Tales from the NES
Double Dribble (1986)Konami’s 8-bit Hyper Dunk predecessor was the first title to be deemed worthy of my time by the gods of random selection. As a basketball player myself throughout my schooling, I was interested to see how accurate the game would be portrayed on the humble NES, however, having already played some monstrosities on later consoles, such as David Robinson’s Supreme Court and Jordan vs Bird on the Mega Drive, I wasn’t hoping to be blown away too much.
On firing up, I was greeted by a digitised fellow announcing the game’s title, in the token muffled style that was natural to the early days of digital speech manipulation within games. After selecting the first of the paltry two game modes offered (1 Player or Versus), and watching a cutscene of what appeared to be a building doomed by a flood, I was presented with the abundant option screen.
Sorry, that was supposed to be ‘abject’.
There’s a whole four teams to choose from, the ability to change the time (you can choose up to 30 minutes a period if you’re a masochist) and a selection between three skill levels. Not only that, but navigating this barren set of options is made needlessly annoying due to the fact that a player in the bottom corner on your screen can't help but exercise his urge to take a bloody shot every time you change something, so I left most things untouched.
After finally arriving on-court and getting used to the simple controls, I soon found myself down by about 20 points as the first period drew to a close. What happened out there, champs? Well, stealing and blocking is extremely hit-and-miss for starters, with your players spasmodically flailing their arms around when you press one of the buttons and generally seeming to get nothing useful done. On some occasions, you’d just steal without any animation at all and be left scratching your head as to how you managed it. There’s also a couple of other minor details that could have been done better, such as the inclusion of shot clock which is criminally absent, and the fact that the ‘seven team fouls’ rule is nowhere to be seen. In essence, this means your opponent is going straight to the free throw line right from the off if you nail them illegally anywhere on the court.
Apart from these small mishaps, the game was actually pretty fun to play. Charging down the court and slamming the ball in gives you one of a selection of pre-rendered dunk scenes, which look relatively striking for an 8-bit. The graphics on the whole are colourful and nicely animated, although there is some flicker present that can get somewhat annoying. The gameplay itself is swift-paced and responsive, with players telegraphing passes to each other at arm-breaking speeds, however, any NBA player who missed as many three-pointers as I did during my match-up would be out on their ear faster than you could say ‘bricklayer’.
Continuing through my gruelling match, stopping only to be treated with an excellently choreographed half-time show in-between (see caption), I soon found myself raking my way back into the game, mainly thanks to the AI’s woeful free-throw skills. But alas, my brave New Yorkers were downed 58 to 44 by the final buzzer.
As for tonight’s post-match recap, this one’s worth a look if you want something quick and fun to pass some time, but don’t expect any kind of tournament mode to sink your teeth into as you won’t find one here. Furthermore, I still have the feeling that basketball games never really took off until the quite stupendous NBA Jam was unleashed onto the general population. Most likely, it’s there you should be looking for your ball-in-hoop needs.
Score: [6/10]
Journey to Silius (1990)
According to the ever-omniscient Wikipedia, this game was originally planned and developed under the impression that it would be taking on the Terminator license for its final release, but had to be changed dramatically when Sunsoft lost the rights to be able to use elements of the prestigious classic in its title. This could have been a missed opportunity, as past experience shows that Sunsoft are one of the rare companies that has ever done something decent with a movie license, in the excellent Batman on the Gameboy which they released later in 1992. Nevertheless, perhaps they wouldn’t need Arnie’s chiselled maw and razor-sharp one-liners after all as, really, the license elements didn’t add anything notable to Batman in the gameplay department.
Before I continue, a quick question for you all: ever played Mega Man? I’m sure you have.
Unfortunately, this pretty much makes the rest of my review somewhat redundant, as Journey to Silius tries to do much of what our shiny blue friend did so well, but in ways that are simply not as good. However, as I’m not one for telling half a story, let’s proceed.
