day” of May 6th (as in “Sith”).

Released: 28 February 1995
Developer: LucasArts
Also Available For: Macintosh and MS-DOS

A Brief Background:
First-person shooters (FPS) existed before Doom (id Software, 1993) but, thanks to its incredible success and accessibility, it not only defined the genre but also inspired a wave of FPS titles on PC and home consoles. LucasArts got the Star Wars franchise in on the action after seeing a fan mod of Doom that recreated the interior of the Death Star. Originally planned to feature Luke Skywalker as the main character, the developers created a new character, Kyle Katarn, who went on to become a firm fan favourite. Star Wars: Dark Forces expanded upon Doom with new control options and mechanics, and a specially-created game engine allowed for fully 3D objects and atmospheric effects, such as fog and animated textures helped to make the game unique. Star Wars: Dark Forces was well received upon release and has become popular among the fan modding community; the fidelity to the franchise was highly praised, as was the challenge offered by the title, though some criticised the presentation and for being derivative of Doom. Still, strong sales saw the release of a critically-acclaimed sequel two years later, one that introduced Jedi mechanics and kick-started a popular sub-franchise that many have called to be officially canonised.

The Review:
I’m giving Star Wars: Dark Forces a shorter review not necessarily because there isn’t much to say about the game, or because of its length, but primarily because my playthrough ran into a few roadblocks that even the super useful cheat menu couldn’t help me with. Even if this wasn’t the case, I would’ve still blasted through it with a series of cheats enabled (including invincibility and all weapons), so I feel it’s better to just give an overview of this Doom clone, a game I’ve long coveted due to its obscurity in the vast tapestry of Star Wars videogames. Anyone who’s played Doom will find the control scheme very familiar, but there are a few differences here: by default, you can swim and Triangle lets you jump, for example, and you can run by holding R1, two elements you’ll need to incorporate in later levels (referred to as “Missions”) to clear gaps. Square fires your primary shot, Circle cycles through your available weapons, and X allows you to activate switches and open doors and such. The PlayStation’s analogue sticks are useless here; it’s all about the directional pad and tank-like controls. Still, while there’s no aiming reticule, there’s a mild auto aim system and you can look up or down by holding L1 and strafe by holding R2, allowing a slightly greater range of movement when in a firefight. L2 acts as a toggle; if you hold this down and press Triangle, you’ll crouch to pass through smaller gaps, pressing Square fires your weapon’s secondary shot (usually a cluster shot or proximity function or emptying an entire clip), and pressing Circle cycle backwards through your inventory.

Kyle has an impressive array of weapons and options to help him achieve his objectives.

You play as mercenary and Han Solo proxy Kyle Katarn and are tasked with completing fourteen Missions, each with certain objectives that need to be accomplished (with many of these being repeated across the game, such as finding something or placing explosive charges) before you’re generally forced to backtrack to the start to exit on your ship (or, more accurately manually from the pause menu when prompted). Kyle has a decent array of weaponry available to him throughout the game, including a slow-firing pistol, an inaccurate Stormtrooper blaster, thermal detonators and a grenade launcher, and an assault cannon. If you run out of ammo, you can always default to your fists, but ammo seems pretty plentiful, though some weapons are quite large and obscure your vision and also have less ammo than others due to their power. You can occasionally blow open walls, crates, and explosive barrels to take out enemies and access secret areas, either to find shortcuts or caches of useful items, such as ammo, pick-ups to replenish your health and/or shield, or extra lives, brief invincibility, and temporary power-ups to your weapons. By pressing ‘Select’, you can activate a number of useful items, such as a small wireframe map that’s placed right in your field of vision, or activate a gas mask, night vision, or a headlight if you have enough battery power. You can also access Kyle’s PDA from here, which provides a larger map (when you find the appropriate item to enable this, though, it’s very confusing to look at), an overview of your inventory and objectives, and options to abort or restart the mission. Before you start the game, you can pick from three difficulty settings (“Easy”, “Medium”, or “Hard”) and you’ll need to find coloured keys to open certain doors and complete objectives such as locating clues or certain items (like the Death Star plans), placing explosive charges, and escaping your current location.

While the visuals can be repetitive, some locations and cutscenes do stand out.

One reason I struggled with Star Wars: Dark Forces, even with the cheats enabled, was that it sadly borrows the worst aspect of Doom: large, nearly identical, labyrinthine environments. While some locations faithfully recreate the aesthetic of locations like the Tantive IV or feature little details like those chirping Death Star droids, Imperial symbols, wireframe holograms, and the visuals of the Original Trilogy are recreated as faithfully as this generation of gaming allows, this is quite possibly the greyest game I’ve ever played! Almost every Mission takes place in an Imperial facility or on an Imperial starship, meaning everything is a dull military grey or a stone-grey shading, so it’s really easy to get lost and run into dead ends as you try to figure out where to go next. You’ll be activating a lot of switches to open doors but, like in Doom, it’s sometimes hard to tell what these switches activate. Locations also include stairwells and lifts, which can turn you about quite easily, and you unfortunately can’t destroy many of the monitors you see lining the walls (though the bodies of your victims do stay strewn on the ground, helping to show where you’ve been). Even when there is some visual variety, like the dark, towering skyscrapers of Coruscant or the disgusting sewage system of Anoat City, or the muddy hue of Jabba’s Kell Dragon-infested ship, things aren’t especially attractive. You’ll occasionally take a break from the endless grey to see purple or red-hued skies, dodge flaming pipes and crushing hazards, navigate industrial-esque mines and avoid giant fans. You can find and equip the ice cleats so as not to plummet to your death on frigid, narrow platforms and blast your way through a Star Destroyer to put an end to the Dark Trooper program, but it’s incredibly difficult to navigate each area and it’s disappointing how repetitive the visuals become. Each Mission is proceeded by a veritable wall of text to read but there are some amusing cutscenes on offer. Of course, the game begins with the classic Star Wars story scroll and distorted versions of the iconic music (including an “Imperial March” remix) feature during the game, but you’ll see decent CGI scenes whenever the story’s focusing on ships or planets and partially animated pixel art whenever characters are talking, which really evokes the DOS games of the era.

With only two bosses to contend with, you’ll have to settle for some tougher enemy variants.

Because I quickly became hopelessly lost and confused, I was only able to clear one Mission in Star Wars: Dark Forces and that was more by accident. Instead, I was forced to manually skip to the next Mission on every other level of the game, meaning I never found Crix Madine or Moff Rebus and Boba Fett only appeared in a cutscene in my playthrough. As you explore the repetitive environments, you’ll gun down incalculable Stormtroopers and Imperial officers, all of whom cry out when they see you and when they’re killed, which is fun. Imperial probe droids and other robotic enemies are also present, including (oddly) the Jedi training sphere and that spherical torture device, and these wicked sword-wielding robots that take ages to put down. Pig-like Gamorreans also show up, carrying large axes for a long reach, as do grenade-tossing, three-eyed Grans, disgusting squid-like monsters in the sewers, the gigantic and voracious aforementioned Kell Dragons, and even Trandoshans (who are all just copy/pastes of Bossk. Your most formidable recurring enemies are the Dark Troopers, large, dark-garbed Stormtroopers who can hover overhead and fire missiles and devastating plasma blasts at you. You’ll have to destroy ceiling-mounted turrets, avoid damaging liquid, and even see TIE Fighters flying out into the abyss (though they’re no threat) but I wasn’t able to complete Mission 11 enough to trigger the battle with Boba Fett. However, from what I can see, he’s very much the same as a Death Trooper as he flies about shooting missiles and blasting at you, meaning the Death Troopers and those droids are the closest the game has to boss battles. I did go head-to-head with General Rom Mohc, the man behind the Dark Trooper initiative, who’s also garbed in Death Trooper armour. His strategy is mostly to spam assault cannon shots and defeating him sees Kyle’s potential catch the eye of Darth Vader and the man himself be awarded for his services to the Rebellion. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to Star Wars: Dark Forces; there’s no multiplayer or deathmatch mode, so you’re left with challenging the game’s harder difficulties or messing about with the passwords and cheats, which also allow you to skip to different Missions, change your size, “pogo” up to higher platforms, and seemingly reflect enemy shots.

The Summary:
I’ve had vague memories of playing Star Wars: Dark Forces as a kid; I’m sure I played it on DOS way back in my youth and, as a fan of Star Wars, Doom, and Doom clones, I’d longed to get my hands on it and blast my way through countless Stormtroopers with reckless abandon. Unfortunately, Star Wars: Dark Forces quickly threw up some annoying roadblocks that meant I was far more reliant on the cheats than I initially planned to be. The game focuses way too much on its maze-like aspects, forcing you to backtrack to the start of most locations to be picked up by Kyle’s ship rather than having a traditional end goal like other FPS games from the time. This is bad enough but just trying to find your way around is even more frustrating thanks to the terrible map system, repetitive environments, and confusing level layout; everywhere looks the same and it’s easy to get lost, confused, or just aimlessly run around in circles searching for where you’re supposed to go next. The game also has a disappointing lack of boss battles; those droids and the Dark Troopers are formidable enemies, but I would’ve liked to see more battles against bounty hunters, or maybe a showdown with an AT-ST walker, or just something to break up the journey back to the level start. Although the game is slow, clunky, and runs very poorly, the sound effects and voice samples were fun; the cutscenes, while often terribly drawn, had a certain visual appeal and I quite liked the array of weaponry on offer. Unfortunately, the game is too dark, too confusing, and lacks any visual variety for me to really recommend it all that much. It’s a decent Doom clone but it could’ve been a lot better and you’re much better off just playing one of the other, more notable Doom knock-offs that came out around this time.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Star Wars: Dark Forces? Were you a fan of Kyle Katarn and his adventures? What did you think to the level layout and game environments? Did you also get lost and confused or were you able to easily best this title? What did you think to the Dark Trooper plot and lack of proper boss battles? Which Doom knock-off is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Star Wars: Dark Forces, or FPS games in general, drop a comment below or let me know on my social media.

