Village Monks Gaming Memories
Evil Dead Regeneration #4 (PC) The Woods and Forsaken Mines with Boss 1080p HD
updated
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If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
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Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
My first memory of Bignose the Cavemen wasn't actually when it was called Bignose, It was actually called Dinobasher, being released for the Sega Master System and was being reviewed in the latest issue of Sonic the Comic and got a pretty average score. It seems that a lot of reviewers gave it an average score which prompted Codemasters to pull the game away from release despite it being ready to ship. Naturally many years have passed and I have since picked up a reproduction cartridge of that very game, but I was naturally surprised when I saw this one being played on Atari Crypt's channel as I didn't even think to look for a home computer port. It was probably the name change that threw me off guard. Big Nose the Caveman was released in 1991 by Codemasters for the NES, Amiga and of course this Atari ST version. There was also a Game Gear version in development that probably went the same way as the Sega Master System edition.
Bignose is a 2D platformer where you simply have to get to the end of the level and defeat the boss before the time runs out. Bignose's only really attack comes from his caveman club, however I will say that in its initial form it is virtually useless. You have a cripplingly short attack range and more often than not you will be killed before you have a chance to swing. As a result one of the most difficult enemies in the game is the first enemy to see because of the creature's nature to run quickly. Apart from this the game does play very well with the joystick with Bignose being very responsive to your movements.
Thankfully there are two weapon upgrades which allow you to throw projectiles. Collecting these are a virtual requirement to progress in the game, particularly as this also gives you an extra hit, because otherwise you would have to deal with a one hit death.
Graphically I wouldn't say that Bignose represents the best visuals on the ST. The sprites are drawn well and smooth enough, complete with some solid scrolling. The best sprites are reserved for the big dinosaur bosses at the end of the stages. Overall the game looks alright, but it does suffer a lot from repeated assets, yes bosses are repeated and some levels look awfully similar at times.
The level design isn’t particularly great. Sometimes in the level I can hit the ceiling, despite there not being one there. The oddest design is in the cave levels where not only do you have to go down a pit to progress – every other drop in the game kills you by the way; there’s also a section in level 12 where you can actually get stuck on a screen. I’m not sure if this is a bug, but I found out the only way to progress is to hit a particular block earlier on in the level to make the screen shake. But nowhere does the game tell you to do this or give you a hint.
My biggest pet-peeve with this game is something which happens with a lot of platformers back in the day and it now thankfully a dead practice. That is the timer. Now in the early levels you will have plenty of time to get to the end and defeat the boss, But once you get past level 5 you will virtually have to run through every level spraying bullets (or coconuts or whatever they are supposed to be), hoping that everything dies in your path, just so that you can do it in time. I can't tell you how many times I died on the boss simply because I decided to be cautious. In fact the timer is so bad that the final level (14) I swear is impossible to beat without losing a life. Why? Because this level is one of two auto scrollers, so you can’t even rush the level and when you get to the boss there’s only 24 seconds left which isn’t nearly enough. Thankfully the timer resets after death.
I was actually impressed with the length of this game, I was under the impression when I got to the end of the first island that I was at the end of the game. Turns out that I was completely wrong, the game just carried on, albeit some of the levels looked awfully similar and the bosses do tend to repeat, but content wise there is enough here to keep you entertained. It's not easiest title either, the lack of the life bar means that you will have to be careful.
Overall Bignose the Caveman is distinctly average, it’s annoying in many respects. It feels like a smaller low budget game, that doesn’t do anything horribly wrong, but at the same time there are noticeable problems.
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Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
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Final Blow is a 1-2 player boxing game. Like most boxing games it requires you to beat your opponent into the canvas or win on a point’s decision. Being that this was originally an arcade game it doesn’t quite have the ruling of the real thing with each round only lasting sixty seconds and there only being three rounds in a bout.
You can select from one of ten different boxers, however disappointingly there doesn’t seem to be any real difference between each person that I noticed, so they are pretty much just alternate skins for your character. It would have been nice to have different power, speed or moves for each fighter if to just add a bit of variety to the action.
Graphically it does look very similar to the arcade original with its big sprites and good animation. Overall the boxers and the referee and animated really well, it’s not often you see large sprites like this on the ST. Obviously being an arcade port there have been cut backs with stuff like the crowd animation and the celebration scenes at the end of the fight all missing, but these aren’t really necessary to the game play so it’s not that concerning that these have been cut. There’s also a little bit of sampled speech from the promoter that is completely dropped, but the stuff we get from the referee seems to be there and is clear and good quality.
Control wise you use the joystick to move your boxer left to right with the fire button handling punches. There are six types of punches that you can pull off, three for each hand, it can either be a low, medium or high punch based on if you have the joystick pointed diagonally or straight. Ideally you would prefer to have each punch mapped to an individual button, but this works quite well. The best strategy particularly for the later levels is to vary up your punches and switch arms regularly so you have to get used to this.
Arcade games are meant to be difficult in order for the player to pump more coins into the cabinet and the same applies here. I’ve never been able to beat this one, I going to assume that there’s nine rounds given that there’s ten playable characters, but I don’t ever see myself beating it. I liked playing Final Blow, but it is definitely one of those titles that can only really be played in short bursts because it can ultimately feel a little shallow at times.
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In fact first time playing this you will probably lose all of your lives and see the game over screen within ten seconds.
So Yolanda is a single screen one-player platformer where you simply have to get to the exit in time. Now if you take too long when you start the level then the platform that you are standing on will catch on fire. So basically you have to keep moving and worse Yolanda doesn’t seem to have any ability to kill any of the enemies on the screen, so you are totally reliant on dodging and jumping through.
I believe that there are around 50 levels in all and each time you die it sends you to a random stage, so you get a different one each play, which makes it much harder to remember the pattern of the stages. Memorisation is important here because there are numerous occasions where the only way to complete a level is to jump on platforms which are invisible until you jump on them. Yes, this is one of those games where you are going to have to experiment, die, experiment, die, case and repeat until you eventually complete it.
