The Addams Family Values - SNES

Played for: 15 minutes

On the up side, this game is totally different than the first two.  On the down side, that doesn't make it any better.

I was so excited to see it was some kind of top-down wander around adventure.  It actually even looks a lot like Link to the Past, with the rain effects and the art style.  That excitement was quickly dashed.

I found some stairs and went down and shot my electricity (!?) at a plant and killed it (!?!?).  I don't remember the movie much, so I don't know if it makes sense that he has electricity, but I'm guessing it doesn't.  As you use it more, it gets shorter, like he's losing charge.  But it doesn't seem to recharge either.  I don't know.  Anyways.  Killed the plant, and moved on.  The grandma gave me some cookies.  Another plant gave me a skull key and told me to find the rose.  I've been doing everything I can think of and I just can't find the rose.  Also, I just don't care.  Movement is slow and annoying, there's no direction on what happen

The game seems to use way more buttons than it needs to to do simple things.  One button talks, but another button activates, but another button uses items or something?  I'm not sure.  Even if I knew, I don't think this would be any better.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it.  This game is a trap.  Looked good at first, buy it dinner, take it home, but by the time you make it downstairs, there's a penis.  Again, somehow I'm left longing for the first game, and that's a bad sign.

The Addams Family 2 - Pugley's Scavenger Hunt

Played for: 15 minutes

Somehow, in one year, they managed to turn the first game into something so much worse..  It looks like the same engine underneath, except suckier.  The controls feel even looser, the animations are gross, and the game makes no sense.  Pugsley is ugly as hell, and his sprite and animations seriously turn my stomach a little bit.  He looks like Dennis the Menace's deformed cousin.

Also, the sounds are ridiculous.  It's like Fart: The Game.  Everything you jump on splurts away with a fart sound.

The levels are random piles of confusing garbage.  You can gather points randomly from just jumping to random spots in the air. Blocks appear out of nowhere.  Background objects looks like platforms you can jump on, but can't, and end up falling into the death-hole.  It just make no sense, and is frustrating to even try.

On the plus side, they give you three hits now, instead of two.  That's good.. right?

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it.  Quit it so hard.  I would rather play the first one again.  I'm so looking forward to the third one...

The Addams Family - SNES

Played for:  15 minutes

The Thing animation at the beginning is pretty cool, and then it just went downhill from here.  For being a platformer, the controls are super loose.  If you take 2 steps, you are running so fast, you slide.  The hit boxes are unforgiving and you are left wondering why you got hit this time, but not last time.  The jump distance for how long you press the button is super sensitive, and almost unpredictable.  Lots of bad guys, and you only get two hits. 

You find weapons every now and then, which really help, until you get hit and lose them.  When found, the best tactic seemed to be Continue's ABS tactic: Always Be Shooting. 

Also, you are collecting money when you are supposed to be finding your family, but I'm not yet sure why.  

Overall, it's just hard, but I can't tell if it's my impatience or just a bad game.  With practice, it probably gets better, but there still is some stupid level design/enemy placement all over the place, so I don't know.

Hit it or Quit it?

Quit it.  Unless I found out that by beating it, you get to see Morticia's boobs.  But even then, her nipples would probably have teeth or something.

AD&D Eye of the Beholder - SNES

Played for: 20 minutes

After seeing AD&D and TSR in the opening screens, I pretty much knew what to expect.  Screen-by-screen hardcore RPG.  That's pretty much what I got.  Making characters was pretty strightforward, though still fun.  Pick a slot, pick a race, pick a class, pick a picture, roll your stats.  Standard AD&D stuff.  The opening cinematics were a surprise.. they were actually fairly cinematic.  Nice graphics, some surprising animations.

Then you get stuck in the sewers, left to fend for yourself.  I started using the SNES mouse, since it seemed like it would play easier, but I don't know if the emulator doesn't recognize a second button or what, but I just couldn't figure out how to attack, so I almost died from sitting there in front of a basic goblin trying to figure it out.  All it would do when I clicked on my weapon was unequip it!  Finally switched to the controller, gained the use of multiple buttons, and figured it out.

