Hypotenuse (XBLIG)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2012 -- Developer: Iamrese -- Publisher: XBLIG

First impression:
Well, it's another fighting game.. but unlike yesterday, these graphics look better.  Except all it looks like is a bunch of rendered.. lines/boxes?  And they fight?   Hopefully there will at least be some sort of AI so I can actually play the game..

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Fooled around for:  7 minutes (Indie Game Demo Limit)
That was an interesting little game..  So you play a Samurai "Rectangle".. and you are fending off waves of Evil Rectangles.  You have a sword and a few shurikens, as do the enemies.  At first, I wasn't really digging it too much.  The sword-play seemed clunky and the shurikens were are hard to aim enough to actually hit the enemies.  About halfway through my time, I remembered that I had seem "lock-on" in the controls.  That really turned the game around as far as playability.

Unfortunately, the other side of this is just that there really isn't much to the game.  It says on the exit screen that the full version gives you more death animations, items, and enemy types.  Even a small taste of those might have made the demo a little more fulfilling.  I know they don't want to give it all away, but considering there's a 7 minute time limit anyways, why be so stingy?  Makes me wonder how much more it's really going to add to the game.

The music isn't really music.. It's just some pinking of an instrument hear and there.  In a different type of game, this might work better.  Adventure, puzzle, something like that.  In an action game, it's a little too calm.  Maybe it's on purpose, but it just didn't really work for me.

The graphics are good though, despite being simple.  It's "fancy" simple, with all of the animations on what amounts to be very basic shapes.

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Hit it or Quit it? (80 MSP)
Since it's only a buck, I could almost see myself picking this up.  It might be fun to pick up every now and then.  But the game also doesn't give any indication that it will be keeping track of high scores, or progress or how much the game will actually grow.  For that, I really don't see myself getting too much into this game in the long run.  Despite being a cute little game that is well put together for what it is, I would have to quit it.

Eat my Shuriken and die! (XBLIG)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2012 -- Developer: FlatRedBall -- Publisher: XBLIG

First impression:
Pretty brutal name.. I have to eat your shuriken.. AND die?  Man..

The screenshots show this actually looks like a Smash Bros clone.  Haven't really seen anything like that before.  Granted, it's pretty basic graphics, and I really don't expect the controls to handle very well at all, but that's what they seem to be shooting for.  I should note as well, that I never really like Smash Bros (yeah, yeah.. get over it) in the first place, so I'm especially not looking forward this.

When the game loads, but before it starts, there is some pretty hyper chiptuney techno crazy music.  If that's the music during the game, it might actually be a little distracting.

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Fooled around for: 0 minutes (!?)

..This wasn't even worth the bandwidth to post, let alone the time it took to actually put this post together.

The game is MULTIPLAYER ONLY WTF?!?!??!  I get that it takes quite a bit of extra time and programming to program AI, especially into a larger scale fighting game, but really?  It should be called Eat my MULTIPLAYER ONLY in the title.  This is dumb.  The game was ugly anyways.  Quit it.

Jeopardy! (XBOX360 Demo)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2012 -- Developer: Pipeworks -- Publisher: THQ

First impression:
On the back of yesterday's Wheel Of Fortune, I'm going to check out the demo for Jeopardy.  Knowing that it's by the same company, Pipeworks, and published by THQ, I expect this really to just be the same as WoF, except a different word game.

That's actually kind of exciting.  Yeah, the voices are kind of lame, but I expect decent camera work, a solid presentation of the game, and lots of features I would be excited for, but won't be able to see in the demo.  Let's make sure they didn't screw this one up!

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Fooled around for:  10 minutes (1 full game)
Notice the time there.. only 10 minutes for the full game!?  The demo didn't even let you run a full board.  It only gives you the first two columns.   This made for a very short game.

Otherwise, as expected, the game looks like the show.  And it looks like WoF.  Somehow, I wasn't expecting them to have re-used the character models and sound clips and everything.  It looks like the same three people happened to get on WoF AND Jeopardy.  WTF?!   At least on WoF, I could play a real, full game.