Graphically the game looks good without really impressing all that much. The sprite animation is smooth and you can easily identify what everything is so it does its job. It does lack a bit of variety in the stage designs and the enemies do tend to repeat themselves, but overall it does look good enough. Again this is a single screen game, so we don’t get any of the scrolling jerkiness that happens in so many ST games.
I’ve seen people play the Amiga version and for some reason it has a different soundtrack. I prefer the one that the ST version has, but it’s really odd why it differed, you’d thought that they would share resources.
Game play wise the only thing that Yolanda is able to do is jump. She cannot attack enemies, pick up items and will die in one hit. As a result touching virtually anything will result in death. Add to this certain platforms are red herrings, they will instantly disappear, or set on fire if you touch them, again ending in death. Oh and if you wait too long at the start of the level, then the platform you start on will catch on fire, I’m not joking about this, sometimes you only have less than a second to react. There’s one level where you have to jump immediately or else a flying fireball will kill you in the first few seconds. Even if you complete a level, it’s usually over in 30 seconds.
Apart from the large difficulty the game plays well with the joystick, with Yolanda being very responsive. It’s just whether you are happy about dying on regular intervals. I have never beaten Yolanda, but whilst it can be frustrating, it isn’t necessarily a bad game. For what it set out to do, it does a reasonable job and is worth a play, however there are notably better platforming games on the Atari ST.
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Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Episode 1 - youtube.com/watch?v=WhvcXbgb3Hs
Episode 2 - youtube.com/watch?v=uwldbDFfslU
Episode 3 - youtube.com/watch?v=BrlmrN1HJeA
Episode 4 - youtube.com/watch?v=_pTPbz30YxQ
Episode 5 - youtube.com/watch?v=RFsmdfgu8Lc
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Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Episode 1 - youtube.com/watch?v=WhvcXbgb3Hs
Episode 2 - youtube.com/watch?v=uwldbDFfslU
Episode 3 - youtube.com/watch?v=BrlmrN1HJeA
Episode 4 - youtube.com/watch?v=_pTPbz30YxQ
Episode 5 - youtube.com/watch?v=RFsmdfgu8Lc
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Episode 1 - youtube.com/watch?v=WhvcXbgb3Hs
Episode 2 - youtube.com/watch?v=uwldbDFfslU
Episode 3 - youtube.com/watch?v=BrlmrN1HJeA
Episode 4 - youtube.com/watch?v=_pTPbz30YxQ
Episode 5 - youtube.com/watch?v=RFsmdfgu8Lc
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Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
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Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Episode 1 - youtube.com/watch?v=WhvcXbgb3Hs
Episode 2 - youtube.com/watch?v=uwldbDFfslU
Episode 3 - youtube.com/watch?v=BrlmrN1HJeA
Episode 4 - youtube.com/watch?v=_pTPbz30YxQ
Episode 5 - youtube.com/watch?v=RFsmdfgu8Lc
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Episode 1 - youtube.com/watch?v=WhvcXbgb3Hs
Episode 2 - youtube.com/watch?v=uwldbDFfslU
Episode 3 - youtube.com/watch?v=BrlmrN1HJeA
Episode 4 - youtube.com/watch?v=_pTPbz30YxQ
Episode 5 - youtube.com/watch?v=RFsmdfgu8Lc
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
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Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
As you move around the ground begins to crack, now once it cracks you are not able to walk on it any more. This goes double for the enemies, so you can often use this to your advantage to block them into an area. Of course this can mean that you are able to block yourself in, at which point you will have to use your duck’s notable ability of begin able to side all of the tiles on the screen. You need to do this in the later levels, especially when there’s a lot of enemies near the eggs that you are trying to collect.
Graphically it’s a very simple looking game that is kind of similar to the single screen 80’s arcade games from yesteryear. Every enemy is animated however it is pretty clear that your duck character does not have a movement animation other than standing still and moving his mouth repeatedly. But to be honest for a game like this the simple visuals are okay as it’s the game play which really matters here.
The game plays well with the joystick with movement working how you’d expect and the moving the tiles handled by the button. It’s easy to pick up and play. Whilst the controls are good you do find that the levels lack much in terms of variety. Whilst there are different enemies on each stage, they don’t act any differently. The enemies seem to just roam around randomly and if they hit you then it’s down to luck on their part and partly yours. When you also consider that the backgrounds are just colour swaps of each other then you begin to realise that you are simply replaying the same stage over and over again. It therefore begins to lose its shine rather quickly.
Duck Dash wasn’t a commercial release so you forgive its shortcomings. It’s a decent arcade style game that’s worth playing if only for short bursts.
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Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
I think that everyone and their dog is familiar with a Super Mario game by this point, you run from left to right, trying to get to the end of the level. Unlike those Nintendo titles you cannot go down the pipes on any of the levels, there's no hidden or secret areas that I know of and there's also a distinct lack of end bosses (I don't consider an 'enemy rush' an appropriate replacement for a real boss battle). Stario's main form of attack is of course stomping on enemies, but he can also pick up potions to make himself grow larger in order to survive an additional enemy hit and another potion give s him the ability to fling fireballs. I did notice that these power up drops seem to be rather infrequent in the later levels, but that's just a minor quibble on the level design, there's a more obvious problem that I will go into later.
Visually the sprites are fairly small and simple, but everything is animated really well with some good designs of the enemies even if they repeat a little too often for my liking. It generally plays very smoothly. My major complaint is the music where you are once again given the option of either music or sound effects and that music isn't great.
Controls wise it plays well with the joystick with it feeling very similarly to Nintendo's franchise as you'd probably expect by now. In terms of difficulty it is quite a bit harder than the average Mario game simply because it seems to drop the power ups a lot less which leaves you much more vulnerable, particularly during the levels with those bloody flying fish, if you can't get through first time then you are screwed as it ends up being a die with one hit experience. There are some levels where there is only one power up, or sometimes none which means that you have to be point perfect, it gets really difficult in the later levels because of this.
