Games #58-73

#58: Parlour Games – Sega Master System.  The pool game is okay.  I couldn’t even hit the board in the darts game.  And a bingo video game?  Seriously?

#59: World Grand Prix – Sega Master System.  Have you played Pole Position?  Because this game is Pole Position.  Even the first track is the one from Pole Position ((Apparently it’s the Fuji Speedway in Japan, but still.  If you’re going to make a Pole Position clone, try to be a touch less obvious.)).  Don’t get me wrong, I like Pole Position, and this is a great imitator.  If you like Pole Position and want the same gameplay with different tracks, give this one a shot.

#60: Enduro Racer – Sega Master System.  This is like a cross-country Excitebike.  Just avoid the ramps or they’ll slow you down.  Unless they’re a ramp over a swamp.  Of course, you can’t see whether it’s a ramp over a swamp until you pass the ramp, so good luck.

#61: Double Dragon – Sega Master System.  Double Dragon is a lot like Double Dragon.  I’m forced to describe the game recursively because Double Dragon is the prime example of a button mashing street brawler.  I can’t say “It’s a lot like TMNT: The Arcade Game or Golden Axe”, because I’d say they’re a lot like Double Dragon if I were explaining them.  Anyway, I don’t like Double Dragon or the whole button mashing street brawler genre.  Punch punch punch punch kick punch throw punch kick pick-up-weapon accidentally-throw-weapon-in-the-wrong-direction punch punch kick jump-kick punch…  And that’s still fighting the first enemy on the first screen.

#62: Zillion II: The Tri-Formation – Sega Master System.  When the blurb on the box talks about “Bottomless Pits” as being one of the many dangers you’ll face, that should tell you something.  Oh, and what’s even better is that they’ve reversed the “Jump” and “Shoot” buttons, so they’re the opposite of EVERY OTHER GAME EVER MADE.  Which means attempting to jump over one of those bottomless pits usually means you end up shooting the opposite wall of the pit as you fall in.

#63: Paperboy – Sega Master System.  It’s Paperboy.  So why is it playing the music from Moon Patrol?  Actually, it’s only half of the music from Moon Patrol.  WTF?

#64: Columns  – Sega Master System.  Columns is sort of like Tetris, but not.  You’ve probably played it in some form or other.  Instead of having blocks you can rotate, you have a column of three colored crystals you can cycle.  The object is to get three or more of the same color in a row.  I think this game was the source for most of the “Jewel Drop” type games out there today.

#65: Thunder Blade – Sega Master System.  This game is half vertical shooter, half 3D Death Star Trench Run.  The 3D effect isn’t all that bad for the SMS, but sometimes your helicopter gets in the way.

#66: Ghostbusters – Sega Master System.  The C64 had speech synthesis.  Where’s my speech synthesis?  Sure, this one has better graphics and multiple ghost types, I still want to hear “He slimed me!”  Strangely, the main baddie in this game is “Gorza”.  I guess Gozer was taking a personal day or something.

#67: Time Soldiers – Sega Master System.  This game is what happens when Ikari Warriors becomes unstuck from time.  I remember liking this game in the arcade, because the arcade had  one of those rotational sticks for controlling the direction of firing, and it also had horizontal and vertical paths.  The SMS version doesn’t have either.  Instead, you end up jumping randomly between timezones.  I was told that I was going to the Primitive Age, yet I ended up in WWII.  Then, when I ended up in the Primitive Age (Complete with cavemen and fire spitting dinosaurs), I went about ten feet and was transported to the Roman era.  Weird.  There’s probably a pattern to it, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

#68: Shadow Dancer – Sega Genesis.  A Shinobi game.  With a dog.  I kept getting killed on the first level.

#69: Dragon’s Fury – Sega Genesis.  A bit of a cross between a pinball game and a fantasy themed vertical shooter.  Orcs and wizards and things come out of some of the holes scattered around the pinball table, and you can kill them with the pinball.  The table has multiple levels, and I saw two separate bonus tables in the short amount of time I played.

#70: Last Battle – Sega Genesis.  This game is as generic as the cover art indicates.  The first level had spear-bearing ninjas randomly appearing and falling out of the sky or rising out of the ground like the undead.  A single punch or kick sends them flying off screen.  At some point, the main character’s bulging pecs caused his shirt to rip off, just like the Incredible Hulk.  Then I met up with some green thing in a Roman Colosseum which beat me down and I died.  Game over.  One life, no continues.

#71: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? – Sega Genesis.  She sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina, she’s a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize.  She’ll take you for a ride on a slow boat to China.  Tell me, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?  This game is a pure classic.  And now I have that song stuck in your head and you’re welcome.

#72: Super Thunder Blade – Sega Genesis.  The 3D sections of this game are a disgrace to the word “Super”.  I think they looked better on the C64 version of Thunder Blade.

#73: Beyond Oasis – Sega Genesis.  I was having fun with this Zelda-style adventure RPG until I got killed by some lobster-spider hybrid boss.  I don’t think I even scratched it before it stomped all over me.  Still, I might give it a second chance.  I just wish the character moved a little bit faster and more fluidly.

And so ends this video game bender weekend…