Well, another stealth release by Atari… sort of. I think it was announced for the 360 a few days before coming out, though I saw nothing about the Steam release before it came out. Star Raiders was a weird game back in the day, but very revolutionary, due to it being one of the first proper space battle simulators, and it had some strategy segments and such, with a good amount of control options. It came out on various 8-bit Atari computers, but more popularly (or at least more commonly known in recent times) on the Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 version is noteworthy due to the touchpad controller it required.

So I decided to check it out, since the last Atari reboot, Yar’s Revenge, was great. My expectations weren’t as good as Yar’s Revenge, partly since I never actually played Star Raiders originally, and partly because the gameplay I saw in trailers didn’t seem as interesting.

So read on and see if it’s any good! Not like there’s gonna be many reviews for this elsewhere (the only review I found as of the writing of this review is an unfair review by GamePro). There’s actually not too much to talk about here, so it’s gonna be fast.

Developer: Incinerator Games (Another one Atari? You got another company that hasn’t done anything and don’t even have a website to do your reboot? You guys are weird)
Publisher: Atari
Date of Release: May 11th 2011
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360 (coming to PS3 later) PC version reviewed

Genre: Space battle simulator-ish thing
Rated E10+ for Everyone over 10 years old

What’s good about the game

Gameplay
The game plays in a third-person perspective. The controls are… very confusing, using a keyboard+mouse setup at least (didn’t try using a controller, though it’s probably the better option in this case). You use WAXD (yes, that’s X, no S) to strafe around the screen, you accelerate with the Space key and reverse your throttle with the S key. You have a few extra commands at your disposale, like doing slow barrel rolls with E and Q, changing targets with C, boosting with F, and changing your ship’s form with 1, 2 and 3 (there’s more, I just mentioned the main stuff). You aim your gun with your mouse pointer. The right mouse button shoots your heavy weapon, and the left mouse button shoots your main weapon.

I’ll mention this right away: When you start playing the game, the controls DON’T WORK. The tutorial level is nearly unplayable, and I almost gave up on the game before even finishing that level. After the tutorial level, however, the controls start working properly. They’re still a bit hard to handle, but it becomes easier to get used to once you complete that tutorial.

So how does the game play exactly? Well, you’re given a Galactic Map. Unlike the original Star Raiders, where enemies moved around on that map, here each mission is always the same, and the enemies won’t move around on the map at all from what I’ve seen, taking a much more streamlined approach to the gameplay progression. So you choose an available mission on the galactic map and are given a set of objectives (and secondary objectives that, as far as I can tell, are useless to do). Generally, those missions involve destroying enemy ships, may it be standard fighters, battlecruisers or giant star bases.

In battle, you have 3 forms for your ship. The Attack form moves fast, has homing missiles, can eventually shoot from a good distance, but aiming is slow (also, you can’t strafe at all in this form). The Assault form can strafe and has low forward/backwards movement speed, but different secondary weapons and your crosshair will move faster. The Turret form has next to no movement speed, may it be while strafing or going forwards/backwards, but it has by far the strongest main gun (though it only shoots at 1.5 kilometers in from of you), and one of its secondary weapons can jam cruiser and frigate guns, or prevent generators from getting back into the frigates/cruisers/basestars leaving them vulnerable. Also, the Turret form has the fastest aiming speed. From my experience, you can’t go through the game at all without using all the forms properly. The Assault form is the most useless, though there are a few segments where its better strafing mobility come into play.

The movements and overall gameplay are rather slow-paced, but they work in the simulator-ish style of play. Enemy ships are much swifter than you are (well, the standard fighters at least, the Frigates, Cruisers and Basestars barely move), so proper use of your ship’s different forms and weapons is required to beat them.

When you use boost, get hit (either by the environment or enemies) or use weapons, you lose some energy, and die if you lose it all. The ONLY levels where that actually matters is the ones with a time limit, because, otherwise, you have infinite lives. That’s annoying since there’s rarely any way to lose any mission (the only one I ever failed is the mission that has a star fox-like escape sequence).

As you destroy enemies and random asteroids, you get credits. You can use those credits to buy new weapons. Each form has only one standard gun type which can be upgrade, and 2 Heavy weapons types that can be upgraded. You can also buy Androids, which give certain stat boosts, like more damage or speed or shields. The system is incredibly simple and you’ll probably max your ship out well before the final mission, since the number of upgrades is very minimal.

What’s bad about the game

Repetitiveness
If there’s one big problem here, it’s that every mission is always essentially the same. It’s cool when you fight new enemy types the first few times, but afterwards… there’s not much to break the monotony. There are 2 missions where you can destroy space elevators, or some that you have to find certain objects… but those are few and relatively far between. The repetitive nature of the game, and the fact that it’s actually fairly short, also removes any kind of replay value.