The other major problem with this game is the level design itself. The stages seem to generate randomly using set configuration of blocks, what this means is that you can often be playing a level and see the same platform and enemy pattern three times giving the impression that you are simply going round and round in circles and not progressing. Maybe this was done to conserve disk space but it just gives the impression that the levels haven't been properly designed but a mishap of level assets. It certainly makes the levels feel less memorable and repetitive than a platformer where someone has taken time to properly design the pitfalls and traps. It’s also a pretty linear game, there’s no warp wipes to go down as far as I know, all the pipes are just there for show and I don’t think that there are any secret areas.
Despite being an obvious rip-off and not as good as the NES classic, although saying that looking at the level structure I suspect that it was based off of Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. Whilst it does look nicer than that Game Boy game, the level design and music makes it feel worse than what it should be. Super Starioland however does still have some decent game play and is a platformer well worth picking up although there are better examples on the ST such as Magic Pockets or Rolling Ronny.
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Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Out Run was one of a series of Super scaler games which Sega released In the 80’s. Originally designed by Yu Suzuki and developed by his AM2 team, this was a 1986 arcade classic which saw you driving a Ferrari Testarossa Spider across the country in order to get to the destination in the fastest possible time. It was so popular in the arcades that it was later released to virtually everything with ports on the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Commodore 64, Game Gear, Genesis, Master System, PC Engine, MS-DOS, Sega Saturn, ZX Spectrum, as well as this Atari ST build. The ST version was developed by Probe Software and published by US Gold in 1988.
This is a single player racer that is devoid of any other game modes other than race to the finish. There are five stages in all and at the end of each stage you have to select from one of two different routes, which helps to give you a different experience with each play. Now originally when I played this I didn’t even realise that there were multiple routes in this version, because in the arcade original it is pretty clear with a big sign post and the road visibility splitting. However in this ST version it simply puts a line of trees in the centre of the road and that’s good enough for the developers to signify a road split apparently. It also loads between these stages, which makes you wonder what the game is doing when it first boots up, because it takes bloody ages just to get to the title screen. Strangely it doesn’t seem to be a memory issue because it you replay the same stages again in the same session, it doesn’t reload from the disk.
Graphics wise, just look at it. Okay it looks somewhat like the arcade original, albeit with less colours which isn’t a fault of the devs. But what is a problem are the blocky sprites and the really low frame rate which makes it so jerky. It’s often somewhat difficult for me to determine whether the object in the distance is either a green bush or a green car it’s just such a mess. As sprites begin to pack the screen it really does start to resemble a slide show and therefore it makes it a lot harder to control. After coming from playing an arcade perfect port in Yakuza 0 with smooth graphics, this is a huge drop in quality and it’s not as if the ST can’t do a game like this better, I mean look at Gremlin’s lotus games or Chase HQ to see it done right.
As soon as you start the game for some reason they have decided that mouse controls are the default, why they decided on this I do not know, because most racing games I know use a joystick. It plays alright, but the dodgy framerate makes the controls feel rather cumbersome. Often you are just relying on luck that the traffic doesn’t get in your way. I think all of the cars stay in their lanes, but with the dodgy scrolling and scaling it looks like they are constantly bobbing from left to right which makes it much harder to overtake.
I really don’t like this version of Out Run. The frame rate is stupidly low and game play wise it just doesn’t play that great. I think that the ST could do better, if you look at games like Chase HQ, Buggy Boy or Cisco Heat, which in itself wasn’t perfect but looks a million times better, then it just shows how bad this port was. US Gold games can be rather hit and miss and this is one that you should definitely miss.
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Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Time Soldiers was originally an arcade game released in 1987 by Alpha Denshi and published by SNK. It was later ported to a bunch of different systems such as the Amiga, Atari ST, C64 before ending up on the Sega Master System in 1989.
There’s not much of a plot to this one, in fact it’s mentioned in the very first couple of sections after you pass the title with the evil Gylend capturing five of your comrades and placing them somewhere within five different time periods from the primitive Age, the Age of Rome. the World Wars, the Age of War and Future World.
Time Soldiers is a rare breed on the Master System as it allows for a simultaneous 2 player overhead shooter experience alongside the single player. The idea for each level is to get to the right time period by jumping through the time portals scattered throughout the stages and then fight off against the boss of that era in order to get the prisoner. You start off in a random time period and the item pickups seem to be randomized so each time that you play it you get a slightly different experience.
Graphically the game looks good with a fair amount of variety in the sprites and each of the time periods look noticeably different. The best visuals are reserved for the big boss sprites which take up a large portion of the screen. The game does tend to slow down when there's a large amount of bullets on the screen and glitching does tend to happen whilst in the multiplayer mode.
You are allowed two different guns at a time, you default pea shooter has limited range and I would recommend getting an upgrade as soon as possible. The second button serves as your special weapon which gives you more power and most importantly a longer range, but this is limited so you have to be careful when you use them – preferably when one of the many mini-bosses turn up. The game is made even more difficult due to the speed of the character they move so slowly in comparison to the enemies and their bullets that you are often at the disadvantage. You can dodge most of the enemies in the stage, but those mini-bosses have a much faster fire rate than you and move much faster than you, meaning that you will almost certainly lose your lives at these sections. It feels like it should be played with duel stick controls as often you need to be running whilst shooting behind you, it’s a shame that the devs didn’t add a feature to use 2 controllers for one player.
Overall it’s a reasonably good game and one that I have never managed to finish. As the novelty of being one of those rare instances of being a 2 player game it is certainly worth a play, but on the basis of things it is a fairly standard shooter that is a decent challenge and well worth adding to your collection.