The music sets a good mood, but gets a little repetitive by the time you're lost and just wandering around.  The graphics in general have really nice details and shading.

I'm not huge on these games in the first place, so I'm not too into it, but for what it is, it seems pretty good.  Standard, but good.  I'm not sure how this would differ from any other AD&D game that exists, other than maybe some slightly different story.  I stopped when I realized I had looped around and ended up back where I was.  I'm not about to start drawing maps.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it.  Fun enough for what it is, just not my type of game.

Actraiser 2 - SNES

Normally, I play the game first and start typing, but I just had to say this first:  The intro scene is awesome, and I'm super interested to see how this game compares to the first.  Admittedly, I don't remember the late-game in Actraiser, but here, I'm seeing multiple hit directions, double jump, floating, diving.  Way more interesting fighting.  And the music is awesome again, if not actually just the same.  Let's see how it goes!

-------

Played for:  20 minutes

Nevermind, screw this game.  I'm so frustrated and disappointed.  The opening scene looked so awesome, and it turns out that yes, you do get to start as buffed as it seems.  And the controls aren't quite as sticky as the first.  And the music is awesome and the graphics are seemingly better than the first.  Past that, get ready for a golden shower, because this game just pisses on you and expects you to like it.  After wandering the overworld map  for a few minutes trying to figure out where I was supposed to go, I found what I assumed was the "first level".

Enemies are taking multiple hits to kill, they are taking 4 of my 12 dots in one hit, WTF!  The double jump and glide are cool, but end up gliding you right into enemies.  Attacking from the air seems stronger, but harder to land the hit.  Up and down attacks are useful, except enemies are jumping at you from all sides all the time, and the attack just isn't built to handle that.  And the game is pumping me full of MP, but I don't have magic yet.

Finally make it through to the boss, who just wipes you out in two hits.

I was almost frustrated enough to just stop there, but thought "maybe this isn't the first level", so I found another.  Okay, cool, these enemies aren't hitting as hard, though they still take as too many hits to kill them.  Still dying several times.  Make it to the boss, find the pattern, take it out, after a few runs.  Oh, turns out it's not even the boss.  Just a mid-boss.  The next section is full of stupid platforming above liquid that take two hits to kill you.  Screw this, I'm out.

Maybe I still didn't pick the right level first, but considering I'm only planning on playing this for so long, the game not leading me to at least the proper first level has left a sour impression.  I want the game to be good, and perhaps it is, but it just isn't for what I want to play right now.  Like I mentioned of the first one, the two parts of the game aren't as good as a game built solely on either part, but this is just dumb.  Oh well.

Hit it or Quit it?
Hit it when I'm feeling bad about myself and want to be spanked and told what to do, otherwise quit it.  I really wanted to get to the world-builder.  Maybe another time just to see if I can find a better starting level.  Also, the font sucks.

Actraiser - SNES

Played for:  0 minutes now, but I've beaten it before

So this is the first time during the blog I've already played the game I'm supposed to play, so I'm not sure what to do.  If it were a game I'd just played a little and just needed a reminder, I would probably still play again.  I've beaten Actraiser before, and actually just played a few hours of it again a couple weeks ago anyways, so I will just go off that.

To have actually called a game "Beaten" is definitely something you won't see often on this blog, especially now since that's not the point.  It just show you how much I like this game though.  I rarely beat anything, and this is actually one that I have. Though I wouldn't have without save-state.

Jumping from Sim-City/world builder to Castlevania/generic side-scrolling platform fighter is pretty cool, though this game isn't as good at either of these ideas as each of those are on their own.  It makes for a fun combination; feeling ultimate power, but also being able to get down and dirty with the locals.

I love the music, and have listened to the soundtrack on its own for hours in the past.

