Some Assembly Required
honest video game reviews as I see them and get around to them
new entries, as always, have the titles underlined

Sudeki
developed by Climax Studios
Distributed by Microsoft Game Studios
From the Microsoft XBox

My first experience with video game RPG's was Phantasy Star on the late great Sega Master System.  As I did not have a computer with a modem (no message boards for me), I didn't interact much with other RPGers.  So I wound up developing survival skills for these games on my own.  I learned to navigate the dungeons and make it back to the exit without getting lost or killed.  I learned about spending a day leveling up my characters without dealing with the quest to improve my chances.  I learned when programmers were sloppy and a hint book was required.  And I learned this basic technique when battling with more than one character--you use one character as a healer to keep your party members alive and use the rest to kick ass.  This made games like Crystal Warriors on the Sega Game Gear a breeze.
    Meet Seduki, now on the market for the only system more starved for RPG's than my Nintendo Game Cube, the XBox.  Four years in development, the game was designed by the European studio Climax.  Their stated goal was to make a Japanese style RPG (probably because none of the Japanese game houses have enough faith in the system to design one for it themselves).  They get the basics right, but they are missing the feel of such games.  The result is a game I want to like a lot more than I do.
    Seduki starts off with a shadow puppet play explaining some basic backstory, then shifts to the characters and their adventures through the realms of the world of Seduki.  You get your general RPG stereotypes, such as a scientist who doesn't accept magic learning the truth about the world, and your XBox-specific stereotypes, such as empowered women with great racks.  I mean, look at the box art on the left, for Christ sake!  Admittedly, Ailish does sport more personality than the fighting Stepford wives of Dead Or Alive, but the openings in her leggings imply she is wearing a thong.  I'm guessing a lot of coders were using only one hand.  You just watch--there will be rumors about a nude code for her any day now.
    The quest is sprawling, with side missions to help flesh out the world of Seduki and give you a better sense of place.  But the underlying problem is that it still feels like a game instead of an experience.  The problems start with the script.  The game ends with the villain defeated, the fate of the characters and universe unmentioned, like completing Phantasy Star Online.  The subplots for the characters aren't handled well, either.  Romance seems possible, but nothing makes the characters bond.  One of them is even already married when the story begins, making some of the interaction seem odd.  The dialogue and voice acting need work, also.  The scientist guy rejects magic, even though the whole world is based on it, making his character arc a little difficult to believe.  For a world caught in the grips of darkness, everything is too bright and cheery.  It also screams "video game" with it's scenary.  It never leaves your head that you are looking at 3D models.  When Square is immersing players in entire worlds with their Final Fantasy series on hardware supposedly less powerful, Sudeki seems rushed.  If they had spent half the time on fleshing out the sets that they did on the female characters' bodies and outfits, it would have been far more involving.
    All four characters fight battles at once.  The game's AI handles whoever you aren't controlling.  This means that that old technique that I learned back in 1991 for Phantasy Star gives you your best shot at beating the game--take control of the healer, dodge anything coming your way, and keep the other three from croaking.  It becomes a waiting game instead of a tactical challenge.
    The game is one of the shorter quest games out there, an average of 20 hours based on discussions with other players.  The music is also very nice.  It's not a bad game, but it appeals more to the visceral.  It's just a generic game with a nice suit on.  Even if some of the characters look ready to fall out of theirs.
 

"Super Tournament Battle."  They're probably developing BeyBlade:  Most Extreme Elimination Challenge.  Believe me, the only thing that would make this even remotely entertaining is the very twisted minds behind the US dub of Takeshi's Castle.
    It is truly mindboggling what becomes popular and what gets ignored.  People say they are sick of brainless, mindless movies, but continue to reward flicks like Bad Boys II.  The creators give the public what it wants.  There are some things with so much depth and involvement, it's easy to see why they inspire a following. Pokemon comes to mind.  But there are some things so shallow, it's inconceivable how they not only become popular, but stay that way.  I would like to introduce Exhibit A:  BeyBlade.
    BeyBlades are tops.  That's it.  Tops.  As Lewis Black points out, "A top is a toy you give your kid to make sure they're not damaged."  You can customize them with different weights, spinning arms, and so on.  But that doesn't change what it is.  It's a top.  Just like, "They aren't action figures, they're dolls."  No amount of dodging the subject changes it.
    This has created a phenomenon in Japan.  BeyBlade arenas are sold, basically a bowl made of flimsy plastic that costs as much as Fiestaware.  You grab your top, pull the ripcord, and you and your opponent release them into the bowl until one stops spinning or flies over the side.
    Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....
    This has inspired a TV series!  Complete with fantasy mumbo-jumbo about spirits inside the tops.  And it's a hit in America, too!  It's unbefuckinglievable.
    So, naturally, there has to be a video game about tops running into each other.  Takara already made one for the Playstation 1, released by Crave Entertainment.  Now, they've made one for the Nintendo GameCube.  Actually, it's pretty much the same as the PS1 version.  That includes the flaws.
    Perhaps realizing that making a video game about making a top spin and watching it spin would be a tough sell as Fun, Takara introduces an element of steering.  Supposedly.  It does seem to steer, although I'm not sure how effectively.  Also, there are the Bit Beasts, supposedly from the cartoon.  They are spirits living in the tops that can unleash special attacks.  These attacks are launched with a cut scene of the battler striking a dramatic, commanding poses with speedlines in the background (see Marvel Vs. Capcom for this done right).  But it's tough to get excited.  Despite consistently launching my top with an almost perfect spin, my opponents routinely beat me.  I don't know how.  I don't know how I'm supposed to fight with these things.  If this is because I'm supposed to grasp the depth of the thing, I just don't get it.  It is too shallow, and any actions you take seem so arbitrary, to involve your mind and make you want to play and understand more.  Oh, and the announcer only has a few phrases that he repeats through the battles.  He makes the announcer on Pokemon Stadium sound like John Madden.
    The real shame is the original was released on the PS1 for $10.  This is $30.  For essentially the same game.  Or for activity, since there is about as much "game" here as there is in DOA:  Extreme Beach Volleyball.  This is a snoozer.
 
 

Hmm.  I seem to enjoy word games.  This is unusual, but there's two more word games coming up for review in this update.  I've never really played them before, and here I go with a batch of them.
    Spelvin is one of those games where the concept sounds iffy, but once you start playing, you get hooked.  It is a single screen game.  You are given seven letters.  It is up to you to select the letters in an order that spells a word, three letters minimum.  Each letter is worth points depending on how tough it is to fit it into a word.  Each successful score lowers your target points to advance to the next level.  If you don't like the letters you get, you can select your keepers and hit the Spin lever.  This will give you new letters substituting the ones you haven't locked down.  But Spins cost you juice, as does spelling pussy-ass words, and if you run out of juice, the game is over.
    The interface is simple and the word list is quite extensive.  You will find yourself pouring over every obscure letter combination you can think of to hit your target.  The music is very cool, too.  The levels reflect the designers' music loving sensibilities.  You start out as a roadie and progress through soundman, lounge act, lip syncher, and more.  The art is colorful and inviting.
    The game give you a lot of fun and bang for you buck, and it's only $20.  It's a great deal, so start downloading.
 
 

During the days of the Great 8-Bit/16-Bit System Wars, people divided along arbitrary lines.  Either the system had better technical specs (Sega Master System) or all their friends had one (Nintendo Entertainment System).  I was tempted by Nintendo's machine, but ultimately went with Sega because they did more with the games.  Nintendo and its licensees tended to coast on good will.
    I recognize this will be an unpopular opinion, but it's mine, so there.  I don't like the Mario games.  They have two problems--one is that to succeed you must know what is coming up. Super Mario Bros., for example, does not let you backtrack.  I wasn't thrilled with trading secrets with others, I wanted to play.  And two, the games were too casual for my taste.  They weren't bad.  It's just that they didn't have the oomph or pizzazz that I liked.  Platformers were just a casual interest of mine until Sega unleashed a blue blur named Sonic The Hedgehog on the gaming community.  But Mario?  There's no denying the games were detailed and well made, but they just didn't grab me.  There wasn't really a pacing that jumped it to the front of my line-up.
    The one Mario game I did enjoy to the point where it was a priority to get to it in my game time was Super Mario RPG for the Super Nintendo, designed by the geniuses at Square before Nintendo pissed them off.  Since then, Mario has been back in his also-ran status with me.  Unfortunately, many of the same complaints I have about the Mario series in general also apply to the RPG-ish Paper Mario.
    The plot of the game unfolds as a book.  Literally.  There are seven star guardians who grant wishes, unfolding like a bedtime story.  Then, Bowser steals their Star Rod, which grants wishes, and imprisons the guardians as one yells, "You're changing the story!"  Bowser doesn't use it to grant a wish like, "I'm the king of all the land," he just soups himself up to pound Mario and steal Princess Peach and her whole castle.  But like all villians, Bowser doesn't finish Mario off when he falls from the castle in the sky.  So Mario begins his quest to free the Star Spirits and defeat Bowser.
    Moving around the environments happens in real time.  But when an enemy contacts you, the game switches to turn-based combat with some action elements thrown in.  Hitting the button at the right time during an attack or releasing the control stick adds some extra pow to your attack.  You also collect badges as you go, and outfitting different ones will increase your attacks.  Unlike other RPG's, you don't level up with experience points.  Each enemy you defeat yeilds star points.  100 of them will let you increase one of your three stats--hit points, special attack points, or badge points.  Wearing a badge takes so many badge points, so the more of those you have, the more varied attacks you have.
    The graphics are the usual pastel nice.  But in keeping with the book/paper motiff, the characters are flat.  Making them turn left or right is like watching a Colorform turn.  It's cute and stylish, but that's it.
    The game's big problem is what makes it different from other RPG's.  Your attacks do not grow appreciably stronger as you progress, they always do their base amount of damage.  The easiest way around this is with badges that enable special attacks, but that takes up SP points, and all your stats start so low you have to build up.  And because of the lopsided Star Point system, it takes forever to get to a point where you aren't using items or returning to a rest point every few battles.  Levelling up becomes as amusing as reformatting your hard drive.
    I know this game caused a sensation when it came out and lots of people love Mario.  Well, that's if you are suseptable to the magic.  I am not.  As a result, I had a game that took way too long to get to a point where it was actually engaging.  The quest for badges also smacks of a Pokemon nod that is just more trouble than it's worth.  Okay for long attention spans, but if you want something with actual wonder, stick with Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. Paper Mario is better than the SaGa series, but not by much.
 