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Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Zool was created by Gremlin Graphics in 1993 and despite Commodore Amiga wanting to use him as an official mascot he appeared on virtually every format at the time such as the arcades, Amiga, Amiga CD32, Acorn Archimedes, PC, Game Boy, Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive and SNES. However the one that I am looking at today is for the Atari ST. It's also worth noting that this was one of the many times where Gremlin would try to put advertising into their games, with a certain sweets manufacturer getting the nod here.
The lead character of Zool being the same as the title is a Ninja who has to get back to his home planet by stealing stuff within each of the zones, in that you have to get around 100 pieces of candy before the exit to the level becomes unlocked. At the end of every third stage there’s a boss that you need to defeat in order to progress.
As you can clearly see the game is bright and colourful; okay this isn't the most detailed version of Zool, it definitely lacks the parallax scrolling of the Amiga version. The game is very smooth and Gremlin have put a lot of developers to shame by actually being able to handle smooth sideways scrolling on the ST. This port does have quite a bit of slowdown though when the sprites start to pack the screen and definitely on the bigger bosses. It looks great and the music is pretty cool too.
Game play wise it is a mixed bag. The game does play well with the joystick however Zool's speed is a problem along with the jumping which feels rather floaty. You’ll want to run through the level, however you can't because of the poor level design as you will regularly bump into an enemy or spike trap, which makes you wonder why they bothered implementing it in the first place. The second reason why the speed is a problem is because of the objective of the game. As you are required to collect 100 pieces of candy in order to progress to the next level you are forced to search all over the environment as these items aren't exactly plentiful. Much like my comments on Sonic Chaos of the Sega Master System, having a fast character on a slow plodding collect a thon is counterproductive to what the audience wants – you are happiest when you are running. I really wish that the collecting was simply optional because a lot of the time I get so bored that I simply give up.
It seems like the game is running in the low resolution, the reason why this is a problem is because what is above and below you, it often leads to a number of cheap deaths and when you die the level timer does not go back. I especially hate world two, the instrument level because you can often get hit from enemies above you and spike traps below you. Also finding the exit isn’t always at the end of the stage, you have to go looking for that too.
I remember playing the demo disk on ST Format back when I was a kid and it plays well because you only get to see it for 60 seconds and there isn’t even enough time to beat the level. So naturally I didn’t realise that it was a collectathon until I got the real copy of the game.
As I said Zool isn't a bad game and I have genuinely tried to like this one, but I just can't do it. It’s a very disappointing game because all of the things that Gremlin have done right, but it’s just simply the concept that’s wrong. If only they had made a standard platformer and made the collecting a bonus extra, then I would look on this one more favourably. But alas even Zool 2 on the later Jaguar has the same problem so they evidentially never learnt from their mistake. These days Zool is now owned by Atari, which is really Infogrames in disguise and they haven’t done anything with the character since and that’s probably a good thing.
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Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
The game is a 1-2 player shooter where you are dumped into an arena and simply have to survive. At the end of every round you are given a choice of doors to leave through so you can choose the easiest path through to the boss and you’ll need to find this out because this title is very unforgiving, you are constantly outnumbered. But thankfully there are plenty of weapon powers ups and your success is based on collecting these and keep moving, particularly for the bosses as the first and last boss cannot killed with your conventional weapon.
Graphically the arenas look good and the only real bit of animation in the backdrops is from the door opening when an enemy enters the killing floor, but ultimately it doesn’t need to be great. It only takes a moment to realise that the arenas are regularly packed with enemy sprites swarming at you. There’s probably around 20 enemies on screen at a time and the action remains fast without any noticeable flickering and they are all animated really nicely. Well that’s not actually true, there is one moment where the game slows down and that’s on the third level boss with the two giant snakes, ironically it actually helps the game play as it makes it easier to dodge the projectiles. The huge bosses also look great on the ST however, the developers did a great job here.
I wish they kept the speech though, who didn’t like it when the presenter said the Robocop line ‘I’d buy that for a dollar’. The ST could handle speech so, I’m guessing that it was down to disk space.
Control wise you have to use the joystick and the simple idea is to just move and shoot and keep running into the limited space in the arena whilst picking up as many weapon power ups as you can. Now you can play this on one joystick, however I would not recommend it as you can’t control the direction of your gun. This is important because a lot of the time you will need to shoot enemies behind you whilst you are running for your life. Thankfully the devs added the ability to play with two joysticks and in this sense it plays like a twin stick shooter with one stick handling the movement and the other handling the shooting. Let me tell you this plays wonderfully and I had no problems with the controls. The only real problem with this in that in order to play multiplayer you will need four joysticks and personally I have never had four ST joysticks.
I’ll be honest, I was very surprised on how well Smash TV has been ported to the Atari ST. Everything you would want has been kept in here, it plays great, looks great and retains the rock hard super addictive game play from the original arcade classic.
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
not terrible and I had some fun with it, but ultimately its hardly a AAA-budget game. It's a decent purchase if you are an RPG fan and can find it for cheaply. This is part 1 of 10.
Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=ZD-9keLDNMM
Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=gl5Emo2vScM
Part 3: youtube.com/watch?v=aGIfgdnirQ0
Part 4: youtube.com/watch?v=cXTz4NKksdM
Part 5: youtube.com/watch?v=8suQM2Te3Gw
Part 6: youtube.com/watch?v=c3U7xql4h1w
Part 7: youtube.com/watch?v=MExZweuKCoI
Part 8: youtube.com/watch?v=A3zGDraulWg
Part 9: youtube.com/watch?v=9XZthCtKUGc
Part 10: youtube.com/watch?v=Gojm3RFVhn8
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
The Karate Kid was released in 1986 by Microdeal and is one of the many movie cash-ins that you will littered throughout video game history. It loosely follows the movie of the same name with Daniel travelling to Okinawa in Japan and getting into a bunch of trouble with the local youths. I wouldn’t be surprised if the game started out to be something else and later on they got the Karate Kid licence and slapped it onto the cover. Asides from a few screen grabs during the special stages, there’s not really substantial to link it to the franchise. It’s a 1-2 player one on one fighting game with bonus stages after every second round - yes you do get to capture a fly with your chopsticks or smash some glass (see the film if you don't understand).