The graphics are fairly detailed, though animations are lacking.

The controls are sticky, and make the platforming and fighting a little tough.

Hit it or Quit it?
I've hit it multiple times in the past, and would probably give it another booty call here and there.  But only with protection, a la save-state.  Otherwise, you're just asking to catch something.

ACME Animation Factory - SNES

Played for: 10 minutes

I thought about trying to not compare this to Mario Paint, but I don't care.  Mario Paint, this is not.  The painting is the same, because that's easy.  The animation studio is better, allowing more frames and such, but it's just a pixelated GIF editor with some built in Looney Tunes animations.  The music editor is worse.  Harder to use, less sounds.  Probably just trying to be MOR SRIOS, but even the demo songs suck.  Worst of all, the game-IN-a-game-CEPTION is way worse.  Instead of awesome Fly Attack, it's a matching game where you also find three strikes randomly and there's no way to win, but by luck.

At least it let you use the SNES mouse....

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it, and run off with Mario Paint, leaving ACME Animation Factory with the kids and the mortgage payment.

ABC Monday Night Football - SNES

Played for:  Half a game, ~20 minutes

First of all, I played a FOOTBALL GAME for longer than I could stand a platformer?  What the heck?   I don't know what happened, but I was actually kind of digging this game.  I haven't played many football games because I usually figure I won't like them.  I expected to play this for about 4 minutes and call it good, but it actually kept me playing.  Maybe the simplicity from being an old game helped.  I really don't know if I could see getting into newer football games just because they are so complicated.

In this, you pick your play, and I happened to start to actually understand what the plays are trying to show me.  Still hard to understand a running play, and actually succeed with it.  The couple passes I connected were actually pretty cool though.

I don't really understand defense in this game though, since it just looks like my plays again.. Am I just guessing what they are going to use, or what?  Who knows, but I usually blocked okay.  Or my teammates did, I don't know.  It's still all a little too hectic and confusing for me to really understand, and I still don't really care about football, but this kept me interested for a few minutes.  Not long enough to actually finish the game though.

The Mode 7 scrolling of the field was pretty cool though.  Otherwise, the animations are probably "good" but look pretty cheesy, especially the announcer animations.  Good plays get replays, which seems pretty good for an SNES game, but again, I just don't care, so whatever.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it, but it was surprisingly engaging for a 15 minute fling

Ahh! Real Monsters - SNES

Played for:  10 minutes

Pretty standard platformer, except clunky and annoying.  I never watched the show, so I don't have any nostalgia attached to this show, but the game isn't fun. You are controlling three characters you cycle through, ala The Lost Vikings, but you can barely tell you've switched between them.  They have a "Trio Move" which is either far jump, high jump or look into the next area remotely.  They just take forever to activate, and you need to be standing just right to make it happen.  The controls in general are just loose and hard to control, plus as your main character leaves the others behind, they appear, flashing on the screen and it's distracting.

Level design is "cool and gross" trudging through a bunch of garbage and such, and the art is okay.. Background art is better than the characters, though they pretty much look like they do in the show, just pixelly.  The "scare" animations are pretty cool, but they certainly don't save the game.

Jumping is annoying, throwing things at bad guys is annoying.  Overall, I just couldn't stand this more than 10 minutes.

Hit it or Quit it?
Ahh! Quit it.

A.S.P. Air Strike Patrol - SNES

Played for: 3 minutes

Fuck this game.  Some sort of tactical airplane something or other.  Tried for 3 minutes to do something, and all I could do was move a little cursor around a few options, but nothing seemed to do anything.  Had a feeling I wouldn't care going into it, and man was I right.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit the shit out of this.

2020 Super Baseball - SNES

Played for:  1 game, 9 innings, ~25 minutes

Baseball + Robots = Awesome?  Kind of.  It sounds great, and there have been a couple other decent attempts as such a concept, but in the end, baseball is still boring.  Robot baseball should only be 5 innings and I would be all over it.