Alex' sound bits were good though.  He voices all of the questions and all of the answers.  He must not have had much else going on or something, or there really isn't much variety in the questions after a few games.  There is a little weirdness when certain bits are spliced together, otherwise without looking, it usually sounds just like him.

Except overall, this really wasn't as fun of an experience as WoF.  Had I thought about it, I probably could have expected it.  One of the biggest things about "real" Jeopardy is that you either know the answer or you don't.  In turning that into a video game, they decided to go multiple choice with it.  This means that every now and then you might allllmost know it, and you can just look at the answers and figure it out.  That doesn't count!

Also, Jeopardy is harder anyways, of course.  This is why I never wanted to be on Jeopardy, but I would totally try WoF.  That is, unless I could get on Teen Jeopardy.  That might turn out okay...

Multiple choice!?

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Hit it or Quit it?
Considering they dumbed down one of the most important aspects of this game, and it's usually too hard for me to have fun being in control, I definitely would be quitting this.  Especially since if I bought this AND WoF, it would mostly feel like playing the same game with all of the similar assets.  They should have just bundled the two games together, and more people would probably end up playing this.  As it is though, quit it.

Wheel of Fortune (XBOX360 Demo)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2012 -- Developer: Pipeworks -- Publisher: THQ

First impression:
What is there to say about a first impression about Wheel of Fortune?  I expect to spin a very large wheel, guess letters, buy vowels, solve puzzles.  I do also expect the game to come off as pretty cheesy, as most of these video game versions of TV shows like this tend to turn out.  Maybe some lame voiceovers.  Maybe some "awesome" e-"prizes".   The Sony and THQ intro logos made the game seem pretty fancy, but the cover art has Pat and Vanna look like bobble heads, so we'll see how this actually turns out.

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Fooled around for:  ~35 minutes (One full game)
On one hand, it was about what I was expected.

On the other, it was actually better than I expected.  A lot of it has to do with presentation.  Yeah, the contestant voiceovers were a little cheesy and repetitive   Pat and Vanna weren't -as- repetitive, but they probably would be after a few games.  Their scripts in general actually weren't so bad as far as delivery.  Also, the timing triggers working pretty well, causing Pat to say "slow down" or "go go go" when appropriate to where you were about to land.

The best parts about the presentation were how much it actually looked like the show.  The music, camera angles, the cuts around the set, the wheel, everything looked like you were just playing the show.  That's about as good as you can expect to get with a game based on a word game.

One thing I didn't even think about going into it was online play!  Being the demo, I couldn't try it, but that would be a huge selling point for me.  I've always thought I would do pretty good on the show, and playing against other real people is about as close as will probably ever get.   It would probably one of the few games I would actually pull my headset out for, just to get into the game a little more.

The game keeps track of various stats, and also prizes that you win, so you have some tracking of what you've done, considering it's going to feel like a lot of the same.  It also has leaderboards, to compare yourself to people you aren't even playing!



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Hit it or Quit it?
Originally, as I was typing this, I thought this version was an XBLA game, so I expected it to be probably 10 bucks (though I hoped for 5).  As I went to check the price, I realized this is actually just a "demo", so it's probably actually a full game that you have to buy on disc.  For probably 30-40 bucks.  For that amount of money, I'm out.  If it ever came through the e-downloads for something closer to 15 bucks, I might jump on it.  5 bucks, I'm there, instantly, playing it every day.

The game itself, I would hit it pretty hard, because I love Wheel of Fortune, I love easy achievements, and the presentation of this game was actually very well put together for being a cheesy TV show "port".  For the price they probably want me to pay to play it though, I'm going to have to quit it.  Just checked, yeah, it's looking like 30-35.  With great remorse, I will have to quit it.  Maybe I will catch it in the bargain bin in a couple years....

Voltron (XBLA)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2011 -- Developer: Behaviour Entertainment -- Publisher: THQ

First impression:
To be honest, I really barely know anything about Voltron.  That's part of the reason I downloaded this demo.  I have no idea what this could be like.  The only thing I've seen so far is what may have been the actual opening to the show.  It was definitely animation from the show, I'm just not sure if that speech that the narrator gave was original or not.  I know Voltron as "not quite transformers, but quite the following regardless".  As for the game, I'm guessssssing.. something like a 3d beat-em-up?  Lots of "movie games" do that.  Maybe this will be some sort of crazy new design.