Deceptively, the intro sequence is rather smartly rendered, creating a gloomy ambience with some atmospheric music and anime-style scenes. The gist of the situation is that interplanetary terrorists have blown up your father’s colonisation vessel, leaving you, as Jay McCray, to avenge his death and prevent Skynet from taking over the wor… oops, sorry.
After the classy cinematics had raised my hopes about the game a little, my enthusiasm soon rescinded as I found the actual game to be an extremely bland affair indeed. Running from left to right with pea-shooter in hand, I began dispatching the array of robotic ‘terrorists’ and gun placements that stood in my path, which to be fair, offered some variety in their attack patterns at least. Some of these dropped power-ups which enabled me to select other guns from the pause screen, such as a shotgun (3-way bullets) and a machine gun (rapid fire). These extra obtained arms would run out of energy with use, whereas your starting handgun gave the benefit of unlimited ammo. Of course, this interface is curiously similar to Mega Man’s own.
Encouraging myself to get to the end of at least a couple of levels, the final encounters I tackled had me overcoming a sub-boss or two, before being transported to a rocky location to meet something a little more sizeable. Undeniably, the boss characters were bold and intimidating, but not particularly detailed or exciting in their actions, and once I’d succumbed to the might of a large tank at the end of level 2, I’d had my fill. By this time I’d also realised that game knows you probably won’t be sticking around for too long, and generously gives you infinite continues to try and coax you into another go. It’s a mystery as to why you would though, as there’s also no apparent scoring system to speak of, so going back to try and beat a previous best isn’t even an option for longevity’s sake. Plus, as I’m sure you’ve picked up from my waffling so far, the game is too dull to warrant further entertainment.
My advice to you on this one would be to steer clear and play one of the Mega Man games instead. Additionally, you should check out Batman if you have the chance, to get an idea of how Sunsoft could also do great things in games development. Finally, I feel the Contra series is also similar enough in game-type to be a worthy alternative recommendation.
Score: [3/10]
Star Soldier (1988)
Being one of the earliest developers for the Famicom, Hudson Soft naturally moved on to making games for the NES when it became available, previous to its projects within the PC Engine scene. As the creators of the Bomberman series, amongst other things, Hudson were certainly no slouches when it came to making some truly enjoyable titles. And, with the software house’s release of Star Soldier for Nintendo’s beloved toaster, it was undeniably apparent that they weren’t just a one-trick pony.
The first thing that pleased me with this game is that there is no intro sequence to watch, no characters to try and relate to and no cookie-cutter sci-fi tale forcing you to lengthen your wait before you can dive into the real action. Instead, Star Soldier simply offers a bold indication of the game you just shoved in your console with a hi-score feature slapped underneath. No game modes, no options, no messing around.
Conversely, the game does have a demo mode present, and while I was scrawling down a few ideas before having actually pressed anything, this gave me the first indication as to what the game was - a vertical shoot-‘em-up. No problems there as a fan of the genre myself, and my mind turned to past experiences of Galaga for the system, which was every bit as gratifying and taxing as the arcade version. Star Soldier would have a tough time stealing the crown on this occasion.
Warping into the first level and discovering the RSI-inducing firing system, I plunged headlong into the first wave of enemies – quite literally. This is the first noticeable difference between the game and Namco’s shooter, in that you can move vertically as well as horizontally around the playing field. The ship is also much quicker so you have greater freedom to move and dodge enemy assaults.
That’s not all, because as I began zapping my way through more aliens than you'd find in a Ridley Scott film, I noticed my ship would suddenly stop firing on occasion and somehow disappear out of sight. At first, I thought I must have been lax and slammed into some of the scenery looming below; however, I soon emerged miraculously unscathed from beneath the said landscape, escaping the enemy fire above. Some might say this was a nice design element, but in reality, this curious occurrence doesn’t really enhance the overall experience at all, as it becomes frustrating when your unrelenting shoeing of Martians is interrupted because you’ve inexplicably decided to duck beneath the surface without so much as a by-your-leave. More importantly, this can also lead to missing vital power-ups, as there’s no way to collect them below ground level.
