The Vault: Bart’s Nightmare/Prince of Persia

Still fighting to make this a recurring segment someday, maybe it could even be on one of our sidebars? So this means I recently made a visit to “Amazing Heroes” which for those who don’t know is a vintage video game/toy store in Totem Lake. You can just smell the nostalgia and overwhelming nerdiness when you walk in. So this time I picked up a new copy of Resident Evil: Code Veronica but I haven’t played it yet so I won’t review and two sega games. Both games have connections to my past and both were uhh well… Interesting.

Bart’s Nightmare (1992)

The Scoop: A tie-in to the classic 90s T.V. Show, Bart’s Nightmare follows Bart as he wanders through a strange dreamworld collecting homework and playing bizarre “Nightmare” mini-games.

Why?: This is one of those games I sucked at as a kid so I thought I’d give it another whirl. Unfortunately I’m not much better and still a little confused by what you’re supposed to do. You spend most of the game wandering down a weird street collecting homework that takes you to the mini-games but they’re so random. There’s also this sleep meter I still don’t get, I’ll definitely be doing some research on the interweb.

Pros: The mini-games although difficult are awesome. You got “Bartzilla”, “Indiana Bart”, “Bart vs. Itchy and Scratchy”, “Bartman” and some game where you’re fighting germs in someone’s blood stream. They can be a little repetitive but they’re all clever and entertaining

Cons: It’s too hard and occasionally confusing. Not to mention that the “non mini-game” gameplay is pretty boring.

Prince of Persia (1989)

The Scoop: Long before the fancy slow-mo filled game and Jake Gyllenhaal movie there was this classic PC platformer, considered to be quite advanced for the time.

Why?: I used to have it on our old Macintosh and although it was damn difficult, I somehow have fond memories. I didn’t even know there was a Sega version and well, it was two bucks! TWO BUCKS!

Pros: Okay graphics for the time I guess and it’s a clever little game.

Cons: Oh my god this is impossible! The controls are so bad that I can barely play it. This could be great if everything wasn’t delayed, plus you’re timed. Could my memories be playing tricks on me?

Shocktober: The Vault (Halloween Edition)

Remember my “The Vault” feature where I review old games? Well here’s my latest installment. I was contemplating the idea of a Resident Evil retrospective but decided to just review a few genesis oldies that delve into the spookier side of things.

Haunting (1993)

The Scoop: You control a rebellious young teenager by the name of “Polterguy” who haunts a yuppie family through household objects.

Pros: Inventive and wacky, I can’t think of any other game quite like Haunting which features some very humorous visuals and great graphics.

Cons: This game is really only fun once for about a half an hour. It just gets so repetitive after that. You haunt someone, get sent to the underworld, haunt someone else, get sent to the underworld, drives me crazy.

Decap Attack (1990)

The Scoop: You control Chuck D. Head, a living mummy battling against Max D. Cap and his underworld army.

Pros: An amusing side-scroller that includes features such as taking potions, throwing skulls and wearing skulls as Chuck has no head of his own.

Cons: It can be a little confusing navigating your way through some of the levels and doesn’t rise above to many side-scrollers.

Mutant League Football (1993)

Mutant League Hockey (1994)

The Scoop: Violent, yet comical sports games where the player controls a wide array of mutants including; skeletons, trolls and robots.

Pros: Both games feature vibrant graphics and creative animated tidbits. Mutant League Hockey is very entertaining, especially with the feature of killing the other team.

Cons: Football games in my opinion were always terrible in the 16 bit era. They never makes sense and are basically always impossible. So that one sort of sucks but hockey works just fine. I just wish MLH didn’t have the forfeit option after you killed all the other teams players. Nobody wants to win by forfeit.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993)

The Scoop: A parody of B-movies by Lucas Arts, Zombies lets you take control of two totally 90s teenagers waging war against zombies with everything from squirt guns to soda bombs.

Pros: The weapons are hilarious and I love that your character can drink a potion transforming them into a monster. Great graphics and music as well.