Overall

I really couldn’t find that much to comment on. The presentation is average, nothing to really say about it other than “it’s adequate”. The story just… doesn’t get in the way. It’s not good, but it’s not really bad (and, even if it were, you can skip it, so whatever). So all I really have to talk about is the good gameplay and the repetitive nature of the game.

It’s surely a fun game, just a highly repetitive and short one. Fans of the originals will enjoy seeing some minor references to the original (though this game doesn’t exactly have the depth of the original)… And, if you’ve been wanting a space combat game for a while, since there just aren’t really much of those recently, this one is decent enough (just don’t expect Freespace 2 here).

Star Raiders does some interesting things, like the multiple forms for the ship, but it generally isn’t as good as it could have been. The gameplay is slow, the controls are really rough at first, and it lacks variety. It’s still quite fun, but…not as much as it could have been. Leaving it a

It doesn’t come very highly recommended by me, unlike Yar’s Revenge, but it might still be worth taking a look. It could have been polished a LOT more, so for now it’s just “there”. Nothing great, but not as bad as some reviewers will claim.

Pros and Cons

Pros
- Fun gameplay once you get used to the controls
- 3 forms on the ship adds variety

Cons
- Controls not working in the tutorial is really weird
- Infinite lives
- Not much replay value
- Repetitive
- Less depth than the Atari computer/2600 original versions

Share/Save

This game started out as a rumored Zelda game for some reason (because of the triforce symbol on the clock thing). It got a bit of hype because of that. What really interested me was the graphics, ad then I heard about the completely random concept. After playing the demos, I was sold.

What is it that made me fall in love with it? Read on and see!

Developer: Opus
Publisher: Xseed Games
Date of Release: October 13, 2009 (and on the 22nd on the PSN)
Platforms: PSP (UMD and PSN release)

Genre: RPG? Shooter? Action? RTS? I don’t know, it’s its own genre
Players: 1 (there’s ad hoc gameplay which I didn’t try)

Looks and sounds
The graphics are great. I love 8-bit sprites. They’re a small step above NES graphics, with the colors being a lot richer and there’s a bit more detail, and closer to FF4 on the SNES. I really like how it looks. I think it’s hilarious that instead of getting more detailed portraits for character faces, you get a big zoom-in on the sprite. It’s definitely not taking itself completely seriously and it just really works. I have no complaints whatsoever with the graphics. Everything looks nice and crisp. The animations aren’t incredible, but they aren’t meant to be. I also think it’s fun that the monsters are a lot more detailed than the human sprites. I don’t know what it is with the game but I love the style.

The sound is not too bad. There’s thankfully no voice acting to complain about. The sound effects are classic stuff. And the music is really nice. There’s some hard rock at multiple areas when the acting is faster or the game is reaching a climax, softer rock music in other section, and some regular Fantasy game music. It sounds really nice overall.

Gameplay
There’s 4 main modes in the game (and 2 special modes when you finish the 4 main ones). All of them are based on one idea: they all have something to do with 30 seconds. Let’s go through all the modes one by one.

Hero 30
This mode is an RPG mode, but it’s incredibly fast-paced. There’s 50 stages in this mode. Each of them have the same basic goal: Defeat the Evil Lord before the world is destroyed. The world gets destroyed in 30 seconds because of a spell of destruction. So you have to level up (you start each stage at level 1), buy equipment, do quests and fight the evil lord before that happens. The battles are all automated, where you (and possibly party members) and the enemy monsters just run forward and ram into each other until either you die or all the monsters die. Also, time stops in villages so you can take your time and plan your next moves. And on the field, movement is similar to NES/SNES RPGs with an bird’s eye views. But wait, 30 seconds isn’t really long. To give a bit of a chance to the player, you can pay money to the Time Goddess to reset the timer. Each time you do that, the price to reset the timer increases, so you can’t really have infinite time.

In villages, you can talk to NPCs, buy herbs (they’re obviously a one-time use, but they heal all HP), buy full healing, talk to NPCs, and buy equipment. Equipment comes in 5 varieties: headgear, weapons, shields, armor and footgear. Those power up a few stats: Attack, Defense, Speed, Weight, Hit and Avoid. All are pretty self-explanatory. The only one that’s different from the usual is Weight. Usually it’s bad in other games because too much weight slows you down, but here it actually lowers the knockback that enemy attacks do, so you can land more attacks. Coupled with high speed you’ll be able to attack fiercely and frequently.

