Day 25: Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX (GBC)

I'm playing one title from my 620 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. Today's selection is...

Mat Hoffman Pro BMX for Game Boy color

Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Four in row for handhelds now. We went from GBA all the way back to Game Gear, then Lynx, and now we're heading forward a bit from there with the Game Boy Color to explore the turn-of-the-century extreme sports scene.

There were so many of these games in the late nineties and early 21st century. Tony Hawk's Pro Skateboarding was such a huge success that it created a crossover audience that grew and grew. People into extreme sports started getting into video games and people who were into video games started to follow extreme sports. As a result there were skateboarding, roller-blading, and BMXing games everywhere you looked.

As a direct expansion to the Tony Hawk goldmine, Acclaim came up with this Mat Hoffman license for the Playstation and plugged his BMX directly into the Tony Hawk game engine. Anyone could see it was Tony Hawk with a bike but it was a fun game so it did pretty well.

Despite having a decent Tony Hawk game for the GBC that could have been similarly reskinned, a different route was taken with Mat Hoffman. In 2000, Acclaim had published a little known game called Road Champs BXS. With no big name to sell it and middling reviews it wasn't much of a success, so a year later it was this game that was given Tony Hawk style challenge goals, a few other negligible tweaks, slapped with the Hoffman branding, and sent out into the world.

The most criticised aspect of BXS was its 27 tutorial stages that needed to be completed before you could get anywhere on a real stage. Hoffman still has these training levels but thankfully they are all optional. However, with two buttons and more than 50 tricks on offer you'll definitely want to give at least a few of them a look.

The levels are comprised of quarter-pipes, spines, funboxes, and rails. Unlike the free-roaming nature of these games on more powerful consoles, here everything is presented isometrically and traversed left to right (or vice versa). You can also move up and down the screen as long as you're on certain equipment, and this allows the levels to take on a degree of exploration. Key to this is the fact that you can't transition from a quarter-pipe; the designers have used them to section off zones so that an alternative route must be found to get to areas beyond them.

It's all pretty smart stuff. The animation is incredibly clear considering the sprite size and the layouts ensure that finding all the Stars or all the letters of 'T-R-I-C-K' (as you are regularly required to do) is never as easy as you might imagine for a game that operates more or less on a 2D plane. 
I did a little research to see if any variety is introduced in later levels and, worryingly, it doesn't seem that there is. I had fun with the game for a while but I can't see that fun lasting for 26 very similar levels.

One last point of note is that for some reason the game didn't look too great plugged into my GBA SP. If you're going to give it a play then I suggest a GBC and good light source will make the game far more attractive. Just don't ask me why.

Mat Hoffman Pro BMX (GBC) - Surprisingly complex but all the better for it.

Day 24: Hydra (Lynx)

I'm playing one title from my 620 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. Today's selection is...

Hydra for the Atari Lynx

Previous days' entries can be read HERE

The random selector is smiling on me today. I adore the Atari Lynx; it's a beautiful beast of a thing and it's small catalogue has a ridiculously high ratio of really good games. It's always an absolute joy to find a reason to fill it with 6 AAs and get playing!

As I write this we in the UK have just started our fourth week of what was originally supposed to be a 3 week lockdown (although, to be fair, no-one actually believed it would be that short). Given the types of storylines videogames lean towards I'm surprised that a plot foreshadowing current events hasn't come up in one of the 23 previous days. But fear not, Hydra, a simple arcade game about a heavily armed flying boat is here to put that right. Each level sees our be-mulleted hero taking on swarms of enemies as he races to deliver sensitive packages to a couple of bikini clad girls who live in a shack on the river (obviously). The contents of the very first package: Mutated Virus! Spooky, right?

One of the things I love about the Lynx is the quality of it's coin-op conversions. It's incredible that a handheld unit in 1992 was able to create the feel of these arcade games so accurately. Granted the games chosen were on the simpler side, but there's no denying that the Lynx ports of A.P.B., Xenophobe, S.T.U.N. Runner, Rampage, and the like are among the best out there. The most accurate of them all was probably Roadblasters, the game that I fondly remember being tucked down by the counter at Mr Pool in Bedford for years on end was brought to the Lynx in almost arcade-perfect condition. 