The animation is smooth and overall the game is presented with some reasonably well drawn visuals and some good music and sound to boot. The game is however very lazy in the fact that every fighter is simply a colour swap of each other, so it’s no wonder that the character animation is good – they only had one sprite to do.
However the problems start to arrive when you begin to play it. Most of your punches and kicks will go straight through your opponent. You seem to have to be very precise with your positioning, if you are too close then it becomes impossible to hit them, I have actually gone entire bouts actually failing to hit the opponent despite smacking my opponent in the face multiple times. Often when I win a bout it never seems like a measurement of my skill, it’s more of luck of whether the game will register the blow. Furthermore each enemy is virtually identical in appearance, asides from the coloured uniform and speed difference over the last, and meaning that repetition will happen quickly.
If you want a good karate game for the ST then try one of the International Karate games. The first International Karate does have some collision detection problems, but looks and plays a lot nicer despite them both being released in 1986. This is truly a terrible game and has to be one of the worst fighters ever made.
Now I have never actually beaten this game on my ST, not because of the difficulty but because my ST crashes the game on the second bonus stage. It’s the one where Daniel is trying to smash the ice, for some reason my STE just freezes up, maybe it’s trying to tell me to stop playing. I don’t know if this is like this for all copies of the Atari ST version and they never bothered to test it because they thought that no-one would ever get this far, so for the following video I decided to use a cracked version on a emulator, just so I could actually beat it. Strangely this cracked version completely skips the aforementioned bonus stage before the last fight, so maybe it is bugged, but ultimately I finished it in under five minutes, so really who cares?
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This is a 1-2 player wrestling game where you get control a team of two wrestlers as you compete in a tag team tournament, the simple idea is that you have to wear down your opponent and when they are weak enough you can pin them to the canvas for ten seconds. You can select either Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage or Brett the Hitman Hart to be in your team, although there isn’t much difference between them. Although I did notice that Hulk Hogan can throw pretty much anybody, whilst Randy Savage struggles against the heavier opponents.
In the single player mode you will eventually be forced to grapple against the likes of the Nasty Boys, Money Inc., the Natural Disasters before eventually tackling the Legion of Doom in the title decider. Disappointingly you will have to play the first three teams three separate times and asides from the characters getting slightly faster and the backdrop banner changing, there is literally no difference. You feel like you are just playing the same stage over and over again. They could have mixed up the people in the teams at very least, I know that would be sacrilege to some wrestling fans, but it would have helped keep it feel fresh.
Overall the game looks good enough, you can instantly recognise the different fighters and there’s a fair amount of animation for the different finishing moves. Unfortunately the scrolling is really jerky, but 9/10 you won’t notice it as it only happens when you exit the ring, which I seldom ever bother with. It’s only really worth doing if you want to try to exploit the 10 second count out if you’re out of the ring too long.
The game plays well enough as long as you are only willing to do the basic punch and kick moves. Yes you can do flying kicks but often they don’t land and you’re just left helpless on the ground. You can go up onto the ropes and jump down onto your opponent, however most of the time your opponent will get up long before you have a chance to actually land on him. The game does play alright I mean whenever I want to pull off a move, I can always do it, but the majority of time you will just stick to the basics such as the punch, the stomp and the pick up and throw which makes the feel very samely, especially since you are fighting the same teams over and over again.
Overall WWF European Rampage is decent at best, it gets rather repetitive what with repeating the same tag team battles three times over before getting to the final boss, and also some of the game play just needed some tweaking before releasing it.
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The story sees Damud Hellstrike, the Prince of Darkness, has stolen the legendary Golden Axe from an elderly Gilius Thunderhead, who only appears for two seconds in the game unfortunately. Damud then randomly decides to put an evil curse over all of the four protagonists. Somehow Gilius’s lightning magic frees one of the heroes from the curses and once revived the hero must set things right by lifting the curse off the others and defeat the villain with the Golden Axe.
As I previously alluded to, the character roster has completely changed here. There’s Chronos a panther-man who seems to be the quickest character if a little weak, a giant called Chronos whose slow but fast and seems to be ripping of Max from Streets of Rage, Kain Grinder who is pretty much Ax Battler from the prior games with excellent reach and being a good all-rounder and Sahra Burn who is the equivalent to Tyris Flare, complete with fire magic and a short weapon. It’s a decent line up, however I regularly prefer the two who remind me of the prior games and they actually use weapons.
You can also play as Eve, a humanoid Griffin, but only in the rather limited duel mode. Remember in the prior two games when you did the duel mode, you had to fight every enemy in the game one by one on a single life bar? Well not here, you only have to fight each playable character in a lame knock off of Street Fighter. It’s really not worth looking at.
Visually the game is good without really pushing the Mega Drive. The backdrops are really plain and lacking much animation. In odd stages there is animation such as the waterfall early on, but then you look at the later stages and there’s just a single colour for the sky. It just comes across as lazy. The character graphics are probably as good as the other two Golden Axe games for the system, they seem a little bigger and more detailed this time around.
Game play wise it plays very similarly to the other games, albeit you can no longer control how you utilise your magic – you have to use it all. There’s also the ability to block as well as throw your enemies just like Streets of Rage. Personally I don’t tend to use either of these abilities and I really hate the fact how cheaply some of the skeletons or those bloody knights will constantly block to just to stop your attacks. It’s like the characters are actually slower and weaker here and they block to get around the fact that they are less of a threat. It just comes across as annoying as you are constantly wailing on the bad guys until eventually it lets you register the hit. Overall the game just feels a lot slower, remember in the last game when you got half a screen away, the enemy will run right at you? Well it sometimes happens here, but no-where near as much. It’s more than often they will just walk up to you one by one.