As you complete levels, you get to keep the equipment you buy and bring them to later levels. So you can start with whatever equip you want. But if you go back to an older level, you can only use equipment you got before that level, because otherwise it creates a time paradox (or we could go with the proper excuse that otherwise it would be too easy with some of the best equip). Either way, unless you change your equipment to older stuff before doing an older level, you’ll start out naked. There’s certain equipment that has different effects as well. Some armor and other wear that lets you swim or move faster on certain surfaces, weapons that kill certain enemy types in one hit (like the fly swatter which kills insects, no matter how powerful, with one hit). So you can try going at each level with optimum equipment that will be better depending on what’s going to come at you.

Overall it’s a really fun mode and trying to find the best way to go up against each Evil Lord is really fun. Some have different gimmicks, so it adds variety. It takes a few hours to finish all 50 levels. And there’s tons of replay value if you want to get the best times in all levels, and some levels open alternate paths or have slightly different endings.

Evil Lord 30
This one is another 100 years later, and features an Evil Lord(who is so “fabulous” he’s almost gay) that you could fight in Hero 30 who saw his ways were evil.

Here, he’s trying to turn Millenia(who was previously a beautiful girl but got transformed into a bat) back to a human. So he goes across the world to find a way to do that. But he only traverses the world in the night, because the sun is bad for his skin. It seems they have short nights, because each level can only take 30 seconds, otherwise he runs away to hide from the sun. Like the previous modes, you can get extra time. Killing enemies gives you money, and to reverse time you have to give all your money to the Time Goddess, who hides in golden barrels. But that’s not always a good idea, since money will be stored in the bank after each level and you power up when you get to certain amounts of money.

So the gameplay here is pretty much RTS-based. You control the evil lord moving across the map, and you have a magic circle under you. The magic circle charges up over time, and the more charged-up it is, the stronger the monsters you can summon. There are 3 enemy types to summon. Nimble, shooter and brute. Like Rock/Paper/Scissors, each type is strong against another type. Nimbles beat shooters, shooters beat brutes and brutes beat nimbles. Enemies are always one of those types as well. In addition to the monsters you summon, there are animals on the field. If they touch your magic circle, they’ll fall in love and follow you around. Pressing X also makes any creature in your magic circle move forward, attacking anything on the way. And, by doing some side-quests, you get access to spirits which you can touch during levels and press R to activate. This gives you a certain power which can stun enemies or destroy them. If enemies hit you, your magic circle will become weaker and smaller. Reseting time gets it back to full power.

Not much more to say here. In this mode, the goal is either to kill a certain target, destroy one or multiple statues, or just clear all the enemies. There’s 30 levels once again, and takes a little bit over an hour to complete. It’s a pretty fun mode.

Princess 30
A hundred years later, a King gets cursed, and it’s up to the princess, equipped with a fast-shooting crossbow, to save him.

In this mode, each of the 30 levels involve getting to the end to pick up an item or fight an enemy, and coming back to the castle, all that within 30 seconds. Each of the face buttons make you shoot in the corresponding direction. At first your shots will be going all over the place, but by holding the button the shots become more concentrated in that direction. You have a bunch of knights protecting you as you move across the levels. Each of them will take a hit to protect you, and when only 2 are left enemies can stun you, preventing you to shoot. Knights return to you after some time. Killing enemies and destroying objects spawn money, and money is used both for healing knights, and the time element: there’s red carpets in most levels, and riding on them gives you extra time to finish the level (as long as you have money).

That’s really about it with this one. There’s not that much variety for each level, except for a few boss fights which can be pretty challenging. It takes a bit less than an hour to complete, and while you can try to enhance your times on each level, I don’t find that there’s as much incentive as in Hero 30.

Knight 30
The final main mode is the last in the game’s timeline, taking another 100 year leap in the future.

Here you play as a Knight, and the goal of every level is pretty clear: Protect the Sage long enough for him to cast his spell. His spell takes 30 seconds to cast, and if he’s in movement he’ll stop casting, pausing the counter. The sage can take only a few hits before dying. By pressing X when near him, you can make him follow you around, and if you want to move fast you can charge and carry him around, but only for as long as you have SP left. Other means of protecting him are ramming into enemies to stun them, or picking up and using weapons to stun them. Another element here is traps. Before each level, you can build traps. At first you can only build one per level, but as you level up you can make more. various traps have various effects, like attracting certain types of enemies, blocking enemies, or damaging them. You can place those strategically to better protect the sage. Enemies will either aim straight at you, or go straight for the sage. Other enemy types will be hitting bells, which, if the sound is heard by the sage, will make it take longer to cast the spell, or just plain reset his timer, so you have to destroy the bells.