 

Party games are a genre that needs to take a lot into account.  For example, video game units have long cords and can be hooked up to a conveniently positioned TV.  Party games for computers assume people will want to cram around a tiny monitor and figure out how to share the keyboard.  This is why the Mario Party series, especially with Wavebird wireless controllers, works so well.  But for 'puters?  You need to make it worth the crowd's while to play.  It also helps if the game is fun to play solo.  I was never a big fan of the regular version of Scattergories.  It was amusing, but hardly a high point for the evening.  So when I saw Super Scattergories for home computers, I was somewhat less than enthused.  Fortunately, my concerns were for naught.  CyberDice has taken the concept and rung up a real winner.
    The game is presented like a game show, initially leading me to think it would be a rip-off of You Don't Know Jack.  But they don't tread on the turf staked out by Nate Shapiro and his successors.  The host, Brad Lane, is more fun than sarcastic.  He has the requisite humor, but it's more of the cornpone variety ("I took my parents to the airport today.  They leave tomorrow").  In another nice touch, the programmers have the game recognize common names and periodically refer to the person playing.  But these are just bells and whistles for a very solid game package.
    SS has six rounds to play, either solo or head to head.  The first five all begin with you selecting a random letter of the alphabet.  In the first two rounds, you are given twelve subjects and you have to think of something that starts with that letter.  For example, if you select the letter P and you get "Things On A Desk", you think "pen," "pencil", "photos," etc.  You don't have to type out the whole word, either.  Just the first three letters carries you through.  This is the set-up for all the rounds, in fact, so you don't have to worry that much about your spelling.  The third round has a picture with twelve items starting with the target letter, and it gets very particular--if you draw an H, don't be surprised if you have to include "horizon".  The fourth is like the first, only they want a specific answer instead of just any, but the clues are more than enough.  The fifth is a matching game played with the mouse.  You need to find twelve matches starting with the key letter.  There are only twelve spaces on the screen, though, so you need to remove as many as possible to get more words up there.  The last gives you twelve random letters and twelve topics.  You can use any letter you want, but you can't use the letter more than once.  The more letters you use up, the more points you get.
    For the ones where general answers are sought (rounds 1, 2, and 6), the list of potential answers is absolutely huge.  I've been playing this game for almost half a year now, and only rarely have I come across either the same topics or legal answers rejected because they aren't on the computer's list.  The effort placed in considering answers is really astonishing.  I can count on one hand the number of times my answers were rejected (such as "terrier" for "types of dogs") and on two hands the number of times the same picture came up in Round 3 in all this time.  A lot of effort went into it.  CyberDice should be very proud.
    The music is also great, and the little touches like funny voices adds a lot instead of being annoying.  There is an atmosphere of fun that permeates everything.  Ever since I was able to put it on my laptop computer, it's turned into a great way to kill 20 minutes and have laughs.  It didn't surprise me when people standing behind me started shouting out answers.  This game has been out a long time, and can be found at bargain basement prices.  This is fun enough to be worth full price.  Nab yourself a copy quick.
 
 

In video games, there are always those who do the job right and those who try to copy but just don't get it.  Eidos tried to copy Konami's Metal Gear Solid with their version of Chicken Run.  Electronic Arts tried to bring Tetris into 3D on the Sega Genesis with Blockout.  But every once in a while, the company that makes the original, cool, fun game will try to copy the success and get completely hamstrung.  One such example is how Bust-A-Groove begat Britney's Dance Beat.  Even sadder is the fate of Z-Axis, which took the Dave Mierra BMX stunt game that was so enjoyable and ruined it making the very ill-advised BMX XXX, both for Acclaim.  And I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers when 989 Studios' NFL Gameday actually gave Electronic Arts' Madden series a run for it's money.
    Into this, "It worked before, it ought to work again," hall of dubious distinction is a better late than never entry, CyberDice.  CyberDice created the title Super Scattergories, a game that would sell on game systems if keyboards weren't seen as alien.  You can read my glowing comments on Super Scattergories above.  They were given another Hasbro party game to make into a computer hit.  Unfortunately, Outburst goes wrong where SS goes right.
    The game's announcer this time is Timothy Stack, a comedian best known for the cult comedy parody Night Stand With Dick Dietrich and the very uneven Howard Stern cult comedy parody Son Of The Beach.  Whereas Brad Lane in SS was smooth and fun, Stack comes across a little more brash.  In fact, it's almost like after SS and before they started developing this, CyberDice got hooked on Jellyvision's immortal You Don't Know Jack.  The host is a bit snarky, with answers getting sarcastic comments that go for laughs.  There are commercial parodies, but they run at the halfway point of the game instead of at the end.  The humor skews more towards the older (not necessarily "mature") crowd.  I know that seems kind of general, but play them both in succession and you'll see what I mean.
    Stack's humor isn't necessarily bad.  He gets some good lines in ("Chekloslavakian Wrestling Legends.  You can't tell the boys from the girls without a scorecard"), and the rim shots are a nice touch.  Some of the commercial parodies are quite quotable ("Outburst is brought to you by the letter 'F'.  Just try swearing without it."  "Kevorkian's Drive Thru Clinics.  If you aren't dead in 30 minutes, your assisted suicide is free").  The interface is the same as SS, too.  You just need to type in the first three letters of whatever your answer is.  There is some variety to the games, including a more general multiple choice trivia contest.  It takes a little adjustment to get your brain thinking in the way the game requires, but it's not insurmountable.
    The problem with the game, the thing that makes it the Hindenberg to SS's Goodyear Blimp, is the answer list.  In all the time I've played SS, I've only run into a few instances where the answers were perfectly legit but the game didn't recognize them.  In the basic Outburst game, however, you have ten answers, and only very specific ones are sought.  No clue is given as to what these might be, and there is no "Hint" option like in SS.  For example, one Outburst was to name works of Shakespeare.  Rejected answers of mine included Twelth Night, Titus, Julius Ceasar, The Comedy Of Errors, Richard III, and King Lear.  Six complete rejects of perfectly legal answers caused my brain to shut down in stupefication, leaving me staring at the screen with only three "correct" answers.  Another example was "Steven Spielberg Movies."  No problem for a movie geek, right?  But among the rejects were Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, Hook, Always, Empire Of The Sun, 1941, and Duel.  It also specifically wanted The Lost World instead of Jurassic Park II.  For "Really Scary Movies," it rejected The Birds, Phantasm, and  The Sixth Sense, but accepted Scream.  The game stops being, "Quick!  Think of something else!" and becomes a huge exercise in, "Whadya mean, that's not a right answer?!?"
    Outburst needs either a bigger answer list or to redefine the parameters so that it's ten questions out of so many possibles instead of ten exact matches.  It doesn't feel very fair and is nowhere near as much fun as SS.  Infogames rereleased both games in a two disc pack.  If possible, skip this one.
 
 

One of the premiere franchises on the old Nintendo 64 game system goes multiplatform in a new era.  The first Turok redefined first-person shooters and set a benchmark until Rare topped them with GoldenEye.  Taking a comic book title from a company Acclaim bought out, the games were uniformly fun if occassionally a bit derivitive.  But still, the details were very nice.  I still love the first level of the third installment, Shadow Of Oblivion.  The creepy background music stops when you enter an elevator and you hear generic Muzak play until you get out.
    Acclaim has needed help for a while now.  They are on very shaky ground.  So they focused on their core competancies and went with one of their heavy hitters (Trey Parker and Matt Stone have said there is no way there will ever be another South Park video game, which for me is both good news and bad news).  Unfortunately, by moving from the small pond of the N64, Turok is now competing with titles that have redefined the genre.  From Half-Life for us strategic players to Halo for the button mashers who'd be just as happy with a tire to play with (anyone that thinks Halo is the greatest FPS ever can kiss my Polish ass), the Son Of Stone needs to do something to stand out from the crowd.  The shame is, he very nearly succeeds, but not quite.
    The game attempts to tell how the Dinosaur Hunter came to be.  The story is actually nothing all that great.  In fact, it feels more like a Hollywood movie rather than the sweeping imagination of most video game stories, the other Turok titles, too.  The graphics are a bit blocky in spots, but obviously most of the attention went into the AI.  As you move through the folliage, the plants being brushed aside is not just graphic razzle-dazzle.  The enemies are watching, and will track your movements through the underbrush that way.  If you face a group and one gets away, he may come back with reinforcements.  Booby traps litter some fields, and you can trick enemies into tripping them instead.  The game even includes mini-missions, such as flying on a dinosaur, to break up the FPS elements.  Like I said, the development staff worked very hard, and should be applauded.
    Unfortunately, the game isn't as much fun as the others.  Part of it is getting used to the control layout.  The N64 games actually took the clunky N64 controller and made it feel natural.  This leaves you with a lot of wondering if you are pressing the right buttons and surprise when you realize you've been going around in circles instead of advancing through the level.
    It's coming down in price, now, and can be bought on the cheap.  It should be purchased as a textbook of what more can be done in FPS games, and what more needs to be done.
 