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Fooled around for:  9 minutes (1 level, length of demo)
I pretty much called it, except it wasn't even as good as most bad "movie games".  I don't know if it's so bad because I'm missing the nostalgia or what, but that was just boring and clunky.  The clips from the show were kind of entertaining, even though I don't feel any connection with them.  The game itself was kind of like a twin stick shooter, except with slow weapon, slow movement and the camera is too far out to actually enjoy seeing anything blow up.

The game felt generic, despite having such heavy ties to a franchise.  You can pick from any of the 5 "cats", which have different statistics, but what determines each, I have no idea.  It's hard to even tell what all of the stats are about anyways.

Then you run around, shoot your weapon, awkwardly jump at air-borne enemies, and eventually blow up. Then you have to survive outside your cat for 10 seconds, while it auto-repairs.  Then you can get back into it, ready to get blown up again.

I don't know if the music is from the show.  It sounds like this theme might be "the theme", but it's pretty obnoxious.


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Hit it or Quit it? (800 MSP)
I don't know if this game is supposed to be huge or what.  Or if that price is because it's some overhyped franchise, but based on that 1 level, there is no way I would be paying 10 bucks for this.  Even the "buy me" videos and screen shots don't give you any indication that things get better, or more interesting.  I don't think there's leveling on your character, the levels look the same, except you are flying in one.  That looks more annoying than walking, which is pretty bad anyways.  The ONLY appeal might be if you have 4 other XBOX Live friends (or one other "RL" friend) who just has to experience everything about Voltron.  Then, maybe because of the multi-player aspect, you could have fun, but even then, I'm not sure how.

Quit it 5 times. One for each lion.

Heart of the Planet (Flash)

I was wondering how I was going to decide on my next game on Kongregate without being biased by Recommendations or ones that I know already looked good or bad.  I searched for "Random Game" and it looks like someone made something to pick a random game from the site.  And this is what I got....

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2010 -- Developer: ??? -- Site: Flonga (via Kongegrate)

First Impression:  

The description is "Help her reach the heart of the planet to save the world from evil".  A little generic..  Controls:  "Arrows to move, x to shoot".  Okay, I'm thinking something like a top-down shooter?  Except the tag is "Action" so who knows.

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Fooled around for: 5 minutes

Ugh.. Been a while since I really couldn't last longer than 5 minutes.  This is what happens with random flash games.  It's basically a Mario rip-off.  But there's no story explaining anything.  Literally just "Level 1" right when the game loads.  The controls are super loose, sliding all over the place.  The left arrow overrides the right arrow, no matter which was pressed first, so you find yourself turning when you didn't want to.  This also makes the whole platforming aspect super hard, but not because it's hard, just because it's not made well.  I guess eating a mushroom to get big in Mario doesn't make much sense either, but in this it's a carrot.  And then some random shape for "fireballs".  Big You breaks blocks, there are stars for coins, and you jump on pigs instead of carrots.  You could literally just remake Mario in this engine and everything would be there. Except the fun.

Also the music is annoying and a very short loop.

The ONLY thing this game has going for it was the art assets are actually not that bad.  Some of the textures are pretty good, but they don't match the hand-drawn sprites, and it's all probably just ripped off from somewhere else around the internet.

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Hit it or Quit it?

In case it wasn't apparent, quit it.  Reading the reviews on Kongregate, it seems everyone else agrees.  Shoddy controls on an otherwise ripped-off, but still incredibly vague platformer.  Mayyybe this was a first game/demo kind of deal for them to get used to making games, but I don't have much hope for anything else that pops up by this developer.

It looks like Flonga is just a website for Flash games, so I don't even know who to blame for this....

Infectonator (Flash)

To swipe an idea from my "Partner Site" Fluffy Fox Gamerating (see sidebar), I am going to hit a Flash game today (and possibly for a few days).  Specifically, these will be from www.kongregate.com .  It's a wealth of options to choose from, and it's easy to load them up and play them because it's all right in the browser I'm using anyways!  I could probably just turn this whole blog into Hit it or Quit it on Kongregate and never run out of stuff to play, but I don't see that happening.  Sounds like fun for now though!