I mention this because Hydra, a far less well known game, is both another very accurate Lynx arcade port and basically Roadblasters on water. The reliance on fuel, the temporary power-ups, the on track orbs. All present and correct.
Hydra does add a couple of tweaks of its own. There's a shop between levels where the aforementioned power-ups can be purchased along with extra fuel. There are bonus levels after each stage too, taking place in an enormous geodesic dome, and, finally, there's Hydra's big gimmick: As well as attacking enemies on the water you can launch into the air to grab cash balloons and attack helicopters and other flying enemies before gliding safely back to the river - it may not sound like much, but it does add an extra little dimension to the gameplay.

Despite these, not insignificant, additions to the Roadblasters formula, Hydra is never quite as fun as it's obvious inspiration. It's absolutely worth playing for fans of this kind of arcade immediacy and as you can pick up boxed copies for about £15 it's more than worth than worthy of a place in your Lynx library.

Hydra (Lynx) - Roadblasters with a flying boat. Why wouldn't you want that?

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 23: Space Harrier 4-way Showdown

I'm playing one title from my 624 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. Today's selection...

Space Harrier for Game Gear / C64 / Amiga / PS2 

Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Yes it's four-for-one time! Obviously only one of these versions was spat out by the random game selector but when I realised I had so many unplayed ports of Space Harrier I thought this would be a fun way to bulk up what would otherwise be a pretty short piece.

I own six different versions of Space Harrier so as you might guess I'm a bit of a fan. It was one of those arcade machines that you just had to play whenever you saw it. Everything about was amazing. The sound, the music, the setting, and obviously the hydraulic chair. It holds a special place in my heart and I guess that's why I just can't see a copy and not buy it - even though I know very well that the vast majority of these ports are pretty shoddy (which is probably why I haven't played any of them yet).
Talking of shoddy...

C64 Version
For some reason there are two versions of Space Harrier on the C64. The first was ported in house by Sega and the second was released a year later by Elite.
They can be told apart by the fact that one is terrible and the other is really terrible. Guess which I own?
The graphics are actually decent - or at least they would be if the game was a screenshot. The animations are rubbish and the controls are jerky to the point of unusability.

Game Gear Version
Absolutely this should not work. With the Game Gear's tiny screen and limited capabilities this should be a disaster. It isn't though, as you probably guessed, it's actually a very playable kind of 'edited' version of the game. Possibly sacrilige to purists but I'd rather they make a Space Harrier game that's fun to play than one that is more arcade accurate but not enjoyable. 
It runs pretty quick, the graphics are big and colourful without clogging up the screen and music is really nice too. Best of all the game has password save, who doesn't long for that in every arcade conversion? Worth noting that, like most handheld games, this looks much nicer on the real screen than it does on an emulator.

Amiga Version
In a word, disappointing. Maybe I expected too much but even after a couple of minutes with the game I thought I was on to a winner. Sadly the issues soon started to come thick and fast. The game sounds like it's playing on a single channel with sound effects eliminating most of the music, for some reason you're not allowed to move around the whole of the screen and, most annoying of all, the enemy fire is tiny so you often can't see that you're about to die because your own body is in the way.
Frustrating doesn't begin to cover it.

PS2 Version
No. Just no. It's like the devil ate Space Harrier and this is what he shat out. This is part of a compilation that takes 8 classic Sega titles and re-invents them with (and I quote): 'enhanced graphics and sound for a superior experience'. No.
This is the only game on the disc I've played. Judging by this I don't think I can bear to see what they've done to OutRun. If the horrible EDM music and hideous rendered graphics weren't bad enough, the game is just so damn slow; it's as if they wanted to extend the torture.

Space Harrier 4-way Fight, the winner is: 

The Sega Game Gear, and it's not even close.

I'm off to play the 3DS version to cleanse my soul.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 22: The Scorpion King: The Sword of Osiris (GBA)

I'm playing one title from my 625 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. The selection for today is...

