Alien vs. Predator (SNES)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 1993 -- Developer: Activision -- Publisher: Activision

First impression:
Like the last review, I know nothing about this movie except that most people seem to think I should have seen it.  Intro storyboard screens.  Aliens attacked humans, humans called for help, the call fell upon the predator.  I'm guessing platformer again, like Alien 3.

WHOOOOA, beat 'em up.  Really?? WTF.  Looks cheesy as hell, but it's definitely a beat 'em up.  Looks look sticky controls and repetition.  Not expecting much, but maybe it will surprise me.. like an alien popping out of a chest.. or something.

Also, the music is super annoying.  I can't tell if it's supposed to be the movie music, but it's just shrill, and when it's not shrill, it's repetitive.

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Fooled around for: 10 minutes
For the Predator supposedly being such a badass, in this game, he just sucks ass.  The game starts as soon as you press start, no lead-in, just a sampling of the three power-ups you can get.  One is a projectile blade thing, one is generic meat-on-bone and the other third might be the worst power-up I've ever seen.  So the predator is supposed to be awesome and go stealth, right?  Well, that's the power up, except all it does is make it so you can't even see your own sprite to fight with.  WTF!  It's more like a power down.

What a great idea!  

The controls are even worse than I anticipated.  If you are button mashing, as you tend to in games like this, you can't even turn around until you seriously just stop pressing the button for a second.  The combos are clunky, the other pick-up weapons suck.  You can start a grab by either pressing X or just standing next to them, so right as you think you are going to hit that sweet combo, you just stop and grab them and stare at them.

I tried the Continue method of Always Be Jump-kicking, and it definitely doesn't work in this game.  In a startling turn of events, the CPU enemies actually know this tactic and use it relentlessly.  And they have a longer reach than you, so they can hit you before you even get to them.

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Hit it or Quit it?
I already don't like beat 'em ups that much, unless it's really breaking the standard mold somehow, but this one not only makes me like them less, but I also don't want to see the movie.  Quit it with stealth on so it doesn't see me leaving in the morning.

Alien 3 (SNES)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 1993 -- Developer: Probe -- Publisher:  Acclaim

From across the room:
I have never seen any of the Alien movies, so I have no idea what to expect with the story, let alone with the game.  There's actually an intro cinematic, not that it's helping much.  It's space.  And there's an alien on the ship.  The music is trying to be epic.  There's some bald guy.  While it's going.. my guess is that this will be something like a side-scrolling platform shooter.  Looks like the intro is done, so let's find out.

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Fooled around for: 8 minutes
Hey look at that, I was right.  Side-scrolling platform shooter.  This is my excited face.  It almost seemed cool at first because the first thing I realized is that I have a flamethrower.  Then I realized I could walk up to a computer terminal and use it.  This is how you select your mission.  There seems to be several, and I wanted to know what they all were, but it took so long to watch the mission information display everything, I just couldn't stand waiting through it.  I looked at one that showed there were hostages to save, and one where there were cracked pipes that needed to be fixed.  I chose to save the hostages and off I went.  To find that you only get to see the map at the terminal, and it looks so generic, it's hard to even tell what it's showing you.  Then you can just go into all kinds of random doors and get lost.

Like I said, I haven't seen Alien, but is GI Jane in it, because this game makes it look like she is.  There are a bunch of little aliens running around, and it's fun to burn them to death, but that's about it.  Running is not fun, jumping is not fun, saving hostages is not fun.  Fire is fun.. but then you run out of ammo and it's not so fun.

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Hit it or Quit it?
Overall, I just don't care enough about this franchise to try to figure out what is going on.  There could be a decent game underneath, if it was given some patience, but patience I do not have.  Quit it.

Alcahest (SNES)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 1993 -- Developer: Hal Laboratory -- Publisher: Square

First impression:
Square!  And Hal!  No wonder this got translated.  Yes, this is my first foray into a translated game.  Since I'm assuming it's an RPG, I'm not sure how long I will actually play it for Hit it or Quit It since I don't really plan to get into it that much.  7th Saga worked out pretty well though, so maybe this will too.  Just seeing those names, and hearing this pretty awesome title screen music makes me wonder if this might even be a long-term game in the future.  There's no demo screens or anything, so who knows how this is going to go.  Being worthy of translation might be a good sign too though!

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Fooled around for: 25 minutes
It turned to not only be an RPG, but actually an action RPG!  Totally wasn't expecting that, and almost instantly bumped my rating up to Hit it.  Aside from a few text glitches on what look to be some type of Chapter screens, I couldn't even tell it was translated.  The script is just about as lame and cheesy as all of this era of games were, and it was awesome.

