[bad soda]

[NES] Klax – SCORE: 7.25
Highest Level Achieved: I got to wave 56 (with 570,000 points or so) before quitting, my roommate hit wave 59; we both used the “warp” technique.
Description: The closest comparison in video games would be Tetris, but it’s more of a 1-player Connect 4. But instead you connect 3. And with 2-players. It’s hard to explain.

This is another attempt at the puzzle genre that didn’t take off. Tiles slowly come at you, not from above but from afar, and you quickly catch and arrange them by setting up lines (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) of 3 by color. Then those lines disappear. You don’t have a lot of space to work with so it’s crucial to get rid of the pieces. And that’s it. The different levels have different objectives, some requiring just points while others ask for so many “diagonals,” but it all feels the same after a while, made up of mostly luck.

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[NES] Predator – SCORE: 1
Highest Level Achieved: Level 3.
Description: A bold affront to the movie, Schwarzenegger, consumers, gamers, and Jesus Christ.

The one positive thing I’ve been able to take from Predator is the landmark position it lands on the scoreboard. As my first rating of 1 I now have a standard to follow. If any NES game is worse than this, I will know that it scores below 1.  And I will know there is no God.

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[NES] Seicross – SCORE: 6.5
Highest Level Achieved: Level 3 or 4. I just wasted an actual boss guy and then things started moving fast.
Description: Post-apocalyptic bike racing that’s played in a strange combination of Excitebike and typical-shooting-game-A.

Seicross had a few easily identified first impressions. One: easily the most painful experience for my ears outside of an actual motocross event. To help prevent ear bleeding turn the volume down NOW. Two: rival bikers pulled directly from Excitebike. Three: I have a gun mounted on my bike. That meant I could shoot down those damn Excitebike riders. This could be good.

Sadly this isn’t really a motocross game. The control and skill involved are pretty much all shooter based, other than the presence of other racers that try to push you around. It’s still played out like a track and not in open space like other shooting-style games, but there aren’t any jumps or turbo pads and it’s all about killing what’s in front of you and getting the one weapon upgrade.

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[NES] Xexyz – SCORE: 7.25
Highest Level Achieved: I was having fun all the way up to area 5-1; I had just conquered the second “mechanic castle” and made my way to the next area before I had to go to work. When I got back I wasn’t interested in making any more progress.
Description: Easily fitting in the same genre as Demon Sword and Rygar, it’s an action game with random doorways that lead to possible weapon upgrades or strange minibosses. This one is more sci-fi and you shoot a wussy gun instead of swinging a tiny sword or kickass shield-attack thing, but it feels similar.

The third time I tried to force myself to take some time and give Xexyz a fair shot ended much like the first two: I quit because it sucked. I was right, but I hadn’t played enough of it to give a proper review. So I was willing to give it one more chance. So after three strikes I gave the game another final pitch. Wait, that doesn’t work. Maybe the first three were balls and it still had a few strikes left, but one more ball and it would walk. No—here’s a better one: Xexyz was at three fouls, and only had one more chance. Unless it fouled again. Damn sports analogies. It was more like tenth down and the coach was calling for the statue of liberty play. I knew I had to make this kick count or we’d be stuck in overtime with too many players in the penalty box.

I played Xexyz once more and actually liked it. It helped that I got into a solid groove with my first life and took advantage of my prior experience to always go into the right doors in the right order. I made it to the final castle of the first area and rocked its face. Partway through the castle I boarded some kind of super mecha-suit and flew around in a Gradius-esque shooting level, which soon was a regular occurrence in the game.

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[NES] Magmax – SCORE:  6.75
Highest Level Achieved:  Well I beat the game but it just started to loop back to the first level (there are really only about two and a half levels anyway) and I ended up beating it again and dying at 169,200 points.
Description:  Dated “space shooter” type game that sports more of a hovercraft-like ship than a space ship.  Oh, and power-ups include legs and a head and a breast laser.  There is also the same pointless trade-off 2-player mode that was thrown on too many games.

I really shouldn’t give Magmax a score even this high.  The game is barely two levels long.  The sound is atrocious.  It plays like so many terrible arcade port types, with a worthless 2-player option and the only accomplishment being a high score.  The power-ups make your ship one huge-ass target with arms, legs and a head, and are bound to get blown apart before they get cool.  There’s some kind of attempted variety with various gray splotches that serve as gateways underground, but underground just tends to be slightly harder than above ground and doesn’t offer any worthwhile benefits.  Throw in Magmax and you’ll probably pull it out in under a minute and play something good instead.

But this game is so purely a shooter that for any veteran of the genre it will be like a suitable warm-up that can be played at any time for no commitment.  Sure it has a few original elements, but more than anything its strength lies in feeling like every shooter I’ve ever played.  After five minutes of dying to get into the groove I ended up playing flawlessly for almost a half-hour while simultaneously having a meaningful conversation about the definition of art with a good friend.  I couldn’t do that with Gradius.

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[NES] Rescue: The Embassy Mission – SCORE: 8.25
Highest Level Achieved: I beat all the missions on medium difficulty and half so far on hard mode, but I probably burned myself out with too much of the same.
Description: A strange, original game based around a counter-terrorist operation. There are three modes of play (four if you count rappelling) that are all vital to the completion of the mission. There are three difficulties and 5 or 6 “missions” that are all based on the same map with a few differences.

Lately I’ve been dropping by my local used game shop that still sells NES games and buying all rock-bottom priced games. I figured it would be fun to try out stuff I’ve never heard of and see if I could stumble across a buried treasure. I thought I had found the diamond in the rough with Hydlide, but it was Rescue that finally made me grateful for my $20 spent. This game is about as close to Rainbow Six as games could get in 1989, and I mean that in the best way.

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[NES] Sky Shark – SCORE: 4
Highest Level Achieved: I don’t know and I don’t care. I think I might have beat level 1, but if I did than level 2 was very similar.
Description: Kind of like 1942 and other terrible NES shooters that cut 2-player simultaneous play from the superior arcade version that it vainly tried to copy.

I was excited for Sky Shark when I put it in. Other than Legendary Wings and Lifeforce there aren’t a lot of shooters on the NES that support two players at once. I don’t remember what convinced me that this one would be different than all the disappointments. It was probably the awesome music on the opening screen or something. The music is by Tim Follin, who also did the peerless soundtrack for the NES Silver Surfer game.

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If you like Final Fantasy then you need to go check out these videos. The good folks of Gametrailers.com have put together a great history of Final Fantasy from the beginning to today. It is going to be a 13 part series and today they have reached the 8th part in the series, so if this is the first you have heard of it you have a lot of catching up to do. Each video is about 10-20 min of pure Final Fantasy goodness. These videos are some of the best “history” videos I have ever watched for a video game series. That is due in part to the fact that I am a HUGE Final Fantasy fan. I own almost every version of every Final Fantasy that has been released in the States.