Mini Game Corner [May the Fourth]: Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles (PlayStation)

Dr. K2 Comments

May 4th is known the world over as Star Wars Day thanks to being one of the most fitting and amusing puns ever devised (“May the Fourth be with you” in place of the traditional “May the Force be with you”). The first and most popular of what can easily become a three day celebration of the influential science-fiction series, the day stands as the perfect excuse for Star Wars fans to celebrate the beloved franchise in various ways.

Released: 4 April 2000
Developer: LucasArts
Also Available For: Dreamcast and Game Boy Advance

A Brief Background:
Almost immediately following its 1977 debut, George Lucas’ science-fiction “space opera” became a massive multimedia juggernaut that expanded to include sequels, prequels, spin-offs, novels, videogames, comic books, and more. After wrapping up his Original Trilogy, Lucas was hesitant to return to the franchise, but the success of the “Expanded Universe” books led to a revived interest in Star Wars and Lucas not only produced “Special Edition” versions of the Original Trilogy in 1997 but also the divisive first chapter in his Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (Lucas, 1999). Despite many lacklustre to average reviews, the film made over $1 billion at the box office and was accompanied by a huge marketing campaign. All these new toys, books, and comics were joined by ten different videogame adaptations released across numerous platforms, though this is the one I most remember playing as my friends and I used to muck about with it back in the day. The developers of Jedi Power Battles used paper cut outs to design the layout and features of the game’s environments and strived to give each character their own unique appearance, abilities, and lightsaber colours. Although numerous fixes and improvements were made to the subsequent Dreamcast version, this version of the game was received rather poorly; reviews criticised the game’s high level of difficulty and awful controls, though the co-op mechanics and arcade-style gameplay was highlighted as a positive.

First Impressions:
Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles is a 2.5D, arcade-style hack-and-slash adventure game that includes a little light puzzle solving, some aggravating platforming sections, and a touch of role-playing functionality. Up to two players can play at any one time, which can be useful for taking on the droid army of the Trade Federation but can cause some serious gameplay issues; for one thing, players share the Credit pool, so your game can end pretty quickly if you get defeated too many times. You also have to be mindful not to stray too far behind; if you linger or get left behind when your friend gets too far ahead, you’ll lose a life, and the game will end that much faster. Players can pick from five Jedi characters – Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, Adi Gallia and Plo Koon – who all share the same basic control scheme. There are five control schemes to pick from, but the default sees you using Square, Triangle, and X to swing your lightsaber horizontally, heavily, or vertically, respectively, and Circle being used to jump and double jump. There aren’t any jumping attacks here, but you can string together combos using Triangle, X, and Circle and you can also run by holding R2. If you hold L1, you’ll block incoming attacks; tapping it will deflect laser bolts, which is a great way to defeat faraway enemies but keep an eye on your block meter as this depletes (and automatically fills) over time. You can lock on to the nearest enemy with R1, which also sees you circle that enemy and perform a dodge roll but be sure to disengage the lock on if you’re near an edge or hazard as you’re likely to get hurt or lose a life.

Team up with a friend to double the frustration and difficulty of this clunky hack-and-slash game.

Holding L2 allows you to use each character’s four unique Force powers; this also depletes a meter, and you’ll need to grab power-ups to replenish it, and these powers allow you to perform short, defensive, long-range, and special attacks by holding L2 and pressing Triangle, Circle, X, or Square. To start with, Obi-Wan has a saber dash and tosses a thermal detonator, Qui-Gon unleashes a shockwave to send enemies flying and tosses a pulse grenade, Mace Windu protects himself with a saber shield and also tosses a thermal detonator, Adi Gallia can mesmerise foes and protect herself with an energy shield, and Plo Koon has a saber cyclone attack and stim pack. As you defeat enemies, you’ll gain “Jedi Points”; defeating enemies with style, different combos, or with a variety of attacks rewards more Jedi Points while attacking protocol droids or local Naboo wildlife costs you points. These points are tallied up at the end of each level and can be traded in to extend your health or Force meter and also award new combo attacks and Force abilities, though the game doesn’t list these anywhere, so you’ll just have to remember or make a note of them. Finally, you can also find some helpful power-ups dotted around; beyond the usual health and Force-restoring items, you can grab an extra Credit, hit checkpoints for when you inevitably die, add a special item (like the thermal detonator) to your inventory, extend or power-up your lightsaber, and either refill all your meters or halve them for an added challenge. There are two difficulty modes to pick from, “Easy” and “Jedi” mode; I tried “Easy” and the game still presents quite a challenge. While regular battle droids go down pretty easily, their coloured variants are surprisingly tough and they can send you flying with melee attacks up close or absolutely wreck you with laser bolts from afar if you’re not careful!

Hazards, tough enemies, and annoying platforming sections drag down this ugly-looking title.

The presentation on offer here is pretty good by 2000 PlayStation standards; we get the traditional Star Wars opening and story scroll, pixelated screenshots from the movie, and a full score that is ripped right from John Williams’ orchestral suite. After being treated to a CG opening sequence that strangely places the five main characters in a black void, you’ll behold some of the ugliest polygonal representations of these characters ever created; I don’t begrudge Jedi Power Battles too much for this as this is genuinely what a lot of games looked like back then and, to be fair, the character models don’t look too bad once you’re playing the game and the camera isn’t zoomed in on their blocky faces. They don’t have any idle animations, but their combat moves are pretty swift and satisfying; it’s a shame, then, that the controls are so awkward. Despite allowing analogue control, the game feels very clunky; if you’re not locked on to a target, you’ll swing wildly (and slowly) at thin air and, when you are locked on, you’re trapped in one-on-one combat with the target and vulnerable to other enemies. Where the game really falls apart, though, is in the platforming; in the first stage (a pretty decent recreation of the Trade Federation’s battleship), you’ll need to jump across gaps in bridges, avoid electrified floors and hazards, and hop across pistons. In the second stage, the jungles of Naboo, you need to jump up giant mushroom-like platforms and across large branches and treetops, which is especially difficult to do because of the immovable camera. It can be very difficult to judge where you are and how far away things are from you; while characters do grab ledges to give you some leeway, it’s all too easy to just slip off to your death, be shot out of the air, or miss-time a jump and have to start all over. Gameplay is mixed up a little in the second stage, where you must run away from the Trade Federation’s droid carriers amidst a stampede of dinosaur-like creatures towards the camera in a shameless rip-off of Crash Bandicoot (Naughty Dog, 1996). The game’s environments, while detailed and very true to the movie, are very ugly at times; again, this is just how games were back then but it’s a bit of sensory overload at times as textures warp around you and the game world struggles to stay in one piece.

My Progression:
As I mentioned, I’ve played Jedi Power Battles before in my youth; it was a long time ago but I knew I wanted the game in my PlayStation library once I started seriously collecting for the console, so I was excited to get into it and sure that I’d be able to finish the game one way or another. I picked Qui-Gon Jinn on “Easy” mode and got to work and, to start with, things weren’t too bad; when you’re running through corridors slicing up droids, the game is quite fun. But then you see the gaps, experience the awful jumping mechanics, and see how the game’s graphics are used against you; there’s one point where it looks like you need to jump between these electrical currents, but you actually need to jump along the side of the screen and will die if you drop down, which isn’t clear at all. Later, your path is blocked by some Droidekas, but they’re actually not that difficult to defeat, and you need to battle through some control rooms full of destructible elements to get to the hanger. After avoiding dropping to my death, I battled two bosses; the first was a large droid with two long, spiked arms and a platform for a head and the second was a droid ship that flew around firing lasers at me on a small gantry as droids distracted me. The first was definitely a challenge; the droid is quite large, and it can be hard to outrun or jump over its charge and spindly arms, but the hardest part of the second boss was dispatching the battle droids before they could ruin my chance to parry the bolts back at the ship.

Sadly, the game proved too frustrating for me to experience its later levels and battles.

Things fell apart in the second level, though; after being trampled to death in the opening stampede, I managed to get to safety and was charged with “protecting” Jar Jar Binks, who you’ll spot flailing about in the backgrounds. Before you can do that, though, you have to wade through a small army of battle droids (or, as I did later, simply race past them as it’s faster!) and take to higher ground. This was extremely frustrating as it was really hard to jump to the mushroom platforms; if you fall from too high up even in this section, you’ll die, to say nothing of being pummelled, blasted, or falling as you traverse the higher path. This sets you back quite a bit but there is an extra life you can snag before the mushroom tree, effectively giving you infinite continues; once you pass it, you enter a cave and must battle a giant worm creature. This thing appears to only be vulnerable on its underside, but it spits out these homing projectiles that can stun lock you, slams into the ground, and spins around with a tail attack. Deal enough damage and it retreats to the side and spits out small termite-like creatures, but this was where I had to call it a day as the worm just decimated my health bar in seconds and I didn’t want to have to play through the frustrating jungle section to try it again. It’s a bit of a shame as well because I know that later levels of the game represent other aspects of the movie, such as infiltrating the Naboo capital, utilising vehicles, and battling Darth Maul. There are also additional characters you can unlock after completing the game, such as the aforementioned Darth Maul and even Queen Padmé Amidala (who plays differently since she doesn’t have any Jedi abilities). Unfortunately, there are no passwords or cheat codes to help with progression in this game, doubling frustration and disappointment; once all your Credits are exhausted, you have to replay the last stage from the beginning, which is very tedious with the stunted camera and janky controls, all of which meant that I was barely able to limp through the first mission let alone even consider trying to conquer the Naboo jungles again!