The music is a little lamer than I was hoping, especially running the same song over and over while you are getting through it.  And the controls are just a little bit sticky considering the amount of enemies and the angles at which they come at you.  Besides this, it was just straight-forward enough to not have to think, but fun enough to play so I didn't get bored with it.  It's actually hard to stop playing, since it was just starting to get good. I just got some fire guy as a partner and he's supposed to team up with me.  Being on the early side, it seems the leveling has something left to be desired, and the item system is a little weird, but it also may get better later on.  The graphics are pretty good for trying to be detailed considering it's on the SNES in 1993.

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Hit it or Quit it?
I wouldn't be surprised if it gets annoyingly hard later on, but for now, I would definitely hit again.  This may actually be one that I try to play for a longer style review.  I will actually create a new tag for Callbacks, because I think I'm going to want to take another go at this in the future.  Thinking back, I'm not sure I would even retro-fit any other reviews with a Callback.  This game is breaking all sorts of new ground for me!

Double Teamed - Battle Cars (SNES)

Year: 1993  Developer: Namco

Another game double teamed with my brother!

From across the room:
Again, there seems to be no demo screen, so we are left guessing what is going to happen.  The cars on the title screen look pretty hardcore, so maybe this will actually be pretty cool.  We figure it's going to be something along the lines of Rock 'n' Roll Racing, but probably not with the crazy isometric view.

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Played for: 20 minutes

Hit it or Quit it?
There were cars.. there was battling.. but there was a lot left to be desired.  It actually looked a lot like Mario Kart, except with after Mario Kart had been on Crystal Meth for a few years and was living on the streets.  It started suddenly, with no lead-in, and I guess we were battling each other.  Just after we finally figured out what was going on, it was over, and we were awarded credits.  Oh, cool, so we earn money to buy upgrades?  Sweet.  And it actually was sweet for me, because I was awarded so much money for winning the head to head.  For my brother though, he could barely buy anything.  After this, it wasn't so much two player, as it was one player.. twice.  I Battled Raced the "boss", then my brother got the chance.  Then we got more credits.  Well, I got more credits.  Because my brother didn't get so much money the first round, he wasn't as powerful, and couldn't keep up with the boss as well.  After two more sets of this, we realized it was quickly getting unbalanced.  I won more because I started strong, and he couldn't catch up because he didn't have the power to do so.

Unlike Mario Kart, the tracks all looked the same.  They could have all been the same, for all we could tell.  There was almost no HUD.  Just a few numbers for "speed" and for how far in front or behind you were from the boss.

Eh, this is already getting too long for what I'm shooting for here.  I need to learn to focus on the game, and not the experience.

Graphics, meh.  Upgrading, nice thought, but just didn't work that well.  Music, annoying.  Fun, almost was, but then wasn't.  Quit it.

Double Teamed - Brawl Brothers (SNES)

Year: 1993 -- Developer/Publisher: Jaleco

So this is a first for this blog:  I doubled teamed a game with my brother today.  Went all Family Style on it.  Other than breaking the continuity of my playlist, and handing picking a few games that were 2-player, the format is the same.  We play a game for a fairly short amount of time, make some judgments based on this short amount of time, and move on.

Also.. There's pictures!  There may not always be, but I hope to at least catch the title screen and other funny/interesting shots.

From Across The Room:
We waited and waited for a demo mode, or some other splash screens or something, and nothing.  Apparently the game does not think we need to know anything about it before hand.  Based on the name, we guess it's likely to be a side-scrolling beat-em-up.  Watch it be a Airplane Simulator...

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Played for:  15 minutes

Hit it or Quit it?
Well, it wasn't a Flight Sim.  I guess it was a beat-em-up.  Well, it was.  But, considering how many are out there, this was definitely just another generic beat-em-up.  Walk, walk, punch, punch, jump-kick, special, repeat.  I've never had much patience for these in general because from Final Fight to The Simpsons Arcade Game, they all just seem the same.  Pick a big, slow fighter or a small quick fighter.  Pick up items and weapons, and just beat up repeating enemies, and super hard bosses.  I don't know what I'm expecting for there to be different for me to be interesting. Maybe some of the extra elements that games like River City Ransom have.. Get money, purchase items, leveling.  Just something else.  Even if I was going to play something as standard as this, I would end up playing something "classic" like Final Fight or Double Dragon.

As for this game though, it is was it is, and that's about it.  Graphics are okay.  A couple characters look like rip-offs from Street Fighter:  Huge, beefy Ryu and Black M.Bison (see picture below).  The music caused anxiety and was pretty annoying.  The graphics were pretty standard for one of these, but I would say excelled slightly in the animations.  Rip-off Ryu's normal punchpunchpunchpunch combo actually had about 5 frames of different poses to it.  Also, there was a button labeled "?" in the Control Options that turned out to be some weird pose.  Caught a couple screencaps of those too, for what it's worth.