 

Konami needs a hit.  They were once one of the most revered names in video gaming.  Let the word "Konami" fall from anyone's lips, and thoughts drift to some of the greatest games ever made.  Double Dribble.  Blades Of Steel.  Dance Dance Revolution.  Gradius. And of course, the immortal Contra franchise.  Unfortunately, time has been no more kind to Konami than it is to any of us.  They became an also-ran, especially in its sports titles (recently losing the ESPN license to Sega), until a fellow by the name of Kazuki Takahashi created a comic strip called Yu-Gi-Oh!
    The stories of the King Of Games developed a huge following.  The strip became a TV series, and it dethroned Pokemon as the #1 show there.  A card game was developed based on one that appeared briefly in an episode, and that took off.  Now, Konami has its own killer franchise, and is riding that pony for all it's worth.  So far, though, there is a key difference between the slew of Pokemon titles by Nintendo and the Yu-Gi-Oh! titles by Konami:  Nintendo's titles are great games with the Pokemon title tacked onto them.  Konami's are frustrating games with a great title tacked onto them.
    This is more or less the trading card game done on a video screen, like Nintendo's Pokemon Trading Card Game title for the GB/GBC.  I picked up this game expecting to use it as a trainer for the actual trading card game.  Big mistake.
    In the card game, as in most TCG's, there are Character Cards (monster and creatures) and Event Cards.  The Character Cards come with two different numbers, an Attack score and a Defense score.  Each person puts down a creature.  Whichever card has the higher Attack number, that card wins, the weaker card is removed from play, and the difference deducted from the loser's score, first to hit zero loses.  The Event Cards are divided into two groups.  There are magic cards and trap cards.  You cannot play a card from your hand during your opponent's turn, but you can put Event cards face down on the field behind your Character Cards, and can turn them over when your opponent attacks, activating their effects.  Magic cards just have some effect, but Trap cards are nasty and can do all sorts of things, from negating attacks to deducting the attack from your opponent's score.  It's a lot of fun and tricky.
    Unfortunately, the GBC game leaves a lot to be desired.  For starters, the controls are very sluggish.  You have to depress the buttons for about a second before it registers.  Also, the interface sucks donkeys.  You only have one deck, the rest of your cards are in a chest.  Cards are sorted by card number, making sorting through the 600+ items a chore.  To modify your deck, you have to first challenge an opponent.  Can't alter your deck between rounds here.  Then, you go to your deck screen and remove card(s).  Then you go back and enter the chest screen and add cards.  Cumberson doesn't begin to describe this set-up.
    Also, you can't use just any cards.  Each card has a value.  Depending on how many duels you've had, you have so many experience points.  The total value of all the cards in your deck cannot exceed your experience points.  This means that, for a good long time, you are stuck with pussy-ass cards with a maximum attack/defend of 750 while your opponents get the cool shit like Dark Magician (2500/2100) and the Dark Hole trap card.  Unlike the Pokemon TCG, where you were only limited by how many cards you had in your collection, this feels like a cheap way to artificially extend the life of the game.
    It follows the lead of the TV show rather than the card game.  You are limited to only 40 cards, no more no less.  Second, cards change.  In the cartoon show, sometimes the cards have effects that seem completely arbitrary, the only reason they do that is the writer of the episode said so.  One card is supposed to raise your own score by 300 or add it's own attack power to another.  I have that card, and it says no such thing.  But the one in the video game can do something simillar, but only to certain cards.  Cards will suddenly change into more powerful versions, like Evolution cards in Pokemon, but you never know why.  Was the card in the person's hand?  Did it change by magic?  I don't know.  Other times, the cards on your side of the field will vanish.  The screen where you look at the cards doesn't tell you very much.  The interface is very vague, and the explanation of how the game is played means you either learn through trial and error or give up entirely.
    I gave up.  Pokemon Trading Card Game played exactly like the real TCG, and gave you a detailed explanation anytime an unusual action took place.  This game should have studied Nintendo's creation really closely.  Here, you almost feel you are caught in an arbitrary fight, and the only thing that will determine if you win or lose is if the program is feeling merciful.  The graphics are nothing special, control lacks crispness, the music is lousy AND repetitive, and the whole thing lacks polish.  Unless you completely geek out to YuGiOh! and have a massive notebook for keeping track of the quirks the game doesn't bother to explain, pass.
 
 

Wow.  Is it any wonder Midway is taking it on the chin lately?
    This game gave me flashbacks to coming of age in the 1980's, when racism was accepted and encouraged by the mainstream.  In our new era of sensitivity (occassionally pushed over the edge to Political Correctness), people have gone nuts trying to find people they can make fun of and denegrate without being assaulted by civil rights groups.  This is my best explaination as to why people who do not live in the cities are treated like inbred illiterate dirtballs.  And here's a game that celebrates that image.  Whoop-de-fuckin'-do.
    This is a huge departure from Konami's The Adventures Of Bayou Billy.  That was also done as a comic book, and was basically Crocodile Dundee in Louisianna.  It wasn't great, but it kept busy enough you didn't feel cheated.  This, however, plays to some really ugly stereotypes.  Billy Bob is out to court his sweetie in what I took to think of as South Dogpatch.  BB looks like a typical video game male human except for a HUGE beer gut--the beer gut equivalent of Dolly Parton's tits.  The only thing missing is the word "Skoal" on his ball cap.  In order for him to prove he'd be a good husband, he has to go hunting and fishing for things for her.  Once he proves his skills (several times, there are levels to go through here), he gets her hand in marriage.
    Before you do any serious sporting, you must participate in some really lame minigames.  When hunting rabbits, for example, you wander around until you see moving rabbit tracks.  You get close, and the game turns into a shooting gallery.  But first, you need to bathe so you can sneak up on the rabbits, or the game is tougher (and it's enough to turn apathy into outright boredom, so make it easy on yourself).  BB goes in a lake, but pigs want to jump in the lake and swim, so you have to catch them before they hit the water and bounce them to ground.  Another time, for fishing, you have to stand between several fish hatcheries and tilt your net to catch them as they jump between the hatcheries.  You have to shoot beer cans to get a hunting license so the game warden patroling doesn't pinch you.  These are the contests, folks.
    The game moves very slowly.  You can conceivably defrost a turkey in the time it takes to walk from one area to another.  The music sounds like a MIDI version of backwoods banjo music.  The detailed instruction manual neglects to explain one thing:  why did I waste my battery power on this hunk of crap?  Don't bother.
 
 

It's Hamtaro time!  It's also the second-to-last title released on the Game Boy Color.  Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
    Called Hamster Club in Japan, the cartoon series debuted in America.  I decided to get my niece two of the discs for Christmas, but before I wrapped them, I watched them to see what the hubbub was.  It was cute.  It was sweet to the point of insulin injections.  The characters were flat with one defining characteristic each (dancing, hunger, boss, etc.).  It was simplistic.
    And I watched both discs three times before I wrapped them up.  Goddammit, they're cute!
    There are at least four games out in Japan, three on the Game Boy Advance and one on the GBC.  Here's the first one out the pipe.  Boss is preparing a surprise for all the other Ham-Hams in their underground clubhouse.  But only he and Snoozer are there.  So Boss asks Hamtaro to locate all the Ham-Hams and bring them back for the surprise.
    Hamtaro can walk and run, and occassionally climb.  Most game actions are accomplished using "hamspeak".  Press the action button, and a menu of different words appears.  Use the correct word in the situation to speak to the other hamsters and gather clues or get them to come back.
    There is no way to die in this game.  In a moment of sickness, I had Hamtaro walk right into a sleeping cat.  The cat opened its eyes and Hamtaro ran to safety.  Despite the fact that it has very little of what makes other games fun, and is clearly aimed at the kiddie set, the game is actually fun.  You will keep searching to learn new Hamchat words and seeing how many other hamsters you can find.  The atmosphere and attitude are very pleasant, and the music is appropriately kawai.  The art and animation is spiffy and charming, such as seeing Dexter carving an ice sculpture by frantically clawing it.  The only drawback is that, since you have to learn the words, you will occassionally miss some and find yourself backtracking.  It's also not always clear what you need to do.  For one hamster, you say the same thing three times to trigger the reaction.  Don't be surprised if you need to check a hint book or something once in a while.
    Overall, a fine addition to a gamer's library, and a great change of pace content-wise.  Now, back to fragging aliens....
 