It’s a pretty interesting mode, and offers quite a bit of challenge. I found though that not building any traps during the night (giving you more time to sleep) is more advantageous s you get more HP to ram enemies and more SP to carry the sage around. Again, there’s 30 levels in this mode(and no alternate paths in this one), and it takes around an hour to complete. And it’s actually pretty fun.

Overall
This is a great game. There’s TONS of gameplay variety through the different modes. Each mode is a game itself and each of them is really well done. They all feel similar since they’re all so fast-paced as well.

There’s actually a pretty fun story in the game. It’s cliche and all, but there’s nice humor(there’s an opponent named CATS…. I think just with that you can guess his dialogue … and that’s just one example) and a few really good plot twists, with each mode having a continuous story despite each mode being 100 years apart.

And each mode can be really replayable as well. And the final mode you unlock will keep your attention for a long time until you figure out how to beat it.

To be pretty frank, this is one of the most interesting games in the PSP’s, and there’s nothing like that on any other system. It’s something most gamers should experience.

Pros/Cons
Pros
- Looks great
- Really fun to play all the modes
- Replayability for most modes
- Can be challenging, especially the very last mode you unlock

Cons
- Hum…. I guess it could be longer. It’s pretty short

The Save Factor
Considering the variety of gameplay and the replayability of the game as a whole, the starting price of 30$ is well worth it.

Share/Save

But the search wasn’t ENTIRELY fruitless, as I did manage to find something of interest that combines 2 things I love: old-school video game music and Power Metal. What I found was Power Metal band Powerglove.

Read on for a bit more info and a few songs to preview them!

First off, here’s their myspace. You can already hear a few songs on there:
http://www.myspace.com/vgmetal
And on their site you have links to their store to buy CDs(which are not too expensive actually) and other stuff, and a link to iTunes if you want to buy their songs on there.

I’m probably late on learning about them, since they’ve had their myspace account for 4 years already. But better late than never!

So, what they basically do is take old video game tunes, replace the main instruments with badass guitar, and add some double-pedal to the mix. And I’m quite happy that they DIDN’T add lyrics, that would’ve ruined it all.  But they take a lot of liberties with most of the songs and add their own riffs. Some parts don’t really sound exactly like the “source material”, but you still get a similar feel to the old songs anyways, and you can still see similarities. So it’s not exactly covers but re-imaginings.

I do have a minor complaint. Despite most of their songs sounding really great, their costumes look like crap… It’s probably intentional, but damn they look stupid when they’re performing live with those exaggerated armors and all…

So, here are a few of my favorites!

Vanquish the horrible night (various Castlevania songs)

So Sexy Robotnik (obviously classic Sonic music)

Red wings over Baron (just because I really like FF4)

Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man (even though I don’t like mortal kombat, some of the music is pretty good)

And to add to all that, they’re currently recording a new album… Nice. It’s gonna have Johnny Quest, Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid (I can’t WAIT to hear that !!!!!!), Inspector Gadget, some Winnie the Pooh song, This Is Halloween (from Nightmare Before Christmas), the Flintstones, X-men and Pokemon (the theme song from the anime). Not really video game oriented this time, but still a fun little list of songs there. Actually, they also have another new album in the works, other than this one, which will be fully video game based (the only track they mentionned for this one is Snake Man from Megaman 3, which may or may not make it on there depending on how they like the sound when it’s done). So 2 new albums soon? Hell yeah!

So yeah… this was a pretty short post, but I wanted to talk about them since I really like their music. If you know any other bands of the sort don’t hesitate to tell me, I love discovering new music(as long as it doesn’t suck, of course).

Share/Save

This game is loosely based on a japanese TV show that involves playing retro grames, which is called Game Center CX. I say loosely, because I kinda doubt the story in this game is the same as in the TV show. And add to that the fact that you don’t play any actual retro games, but instead you get a bunch of new games made in a retro style, inspiring their gameplay on actual retro titles.

What I’m reviewing here is basically eight 8-bit games, and I’ll also be reviewing the package as a whole. This will be kinda long…

Well, read on!

Story
Game Master Arino, the host from Game Center CX (I think), sends you back to the past in the 80s, and changes you into a kid. To get back to the present, you have to beat video game challenges given to you by Game Master Arino. Once you get in the past, you meet Arino, but as a kid, and he decides to help you out by letting you play his games. That’s pretty much it. No character development (other than Game Master Arino getting pissed when you finish challenges too fast), no setting other than 2 kids talking about games in front of a TV while playing games.