Graphics are pretty good, some cool effects, except your whole team is generally made of the same sprite, it seems.  And some lame flashing tries to make things more exciting.

Sounds and music are whatever.  Nothing special, but it gets repetitive, like the game itself.

There are a several teams to pick from, all with different stats.  You are robots, and everything you do either gains or loses money.  This money can be spent to upgrade during the game.  Cool concept, but it just isn't that exciting.  From what I can tell, you can barely tell the difference and it doesn't even make it more fun.  They aren't cool robot upgrades like rocket balls or super bats.  Most just up your power by a little.

Your robots have stamina and eventually start to break down and don't perform as well.  Again, cool concept, but it make the slow, boring game even lamer.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it, even with a grand slam in the 2nd inning.  It was for the first few innings, but I can't imagine doing this again and again to beat the 10 teams they expect you to beat to become the Robot World Champion or whatever the hell you are trying to do.

The 7th Saga - SNES

Played for:  30 minutes

Really generic early 90s SNES RPG.  "Go find the crystals and you will be the stronger ever" etc.  Graphics are okay, after you get used to them.  Main character and their sprites are pretty unique, but the NPC sprites repeat too much and get old.

The music is annoying as hell.  Also, having to stop to open a menu to talk is dumb.  Just let me talk!  And items are annoying limited to things like MHERB1.  Standard early naming limitations, but it's not fun to go back to.  The map tiling is huge too, and clunky to walk around in and catch people to talk to while they walk around. Or block you from moving past them.

The battle system is pretty generic as well, but has a few interesting quirks.  You can see the enemies on a mini-map, so you can kind of avoid them if you want, but they catch up when they want, and will even attack while you are standing still.  Yes, I could pause it so they don't, but that's still lame.  It's really cool as it zooms down Mode 7 style to allow you fight wherever you happen to be for the fight.  The camera rotating back and forth when choosing your target is cool too.

First dungeon is proving to be difficult with about to run out of healing, and getting back to the entrance is going to be almost impossible.  Maybe poor planning, but I'm trying to experience what I can, but play time is over now.

Hit it or Quit it?
I would probably hit it a couple more times just to see if it got a little more interesting, but I think I'm right on that edge where it's about to get grindy and annoying, so it probably wouldn't last much longer.

Catch-up

Let's catch up the previous reviews to the new format:

3 Ninjas Kick Back - SNES
Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it.
Attractive, but by the time you get going, controls are fumbly and it just doesn't feel that good.

Mancala - Android
Hit it or Quit it?
Hit it every now and then.
Good for when you've got that itch to scratch for a few minutes and there's nothing else going on.

Reboot

Reboot 

(and not the 90s CGI cartoon)

I'm about 24 hours into this, and it's time for a format reboot already.  I don't want typing the reviews to take longer than I actually plan to play the games.  Also, no one cares what I think about the graphics and whatever.  Like I mentioned, the main reason I'm doing this is to have a reason (read: excuse) to play a bunch of different games, while also tracking what I thought and why.

While I really like the concept of TheShortTermGamer and the ShortTerm/LongTerm ratings, even the name is too complicated for what I'm trying to achieve right now.  Maybe I will get to that point, but for now, I should be able to summarize what I'm feeling in one of two ways:  Hit it or Quit it.

While this seems to even more closely "copy" the format of the Continue Show, it would also be like "copying" the idea of "pass or fail" or even "yes or no".  It's just a way of saying whether you liked it or not.  I don't even know yet if I will break down anything specifically about what I review, but I plan to really try to just keep it concise and move on.  Unlike these wordy filler posts.  And maybe I will evolve later.  But at least in the meantime, this new format also allows me to Hit or Quit whatever I want.  Could be a game, could be a movie, could even be a burrito for all I (or "you" at this point) care.

Let's see how this format turns out!

Mancala - Android Phone

Mancala

Because this will be a shorter review, I will also throw something up here about this game I just downloaded to my Android phone.  It is Mancala by AppOn downloaded through the Google Play Store.

I enjoy Mancala in "real life" and saw this, so I decided to try it out.

Mancala is a "board game" played by two players on a board with 6 divots and a Home divot to the right of each side.  Each divot has stones, and you play the game by the rules to try to clear your side/have the most stones in your home.  I'm not really looking to explain the whole game, just discuss what I thought about this version.

Graphics - 3/5
Mancala doesn't really need graphics, since it's just a board and stones, but what graphics are here are actually okay.  The board itself is a pretty good image, and the stones are okay.  There are no animations really necessary, but the movements of the stones is a little odd as you are selecting to move them.  It would be cool to see other boards or stones to choose from though.

Music - 2/5
The song is okay for a few minutes, but then you realize it's just the one song.  The games run pretty quick, but if you are planning on playing more than a few games in a row, it gets pretty repetitive.   Probably better to just run your own music in the background.

Gameplay - 3/5
Gameplay is really more dictated by the rules of the game, of course, but playing it is pretty fun.  Mancala probably isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy it, you might find a few good minutes out of this every now and then.  The AI might need some work though.  Easy and Medium levels, I won the first try each.  On Hard, by the third try, I tied.  It's probably not the best game for AI anyways, but at least it gives me a way to play Mancala.  There is also 2 player, but not online.  Online with ranking, and I would probably get hooked.

Overall Experience - 15 minutes played
I will likely leave this installed on my phone and play it every now and then.  At least until I get a real win on the Hard AI.  After that, it may just be a little too basic to want to deal with the ads before and after running the game.  If there is a full version, maybe it adds a little more flavor, but it probably just removes the ads.

I would rank this as a ShortTermGame.  I will probably pick it up every now and then, but it won't last forever.

3 Ninjas Kick Back - SNES

3 Ninjas Kick Back

or

3 Ninjas Suck Ass

So for my first attempt at one of these reviews, I have gone with 3 Ninjas Kick Back for the SNES.  I knew I wanted to play a Super Nintendo game, but I didn't know which one, so I just went with the first one in the folder.  Oh boy.

3 Ninjas Kick Back is presumably based on the movie of the same name, which would presumably be the sequel to an original 3 Ninjas.  I barely remember the movies, so I have no recollection of how this actually compares to the movies.  All I really remember is them using a Game Gear to do.. something.  

In this game, you control one of the three brothers as they set off to do stuff for their grandpa.. or something.  

Eh, screw it, I'm not really looking to write full-fledged reviews considering I'm really looking to just play a game briefly and review it briefly.   I will just get into what I thought.

Music - 1/5

The music is the first thing you notice.  And instantly wish it would go away.  It's just hectic, and repetitive. And it doesn't get better.  Each song is the same 4 bars repeated over and over and over.  It's obviously meant to get your heart racing, but all it did was irritate me.

Graphics - 3/5

The graphics are actually probably the best part about this game, and they aren't even anything special.  The only reason it's even rating so high is probably because it's relative to the rest of the crap.  It's pretty colorful, and the animations are surprisingly.. animated..  The parallax scrolling in the first level works pretty well, though the background, like the music, is just the same 4 tiles repeated.  Also, the screen can get pretty cluttered with foreground scenery getting in the way of what you are trying to do.  Also the "regular" ground looks very similar to the "spiky" ground, leading to confusing life lost.

Controls - 1/5

The controls are probably where this game falters the most.  I know they are kids, but if they are supposed to be ninjas, they have some work to do.  The controls are just clunky and awkward.  Lots of bad design choices.  You have to grab ledges and things to swing on and such, but you need to hold directly Up to grab.  This is while you are trying to also control your distance, which is not easy.  Then to boost your jump upwards from the ledge, you also hold directly up, despite the need to also press Left or Right to actually get the distance needed to complete the jump.  When you crouch, and start crawling Left or Right, it toggles you to crawl, so you must completely stop, or jump before you can leave the crouch.  The pixel-perfect grab you have to make several times often just causes you to fall into the spikes.  Overall, again, just awkward and really not cohesive to most "normal" control schemes, for no apparent reason.

Overall Experience - 30-40 minutes played

You can choose to be one of the three brothers, but they all seem to be exactly the same, other than height and character design.  All of the controls are the same, no special differences or abilities that I could see.  Maybe the height difference makes things easier or harder to dodge or affects something I am unaware of, but in the 40 minutes, and 5 or so stages I played, I saw nothing that would make anything different.  The controls were clunky, the fighting just wasn't fun, the levels and music were chaos.  It just wasn't fun.  The only reason I even played it as long as I did was because there are infinite continues, and starting each level over wasn't a huge deal.  Otherwise, there was so much dying, I probably would have given up after about 10 minutes.  Just wouldn't have been worth it. 

From ShortTerm to LongTerm, this is a NoTermGame.  Just don't play it.  

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And with that, I complete my first review.  It's not very pretty, and I could go on about certain things, but I'm still getting the feel for this.  I don't even know if I'm looking to dive this deep into my reviews to everything anyways.  I'm trying to keep them short to maximize the chance that I will actually type them up after I've played something.  Maybe I will just work on a template I can fill out real quick.  Hit some main bullet points and call it good.  Save the real reviews for another time.. or someone else all together.  I really just want a reason to play a bunch of random games, while also have some level of tracking on what I thought.  Maybe a blog like this isn't necessary when I could just track my plays and ratings on one of a dozen websites.  Even video or screenshots, while nice and attractive, would even counter the quick turn-around I am looking for here. So.. I don't know what this will evolve into yet.  I also overthink, and try to pre-plan these things too much.  I guess I will just see what happens with the next one!

What is TheShortTermGamer?   

For lack of a better name, and wanting to get something created before I have to leave, this is what it is.  Basically, it's me.  Back when I was younger, I could play for hours and hours, all kinds of games, all the time.  These days, with work, life, responsibilities, etc, I just don't have time to play many games for very long.

The problem is, there are a lot of games.  So what do I do?  I end up playing several games, but not to completion.  I love game demos because they are short, to the point, and often I feel my gaming need satisfied from only playing a few minutes of demos.  On the same note, I play a lot of random stupid cell phone games, because you can play for a few minutes, gain some progress and put it back down because you have to get back to work.  Also, flash games are great, when I'm actually at a computer.

Also, I have been watching a lot of Continue? on YouTube, so my bug to play old games/ROMs is itching pretty badly.  I figured, if I start something like this, as ugly and pointless as it seems, at least I can put -some- reasoning behind why I am playing games, since I don't play them to beat them, and often really just don't care enough to.   There are so many games out there, I definitely don't have time to play all of the ones I want to.  So instead, I will dabble with more of a purpose.

If I stick with this (as opposed to everything else I've started and not kept up on), the plan is to play games and write reviews, however long or short the review or gameplay session was.  The reviews may be uninformed, and made based on barely even playing a game, but that's the point.  Not to rip the idea off the of Continue guys, but it's kind of the same deal, except I'm just me.  And likely not near as funny.  I will play a game for as long as I feel like, and write how I feel about it.  It could be a game demo, it could be an old-school ROM, it could be flash game, it could be anything you can play.

Maybe someday I will have video, maybe someday I will have gameplay footage, who knows.  For now, I need it as simple as possible if I have any chance of sticking with it.  Even now, I have been planning on playing something for days, but just haven't gotten to it.  My excuse has been "I need the blog first".  Now I have the blog.  Now my excuse is that I need to leave soon.  Maybe I will play something tonight.  Maybe not.

So unless I come up with a better name, and actually stick with this to the point where I don't need this filler post anymore:

Welcome to TheShortTermGamer!