#114/#261 - Capcom's Gold Medal Challenge '92

                                                       Um... thanks Capcom?

                                 Oh I see, this is the real cover! Look, it's Balrog!

                                   Get ready to pummel the tips of your fingers!

Why Nintendoage has this listed as simply Gold Medal Challenge, I'm not sure, as it is very clearly labeled Capcom's Gold Medal Challenge. In other words, I should have reviewed this way back in 'C.' Though this throws a kink in my numbering system, it was already a little confusedand will probably become more so as time goes on. You're forgiven this time, Nintendoage.

Gold Medal Challenge was released to coincide with the '92 Olympics, and oh, what perfect timing! I wonder if this game was marketed with the actual Olympics, as I hadn't heard of it until today. Well, whatever the case, Capcom comes through for the NES yet again with a series of well-crafted mini-games. Choose to play as a variety of different countries and begin either training for the different events or jump right into the world tournament. This game is, at its core, a humble track-and-field game – push 'A' and 'B' really fast to win! - but it's the little touches that make it memorable. If it's not the goofy caricatures from each country, it's that, despite how horrible you're performing in the tournament, the games simply mustgo on. In other words, they won't kick you out if you suck at certain events (this made me feel better during the swimming events). All of the events, whether they be the Long Jump, the 100 Meter Dash, Swimming, etc, have you pressing the 'A' and 'B' button with insanely fast precision and speed. Some include the 'Up' button, like the Long Jump. Despite the seeming simplicity, though, it would behoove you to peruse a FAQ; otherwise, you might not know what to press and when (though you will always need to press it fast). Perhaps the only point of contention that I have with this game is how precise you have to be with your button presses. Save yourself the wear and tear on your hands: buy a turbo controller. Sure, it's cheating, but we retro gamers aren't getting any younger and our hands are precious commodities! Despite my slightly overcooked beef, Gold Medal Challengeis charming, fun, and perfect for multiplayer. An underrated gem.

B+

#260 - Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters

SPOILER ALERT! The game is awful, but this cover is amazing. Godzilla looks truly terrifying.

 I'm all for precursors to Advance Wars, but not when my beloved Godzilla is involved.

Godzilla 2sees developer Toho starting from scratch, which is, admittedly, not a bad idea. The original Godzillashould have been a bash-and-smash delight, but it suffered from irritable AI syndrome and all-around boring gameplay. In War of Monsters, bash-and-smash has been replaced by sit-and-think. Yes, friends, Godzilla 2is a real-time-strategy game. What does that mean for you, the player? Well, instead of controlling Godzilla and his monster buds, you control... the army. Writing as a gamer and Godzilla fan, I'm already tapping out. I don't play a Godzilla game to go against Godzilla. I want to control him, destroy other monsters and the human race, and be done with it! Bah. Anyways, there are twelve scenarios to choose from on the main menu. It doesn't matter which one you choose, as all of them involve shifting your fighter jets, tanks, and other weaponry closer to the monsters in order to fight against them. Often your goal is to "Stop Godzilla/Mothra/whoever from destroying this structure!" which is funny because the monsters never have any set pattern to their movement. They destroy whatever they want whenever they want, and if you don't directly engage them, they won't necessarily engage you; logical, I suppose, but still curious. Well, whatever. The point is, Toho destroyed yet another beloved genre, the RTS: firstly, by bringing in an iconic character that never belonged in said genre to begin with, and secondly, by making the back-and-forth gameplay neither strategic or interesting. Sadly, Toho continued their wave of Godzilla treachery further on the SNES, but (all praises due) I'm not covering that system, so if you're curious – if you dare – check it out for yourself.

F

#259 - Godzilla: Monster of Monsters

Ah, the Nuclear Age was a real treat, wasn't it? Good thing society has moved on... oh wait.

                          Now now, nobody likes a one-eyed octopus jerk!