The “story” is really just there to get you to go forward in time to get more games as they come out in the timeline.  But there’s one thing that confuses me… Why does my character WANT to go back to the present time? Being stuck in the 80s wouldn’t bother me much…

Games
So at each game’s release date, you have to do certain challenges in them, in order to go forward in time and unlock more games. Each game takes on a retro game’s gameplay and graphic style, so if some of them sound, look or play familiar, it’s intended. Also, in most of the games, getting 20000 points gives you an extra life, then reaching 70000 gives you another, then each increment of 700000 points gives you another. For points, there’s secrets in the game that give bonus points most of the time, by going through secret passages or shooting certin spots a few times until a “Hidden Character” appears for you to pick up.

In addition to the 4 normal challenges, each game has a “finish the game” challenge, and you can freeplay all of them once you finish the 4 base challenges for each. Just a note, in freeplay your Guadia Quest and Haggle Man 3 saves do not carry over from the story mode.

Cosmic Gate
why hallo thar Galaga. Yup, the first game is exactly Galaga. So that’s a great point here. Added to the usual Galaga formula (being stuck on the bottom of the screen to shoot enemies on top), you get a few new elements. There’s a power up which gives you a piercing bullet every 3 shots, which helps a lot in getting points. There’s also warp points. Those are activated by shooting a blinking enemy without shooting any of the others and then shooting the warp that appears until it swallows you, which makes you skip 3 stages, unless you get to a stage with a special portal that let’s you skip 12 stages. And every few stages there’s an asteroid field, and you get more points if you destroy more asteroid, and extra points by destroying the bigger ones.

This game is really fun if you like really old-school shooters, but sadly the challenges aren’t really… challenging. Beating an early stage, getting warps, destroying a giant asteroid and getting a certain amount of points. Easy stuff, especially if you were a good Galaga player. Also, the game can be finished in like 2 minutes using a super secret cheat you see in the magazine at the end of the story, so no need to go through all 64 stages to get to the end.

Robot Ninja Haggle Man
This time it’s a platformer. Uses elements from Mario, Bobble Bubble and a few others. You can jump, enter and exit doors, throw shuriken and summon allies by gathering 3 scrolls (gathering the 3 scrolls automatically summons an ally, you have no control on that). The goal of every level is simple. Kill each enemy, then kill the boss. All enemies can be killed by jumping on them, and shuriken can only stun them for the most part. Some enemies have different patterns as well. Each stage is a looping section. There are various doors in each stage. Entering them stuns everyone in the vicinity or kills everyone in the vicinity (depending on if they’re already stunned or not). The doors are colored. If you enter a red door, all red doors will spin and hurt things in their general area and again when you get out and the door re-opens, and the door you entered changes color. Getting hit twice kills you just like in Ghosts n’ Goblins.

This game is really a good change from Cosmic Gate and is surprisingly fun to play. A bit easy though, and the challenges aren’t really hard. Killing 2 enemies in 1 jump, reaching a stage without using shuriken, reaching a stage without dying and reaching the halfway point of the game.

Rally King
An NES style racing game, using a overhead view and having kinda meh controls. This takes on the gameplay the R.C. Pro-Am games on the NES, with slightly more confusing controls. You start in 20th place, and you have to catch up to other drivers that somehow already started the race.  Hitting other racers and walls damages you, and you explode when you get too much damage. This game implements some Mario Kart elements as well. You can get a boost start by holding the A button just before (or while?) the number 2 appears in the countdown. Also, by letting go of A and turning, you can drift. holding a drift long enough gives you a boost, which is pretty important to finish the challenges.

This game… isn’t very fun. It’s not bad, if you like this style of racing game. But the controls are too slippery, it’s way too easy to get damaged, and it’s not really that fun. The challenges are incredibly easy too. Drift boost twice, finish races and get a bunch of points (you should get enough by the time you finish the second course, if not before that (getting the panda hidden character in the first race makes it sure you’ll get the needed score in the first course).

Star Prince
This is a top-down shooter ALA 1942. A step-up from Cosmic Gate, from the same “imaginary” developers. There are various powerups this time, like fast shooting lasers, missiles that go in various directions, and an explosion in front of you in addition to your normal shot. There’s mid-bosses and big bosses (the same one in each stage from what I’ve seen) for added challenge. Shooting a powerup 12 times makes it explode, killing all flying enemy on the screen. After the first challenge, Kid Version Arino buys a turbo controller, so you can hold the Y button to shoot faster. You also have a shield by holding A or B, which unleashes a big counter attack all around you. You are not locked to the screen itself. You can more just a bit more to the left and right, and the screen scrolls with you, giving a wider range of movement.

This game is fun. But too easy, moreso when you get the turbo controller. There’s a few hard sections here and there though. The challenges are ridiculously easy as well. Finish the first 2 areas, getting a 1up (either finding the hidden one or getting 20000 points) and getting a certain amount of points. Shouldn’t take many tries to do.