Cons: Gets a little harder later on but aside from that I love this game and wish I had my own copy.

The Vault: Batman, Blades of Vengeance, Fatal Rewind

Moving a segment from my own blog (with Sean’s consent) which really is more of a blog for current events in my own life, “The Vault” as I’ve renamed it for now will be a segment for rating older games, good or bad for your and my amusement. For this week I’ve picked the three latest games I purchased at the Totem Lake store “Amazing Heroes”. So without further ado let’s get our game faces on and jump in.

Batman (1990)

The Scoop: Based off of the 1989 film, Batman is your typical beat em’ up side-scroller. It’s essentially a remake of the NES version but with a handful of changes.

Why?: I’d regretted not buying this game earlier this summer after hearing it wasn’t half bad. So I had to go back and buy it on my next visit.

Pros: It’s not too tricky and it’s always satisfying to play as the Dark Knight himself. I enjoyed reliving parts of the movie, like when the Joker falls into a vat of acid and the graphics are fairly respectable.

Cons: Apparently all the changes made for the Genesis version (aside from the graphics and sound) were for the worst. Where in the NES version you have three different weapons and unlimited continues, the Genesis only has the batarang (with limited ammo) and limited continues. Cut scenes have been removed and the gameplay isn’t really anything special. This game isn’t necessarily bad, but it desperately lacks in originality.

Blades of Vengeance (1993)

The Scoop: A two-player fantasy platform game much in the vein of Golden Axe. You must choose between The Hunter, The Huntress or The Sorcerer and lead them to victory against “The Dark Lady”.

Why?: With a tagline stating “Intense Battle with Unspeakable Evil” how could I resist? I mean not just evil but “Unspeakable Evil”? That sounds awesome! Plus I’ve always been a pretty big Golden Axe fan so I figured “How hard could this concept be to mess up?”

Pros: Very colorful graphics and pleasing visuals, the characters and enemies are well designed and there’s definitely a fair bit of detail. Playing as the Sorcerer ain’t half bad either, he sticks his staff into the ground and shoots little energy balls, not too shabby.

Cons: The two player here is definitely flawed. Often we’d be playing when all of a sudden a character would fall off a cliff, constantly getting us separated. Strangely enough the first character who falls doesn’t get injured but when you jump down to reunite with them you get hurt, well depending on the height. Jumping across moving platforms over lava never goes smoothly and if one character picks the sorcerer (who can shoot magic from a distance) the other character will basically just be watching as their partner gets all the kills. Not to mention it’s incredibly easy to lose all of your health in a matter of seconds and all of the magic you receive from items is totally lame.

Fatal Rewind (1990)

The Scoop: A mixture between a platformer and a shooter, I guess you’re a guy in a robot suit on like a game show? Who has to make it from the bottom to the top of the level before it fills up with acid. Along the way you must unlock doors while blasting away deadly enemies (like robots and flying shapes) while getting all sorts of sweet power-ups along the way.

Why?: Paul bought this one for the sole purpose of how vague the cartridge artwork was. It just had yellow letters on a red background, we really had no idea what it was and with a name like “Fatal Rewind” we just had to have it.

Pros: This kind of has an old school arcade charm to it. It’s simple but entertaining with lots of fun power-ups and never a dull moment. I also love that every level opens with text that says” Get ready to die!” It has it’s imperfections but at least it’s fun and it definitely keeps you on your toes.

Cons: This game can be pretty frustrating at times due to it’s difficulty. I couldn’t even pass the first level until AJ figured out how to beat it and get fairly far. It’s pretty hard to not take damage from basically everything and it’s shame that you’re continually starting from the beginning of every level.

So there you have it, I kind of rushed through that but hopefully my grammatical errors and typos aren’t too annoying. I was talking to Sean and we were thinking this might be a fun monthly segment. I mean it would definitely spice up those painfully slow and uneventful weeks we often have, Otteni out.