I waited for years to play Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles again; I had fond memories of it from my youth and was really excited to get into it, but it seems that my memories were tainted by time. Although the game has a bombastic score and aspects of the lightsaber combat are exciting, it looks atrocious, even by PlayStation’s standards, and the controls are sluggish and awkward. This probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been a mindless hack-and-slash with simple push/pull puzzles and a bit of jumping, but placing such a great emphasis on platforming when your depth perception and game engine are already frustrating is just asking for trouble. The game offers quite the challenge, even on “Easy” mode and even more so in two-player; just targeting and attacking an enemy without being blasted by another or slipping to your death is hard enough, to say nothing of the needless limitation on continues and messed up controls. It’s a shame as I was really looking forward to slicing my way through a fun melee title, but I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Jedi Power Battles any time soon. But perhaps you’ve beaten it without any issues. Perhaps I’m missing something, like playing as a different character or not sucking so hard? Maybe you know of a better Episode I­-branded videogame? Whatever the case, there’s a comments section below and my social media is always open to hear your thoughts, good or bad, so feel free to share them and go check out my other Star Wars content!

Mini Game Corner: Alien³: The Gun (Arcade)

Dr. K6 Comments

Released: 1993
Developer: SEGA

A Brief Background:
The Alien franchise (Various, 1979 to present) has certainly had a long and complicated history with videogame adaptations that includes real-time strategies, crossover titles, survival/horror experiences, and a fair number of first-person shooters. Similar to how director James Cameron more than met the challenge of delivering a sequel to Ridley Scott’s commercial and highly influential Alien (ibid, 1976), Konami produced a popular arcade port of Aliens (Cameron, 1984) that came to be regarded as one of the best games in the franchise. However, Konami lost the rights to the Aliens license by the time the divisive third film was released; hampered by production woes, delays, and script problems, it took some time for Alien³ (Fincher, 1992) to become a cult favourite for many fans. It was, however, accompanied by two videogame adaptations, the first being a decent, if confusing, run-and-gun adventure, and the second being this arcade-exclusive rail shooter. In many ways a precursor to SEGA’s later success with the House of the Dead series (SEGA/Wow Entertainment, 1996 to 2022), Alien³: The Gun was lauded as one of the best light gun shooters around at the time, one that successfully merged the atmospheric horror elements of the film with the action-packed enjoyment of a rail shooter.

The Review:
I’m tackling my review of Alien³: The Gun a little differently to my other game reviews; it’s still going to be a shorter review because of how short the game is, but I did finish it so I want to go over my thoughts in a little more detail and give it a proper rating. The first thing I need to say is that the game’s title is pretty ridiculous; yes, Alien³: The Gun tells you everything you need to know but could they really not have come up with something a little more interesting and exciting for a subtitle than just The Gun? Secondly, I emulated this game and the ROM I played was a little buggy; elements like the heads-up display (HUD), aiming reticule, foreground, and background would often be invisible or appear corrupted, which was a bit of an issue but I was still able to power through the game thanks to the gift of unlimited credits. Finally, Alien³: The Gun is an Alien³ game only in the sense that it takes place on Fiorina “Fury” 161 and contains locations and Xenomorphs that mirror the film, but it’s actually more like a sequel to the movie and has far more in common with Aliens than the third movie. Rather than playing as Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, you and a friend take on the role of two United States Colonial Marines charged with investigating the Sulaco and cleaning up the rampant Xenomorph infestation on Fury 161, though movie stills are used at certain points to convey story beats like the Alien’s demise from the end of the film. Your standard issue pulse rifle has two basic fire modes; the first is a rapid-fire function tied to a firepower meter and the second sees you tossing out a limited supply of grenades (or “bombs”) to clear all onscreen enemies. If you simply hold down the trigger, you’ll run out of firepower and be left vulnerable as the game automatically moves you through the various corridors and locations; when you input a coin to continue, your bombs will clear a path for you and you acquire a flamethrower to mix things up or restore your health by shooting supplements.

You’ll gun down swarms of Aliens in a game whose action is closer to Aliens than Alien³.

Your main objective is to survive each stage of the game, wipe out any Xenomorphs, robots, or androids in your path, and take out the boss waiting at the end of the stage. There are five stages but, at various points, you’re asked to pick a floor or door or need to shoot through a door to reach a different area, which leads to different routes, thus adding a bit of replay value to the game. You start off on the Sulaco, which is now infested with Alien eggs; Facehuggers leap at the screen and Xenomorph warriors scuttle about on the floors, walls, and ceilings, slashing at you and being left a quivering mess of green goo as you blast off their limbs. Sentry turrets also take shots at you, dead bodies are everywhere, and you’ll be treated to the familiar squeals of defeated Aliens and a few voice samples as you progress. While the Sulaco is obviously based on the location seen in Aliens, right down to the cryo-sleep chamber, the rest of the game’s stages take place either on the storm-swept surface of Fury 161 or in the prison and refinery on the planet. You’ll blast through the mess hall, infirmary, tunnels, and furnace as you go but watch out for the prisoners; not only do you need to avoid shooting them, but you’ll also have to try and save them when Aliens grab them from the vents. Other memorable moments from Alien³ are also surprisingly recreated, such as the scene where the inmates use themselves as bait to trap the Alien in the corridors (they even explode like in the movie), you encountering a Xenomorph in the bowels of the prison, and a final confrontation with the Alien in the lead works. The amount of enemies or prisoners you killed and the damage you took is tallied up at the end of each stage; do well and you’ll gain a higher rank and score higher on the high score table, though this is mainly for bragging rights.

Alien variety is a bit lacking, and nowhere is this clearer than in the final, unimpressive boss.

Although Alien³: The Gun doesn’t feature any of the recognisable music from any of the films, the action comes thick and fast; since it’s a rail shooter, you’re given very little time to breathe and, unlike other light gun games, there’s no cover or reload options so you’re left ploughing ahead into the claws of swarms of Aliens. Weyland-Yutani androids and robots pad out the enemies you’ll encounter, and you’ll see other Alien variants, such as bipedal ones like in Alien³ and “warrior” Aliens like those from Aliens and even Chestbursters (with some even exploding out of the chests of the prisoners!) Each stage ends with a boss battle that basically amounts to you being guided around an enclosed space and blasting at a larger foe until their health bar is depleted; the first boss you’ll face is the “Super Face-Hugger”, a bigger variant that scuttles about, pops back up time and time again no matter how much it appears to be dead, and spits acid at you. After escaping the flaming wreckage of your shuttle and braving the harsh landscape of Fury 161, which is swarming with Aliens and salvage robots, you’ll battle a massive tank-like vehicle. Target its cannons and turrets and it’ll eventually detach and hover in the sky shooting missiles at you! After passing through a pitch-black area with your infrared goggles, you’ll fight a larger Alien drone at the prison entrance. This critter is pretty fast and agile for such a big bugger; it also slashes at you, whips you with its tail, and charges at you with a headbutt and basically sets the standard for the subsequent Alien boss fights. You’ll battle Alien³’s bipedal creature, the “Super Dogburster”, in the bowels of the prison; this one also charges at you and likes to hide behind the many pillars but has the added threat of spitting purple goop from afar to damage you and briefly obscure your vision. After surviving the tunnels, you fight another large Alien by the lead works; this time, you’re stuck in place but it’s pretty simple to stun-lock the Alien until it flees. You catch up to it at the blast furnace and must unload everything you have to force it into the lead works; though it appears defeated, it’ll claw its way back out and you’ll need to shoot the pipes overhead to rapidly cool it and finish it off. After that, you have one last challenge to beat and, thankfully, it’s not a Xenomorph Queen! Instead, you’re confronted by an “unidentified man” (who I assume is Bishop II from the movie) who unloads on you with a flamethrower after learning that you destroyed all the Aliens; simply shoot at him until he stops getting up and you’ll earn yourself a bit of text to wrap things up and a place on the high score table.

The Summary:
I love a good, action-packed light gun game; they’re mindless fun but, sometimes, that’s exactly what you want and Alien³: The Gun certain delivers in this regard. Unfortunately, like its home console cousin, Alien³: The Gun is a little restricted by being associated with the Alien³ movie. It’s pretty obvious that this is an Aliens game dressed up to resemble Alien³; you have all the same weapons, sound effects, and even a few locations from Aliens featuring prominently against the background of Fury 161 to bolster Alien³’s far more subdued and bleak narrative. I can understand that, as it’s hardly exciting to make an action-shooter based on a movie with only one Alien in it, but it begs the question of why anyone thought a videogame adaptation of the slower, more contemplative Alien³ was a good idea. Still, that aside, this is a really fun game; it’s painfully short and light on additional weapons and such, but there’s some great attention to detail sprinkled throughout. You can blast off Alien limbs, destroy many parts of the environment (both for fun and to damage foes), and it’s interesting that the developers added in a limited branching path system; it doesn’t change the game that much, but it adds replay value, if nothing else. The Aliens are fun to blast into smithereens, the weather effects on the planet’s surface add a bit of atmosphere, and I enjoyed how aspects of the film were recreated, especially in the mess hall and candle-lit corridors. The bosses could’ve had a little more variety, for sure; as much as I applaud the game for not wheeling out an Alien Queen, it feels like Alien³: The Gun has less Alien variety than other Alien videogames from around this time and plays things a little too safe by just offering bigger, scarier versions of the Xenomorph. In the end, there are obviously better rail shooters out there, but you could do a lot worse than giving Alien³: The Gun a shot; of all the Alien³ videogame adaptations, it’s the best (though not the most faithful) simply for its brevity and the fast-paced, explosive action it offers.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you ever played Alien³: The Gun? If so, how do you think it compares to the home console adaptation of Alien³? Were you disappointed to see the bleak, atmospheric Alien³ adapted into an all-action shooter? Which of the branching paths did you take and what did you think to the boss variety on offer here? Are you a fan of Alien³? While Alien videogame is your favourite and how are you celebrating Alien Day this year? Whatever you think about Alien³: The Gun, or Alien³ in general, share your thoughts below or drop a comment on my social media, and go check out my other Alien reviews across the site.

