I don’t want this review to sound too acrimonious, but I had a lousy experience with Final Fantasy VI. It’s a game I started a couple of times over the past few years, only to burn out early on. By the time I began playing this game, soon after completing the two prior entries, I suffered from a Final Fantasy fatigue. With a few years between my last attempts, I finally restarted this summer and managed to beat it. While I enjoyed much of my playthrough this go-around, my impressions were still negatively colored by those initial burnouts, especially after listening to years of praise for this entry, often cited as the greatest in the series. Opinions are malleable, and mine will undoubtedly grow rosy with the passing of time, but as of this writing I feel this is the weakest Final Fantasy on the Super Nintendo. Continue reading Final Fantasy VI [PlayStation] – Review→
Having completed Doom on the Sega 32X, I decided to spend some substantial time with the only other 32X game in my possession: Virtua Racing Deluxe. Originally released as an arcade game in late 1992, it is one of video game’s polygonal pioneers. Nowadays, it looks extremely primitive, although it’s still a joy to play. As it originated in Sega’s AM2 division, this is no surprise; they were led by Yu Suzuki – one of video game’s greatest designers. Released in late 1994, the 32X version is scaled down graphically, but expands upon the arcade game in content.
So yeah, that’s positively the Golden Gate Bridge.
I don’t have any nostalgia for games with this sort of graphical fidelity and the few that I’ve played retroactively have been unpleasant. Those that I have played seemed to have been notable only for their choppy graphical prowess at the time and were otherwise unenjoyable. I was blown away then when this game not only moved at a fast clip, but was highly responsive and a blast to play! It’s a stepdown visually when compared to the original but still remains palatable. It also features significant pop-in, but it wasn’t so abhorrent that it impacted my performance.
There were five stages to race on and three vehicles to choose from – two more of each than the arcade game. Each of the stages and vehicles required a different sort of finesse to achieve greatness. Lacking a career mode, the motivating force for solo play was high scores, or rather, best times. Placing first in the field of sixteen was a tall order, and my best after an hour is second place. The responsiveness of the vehicles and the limited time involvement required saw me continuously attempting to best my computer opponents. A split-screen multiplayer mode is available for two players although I haven’t tried it yet. My biggest fear is slowdown which, to be fair wasn’t an issue in my solo sessions.
I liked racing with the zoomed out camera angle – although some structures conflicted with it.
The enjoyment I had with Virtua Racing Deluxe came as a surprise to me. I had doubts about it based on my past experience with primitive polygonal games. Any doubts I had were erased when I grabbed the controller. It was as fast-paced and responsive as any other racing game of the time period, and perhaps more so. Although my exposure to the 32X library is limited at this point, I feel confident in asserting that this is one of the premier titles on the platform.
Who can say what sparked it, but one evening Jeff and I played the Sega 32X. It’s an add-on for the Sega Genesis that increased its power but never proved successful for a variety of reasons, namely poor timing. Its library rounds out at about forty titles which pales in comparison to the nine hundred plus that the Genesis hosted. Along with it, I also have a Sega CD which makes setup an absolute chore. There are three power bricks (although only two are needed if the Sega CD isn’t being utilized), an A/V cable connecting the Genesis and 32X, and an A/V cable connecting the monstrosity to the TV. Our session was a memorable one though, so it was worth it.
With such a limited library there aren’t a lot of options, especially when I only have a few games. The two that we spent the most time with were Virtua Racing Deluxe and Doom. As he’s not partial to racing games we barely touched VRD. That game’s primitive polygonal graphics can be off-putting at first, but I was surprised at how fast and responsive the game was; it’s definitely a worthwhile title. Therefore, we spent our time with Doom. Our session lasted a couple of hours, and we wound up making it to the final stage*.
One knock against the 32X version is the limited real estate devoted to the game screen.
His experience with Doom supersedes mine, having played it on PC closer to its cultural explosion. My first gameplay exposure came with the Xbox Live Arcade release. I couldn’t tell you what went through my head then, but I don’t remember being blown away, even considering the context of its release. After all, this was the most significant of the early first-person shooters and became one of the most popular, if not played, video games up to that point in time. Honestly, I wasn’t particularly jazzed about playing the 32X version but it’s hard to ignore how well-made it is, even this version.
For hours, we blasted demons with a handful of weapons and searched for keycards in order to open locked doors and progress to each level’s exit. That took place across fifteen-odd levels, with one or two focusing on a boss fight rather than exploration. On paper, this all sounds monotonous, but the gameplay was quite fun. It was a fast-paced shooter and the stages and enemy encounters never felt duplicated, despite a limited palette of either. Undoubtedly, playing with a friend and taking turns completing levels enhanced my enjoyment.
Doomguy, now’s not the time for knock knock jokes!