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2009 -- Developer: Toge Productions -- Site: Kongregate

First Impression:
Most Flash games likely won't have much of a demo screen or anything, so I may be a little light on First Impressions.  This game already makes it apparent we will be looking at 8-bit graphics and listening to 8-bit music though.  Not a bad sign, just pretty much the only thing I know about it.  I chose this because I saw the sequel in my "Recommended" list, and since I hit Plague Inc a few days ago, I figured I would check out the first in this series.  The only other thing I know so far is "zombies" and "kill off the world in 60 seconds"

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Fooled around for: ~15-20 minutes (two play-throughs)
I almost stopped after the first playthrough, because things just didn't feel right, and it left a weird impression on me.  The game just seemed to end and give me a score out of nowhere.  This, plus one level giving me an insane amount of money led me to think maybe the game was glitchy.  I decided to give it another try, thinking that maybe I just missed something.  Turns out I did, and now it's hard for me to stop playing.  I have a feeling this will be something that happens to me often while I try Flash games for this blog.  The style of many Flash games fits my style perfectly.  Play for a few minutes here and here, feel accomplished, and move on with your life.  This would work well for this blog, except then I have to stop myself from playing, or I will end up playing for hours just to level up in a game that gives very little reward.  At least many games on Kongregate have Badges/Achievements.  That always helps.

Anyways, back to the task at hand.  Like Plague Inc, the biggest draw in this game is the power you feel by just starting the chain and watching the reaction take everything over.  You click to start the infection, and the nearby people turn to zombies and start chasing the others.  What this game has over Plague is that you can actually see it happening.  After each level, you can spend your money on upgrading various aspects, such as your zombies' speed, infectiousness  lifespan, etc.  In each level, you need to infect a certain number of people who are already on the screen.  Some of them are stronger than others, and can even fight back.

The two things I was missing on my first playthrough was that you get per-game achievements that give you a bunch of money.  Apparently I hit those well in the first game.  The other thing was that you have 60 seconds spread throughout all of the levels you are playing, so you have to balance your cash into effects that will allow you to take over each level most quickly because if you have too many stragglers, you are just wasting time.  In this setting, it's weird to switch locations and still be running off the same "minute", but whatever works, I guess.  Perhaps the sequels took a different approach to this.

This got super long for not really saying anything important (when do I anyways, right?), so I'm going to finish up....


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Hit it or Quit it?
I would probably actually just Quit this version to move on to one of its siblings.  If there are more games in this series that presumably play like this, I'd rather just enjoy the enhancements they probably added to the game.  If this had Badges, I would at least Hit it until I got all of those.  It doesn't, so I'm moving on.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure HD (XBLA)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2012 -- Developer: Capcom -- Publisher: Capcom

First impression:
"Bizzare" definitely seems accurate, the more of the intro screens I see.  After a few seconds, it looked like it might be a beat 'em up, but then it switched screens, and it's actually a fighter.  Haven't done one of these yet.  Let it be known now, that I'm not a huge fan of fighters.  Especially 2d, cartoonly ones.  Just something about them never really clicks with me.  It was surprising enough that the new Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur 4 grabbed me for as long as they did.

So, yeah, lots of crazy japanese yelling already.  Some of the fighters look like they are just standing behind some sort of being they are controlling, instead of fighting themselves.  Also, one of the still shots shows some guy holding a gun out, except his fingers are coming through the gun in places they shouldn't be.  Someone hand-drew this, and let that slip?  I don't understand.  I have a feeling I'm not going to understand this game in general.  This seems pretty obviously to be a remake, but why, I'm not sure.  Being a Capcom fighter, this probably has some huge cult following I don't know about.  We'll see if they convert me.

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Fooled around for: 15 Minutes (Played each of the available demo characters)
Again "Bizzare" is definitely right.  And I still feel like I'm missing some inside joke about all of this.  It's just sooo anime and crazy, it has to be from a Manga or show or something.  If not, good job guys back whenever this was made on coming up with such ridiculous material for a game.