 

Although I am a video game geek and damn proud of it, it's not like I spend all my days playing video games and mastering them.  Some games are just too hard for me, even on their easiest settings.
    This is one of the marks of a game designed by Treasure.  Treasure is made up of people who made some of Konami's glory days titles like Contra.  After they left the company following the completion of Contra III:  The Alien War, Konami released wave after wave of general crap while Treasure spread its wings.  Among their works are Gunstar Heroes, still one of my favorites on the Sega Genesis.  That was hard and took a lot of work to beat.  They also did games like Mischief Makers and Sin And Punishment, and I'm still pissed at Nintendo for not bringing that last one out in the US.
    Now, their newest project shows up, and as of this writing, I have yet to beat it.  I have made it to stage 4, but just barely.  I don't know how it ends.  But I can tell you this much--even trying and failing is an incredible experience for any video gamer.
    Ikaruga follows the typical set-up of shooters during their glory days in the early 90's, before the one-on-one fighter took their crown.  You are a lone pilot against an overwhelming armada, good fucking luck.  Several shooters had something to keep them from seeming derivative, usually involving the power-up system.  Treasure has tossed this out the window in favor of something different and really clever.  You don't charge up your guns.  Thankfully, unlike most other shooters where your basic weapon is pathetic and powering up is the only way to win (Whip Rush or R-Type, anyone?), your standard issue pop gun is pretty powerful.  What sets this apart from all the shooters out there is the "polarity".  Enemy fighters shoot projected energy weapons in one of two types, light and dark (powder blue and deep red).  Your ship is surrounded by a shield that you can switch between those two colors.  Any shots that are the same color as your shield get absorbed to help power up your super weapon, opposite color shots get through and can destroy your fighter.  This is actually a lot tougher than it sounds.  Oftentimes, there is so much enemy fire filling the screen, you'll find yourself switching polarity three or four times a second just to keep from blowing up.  It is the first game since Dance Dance Revolution where I have experienced the phenomena I refer to as the "boggle," where so much is moving on the screen and so quickly, you completely lose track of the game and space out as the round gets biffed.
    The graphics are beautiful.  The colors are limited simply because, in a game where color is the key to survival, you don't want to confuse the player, so a special thank you to Treasure for showing some mercy.  Although, if you want to see what rotten bastards they can be, the game does feature a "prototype" mode from their original design, where you have to absorb enemy fire and convert it to your regular shots.  Once again, thanks for showing mercy.  Anyway, compare this to the post-Treasure Konami Contra:  Hard Corps. on the Sega Genesis, where the backgrounds looked borrowed from other games and the enemy shots were so poorly handled, you couldn't tell what was background decoration and what was a threat.  Your fighter loops and swoops through cityscapes and inside giant fortresses, sometimes at speeds that call for Dramamine.  The controls are perfect, responding almost as fast as thought.  The music is very epic--damn, I would love a soundtrack for this game.  The first time I played Ikaruga and made it to Stage 2, I started sweating as I discovered the meaning of the phrase "target rich environment" with all these targets targeting me.  And that's before the difficulty curve leaps into orbit.  As in the classic shooters, everything moves in a pattern and one strategy to beating the game is memorizing where the safe spots are and when the time is right to attack, but there's so much happening in the game (the other fighters are actually the least of your worries), you'll need a bubble memory inserted in your skull just to keep track of it all.  This game will hand you your ass and laugh in your face as it does it.
    That is actually the ultimate praise of this game.  I can't beat it.  I don't know if I ever will.  But by God, I keep playing.  Even with the long odds, this game is incredibly challenging and fun without becoming frustrating and overbearing.  Game designers around the world need to look at Treasure.  It may not become the household name that Mario or Sonic are, but true gamers know quality when they see it.  This game packs it all in the tiny disc.
 
 

On the Atari 2600, there was a videogame from US Games/Vidtec called Sneak And Peek.  It was a computer version of hide and seek.  And it was just as lame as you think.
    Old concepts never die, they just get bigger development budgets.  Microsoft commissioned this game, Sneakers, and promptly released it as a Toys R Us exclusive with no advance ink whatsoever.  With movies, that's a sign the studio is trying to sneak a bomb past us.  I guess video games truly are a huge entertainment industry now.
    People who bitch about Hamtaro and its overwhelming cuteness don't know how lucky they have it.  While the Ham-Hams have a quest that requires exploration, problem solving, and thought, Sneakers is the kind of game where you start playing and start wondering, "What the hell have I gotten myself into?"
    Some rats have taken you and the mouse-mouses' food.  So you go on a quest to find them.  All you do is run around a predetermined path through an environment and watch for rats.  You then look at them by focusing a target on them, and they flee!  Or, they might be hiding, and you need to force them out, usually by simply disturbing the hiding place.  There are also lame-o fight sequences that aren't very graphic, like if Power Stone had been programmed by the Osmonds.
    It truly boggles my mind how this game ever moved from design to development in this form.  There is simply nothing fun here.  You run along the invisible track until you see some doofus rat just standing there like he can't decide whether to stick his thumb up his ass because doing so might remove him from his Happy Place.  The background music sounds like what you might hear if you dropped acid while riding a way-overdue-for-inspection merry-go-round.  The graphics are adequate, but don't do anything to distract you from the stupidity unfolding on the screen before you.
    If you have kids that are playing too many video games, buy them this and it should snap the habit.  Just be careful you don't scar them for life.
 
 

In a gaming world where hype sells more than talent, people need to be reminded why these things are fun and engaging.  Legend Of Zelda--The Wind Waker does just that, creating a story and environment that leaves everything else behind.  If Metroid Prime didn't convince you to buy a 'Cube, this will, or your gaming heart no longer beats.
    Your character is a little boy of is about to celebrate his birthday.  All boys coming of age wear the hero's clothes, clothes like the hero that saved the land from darkness eons ago.  But your younger sister is kidnapped by the evil that has escaped the confines the hero put it into.  With the aid of a mystical boat, you must journey far and wide to save your sister and learn the sinister plans of Ganon.
    There was a lot of hubbub about the newer, cartoony look of the game.  You have to see it in action to appreciate it.  It looks stunning, with a style at times reminiscent of the guy who did the character designs for Disney's Hercules.  The game rewards emotional involvement.  The first time you hoist your sail and venture to new lands, a wonderous feeling envelops you.
    The game does get a bit tricky in spots, such as figuring out how to use a leaf to glide over to another island.  Catching the updrafts took me a long to time to get the hang of.  But it works great.  The game always gives you a fighting chance, the controls are crisp and intuitive, and there are some wonderful character bits, such as when Link discovers the plan to get him inside Ganon's fortress involves him, a barrel, and a catapault.  It also rewards independent thinking.  I discovered a shortcut through the volcanic level that I wasn't supposed to take, but it worked, so I'm not complaining.  Although, don't be surprised if you need to consult a hint book every once in a while.
    A true work of art.  Worth not only full price, but the wait.
 
 

"This is the worst video game I have ever played in my life."
    When that phase went through my head, I stopped what I was doing and just sat there.  The sheer magnitude of the statement demanded it.  "This is the worst video game I have ever played in my life."
    I thought about my video gaming pedigree.  I have been gaming since about 1977, when my parents bought a Pong machine for our TV.  I still have it tucked away in my closet, in fact.  I have 22 different game systems.  I have over 270 individual games for my Atari 2600.  My Nintendo 64 collection would rival that of any video rental store in the system's heyday.  For some of my systems, I have complete collections of every US released title.  I have played many crap games.  Knight On The Town on the Atari 2600. Combat on the 2600.  Pretty much the entire game.com library. Superman and Batman Beyond:  Return Of The Joker on the N64.  Floigan Brothers on my Dreamcast.  Shaq Fu on my Genesis.  After three hours of sitting there, meditating, no other title I could recall could change the thought.  This is the worst video game I have ever played in my life.
    For those wondering why Midway has quit making arcade games, this is why--they are fucking up their bread-and-butter franchises. NFL Blitz will always be fun in the brain-dead way, and the Gex series is sorely missed.  But their home output would gather dust in arcades.  Home titles, the money is made selling them to the stores to stock.  The stores think carrying this stuff is a good idea until people with receipts in hand line up for returns.  So they stock fewer titles from the bad companies.
    There isn't much good to say about MKA, and that's coming from one of the original MK nuts.  The control is horrible and poorly laid out.  Not only that, but the timing of the button presses doesn't take into consideration you are playing a portable game and require a skoosh more time.  The graphics are buggy and the collision detection, the crown jewel in the MK crown, is non-existent.
    If you get this, don't open it.  Return it, or sell it on eBay to some sucker ("Jesus, Mertyl, lookit all the blood!").  I'm keeping this review short because I'm hoping to forget the traumatic experience like I did childbirth.
 