Rally King SP
Now THIS is funny. It’s exactly the same game as Rally King, but it’s a special edition, and has different challenges. It’s funny because it’s a promotional item, full of in-game advertisment. Typical. You get it from winning a giveaway in the Gamefan magazine, so it includes their mascot. It’s really just a mockery of oldschool “special editions”.

Oh well. The game is still the same with added bumps on the road, and the desert is blue. The challenges are still easy, though some can be a bit harder than in the non-SP version.

Robot Ninja Haggle Man 2
Yay, more Haggle Man. This takes on the same mechanics as the first game. Just a lot harder, with more enemies, and enemies that spawn after a while in the stage. Added here is a healing item, an hourglass item to give you a time bonus, getting 3 scrolls doesn’t automatically summon an ally, so you can “store” them just in case you need them later. Also, you can “force” the boss to come out before killing all enemies (that’s required for a challenge). I don’t know how to determine what door a boss is behind, but it requires going in another door, and waiting a bit if the boss is revealed for him to come out, them you can fight him. Bosses here are “tougher” as they require 3 hits to die instead of 1.

Haggle Man 2 is loads of fun, better and harder than the first. But since the game itself is harder, well they decided to make the challenges a lot easier! Yeah, weird. The first game required finishing half the game, while this one requires you to finish 4 stages…

Guadia Quest
Dragon Quest? Well, pretty much. This though starts you with a party of 3 characters and you even have a monster-capturing mechanic to add a fourth party member. The basics are just like Dragon Quest. The battles play out similarily, but with the strength of hits change depending on which symbol appears when you attack. You can have multiple opponents in battle as well. Just to really parody DQ, to talk to people you have to press A, then select “Talk” in the menu that appears, hoping the person didn’t move out of range. To open chest, you have to go on them, press A, then choose “Look”. As for equipment, you get a modified version of the DQ menus to equip your stuff and it works really well.
In this game are monsters called “Guadia”. There’s multiple versions of that, with elements and such. And even a Game Master Arino Guadia that’s overly powerful. When you find them, you can try to form a “pact” with them. It makes them stronger when you do that(or so it seemed to me), and you have to defeat them for them to join you. When they do join you, they will progressively get interested/worried about the battle, dish out an attack, and go back to not caring for a little while. The leveling is just like Dragon Quest. Gets your stats up and you get spells and other skills at certain levels. And the graphics are exactly like Dragon Quest.

Overall this is a fun Dragon Quest rip-off/parody. There’s little direction as to where to go, you have to figure that out yourself by talking to people or just randomly exploring. The longest game here if you want to complete it, but still not THAT long. I have the feeling it won’t last the 20 hours XSeed(the people publishing the game here) are saying it lasts. The challenges though are easy stuff. Go to a town, reach level 7, get 1000 gold at once and beat the first boss of the game.

Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3
A complete revamp of the series. Big graphic boost, completely different gameplay, save feature, everything is different. Like the first 2, A jumps and B attacks (if you’re close to an enemy you use a sword, if you’re far you use shuriken) and pressing Up and B does your current special attack. Though here jumping on enemies doesn’t work. This takes on a more Metroid approach with some Ninja Gaiden/Shinobi mixed in. You get big and long stages and an RPG element. Enemies drop nuts and bolts when they’re killed, and you use those to buy stuff in stores. Health, special attacks, gears and gear upgrades. Gears give you special skills. attack power boosts, attack upgrades, high jumps. Each gear takes a an amount of gear power and you can’t go past that, but you can boost your maximum. The gameplay itself is relatively fast-paced and requires a bit of exploring like in Metroid, with various paths to take in each stage to find secrets.

It’s pretty fun. Really different from the other 2 Haggle Man games, but still interesting. The challenges are stupidly easy though. Find a gear, break an obstacle, finish the first level and kill 100 enemies on the second level.
BUT after you’re done with those, you get the final challenge: Beat all the games. Now that’s probably the only kinda hard challenge in there

The package as a whole
This is a fun little package. Graphically it’s kinda “cute”. While playing games, the bottom screen always shows you and Kid Arino, with you not moving at all, and Arino looking fucking bored.

The one really interesting part is the GameFan magazines. They give you tips, tricks, and cheats for the games which is pretty cool, and it’s really humorous. Each, like, 2 issues, the editor in chief changes for completely random reasons, the “in-depth reviews” are funny and really short (you know those short reviews I made of each game? They’re longer than their “in-depth” reviews). And to add to the comedy, there’s the “ask a question”-type section which never really makes sense (and one of the people asking a question is named “Homer Sexual”… funny stuff ). Of course there’s a bunch of references to retro and new games everywhere (Zelda is seemingly a detective game there).