The whole guys-controlling-things mechanic I mentioned actually turned out to be pretty interesting.  They are called Stands, and you can summon it during the fight to basically fight in front of you, presumably blocking damage and causing extra damage.  They also come out during some special moves without being summoned directly.  They have their own little health bar, and when it runs out, they just go away.  The bar refills quickly and you can summon them again.  It was cool to have something like that to manage, but when both fighters had Stands out, the screen got a little too chaotic.

Otherwise, it was pretty much a straightforward 2d cartoony fighter.  Light, Medium, Heavy attacks, blocking, dashing, special moves, crazy combos, etc.  The biggest draw was those Stands.  Otherwise the game seemed pretty difficult to me, but I also haven't played many of these that long to really learn any general tactics.

The music was pretty awesome though, definitely kept you pumped.  The stories for each character seemed to weave into each other.  They all definitely seemed aware of their Stands, though one said his was a "demon within".  Crazy animations, crazy expressions, random Japanese here and there.  Again, bizzare.

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Hit it or Quit it? (1600 MSP)
Whoa!  I didn't even noticed how expensive this was until I looked it up for this section.  How did a 2D fighter get priced at 1600 points?  $20!?  Really just makes me think still there is something I'm missing.  Maybe this was the greatest game ever in Japan at one point or something, otherwise, I'm just confused why it needed an HD remix, and more confused at such a high price point.

I wouldn't let my Stand hit this.  I probably wouldn't even hit this for 80 points, let alone 1600.  It's just not my kind of game.  Quit it.

The Fall of Gods (XBLIG)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2011 -- Developer: Geex -- Publisher:  XBLIG

First impression:

Looks like an SNES-era action RPG.  Sprites are a little small on the screen and it makes the whole screen feel a little crowded and distracting, but maybe it won't feel like that in the game.  I have a feeling that 7 minutes of this isn't going to get me anywhere, but we'll see what comes of it.

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Fooled around for:  14 minutes (Two cycles of demo limit)

This is the first time I have actually ran the demo limit twice.  I expect to do this generally for RPGs when it allows you to save, so I can get a better feel for the game.  The first run, most of the time limit was taken by just watching the story intro.

Speaking of, the story was actually pretty interesting.  Kind of a creationist, how the world started, thing, but with magic and the corruption of man leading to the Fall of the Gods (see what they did with the title?).  

My feeling was pretty much right with the graphics though.  The sprites are too small, and the movement isn't grid based.  This isn't always bad, but considering it looks retro, I would rather walk on a grid than free-form and not be able to get around a tree because my hit box is catching too much.  This also leads for some tricky sword swinging.. am I close enough? am I lined up? etc..

The script boasts that there a several dungeons and maps, and lots of puzzles.  This is fine and actually sounds pretty good, except you need to be a super good puzzle designer for so many puzzle to not feel crammed in.  The "puzzles" so far seem that way.  It leads to to exactly what you need to do, except then there is one small piece that is so vague, it's just confusing.  Not because the "puzzle" is tricky, but because the pieces just weren't designed well.

So.. Graphics are okay, controls aren't that tight, and the puzzles have been more annoying than clever.  So much for that interesting story :(

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Hit it or Quit it? (80 MSP)

Considering how many retro RPGs I see pop up here and there on XBLIG, I'm guessing some of those are probably tighter than this is.  They may not be action-RPGs, but a tighter turn-based RPG would be more appealing.  I might come back to this someday, but I have a feeling there are plenty of hours of RPGs out there to play before I need to come back to this.  So quit for now, but maybe not forever.

Vidiot Game (XBLIG)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2012 -- Developer: GZ Games -- Publisher: XBLIG

First Impression:
The name definitely makes a first impression.  Vidiot?  Isn't that an 80s term for someone who watches too much TV or something?  The "icon" picture looks 8-bit and 80s-ish.. and creepy.  Past that, the XBOX is still not really loading any info.  I swear it's supposed to.  Some of the other icon images aren't even loading on the game selection screen. I think something is wrong, but whatever.  As long as the game plays, I guess I don't need a first impression.  Still a little odd/frustrating though...

