Double Teamed - Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers (SNES)

Year: 1996 -- Developer: Natsume -- Publisher: Bandai

4th and final game for this series of Double Teaming!

From across the room:
Considering all of the other games we've been playing didn't have demo screens, we didn't even wait for this one to find out.  Let's just get it started.  We are expecting something between Mario Kart and Battle Cars.. but with Power Rangers.. but since it's Zeo, no putties :(

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Played for: 20 minutes

Hit it or Quit it?
Putties wouldn't have really made this game any better.  It turned out to be a scary close rip-off of Mario Kart.  Most of the same modes, tracks looked similar, even some of the sounds were very close.  For being so late in the SNES life, I kind of had hoped for this to somehow be awesome.   Unfortunately, it was just generic and same-y.  It might have even been better if it wasn't Power Rangers.  There was no reason for it to have been Power Rangers.. but I guess that's what happens when you try to put a franchise on top of something totally unrelated like a battle racing game.

Considering how awesome Mario Kart got later, making the original suck, I'd still rather just go play that.  Quit it.

The Adventures of TinTin - Prisoners of the Sun - SNES

Year: 1996
Publisher: Infogrames

First Glance
I said I didn't like Rocky and Bullwinkle, and it turned out to be an okay game.  I will say I don't like TinTin either, so we will see what happens.  I'm surprised to see a 1996 date. Super late for the SNES with the N64 right around the corner.  The demo scenes are hard to really read into the game.  There's a weird little ball of fire floating all over the place or something.  Also, this will be my first European game.  There wasn't a US version, so I'm guessing it never came out here.  Probably because no one over here cares about TinTin.  "Prisoners of the Sun" sounds pretty hardcore though.  Will be interesting to see how it goes.  As it shows more demo scenes, it just looks like it's going to be clunky and confusing, just like the show.  Lots of different types of levels, but.. I don't know.. We'll see.

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Played for: 10 minutes
Just as I suspected, 10 minutes and I'm done.  And I'm mad I even played that long.  The game looks really good.  Good animations, good art style, looks like TinTin, etc.  But just playing the game is a pain in the ass. A couple of the weirdest level designs I've ever seen.  Somehow, touching regular people hurts you, so you can't touch anyone.  Maybe he's a germaphobe, I don't know.  So you are running towards and away from the camera to dodge people as you go from left to right down the two "lanes".  After you get the hang of it, that's pretty easy to get through, but then you end up in a room with boxes and spikes on the boxes, and the lights are on a timer, so if you take too long, they go out, and you essentially have to die because you won't have any idea what to do after that.  The strips of spikes are longer than you can jump.  Turns out you can move a box, but it's so clunky to deal with, that it just wastes your light timer.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it, and glad it never came our over here.  Maybe us Americans just don't "get" TinTin or his games.