Personally this is my least favourite of the Mega Drive trilogy of Golden Axe games. I like the multi paths through the game, but the weak enemy AI and uninspiring levels do let it down. It’s still good, it’s not exactly a 16-bit classic.
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The third Garfield game for the ST was a public domain release, I'm pretty sure that Jim Davis would not have allowed this. It was an Operation Wolf style shooter released in 1992 by David Brankin, which sees Aliens impersonating that orange cat. I really not sure why he made a shooter, maybe he doesn’t like Garfield, I personally like the comics and I used to watch the Garfield and Friends series from the early 90’s.
The game is a simple shooter where you use the mouse to kill all the enemies in the stage within the time limit. But without a light gun which the ST doesn’t have, you are forced to use the mouse and these types of games tend to struggle game play wise because of this.
It’s also very repetitive with some annoying and loud sound effects and the Terminator theme tends to repeat throughout. Normally I like the Terminator theme, but not on a constant repeat. It also doesn’t help that it is noticeable that the music stops and starts every time you fire your gun. US Gold’s Street Fighter 2 does exactly the same thing and it really bugs me when you notice it.
Graphically the game looks aright, with the sprites of Garfield being the best thing to look at. But there is very little animation and what’s there is somewhat choppy and the backdrops are dull. I’m not sure why the game requires an STE, it might be to have extra colours on screen, but it is debateable whether it was needed.
Operation Garfield is not a good game, just play Operation Wolf instead. I’m not sure who this is aimed at, it doesn’t satisfy Garfield fan and it’s so repetitive as a shooter that it will bore you before the 2nd level is complete.
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Now I will admit that I am not the best at this genre, but nevertheless here is my full play through of KOF 2002. This is actually my first time playing the game, hence why I struggled to pull off the special moves and really sucked at that last boss.
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Lemmings is a puzzle game which sees a bunch of green haired creatures dropping from a magical door and it’s your job to get them to the destination door. Now these lemmings are completely dumb and unlike their real life counterparts they will walk off the edge of a cliff if you’re not careful. Now to get around this you have to give your lemmings specific roles from the menu at the bottom which can be anything from wall-climbing, parachuting, blocker, bridge builder, basher, miner or straight down tunneller. Barring all of that you can simply just blow up your all your followers, you won’t win the level but it is strangely satisfying to see them all explode in a comical way.
You will probably be playing this in single player, but there is a cool split screen 2 player mode which sees each player having a different colour of lemming, again having to get them to the exit. One player uses the mouse, whilst the other uses the joystick. You each get your own side of the screen and you can simply sabotage your opponent over 20 stages. I do remember playing this when I was younger, whilst I did enjoy the multiplayer, single player is so much better for puzzle games.
The game is so easy to pick up and play and strangely addictive. There are four different difficulty settings which each have a different set of levels so can gradually ease you into the game play. I believe in all there are 120 levels, but don’t quote me on that, I may be wrong, overall it will take you a long time to beat this one, so it is well worth the price.
Although I love playing lemmings, even more so that the sequel, which is probably a better game. I would say though that if you were going to buy any version of this game I would suggest buying ‘Oh No More Lemmings’ which is a standalone expansion pack for this game containing all of the levels found here plus around 100 more.
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The plot refers of Taz’s dad telling a tale about a place called the lost valley and an enormous bird which lays giant eggs. Realising that he could make a huge omelette to feed his insatiable hunger, Taz decides to set out in search for the lost seabirds.
Taz-Mania is a side scrolling 2D platformer which sees you playing as Taz as you try to get to the end of the level by avoiding enemies and getting around the various Australian pitfalls. There are five stages in all split into two levels and a boss round. It’s fairly standard platforming stuff so far.
Visually the game has the same colour palette which the TV series had. Taz is instantly recognisable and has a large amount of animation such as when he picks up a health icon or bomb by eating it. Overall it looks very nice and doesn’t have any problems with slowdown or glitching that I noticed. The music is alright, but there aren’t as many tunes that there probably should be as a few of the tracks do repeat.
Control wise you get a jump button and an attack button. The biggest problem comes with Taz’s standard spinning attack, because you are always moving when you attack, you can often just drop off the edge of a platform to your death. A whole bunch of the enemies are at the edge of a cliff, so often the best strategy is to take a hit from an enemy and slow attack them. Don’t worry there’s plenty of health pickups so it’s never really a problem, unless you start eating the bombs. Yes there are bombs lying on the ground in each of the levels, and unfortunately Taz will instantly eat them if you are near enough to them. The only way to get past them safely is to spin attack them off the screen, but even then you are at risk of flying off the edge. The more you play it, the more you get used to the controls, so you can adapt to it.
I remember borrowing this game as a kid and I got stuck on the very last level and playing it all these years later, it was the only level that I was remotely stuck on and that was simply because all of the water hazards which will result in an instant death, because Taz can’t swim. The bosses are relatively simple, just memorize the pattern and attack them whenever there’s an opening.
Overall Taz-Mania is a good platformer and is relatively cheap to purchase. I do recommend playing it despite the obvious problems with the attack.
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The game sees the small blue engine Thomas the Tank Engine having a heated argument with Gordon who is saying that he is the fastest engine. The Fat Controller then probably sensing an opportunity for some illegal betting and to avoid the brutal engine on engine fight that would ensue, decides to hold a contest to decide the fastest once and for all. No doubt this would cause massive delays to the passengers trying to get home – but hey as long as these engines can have a smug sense of superiority over each over then all’s well that ends well.
The title is a 1-2 player racing game which allows you to play as either Thomas, Percy, Gordon, Bill, Ben, Toby, James or Bertie the Bus as they try to reach the end of four different courses in the fastest possible time. The game is presented in a split screen mode with the other screen being the rival that you are racing against. Being a train you are restricted to the rails which means that you have to be careful on which line you are using as there other trains (or vehicles if you are Bertie) in your path, so it is sometimes necessary to wait for something to get out of the way. It is also necessary to refuel as there’s not usually enough in the tank to reach it to the end of the stage.
