Wednesday 6 July 2016

Current Collection

The Journey So Far...
While I don't feel it necessary to give myself a label of a collector, the fact is I do collect games much like most of you do. I imagine if you have gone to the effort of reading this this humble blog, you must have at least a keen interest in retro gaming and/or collecting or perhaps looking to get acquainted with this wonderful and nostalgic past time.

If the former is true, chances are you will have amassed a greater catalogued than I hold but for those curious, allow me to provide an up-to-date list of what sits pride and place on my shelves. Quick note beforehand, I will only count what I want to focus this blog around which is NES, SNES, SEGA And Game Boy. I have games for older platforms which I never knew existed when I was younger and some slightly newer but, for now, this is the focus.

SEGA Mega Drive

  1. Alien Storm
  2. Altered Beast
  3. Ballz
  4. Chuck Rock
  5. Greendog
  6. James Pond Robocod
  7. Kid Chameleon
  8. Mega Games 1
  9. Mega Games 2
  10. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Genesis)
  11. Mutant League Football
  12. NHLPA Hockey '93
  13. Side Pocket
  14. Skitchin'
  15. Sonic 1
  16. Sonic 2
  17. Sonic 3
  18. Speedball 2
  19. Splatterhouse 2
  20. Sub Terrania
  21. Taz-Mania
  22. The Haunting Starring Polterguy
  23. Theme Park
  24. Urban Strike
So nothing particularly flashy or outrageously pricey. I have mentioned a few times during past posts that I collect to play so I tend to shy away from the expensive, hell even some of the above I regret buying (looking at you Ballz!... actually that sounded less weird in my head).

NES

  1. Batman
  2. CastleVania
  3. Double Dragon
  4. Kabuki Quantum Fighter
  5. Probotector
  6. Shadow Warriors
  7. Star Wars
  8. Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
  9. The Legend of Zelda
Although relatively small, my NES games are my most beloved. You might notice a theme of side scrollers/platformers, I think as time has passed, I realised that this probably is my favourite genre. I consider none of these games a weak link and look forward to discussing all of them in a little more depth. Some of you may be aware of my very first review was CastleVania last year.

SNES

  1. Another World
  2. Fire Fighting (Super Famicom)
  3. Mickey Mania
  4. Super Adventure Island (Super Famicom)
  5. Super Mario All-Stars
  6. Super Mario Kart
  7. Super Mario World
  8. Super Star Wars
During my hiatus over the last few months, it seems that the SNES was left the most in the dark (something that may need to be addressed post-wedding!). A couple of cornerstones for the console in there but definitely room for improvement.

Game Boy

  1. Donkey Kong Land 2
  2. Mario Land 1
  3. Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
  4. Micro Machines
  5. The Legend of Zelda: Ages (GBC)
  6. The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening
  7. Wario Land (Mario Land 3)
  8. Wave Race
Most of these games haven't left my side since my younger days, DKL2 I still remember buying brand new. I think Wave Race is there through default, I think it stayed in the same drawer for about 25 years!

Looking through all the Nintendo games it looks like I stuck to the Mario and Zelda franchises but to be honest, I was never a huge fan of them. I enjoyed them well enough but I didn't connect with them as much as a lot of people did.

So there you have it anyway, the collection thus far a mixture of originals from the good old days and some brought into a new home, fixed up and back to previous glory. It's not the biggest collection, or the most expensive, or the rarest and perhaps to some people not even the most fun... but it is mine :)


If any of you lot out there want to share you thoughts and opinions, please don't be afraid to comment or get in touch. It is always genuinely great hearing from you.


All the best,
Richard

Tuesday 5 July 2016

NERG 2016

A big event in the North East for retro gamers is the North East Retro Gaming event held each year in Gateshead. Spanning the weekend, this years event was held on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd of July at the Gateshead Leisure Centre (not the International Stadium, more on that in a moment!).

This year I was once again joined by my brother Mark, and his friend Stuart (most notably of "Ashens" fame on YouTube, if you haven't seen his videos, check them out). A new addition called Robbo also joined us, indeed our party is ever-growing.

We scoured the stalls and picked up a couple of bargains but the general murmurs from around the hall seemed to be about the cliche, the hike in price of retro games since the boom in popularity.