As a whole, this package is really good. Though it’s too easy for the most part, it’s very well done. A throwback at oldschool games, the graphical style is spot on most of the time and the gameplay feels very oldschool as well. Just to make it feel even more like oldschool games, there’s weird grammar errors (probably generated by the engrish translation), like “YOU SHOOTED x ASTEROIDS!” all over the place. You even get access to manuals for each game to get the basic controls and such. Great stuff, and it’s nice to see that the art of oldschool game-making isn’t completely lost (though Megaman 9 proved that last year already). The best games there are definitely the Haggle Man games, though all of them are interesting in their own right. I didn’t like Rally King much, but it’s still fun to see a new racing game in that style.

If you like Retro/8-bit games, you should NOT miss out on this. The presentation is fun, the magazines are great, the conversations are a bit annoying and useless but sometimes quite entertaining and the games are well made.  The games are just a bit easy. But this game will most likely be really hard to find soon, so pick it up as soon as possible.
Now let’s hope the second game in the series, which comes out in Japan this month(maybe I should get it….), comes out here as well sometime, the game lineup is really interesting.

Share/Save

Fast-forward to 2004, Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya, a Japanese doujin (independent/amateur) game developer release this little gem called Cave Story, which with what I was lead to believe, was mainly done by him alone. Now keep in mind that I haven’t completed this game yet. I’m at the final boss part, after going through the tough version of the last “cave”. And after that, there lies apparently bonus content that’s going to kick my ass, to congratulate me on taking the high road.

Two things I want to set straight first:

1. The reason I mentioned 8-bit graphics, well you guessed it, this game uses old-school visuals. Don’t go ahead and call the creator lazy for it, it did work for Megaman 9 today, so why not on PC 4 years ago? Did I mention the game is a freeware? Like as in it doesn’t cost anything?

2. I only heard about this game recently because it is was supposed to be re-released on Wiiware sometime this Fall (it might actually be out already). It seems like it will feature updated graphics and remixed music or something, with the option to revert to the 2004 pc version.

Now it’s time to present the game itself. Cave Story is a run and gun, similar to the old Metroid and Megaman games, which uses items and weapons upgrades. Some have been comparing it to Castlevania too. The game spawns a storyline quite deep for this kind of games, and uses a lot of humor too. Which guarantees never a dull moment, as you’re always either making your way to your next goal, fighting enemies, or searching for some item or someone to make the storyline move on.

The game heavily relies on platforming and using your different weapons to take out monsters. I found the design quite well made and fun to go through all the way from beginning to end. While the first half of the game tends to be easy, you eventually get to a part where it’s no more a cakewalk and more like tap-dancing through a minefield. What’s also interesting, is that you can always backtrack and go back to where you’ve been before, giving a more thorough feeling of freedom, while still keeping a linearity in the game, which is still an important element in any game. (I’m talking to you GTA)

As for the story, you basically play the part of a robot, an amnesiac robot who apparently fought in the war in the past. A terrific war that ended not so well, where the Minigami, some kinds of rabbits humanoids, have been used as a lethal weapon. Pretty standard stuff, but the plot development and different plot twists makes for an interesting ride through the game. I don’t want to present the characters, simply because, it would kind of ruin the experience for those who plan trying it on the Wii when it comes out.

I want to focus more on what is at the heart of the game, the weapons. I played about half of the game with a keyboard, and it was fine up to one particular boss, who kept kicking my ass, which required me to switch weapons too often. From that point on, I knew I had to use a controller (well I’m 100% sure it can be done without a controller, but what the hell..), so I plugged in my PS3 controller and was able to play more comfortably and kick that bastard’s ass. Now I’m deviating a bit much, but yes, the weapons. Those use a levelling system. Each weapon has 3 different levels, which are labelled 1 to 3, 3 being the strongest, (in most cases). The first weapon you find is a pretty standard gun. While level 1 is pretty weak, level 2 doubles the mini laser beam, while level 3 makes it shoot strong laser beams. Now about leveling up weapons, you do so by collecting golden triangles (Tri-force anyone?). The real downside to this weapon is really its range. It does get better at higher level, but nothing amazing. Now the catch here is, while most weapons are quickly maxed out to level 3, whenever you get hit, you lose experience for the equipped weapon. It makes boss fight more intense in that sense, since you really don’t want your trump card to be leveled down. I didn’t really was bothered by this system, I think it was a good punishment system and would make you pay attention not to just rush through some parts.