Setting that issue aside, this brings me nicely onto the array of upgrades you can obtain for your ship (as long as the game lets you!). Your first enhancement is a speed boost, making your craft even more manoeuvrable than before. Next time around it’s an attack upgrade, stapling a rear gun onto your tail and making your bullets apparently stronger. Finally, and with a change in the incidentally notable soundtrack, the last improvement to your arsenal comes in the form of a 5-way laser, giving a three-pronged attack from the front and two diagonal bullet streams from behind. The havoc really begins now, as your newfound power enables you annihilate formation upon formation of enemy assaults.
Of course, this does not bring total invincibility, and after dying for the final time and eagerly jamming the start button for another go, on this subsequent mission I found myself reaching the boss character, ‘Star Brain’. From the levels I played, this hefty destroyer is your only arch nemesis to feature throughout the game, which is somewhat of a shame in the variety stakes at least. It wasn’t too hard to dispatch either, although following my first apparent vanquishing of the brute, I was presented with ‘Brain Escaped’ across the screen, and my ship appeared to be knocked back from whence I came. Nevertheless, on our next toe-to-toe, justice prevailed and the stellar grey matter was defeated (for now).
In a nutshell, this game is great fun, and I still found myself heading back for more goes while writing this. The action is instant and despite a couple of niggles, your enjoyment is not hampered as a result. Naturally, the game does pale a little in relation to later shooters released on the market, but for some old-fashioned astral blasting you can’t really go wrong here. Han Solo, eat your heart out.
Score: [8/10]
Dragon Buster (1987) (Famicom)
Argh! What did I do to deserve this one?
I have actually played this tripe before in the Arcade and it didn’t last long there either. Dragon Buster is clearly the Namco(t) equivalent of a Keith Floyd cooking program, meaning that those responsible were without a doubt more drunk than a Russian president when they created this atrocity of their trade. Independent inspection teams should be set-up to tackle this kind of dross ever being allowed to be developed again for as long as humanity exists.
Wait… wasn’t there that ‘Nintendo Seal of Quality’ thing which was meant to signify something?
Nope, Nintendo’s coveted seal was sadly only there to guarantee that no adult content was present in a game and that the developer had paid Nintendo a hefty license fee. Furthermore, Japanese games didn’t ‘benefit’ from the whole scheme as it was never released in that territory. My theory? Perhaps there was an abundance of dire titles such as Dragon Buster in the East (which should be deemed unsuitable for all ages at any cost), meaning the NSQ would have only been rendered useless if introduced there anyway. Why do you think our reptile-smashing subject here never gained an official release in the rest of the world?
If you are actually crazy enough to want to play this game, the character you’re presented with is a standard looking fantasy chap, apparently named ‘Clovis’, who has one whole method of attack to begin with – the whirly sword move! Following initial grimacing at how unresponsive this is, you can then get really advanced and combine this devastatingly annoying attack with a double tap of your joypad, to create a kind of running… whirly sword move. And hey, if you’re feeling adventurous, try incorporating it with a jump! Actually, don’t get me started on the jumping system in this game, which basically consists of a regular jump and a ‘double’ jump. Shockingly, these are even more unresponsive than your pitiful excuse for swordsmanship, meaning you not only fail at that but also vertical leaping too. In short, your guy is the fat kid who got picked last in PE at school.
By this point, you may think I’m sounding a little harsh on the game – don’t, you’re wrong. However, to throw some kind of solace to the damned, the original Arcade game was released in 1984, at a time when most games companies were either taking learning steps or folding due to the great Video Game Crash. What is non-forgivable is the fact that the Famicom port was released a whole three years later than this and no effort was made to make it any better whatsoever. Why port such a poor title in the first place? Sega were doing things a hundred times better with Wonder Boy in Monster Land in the same year! To make matters worse, it’s confirmed that Namco are indeed perhaps the most evil games company after EA in that they went ahead and included the original Dragon Buster in Namco Museum Volume 2. Are you going to call Amnesty International or am I?