Past that, quit it.  Even double-teamed, this just wasn't that fun.  Too generic when there are other games like this to play that might even feel a little more fulfilling.

Angry Mode??

Rip-off Ryu rocking the devil horns!

Black M.Bison eating chicken.. of course!

Aladdin - SNES

Year: 1993
Producer: Capcom

From across the room:
Ah, so nice to hear a familiar splash screen of a decent company for a change, Capcom!  I've played Aladdin before, so this won't be completely new, but it's been a while, so it will be new enough.  The startup sequence is running through the story.  Aladdin and Jafar are trying to open the Cave of Secrets or whatever it was. The animations are nice and colorful, as they should be, being based on a Disney cartoon movie.  Running demo scene now.  Ah, yes, this does look familiar.  I think this is supposed to end up being pretty hard, like The Lion King.  Like they were thinking "hm, Disney movies are nice and accessible.. but let's make the games so even seasoned gamers can't handle this shit... also.. penises."  Sounds like the music should be catchy and referential to the movie as well.

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Played for:  8 minutes

Hit it or Quit it?
Don't let the playtime fool you.  Or maybe do let it fool you, I don't know.  Maybe I'm just having an impatient day, but I just wasn't into dying over and over.  I see that yes, it's difficult, but it's partly only because of the controls.. and level design.. Both of which should be expected I guess, and I guess you would be expected to get over it.  But they just weren't as fluid as they felt like they could have been.  Most of the levels just need to be memorized so you can avoid the awkwardly placed enemies.  It feels like there could be some pretty cool parkour type runs, but then all of a sudden you catch something and it stops you right in front of an arrow.  Also, the controls just feels really loose.  For a platformer with ahead-of-its-time parkour, and very precise jumping needed, the hit/grab boxes just don't feel right.  One time, it seems you'd be fine to grab this or jump on that, but the next time, it feels like the same place, and it just doesn't connect.  Also running is really loose and sloppy, being unsure of when you're going to start and stop speed-running or sliding.

I do feel impatient today, so I would probably come back and hit this again sometime to try to learn the levels a little more and see how much of the movie is involved in this game.  I do remember very similar issues with the Lion King game too though, as I mentioned.  I wonder if that was Capcom too.. hm..  Either way, games like these usually have codes, or you can at least look up the passwords and start wherever you want in the game, so there's some replay in just jumping around and seeing further into the game for the heck of it.  Not right now though!

Aero the Acro-bat - SNES

Year: 1993
Developer: Iguana
Publisher: Sunsoft

I'm pretty sure I have played this before, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't for very long.  I don't remember if it was because it was bad, or just because I don't play games very long.  If I remember correctly, it's just a collect things platformer, with some gliding because you're a bat?   Seeing the demo now, the graphics are actually not quite as smooth as I was expecting.  Maybe I was thinking the sequel, or the Genesis version or something.  Otherwise.. yeah.  You're a bat, in a circus.  Jumping around.  Everything is actually pretty small on the screen compared to most of the platformers I have played so far.  The music is circusy and annoying. Surprised to see Iguana as the developer.  Let's see how it goes!

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Played for:  15 minutes

Yeah, I really don't remember this, so it was either the sequel, or I've always just seen the game sitting there so often, I assumed I played it.  Really isn't that fun, sadly.  It looks like it could be, but the gliding is weird.  It's either up angle or down angle, and if you hit the ground, you just slide along it.  You can't jump on bad guys.  There are a couple neat circus themed items to interact with, but otherwise, I just didn't really have fun playing it.  The main goal of the first level is just to find 7 star platforms and jump on them until they disappear.  Doesn't make sense, and again, just isn't that fun.  The second level was different, at least.  But I hit Game Over, and it kicked me all the way back to the first level, so screw it, I'm done.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it.  Not as "Quit it" as a lot of the other platformers I've been playing, but I don't see any reason to come back to this one again.  Maybe the sequel will turn out better!

Aero Fighters - SNES

Year: 1993
Developer: McO'River (!?)

First Glance
Top down flying shooter!  First one I've done so far, so hopefully this will be fun.  Demo scenes are pretty short, but it seems pretty standard.  I have no idea who the developer is, but I do see a lot of Japanese names in the credits.  Not much else to say except it's top down, airplanes, bullets and bombs.  Here we go!

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Played for:  15 minutes

Hm, wasn't bad.  Was actually more Bullet Hell than I was expecting.  I think the biggest problem is just that Bullet Hell only works so well on SNES digital controls.  I'm sure more than just this one game exist, and I'm sure with practice, it gets better, but it's just really hard to maneuver between those tight spaces with a digital 4-way pad.  Looks like you can play 2-player simultaneous though, and I bet that's fun.  Otherwise, it's so standard that there's not really much to talk about.  Shoot the other planes, don't get hit, use your bombs, upgrade your weapon.  But the upgrades aren't anything special.  Actually, I will go try a different plane and see if I notice anything.