This newfound enjoyment and appreciation of Doom surprises even me, considering I really enjoyed Doom 3 – a game most others didn’t. I’m contemplating more Doom and my next steps branch two ways. The 32X version was a port of the PC original which hadn’t even fully released at the time, so I haven’t completely seen Doom (which this FAQ detailing version differences is just phenomenal). I’ll either start up the XBLA release or the version included with the Doom 3 Limited Collector’s Edition. I’ve also never played Doom II: Hell on Earth so that’s a natural progression too. Either way, I’m excited to play more Doom. I guess that’s one redeeming quality for the 32X.
* The final stage to reach the credits. If we had reached the same stage on a harder difficulty, there were actually two more stages.
Rocket Science Games, the developer, was founded by a prolific entrepreneur and a workaholic game designer in 1993 and later received a $12M investment, in part from Sega.
At first glance, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm is very interesting. This Sega CD/PC video game is based off of the Xenozoic Tales comic books/TV show and it features graphics and cutscenes that stay true to this heritage. Another way the game sticks to its foundation is through the inclusion of the zany post-apocalyptic story. I perceive the developer’s as having a passion for translating this intellectual property into a video game, and yet, my first impressions of The Second Cataclysm are negative. Repeatedly playing the first level of the on-rails shooter deflated my morale until I eventually threw in the towel.
Through a brief comic book in the manual and an introductory cutscene, I was enlightened on the setting and plot points of The Second Cataclysm. Many hundreds of years in the future, Earth was ravaged by unnatural disasters and the remaining humans survived and thrived underground. When they returned to the surface, the planet was overrun with the remains of their civilizations and confusingly, dinosaurs. They’ve learned to follow the “machinatio vitae” which calls for a balance between nature and machinery and when a race of highly developed ground dwellers sense an upset in this balance, they seek out all around good guy Jack Tenrec to prevent another cataclysm like the one that devastated Earth hundreds of years before.
The game looked good (considering the terrible grainy picture), but the gameplay was bland and difficult.
With his trusty accomplice Hannah Dundee and his 1953 Cadillac, Jack sets out to stop Wilhelmina Scharnhorst’s megalomaniacal ambitions. His road to success is littered with obstacles however, first and foremost that there isn’t one!
As I cruised through the jungle in Jack’s hot ride, I’d try my best to avoid rocks, logs, and dinosaurs and if I couldn’t, I’d have Hannah blast them with her gun. I had to keep an eye on the path ahead though because the road to success wasn’t straight. I’d have to make split-second decisions when I came to forks in the road and I’m not quite sure if this holds true in the earlier stages, but the manual leads me to believe that I could go in circles. Keeping the “machinatio vitae” in mind, I’d try my best not to blast dinosaurs because when I did, my time limit to reach Scharnhorst decreased.
Hannah was shocked to hear that the game’s cutscenes involved little to no animation.
Looking back, I probably was going in circles. Still, I would stick it out for as long as I could until the Cadillac was too beat up from obstacles or I ran into a dinosaur preventing me from completing the first stage. I’m not all that interested in trying to best myself and complete the first stage to, reportedly, do the same thing in the same environment six more times until the game alters its stage design before capping off Jack and Hannah’s journey. An ambitious game with tepid gameplay – Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm is a game that can remain extinct.
I’m guessing the battlecorps and the peace corps are diametrically opposed.
In my years of collecting video games, I’ve made an observation. When developers were making their first forays into first-person and polygonal video games, the first-person mech genre was a popular choice to test the waters. Battlecorps for the Sega CD falls into this category. Developed by Core Design and published by Time Warner Interactive, Battlecorps features colorful graphics, but poorly executed gameplay.
As one of three characters, I began missions by listening to a briefing from the Comedian-inspired Lieutenant Calgary. With my objectives known, I’d pilot a bipedal attack machine (BAM) through enemy-riddled levels and destroy the infrastructure of rival corporations.
Are those giant boulders or scrunched up moai faces?
Controlling the BAM was doable but aiming was a hassle. With only three buttons and a directional pad, Core Design was limited in their choices for sure, but they still chose to overuse the controller. They opted to give players the ability to aim up, down, and around, but doing so required players to shift the functionality of the d-pad depending on what they wanted it to do: pilot their BAM or aim. Enemies won’t wait for you to aim at them so taking damage is an unfortunate necessity. This is a design choice that hampered the game and could’ve been avoided by eliminating the need to aim at all.
The confounding controls ire me and the gameplay revolving around walking slowly and shooting deserves only this single mention, but I do like the graphical style. The environments are colorful and the game is a hot pixilated mess. It’s 3D much in the way that Doom was 3D; objects are made of pixels and as camera moves, so too do they. What’s not cool is the limited field of vision. The game replicates the insides of the BAMs as though I was actually in one, and because of radar and various screens, my view of the world is limited.
Like a ticker on the bottom of a TV news channel, the ticker in the topmost portion of the BAM warns against enemies and mines.
Battlecorps’ tepid gameplay and complicated controls left me not wanting to return to its battlefield again.
On consoles, Lethal Enforcers was released in a massive cardboard box that could contain the Konami Justifier.
Back when arcades ruled the video game roost, light gun games were widespread. The genre wasn’t as ubiquitous on home consoles, but it seems like each console from back in the day had a light gun. One game with a big presence back then was Lethal Enforcers. It was originally released as an arcade game in 1992, but was ported to the Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Sega CD from 1993-1994. Developed and published by Konami, each version came bundled with the Konami Justifier, a blue light gun modeled after the Cult Python, the iconic .357 Magnum revolver. Enabling cooperative play is the harder to find pink light gun, although it works across all three platforms.
The Genesis and Sega CD versions were very grainy.
Lethal Enforcers contains little narrative, but little is needed. Crime is being committed and as a cop, it’s your (and your partner’s) duty to uphold the law. You’ll shoot through scenes in which bad guys pop their heads up from cover looking to blow yours off. Without quick timing and precise accuracy, game over comes quickly. Once those qualities are on lock-down though, you might just be able to make your city a little cleaner. While that sounded like an ad, that’s pretty much the best way I can sum up the game.
My friend and I played the Genesis and Sega CD versions of Lethal Enforcers and I only noticed one difference between the two versions – the soundtrack of the Sega CD version was of a higher quality. Both games looked identical, although the Sega CD version should look much better than its Genesis counterpart. I imagine the Super Nintendo version is identical to the Genesis version, although without playing it myself, I can’t say with certainty.
My friend and I had a rough go at the game. It was easy to complete the first level, a bank robbery, and even do so without losing lives, but to unlock the next level, we had to have 70% accuracy. We eventually managed this, but the second level, a trip to Chinatown, upped the difficulty, while also asking us to have even better accuracy. The game has five stages and I’m sure this continues to be the case throughout the game.
This scene played like an episode of The Flintstones – my friend and I saw, like, thirty National Rubber Stamp Companies.
I really enjoy light gun games, and Lethal Enforcers seems to be one of the genre’s better examples. It’s tough, but it doesn’t force players to memorize enemy locations. With quick reflexes and good accuracy, anyone can have fun. Playing cooperatively is a treat because at that point, you’re into the experience for at least thirty bucks, but it’s definitely much more fun with a partner. Lethal Enforcers is a fun game, although for the best experience, it will be slightly costly/difficult to track down. It’s worth noting that Lethal Enforcers won’t work on HDTVs so if you’re interested, make sure you have a CRT TV or something you can play it on.
Indicative of the actual game, Vanna White is featured prominently on the cover.
Hey guess what? I have another version of Wheel of Fortune that I’m going to talk about. This time it’s Wheel of Fortune for the Sega CD. It was developed by Absolute Entertainment and published by Sony Imagesoft in 1994. The format is standard Wheel of Fortune fare but this version has the inclusion of video footage!
Wheel of Fortune for the Sega CD played identically to Wheel of Fortune: Deluxe Edition for the Super Nintendo, the game I wrote about a week or two ago. My friend and I played through three rounds attempting to solve puzzles with the most amount of money, and the winner of these rounds proceeded to a bonus round.
I liked the outfit Vanna wore.
This version boasted more puzzles than the Super Nintendo version, but the few my friend and I came across didn’t seem well known. The one that sticks out in my mind was “pooped out to lunch”. I understand what it means, but I’ve never heard anyone phrase it that way.
The real reason to play the Sega CD version however is the inclusion of video footage. Vanna White is featured prominently in the game, and there is a little video footage of each contestant too. The video quality is very poor however (typical of Sega CD games) and it really slows the pace of the game. Vanna would announce whose turn it was, each time using the same line and this got old fast. Once we learned we could skip this we did. There was plenty more video footage of Vanna too, but it grew old fast as well.
This version was again a competent recreation of the TV show, and the rivalry between my friend and I was still there, but the puzzles didn’t seem great. The video footage included was entertaining, aka laughably bad, but it really slowed down the pace of the game. It was fun to play to see the video, but for just wanting to compete, Wheel of Fortune: Deluxe Edition is a better choice.
Another game show video game released by GameTek, also for the SNES.
Continuing on with game show video games for the Super Nintendo, my friend and I popped in Wheel of Fortune: Deluxe Edition. It was developed by Imagitec Design and published by GameTek in 1994 and I came away with the same feelings as I did with Family Feud. It was a competent recreation of the TV show and we enjoyed playing it, but there are probably newer, better versions out there.
I know it!
My friend and I entered in our names and chose to be one of six characters. We played through the game in four rounds and a speed-up round, and finally the winner would play a bonus round. Like Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune: Deluxe Edition did a good job of recreating the TV show, albeit within the abilities of the SNES.
When it was our turn, we could spin the wheel, buy a vowel, or attempt to solve the puzzle. When spinning the wheel we’d land on a slot (hopefully not bankrupt or lose a turn) and then pick a consonant and win money depending on how many of that letter were in the puzzle. We could also buy vowels, and lastly attempt to solve the puzzle. If we were right, we’d win the money we had accumulated in that round. The winner after four normal rounds and the speed-up round would continue into the bonus round. Here the winner would pick three consonants and one vowel, and then attempt to guess the puzzle.
I feel practically the same about Wheel of Fortune: Deluxe Edition as I did about Family Feud on the SNES. My friend and I both had a good time playing it, but there is probably a newer, better version available.
Being an avid collector of Sega CD games, I had to pick this up having never seen it before.
Mansion of Hidden Souls is a peculiar game. Everything about the game was creepy. The poorly rendered graphics added an odd vibe, while the plot and setting were downright strange. I was pleasantly surprised by the game however. A friend and I played through the game together and enjoyed solving the puzzles and unraveling the game.
Developed by System Sacom and published by Vic Tokai, Mansion of Hidden Souls was released for the Sega CD in 1994. My friend and I took on the role of a young boy looking for his sister who has run away to a creepy mansion in the woods. He soon discovers that people who stumble upon this mansion are turned into butterflies, and that his sister finds this appealing. He then sets out to find her and get out of there.
The billiards room is quite detailed and contains the black painting that helped my friend and I very much.
There were plenty of obstacles standing in his way though. The game is played from the first-person perspective, meaning my friend and I took on the role of the young boy directly. We chose where to go in the mansion and explored it in its entirety. The game uses pre-rendered backgrounds so it has a distinct look to it and is quite detailed, but due to the Sega CD, the game appears very grainy. Rather than sprites which were predominately used in games of that era, pre-rendered graphics looked like “realistic” interpretations of items.
We chose which direction we wanted to go and the young boy would walk where we told him. We stumbled upon objects or areas that could be interacted with and, at the right time in the game, something important would happen. Everything in the game is there for a reason, there isn’t anything extra. By the end of the game, we had utilized everything that we could interact with, which led to a lot of backtracking.
Mansion of Hidden Souls takes place entirely in the mansion and it is a fairly large environment to explore. Each room has a theme and they are all quite varied. The majority of the rooms also contain a butterfly, who was once a human. The butterflies retain their ability to communicate with the boy and some are helpful while others are spiteful. The great thing about being on a compact disc is the ample storage space allowed for voice acting. The unfortunate thing about the voice acting is how poor it is or what I should say is the voice acting is comedic; each butterfly had a unique accent that was butchered by the voice actors.
Early on we had limited access to the mansion as we lacked keys, but in one of the rooms is a black painting that gives a glimpse of what we need to interact with next. This was very helpful. A lot of the puzzles my friend and I figured out before checking the black painting, but with so many intricate objects to interact with, and some uses being less obvious than others, it was great to have something to turn to.
Rescuing the protagonist's sister was the main objective of the game.
For the first half of the game, we explored each room, learning where objects were and received input from the butterflies. Once we retrieved the main character’s sister (early on in the stages of human to butterfly transformation) we had to escape from the mansion’s owner. At this point we received a clock and had one hour (in-game time) to complete the game. Time didn’t pass when we stood still which meant we could think about what to do, and it seemed as if we had ample time to check the black painting. This time limit added an interesting dynamic that we didn’t find annoying thanks to the ability to save in case we did make a mistake (which happened a few times) and died because of it.
I took a gamble with Mansion of Hidden Souls. I saw it for sale and having never seen a copy of it before, purchased it. I didn’t have any intention of playing it as soon as I did, but I found a peculiar, yet halfway compelling adventure that was short enough for my friend and I to complete in one sitting. We made a lot of the connections about the use of objects ourselves but the ability to seek out the black painting for what to do next was helpful. Mansion of Hidden Souls was a creepy game that I had more fun playing through than I expected I would.
Share this:
Twitter
Facebook
Tumblr
Like this:
LikeLoading...
The internet's source for Mansion of Hidden Souls.
![Final Fantasy VI [PlayStation] – Review](https://mybrainongames.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/final-fantasy-anthology.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1)
![Virtua Racing Deluxe – Sega 32X [Review]](https://mybrainongames.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/virtua-racing-deluxe.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1)
![Doom [Sega 32X] – Review](https://mybrainongames.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/doom.jpg?w=672&h=372&crop=1)
My Brain on Games