The game looks harmless enough with Thomas and his friends being easily recognisable from their TV show originals. All in all the developers have done a good job here with the animation fluid and there being a reasonable amount of detail in the stage – it certainly never looks like they are simply copying and pasting the backdrops over and over.
Control wise you use the joystick by pointing left and right to move the vehicle. Now regardless whether you are driving on the road as Bertie or as one of the trains, you are restricted on where you can go. You are forced to go left or right until you reach a junction at which point you can switch the rails. This of course is necessary because there are other trains, damaged tracks and general stuff on the line which will slow you down and you will need to be careful of if you want to beat the harder level.
Overall Thomas 2 is a simple, but harmless game that really doesn’t do anything majorly wrong, but it is something that is easily forgettable. It’s a very average racer.
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This is probably the best port of the game offering both a full arcade game with four different tracks and an additional original mode, which allows players to recruit sponsors, earn money and buy new parts for their bike. Overall it’s a fun single player arcade game with a very simple objective of just getting to the end of the road before the timer runs out. It’s well worth playing for a quick five minute spells, but it won’t necessarily keep your hold for hours on end. However saying that it can be very difficult, often if you hit a roadside object, then it is very unlikely that you will make it to the next checkpoint let alone complete the course. You really have to be on the point or you’ll never get to the end.
It’s not the best motorbiking game on the Mega Drive, see Road Rash 2 for that honour with better visuals, game play and a two player mode. But it is a cheap game to obtain and very well put together.
FYI - Im aware that I didn't actually end up playing the expert mode even though I said I would.
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The game itself is an overhead racer that can be played with 1-2 players with the multi-player being played in split screen which is very nice to see at least attempted on the Atari ST. The objective is very simple – just get to the end of the race as the winner. There’s no championship or anything, it’s just a series of single races. There are a number of different settings in the options which can alter the game experience such as disabling hazards such as oil slips in the road, disabling the awful sound effects, changing the car colour and disabling the collision which I will come back to later as to why this is important.
It’s also worth noting that the game has its own track editor, it’s fairly basic, but at least it has one and does extend the lifespan of the game a little bit.
Visually you can tell the game was made by one person. I know that the ST only allows for up to 16 colours on screen at any one time, but I swear that this one only uses about six, it looks pretty bland. Plus the car sprites themselves look rather blocky and pixelated. There’s also not a lot of variety in the track designs, however I expect that this was due to the size limitations of being forced to push the game out onto a cover disk.
Game play wise the joystick is clearly what the game is designed for despite the other options available. Whilst the controls do work fine my major complaints come with the collision detection, when you hit something you bounce off it creating a bit of a pinball effect. Worse is when you try to pass one of the rival cars and you continually bump into each other, which happens quite a bit given the fact that the tracks are pretty tight. Quite often I turn off the car collisions just so I don’t have to deal with this frustration. Although this makes the game ridiculously easy because the computer AI is also pretty dumb. Car 3 moves around at a snail’s pace and regularly bashes into corner – I have regularly seen this car struggle to make it around the simplest of courses. Car 2 is a little faster, but as long as you don’t crash too much you are almost guaranteed to win.
I’m not going to be too critical with this title because it was free and was a small game that was used to fill up a cover disk. Having said that is it still worth playing? Not really. Especially when you could be playing similar overhead racers such as Super Sprint, Jupiter’s Masterdrive, Power Up Plus and Super Cars on the Atari ST which offer more content, better graphics, more challenge and a better experience.
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It’s a one to four player, albeit turn based game that is essentially a collection of 5 mini games, and no I do not consider the Opening Ceremony an event worth talking about here because it is pretty just a short five second animation. The events include:
Downhill: This one sees you racing down the slopes dodging trees and getting to the end in the fastest possible time. Now it looks like here that you should be looking at the top of the screen, in actuality you should be focusing on the small window in the bottom right hand corner which gives you a first person view and better visibility simply because your character actually gets in the way of the normal viewing window. Once you get used to the smaller window this mode is fairy fun and it does control very well.
Ski Jump: See you having to preform tricks as you slide down the ski ramp. Now I remember playing this as a kid and nine times out of ten I would regularly never be able to actually get the skis straight in order to land the character safely. I fact a lot of the time, I would be lucky if anything happens. In the rare occasion that I do manage to land the skier I actually find out that crashing in style renders more points, so often I just crash for the heck of it. Unfortunately after all this time, not a lot has changed in my performance, I’m pretty sure that the controls are dodgy here, I have no idea how this mode works and therefore it’s my least favourite.
Biathlon: This one sees you jaggling the joystick backwards and forwards slowly to move the skier with every now and again you be forced shoot some targets in the distance, missing any of them causes extra time to be added to your score. Overall this mode has some nice visuals and is great fun to play.
Slalom: This one has the same issue that I had with Wave Race on the Gamecube, I used to hate going left and right between the posts as my brain would regularly forget which way to go, penalising me massively. The same goes for the isometric action here, it plays well enough, it controls well with the joystick, but if I miss one flag, then I’m pretty screwed on the rest as I won’t be able to get my rhythm back. When I was a kid I would regular just mash the fire button to make the skier move fast without giving too much care for the number of faults that the game would give me.
Bobsled: Finally we get to my favourite mode, the high speed Bobsled. Here you travel down a half pipe hurtling at dangerous speeds trying to get the fastest time. It plays great with the joystick with the simple logic of left and right to move and the fire button to slow down; which you have to do as little as possible to shave that crucial half a second off your score.
Overall Winter Olympics 88 is a fun sports title that if I was going to make a compliant I probably would have liked some AI competitors because unless you have a few friends around to play the Atari, it is fairly lonesome in single player asides from trying to beat your own score. But the Ski-Jump aside it is well worth playing for a ten minute spell, it’s far from the longest title in the world, but is well produced for what it is.