The Scorpion King: The Sword of Osiris on GBA

Previous entries can be found HERE


There's a commonly held belief among video game fans that licensed games, particularly those based on films, are intrinsically bad. There's decades of evidence to back this up of course, but as far back into gaming history as bad movie tie-ins go, so too go the exceptions to this rule.

Due to its limited power (compared to everything else around it) every cross-platform game for the GBA had to be made from the ground up for the hardware and this resulted in a lot of 'de-makes' - games that elsewhere embraced the power of 6th generation hardware were given GBA versions that looked very much like something from the SNES or Mega Drive era. 

For the 2007 TNMT CGI movie the big boys were given a horrible, generic action platforming mess of a game while the GBA received one of the best side-scrolling beat-em-ups anyone had seen for years. It was a similar case with Ghost Rider. The Nicolas Cage movie vehicle may have been poor, but the home console tie-in games were even worse, while the GBA had a cool little 2D action effort with shades of Castlevania.

Which is all ground-work so that you believe me when I say that this Scorpion King game on the little GBA, that can be picked up online for about three quid, is really, really good.

The 'Sword of Osiris' subtitle is indication that the game actually serves as a sequel to the Scorpion King movie. You start in control of the Kelly Hu character, Cassandra, but early on you'll face an unwinnable boss battle and the avatar switches to that representing Mathayus, the character portrayed in the movie by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson - and just like that we're right back to 'rescue the damsel in distress' territory (but more on that later). As you would expect from Wayforward the sprites, despite being fairly small, are well drawn and beautifully animated. And while some of the games backgrounds can be a little nondescript the worst thing that can be said about the visuals is that when it uses still headshots from the movie to illustrate which character is talking it looks cheap and clashes with the style of the game, but as biggest issues go, that's a pretty small one.

The game is ostensibly a side scrolling action platformer. You spend the first true section heading from left to right killing things in time honoured fashioned. However, there are a couple of SNES era tropes to keep things interesting. We have the good old 'keep jumping to stay out quicksand' gambit and a nice screen effect to represent walking into a strong wind. When you hit the second section things start to build upon this solid start. While the representation of the levels remains pretty basic, structurally they begin to open up and offer alternate routes. Enemies too evolve and start to exhibit patterns to be avoided and exploited, and there are secret routes and rooms everywhere.

Basic combat is enhanced by a choice of two weapons, one strong but direct, the other weak but a bit more versatile - both can be enhanced by collecting gems for the infinity gauntlet style glove you are given at the start of the game. There is nothing outstanding about the game in this area but it works well. It's really the exploration that sets Scorpion King apart from other games of this type, and this excels through a nicely implemented wall jump that enables traversal to otherwise unreachable areas.

The positives on offer make this an attractive proposition all by themselves but the game has one last trick up its sleeve. Once complete, you can start the game again and this time control Cassandra as she rescues Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's Mathayus. Cassandra has different abilities so this second playthrough offers variety alongside the extra challenge. Better still, the game uses old fashioned password saves, so if you just want to skip the first playthrough and start with Cassandra the codes can easily be found online.

The Scorpion King: The Sword of Osiris (GBA) - Another licensed winner for this handheld

Previous entries can be found HERE

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 21: Prince of Persia (Mega Drive)

I'm playing one title from my 627 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. 
Previous entries can be found HERE, but today's random selection is...

Prince of Persia on the Mega Drive

Before I downloaded Transpose yesterday (it was free on SteamVR at the weekend and looks ace) this was actually the game that had been in my backlog for the shortest amount of time. 

It was a thank you gift I received just earlier this week, and with this undertaking every day and playing Pyre and Ape Out quite a lot, poor PoP hadn't got a look in.

This is a game I played a lot back in the day. Although I have neither in my collection today I'm almost certain I played and completed both the Gameboy and SNES versions. Interestingly I discovered whilst researching the game that every version of it after the Apple II original had to be re-written from the ground up. Jordan Mechner was only involved in the original, the sequel, and the 1999 masterpiece 'The Sands of Time'. Every other port, sequel, and spin-off (of which there are literally dozens) was handled in isolation by third parties.