I'm not sure if kids today appreciate Godzilla as much as children of the 80s and 90s did, but by garr, I couldn't get enough cheesy rubber monster movies back in the day. Godzilla was the king of them all (sorry Kong), which is why I was so excited when I saw this game at my local Blockbuster back in '91 or '92. I rented the crap out of this thing, but even then, I remember thinking to myself, is this it? Shouldn't Godzilla have more to it? Twenty years later and brimming with wisdom and insight, I can honestly say that my seven-year-old self was on to something. Is this it, indeed. Was the gameplay contained in Godzilla all Toho can think of to satisfy the Godzilla diehards?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on Godzilla, so I'll let my description of the gameplay allow you to form your own opinion. The game starts you off on a grid board, with Godzilla and Mothra on one end and other random monsters on the opposite end. You can choose to move Mothra or Godzilla two spaces ahead, and when your turn is over, whichever character you decided to move enters into a side-scrolling area. These areas are all the same: avoid the large amounts of artillery fire at Mothra/Godzilla. There is no real reward for destroying the enemies, other than hoping that their mangled remains will contain some health. In essence, these sections felt pointless, despite the logicality of them being there. Of course you, as a monster, would fight the military, but why does it have to feel so boring? Next up: the monster battle sections. These were slightly more entertaining, if only because it felt right seeing two hideous large monster aliens duke it out with one another. It's button-mashing goodness, but right away, some of the evil monsters' power moves turn out to be down right cheap. One particular monster (Megaura, I think?) killed Mothra with one hit! If you're thinking to yourself, that's disgraceful, you're correct. Godzilla is, by logic, slower and has less manueverability than Mothra. He didn't seem stronger either, which meant he died a lot sooner. It's a shame considering this is supposed to be Godzilla's game! Make him the badass he was meant to be!

If you can get past the fact that the side-scrolling stages are worthless (especially with Mothra, who can fly over the artillery and basically bypass everything) and the monster battles take some figuring out, it's not an awful game. Still, it's not the Godzillagame fans the world over were hoping over. That would come later with the King of Monsters. If Toho could have found a way to combine the over-the-top hysterical fighting of the King of Monsters with the smash-and-bash Rampage, there's a chance a sweet Godzilla game could have been birthed from such an experiment. But hey! This particular Godzilla game was popular enough to birth a sequel, so we'll see how that goes tomorrow.

C-

On another note, according to the number of NES games currently chronicled over at Nintendoage.com (the incredibly reliable site which I use to keep track of the games I play), I am officially one-third of the way through the NES library. I passed this "landmark" without realizing it back at #256, so hoorah! And woopee! And the like. I can not honestly believe I have gotten this far, and worse yet, that I still have two-thirds more to go! The NES churned out a lot of games in its nine years. Thank goodness that, for the most part, this reviewing gig has yet to grow old! Here's to 509 more reviews, and then, sweet, sweet rest.

#258 - Goal! Two

It'd be one thing if this was just some poorly rendered cover art, but... this is a picture of an actual person. And Jaleco still used it!

                                                             Hey look! Soccer!

Sequels are supposed to improve things in a series, not make you hate the game more. Goal! Two apparently didn't get the memo for this, and while they added a whole slew of features, they forgot to add that simple ingredient that would have tied the whole game together: fun. Cliche'? Sure. Trite? Absolutely, but the unvarnished truth, by gum. This time, instead of choosing from four countries for the World Cup, you can choose from about sixteen countries. Improvement! If you play a simple VS. Game, you have more options for countries, such is the game's odd logic. Unlike in the first game, there are stats here, but I can't read gibberish, so I didn't change any of them and just went out and tried to play. Now, the gameplay... let's stop here. Goal!, for all its flaws, was a simple arcade soccer game. I'm sure if you could figure out how to pass appropriately, it would have been a solid game. Goal! Twotries to go for bigger and better, but forgets that the NES, bless its dusty heart, can only handle so much. In addition to adding stats and other "big boy" options, the game's soccer field is about two to three times larger than the one in the original. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the size of the original game's soccer field. It was perfect! Also, the game's AI is so hard, cheap, and blindingly fast compared to your team, that it's nigh impossible to advance even to halfway across the field. Thankfully, your goalie has it going on and can block potential goals like he was protecting the mayor or something, but what's the point of blocking if that's all you're going to do? Finally, as in the first game, you don't actually kick to your teammates. You kick in their general direction. Not only that, your kicks seem like little wiener kid kicks: slow and useless. It's a shame, as I was really looking forward to kicking out some soccer jams on the NES, but the Goal! series is not where you come to satisfy those particular jollies.

F

#257 - Goal!

                That guy's hair has great lift... but wait, is that kid flipping him off?

                  Your players slightly resemble shuffling zombies. Blame society.