 

A few years ago, the one-on-one fighter was the King Of Video Games.  It has been said that one could not swing one's dead cat without hitting a fighter.  Starting when the world went crazy for Street Fighter II and continuing through Mortal Kombat, this genre has largely vanished, replaced by the (for some reason) more popular wrestling games.  Fighters have become an endangered species, and the rarest environment to find them in is the N64.
    This is it, one of two final games for the N64.  The other, Razor Freestyle Scooter, is being released on the same day.  Razor is for rental only.  Powerpuff Girls I have actually spotted in the wild.  Parents, unless you really hate your kids, you shouldn't buy this game.  It is only for video game nuts like me trying to complete our collections.
    The Powerpuff Girls is a wonderfully subversive TV show.  According to the origin retold at the start of every episode, Professor Utonium sought to create the perfect little girls, mixing up sugar, spice, and everything nice.  But he accidentally added Chemical X.  The result is perfect little girls (whether the superpowers are part of the "perfect" package depends on your interpretation).  Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are cute as all get out, but engage in some very graphic fighting with bad guys.  Occassionally, you might see a brain peeking out from an open skull, aqueous humor from a squashed eyeball flying through the air, teeth and discolored-for-the-censors blood going one way while a bad guy's face goes another.  There are childish morality plays combined with some wicked satire and inside jokes that only the grown-ups will get.  In fact, the juvenile aspects are typically sent up.  This show is meant for grown-ups, and how kids are allowed to watch and follow the adventures boggles my mind almost as much as "I was out of the loop,"  "I didn't inhale," or "Every vote must be counted."  Parents really need to pay attention.
    The result of this strange dichotomy is merchandise aimed at the younger crowd that shouldn't be watching this show without adult supervision.  There are dolls, playsets, and more.  Unfortunately, that means the video game is aimed at the younger folks.  When games are aimed at kids, the designers get lazy, and make watered down contests that aren't much fun, despite the fact that I've met ten year olds that are Mortal Kombat masters.  Such is Powerpuff Girls--Chemical X-Traction.
    After setting up the game's plot with some hard to read letters (I'm still not sure what a word in the first paragraph of the first screen is supposed to be), Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup decide to make the perfect pie with sugar, spice, and everything nice.  But Bubbles thinks something is missing, and adds some Chemical X.  Mojo Jojo, the primate genius and main arch-enemy of the girls, steals the pie and offers some to the other enemies of the girls.  The girls race off to get back the Chemical X and stop the bad guys.
    This would be a good set-up for a RPG or adventure game, but none of that happens here.  Instead, the game is set up as a 3D fighter like Final Fight or, more accurately, Power Stone.  You and whoever you are supposed to whump the poo out of are in a room with objects that can be picked up and thrown.  You each start with one vial of Chemical X, with a third somewhere in the room.  Hitting your opponent real hard will make them drop their vial. Whoever gets all three can execute a super move.  Best of three falls, you know the drill.
    The N64 controller blows for fighting games under the best of circumstances, and this is the worst.  The punches and kicks are weak, and just trying to land one against a computer opponent that can block faster than human reflex allows will frustrate you.  One kick where you fly around and drop on your opponent just scratches the health bar when you'd think it would be a solid hit.  Picking up the objects is annoying, also.  The computer can line up its shots almost instantly and accurately.  While you are still aiming, you are open to attack and will frequently get walloped.
    This is one of those games where I say without shame I didn't play it through to the end.  It redefines pathetic.
 
 

When Nintendo lost its exclusivity clauses by court order, Sega immediately made some games for its systems starring Disney characters.  The first was Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse.  There were three different versions of the game, and only one of them, the watered down SMS port for the Game Gear, was okay.  The rest were terrific.  Sega then moved to Donald Duck with Quackshot on the Genesis and The Lucky Dime Caper on the GG.  It was popular, and up popped a sequel.  I have been trying to get in the habit of crediting the designers of games for praise and/or blame.  This title is almost nine years old, but I have the rerelease from Majesco Sales, so I don't know if Disney Interactive or Sega deserves the fault.
    The frame story goes like this:  Uncle Scrooge McDuck grabs a rare amulet, and his greed finally bites him in the ass.  It is cursed, causing him to swell up with hot air like a balloon.  It's up to Donald to return the amulet and break the curse.
    The game is a side-scrolling platformer.  There are four environments on the island to master before you can go to the center of the island to return the amulet.  Because there are only four, the cliches of platformer games are focused on--ice levels, underwater levels, and fire levels.  The fourth is generic.  The levels are actually quite small and can be navigated quickly.  At least, ideally they should.
    The game's most glaring problem renders it nearly unplayable.  The controls are horrible.  They are slow to respond to your commands, making levels like the ice level more pain than they are worth.  Donald is very limited, too, which is very surprising considering he is one of the most violent Disney characters in the stable.  He can jump and bounce off heads Mario-style.  There is a kick button, but it can only be used of open treasure chests or to kick rocks (one in the Jungle level can only be kicked from one side.  Sloppy sloppy sloppy).  It can't be used any other time, not even just to see the animations.  Donald animates well.  When he takes a hit from an enemy, he strikes the classic pose where he hops up and down with his fists ready.  He acts and reacts to his environment, too.
    The programmers got very sloppy with the design.  Sometimes, like in the first jungle level where Donald has to jump on top of a stampede of giant ostriches, the game will just sit there after the level is over like it forgot what it was doing, necessitating you wandering around a little until the game catches up.  There is a horrible amount of slowdown on certain levels when a little streaminglining would have done so much better.  When Donald takes a hit, he flashes for a second or two before control restores.  This is a problem in the boss stages.  They are scrolling races where you have to stay ahead of the enemy as you rush through the environment jumping over gaps and up ledges.  If you land in a pit of spikes, you won't recover control in time to jump out of the pit and keep from getting swept off the screen, losing a life.  It becomes very frustrating.
    Admittedly, I kind of see why some designers were hesitant to put too much game in a portable title.  But between save functions or just making it fun to play over again, it short changes people who actually get into the games.  Deep Duck Trouble is an iffy effort that needed much more work.
 
 

Yup, it's the other final release on the Rasputin of video games, the N64.  This one is being released as a rental only, and only at Blockbusters as you can see from the box here.  Well, I have one.  For the bargain price of $41.  To quote Frumpy The Clown, "Daddy says we're gonna need a new toilet from all the money we shoved down it."
    Sports games have developed a sub-genre for "extreme" sports.  These are usually called pseudo-sports, like snowboarding and skateboarding.  Usually, these are more fun when people are just screwing around rather than defining things to the point where it saps the meaning out of it.  The most influential of these games remains Tony Hawk--Pro Skater.  The staff at Neversoft built a half-pipe and they all learned to skate it.  As a result, THPS is blessed with one of the most intuitive control interfaces ever made, and very crisp gameplay that pays attention.  Even people who don't skate love THPS.
    Unfortunately, everybody misses what makes THPS so great.  They come up with dream levels and goals and such, but the games remain a pale shadow.  Razor Freestyle Scooter is a good example of this.  The game is obviously following the tracks laid down by Tony Hawk.  After all, all a scooter is is a skateboard with handlebars.
    The goal of the game is to find all your buds and unlock the new courses.  At the start, you only have one course and can choose from two riders, a boy or a girl.  They seem about equal in ability, or at least I did not notice anything different.  The rider automatically keeps the scooter rolling (just like Tony Hawk), but there is a button to come to a full stop.  There is also a jump button.  You ride around, gathering scooter wheels and doing tricks (which are tallied with a display a lot like THPS).
    Unfortunately, Razor Freestyle Scooter has very poorly laid out controls.  The moves and button combinations do not feel intuitive, and that's when they actually work right.  They are very slow to respond to your commands.  Jumping becomes more trouble than it's worth.  The characters can also get stuck in corners, leaving them to "fall" off their scooters as you dream of them finally turning around so they can ride out of the spot.  The graphics suffer from some pop-up, and scenery occassionally gets in the way of your view.
    This was released long ago on the Sony Playstation and is also popping up on the Sega Dreamcast for $15 brand new.  This truly is a game that screams "Bargain Bin."  Unless you need a new frisbie, save you money.  If you want to rent it, just get the newest installment of Tony Hawk.  It blows the doors off this.
 