Mini Game Corner: Alien³ (Mega Drive)

Dr. K12 Comments

Released: October 1992
Developer: Probe Software
Also Available For: Amiga, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Game Gear, Master System, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)

A Brief Background:
Over the years, the Alien franchise (Various, 1979 to present) has had a long and complicated history with videogame adaptations; from pixelated garbage to first-person shooters, real-time strategies and crossover titles, to survival/horror experiences. Just as director James Cameron more than met the challenge of following up on Ridley Scott’s financially successful and highly influential Alien (ibid, 1976), so too did Konami produce a popular arcade port of Aliens (Cameron, 1984) that is widely regarded as one of the best games in the franchise. Unfortunately, Konami lost the Aliens license by the time the divisive third film hit cinemas; fraught with production issues, delays, and script troubles, Alien³ (Fincher, 1992) might not have been as critically or commercially successful as its predecessors, but in time it became a cult favourite for many fans and it spawned two videogame adaptations: this multi-platform run-and-gun adventure and an arcade-exclusive rail shooter the following year. Unlike its contentious source material, Alien³ was quite well received at the time; reviews praised the presentation and fidelity to the movie, as well as its arcade-style gameplay though some did struggle with the troublesome controls and music.

First Impressions:
At first glance, Alien³ seems to share many similarities with the Aliens (Konami, 1990) arcade game; the visuals, especially the sprites, onscreen text, and environments, are strikingly similar and Ripley even wields many of the weapons featured in that game. However, the moment you actually start playing the game, you realise that it’s an entirely different beast, one that has a bit of an identity crisis. For starters, as mentioned, Ripley is armed to the teeth; she’s got the iconic Aliens pulse rifle, a flamethrower, a grenade launcher, and regular grenades, making her decidedly more formidable than she was in the source material, where the entire point was that she and the inmates had to come up with out the box solutions to deal with the resident Xenomorph. Secondly, and most crucially, the game isn’t just a mindless run-and-gun; instead, you’re given a strict time limit to complete a specific objective in each stage and reach the exit, and the game’s locations take on a far less linear, much more labyrinthine structure that closely mirrors the panic and claustrophobia of the movie. Ripley is tasked with rescuing inmates and destroying the Xenomorph infestation, objectives that are somewhat aided by the onscreen Aliens-style motion tracker and the various vents and ladders that help her to get around each location.

Although heavily armed, Ripley’s greatest challenges are the timer and maze-like levels.

Alien³ utilises a simple control scheme, but one I had to shuffle about a bit; by default, A switches your weapon, B jumps, and C fires, but I swapped fire to A and switch to C as that was more comfortable for me. You can pick between one and nine continues, but these are actually how many lives you have, and whether you want to play on Easy, Normal, or Hard mode. I chose nine lives and the Easy difficulty and still found the game to be quite challenging; the timer is a constant headache, meaning you need a lot of trial and error to find the optimal route around each stage, something that is hampered by dead ends, hazards (such as fans and my pet hate, fall damage), and the Xenomorphs. Aliens will crawl out of the ground and along the ceilings and walls, dropping on you and charging at you, though you thankfully don’t have to worry about them constantly respawning or acid damage. Later, Facehuggers apparently also show up and you have to shake them off with the directional pad, though I never saw any in my playthrough. You’ll occasionally have to make some blind jumps to avoid slippery slopes or make use of moving platforms to reach new areas, as well as activating consoles to open doors (or simply blowing them open with a grenade). If you fail to rescue all of the prisoners in time, a gory scene plays out showing them, and Ripley, succumbing to their Chestbursters, and you’ll have to replay the entire stage from the start all over again, which is a real pain in the ass.

My Progression:
As I said, Alien³ has a bit of an identity crisis. Judging by Ripley’s weaponry and the way the Aliens are presented, it seems like the developers wanted to make something more akin to the action-orientated Aliens but were stuck adapting the most recent movie. The game impresses quite well with its arcade-style graphics; Fury 161 is recreated nicely, including a wasteland up top and different layers within, and Ripley has a basic alternative pose when left idle. Each stage is preceded by a drooling Alien face and the music is quite jaunty, which is at odds with the bleak source material but helps keep you engaged in the action. Sadly, the gameplay and steep difficulty curve are where Alien³ falls apart; the time limit is way too tight and health and ammo pickups are so scarce that it’s a chore just getting through even the first stage. I was just about able to tank my way through to the third stage, where the layout just became too confusing to continue and I was forced to quit.

Sadly, the game’s difficulty, stringent timer, and lack of passwords make progression a chore.

This wouldn’t be a problem if Alien³ incorporated a password system, but it doesn’t; there are cheats out there, but I couldn’t get any of them to work so I’m not sure if I’ll ever progress further into the game, especially as you can’t seem to earn extra lives or continues. Looking ahead, the game sees Ripley venturing into the blood-stained medical wing, a cargo area and butchery also feature, and the game even includes an Alien nest that is, again, visually ripped straight out of Aliens. Xenomorph eggs pop out Facehuggers, slime drools from above, and various ridge-headed versions of the Xenomorph act as “Level Guardians”, spitting acid, jumping about the place, making use of higher platforms, and players will need to fend off two at once in a large industrial area in order to get their final score tally and earn the extremely lacklustre text ending in with Ripley simply leaves the prison without any repercussions. I’m surprised that the developers resisted the urge to have Ripley fight an Alien Queen, as is often standard for Alien videogames, though these boss battles seem to increase in difficulty simply because the area you battle them in increases in size, giving them more places to hide and surprise you with some acid projectiles from behind the prominent foreground images.

Alien³ is a  strange entry in the franchise to adapt into a videogame, and it seems like the developers shared this philosophy; there’s a reason why the game has more in common, in terms of action and gameplay, with the Aliens arcade game than the actual movie on which it’s based and that’s the fact that Alien³  would work much better as a point-and-click adventure or a survival-horror style title, two genres that probably wouldn’t have been successful at the time or on the Mega Drive. It’s not a bad game, really, it’s just the difficulty curve is way too steep; either the game needed a password system or the timer needed to go, but without either it’s a real test of your skill and patience to get anywhere beyond the first few stages. I liked the level of detail, even though things were a bit stiff and janky at times (Ripley sometimes struggled to go down ladders), and the use of gore when you inevitably mess up. The lack of enemy variety was a bit of an issue, though; Alien games, especially  around this time, tended to go a bit bonkers with Alien variants but Alien³ plays things way too safe. In the end, it was a largely forgettable and disappointing experience for me, especially as it could’ve been so much more if the Aliens arcade game had simply been ported instead. Still, maybe I just suck; maybe you actually really enjoyed this game. Maybe you had no issue rescuing all the prisoners and navigating the maze-like levels. Or, maybe, you prefer a different Alien³  videogame, or a different Alien game entirely. Whatever your thoughts and feedback, feel free to drop a comment below or on my social media and be sure to check out my other Alien content on the site.

Mini Game Corner [Sci-Fanuary]: Judge Dredd (Mega Drive)

Dr. K1 Comment

January sees the celebration of two notable dates in science-fiction history, with January 2 christened “National Science Fiction Day” to coincide with the birth date of the world renowned sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, and HAL 9000, the sophisticated artificial intelligence of Arthur C. Clarke’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), being created on 12 January. This year, however, I’ve been spending every Thursday of January celebrating sci-fi’s toughest lawman, Judge Joseph Dredd!

Released: 16 June 1995
Developer: Probe Software
Also Available For: Game Boy, Game Gear, PC/MS-DOS, and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)

A Brief Background:
Still published to this day, British science-fiction comic book 2000 AD first appeared in February 1977 and, in March of that same year, introduced readers to the uncompromising lawman of the future, Judge Joseph Dredd. Created of John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra, and Pat Mills, Dredd became one of the most popular and iconic British comic book characters of all time. Accordingly, the character has expanded beyond the comic book panels and into the realms of videogames on more than on occasion; his first videogame outing was a largely repetitive platform shooter, a concept expanded upon by its bigger, more graphically impressive Amiga follow-up. Dredd’s relationship with videogames is largely considered to be hit and miss but, when the time finally came for the character to make the jump to the silver screen, an adaptation was put into development. While the movie would become a notorious box office bomb, developers Probe Software sought to be as faithful to the production as possible by digitising the film sets to be featured as locations in the game, however their efforts resulted in mixed-to-negative reviews across the board. While some reviews praised the gameplay and fidelity to the source material, others criticised the difficulty and lack of variety, and the game failed to make a lasting impression regardless of which system it was played.