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Fooled around for: 7 minutes (XBLIG Time Limit)
....wtf.  I'm not even entirely sure what I just played was a game.. or a completed game, at least.  Considering the title, and the game icon, I'm guessing this is just the way it's supposed to be, but it was.. odd.  The whole game is ugly as hell, by design (presumably).  There are built-in graphical glitches, and the colors are nasty and mismatched.  The music is 8-bit and annoying.

Overall, the whole game just doesn't make sense.  It's almost trying to be a mini-game game.. except from one screen to the next, you are left with "What the hell was that..and what the hell is this..!?".  You start by building a character that may or may not matter.  You pick a few basic details that I'm not sure end up actually affecting the "game" because the game consists of things like scratching a lottery ticket that you do or don't win, coming across a foe that you just choose one of three choices, and seem to end up with a random answer, and all kinds of crazy garbage.  What you do doesn't seem to matter, but maybe it does. Maybe there is a way to "win" but if there is, you only know it because you have played it enough to get it wrong and remember what you did.  Past that, it just feels like the ROM got corrupted and the game doesn't even know what it's doing.

Imagine this, except the text is wobbling and you can barely read it.

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Hit it or Quit it? (80 MSP)
Since I believe this game was built to cause that "wtf" effect, it certainly accomplished that.  The problem is, I can tell if it did that instead of having a real "game" in there.  It's actually kind of a relief to find an XBLIG game that I will quit, just so I know my dollar isn't worthless, but at the same time, it is "only a buck".. and maybe there is something to this game that I just don't "get" yet.  I'm going to err on the side of "no" though, and quit.  I'd really just rather play something that makes more sense.  Or any sense, for that matter.

This.

American Gladiators (SNES)

We've got a slightly different version of Hit it or Quit it today.  This will be at little something I call Sloppy Seconds.  Generally, there are so many games out there that I've never seen, that I can run a Hit it or Quit it on a completely blind run.  A Sloppy Seconds review will be something that I have seen reviewed or played elsewhere.  In this case, I have already seen Continue play this game, so I kind of know what to expect.

Sloppy Seconds

Year: 1991 -- Developer: Incredible Technologies -- Publisher: Gametek

Through the grapevine:
Continue seemed to have a little fun with this game, but overall, it seemed confusing and hard to play.  I remember watching the show quite a bit, but not enough to know the Gladiators names or anything.  During the intro, there is a picture with them all that has some pretty good detail.  They look familiar, but I have no idea who is who.. or even who is a man or woman in some cases.

I'm expecting clunky controls and a cheating CPU, which might be for fun with other people like Continue had.  By myself, I'm not expecting this to last long.

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Fooled around for:  20 minutes
It was indeed about what I expected.  It's so hard to play, it just isn't fun.  It was almost fun, and I really tried to like it.  The games on the show always seemed super cool, so it sounds like a great idea to be able to play them in a game, but it just doesn't work that way.  My thumbs hurt from trying to hold the buttons and press them as the game expects them to be pressed.  Part of the problem is that it doesn't tell you what it wants from you, so the first couple times you happen to play any particular game, you just suck because you are trying to figure out what the hell to do.  Some games use certain buttons that would make sense in another game as well, but they seem to have decided to mix it up every game.  By the time you do figure it out, you're just tired of playing it.

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Hit it or Quit it?
This idea is really cool, and if the show was still on and they tried again on newer systems, it might be cool.  This version, not so much.  Quit it like these female Gladiators quit being women.

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.

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.

Double Teamed - Dream TV (SNES)

Year: 1994 -- Developer: BITS -- Publisher: Triffix

3rd game Double Teamed!

From across the room:
Somehow, we happened to pick a bunch of games that just don't have demo screens, so who knows how this is going to be.  With a name like Dream TV, we can't even guess.  They would rather show the credits during the title screen than show us what we can expect during the game.

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Played for: 15 minutes

Hit it or Quit it?
I guess we got sucked into the TV and were trying to collect puzzle pieces to get out?  The coolest part about this game was the way the "camera" worked with two players, and even then, it had it's moments of suck.  You start in the same place, so the camera just takes the whole screen, but as you walk apart from each other to explore, the screen just splits horizontally, so it can track you each separately.  Pretty cool effect, except for when you are just far enough to get the screen split because one of you ends up disappearing as it gets ready to split, and then there is just a weird, uneasy feeling from seeing the screen split by just a little.  Looks way better when you get far enough away from each other.