A Quick Note About Retro Popularity and Prices
Myself included, the first 10 minutes were awash with negativity on my end on how people think it acceptable to charge certain prices for games that would have been half that a few years ago (I genuinely saw a Sonic The Hedgehog 1 on Mega Drive going for £10, though this was an extreme). 
Then it hit me (an idea, not the game), we can't really complain too much about some of our favourite titles increasing like they have. Yes, some are priced way beyond expectation and as such you should feel compelled to haggle the price. You then get the little niggle in the back of your mind that this stems from said "boom". The fact is though without this increase in popularity, we wouldn't have these events, these stalls and these machines. We pay a markup begrudgingly but if we didn't and the love of this hobby died down, where would we be? Surely back to drudging through car boot sales hoping this "this week it will be different".
While on this topic, keep in mind if the value of a game does go up, it is more likely to be looked after and well maintained. There are certain extremes as, of course there are but for the sake of a couple of quid, I am just happy these places exist.

The Event
So we set off from Mark's house and "Uber"ed over to the venue, not a particularly long journey, about 15 minutes. The strange thing was when we got there we noticed a unpleasant decrease in popularity this year, a real shame given last year seemed to have been really popular. Our worries were set at ease as we noticed not only were there fewer people, there were no people there at all! We got the wrong venue this year. It moved!
So we hollered another Uber and went to the correct venue, which ironically would have only been a 5 minute walk from the house. Undeterred, we cracked on.

There are pro's and con's about going to these sort of events with Stu, the pluses are in abundance, great guy, really funny and knows a lot about retro games. The only real negative is after his great YouTube series, a movie and a book, you come to a stark realization that you have done nothing with your life! It was nice to see fans of his come over though, they looked genuinely pleased to see him.

What We Done And Did
A couple of pickups I have been after for a while, Super Star Wars on SNES and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on NES, haggled down to a good price. Unfortunately, with a wedding upcoming, I had to be rather specific in what I wanted to acquire this year. A little out of scope was a pretty trippy Japanese Super Famicom game called Fire Fighting. After some research I found it was called The Firemen in Europe and  Ignition Factor, I believe, in North America. I noticed there was a translation patch so gave it a go. Sadly the patch didn't work but the gameplay is still there, could be picked up pretty quickly.
Mark picked up Fire Pro Wrestling 1, 2 and 3 for Super Famicom as well as a couple of other Japanese carts. Stu got a little of everything!
After scouring the stalls, we tired a few machines, completed teh Simpsons Arcade game and myself and Robbo had a battle on one of the old Pong machines before we all went our seperate ways trying out other bits and pieces. I got my a**e handed to me playing Defender!

All in all, it was a cracking day out. NERG hasn't disappointed me yet and although the venue was slightly smaller this year, it was well laid out and the staff all appeared friendly.


Going forward, I am hoping to post where things are at the moment in terms of collection and get more reviews out shortly. I am also working on developing a Retro Game catalogue application just to keep things organised a bit.
With house moving, weddings, new jobs etc. the latter part of 2015 and the first half of 2016 have been insane and it is sitting on the couch with a controller in my hand that has kept me sane, all the more reason to push on and get something reviewed sooner much more rather than later!


All the best,
Richard

Monday 14 December 2015

WWF Super WrestleMania - SEGA Mega Drive (1992)

WWF Super WrestleMania
Platform: SEGA Mega Drive
Published: 1992


REVIEW BY RICHARD FOX

In the early 90's there were two franchises at their very peak in the UK; SEGA and the WWF. You couldn't move without seeing some item of merchandise with either Hulk Hogan, The Legion of Doom or the British Bulldog plastered on it, it was literally everywhere. Wrestling fever was running wild!
  
One of the first games I have vivid recollections of playing was WWF Super WrestleMania on the SEGA Mega Drive. As a fan from a very early age, this game was always going to be in my catalogue. I distinctly remember playing the fantastic WWF WrestleFest (1991) in the arcade while away on holiday, a home version was a must.
Unfortunately, WrestleFest wasn't available on home console but by that time, WWF Super WrestleMania was available. Naturally things were brought down to a smaller scale being on the console instead of the arcade but none-the-less, it was my first opportunity to control some of my heroes from the comfort of my own home.

