After cleaning up the trophies in Tokyo Jungle and Blue Toad Murder Files, I went back through my partially played PlayStation 3 history to see if there were any other trophy lists I could mop up somewhat quickly. I was on a roll and figured I would keep trophy hunting before devoting serious time to something else, like Suikoden III. After all, whether my friends realize it or not, we’re in a never-ending competition to obtain trophies, achievements, etc. I eventually decided upon Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. The prospects of unlocking the platinum trophy didn’t seem too daunting, and to boot, it’d give me an excuse to purchase one of the Retro-Bit 2.5 GHz Genesis controllers I’d been salivating over.
Yesterday my girlfriend and I went to the movies and watched J. Edgar. As we were walking out I spotted a small, dark room containing about a dozen arcade games. The first thing I noticed when we walked in was two teenagers making out in a cockpit. Once I was done staring at them, we walked around and I told my girlfriend about the games. We stuck to one wall avoiding the other couple and after getting change we played a few games.
I'd love to have the double cockpit version of this game.
The first game we played was Cyber Troopers Virtual-On. It was developed by Sega AM3, published by Sega, and released around 1995. We picked two anime inspired mecha and fought each other until someone won two rounds. I liked that we had to sit down in a cockpit and pilot out mecha with two joysticks. In practice though we didn’t have time to figure out what the buttons did. By the time we were starting to grasp the controls, she had won. Next up was X-Men.
X-Men was developed and published by Konami in 1992. It’s a side-scrolling beat ‘em up and what I thought X-Men for the Sega Genesis was going to be. I played as Storm while she picked Wolverine; it was much easier to understand than Virtual-On. The graphics seem very detailed for when X-Men came out; our characters in particular were very large, good looking sprites. I think my joystick might’ve been messed up because I had a difficult time getting Storm to walk down. We didn’t last long but I enjoyed the minute or two we played it.
Storm using her special.
Lastly my girlfriend played Maximum Force, alone because one of the coin slots wasn’t working and it stole my change. Maximum Force is a light gun shooter developed by Mesa Logic and published by Atari Games in 1997. I didn’t find this game very attractive. The environments were poor 3D while the characters were 2D sprites. The enemies (monsters or aliens?) jumped into screen quickly and popped up all over the area, making it easy to get flustered. She lasted a while, but Maximum Force didn’t look very fun. You know what? I don’t think Maximum Force is the game she played because the descriptions of it on the internet differ from what I’ve just said.
There were plenty more arcade games but I only had three dollars worth of change and it went fast. I liked X-Men and could see myself wanting to stay and play through it, but overall it was kind of a poor experience. That doesn’t diminish my want to visit a proper arcade jam-packed with games or California Extreme, a large arcade convention, those would be fun with a friend or two. But until I do, my arcade action is limited to the movie theaters.
For some reason last week is a blur. I can’t remember what all I did but I know I did so much. I posted first impressions for four games: Renegade Ops, X-Men, From Dust, and Red Johnson’s Chronicles. I also played the demo for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon and I’ll post my impressions of that tomorrow. I started playing Soul Blazer for the Super Nintendo… and I’m almost done with that. Depending on my schedule I should complete it and have a review this week, maybe next week. My girlfriend and I also completed another level in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure and we played Rock Band 3 with another couple and that was fun. That’s pretty much it for games I guess.
This week was a blur because of school and work too. Work was pretty much the same schedule as always so it’s a constant, but it seems like I did a lot of work in school. Heck, I’m in the middle of helping a classmate as I type this. Anyways, time permitting I’ll have a review of Soul Blazer, demo impressions of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and another demo impression or two this week.
My favorite part about finding a complete copy of X-Men? The sweet poster that it came with!
Maybe my friend and I didn’t like X-Men on the Sega Genesis because we were hoping for something different. We, or at least I, thought it would be a beat ‘em up, more specifically a port of the well regarded 1992 arcade game. But X-Men is more of a platformer than a beat ‘em up and not a very fun one.
X-Men was developed by Western Technologies and published by Sega for the Genesis in 1993. My friend and I were able to assume the role of one of the four selectable characters. We got to pick from Gambit, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Cyclops, but there were many more appearances from familiar faces in the form of backup attacks.
After picking our characters we messed around for about a minute in the Danger Room before the game threw us into the first stage. It was evocative of a prehistoric time when cavemen roamed, but instead our enemies were leopardmen and pterodactyls. Combat was pretty basic, a jump button, attack button, and a special button, but it was somewhat clunky and it didn’t feel great.
From the heads-up display, to the graphics, to the combat, I found pretty much every aspect of X-Men to be lackluster.
The stage required us to move upwards besides just to the right, but the camera was kind of wonky with two players on screen. We fell off screen plenty of times, but Jean Grey would save us, as long as we had health. This was hard to get used to, especially with enemies and other threats throughout the stage. Scaling the stages was different but it was difficult to do in tandem. I also didn’t like the animation and the design of the first stage honestly.
My friend and I couldn’t get through the first stage of X-Men. We had a hard time figuring out the camera and it caused us much strife. I played it by myself to get a perspective of the single player and I was able to get farther, but I wasn’t interested in putting much more time into it. The soundtrack was a divisive topic between us. It was very abrasive, making obnoxious sounds, but I liked that it was different, my friend felt differently.
I thought X-Men was a poor game overall. In every department it feels like the game comes up short and I can’t imagine playing through it anytime soon.
I’m coming to you a little late tonight. After an early day at work, my friend and I spent the day playing some video games and looking for some deals. We began the afternoon by playing X-Men on the Sega Genesis, and it was terrible. It’s not a port of the well regarded arcade game, but a game developed specifically for the Genesis and Game Gear. We couldn’t make it past the first stage, but I’d like to play it solo before I give up on it.
We then tried Spider-Man and Venom: Separation Anxiety (or rather Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety, but I don’t like that title) and it was better, but nothing to write home about. It was a pretty simple beat ’em up and didn’t grab us. Like X-Men, I’m going to play through some of it by myself before I put it on the shelf.
We finally moved on to a standout beat ’em up on the Genesis: Streets of Rage 3. After initially seeing that it fetched a rather high price for a complete copy, we shelved the idea of playing it anytime soon, but I found a copy cheap locally and picked it up, and it’s a blast. I prefer Streets of Rage 2 to it, but it’s still a very good game. We also played Rock Band 3 on the Xbox 360. It was my first time playing that and it’s very good.
After defeating Doom 3, I took a day or two off from focusing on any one game. My girlfriend and I made it past another level in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure on the GameCube and I played a few races in Tube Slider, a futuristic racing game, also on the GameCube, but I took it easy and focused on school and work. I have decided to play through Soul Blazer on the Super Nintendo now. It’s a top-down, action-adventure, hack and slash, role-playing game, and that’s all the descriptive terms for it I can think of immediately. It has a really killer soundtrack.
And that’s pretty much last week in games. I don’t know what I’ll write about this week, but I will have a post or two for sure.
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My Brain on Games