First Impressions:
Judge Dredd is a 2D, sidescrolling run-and-gun that, for the most part, emulates the plot and visual aesthetic of the bombastic movie. Players assume the role of Judge Dredd (whose sprite more resembles his comic book counterpart than Sylvester Stallone’s look from the film) and play through twelve stages taking out street punks, mutants, and even Dredd’s fellow Judges just like in the movie. Players are given three lives to start with and can collect more by picking up extra life icons, and each stage has a primary a secondary objective, both of which are relayed to the player using sprite art modelled from scenes of the film and traditional text. Primary objectives range from destroying ammo supplies, locating Dredd’s mentor, Judge Fargo, reaching the council in the Hall of Justice, and defeating specific enemies. Secondary objectives appear to be option, but you must complete the primary objective in order to exit the current stage, something which can prove problematic given how maze-like and strangely designed many of the game’s stages are.

Though often cluttered, the game certainly makes an effort to marry the visuals of the film and comic book.

Judge Dredd is armed with his trust Lawgiver; tapping or holding the A button will see Dredd fire a variety of shots, from unlimited regular bullets to heat-seekers, grenades, and missiles, and you can even hold down the button to fire uninterrupted. Dredd can also sprint by tapping the directional pad (D-pad), and shoot while running, jumping, and crouching, and in all directions (including diagonally!) Although some objectives tell you not to shoot certain enemies, you’re free to be as trigger happy as you like; however, you’ll score more points if you use Dredd’s melee skills (A up close or X if you have a six-button controller) to disarm and arrest perps when “GUILTY” appears over their head. Dredd can jump with B and even fly about for a few seconds if you find an Anti-Grav Belt; you’ll be doing a fair amount of platforming but Dredd can’t jump very high so you’ll often need to make use of ladders, monkey along overhead lines, or even a running jump to reach new areas. Dredd can also crawl about, push some objects, and access terminals to see his current mission progression and health and ammo stats or lock doors in certain stages. Dredd controls quite well but is a bit clunky; pressing up will scroll the screen, which can be disorientating, and there’s a few too many frames of animation at times, meaning there is often a delay between button presses. Dredd is quite sturdy but can replenish his health with small and large hearts, pick up additional ammo, or even grab a temporary forcefield and invincibility to help even the odds.

There’s some variety on display in the different Dredd’s objectives and gameplay mechanics.

After completing each stage, you’re given a score tally and a password to help you skip ahead; while there don’t appear to be any useful passwords for this version of the game, such as infinite health or ammo, it is a handy feature to pick up where you left off or try out different missions. In my case, this is almost mandatory; it took quit a bit of trial and error to complete even the first stage as you can get stuck in an area with no way back. While Dredd will nip up on the spot after being killed, it’s quite easy to get stuck as ladders and hazards aren’t always immediately visible, and while you can duck and shoot most enemies, you’ll be majorly outclassed by the wild mutants in the Cursed Earth and the Atomic, Bacterial, and Chemical Warriors (A.B.C. Warriors) you’re tasked with destroying later on. The game certainly looks good; sprites are a bit small but Dredd has some fun idle animations, such as twirling his gun and cleaning his badge (there’s even a little squeak-squeak sound effect), and there’s some splashes of blood when you off enemies. The environments are visually very faithful to the movie, including trucks, futuristic skyscrapers, and the Statue of Liberty as in the film, but can be cluttered and a little too large for their own good. Gameplay is somewhat broken up by one stage that has you flying through the skies on your Lawmaster while fending off pursuing Judges (Herman Fergusson/Fergee fires at the rear while Dredd fires ahead) and by the fact that some enemies will be possessed by the four Dark Judges; you’ll know when they are as they’ll have an aura about them and a spirit will fly out that you can catch for bonus points if you have some Boing ammo.

My Progression:
Judge Dredd is a surprisingly tough game; at first, it reminded me of classic run-and-guns like Turrican (Factor 5, et al, 1990) or Duke Nukem (Apogee Software, 1991), especially with the placement of the heads-up display and dystopian, sci-fi setting. Seconds into the first stage, I hit a literal wall and had to think for a minute as the ladder I needed was so difficult to see and things only got more confusing from there; vents randomly damage you, trash falls from above, and you can’t even step in a small puddle of water in the Cursed Earth without taking damage. Just destroying the ammo crates in the first stage is a chore as they can only be destroyed by your explosive weapons and you need to explore the stage in a specific way so you don’t miss any and get stuck. Rather than running past terminals in Aspen, you need to access them to initiate the lockdown procedure, and enemies can take a few shots before they go down even before the clunky A.B.C. Warriors enter the picture. It appears that most stages end with a boss battle, too; the first is a guy who looked a lot like DC Comic’s James Harper/Guardian and who constantly blocks your shots with his shield while firing at you with a machine gun, tossing Molotov Cocktails, launching an almost unavoidable energy wave, or bashing your head in when you get close. You can use nearby barrels for cover but he absorbs shots like a sponge and the timing required to jump and duck under his shots meant that I couldn’t actually beat him!

Sadly, the game’s difficulty meant I couldn’t get very far and I wasn’t motivated to skip ahead much further.

Using a password, I jumped to stage two and fared much better n the Aspen Penal Colony. There’s some neat effects on the waters of the sewer area and I was actually able to beat the stage the boss, a brute with a big club who rides an elevator that he tries to crush you with, tosses grenades and Molotov cocktails, and smacks you silly up close. It was a slog, but I did beat him, but I couldn’t get past the Cursed Earth for the life of me. Here, the mutated inhabitants live in the ruins of society and Judge Hunters patrol the wooden walkways, but the leaps of faith and confusing level layout got the better of me. I skipped ahead to the Hall of Justice and that wasn’t a problem, nor was the chase on the Lawmaster, but the A.B.C. Warriors stomping about on the construction site around the Statue of Liberty were enough to have me calling it quits. They’re immune to your regular shot, so you’ll need a healthy supply of missiles or other explosives, but their missiles and the stage’s bottomless pits were the last straw for me. it was a bit of a shame as the game’s layout and objectives actually got easier the deeper I got and, from what I can see, there’s a bit of a post-game that looks right up my alley. After dealing with Dredd’s psycho clone brother, Rico, players head to Deadworld, an alternative dimension where all life was deemed a crime, to do battle with Dredd’s reaper-like spectral counterpart, Judge Death! I could’ve used passwords to jump ahead to this point but I decided that enough was enough, but I am impressed that a videogame adaptation from this time actually expanded on the film; the game does a decent job of following the movie’s narrative but infuses it with more elements from the source material, including my favourite Dredd antagonists, the Dark Judges, which is pretty rare for a game of this era in my experience.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Judge Dredd; videogame adaptations of movies tended to be more hit than miss back in the 16-bit games, at least in my experience, but sadly there were some issues here that kept me from really enjoying the experience. Visually, the game is both impressive, bland, and confusing all at the same time; the horizon and backgrounds aren’t always very detailed but the foregrounds are almost too detailed, making things a bit cluttered and messy at times. Dredd looks great and plays okay, but I find it amusing that the developers included the ability to arrest people when Dredd is far more likely to just sentence criminals to death for even more infractions. Since the game doesn’t really penalise you if you kill everyone, I recommend taking a traditional run-and-gun approach, especially as you’ll be distracted by vague objectives and the maze-like areas. Overall, it was a mediocre experience, one that I struggled to get through thanks to the difficulty spike and clunky presentation. It’s a shame as I feel the concept could have legs if it was more like Contra (Konami, 1986) or Metal Slug (Nazca Corporation, 1996) and leaned more into arcade-style action rather than tedious exploration. Still, maybe I’m being too harsh? Maybe you actually enjoyed the gameplay on offer here? Perhaps you prefer one of the movie’s other ports or a different Judge Dredd game entirely? Either way, I’d love to hear about it so leave a comment below or on my social media and be sure to check out my other Judge Dredd content.

Mini Game Corner: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game (Mega Drive)

Dr. K1 Comment

This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.

Released: November 1992
Developer: Tiertex Design Studios
Also Available For: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, DOS, Game Boy, Game Gear, MSX, Master System, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), ZX Spectrum

A Brief Background:
In 1981, legendary director Steven Spielberg joined forces with George Lucas and Harrison Ford to bring the first Indiana Jones film to cinema screens; inspired by both old serial films and the James Bond franchise, the three crafted an action/adventure film that was so critically and commercially successful that it kicked off one of cinema’s most beloved franchises, helped launch Harrison Ford to superstardom, and fundamentally changed the cinema rating system. Naturally, given the franchise’s success, the Indiana Jones films and character have been adapted into books, comics, and videogames; the first Indiana Jones videogame was a simple 8-bit adventure for the Atari but it was the third film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Spielberg, 1989) that received the most love back in the day, with three titles released across multiple platforms between 1989 and 1991. This particular game was the more action-orientated version and was met with divisive reviews that praised the presentation but criticised the content, combat, and difficulty of the game.

First Impressions:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game (boy, is that ever a mouthful!) is a 2D, sidescrolling action/adventure game in which players assume the role of the titular archaeologist and adventurer. The controls couldn’t be simpler; by default, you press A to punch, B to attack or swing with your whip, and C to jump, but you can customise these inputs as you desire. Indy can also duck and crawl through tunnels, attacking as he goes, climb up and down ropes (lashing out with his whip to take out enemies), and can swing from certain objects simply by whipping near them. Although Indy doesn’t seem to utilise his pistol, his whip can be used to take out enemies from afar, but the more you use it, the weaker it becomes, as indicated by the whip icons decreasing with each button press. Luckily, you can replenish this by finding whip pick-ups in suitcases and you can still use the whip even after exhausting your supply. Indy’s mission is to travel across a number of levels (referred to as “Scenes”) from the movie, exploring hazardous environments and reaching the exit before the timer runs out. Players can pick between “Easy” and “Hard” difficulty modes and are given two lives and two credits on Easy mode, which you’ll quickly realise is nowhere near enough to help you get through his unforgiving title. Literally everything around you is out to get you; Indy will even lose health if he jumps and hits his head on the ceiling, to say nothing of the falling stalactites, boulders, and armed enemies looking to quickly drain his health and leave him little more than his trademark hat.