The Game
At that age, I was never going to compare it to the arcade classic but now I am able to, it really doesn't stand up. I don't want to make this review purely a comparison piece but it is going to be tricky not to, both games around the same era with the same wrestlers, the only differences are the graphics and gameplay which WrestleFest far exceeds.

Anyway, The SEGA version, which I owned, gave you the option of 8 Superstars to choose from; Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, Papa Shango, Irwin R. Schyster, Shawn Michaels, 'The Million Dollar Man' Ted DiBiase and The British Bulldog. Later I did get the SNES version which had Hogan, Savage and DiBiase but omitted the rest, replacing them with Jake Roberts, The Undertaker, Sid Justice, Hawk, Animal, Earthquake and Typhoon.

At the main character selection screen, you get a chance to listen to the wrestlers theme music, a feature it really could have done without. None of the tracks do the real life counterparts justice, they all sound horrific, especially IRS's theme, which is a continuous sound of what I can only describe as a cash counting machine, but done very, very badly. The other main audio shambles it the Natural Disasters theme on the SNES which was one lone monotonous rumble noise. In real life they did have this sort of theme sounding like a very large boulder rolling down a mountainside but nothing like this. It's hard to describe, but believe me. Both are terrible.

Highlighting over a wrestler plays their theme. Don't, they're dire.

Graphically, everyone looked like they were supposed to, not to the standards of WrestleFest but definitely to the other wrestling games before it. Although everyone looked like they were from the same mold, the art style and colour palette was well designed to really differentiate everyone. The ring is nicely presented and you can see each individual fan in the background cheering you on. I would say the presentation was successful as it went on to be the foundation for the WWF Royal Rumble game, a year or 2 later.

Vibrant colours and good animation, but body mold's look very similar.

There were three match types to choose from 1 vs. 1, Tag Team (2 vs. 2) and Survivor Series (4 vs. 4 elimination). It would have been nice for the SEGA version to have an actual established Tag Team to use like the SNES version did as I have no clue why IRS or Papa Shango were even included. I normally picked the Survivor Series as it was better to see everyone in the match together in my eyes.

The controls were basic but they worked for the time. You could grapple an opponent, kick and punch and also run at them for a running attack. You also had different controls for the situation e.g. if your opponent was on the ground you could stomp on them, elbow drop or pick them up and continue the more powerful grapple moves. Likewise, if they were in the corner, you could complete a corner specific attack such as the dreaded 10-punch. The SEGA version benefited here due to the ability to do signature moves, something I believe you couldn't on the SNES version. This actually made each wrestler feel different as the move set is the same for everyone. The SEGA version however allowed you to pull off Hogan's Legdrop, Savage's Big Elbow from the top rope or Shawn Michaels Sweet Ch... erm.. Teardrop Suplex.

With the exception of the signature moves (SEGA exclusive) everyone had the exact same moves and it could seem a bit odd.

Till, the signature moves were a welcome addition though as they added variation as above.

You could also leave the ring and take the action to the outside, a nice little feature, although with the exception of trying to win the match by count out, there was little reason to leave. More often than not I tried to take my opponent to the outside, got knocked out and ended up being counted out myself.

Taking things to the outside offered an alternative to winning  match but it could backfire and you could find yourself counted out instead.

The Experience
Certainly a game that, had I not been a fan, I probably wouldn't have gone back to as fundamentally it was just a fighter game (punch, kick, special move etc.) and there were better alternatives out there if you wanted to beat up and knock out an opponent. But for a fan, it was great to take a childhood hero like Randy Savage and beat the evil Million Dollar Man for the 3! There was investment in the characters you were playing and that was probably key.

At the time, it was a continuously played game for me. I even kept records about who was champion on a little notepad and was able to decide who the contenders were based on win/loss records. If Shawn Michaels wanted a shot at Savage for the Title, he was going to have to get through Warrior and Hogan first and earn his way to the top! The game was basic but in being so, it opened up your imagination and let you make up storylines in your own head. 

Overall
I wrote a while ago about the ageing of sports games and at some level wrestling games fall under the same category. Each year, they evolve and each year something gets added or enhanced BUT older wrestling games also hold up the nostalgia a hell of a lot better. You can get the modern day equivalents with the same wrestlers up-scaled and in HD as "Legends" in the modern day games but if you turn on the SEGA or SNES and pop this in, those memories of the golden age come back to the front of your mind. You will probably need to be a wrestling fan to appreciate it but it is a level of nostalgia that very few other things can give.

6/10

Tuesday 30 June 2015

Car Boot Sale - UK Collecting

Now that we are set back up again (thank you Retron!), I decided to check out two local car boot sales this week. 

Now, as I live in the North East of England, there are two Car Boot Sales/Markets that are considered the biggest in the area. The first one is Sedgefield Race Course and the other is in Hexham.

You can imagine my wide-eyed naivety and my barely containable excitement when I was going to not one but two venues to see what treasures could be unearthed, then it hit me like an Acme(tm) anvil, the UK retro scene is shocking for purchasing retro items unless you are very, very lucky.

The first market, Sedgefield, had nothing but PS3 FIFA games and the odd WWE game (I might add, someone was still wanting £8 for FIFA '13, yes some people don't know the value of games do to not having the slightest bit of interest but it has the year covering the front of the game, common sense would dictate that newer versions are out and the table next to you have about 9 copies of the same game!). I was disappointed but left with a bit of hope, I still had Hexham and Hexham has a guy with a table that has retro games on it. I remember this as a fact, I trudge on.

So we get to Hexham market and I find the guy with the retro table and his prices are more than fair (any 5 Mega Drive games for £5, really can't complain with that aspect). But the selection is slim pickings, cricket, soccer, tennis and racing pretty much sums it up. I ended up buying 5 games just because they were the only non-sport ones there (and I needed to upgrade a couple of carts). I waled out with the cliche collection of Sonic 1, Mega Games 1, Urban Strike, Side Pocket (didn't own this one already) and Altered Beast.

It's a bit of a shame, the seller can't help what games he has I suppose and his prices were great but I still left disappointed, not with him but in general. It is getting increasingly more difficult here in the UK to be a retro gamer. More often than not, games are becoming more and more hard to find or have a very high markup, which is to be expected but it makes me think the U.S. has it as bad? 

I don't claim to be an expert to any stretch of the imagination, I have said it countless times, I like to play old games, that is pretty much it. You learn bits and pieces along the way but I don't commit my life to it but it is clear that on this side of the pond if you want to enjoy the nostalgia, you need to pay a premium at the minute.

Retro gaming is as popular as ever over here which is certainly good news as it helps the longevity of games and consoles and they go much loved for much longer but it is is a double-edged sword as with that comes greater cost to the humble gamer.

In closing, if you are in the UK, I would no longer waste my time in car boots etc. It appears specialist outlets like the excellently stocked Electric Town in North Yorkshire (*and many other retailers*), eBay or Facebook groups is the only way to go now. Nine times out of ten it will cost you a little more than a car boot but chances are you will at least walk away with something you are looking for.


We would love to hear about your experiences from whatever part of the world you are from, how is the retro scene where you are? Send us an e-mail at recollectgamereview@outlook.com or leave us a comment. 

Tuesday 23 June 2015

Update - June 2015

A Crisis of Cables and Consoles
A nightmare of events with cables and consoles occurred over the last few weeks and it made things grind to a halt. Inability to set things up and find appropriate time to get back to gaming made things somewhat tricky and alas as things looked up from a technical stand point, the old personal factors come into play... still on-wards and upwards!


NERG 2015
We went to the North East Retro Gaming event over the weekend and had an absolute blast, it was here I had my crossroad... do I continue trying to get my consoles sorted out or just bite the bullet and buy a Retron 5? You may have read my piece on the Retron and now that I have one, I stand by my decision to get it. Especially now that a patch has been released to allow translation files for some foreign games, really looking forward to seeing what it can do up close and personal, pleasantly surprised so far.

