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Review – Coffee Crisis
The beat-’em-up genre is one of the simplest formulas in gaming. During the early 90’s, following the release of Final Fight in the arcades, the genre exploded and found itself host to all manner of licensed tie ins. If you had a super-hero, action movie, or mascot that you needed to cram into an interactive format, the conveyor-belt beat-’em-up was…
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Review – Never Stop Sneakin’
I have a pretty severe distaste for Metal Gear Solid, but I will readily admit that it is stylish, which is probably a big factor in its lasting popularity. It copied its MSX predecessors’ palette of cool blues and greys, giving it a cold and sterile appearance, then bloated it out into full 3D. It really owned its blocky, pixelated…
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Review – Army Men: World War: Land Sea Air
Years after writing this review, I had convinced myself that I accidentally played Land Sea Air on hard mode and wasn't able to change it back. So, I tried it again, making sure it was on Medium. Nope, this game really is so unfair that it's painful to play.
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Review – Ghostbusters (NES)
Out of the small handful of non-gaming franchises that I can claim to be a fan of, Ghostbusters is easily the one that I’m most enamored with. I built my own replica proton pack in high school, I’ve donned a flightsuit for many Hallowe’en nights, and my apartment is littered with related merch. I’ve read the comics, watched the cartoons,…
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Review – Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
The follow-up to Maniac Mansion drops the horror/sci-fi pretense to attempt full comedy. It features a tabloid writer looking for an escape from his job. Or something. Honestly, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders could do with a head shake. But it is a SCUMM adventure game, so it's not all bad.
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Review – Outrun 2019
It’s the unimaginably distant future. The year: 2019. The streets have been overrun by insufferable people who adhere to the speed limit. The death of recreational driving has pushed the Ferrari to the brink of extinction. It’s up to you to bring speed back to the people and remind them of the joy that reckless driving can bring. It’s up…
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Review – Zero Tolerance
Here’s a very specific fact about me that you didn’t want to know and probably don’t care about: I love 2.5D first-person shooters. We’re talking the raycasted oldies like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. I don’t know why, I just love the aesthetic. The simple or abstract environments with their billboarded sprites. The invitingly humpable walls. That’s my scene. It…
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Review – Spelunker (NES)
Despite my, erm, established familiarity with terrible games, I’ve yet to touch on the subject of “kusoge,”(koo-soh-geh) a Japanese term that literally translates to “crap game.” Kusoge has been an institution in Japan for far longer than it has over here. While the masochistic interest in bad games seems to have sprung up with The Angry Video Game Nerd’s appearance…
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Review – Shadowrun (Genesis)
Beginning as a pen-and-paper RPG in 1989, Shadowrun was followed by a strange scattershot of games based on the license in the early ’90s. Its bizarre and tantalizing mix of fantasy magic and cyberpunk technology graced three (or, like, two and a half) consoles in the ’90s: the SNES in 1993, the Genesis in 1994, and the Sega CD in…
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Review – Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball
I remember when Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball landed on the Xbox, back in ’03. I was still in high school, but even amongst my more testosterone bloated friends, there wasn’t much interest. Ogling digital females was just considered kind of sad in the circles I ran with, it was equated to a guy admitting that he’s unable to…