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Normally I go through the good and bad points of the game, but this time I am going to tell you straight away, this title is terrible and a complete disgrace of one of my favourite genres. So let me go through what I find so dreadful.
1) Level Design. Each level you only go from left to right. There’s no raised platforms, or any reason to jump and no background objects to interact with. The reason why you have these elements in these types of games is to vary up the experience from beating up the same enemies over and over again. For instance the bottomless pits in Golden Axe, the falling chandeliers in Final Fight, the cannon balls falling down the stairs in Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game and the spike traps and spears in the last level of Double Dragon. Essentially it forces you to change your tactics, but in this game, because of this level one is the same as level nine in structure.
2) Reusing Assets - It’s also worth mentioning that level 1’s backdrops repeats four times in only nine levels – how lazy can you get? I actually thought the game was looping when I first played it. Additionally the standard enemy designs are repeated over and over, now this normally happens in this genre, Ninja Turtles uses the same foot soldier sprite that is recoloured. The difference here is that whereas Komami did reuse the same sprite, each different colour of foot soldier has a different attack pattern. All the enemies in Wild Street act exactly the same and can be dispatched in exactly the same way. In later levels they change from dying after two hits to four hits, but it just makes the more annoying when you include the next point.
3) No attack patterns – In scrolling fighters the designers decide which enemies to appear at which point in a level. Here they appear randomly and will continually respawn unless you keep moving. This is insanely annoying in level 8, 9 where if you are too slow you can actually find yourself being pushed backwards because the enemies appear before you have had a chance to kill one.
4) Lazy Bosses – The bosses do have a slightly different attack pattern but they do just have a habit of running at you and trapping you in a corner. It’s always fun when the enemies on the edge of the screen and you can’t move without getting hit. Unfortunately this happens a lot in the game, until you realise that the bosses are insanely easy. Just save your gun until the boss screen and use all your bullets on him. It seems to work much better than using your fists.
5) No multiplayer – There are two hero sprites on screen at any one time in the panther and the man. Unfortunately you have no control over the panther, he just attacks whenever he feels like it. Which is really disappointing in that he dominates the box cover. Worse halfway through the game, the cat disappears, never to be seen again and you are forced to bodyguard the Chief of Intelligence through the levels in reverse and he doesn’t do anything to help.
6) Programmers Wanted – I’m not sure if this was a joke or a cry for help, I want to say that it is the second one. Because someone should have stepped in here.
7) Run Away – If you ever want to finish this game and you really shouldn’t be thinking about such things, try not to actually attack the enemies, especially if they are behind you. Just walk away, they will never catch up. It’s such a chore to actually attack someone and I’ve noticed that if you are too fast then attacks can actually go right through them, you have to slow down your rhythm just go get over the dodgy hit boxes.
Titus didn’t have a great record of making games and although this isn’t their worst game, it’s still pretty bad and I personally would not recommend playing it on any system, let alone this Atari ST version. It’s lazy, boring and the ending like all bad games is a complete waste of time, which just like this game is not a good thing.
Now this recording is one I previously did from about a month ago. Unfortunately when I went to go and cut it I realised that I missed recording about half of level 1. Rather that play the whole crappy game again I have stuck two playthroughs together, one of level 1 and the second playthrough of levels 2-9, so that’s why the score suddenly jumps between levels.
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Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Golden Axe 2 was a Sega Mega Drive exclusive that was produced by Sega, released in 1991 in Japan, with the rest of the world getting it in 1992. Yuria is once again being attacked by the forces of evil, with this time the evil wizard Dark Guld leading the charge and the old heroes from the last game deciding to journey again to stop the forces of evil.
The game itself presents itself very similarly to the last game with it being a scrolling beat em up with you once against playing as either the barbarian Ax Battler who is a good all-rounder, the amazon Tyris Flare who’s strong as magic and Gilius Thunderhead who is strongest at melee, but has weakest magic. This action continues for six stages using sword swipes, your magic (this time dropped by mages) and various creatures which act as transport. Although unlike the last game which had the fire breathing dragons and chicken head creatures, the designs they have here are a little larger and a little harder to actually hit the enemy, they are not completely useless unlike Golden Axe 3’s equivalents, but certainly aren’t as essential this time around.
Thankfully the beginner mode has disappeared, because let’s be honest it was far too easy and rather pointless, but the duel mode makes a nice return pitting you in a straight one-on-one fight with all the enemies in the game.
Overall the game looks like nice with some cool effects like the heat and lava effects in level 4 and the tied up villagers in the beginning. My only complaint about the backdrops is that there isn’t as much animation as what you would see in something like Streets of Rage. It looks nice, but it would be better if the water effects were moving, or even if they added parallax scrolling to the sky on level 3. The character redesigns are pretty cool , I definitely like the focus on more mythical creatures such as Minotaurs, Lizard Men and Headless knights just to make it stand out that little bit more. The musical score is top notch and is well worth listening to and contains some of my favourite of the series.
Gameplay wise it is pretty much exactly the same as the previous game, which is no bad thing considering how well it played. One new optional enhancement is the ability to not use all of your magic at once, which is useful to have if you need to get past a particularly troublesome normal enemy such as the fast and deadly skeletons, but don't want to be completely defenceless when you come up against the end of level boss. Overall the controls work a little bit better in this iteration over the GA1 with improvements to the hit boxes and being able to control the lunge on the big running jump attack. The enemy AI has improved a little bit, however you can still convince enemies to drop off of endless pits to their doom because they are so intent on being the same horizontal level with you.
I would probably say though that the game is a little easier and shorter than the original, however if anything I actually prefer replaying Golden Axe 2 over its predecessor, It's a fun action brawler that really should be in everyone's 16-bit collection.
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Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr


