I still have my SNES system. It has it's ups and downs.
New reviews, whenever they come, will be indicated by a '--'.
Wolverine
For some reason, I always, always type 'Wolverine' as 'Wolvering' then I have to go back and fix it. It annoys the snot out of me.
The game itself is pretty decent even though it took me forty-eight years to figure out how to climb up the walls. I haven't played it as much as it deserves but the graphics are fine, the animation smooth and the cut-scenes look great. Even though I've inexplicably spasmed right through them...
Super Mario All Stars
How many times can Bowser kidnap the Princess? Shouldn't she be hiring security? The gender-bending character Toad might be able to pick up fruits faster then Mario or Luigi but it's crap when it comes to protecting the Princess.
Why do the forests and the lands become infected with life threatening dangers every time Bowser goes on a rampage? Does he really have that many troops?
The Princess needs to look into some sort of citizen purge or at least a police force made up of honest turles. Depending on the plumbers each time to save her ass isn't going to always work. And the cops can be trained to take care of fanged cannonballs on chains. At least the ones Mario leaves behind.
First Samurai
I kept getting warped back to the beginning! After I chop through rock falls, fire and what seems to be livers with wings, bam. For some reason I go right back to the beginning. And that's the most exciting part of the game. Don't bother playing it. Five thumbs down.
Mechwarrior 3050
Uppity citizens are disobeying goverment orders so it's your job to go in and blow them into oblivion.
Nice effects, satisfying explosions, great graphics and horribly, awfully cheap A.I. I got so p.o.ed at getting blown into oblivion by the endless deluge of stalker robots I turned on god-mode and blew the ever-loving living hell out of everything in sight. (I paid less then ten bucks for it. What do you want, an epic battle?)
Mindless stomp-on-shit fun. I do feel guilty for running down the soilders with bazookas and stepping on them.
Soilders Of Fortune
Oooh, yeah. The video game equivalent of Arnold films. In this game mercanaries are hired to stop a relentless force of destruction from overwhelming the land.
The coolest bit is how you can get a computer controlled second character to back you up. They'll lay down covering fire, battle back to back with you and when you really need them, blindly run off and get killed!
Sadly, the buddy A.I. hasn't improved to this day. Witness 'Perfect Dark' for the N64.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
About a 100 levels of monster mashing fun. An amazing level of detail for being an SNES game. Unfortunately the skill level required shoots through the roof at about the fifteenth level. That's when the Jason clones chase you through the hedge maze and my god, where is the exit?
It's a pretty creepy game all around. The screaming Chucky dolls in the grocery store actually sent a chill up my back the first time I encountered them.
There's a little way to cheat, you know. If you don't mind losing the points, just rescue one civillian. That way you won't fail the level.
Also, you can blow up parts of walls that have cracks in them.
Defining Moment: Feeling actual regret when one of the innocent victims you want to save gets shish-ka-bobbed.
Alien 3
This was one of the games I got right before my SNES went into hibernation. (I really have to learn the wiring schemes. My brother won't be living nearby forever). Now we all know the movie was a horrible abomination against God but this game made up for it a bit. Creepy creatures, great rain effects, challenging level design, all in the first level. Well, I only played the first levels so the rest could be unimaginable suckitude.
Defining Moment: My copy seemed to lack introduction scenes and title scenes. A definite plus in my book. Too many games have horrible opening sequences. In 'Turok 2' you can't even button-mash your way past them!
The Wanderers From Ys. 3
What was 1 and 2 like? Did someone run into your house and punch you in the liver?
Defining Moment: Leaping twenty feet in the air for no apparent reason.
Wolfenstien 3-D
I finally nailed down what makes some games greater then others. You *want* to see what is around the next corner. You *want* to see what the next stage is. You are excited when a new level opens up. You look at the clock and five hours have passed and your eyeballs are bleeding.
This game has it all. (Except for the blood. You have to provide it). It's pixellated all to hell and for some reason I once played it completely through on God level (I blame Satan) but I still can't wait to play it again.
Defining Moment: Being chased by one of the bosses. Most bosses today don't even MOVE. This guy fucking CHASED you.
Michael Jordan: Chaos In The Windy City
I know what you're thinking. "What the hey?" Platform fans will love this. Classic ladder climbing, jumping action.
Defining Moment: Jordan's flaming balls.
Super Mario Kart
The problem with a lot of the Mario games is the insanely high difficulty levels later in the games. Here, the latter tracks can spin you out in a race-losing twist if you hit the wrong patch of grass. The computer opponents then zoom ahead of you. Very, very cheap.
Defining Moment: Red shells. If you had red shells, all feared you.
Battletoads: Battlemaniacs
Me and my friend Matt once rented it and spent hours just trying to get to stage three. We gave up after getting killed eighty million times on the falling pit part.
Defining Moment: Falling into the opening lava pit for the seventieth time, getting mad, turning off the system and smashing the cartridge to pieces with a rock.
Cutthroat Island
I was the only one in the entire planet to like the movie. I thought it was a decent action flick. The game is okay. Well, the first level was okay. The second level was a mine cart careening down a mountain side and UTTERLY DAMN IMPOSSIBLE ARGH WHO PROGRAMMED THIS, MENEGLE?
Defining Moment: The two pirates laughing when you die yet again.
Batman Forever
It took me forever to figure out how to get past the third screen! I realize I didn't have the manual but sheesh! What a mess. How was I supposed to know what two buttons to press to get through the hole in the ceiling?
Defining Moment: Getting through the ceiling. I rode up and down some elevators and punched out some flashy bad guys. Something more entertaining distracted me. It might have been the flu or a bee sting or a Hell's Angels beating. I haven't played the game since.
And I don't remember how to get through the ceiling.
SUPER Star Wars
This was before we learned the first movie was called 'A New Hope' so I guess they had to figure out some way of making sure people could tell the game from all the other SNES 'Star Wars' titles. It's SUPER! that's what it is.
I'll try not to geek out over it, but this game was horribly messed up. Don't get me wrong, it played well.
I ended up turning it off on level three after blasting my thirtieth Jawa into oblivion. What the hell is up with that? Sure, the Jawas kidnapped R2 but does that mean they deserve a horrifying death by blaster? No!
The second level is weirder. You and Obi Wan are in a machine gun equipped Sand-speeder. The Sandcrawler is in the distance. I wasted many valuble minutes of my life in the oh-so-incorrect assumption that I had to, oh I don't know, drive to the Sandcrawler. Wrong! You had to knock ten Jawas off their hover-thingies otherwise you'd just zoom into the depths of the Tantoonie desert forever, there to run out of gas and die.
Defining Moment: Fighting the Sarlacc creature. It shoots shiny bubbles at you. I swear to god
Judge Dredd
Oh, this game is a piece of work. It has what is missing from many N64 games. A simple concept called 'gameplay'. It's FUN. It's challenging. It has the color red! (Unlike 'Quake64', which couldn't even both with a plot, more then one character and anything beside 'shit brown' and 'pee yellow' as colors).
It has wonderfully realistic atmospheric affects (for being SNES), lovely AI and a great status screen that actually makes sense in the game world. (You can hack into computers and bring up HQ status reports. Highly original). The enemies were challenging without being stupid. The side quests made sense. (Find the panels and manually lock down the prison, for exampe).
And the twisted parts...you had the choice whether to arrest the bad guys or slay them. Since slaying them involved less points to your total, well, who could resist blowing away helpless perps?
There was a level that took place in the Judge HQ. You are forced to kill many of your comrades in arms. I guess that bit was unavoidable but it is still disturbing.
Defining Moment: The rocket car chase scene through the cityscape. You had to kick the police vehicles chasing you. Just like in the movie, this would cause them to crash into the surrounding buildings, presumably horribly burning and or killing the innocent people who just wanted to live, dammit, just live without having a hover sled impact their face at two hundred miles per.
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