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Played for:  Another 20 minutes

Alright, looks like one time through for only 15 minutes wasn't quite enough to give this game justice. I can't say I will always take every game from every angle, but this one slipped through.  The different planes do have different types of shots.  They aren't really game-changing different, but the bombs definitely have different attack styles.  Also, playing as different planes alters the order in which you play the levels, which keeps it interesting.

Hit it or Quit it?
Well, I already did go back for seconds on this one, but I would still hit it again.  I'm not sure I would have after the first round, but the second round definitely showed it had some interesting bits to it, and that with a little practice, it did get easier to handle the d-pad.  I don't know how much more I would go back for, since there are a billioon Bullet Hell/Top-down shooters to play, but I could already feel myself getting better enough at this one that I could at least take another run at it.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends - SNES

Year: 1993
Publisher:  THQ
Developer: Imagineering INC

First Glance
I had to restart the game and pause on the info screen because there is no splash screens telling me who was involved with this game.  I have a feeling that's going to be a bad sign.  Also, there's no demo footage, just the standard Rocky and Bullwinkle title screen with Rocky flying around.  I never really liked this show that much, so I'm not expecting much.  Especially with what little I have been able to learn so far about the game.

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Played for: 20 minutes

So, this is another first, and I bet won't be the last.  Before playing this, I didn't think that I had played it before.  Pretty quickly though, the memories started flooding back, and I totally have played this game before.. and my memories seem to think I've played it quite a bit.  Like I owned it or rented it a lot or something.  The catch is, my memories don't seem to think I was holding a SNES controller though, so that's probably why I didn't remember.  I'm betting I played it on the Genesis.  Either way, I definitely think I played it a lot.  It was sooo familiar.  Bonking Bullwinkle's head on rocks, gathering and throwing berries, climbing up the mountain in the first level, etc.

That aside, and for whatever nostalgia is affecting my opinion, it actually isn't too bad.  It's tricky, but not annoying tricky like most of the platformers have been thus far.  It feels like when you made a mistake, it was your fault for not seeing it coming, not remembering it was there, or just plan not paying attention.

Also, even though I don't really like Rocky and Bullwinkle, the intro scene was pretty entertaining.  Lots of broken 4th wall stuff like they often do.  Also a "Hey, isn't this how our Game Boy game started?" was pretty funny.

There are a couple mini-games you can play before the level to get an extra life before you go in, and that was super familar too.  So much, that I killed it, and totally got my extra life.  I wonder how much more would seem familiar if I kept going.  I seem to remember playing it alot, but I really doubt I actually made it too far into the game.

Graphics are pretty good, though the animation is a little choppy.  Controls are pretty good.  Precision jumping is tricky, but it usually is.  Could definitely be worse though.

Hit it or Quit it?
Surprisingly, I would actually hit it again.  Probably not as a first choice, but if it fell into the bed, I wouldn't kick it out.  Would be interesting to see how far into the game my memories actually go.

The Adventures of Dr. Franken - SNES

Year: 1993
Developer: MotiveTime
Publisher: DTMC

First Glance
The first thing that struck me was the demo screen music.  It's like a funky remix of some classical music.  There's a good amount of demo footage to check out as well.   Looks like you are a hip Frankenstein (Has to be since he's wearing sunglasses inside AND at night).  There's an overworld map, looks like he will be traveling all over the world.  Lots of platforming.  Has a couple kick moves to fight with.  Castles, houses, etc.  Looks like it should control decently, but that's about all I can pull from it for now, so here we go!

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Played for:  8 minutes

Nevermind.  Funny I should mention the controls, because that's one of the worst parts.  In general, Y is left attack, X is up attack, and A is right attack.  That would be fine, IF IT WAS CONSISTENT.  When you jump, your attack direction is based on the direction you are facing.  When you are running, it's based on which direction you are facing.  But when you are standing still, it's which button you press.  WTF, why would you do that!?

Also, you can jump and land on almost anything.  But not some things.  But you can't tell what, so you sometimes fall and sometimes don't.

Also, bad guys respawn, which is fine, except they don't respawn CONSISTENTLY, so you are always just turning around right into another bad guys.  And they seem to move about 4 frames for your one frame, so they are already in your hit box before you even get a chance to attack.

For as nice as the art and animation looked, it made me think they actually took some good time on this game and it would at least be a little fun, if not more than just a generic "run around the house and collect things" game.  Nope. This is why I've never heard of Motivetime, or this game.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it so hard that Dr Franken's super cool hip shades break and cut his eyeball.  Not that they are his eyes, but still.