By the time the Mega Drive version arrived in 1993 it was pretty late to the party. This was 4 years after the Apple II original and a year after every other port to 4th and 5th generation hardware (including the Sega's own Master System and Game Gear). 1993 was the same year that the sequel arrived on other systems, a year after Flashback had arrived a knocked this concept into space, and only 3 years before Tomb Raider came along re-wrote the book on this kind of thing entirely. As a result this version was yesterday's news and it did not review or sell particularly well.

Anyone who plays a lot of retro games will know that you never continue on the first level of a game. You're basically wasting that 'continue' because you're starting from the beginning away. So, whatever the game, don't continue, go back to the main menu and start again. 
With PoP you have a 60 minute countdown timer running so it's time you'd be wasting rather than continues - but it's still relevant, and on the Mega Drive there's extra step to this process. 
After you've died on the first level for the first time, head back to main menu and, before you start a new game, change the sounds option from 'Music and SFX' to 'SFX Only' - because it seems the developers used their extra time incubating this version to compose the most irritating music ever conceived! I think I'd rather have Baby Mario screeching in my ear for an hour.

Other than that this is Prince of Persia as I know and love it. I've seen the Domark ports (they handled all Sega machines and the Amiga version) criticised around the internet but I'm struggling to see why. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had this running side-by-side with the SNES version but I didn't, and neither will the vast majority of other people who play it.
I have to say though, and this is very much a matter of personal taste, but I think the earlier versions of game have aged with more style. The Apple II version may have limited detail but this somehow makes the rotoscoped art look even more fluid in action.

The weird thing now is that I find myself in exactly the same position as the original reviewers of this game back in '93. The overwhelming consensus back then was that Prince of Persia on the Mega Drive was only really worth your time if you hadn't already played it on other systems - and it's as much true now as it was then.
If you only have a Mega Drive/Genesis, or maybe the Mini Classic version thereof, then absolutely you should have Prince of Persia in your library. Other than that, this version's appeal will rest on how keen you are to play different versions of this classic title.

Prince of Persia (Mega Drive) - Better than I was expecting and, with the above caveats, recommended.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 20: Ape Out (PC/Switch)

I'm playing one title from my 626 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. 

Previous days games can be found here. Today's game is...

Ape Out on PC/Switch

Oh. My. Goodness. I actually have chills.
This game is PHENOMENAL!

Here's what happened:
I played the first set of levels. I took a breath to write this and to buy this game on my Switch because I got it on PC for free and because jesus christ do these guys ever deserve my money.

And now I'm going back to play some more.

Right. Start again.

I love video games. When video games are done properly and the player feels like they are the final component in someone else's work of art... There is nothing else like it.

It's games like Ape Out that make me wish I were a better writer. I don't think there is any way I can properly convey the excitement, the thrill, the pure joy of playing this game. It's an expertly crafted thing. Ostensibly a top down brawler with a style not unlike Teleglitch; the columns and walls of the architecture reaching up infinitely to provide a stylish way to bring line-of-sight
into play. 

The art design is very Saul Bass (if you're not familiar with the name then I'm sure you'll recognise the style) and the music. My god the music. If I were to describe it as 'Percussive Jazz' I'm sure half of you would stop reading but as recogniseable descriptors go it's the best I can do. It accompanies the action so perfectly that it becomes a rhythm game - not overtly so - more in the manor that you can't help but become part of it.

Sound effects add additional percussion literally and conceptually. But I need to take a step back to explain that properly.

You are an ape. You start the game in a cage surrounded by your dead brethren and a guard, and there are two instructions emblazoned on the floor: Left Stick. Right Trigger. I'll spare you what happens immediately after this because it's a beautiful thing to be experienced for yourself - but I pretty much knew after 30 seconds that I was going to love this game.