In an attempt to retain my own sanity, here’s a quick summary of the points I haven’t covered yet. After completing each level you’re bought to a map screen, where you are able to choose your path of progression at certain intervals, giving variety as to what kind of bland background you’ll receive in the next ‘action-packed’ stage. You can also collect other objects as the game goes on, like health potions, equipment and one-use magic items, such as fireball scrolls, but please don't get the idea that this makes the game any better. Once you have bored yourself through level upon level of dragons, skeletons and wizards, you get to fight a giant dragon who takes up the entire screen. Impressive, you might think, although five kamikaze hits later it was on the floor. Similarly, I was also on the floor; sleeping.
Do yourself a favour: don’t play this. As mentioned earlier, Wonderboy in Monster Land is leaps, bounds and… bloody hell that jumping system was bad…
Score: [1/10]
Bee 52 (1992)
Although this game was released fairly late on in the NES’ existence with the 16-bit era already in full swing, the powerhouses at Codemasters were still squeezing what last drops of goodness they could out of the ageing machine. Of course, as the inventors of the infamous Game Genie which resulted in a subsequent lawsuit from Nintendo, this title was released unlicensed.
Despite having enjoyed previous Codies titles such as BMX Simulator, the Dizzy series to some extent, and of course, the legendary Micro Machines, I have to say that Bee 52 is most likely not something I would have picked up when browsing through the games section in WH Smiths back in the day. In fact, my actual impression was ‘oh god, I’ve been dealt a kids’ game’ at first.
Nevertheless, after having played some extremely questionable games recently (no names), I felt that my luck could only be in escalation. Sure enough, my poor neighbours could enjoy some time off from barrages of profanity tonight, as Bee 52 is really quite a playable little title. If you hadn’t already guessed, the name ‘Bee 52’ is naturally a spoof of the American B-52 bomber, and purposefully clues you into the subject matter of the game.
Taking on the role of a bee yourself, your job is to carry out the main task of any bee’s life – flying between flowers and collecting pollen by having a nose-around inside. On doing this in Bee 52, a spoon next to the honey pot on the bottom-right of your screen begins to rise, indicating how much your current efforts will fill the pot up. Once you have collected more than your pollen sacs can handle, it’s time to dart back to headquarters to, um… unload.
The game is very similar in style to something like Defender, with your bee starting from a hive at one end of the map and the screen scrolling horizontally as you buzz around over the landscape. There are two standard attacks available to you as you begin doing your duty for her royal highness, one being some kind of forward-shooting gun and the second being a sting attack, which is used for killing enemies below you. This system actually works extremely well, and you’ll need to utilise it masterfully in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of the assortment of other insects that you’ll encounter on your travels, such as spiders, grasshoppers and ants. A quick word about the ants for a moment here, being that if you don’t kill them quickly enough, they will proceed to hinder your efforts by stealing honey from your precious store, so a certain degree of awareness is necessary as you play.
To progress through the levels in this game, your basic requirement is to fill the entire honey pot to the brim before the time runs out. New foes are introduced as you battle through each area of undergrowth, though luckily, there is a surprisingly wide array of power-ups to collect along the way to make your life slightly easier, such as bullet upgrades, a shield and a tiny sidekick friend who acts a bit like the Force in R-Type. Intrigued by the small details that Codemasters has included in this game, it soon became apparent that this was no outing made for children, but a deceivingly solid shooter beneath the cutesy exterior.
So, another enjoyable release from the Southam boys, while perhaps not everybody’s cup of tea. I also have a feeling it could become tedious in the longevity stakes.
Score: [6.5/10] (yeah, it’s a half-score, so what?)
posted by Sureshot @ 1:13 am
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