The second weapon you find is a rocket launcher. The first level launches one rocket at a time, while the second launches a bigger one, which does more damage. The third level launches 3 rockets, while weaker then the level two (stronger then the level 1) individually; they in total make more damage. At one point in the game, you get to upgrade to a different version of the rocket launcher, which simply change the look of the rockets and the damage output of each different levels. At first you can only hold 10 rockets at a time, but throughout the game, you find expansions that let’s you hold up more each time, to a total at endgame of 30. Then there’s the Fireball Weapon, which rolls and bounce on the floor (*cough* flower power *cough*), which is good at first when you get it, especially the third level for the damage output (this is pretty much all the changes this one gets, other then the color). The fourth weapon is the bubble shooter, which holds 100 ammos at a time with auto-replenishing really fast, which sucks at level 1 and 2, but rocks at level 3. At level 1, it shoots small bubbles, with little impact. At level 2, the bubbles are bigger, and can 2 some damage, but the range is just too lame. At level 3, it’s simply is awesome. A lot of bubbles pop-out around you and can be used as a damaging shield. Not only that, but when you release the shooting button, they are all fired at the same time. And when you’re holding for long enough, the bubbles constantly fire small laser like bullets. Definitely the weapon I’ve had the most fun with.

Next is the last non-optional weapon, the sword. Now this doesn’t act anything like I’ve expected. I mean, a sword, you’re going to use it to slash and dice right? Nope, you throw it at level 1, you throw it stronger, faster and more at a time at level 2. And at level 3, hmm, it’d kind of be a spoiler to tell you. But it’s a strong attack where once again you throw the sword, but you get extra hit for stuff around what got hit by the sword. Now I don’t think I’ve missed any of them, so I’ll move on to the next part.

Many items in this game are awesome. One you’ll find will let you take half the experience lost when getting hit by enemies. Two of them (you can only get one of those), are jetpacks called Booster. Version 0.8 is available earlier in the game, but doesn’t rock half as hard as Booster 2.0. The other items you’ll find will update your stats (rocket expansions like I mentioned earlier) and heart containers, which will boost your max health. There’s also an item that can be used to refill your health, but you can only carry one at a time, and are only available at one place in the game’s world. One last item I want to mention is probably the Minigami mask, which at some point plays an important role in the game. Ok not THAT important, but without it, you’d be screwed.

Now one thing I skipped when I talked about the weapons is the optional ones. Four times in the game, you are given the option to give up some of your weapons to trade against a different one. The first opportunity can give you the machine gun in exchange for your main gun. This one I barely tried, as I decided I wouldn’t take it. The level 1 was quite good really, but I didn’t want to miss out on the other options. (Yes, I knew beforehand what the weapons were.) A bit later in the game, you can give away the main gun (again) and the Fireball, against the snake gun, or something like that. It shoots through walls, which can be really good to take out enemies without facing danger in a lot of places. At that point in the game though, I thought the Fireball was still very useful and didn’t want to lose two weapons to gain one. Although I hear it is a really good choice, unless you want to go through the extra areas and bosses, which at that time I thought I would want to. The third one was my choice, and is probably the best weapon in the game. For one, it doesn’t require leveling, so it doesn’t level down, and two, it’s a charge weapon. So you hold down your attack button and the weapon quickly charge up to level 3 (and then max out). When it is maxed out, it shoots a really powerful beam, about the height of the character, and basically the whole screen in length. Once you get that weapon, you rarely re-use the older ones except on specific occasions. The damage output on this one is worth it, and the fact that it doesn’t rely on level is a big plus. Especially if you’re going through the hidden last cave, which resets everything to level 1 once you go in. That weapon (called the spur) is actually the complete version of your original gun which you got before it was complete. Note that you’ll need the booster 2.0 (which is worth the not very long wait) if you’re aiming for that one.

One last weapon is available, through a side quest, and the exchange of the sword. Now this one is really a personal decision. Since the sword is a strong weapon. But the Nemesis is kind of worth it. While it takes only one exp to level up to level 2, and another one to level 3 maxed out, that’s what you don’t want with this weapon. It is far stronger at level 1 then any weapon in the game in terms of pure damage output. At level 1 it shoots an electric burst. At level 2, it shoots a small electric burst and at level 3… it shoots ducks! Now the tricky part is that sometimes you’ll pick up experience points even if you don’t mean it, especially in boss fights with minions. Otherwise, if you can manage to not level it up, (or you can always get hit once or twice to get it to level down), it’s a good weapon.

Overall, Cave Story is an experience everyone should have, simply to remind them where games come from. Not that there aren’t games with more archaic style released even today, but I think this one represents well a golden age of gaming long gone. On this note, I’m looking forward to Pixel’s next project. I won’t talk more then that of that game, I think you need to experience it for yourself for the rest, and don’t stop at the 8-bitness of the graphics and see through the deep experience this game has.

*note I’ll be adding pictures of the game later tonight*

Share/Save