The game is split into four sets of levels, called albums in keeping with the jazz motif, with each level being a track thereon. In the first of these 'albums' you thunder through a facility of some kind punching armed guards into walls, windows, each other, where they are eviscerated into a pool of blood and loose limbs accompanied by a cymbal clash or a bass drum thump.
Not long into the game another mechanic is revealed. Left Stick Grab. Right stick Aim. From this point you can get hold of an enemy 'human shield' style, in panic they will fire their weapon, only once, but it's enough bring another level of depth to the insane pace of the game.

There are other things that mix up play later on that I'm going to leave you to find for yourself, but suffice to say in what I've played thus far the game has yet to take even a small misstep. It exhibits perfect execution of everything it strives to achieve.

In 1987 I played 'Into The Eagles Next' on my brothers Commodore 128 and a love of top-down games was born. 33 years later I think Ape Out might be best example of this genre I've ever played. Gabe Cuzzillo, take a bow, because this is an amazing example of the focus and vision that auter game development can bring and the pure perfect artistry that is apparently impossible with large teams and, potentially, large budgets. 

And it's so much damn fun I can't even quantify.

Ape Out - Go and play it. Now. Right now.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 19: Yoshi's Island

I'm playing one title from my 627 game backlog every day that the UK is in lockdown. 

Previous days games can be found here, but today we have a game that's considered a true classic...

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island on SNES

Shouldn't it be Yoshis' Island? With the apostrophe at the end because it's plural and possessive? There are multiple 'Yoshis' after all..? Anyway.

I have so much love for the SNES. It was my first 'proper' console and it's great to finally get a chance to write about it here. I only have a handful of unplayed games for this machine and most of those are Mario platformers, and, well, I have a confession to make...

I don't really like Mario platformers. 
I love Mario Kart, I've had fun with Mario Party, and I recently played and loved Mario & Rabbids kingdom Battle. When the games are spin-offs and side projects they hit the mark, but I've never really got on with the 'true' genre of Mario.
Obviously I'm part of a minuscule minority, but I really struggle to take the same pleasure from these games that millions of other people find.

To try and break it down I can tell you that most of the character designs are hideous to my eyes, the music is often repetitive and annoying, and, worst of all, I find the controls to be floaty, slidey, imprecise, and infuriating. I know I might as well be shouting this into a hole in the ground but I'm not going to pretend I feel otherwise due to decades of other people's reverence and nostalgia for the Mario brand.
I'm happy for you if you get joy from Mario games, truly I am, but I don't feel the same way.

So... This is the part where I say that Yoshi's Island was different, that it's the exception to the rule, and that it changed my mind... 

Except it wasn't, it isn't, and it absolutely didn't.

I played the entire first world of Yoshi's Island. I was impressed by the art work and level design, I admired the clever platforming, I respected the built in replayability of optional goals. This is a game clearly created by incredibly talented people with enviable creativity. But all that means nothing, because after 8 levels I just couldn't face another moment of sliding into lava, crawling along platforms, and chasing that incessantly mewling boy-in-a-bubble. 
The latter; that shreeching, monotonous cry as Baby Mario floats rage-inducingly around the stage, is the only issue I had that relates specifically to this game - all the others are issues that can be traced to the Mario DNA that I've never enjoyed but so wanted to be different this time.

And that's something that makes it worse: I wanted to like this game. 
I'm indifferent about the other Marios in the backlog, I'll give them a fair shot if they pop out of the randomiser but I don't really care if they don't. But when SMW2 was chosen today I was excited. I loved Yoshi's Woolly World on the Wii-U and it was because of that that I was recommended Yoshi's Island and even found a beautiful boxed copy in a local shop not long after. 
But, expectation is the mother of disappointment, and that's certainly something I'm full of right now.

If you've read any of these before you'll know I do a one line summary at the end. I'll say a game is 'recommended', or that 'genre fans might want to try it' - that kind of thing.
But I've struggled with what to put for Yoshi's Island. 
Not for the first time I've played a game that many consider one of the best ever made and I just couldn't enjoy it, but I don't want to piss anyone off. So I guess the summary can only be...

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - I hated it. Sorry.