Don’t be fooled by the graphics or your love of the franchise: this game is absolutely merciless!

Gameplay is given a little bit of variety thanks to the gimmicks found in each Scene; you’ll get to jump in a minecart in the caves, for example, but will need quick reactions to hop from one cart to another, and to a rope, to avoid plummeting to your death. The second Scene sees you running across train carriages jumping over telegraph poles, ducking through tunnels, and avoiding giraffe heads and snake pits as you desperately try to progress without falling. You can also grab flaming torches to light up dark areas, but you’ll need to watch out for spikes that instantly kill you, bursts of flame from the ceiling, and make precarious jumps up a castle wall in rain-swept Venice. Enemies are all largely generic and look the same in each Scene and can punch and shoot at you, though they’re easily defeated in a few hits. Unfortunately, Indy’s punch is pathetically short and you’re more likely to take damage engaging with them, so it’s best to just avoid combat or use your whip wherever possible, though none of that will save you from the game’s many instant death traps or the fact that you take damage from jumping! Water, snake pits, train tracks, and skeletons will instantly kill Indy, meaning there is very little margin for error, and you’ll not only have to deal with some merciless knockback but often need split second reactions to dodge damaging (or instant death) traps after besting each Scene’s boss. Indy can find goblets to replenish his health and sand timers to increase the time, but you’re constantly walking on eggshells as so much can either hurt you or out-right kill you that it makes playing the game a frustrating chore and Indy, one of cinema’s toughest action heroes, weak as a kitten.

My Progression:
Technically, I couldn’t even get past the first Scene; I inched my way onwards only to fall victim either to accumulated damage or an instant death trap, made all the worse by how large and unforgiving Indy’s hit box is. Thus, I used the one and only cheat for the game, which is a level select code; this not only lets you pick the Scene to start on, but the starting point as well (the game is filled with hidden checkpoints), which is very handy for seeing later areas of the game or battling bosses. I fought the first three bosses, the first being a strongman with a huge piece of wood that he swings at you to knock you to the instant death water and smashes on the ground to cause rocks to fall on you, the second being a bulbous fire-breather whose flames you need to quickly duck or jump over while frantically whipping him, and the third a Native American who shoots high and low arrows at you, but I shut the game off shortly after besting this boss.

I was really hoping for a challenging, but fun, action/adventure title and instead what I got was a torturous and ridiculously difficult title that no doubt had many kids pulling their hair out back in the day. When you struggle, or can’t, get past the first level, to me that’s the sign of a bad game and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game reeks of being cobbled together to cash-in on the movie by having kids rent it over and over just to get past the first damn level! It’s a shame as there’s a lot to like here. Graphically, the game looks really well; Indy doesn’t really have an idle animation, but he looks and controls pretty well, and games environments are all nicely detailed. The sound is pretty good too, with a decent rendition of the iconic Indiana Jones theme, but the game is just too difficult to really enjoy. It’s a shame as I’m a big fan of the franchise and was hoping this would be a decent little action platformer, but it kicked my ass the moment I pressed the jump button under a low ceiling and Indy is just way too fragile for the game to be as enjoyable as I would like. But maybe I just suck. Maybe you’ve beaten this game multiple times, or really enjoy it. Or maybe you prefer a different Indiana Jones videogame. Whatever your thoughts or experiences on the subject, sign up to share them below or leave a comment on my social media.

Mini Game Corner: Indy – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game (Master System)

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This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.

Released: February 1992
Developer: Tiertex Design Studios
Also Available For: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, DOS, Game Boy, Game Gear, MSX, Mega Drive, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), ZX Spectrum

A Brief Background:
1981 saw legendary director Steven Spielberg join forces with George Lucas and Harrison Ford to bring the first Indiana Jones film to cinema screens; inspired by the serial films of yesteryear and the James Bond franchise, the three crafted an action/adventure film that was so critically and commercially lauded that it marked the beginning of one of cinema’s most beloved franchises, propelled Harrison Ford to superstardom, and fundamentally changed the cinema rating system. Since the franchise was so successful, Indiana Jones has been adapted into books, comics, and videogames, with the first being an 8-bit adventure for the Atari. It was the third film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Spielberg, 1989), that received the most love back in the day, however, as three titles were released across numerous platforms between 1989 and 1991. This particular game was the technically inferior version of its 16-bt counterpart that scored rather well at the time thanks to its colourful graphics and gameplay, but was also criticised for its difficulty and collision detection.

First Impressions:
Indy – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game (yep, somehow the developers found a way to make the title even longer!) is a 2D, sidescrolling action/adventure game that puts you in control of the famous archaeologist and adventurer. Since the Master System only uses two buttons, you wouldn’t believe how simple the controls are in this version: Button 1 allows you to punch, crack your whip, and swing while Button 2 allows you to jump. These buttons can’t be switched around, but Indy can duck down to avoid incoming bullets and punches and attacks from below, and climb up and down ropes simply by jumping to them. It doesn’t appear that Indy can use a gun of his own this time around, and his whip is limited significantly here; you need to pick up a whip icon to even use it, and you only get a few swings before you lose it until you get the next power-up. As in the bigger 16-bit title, Indy must journey through six levels (referred to as “Scenes”) that recreate environments and situations from the movie, but there are no difficulty settings here; instead, you start with six lives and three credits and face a super tight time limit to clear each Scene, gaining additional time by picking up hourglasses and aiming to accrue a high score and some precious extra lives. As in the Mega Drive game, Indy has a daunting uphill battle ahead of him as he’s practically made of glass; not only does he take fall damage, but hitting the ceiling will drain his health, and he’ll crumble to his knees in seconds from dodgy hit detection and instant death hazards such as water.

Don’t let the impressive visuals fool you, this game is tough as balls!

While the game recreates the train scene from the film and eventually sees you scaling a castle and airship as in the film, you’re unlikely to see this as it’s more than a chore to progress any further the first few screens of the first Scene. While the game delivers a fair attempt at recreating the iconic Indiana Jones theme for the title screen, levels are completely silent save for the sounds of attacks and your continuous death, though the graphics are surprisingly impressive. Sprites aren’t exactly the most expressive but they’re colourful and quite detailed; Indy grabs his hat when he jumps, wooden platforms crumble beneath his feet, and the environments contain a decent amount of detail for a Master System title. The first Scene is primarily based around traversing the caves using ropes; you’ll need to hop to them (avoiding hitting your head, of course) and shimmy down, avoiding gun fire, and then precariously jump across lethal water to progress. As in the Mega Drive version, there are a number of hidden checkpoints in the Scenes, and you’ll even restart from these after continuing after losing all of your lives, but the constant injury you’ll take form everything around you and the ludicrously tight timer make just playing the game one of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had the misfortune of suffering through.

My Progression:
While I couldn’t get past the first Scene in the Mega Drive game, I was at least able to give it a decent shot; here, though, there was absolutely no hope. Indy’s six lives will disappear in a blink of an eye and, before you know it, you’ll be staring at the game over screen again and again having made little progression. There aren’t even any cheat codes to help you jump ahead to other Scenes, either, so I have absolutely no idea how anyone is ever supposed to see anything other than the first Scene as the game absolutely bricks you right out the gate. Looking ahead at the game (which can apparently be beaten in about ten minutes…), it seems like you’ll face a lot of the same challenges as in the 16-bit title, including avoiding Native Americans on a circus train, fireballs and skeleton pits, even trickier jumping and swinging up the caste’s stone walls, and be faced with avoiding buzz saws and bottomless pits in a pseudo-isometric rendition of the Temple of the Sun. Although you’ll collect artefacts from the movie, there are absolutely no bosses to contend with this time around, making for an extremely frustrating and lacklustre experience, I would imagine.

After the struggle I went through with the Mega Drive version of this game, I didn’t exactly expect much from Indy – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game; I guess part of me was hoping that it would be easier, since it would obviously be a scaled down version of its 16-bit counterpart, and it certainly offers a lot less than that version of the game but ramps up the difficulty to a ridiculous degree. The longplay I watched to get a sense of the rest of the game made it look so easy but this really was a kick in the balls to play, and I imagine would have really disappointed kids who rented (or, heaven forbid, bought) it back in the day. Indy is so fragile that the game may as well have one-hit kills, the sound is basically non-existent, and all the impressive visuals in the world can’t make up for the fact that this game is basically unplayable and not enjoyable in the slightest. I’m curious, though: what did you think to this version of the game? Did you prefer it to the Mega Drive version? What’s your favourite Indiana Jones videogame? Whatever your thoughts or experiences on these games, share them below or leave a comment on my social media.