The controls sucked though. It's a platformer, except it's hard to actually jump from place to place.  The graphics are hideous, and the music isn't any better.

Dream TV?  More like Nightmare TV, amirite???  Quit it.

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!

Air Cavalry - SNES

Year: 1994
Publisher: Cybersoft Inc
Developer: Synergistic Software

First glance:
I haven't tested this theory, but it makes me wonder about games having their credits during the opening/demo scenes.  Do you really need your players to know your names that bad?  Are you not expecting your players to finish the game?  I think FF3/6 does this though.. but on the other hand, I never beat that either ;)

Otherwise, generic epic air fight music.  Don't know the name of the song, but you would know it.  Rise of the Valkyries perhaps.  The only demo scene that's repeating is showing a helicopter from third-person behind view as it awkwardly rotates and fires at things on the ground.  Half of the screen is taken up by flight controls that may or may not matter.  I was looking forward to playing something other than Aerobiz, but I am not looking forward to this.  Looks clunky and uninteresting.

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Played for:  6 minutes

They play that same epic song every other 5 seconds.. I'm going crazy.  Otherwise, it was about as clunky as it seemed it was going to be.  It gives you some quick briefing, a map that means nothing, and then sends you on your way.  The first mission was fine.  Blow up 6 trucks? Sure.  The next mission though had so many tanks, but you only have 12 rockets, and your guns suck.  There may be something about this I'm missing, but I just don't care.  It's actually nice to have a short play time for a change.  I was almost missing those.

Hit it or Quit it?
Quit it with a rocket.. oops, I'm already out of rockets. Oh well.  I just don't care about helicopters, or military, or this game.  Plus the game didn't even wait for confirmation that I wanted to start the mission, so it started, and I'm being shot at.  Oh well, at least it's not playing that song anymore.

Aerobiz - SNES

Year: 1992
Publisher: KOEI

First Glance:
The intro screens include a bunch of copyright information for a bunch of airplanes.  And the intro scene looks like a flight simulator.  I don't think I've ever loaded this up before, but I think I heard somewhere, it's like a Flight Business Sim?  Managing flights/planes/airports?  The only other stuff happening is some still shots of photos that have been "dumbed down" to SNES quality.  And the music is kind of cool.  Sounds like an airplane game.  I have no idea what else to expect though!

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Played for:  40 minutes (!?)

Now that my brain is sufficiently melted, it's time to call it good.  I really can't believe I even played a game like this for that long.  I generally don't have the patience.  Especially for a business I know nothing about, and really don't care about.  And for a game that doesn't tell you shit about how to play or anything about it. This definitely was a game that needed the manual.

It turns out I was right, it's a Airplane Business Manager Simulation.  Lots of factors, lots of boring numbers, but I did fight my way through the menus and figured quite a bit out.  I even ended up "first" with in 2 years, but my expenses are now still costing more than my sales, and I don't care enough anymore to try to figure it out.  I did have a pretty good run though, I thought.

The music is catchy, but gets old and repetitive.  The main screen's graphics are lame, but the animations and graphics that pop up now and then are kind of cool.  Overall, it definitely take patience, first to learn even what to do, and then to keep playing.  I have no idea how long it runs, except at the beginning you can choose between two timespans.  Both looked about 15 years, so probably about that.  The second span went to 2015 though.  I wanted to try that, but considering it took this long to get through a couple years, I don't know if I would last until The Future anyways.

Hit it or Quit it?
While it surprisingly sucked me in for longer than I anticipated, I would ultimately quit it.  I just don't have the patience for this stuff.  For the 3 people ever who are into Flight Business Management Games, this is probably awesome for you, since it fills that need like nothing else probably does.  For everyone else, and for me, there just isn't enough oomph behind it.  It was cool being in first, but I can't say it was because I knew what I was doing.  The catch is.. there's a sequel.. that I'm supposed to be playing next.  I'm not sure what else they can do to the genre, but I guess I'll find out!

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.