If you suck at soccer and you know it, clap your hands! I used to love soccer when I was a kid, but haven't gotten to play it since, oh, first grade. This leads me to believe that my soccer skills – whatever they were then – have all but deteriorated over twenty years. But that's life, and in life, we get back on our feet, or forbidding that, we play video games. Goal! is probably one of the earliest soccer games for the NES, and as a result, its structure is incredibly simplistic. There are four options on the main menu: World Cup, Tournament, Shoot (competition), and Continue (which I believe continues your progress from the World Cup. Of these, World Cup and Tournament are actual gameplay. A Tournament is a series of games held between states in the U.S., while the World Cup is... well, the World Cup. You are only allowed four choices for countries, all of them Western first-world countries, but no heavies like Britain, Brazil, Egypt, etc. The gameplay is pick-up-and-play, which is good; no obnoxious stats or sim management stuff. The only problem – which ruins the entire game – is the passing system. When you pass the ball, you shoot it in the direction of your other players, but not actually to the other players, like you would in any basketball, baseball, or football game. I can't tell you how many times I would have gotten goals(!) had the ball just gone to the person I assumed I passed it to. Trying to be a one-man show and carry the ball all the way across the field without passing, results in the other team crowding your grill and slowing the game way down. Perhaps I should just take up soccer again instead. Exercise, fresh air, and when I pass the ball, the likelihood of my team mate getting it is higher than in Goal!

D

#256 - Ghoul School

Can you believe admission to this place is $20,000 a year? I better learn so much, my brain literally explodes with knowledge.

Not realizing that the pink creature with the giant eyeball is really a P.E. instructor, you beat him to death with reckless abandonment.

You are random Joe Gamer, Esq. at a used game store. You are searching through a bin of cheap NES games. Nothing is intriguing you, until you happen upon a title named Ghoul School. All it comes with is the cartridge, no manual, nothing. It costs two dollars. You shrug, buy it, and walk out of the store. Once you get home, you plug it in, play it and wonder what exactly you're supposed to do. The main character is an "edgy" teenager who has to defeat the ghouls that have overrun the school with a baseball bat. The ghouls all have specific movement patterns and most of them are easy to learn. You realize quickly that you have to learn them. If you get hit, you fly in the opposite direction away from the enemy. This makes you frustrated when you're trying to ascend or descend stairs and clusters of enemies congregate around the stairs. In the school, there are hundreds of lockers that line the wall. The teenager can hide in them, but you don't know why. Surely this has purpose later in the game...? There are also classroom doors that line the wall. Your character enters every single classroom door that you can find. The only thing they seem to contain are more obnoxious enemies and health. Ironically, the teenager didn't need the health until he went into the classroom and faced the enemies. Nothing is making any sense at this point. Classrooms lead nowhere. Going up or down stairs and seemingly progressing have literally led to dead-ends. At one point, the teenager runs into a barrier of human bones and a Medusa head that can kill him with one hit. What are you, Mr. Gamer, to make of this? The angry side of you wants to run it over with your car in front of the used game store that sold it to you and drive away cackling maniacally. The rational side of you wants to put it in your collection and save it for another day; perhaps you're missing something. What you actually end up doing is going back to the used game store and, when the clerk isn't looking, put the cartridge back in the used game bin. Now some other unlucky schmuck will know what it feels like to enroll in Ghoul School. You leave satisfied.

F

#255 - Ghosts 'N Goblins

Brilliant box art, but high resolution graphics? Really, Capcom?I struggle to think of any NES game with high-resolution graphics. Maybe Kirby's Adventure...

                     Tuck those boxers into your armor, Arthur, it's go time!

Ghosts 'N Goblins: you play as a knight named Arthur and your goal is to get across six stages filled with zombies and goblins and red devils and crows and those plants from the "Little Shop of Horrors." You get two hits before you're dead. Any sort of armor replenishment is rare and hard to come by. The graphics are glitchy, making it easier to mistake enemy projectiles for background pixels. You basically need to be throwing your weapon constantly whether enemies are on the screen or not. It doesn't eliminate your chances of getting hit, but it does decrease them. Yes, the game is beatable, thanks to unlimited continues and perhaps some Johnny Walker by your side. Yes, you will feel a sense of accomplishment when you beat it because it is so hard. But really, Ghosts and Goblins at its core, just isn't very fun.

And now, an op-ed piece:

I'm not exactly sure why this game is so widely renowned, but I have a couple ideas. It was made by the young bucks at Capcom, and people widely consider their work on the NES to be some of their best. It came out in 1986 when the NES didn't have much going for it beyond some of the original launch titles. And it was- er, is hard as balls. It is punishingly hard, like fall down to your knees, throw your NES controller at the wall, and sob because you thoughtyou were a decent gamer hard. And yet, old-school gamers thrive on brutal difficulty, which is ultimately, to me, the main reason why this game is so well-remembered, even now. I don't understand it. Why would you want to punish yourself? I can understand wanting a challenge especially as games today have really made challenge more of an option and less of a reality. Still, the older I get, the more I play games to relax, to take a sit down and not think about real world struggles and problems. When faced with Arthur and his skivvies throwing javelins wildly, jumping this way and that, I can't help but get anxious. Despite that, critical consensus still sways me. I can't help but think of Ghosts 'N Goblins as a series as anything less than "classic." That doesn't mean I have to like it.

D

#254 - Ghostbusters II

I think Dan Aykroyd makes his own vodka now. "Two shots and you won't be afraid of no ghosts, or your stomach contents back!"

Dan Aykroyd: "Alright, boys, we're going to drink my vodka until this game's playable!" Many deaths...

 

Remember when I said Ghostbusters would be better if it were a side-scrolling action game?...

I LIED!

Ghostbusters IImay be worse than the first. What am I saying, "may"! It's totally worse than the first game, bro! In the first game, there was the possibility for progression, if you drove long enough, set the traps in the right position, actually managed to wrangle the ghosts. Zael's Tower was impossible, but hey, you could get there. Ghostbusters IIshatters any thought of progression. How anyone would ever manage to get past the first level – or indeed, would even wantto – is only if you shook hands and made a pact with Vigo the Carpathian himself. Truly his evil power is what you need to get past even the simplest and stupidest of circumstances i.e. the first level

Grievances(only from the first level, mind you):

• Not being able to jump over a tiny spider that your character, as nimble as he is, should be able to clearly jump over. Should you attempt to leap past it, it will jump up and take a "life," which leads me to...

• Lives? What lives? The lower left-hand side of the screen shows that you have three lives, but in reality, you have one life and you can only get hit three times. If you get hit, the screen pauses for a second while your character lies splayed out on the sewer floor. A "life" is then taken away and you're free to move away from the spider that you will never be able to jump over. JUST FACE IT, IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

• You have a slime gun, but it's resistant against 80% of all enemies (not an accurate percentage, but pretty darn close). Seriously. Why would they give you a weapon to use if it's not going to work against more than half of the enemies?

That's three grievances over a level that I may or may not have even came close to beating. You know what that means? Potential for even more grievances. Who knows how long that sewer goes on. It is New York City, after all. According to GameFAQS, those kings of archaic gaming knowledge, there are driving levels in this game too. Because if anyone asked Activision what they wanted to see more of in the Ghostbusters sequel, it's driving. Really, what more could you ask for? A competent "Ghostbusters" game? Congratulations, they released one a couple years ago. It's about damn time.

F

#253 - Ghostbusters

                                                       ::sobs uncontrollably::

Make yourself comfortable. The predominant gameplay, believe it or not, is driving.

You know what a Ghostbusters game should be? A side-scrolling action game with, oh, six levels based on scenes from the movie. Each boss battle should be an epic button mash to get them into the proton pack. Bam, your game's done, slap that worthless "Nintendo License" and make a few million. What Ghostbusters for the NES turned out to be, besides another worthless licensed game, is an abomination that ranks among the worst in the NES library. There is no "making the best of a bad situation" here. This is truly terrible, awful, atrocious, and so forth.

Oh, where to begin? You start off in what appears to be a city map, filled with buildings, ghosts that were beamed straight from your dusty 2600, and... that's about it. Each building holds potential ghosts for you to beam into your proton pack. The more ghosts you collect, the more money you make BUT WAIT – in order to do anything, you first have to buy a proton pack and a trap. Yes, these things aren't supplied to you straight away, despite the fact that you're a Ghostbuster. I mean, you're driving the car, what other proof do you need, Annie Potts?! To get to any destination, whether it be the shop, a building with ghosts, or really anywhere, you must drive. Driving is completely unnecessary, tedious and draws out an already long and pointless game. The worst part about driving is that you can – and will often – run out of gas. Should you do this, your trusty Ghostbusters will push the car to the nearest gas station, fill you up, then woops! You're back to the main map and you have to drive wherever you were going all over again. Hope you don't run out of gas again! Eventually, you will have the chance to capture ghosts. You will know where ghosts are by the blinking red buildings on the map. Drive there, lay down the pack, and try and trap all the ghosts. It should be easy, but it's not. Ghosts' movements are erratic and they will do anything to try and get away. It's a crapshoot, exacerbated by the limited amount of time you have to capture them. Should you fail, it's back to the main map so you can drive somewhere else so you can fail to capture them all over again!!!

I never got to Gozer's Tower, the last stage in the game. Apparently, you need to generate enough ectoplasm to "prepare" for Gozer's return. All I know is, you hit 'A' repeatedly to move your four shambling Ghostbusters up several dozen flights of stairs, trying to avoid ghosts and not die. Should you die... you have to start the game all over again. There is no sound explanation for why any developer would want to flagellate a player in the way Ghostbusters does. There is no logic available for how Bits Laboratory decided on the gameplay that eventually became Ghostbusters. Is it true that some mysteries are better left unsolved? Robert Stack seems to think so, and this time, I agree. Let us all treat the NES version of Ghostbusters as an anomaly that has no right to exist, and perhaps, doesn't exist. After all, if a game is relegated to boxes in basements, pawn shops, and other forgotten areas, was it ever anything more than a false memory?

F

#252 - Genghis Khan

"A best seller in Japan," at a time when that declaration meant something. Once again, an awesome cover.

                            The Tatars... they're not as delicious as they sound.

This quote is taken directly from the Genghis Khan instruction manual: "In Koei simulation games, as in real life (!), things do not always go as you expect. If you don't do as well as you hoped for in the beginning, don't give up! The real enjoyment comes from learning how to play the game. Try to understand how each of your commands affects all the factors in the game and use this knowledge to plan ahead.... Eventually, you will find your own way to play, whether it be aggressive, tactical, or diplomatic, and maybe even find out a little about yourself in the process" (italics mine). An observation, followed by a question: Koei saw a market for historical simulation games on 8 and 16-bit systems... and they sold well. Who at Koei had the audacity to ask players to "try to understand" the game? It's the equivalent of saying "Congratulations, we at Koei think you're an idiot! Thank you for spending fifty dollars on a product you may never fully comprehend!" I can only conclude one thing: the people running Koei, both then and now, are mad geniuses who somehow understand the niche market better than almost any other small game company, save Atlus and maybe Natsume.

Anyways, Genghis Khan right? I'm going to take you on a whimsical journey, a la Dragon Warrior. It will be my little way of trying to understand the game with you, the reader. Perhaps together we can make sense of this beast of a game.

5 minutes: Right off the bat, you're asked which scenario you wish to play. Having done my extensive GKresearch, I can say that I desire the "Mongol Scenario," as opposed to the "World Scenario." The latter sounds very intimidating, as you're essentially trying to unify the world, as opposed to simply rising up the ranks in the Mongol Empire. Alright! I've selected Prince Temujin as my character because his stats are the highest. Difficulty level is set at 2 out of 5 because I want to understand and not get destroyed right off the bat. Everything seems in order... oh sweet merciful McGillicuddy, what is this horrendous menu?! I have about 14 options, but I have no idea what I should be doing? Should I go to war, tax my citizens, recruit and train soldiers, work on my countries policies? ::raises fists:: KOEI!!!

10 minutes: Much like every other Koei game, you really need to just jump into this game head first and damn the consequences. My first 3 orders – the only I could give before it wasn't my turn anymore – were as follows: I tried to sign a peace treaty with a country below me for no real reason, and they refused. I then sent a spy to their country to give me some insider information. Perhaps I will want to go to war with them should they conflict with my standards and morals. Finally, I trained some of my soldiers to be even more BA than they already were. Awesome. This game beats the pants off of Gemfirealready.

20 minutes: After much deliberation, I have decided to attack the Tartar people to the South. Why?! Because they paid me little respect in our treaty negotiations, and because my spy has yet to come back, so I presumed they killed him. I have thirty days to enslave their country. Sadly, their stats seem to indicate that they are stronger than me, although I had no way of knowing this until I engaged them in battle (curse that captured spy!). We shall see how this skirmish turns out. The Mongol people are a swarthy bunch. Perhaps we can take them down, regardless of number.