Mini Game Corner: Aliens: Fireteam Elite (Xbox Series X)

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Released: 24 August 2021
Developer: Cold Iron Studios
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S

A Brief Background:
Over the years, the Alien franchise (Various, 1979 to present) has had a long and complex history with videogame adaptations that range from primitive pixelated messes to real-time strategies, crossover titles, survival/horror experiences, and first-person shooters. This latter genre has been one of the most revisited, especially after James Cameron was tasked with following up on Ridley Scott’s financially successful and highly influential Alien (ibid, 1976) with an incredibly profitable and well-regarded 1986 sequel that proved to be perfectly transferrable into the FPS genre. Although Alien: Isolation (Creative Assembly, 2014) proved to be a hit with gamers and critics alike, SEGA were disappointed by the sales and eventually lost the license after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and the development of a new Alien game fell into the laps of Cold Iron Studios. Built from the ground up and specifically designed to focus on co-operative, online play, the developers drew from the vast array of Alien lore to craft the story and aesthetic of Aliens: Fireteam Elite. However, the game has been met by mixed to average reviews; while the action-heavy focus and chaotic shooting was praised, the lack of mission variety and AI was criticised. Still, Aliens: Fireteam Elite was the best-selling retail game in the UK in its week of release and it was soon followed by a bunch of downloadable content (DLC) that included new missions, weapons, and enemies from Alien: Covenant (Scott, 2017).

First Impressions:
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a third-person, squad-based shooter in which you can customise and equip an avatar from one of seven character classes (Gunner (my choice), Demolisher, Technician, Doc, Phalanx, Lancer, and Recon) and then take on four story-based campaigns alongside two other online players or two A.I.-controlled ‘bots if you don’t feel like playing online. Sadly, and strangely, couch co-op is not an option and you cannot pause the game if you need to take a piss or stop for a second; compounding matters is the fact that, if you stand idle for too long, enemies seem to spawn in to push you onwards, all of which can make for some tense gameplay that borders on frustration. If you’ve ever played a third-person shooter before than the game’s default controls won’t be anything new to you: you fire your current weapon with the Right Trigger, aim down your sights with the Left Trigger, reload and interact with consoles and such with X, snap to cover with A, perform a dodge roll with B, press in the right stick for a melee attack, swap to you side arm or secondary weapon with Y. You can also use the directional pad to heal yourself if you have a first aid kit on hand, access your consumables menu, and communicate with or revive downed teammates. Each weapon and character class comes with a “Kit” and “Role” ability, which you can activate with the Left or Right Bumper, respectively; as you play and unlock “Perks” and other modifiers, you’ll be able to temporarily improve your damage output, accuracy, increase your rate of fire, swap weapons out for more powerful variants (like incendiary shots), drop turrets, unleash a missile barrage, and so forth.

Customise and equip your avatar and then get cracking on the latest bug hunt.

At the start of the game, you’re tasked with customising your avatar; these options are initially quite limited, though you can choose our gender, and you’ll unlock additional headgear and paint and such for your avatar and their weapons. You can only carry two weapons at a time, alongside your side arm, but these are instantly recognisable from the source material; you’ve got the Smart Gun, and the Pulse Rifle, and a familiar looking shotgun, amongst other similarly styled weapons. As you play, you’ll gain access to additional weapons, each with a bevvy of different perks and abilities, and acquire or purchase decals and add-ons for each’ these will increase your ammo capacity, damage output, and so forth but are few and far between without some serious grinding. Each mission can be played on one of three difficulties (with the two hardest modes being initially locked) and you’ll earn more experience points (XP), rewards, and credits for playing on higher difficulties. The sheer number of menus and onscreen text can be extremely daunting; navigating the menus is also a chore since you must use the aiming reticule like it’s a Nintendo Wii game, which can be disorientating. You can earn, buy, and equip special “Challenge Cards” before each mission to give additional perks and buffs (such as increasing XP gain and access to special weapons or turrets) and the game will offer daily “Tactical Opportunities” to award you additional bonuses for completing certain timed criteria. Gameplay wise, your generally tasked with patching into computer consoles, cutting through doors, downloading data, acquiring cranks and intel files, and rescuing or protecting key personnel all while fending off seemingly endless waves of Xenomorphs. You have the classic Aliens motion tracker on hand to alert you to the presence of enemies, who scramble out of vents and often just blink into existence right in your path. Some will also pounce on you, forcing you to complete a quick-time event (QTE) if no one’s on hand to save your ass.

Hold off against endless Xenomorph attacks or complete simple puzzles to progress.

It’s pretty easy to burn through your ammo, and to see your health whittled down to nothing from surprise attacks; Xenomorphs come in a number of varieties, from exploding aliens to acid spitters, to the larger drones who act as bosses and mini bosses. If that wasn’t bad enough, you’ll also have to contend with synthetic enemies who use cover tactics and weaponry similar to yours, forcing you to find ways to shoot around their armoured variants and take cover from their grenades, though the androids and the aliens will attack each other, which can be useful. Graphically and aesthetically, Aliens: Fireteam Elite very much evokes the atmosphere and presentation of Aliens; everything from the Marine’s hokey dialogue, the dark and dingey interiors and corridors, and the presence of recognisable weapons and technology are all pulled straight out of James Cameron’s movie but the game doesn’t stop there. You’ll eventually take a trip down to LV-895, a barren alien world where large, stone-like spaceships and environments are being plundered by Weyland-Yutani; these sections recall the Engineer architecture of Ridley Scott’s Alien films, as is a staple for most Alien videogames, and the game generally looks and sounds pretty good. That is, of course, if you ignore the cutscenes, dialogue, and character models; these are noticeably poor quality and remind me more of an Xbox 360-era videogame, but actually worse as there’s no lip synching and the amount of pop up, A.I.. tomfoolery, and graphical glitches (even when playing offline) make gameplay an awkward and unstable experience. The game tries to offer dialogue trees at certain points as characters drone on and on in a desperate attempt to give some context, but you can skip all of this as it basically means nothing; if you have an objective beyond shooting everything in sight, the game usually tells you, but it’s not always clear where you have to actually go to activate certain consoles so you can end up stuck in a never-ending shootout if you’re not paying attention.

My Progression:
To begin with, I started on the “Standard” difficulty and played online as it seemed as though there was no other option available to me. after struggling a bit with the controls and navigating the many dark, dishevelled corridors and areas, all of which look the same so it’s easy to get turned around, I managed to limp my way through the first couple of missions and even pull my weight in fending off Xenomorph attacks thanks to clever deployment of turrets and making use to the ammo refill stations. Scattered around the environment, you’ll also find other temporary power-ups that turn your shots into incendiary or electroshock rounds, all of which is great to thinning out the alien hordes, and you’ll occasionally find special hidden crates containing new weapons and gear. Eventually, though, the difficulty really starts to ramp up; larger and far more aggressive Xenomorphs soon become the norm, with jumping red variants and massive drones charging across the environment and sporting  hefty life bar. In these situations, you’re often trapped in a room or forced to activate a take-off sequence using various consoles while swarms of aliens spew in from all over and it can be pretty difficult fending them all off, especially when the game sometimes decides not to open doors for you to progress once all enemies are clear, thus forcing you to abandon the mission.

Numerous firefights, repetitive objectives, and graphical glitches make for a lacklustre experience.

After worrying about letting down my clearly superior human partners, I switched to private matchmaking and played with a couple of ‘bots. Unfortunately, you can’t seem to change their character classes; they simply mirror your current loadout, which is a bit annoying as it probably would’ve been helpful to have a Demolisher and Doc on hand). After tearing my hair out trying to overcome the endless gaggle of Aliens and drones set on keeping me from taking off, I lowered the difficulty to “Casual” and managed to clear the first campaign, ending up on LV-895 and hissing with frustration at the inclusion of more tactically capable android enemies. Thankfully, you can fight through the Engineer ruins and make it to a bridge where, after a short countdown, you’ll get some much-needed air support. This won’t help you as you press deeper into the temple, though, where the “Working Joes” come to “life” and attack en masse, flamethrower-wielding Synth Incinerators dog you at every turn, and you’re forced to not just download data from androids but also to recover a number of Synth Cores from destroyed androids. Annoyingly, you can only carry one of these at a time, forcing you to run back and forth in a near constant firefight, and this is about where my patience with the game ran out. Presumably, you stand a better chance at success if you take the time to grind up your levels, acquire/buy and equip better Perks, gear, and weapons, and play alongside human players who can offer more immediate assistance but the game seems to be tailormade for repetition. A lack of in-mission checkpoints means you only every get one shot to clear each mission, making it incredibly frustrating when you fail to crawl your way to a teammate for revival, and the sheer number of janky, overly aggressive enemies can make what is occasionally a fun-filled, if near mindless, shooter an unfair chore to sit through.

I clearly wasn’t paying attention to the marketing for Aliens: Fireteam Elite; either that or I saw that it was a team-based, online shooter and simply assumed that it would have a solo campaign as well. Thus, I was very disappointed when I loaded it up and found that it was geared towards online play only, and it took me some time to find an offline option so I wouldn’t be lumbered with strangers to look foolish alongside. Similarly, I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of menus, text, options, and blinking notifications; it seems like every single little thing you can do or use has a little text box assigned to it and I found this very unintuitive and daunting. I just wanted to gear up and get into the action, but it felt as though I was forced to stop and consider every single thing, only to find I wasn’t at the right level to even use or get half the stuff on offer. Once you actually get into the game, the action is fast and frantic; you’re generally not asked to do much more than press, hold, or tap X to activate consoles and complete objectives, meaning the bulk of the game’s focus is on the firefights. Explosive barrels and the different character classes can make these fun and offer some variety, but you’re constantly forced to hold out against swarms of aliens, which gets a bit old quite fast and it seems like you’re never given a chance to catch your breath as there’s always another drone waiting to slash at you to get you moving. This frustration, alongside the sheer number of graphical glitches and janky A.I., to say nothing of the repetitive nature of the game, all add up to a budget title more akin to a pay-to-win mobile title and a Triple-A release, but maybe you had a different experience? Maybe you played online with friends using a variety of loadouts and had more fun? Maybe you didn’t and you prefer a different Alien game? Whatever the case, I’d love to hear about it so leave your thoughts below or on my social media.

