Hello, and welcome back to The 8-Bit Guy.
So, in a previous episode I said that I wanted to make reviews of these modern games for
vintage systems to be a regular part of my show, so this is the second episode where
I’m going to be doing that.
And, I think it’s really important to continue to produce new content for these machines
because that’s the way to keep the platforms alive.
Now, I’ve never played any of these games before, so I have no idea what’s going to
be in store for us.
All of these games were produced by a company called Mega Cat Studios.
These two games here are for the original Nintendo entertainment system.
One’s called Almost Hero and the other is called Logjammers.
This one here is called Coffee Crisis and it is for the Sega Genesis.
So, I’m going to try these things out, for better or worse, and let’s see what they
are and let’s see if they’re any good!Let’s check out the packaging first.
One thing I can say about these boxes is that they look really nice.
They are really nice and glossy, but they’re really really thin!
If you set anything on these, they will crush.
If they had just put some inner cardboard structure, that would have been nice.
So let’s look at the actual cartridge.
Now, this looks very nice.
It feels nice and heavy, the label looks great.
And it does come with a nice glossy printed manual.
Well, let’s put it in my NES and turn it on.
I have to use the real hardware since I don’t have a ROM image for an emulator.
I like the intro, looks very nice.
So the first thing you do in this game is select who you want to play.
I have no idea who to pick, so I’ll just pick Hot Foot Francis.
Next, I need to pick an opponent.
I’ll pick this guy.
Next you pick where you want to play.
I’ll just go with the default.
Well, guys, this is it.
This is essentially the main part of the game.
I am the player on the bottom of the screen.
If you think about it, this is really a lot like a fancy game of pong.
Each player is just trying to throw the axe into one of those nets behind the other player.
You can throw the axe to the side or straight ahead.
I’ve had better luck throwing it to the side.
When the axe comes your way, you try to catch it.
In real life, I’m not so sure I’d want to catch a flying axe.
Each player apparently has a special skill, or a signature move, which is detailed in
the manual.
So, for example, Hot Foot Francis can throw two hatches at the same time.
But in order to use the skill, you have to catch a little power up star that comes onto
the play field every now and then.
There are also some other generic power ups that are detailed here in the manual.
Other places you can play are Mount Vesuvius and the Internaltional Space Station, but
from what I can tell there is no change in game play other than the scenery.
So what’s my final opinion?
Overall, I feel it’s well made.
But to be honest, this isn’t the sort of game that is going to keep anyones attention
more than 5 or 10 minutes these days.
I do like the music, though!
Let’s move onto the next one, this one is called almost hero.
Based on these screenshots, I think it may prove to be more somewhat interesting than
Logjammer.
It does come in the same flimsy box.
Here’s the actual cartridge.
It’s black.
Very nice, reminds me a bit of the Tengen games.
It does have a very nice label, just like the last one.
Of course the real test is to put the game in the console and see if it’s any fun.
When you start the game, it does give you a bit of a back story, but to be honest, you
can probably ignore most of this and it won’t affect the game play.
The manual goes into a bit more detail.
So, apparently you can go to the sewer, the dojo…… or the city.
I think I’ll start with the dojo.
See that shell on the floor?
Yeah, that actually does pretty much what you would expect it to do . You can pick this
thing up and throw it at your enemies.
Each level has some sort of retro-themed object you can pick up.
Otherwise, you have to fight these guys hand to hand.
It reminds me a lot of Double Dragon.
When you defeat one, he usually makes some kind of joke, and he’ll drop some sort of
energy boost as he dies, which you’ll want to pick up if you can.
There are essentially only 3 fight moves, and I haven’t quite figured out if one really
works better than another at any given time.
The best strategy I’ve come up with is to just do my best to avoid being in a fight
with more than one guy at a time, which means moving around a lot.
When you die, you find yourself back here again.
This time, I’ll try the city.
It looks like there’s a boombox I can pickup and throw at the bad guys.
Other than different scenery, there’s not a lot different about fighting here.
Eventually, you’ll clear all the bad guys, and an arrow will light up telling you to
move on to the next screen, where more bad guys await.
And this is apparently a Furby that you can throw.
OK, let’s try the sewer.
Great, the bad guys can fall off and die too, I like it already!
So, the gameplay is a little different in the sewer since you can apparently fall off
the edge and die.