 

Anime and manga have been turned into video games for ages, it seems.
    Now, American animators have their tribute.
    Cel Damage is basically what all those Wacky Races type games should have been.  You know, the ones with cartoon characters and things like the portable holes.  Pseudo Interactive basically took a cue from the Termite Terrace crew from Warner Bros. animation heyday.  In fact, the levels feel like Chuck Jones was a consultant for the project.
    In this Roger Rabbit-esque world, cartoons actually live and breathe.  They even watch other toons on the TV Toon network.  The most popular show is Cel Damage, a demonlition derby with Chuck Jones-style physics.  That's really all the backstory you need, although some more is provided by some movie intros for the characters that are funnier than most of the crap cartoons made today.  Like a Tom And Jerry cartoon, the characters are given an environment and time to beat the living shit out of each other.
    Unlike most vehicular combat games (think Twisted Metal, both the SingleTrack/Incognito glory days and the 989 crap), strategy will do you no good.  The arenas are too small and crowded for that.  The only strategy for this twitch game:  drive like hell and if it moves, kill it.  There are several ways to advance in the game, from a capture the flag contest to my personal favorite, the Smack Attack.  Each of the different weapons you can grab (machine gun, axe, circular saw blades thrown like frisbees, baseball bats) has attack points inversely proportional to the risk using them puts you in.  The machine gun takes a while to rack up points since you can use it from a distance, whereas slicing a car in two with the axe is worth more since it puts you in range.  First one to rack up 500 points wins.
    The game is made with the cel-shading technique pioneered in Jet Grind Radio, where it uses polygons to draw the characters, but puts a black border around them to make them look like cartoons.  The graphics are sharp enough you sometimes forget it's a game.  The cars bend and stretch with the assaults, leaping into mid-air makes you hang for a moment before you fall to your death, and watching the tiny hands holding the big-ass axe or swinging the bat is sublimely ridiculous.  These things blow away anything you could produce from Hammer Space.
    Both versions have the same weaknesses.  The camera follows your car too closely.  If you are turning left, having the camera swing a little more to the right so you can get a better view of your path would be nice.  It is occassionally possible to get stuck, but simple reversing gets you out.  The GCN version does occassionally, when there is a lot of action being drawn on the screen, lose the colors and go black and white, the colors literally pouring back in.  And yes, I prefer the GCN controller to the annoyingly designed XBox pad (guys, when you innovate, it's supposed to make things easier).  But they also have the same strength:  it is incredibly fun.  Even though the contests occassionally come down to dumb luck, it's still a scream and hilarious when you get hit by the train or hear the game characters trash-talking each other.
    I have to give the edge to GCN here.  It seems a bit tighter and refined.  The XBox version is fine, but in the heat of a fight, you sometimes weren't sure if the controls were responding the way they were supposed to.  None of that here.  But for either game system, this is a fine addition.  It isn't very deep, but it will call you back to play again and again, just like the Atari games of old that were made just to be fun.
 
 

A lot of games are hyped before their release, but few have built up as much consumer anticipation as Rare's final effort for the N64.  In the plain vanilla that is the N64 software library, Conker was promising to turn that upside down.  Previews to critics and reporters promised a game filled with sick jokes, raunchy innuendo, and a twisted perspective that would rival TV's South Park coming from Rare, whose first game Battletoads was a parody of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and had some good humor.  That this was coming from the Disney of video games, Nintendo, made it more shocking.  After all, it wasn't long ago that Nintendo was using its quality standards to sheild itself from Congressional investigations into whether or not video games corrupt young minds.  But the N64 is dying, this year is it.  Nintendo can only afford to make games guaranteed to sell.  This is why Pokemon games keep coming out.  If ever there was a time to do something gutsy, this was it.
    As any fan of low-budget movies can tell you, just shocking isn't enough.  There has to be style, flair, some kind of delivery to keep you coming back once the experience is no longer new.  I am stoked to say Conker's Bad Fur Day delivers.  It is a groundbreaking game from many aspects--technical, story, gameplay, presentation, and humor.  The opening, where Conker destroys the Nintendo logo with a chain saw, is a very prophetic action.
    For those wondering why the game emphasizes on four sides of the box, the front cover of the instruction book, and before the Nintendo logo even appears on the TV screen that it is not for anyone under 17, here's the dirt.  Conker is out at a pub called The Cock And Plucker, throwing down the gauntlet as soon as the screen fades in.  He is getting smashed with some pals after lying to his girlfriend's answering machine about why he's late.  He stumbles outside, throwing up on a guy outside the pub (this is a riff on A Clockwork Orange, the first of many movie references and parodies jammed in the cart).  Suffering from the all-time, grand champion, hall of fame hangover, Conker just wants to find his way home and go to bed.  But somehow, as he stumbles through the darkness, he finds himself in a strange environment, and he has to explore every nook and cranny to get out and get some rest.
    You don't feel like you are playing a game so much as an interactive cartoon.  There is an astonishing amount of voice acting here, not a few lines here and there, but almost every minute or two an entire conversation between characters occurs with plenty of witty dialogue.  Rare is an English company, and the humor follows the Monty Python and Terry Pratchett models.  The spirit of Mr. Pratchett is especially prominent in Gregg The Grim Reaper, who is shorter than the star squirrel, whose booming voice is supplied by a megaphone he throws away in frustration, and whose normal voice sounds like he's breathing helium.  Characters don't just appear on screen, they actually act.  The Great Mighty Poo, a mountain of fecal matter with sweet corn for teeth, sings his lines like an opera and actually takes a moment to clear his throat before he opens his mouth.  Not only is the voice acting incredible, probably the best ever in a video game, the character animations are astonishing as well.  The faces are very expressive, especially Conker's.  When a large male bee "pollenates" a sunflower with EE breasts, Conker's face adopts a hilariously revolted look, like he can't believe what he finds himself in the presence of.  In fact, that is pretty much Conker's attitude through the whole thing.  Like Arthur Dent in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, he is never entirely sure what to make of the chaos erupting around him that its occupants regard as normal, and all he can do is keep moving and pray things work out like they're supposed to.  He is not as warped or nasty as the other characters in the game, but he is bent just enough to keep him from being a disgusting goody two-shoes.  When the Queen Bee is crying about losing her hive, Conker thinks, "I hope she's rich, 'cause she ain't cute."  When some catfish that talk like George Plimpton's daughters call Conker plebian, he responds, "Asses to you, then."  If you don't move Conker for a while, he does things to keep from getting bored like drinking a beer and crushing the can on his head before kicking it off screen to pulling out an issue of "Beaver" magazine and salivating over the contents.  Conker alone sets a new standard for video game characters, fleshed out with personality and actions reminiscent of Chuck Jones in his Warner Bros. days.
    The graphics are not only impressive for the characters, but the scenery, too.  Even where there is a predominant color, like brown, the hues, shapes, and lighting effects are distinct and continue to make it look like an environment.  It is an absolutely incredible job, Rare should be extremely proud.  The graphics are also refined to get rid of the polygonal "blockiness" that 3D games frequently suffer from  It doesn't get any better on the N64, and it doesn't get much better on other systems, either.  Despite pushing the graphics processor to the red line, I saw few incidents of draw in or choppy framerate.  There is also no fog.  One scene has Conker at a height that feels like a mile up, and you can still look down and see the distinct features of the landscape below.
    The sound is as superb as the graphics.  Even with the MIDI music engine, it sounds amazing, sounding like an actual oboe during Conker's main music theme, and there are violins in another.  The music undergoes subtle changes in parts of the game.  When Conker has to get a stolen bee hive back, as he approaches where it is kept under guard, the music changes to movie-style "sneak" music, then to a fast chase theme as he runs with attacking wasps in hot pursuit.  The sound effects are crystal clear cartoon, such as the classic CLANG! when Conker strikes something with his primary weapon, a cast-iron frying pan.  It also pays attention to the situation.  When Conker runs from grass to wood to rock, the sounds of his footsteps change appropriately.  The foley work is Hollywood quality.  The voices are also amazingly clear.  Instead of sounding sampled, it seems broadcast quality.  Playing the game in its Dolby Surround setting shocks you that it's coming from an N64.
    The control scheme is blessedly simple, thanks to the "context sensitive" B button.  Occasionally, like when Conker literally stands on a "B button" in the game, he will have an epiphany.  A light bulb will go off above his head and there will be a "ting!" noise.  That's the signal that the B button will do something specifically for the situation at hand.  In one scene where flying bats attack Conker, the B button lets him pull out a flamethrower to roast the nuisances.  In another scene, it lets him pull out a dynamite plunger to blow up a boulder impeding his progress.  Sling shots, laser-targeting crossbows, courage pills, throwing knives, and Alka-Seltzer that cures inebriation pop up when needed, all at the press of the B button.  When the game is really cooking, such as with the giant talking haystack that is actually a Terminator (complete with POV shots in red tint and a list of possible phrases to say, settling on "Feck you, asshole"), this keeps the player from swearing and asking, "Which button does what again?"  The context sensitive B button was also used in Legend Of Zelda--The Ocarina Of Time, but it feels far more natural here.
    Editorial content?  Of course, the game is funny, a stitch to play through over and over again to relive the insanity.  There are parodies of The Matrix, The Wizard Of Oz, Full Metal Jacket, and a truly ambitious riff on the Normandy Invasion scenes from Saving Private Ryan.  There's a stone gargoyle complaining that sitting on a piece of Gothic arcitechture "really gets up your arse."  Some bad words like "fuck" are beeped out, but not too completely, so it's easy to figure out what they are really saying.  But don't be fooled.  "Shit," "ass," "arse," "bastard", and "twat" are just some of the words that are there in their full obscene glory.  And just like the kids on South Park, swearing is not the raison d'etra of the characters.  They swear properly, to emphasize points, not to pad out a thirty word vocabulary.  This game is perfect for the vast segment of the population that is not growing up, just getting older.  In short, my people.
    It's too bad this won't be the last game on the N64 so people can say the system went out with a bang.  It does ruin it, because no game before or since on the system can engender the kind of excitement Conker is.  Remove the humor, and you have a terrific platformer, a welcome change of pace from Rare's "search everywhere for the items" efforts with Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo Kazooie.  An absolutely incredible work, if Nintendo keeps making games like this, they just might be #1 again.
 