30 minutes: Oh yeah, we were slaughtered. It was closer than I expected it to be, though. If it wasn't for that large group of 24 soldiers literally making waste of my smaller clumps of 10 and 12 soldiers, I think I would have been in the clear. Most importantly, this is the most fun I've had with a Koei game, although I'm not a huge fan of the battle interface. It definitely feels more designed for a mouse than a chunky D-pad. Still, one can work around it if they're so inclined. As with all Koei games, relinquish large chunks of time or do not expect to get much enjoyment out of them. They were made for people who relish patience, history, and NES simulations, which apparently, are a larger group than I would have ever known. Any of you readers Koei simulation buffs? Drop me a comment and give me some of your favorite Koei memories.

Despite my appreciation for Khan, I'm looking forward to some mindless fun and simple one-paragraph reviews tomorrow. Please, look forward to it.

B

#251 - Gemfire

                        Gotta hand it to Koei, they always produce quality covers.

        C'mon, which scenario are you going to play? Don't they all look enticing?

I am awful at strategy games, which means that Koei games and I rarely get along. Quite frankly, I'm surprised Koei's still going as a developer. If it weren't for the continued success/milking of the Dynasty Warriors series, I can't imagine they'd still be around. Who – who, I ask you! - purchased all of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games? Or Aerobiz? Yes, I'm essentially retreading the opening paragraph of my Bandit Kings of Ancient China review, but let's face it: it takes a special kind of gamer to embrace all of the depth and trial and error that Koei games have to offer. I will question Koei's appeal until I get answers, confound it! Answers! As for me and mine, I prefer no-nonsense, button-mashing action that 95% of all NES games provide me. Still, it is my sworn duty to try and review every game in the American NES library. If play a Koei game I must, then play a Koei game I will; even if I have no idea what's going on.

Let's start with the story, shall we? In a severe break away from their typical Historical Chinese Warfare Simulations, Koei brings us a fantastical tale of a crown with seven gems. These seven gems have been scattered across the fictional land of Ishmeria, with each gem containing a magical guardian, six wizards, and a dragon (those are some large gems!). Six gems have attached themselves to six different families across the land, for some reason. Only one family can rule Ishmeria, so it's up to you to align yourself with the strongest family, take out the other five families, get those gems for yourself, and begin a bloody, tyrannical reign!

My sweet heavens, is there ever a lot to do in this game. It's been twenty years since this game's initial release and the amount of information crammed into this game is still intimidating. There are four different scenarios in which to play out. To beat the game – to the best of my knowledge – you must defeat all four scenarios. Each scenario requires you to choose a different family to side with. Different families can be easier or harder to play with, depending upon the amount of gems, and thus power, that they already have. In each scenario, there are four different paths to choose, meaning that there are ultimately sixteen ways to play the game. Ridiculous, overwhelming, Koei! When you begin a scenario, you can choose to battle, build up or trade your resources, develop land, ally, negotiate, sabotage, or plunder opposing families, among many other options.

This might be a good game for Koei and strategy fans. What else on the NES, other than maybe some RPGs and other Koei games, offers this much content to wile away your days? Unlike Bandit Kings of Ancient China, however, which eased you into the game, Gemfirethrows you into the fray, hoping you have some clue as to what you're doing. Even a detailed reading of the instruction manual did little to assuage my confusion. That, friends, is poor game making and likely a reason for why Koei games didn't find more of an audience. Unless you have mountains of time and an inclination for old strategy games, I highly recommend leaving the gems alone in the land of Ishmeria. Let the families kill each other fighting over the gems, and the fire that they apparently leave in their wake. You have better things to do.

D

#250 - Gauntlet II

  Thor confused at what he doing battling with three dorks less powerful than he.

                             1982... that was a good year. Mind the ghosts.