Mini Game Corner [Robin Month]: Batman Forever: The Arcade Game (PlayStation)

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In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut than to dedicate every Thursday of April to celebrating the character?

Released: 1996
Developer: Probe Entertainment / Iguana Entertainment / Iguana Entertainment UK
Also Available For: Arcade, MS-DOS, and SEGA Saturn

A Brief Background:
It’s easy to forget now but Batman Forever (Schumacher, 1995) was a pretty big deal for Warner Bros. back in the day; not only had they sunk $100 million into the film but they were desperate to appease those who were outraged with the dark, macabre content of Batman Returns (Burton, 1992) and craft a film that would be more appealing for the sponsors. While it garnered a mixed critical response, Batman Forever made over $330 at the box office and was accompanied by a slew of merchandise and ancillary products. Like its predecessors, Batman Forever also received a tie-in videogame that marked Acclaim’s first foray into the arcade scene. However, the 2.5D beat-‘em-up was met with mostly mixed reviews but still fared better than Acclaim’s other home console adaptation of the movie.

First Impressions:
If there’s three things you can always count on with me, it’s that I’m a big fan of arcade titles, sidescrolling beat-‘em-ups, and Batman. Although I didn’t grow up with a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), emulators have allowed me to have a great deal of fun with Batman Returns (Konami, 1993), which was a cracking licensed videogame simply because it aped the formula of genre staples like Final Fight (Capcom, 1989) and X-Men (Konami, 1992). While Batman Forever had an extremely dismal and almost unplayable sidescrolling adventure game released on Mega Drive and SNES, arcades were blessed with this far more enjoyable and fitting videogame, which thankfully came to the PlayStation so I was able to snap it up (and at a pretty good price, too, all things considered). Batman Forever: The Arcade Game can be played on three different difficulty settings (Easy, Normal, or Hard), with enemies increasing in number and toughness on the harder difficulty settings, and allows you to assign yourself up to seven continues. You begin the game with three lives and, once you’ve lost all three, you can enter a high score and switch your character to return to the action once more. In terms of controls, Batman Forever is as simple as it gets: one button punches, one kicks, and one jumps and that’s it. you can customise these in the options menu and choose to play as either Batman or Robin (or both together, if you have a friend), before jumping into the game proper. There doesn’t appear to be any technical differences between the two, but they do have different animations and Robin seems to be a bit faster on his feet, but that could just my psychosomatic on my part. Right away, you’re treated to a pretty impressive in-game cutscene as Batman and/or Robin heads to the streets of Gotham City in the Batmobile, and the first thing you’ll notice is how impressive and ambitious the graphics are. The game utilises pre-rendered, 2.5D backgrounds that, while murky and a bit washed out, are immediately evocative of many of the neon-drenched, bizarre locations seen in the film, such as the graffiti-and-litter-strewn streets, Edward Nygma/The Riddler’s big gala (with partially animated guests in the background), and Harvey Dent/Two-Face’s lair among others. The playing field allows you to wander into the background, with sprites scaling accordingly, though they do lose a fair amount of graphical fidelity, becoming even more pixelated and ugly as you move about.

While the game is cluttered and chaotic, it’s full of action and fun ways to beat up thugs.

Sprites in general look decent enough; they appear to be digitised, similar to the early Mortal Kombat games (Midway/Various, 1992 to 1996), and Batman and Robin have a glistening sheen to them that makes them look like action figures. Batman looks a little goofy, with his massive chest symbol, but Robin looks pretty good; the thugs you encounter, however, are swarms of Two-Face’s goons, robots modelled after the Riddler’s fortune teller machine, and other generic beat-‘em-up mooks, none of whom have a life bar. The sheer number of enemies is pretty impressive and overwhelming, however. It doesn’t take much for you to get pummelled to death as enemies swarm around you and trap you in an unblockable beatdown, and enemies will fire guns, toss grenades, drive motorcycles and cars at you as well as spring out from the scenery. To make matters worse, Two-Face occasionally pops in, riding a wrecking ball or shooting rockets at you from the foreground, though there are times where you can swing and grapple parts of the environment to barge trough enemies. Combat is a pretty simple affair, with you mashing punch and kick to string together combos, tossing and jump-kicking enemies as you’d expect, but the game makes a big deal out swamping you with various power-ups. As you take out enemies, little Bat Symbols scatter everywhere which power-up your “Combo Meter” as well as a variety of gadgets and pick-ups: Bat-Signals, Two-Face Ying-Yangs, and Riddler Symbols appear frequently, bestowing either gadgets or temporary buffs and debuffs. When you grab a gadget, like the Batarang, grapple gun, taser, or Bat Bola, your regular attack is replaced with a projectile; the grapple gun is particularly useful for landing up to 150 hit combos on enemies and sees you swinging and flailing all over the screen, while the Batarangs can quickly rack up points and the taser and bola can stun enemies for a short time. You can also pull off a screen-clearing attack, summon bats to protect and attack enemies, and toss a stun grenade, and all of these attacks will increase in power and change their appearance as your meter builds higher. However, this can make the combat and action extremely chaotic as the screen is constantly filled with enemies, items, and your almost incomprehensible attacks, making for a very frantic and confusing experience.

My Progression:
As you fight your way through the game, you can pick up and throw objects, grab the odd bit of health to sustain yourself, and will be blessed or cursed with power-ups such as invisibility, duplication, invulnerability, and shrinking you (or your enemies), among others. After clearing a stage, your score is tallied up; the more enemies you defeat and the more gadgets and such you use, the better your score and rewards. You can then pick from these rewards to start the next stage with a gadget or power-up advantage; some are merely cosmetic, like “VR Mode”, which sees enemies burst into green computer coding upon defeat, while others increase your combo by default, allowing you to build your meter faster. There are no save points, password, or checkpoints in the game, however; once you exhaust all of your continues, the game is over and you’ll need to start from the beginning, which is always a pretty shitty thing to do in a home conversion of an arcade game since its purpose isn’t to relieve you of your pocket money. All I’m saying is at least have the option to earn more lives or continues, or limit your continues on the harder difficulties and have them disabled entirely on Easy mode.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to save Gotham from the villains’ mad schemes…this time…

Naturally, you’ll have to battle a few bosses over the course of your playthrough, however not as many as you might think. The game is structured more to have you battle wave upon wave of the same goons over and over until you reach the end of a stage, where a boss may be waiting for you, but it’s not always the case. I didn’t fight a boss until the second stage, for example, which pits you against three slightly tougher goons: Nick, Blade, and Flex, each of which fires at you with an Uzi, tosses grenades, or throws knives at you and can block your attacks (something you’re incapable of doing). You’ll know when you’re facing a boss as they actually have a life bar and the screen flashes dramatically after you defeat them, and these three weren’t all that difficult but, again, it’s easy to get caught in a crossfire and just whittled down to nothing in no time at all. At the end of an alleyway, you’ll fight Tassel (who seems to be the neon-painted, clown-like goon who hassled Dick in the film), who’s joined by a couple of gun-and-grenade-toting henchmen and shows off a bit of flippy, martial arts skill. After battling through goons on a rooftop, you’ll be confronted by a helicopter and a seemingly endless supply of enemies; simply fend them off, dodging the chopper’s machine gun fire, and press attack to toss projectiles when prompted. Two-Face will continually pop up to fire rockets at you in the subway and at the gala, and two of the Riddler’s robots will attack you with their extendable arms to cover their escape. These then become regular enemies in a construction site full of explosive barrels, where you’ll battle Feather and Stew, with Feather proving pretty tough thanks to being very handy with his bo staff. My run came to a disappointing end in Two-Face’s lair, however, where his beautiful bodyguards, Sugar and Spice, absolutely wrecked me with their fast attacks, which pummelled me from both sides without any chance of fighting back, treating to me to a rather bland game over screen (in the Batman: The Animated Series (1992 to 1999) font, no less) informing me of my failure to save Gotham City.

I was having a pretty good time with Batman Forever: The Arcade Game once I got past the visual and sensory overload. The game includes a renditions of Elliot Goldenthal’s score and some brief sound bites from the movie, but the sheer number of enemies and chaos happening onscreen at any one time can be a little overwhelming. The game looks fairly decent, even though things can get a bit ugly and distorted at times, but the depth of combat is a little odd compared to other beat-‘em-ups; the gadgets and various pick-ups mean there’s always something happening and you can rack up big combos, but it also feels like a lot of control is being taken away from you as Batman and Robin leap into action with these big, elaborate movements at the touch of a button. Unfortunately, neither are particularly durable; your health bar can be whittled down to nothing in the blink of an eye and you’ll burn through your lives and continues in no time, with no passwords or cheat codes to make things easier for you. It’s probably do-able, maybe in two-player mode, and I’m sure I’ll return to it again as I do enjoy a bit of sidescrolling, beat-‘em-up action, but lumbering you with limited continues for a home console release always irks me and there’s not really anything to unlock or to discover outside of the main campaign, which continues basically no story and very few cutscenes (and even these are limited to the in-game graphics, impressive as they can be). I’d like to know if you’ve ever played this one, either in the arcade or at home, and how well you fared against Gotham’s colourful swarms of criminals? Which character did you prefer, and what did you think to all the gadgets and power-ups? Which licensed Batman game is your favourite? Who is your favourite Robin and how are you celebrating the Boy Wonder’s debut this month?  Whatever your thoughts on this game, and Robin in general, sign up to leave them below or share your thoughts on my social media, and check back soon for more Robin content!