 

Brian Prescott has made his own game for the 2600, and has signed and numbered each cart.  And I have two of them.  Die jealous.
    Prescott's game is a translation of the game Rush Hour for PDA's.  You are given a level.  You have a car, facing the exit.  It is surrounded by other cars.  Cars facing up and down can only move up and down, cars facing left and right can only move left and right, and they can't rotate into different directions.  You have to figure out how to move the cars around to open up space and get your vehicle out of there.
    Crazy Valet actually works very well on the Atari because strategy, not graphics, is supposed to carry things through.  You have 26 levels to clear, and it is amazing how involving it becomes.  I burned up an hour and a half getting up to level 25, and after a half-hour on 25, I decided to take a break.  This is not as easy as it seems, even once you develop a strategy to use.
    If he releases the game through Hozer, I highly recommend picking it up.  A very crafty puzzler that is a lot of fun.
 
 

Don't ask me what I was thinking.  I didn't notice the thing on the side that said, "For ages 6-10."
    Hey You Pikachu! is a gimmick game, like Gyrobot on the old NES.  Using a special pack that plugs into the N64 and a microphone, you can actually talk to Pikachu.  Sort of.  You can only use simple words and sentences, and the translation quality is occassionally iffy.  That assumes it matters.  During the first "level", you just keep trying to get Pikachu's attention.  Any words will do, as I found out when I said, "Goddammit!", and the screen prompt said, "Pikachu heard you!  It can tell you have a good heart."
    This game is actually two-three years old, so the voice recognition ain't the best.  You play a kid who Professor Oak wants to test his new device that lets Pokemon understand the speaker.  That isn't a problem on the TV show and other games.  You start off trying to win Pikachu over as a friend, then join him on his adventures in the wild.  One stage, you are searching for ingrediants for a soup a Bulbasaur is making.  Another, you are fishing.  Actually, Pikachu does most of the work, you just coach him verbally.  At this point, you should be thinking, "Ah, I must not be the target demographic for this game."
    The game is amusing at the start, with the graphics nice and adequate.  As usual, the Pokemon are beautifully drawn and animated.  As befits his star billing, Pikachu has an astounding amount of facial expressions and vocal talent.  But learning what words are understood and what aren't is the biggest problem.  There are some hints with displayed text printed in red, but for the most part, you're on your own.  Words that you would think are self-evident don't work. This makes the game frustrating, and there's no hint book to guide you along.
    Even worse is the control layout.  Manuvering around the areas and telling Pikachu what to do becomes a confusing, hit-and-miss affair.  This makes the game EXTREMELY frustrating.
    For kids who love Pokemon, this is about as close as it gets to having your own Pikachu.  Grown ups will be bored silly, though.  This one needed some clarification before being unleashed on the public.  If you gotta have Pokemon, pick this up discounted.  The commercials featuring the neglected dog are more fun.
 
 

Okay, this is just Tetris Attack with flashier graphics and the Pokemon license.  You can skip the next paragraphs setting up the game, if you are so inclined.
    Introduced with an very nice full-motion video, Ash and a very relaxed Pikachu are informed by Professor Oak about a new Pokemon League, this one dedicated to puzzles.  The puzzles consist of stacks of tiles that slowly rise from the bottom.  You can swap two adjacent horizontal tiles to make three or more in row.  Any tiles removed, any above fall to fill in the gap, which can create chains and combos.  It's tricky, but a lot of fun regardless of skill level.
    The Pokemon do not actually factor into the game aside from providing sound effects.  Selecting, say, the electric-type Pikachu against the water-type Staryu makes no difference, so don't sweat that strategy.
    If you already have a copy of Tetris Attack, do you really need this rehash?  You don't need it, but I would still recommend it.  It is still a lot of fun, and hearing the Pokemon more or less cheer you on as you make extensive combos is fun.  All the original voice actors from the TV series are here for their dialogue, even those who only appeared in one episode like Erika.  There's enough bells and whistles, but that doesn't obscure this is a very fun game that doesn't need the tie-in.  Still, it's terrific, with plenty of options like a training mode to actually help you gear up on strategies.  Definitely recommended.
 
 

The above scan is of the cartridge created by Mister Chuck Gill.  It is signed and numbered by him.  And I have two of them.  Die jealous.
    What we have here is a Space Invaders knock-off.  Actually, this is a revision of a game called Coke Wins, where you were shooting down the letters in the word "Pepsi".  A cutesy piece of propaganda, sure, but after "Bite the wax tadpole," I suppose Coke deserves some sort of applause.
    The key difference between this and Space Invaders, besides the graphics anyway, is that this game gives you three minutes to rack up your score.  Unlike SI, where you could play forever and turn the score over, this is better suited for tournament competition.  The limitation makes the game a bit more involving.  You can't be casual about your shots since that will cost you opportunities.
    Even if you have Coke Wins, I recommend this game.  If you don't have it, this will make an excellent addition to your collection.  It is fun and can be very good if you have a bunch of friends over.  A+.
 
 

Imagine how galling it must have been for Nintendo to be readying its Nintendo Entertainment System with its Mario mascot only to have to compete with a company that had already licensed that very character and have not one, not two, but three games they were hoping to make their cornerstones.
    Mario Bros. appeared on the Atari 2600 and the 5200.  I don't have a 5200 (yet) but I have played the 2600 version, and man, does it reek.  The game is a side-view platform contest where creatures come out of the pipes at the top and walk to the bottom, dropping between floors.  As Mario or Luigi, you have to jump underneath the platforms, knocking the creatures on their backs and making them sitting ducks to kick off.
    One of the basic techniques gamers learn when playing the game is to use physics to their advantage.  Smacking the creatures to the side instead of directly underneath will send them flying a short distance in the opposite direction.  It becomes strategically important to get underneath the top ledge and knock the creatures just as they reach the edge.  They arc to the side, but with no platform there, they land on the level next to you, saving time and lessening the risk of getting nailed.  The 2600 version, the creatures flipped straight up and down, no matter where you hit them, making the game an extreme headache and no fun.
    Mario Bros. on the 7800 partially redresses the problem.  It still isn't as crisp as the arcade and NES versions, but it's good enough to be functional and restore some of the fun.  Controls aren't as crisp, either, and the sound limitations of the unit are apparent.  But the graphics, despite a bit of graininess, are actually quite nice.  A perfectly acceptable conversion of the coin-op, a nice addition to the collection.
 
 

Fans and enthusiasts making video games is always a dicey proposition.  You have those who do such a great job you want them to sign on with a company, and there are those that make you cringe worse than any R&D regurgitation ever could.  There is also the whole "updating the hits of yesteryear" to worry about.  Sometimes, it works great.  Other times, like the update of, say, Galaga, the games become showing off the fact that they can redo a game on another system rather than doing anything new.
    This last group can take a page from Piero Cavina.  With no flash or outside additions, Cavina has taken one of the simplest games on the Atari 2600 (and, by no coincidence, one of the dullest), the immortal Pong, and has possibly made the party game of the year.  Yes, maybe better than the Mario Party series and Chu Chu Rocket. Mondo Pong, as you can tell from the accompanying graphic, looks like the original, only it has two balls on the field instead of one.  But looks are deceiving.  The balls in this game, at any given moment, will speed up, slow down, change angle, or even double-back, reversing direction and barrelling right back at you immediately after hitting it.  They might even taunt you by moving into the middle of the field and zipping around in a circle before racing off on a random tangent.
    This game is 100% pure evil.  Needless to say, even the most advanced gamer will have his hands full as the contest shifts from basic skill to almost pure luck.  Not only is the game fun, but you are almost guaranteed a flood of trash talk as people playing the game raz each other and get razzed back.  This is a must have for the 2600, and a reminder of what fun can be had with such a primitive machine.
 
 

I still have no real clue how the Game Boy continues to sell.  Aside from some titles custom designed to capitalize on the Game Boy's strengths (like Legend Of Zelda and Pokemon) and some that really do capture the video game experience (Super Mario Land 2), for the most part, the system is a joke of watered down titles that ride more on nostalgia than actual merit.
    With this environment, there should be plenty of opportunities for someone to come and take the portable gaming crown.  Sega more or less gave up during the Saturn fiasco.  Atari was being run by Jack Tremmel and never stood a chance.  Neo Geo gave up just as things were getting interesting.  That left Chicago-based Tiger with its game.com system.  Despite some pretty advanced tech, the games were iffy quality.
    Williams Arcade Classics is a prime illustration of this fact.  Based on classic games from the arcade (hence the name, I guess), WAC pulls together five games:  Defender, Stargate, Robotron, Joust, and Sinistar.  Describing the games is a bit pointless, however, since everything suffers from typical game.com problems.  The sprites are poorly animated and move across the screen in a jerky fashion.  The controls are unresponsive and just generally suck donkeys.  Stargate was made almost arcade perfect on the Atari 2600, for Chrissake, but this one on a much better machine just doesn't capture the feel.
    The result is one more nail in the coffin of the game.com.  This one should have stayed in the development oven for another month, but came out and reinforced the idea that the game.com was a joke.
 