Perhaps I picked the wrong character this time? Perhaps the gameplay just didn't hold up over a rushed sequel? Either way, Gauntlet IItakes everything that was pure and wonderful about the original, and promptly squishes it under The Warrior's blood-soaked heel. From the first level onward, something just feels a bit off. The graphics are more colorful, sure, and the controls haven't changed, but the lack of music and addition of grainy voice samples really destroy any sort of moody atmosphere that the first one cultivated. Worse yet are the "power-ups" that seem to be more of a hindrance than a help. The "transportation" one is the biggest offender. Going through walls seems like a cool idea to help you avoid enemies, but it also prevents you from collecting other items, like treasures and HEALTH, for crying out loud! The levels also don't seem as well-made. They're larger, less interesting, and not nearly as challenging (although there are more of them – 100 levels, to be precise). Perhaps the reason for the levels being larger is that, with this sequel, four-player support has finally been added. I'd imagine it's the best way to play the game. Playing by myself, I experienced nothing but sorrow, emptiness, and a real rage dump for the newer features. KHAN!!!!

D+

#249 - Gauntlet

                     I really want to know what Beefcake McGee is pointing at.

                                   Worst screenshot ever? Quite possibly.

Gauntletis not a game for those who just want to leisurely throw on some Benny Goodman and settle back into a leather couch with a glass of wine. Even in the initial levels, the game can be merciless with the waves and waves of regenerating enemies. Gauntletis a game for those who desire great challenge amidst overwhelming odds. You get your choice of stereotypical character: archer, barbarian, wizard, and half-naked chick. Each has different attributes that lend themselves well to the fray. I chose the half-naked chick, not because she was half-naked, but because she was the most well-rounded of the four... I know, I know, but it's true. There are 30 levels at your disposal. Your life bar slowly whittles down over the entire game and can only be replenished through meat pies and such. Destroy all the enemies, navigate the sometimes puzz-tacular environments, and get as much loot as you can. There's no real point to the loot, but it makes a cool chime noise when you pick it up that's incredibly satisfying. If I were you and you were me, I'd bring a friend along for the ride. It's a shame the game's only equipped for one extra player ( I believe the original arcade was four players, which makes sense given the character selection), but at least they give you that much. Should you desire to actually beat the game, a friend is required, unless you just want to enter passwords over and over again. In other words, unless you're crazy and have no friends.

B

#248 - Gargoyle's Quest II

Firebrand, your head is much too large for your squatty body. Also, Capcom thinks mighty highly of themselves.

Remember that show "Gargoyles"? Could Jonathan Frakes do any wrong back in the day?

I've always found it odd for game developers to begin a series on one console, then bring the sequel to a completely different console; even in the early 90s when there weren't well-established "rules." What if the audience didn't follow from one console to the next? Gamers were younger and thus poorer then, and couldn't be expected to shell out money just at the drop of Capcom's whimsical hat! What am I blathering on about, you ask? Gargoyle's Quest was a top-down action game with lite RPG elements for the Game Boy. Gargoyle's Quest II is obviously on the NES, otherwise I wouldn't be reviewing it. I just think it's odd that Capcom would move the series over to the NES, in what I'm asssuming was an attempt to increase the series' popularity and get more money...? I could speculate all day, but why waste everyone's time? To the review!

The Gargoyle's Quest series, beginning with the original Game Boy game and ending with Demon's Crest, was a spin-off from Ghosts and Goblins starring the lovable crag-mouthed demon, Firebrand. Gargoyle's Quest II, like its predecessor, is a sometimes top-down, sometimes side-scrolling affair that hinges on your ability to precisely maneuver Firebrand. If you can't make him float as precisely and as accurately as he needs to; if you can't make him latch on to the side of platforms, he will fall and likely take damage or straight up die. This game, like Ghosts and Goblins, takes little pity on those who desire a straightforward gaming experience. What seems like a relatively simple exercise – float from platform to platform – actually takes great skill in timing. If you can handle this, you can handle the entire game.

I'd like to say that Gargoyle's Quest II is a fun and fulfilling experience, but it lacks any sort of variety that would have increased its replayability. It's certainly enjoyable while you're playing and you can tell from the overall polish of the game that Capcom took great relish in updating its spin-off series from gray-and-green to hifi color. Still, I was expecting something more than a series of timing exercises. Let's call it, "heart."

B-

UPDATE! FINALLY!

Hello all.

Sorry an update has taken so long. I've been in the throes of a long and deep illness. I can't remember the last time something's kicked my butt this bad. It's made it quite difficult for me to write or focus for extended periods of time, so unfortunately, this blog has been put on hold for... I'm not sure how long. Until I'm able to start focusing and stop having a fever. How's that?!

Anyways, apologies. Please re-read the old reviews or discover them for the first time. Better yet, play some of these games and drop me some comments, letting me know what you think.

Until then...