The manual shows the 4 different weapons you can pick up, we’ve seen 3 of these so far.
Apparently there’s a laserdisc as well.
You can also buy different things from Chow Khan’s shop, which will help your hero through
these battles.
Overall, I’d say this is a decent game, even if it is of a genre I never cared much
for.
If this were available back in the 1980s I think it would have been a decent selling
game.
And onto our 3rd and last game, also from Mega Cat Studios.
This is Coffee Crisis for the Sega Genesis.
This is a very genesis-like case, and even has a special area to hold the cartridge.
So let’s take a look at it.
I like the translucent red case.
Again, very nice label.
OK, very nice.
Let’s have a look at the users manual.
It fits inside the left side and is held in place by these little tabs.
Let’s pull it out and have a look.
Nicely made.
Not much left to do now but insert it into the ole’ Genesis and fire it up.
All right!
So here it is!
OK, so to make a long story short, aliens have been downloading music from our internet
and they want to capture all of our greatest musicians.
They are under the impression that the place to find these musicians is at Black Forge
Coffee House, so that’s where they are starting their invasion.
So, this is actually just another fighting game only you are fighting aliens with bags
of coffee beans and steam pitchers.
When you manage to defeat an alien, they are beamed up to their ship.
If you time it just right, you do these power shots by holding down the B button.
There seems to be a lot of story telling in between scenes.
For example, here the coffee house employees are discussing how they are going to use the
six-demon blend to attack the aliens.
Then there’s this guy with the tin-foil hat who’s always talking to you.
I’ve read through the manual twice and I’m still a bit fuzzy as to who this guy is.
Anyway, some of the aliens actually look like regular people, like this elderly man.
I haven’t quite figure out why.
Then there’s this other guy and a cowgirl I’ve seen a few times.
Also, you can pick the smaller aliens up and throw them.
As is typical of a game like this, towards the end of the level you’ll have a bunch
of aliens to fight at once, and if you manage to win, then you get to fight the level boss,
which you’ll see shortly.
Also trashcans and other objects occasionally contain health points.
And here’s the level boss, in all of his tentacle glory.
He’s actually not that hard to defeat, at least on this level because he’s by himself
and he’s pretty slow.
So you can just keep your distance and keep timing those power hits and that will take
him out.
Overall, I’d say this is the most interesting game of the 3 I’ve reviewed.
And while it is on a 16-bit platform as compared to the others on an 8-bit, I don’t really
think that’s the reason.
It’s also not really the story line either, I think it’s just the controls seem easier
to work and the strategy is a bit more clear.
All right, so that about wraps it up for the review on these games.
I have a couple of other things I want to say.
For example, these games are not really of a genre that I’ve ever really cared for,
particularly fighting games.
I mean, let’s be honest, I’ve got to confess, I’ve never cared for Mortal Kombat, Punch
Out, or Double Dragon, or any of those kind of games where you’re walking around punching
people.
You know, I don’t know why.
I just don’t care for them so, again, I probably wasn’t the best person to do a
review on these.
I tried to remain objective.
So, even though I probably didn’t find them that fun, I know those types of games are
very popular, so I’m sure that there’s probably a lot of you guys out there that
will like playing these and I can’t stress enough how important it is that development
for these vintage platforms continues to happen, and one of the things we need to do as consumers
to make sure that happens is we need to buy these games when they come out.
Speaking of that, You know, I do have my own game.
I know I’ve mentioned it a few times.
I’ve been working on this for a year.
And, it’s actually just about done.
These are two pre-release copies.
One of these I’m going to be sending to Metal Jesus Rocks and the other one I’m
sending to Modern Vintage Gamer.
Both of these guys have offered to review the product on their own youtube channels.
Now, I’m going to be doing my own video on this game, probably in a few weeks.
But, I thought that it would probably be good to have a couple of non biased reviews I could
point to as well.
Since, you know, hey, I’m pretty close to the project, I can’t give you an objective
review of the game.
So, hopefully they can.
Anyway, if you have a game that you have designed that’s either finished or almost finished
for a vintage platform and you want it to be reviewed, then by all means, send it to
me!
I want to start doing these reviews at least quarterly.
You know, maybe a few times a year.
I want to do a little mini episode where I review these games, so send ‘em on over!
I guess that’s it for now, thanks for watching!