 

Every artistic medium has a name or company whose name comes to symbolize "bad".  Movies have Ed Wood, comic have Myron Fas, and video games have a practical strip mall.  The Atari 2600 had Froggo Games, the NES had Pony Canyon, the Sony Playstation has Take 2 (still?!?), and Titus has become the N64's Krap King.  They made a video game based on Superman for the N64, almost universally agreed to be the worst game on the system.  You know a game sucks when you play Superman on the N64 and the Superman on the Atari 2600 is more fun in comparison.
    Now, Infogames has the rights to make Superman games and Titus is trying to pick up the pieces.  They came up with Xena:  Warrior Princess--The Talisman Of Fate, a so-so fighter, but a definite improvement.  Hoping to continue the run down the comeback trail is Blues Brothers 2000, another major license that has received scant advance notice.  And the year 2000 is almost over.
    Following the plot of the movie, Elwood has to reunite the band and such.  I know there isn't much detail to my description, but to paraphrase, there's no there there.  The title is your standard issue 3-D platform adventure.  There's nothing special about the music, moves, graphics, level design, anything.  It's intended as cash-and-carry, being as innocuous and as unobjectionable as possible.  Once again, an improvement over the horrendous Superman, but still wide of the mark.  It delivers no real thrills or sense of wonder.  This one will likely slip through the cracks, which is just as well.
 
 

The copyright notice on the game label to the left is not a misprint.  This game really was made for the Atari 2600 in 1998.  The title also is not a misprint, it is gramatically incorrect.  There was a limited run with box and everything, but those are long gone.  You can still order the cart and an instruction book from Best Electronics.
    Alfred Challenge has a half-baked adventure story told in the instruction manual that doesn't seem to have much to do with the game.  It's a platformer where you navigate up or down ladders, down ropes, and avoiding vanishing walkways.  Each level has several doors (the solid vertical lines) that need keys to open.  You grab a key, figure out how to get to the particular door, then grab the next key until all doors are open and you can move to the next level.
    This game features a lot in common with games like Prince Of Persia.  The way to beat the game lies in learning all the twists and turns, then following the simple pattern once you have it down.  There is some skill involved in dodging the enemies, but nothing too heavy.
    At least, it should be nothing too heavy, but the game is very frustrating at times.  Movement through the platforms is a chore because of the game's unforgiving nature.  The slightest move putting even one pixel off a platform counts as a fall, killing your character and making you start The Whole Damn Thing over.  The game requires more dexterity than needed because of the ropes and ladders.  You can't simply stand over them and climb as you might assume.  You have to be over the left half.  This requires a mental adjustment since force of habit is to move over the middle.  The result is you get to a point where you should be climbing up or down and nothing happens, costing timing with the roving baddies or creating a collision.
    This game could have been a perfectly inoffensive diversion, but some tweaking would have been nice.  The fact that you can set it to work on any Atari anywhere in the world is a nice touch, but more attention should have been paid to the mechanics.  Not bad, not good, just kind of there.
 
 

The South Park franchise should be an excuse for all kinds of fun.  But so far, everything has gone downhill since the first game was released.  Admitted, it was fun, but it was a bit predictable, an old school shooter where the enemies attack in waves.  But at least, if you had the Internet and the game on your computer, there was all the fun in multiplayer.  South Park-Chef's Luv Shack was an idea that had flaws and only some diversionary redeeming qualities.  But anyone hoping Iguana, the team doing the games for Acclaim, would pull out of the slump needs to wake up.
    South Park Rally is one of those cutesy racing games that has apparently taken video gamers by storm.  I haven't played any of them, since they don't look interesting.  Now, I want to play one, just in hopes that they aren't this bad.  It's a racing game, with each South Park character in a vehicle and trying to outrace the other.  The game attempts to make it more than just racing by creating goals for different races.  One race, you just run through the checkpoints in order.  Another, you grab a trophy and try to get it past all the check points while others are trying to steal the trophy for themselves, and so on.  You can also grab weapons to use on your opponents, like Sparky, Stan's dog, who runs down the driver you aim him at and holds them still while he...services himself.
    The game, however, doesn't get to be much fun.  Yes, the characters are their usual potty mouth selves, which is fun in its own right.  But the collision detection is horrible, with the slightest bump costing you valuable time.  The weapons are difficult to aim, too.  The checkpoints are squares to be driven over, not gates you cross, so if you miss driving over it, you sometimes don't realize you are screwed until you are halfway around the course and guaranteed to lose.  The physics of the cars just doesn't feel right.  You never feel like you are in complete control.  The control layout blows, too.  The B button is reverse, not brake, so you throw your momentum off if you think you're just going to slow down.  No option to customize the controls, either.  This is only from the discount bin.  It is definitely not worth full price.
 
 

Nolan Bushnell rides to help his former company, Atari, in what was its battle with big bad Nintendo.  His company, Axlon, designs games for the Atari 2600, but it was too little, too late for the system.
    Off The Wall follows the model set up by Arkanoid.  You take your standard Breakout game and juice it up.  Off The Wall gives you a storyline where you are a Chinese man bouncing a ball against a wall set up by a dragon.  Either eliminate all the pieces of the wall, or make a hole and hit the dragon five times to win the round and advance.  Later levels include a bird that tries to interfere with your shots.  You also get power-ups, such as a longer staff to swat the ball with, taking out more bricks at once, the ball attracted to your staff no matter where you are, and so on.  Oh, and for those of us still trying to fix our paddles, the game controls with the joystick.  But you still get only one rate of speed, selectable by the difficulty switch.  Since the button on the controller isn't being used, it would have been nice to have that as the toggle.
    Still, Off The Wall is a fairly enjoyable game.  It can be quite challenging and fun.  Definitely worth a look, if not an addition to your collection.
 
 

Welcome to another post-Apocalyptic future.  Man, this theme is so prevailent...anyway, you are an ace driver on a mercy mission.  Several cities are being devestated by a plague.  You are entrusted with the antidote because you are...well, an ace driver.  You have to rush the antidote to the cities as fast as possible to save the most people you can.
    So much for the intro.  What about the game?  Well, there's not much really to do.  You just floor it as fast as you can, dodging enemies on the road.  You have weapons, sure, but they expire awfully fast, so the more you conserve, the better.  Plus, the money you get for saving lives can be put towards buying upgrades, but the upgrades are very expensive and they don't last long, so outdriving everyone is pretty much the best strategy.
    Not much effort is required.  Not much steering to get around enemies, firing is a bit imprecise, and the game can be won just by driving like hell.  The feel of speed and urgency that was done quite well in Pole Position II for the system is absent.  While the imagery of the wasted cities once you arrive is nice, it's a minor detail that doesn't make up for the fact that there isn't much game here.  Apparently, this is one of the rarest games on the 7800, but not because of demand.  Not exactly a good time to be had by all.
 
 

Okay, I admit I'm a poke-fan.  Not exactly a freak, though.  I can name maybe half the Pokemon out there, and that's not counting the 100-plus apparently ready to be sprung on America come autumn.
    Being a fan of one-on-one fighting games, I was really looking forward to Pokemon Stadium.  I thought, "One-on-one fighting with the pokemon I've trained.  Is this cool or what?"  Well, folks, save your money, or at least wait until this makes it to the price-cut aisle.
    If you are expecting one-on-one action, you don't exactly get it.  You choose six pokemon (either from your Game Boy game or in the cartridge), pick three or six, and go at it.  It is turned based, like a role-playing game.  Each "trainer" enters the command for one of the pokemon's four attacks, or chooses to switch fighters.  No enhancements, like potions, are allowed.
    As you can guess from the above, your movement is limited.  This is the first problem.  The presentation is slick, complete with an announcer and switching cameras that should make you feel like you are watching an actual tournament on TV.  But while the pokemon are beautifully animated, looking so real you'd almost swear they used motion capture on the actual creatures, and the attacks look great, if the attacks miss, you don't see them miss.  If a pokemon evades, you don't see it evade.  Also, the matches don't always seem fair, tilting more towards who gains initiative (first attack) than any actual skill.  The fact that switching pokemon uses up your turn is understandable, but if you switch and get hit with an attack that nails you for over 50% damage, you either feel like just hitting reset or yanking the unit out of the wall.  You won't want to wait for the quit option on the menu.
    The cart does have some lame mini-games in it.  It also has a feature that makes it a dandy tool if not a game.  You can play your Game Boy cartridge on your N64, thanks to the transfer pack included with the game.  This can save batteries.  Also, the cartridge has extra memory slots for items you pick up in the game and extra pokemon you capture.  If you are running out of room on the PC's in the game, you can just save them to the N64 cartridge.  It also has a more user-friendly interface for rearranging your boxes, items, and pokemon.  Very nice, but not exactly worth $60.
    As long as I'm discussing the transfer pack, I'm pissed.  The part of the pack that plugs into your N64 controller is skinnier than the memory carts or the interface for the Rumble Pack (I checked).  The instruction manual for Pokemon Stadium says that you shouldn't rattle the controller too much, or the Game Boy cart might become disconnected just long enough to ruin data and saved games.  Oh, thanks.  They couldn't have made the fit a little more snug?
    The music is alright, but the wrong voices are in the game.  Pikachu's voice is in there a little, but not a single one of the other creatures.  Instead, we get an announcer, making some of the most painfully obvious action descriptions since the narrator in Robotech.  After about the third match, you'll want to jump to the option screen and shut him off.
    This game had such promise, but I couldn't tell you why no one seemed to want to bother with reaching it.  Definitely a rental, unless you need the help organizing your items.  Then get a copy.  Discounted.

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