The NERG event in itself made for a very enjoyable day. Myself, fellow RGR reviewer Mark and his pal, Stuart (some of you may know from the Ashens Youtube series, if not I highly recommend his channel here) spent a good few hours lurking around and made some great purchases, played some excellent arcade classics and fulfilled that nostalgia void.

When all was said and done we had a little competition of our own, a challenge of Micro Machines 2 and California games, washed with a couple of beers and pizza and those ingredients made for a cracking weekend.

I hope to give more details about the NERG 2015 goings on in a later post with a couple of pictures. Alas, Mark took some good photos but is off to Glastonbury festival for the week, selfish.


Looking Forward
Now that I am set back up with the Retron 5, I will be looking to get back to reviewing as soon as I can. As always, I like to fully complete a game before making a review about it and will be looking at the next project imminently. It's great to be back!

Thanks to everyone for your support and I am delighted to get the ball rolling again!


Cheers,
Richard

Tuesday 19 May 2015

Guest Review: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance - PS2 (2002)

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
Platform: PS2
Published: 2002


GUEST REVIEW by Mike Lebolo

When I was kid, I never really cared much for fighters. The most I'd give any attention to were Dragon Ball Z-related and those were utter shit. Then my older brother showed me the light, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Blood, gore and martial arts, there wasn't much more you could offer me at that age. Unfortunately, I was just coming out of some...unpleasant business that left me with severe anger issues. So while I had a blast just plugging in the second controller and bludgeon every other character in the game with Sub-Zero, I don't exactly have the fondest memories of the actual multiplayer. In addition, my terrible reflexes at the time also made it impossible for me to pull off any of the fatalities. 
Why do I still look fondly on this game then? Simple, for all the frustrations the game provided, nothing like it had ever embedded itself in my imagination before. The characters and world were fascinating to me, ninjas and sorcerers, gods and royals, all battling it out in 1-on-1 bouts to the death. It was practically every single thing I thought was cool rolled into one package. Well, that and the fact that the Adema's tie-in song, "Immortal" is one of my favorite nu-metal (insert tired "hurr-durr, Limp Bizkit" joke here) songs.

The Game
Released in November of 2002 for all three major consoles (and the GBA for some bizarre reason), Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was the fifth installment in the main portion of the MK series. Deadly Alliance was Midway's saving throw after MK4 its disastrous "re-release" MK Gold left fans bitterly divided on the series' transition to full 3D. While it didn't exactly repair the rift in the fanbase, Deadly Alliance did manage to provide a much more solid game that won many over. Taking MK4's base gameplay, Deadly Alliance provided a greater focus on combos and upped the ante on its predecessor's weapon system by giving each fighter three distinct fighting styles that could be switched to (and combo-ed into) on-the-fly. The result was a much more complex fighting game that gave its contemporaries a run for their money in more than just the popularity department. Something that couldn't exactly be said of the previous games.
The story (what little there is) is thus, the evil sorcerers Shang Tsung and Quan Chi have united to form the eponymous Deadly Alliance. Their first action: the assassinations of Earthrealm's champion Liu Kang and Outworld's emperor Shao Kahn. With their two greatest threats dead, the duo set about reviving the army of the monstrous Dragon King. Having witnessed all of this and with his fellow Elder Gods refusing to act, Raiden renounces his status as an Elder God (he became one at the end of 4) and gathers the remnants of Earthrealm's defenders to take part in a tournament hosted by the Deadly Alliance in the hope of stopping them before it's too late. This is all from the intro, mind you. Mortal Kombat didn't have a proper story mode until Deception's Konquest mode.
Speaking of Konquest mode, one of the same name appears in Deadly Alliance. You play as a monk on a journey to master all fighting styles and achieve enlightenment. In practice, it functions as a dressed-up tutorial/source of my greatest frustrations. One cool little detail in this mode, however, is the inclusion of tidbits of information either expanding on the backstory of the game or the history of the martial arts used by the fighters. It's a welcome touch and demonstrates how much effort and research was put into the game.

The Experience
I honestly want to tell you that this game is still amazing after all these years, I want to so badly, but I just can't. I used to think that the term, "it's a product of its time", was just a result of a lazy reviewer refusing to bother coming up with a better description. Well, either I was wrong, or I'm a lazy reviewer, because it's the best way to describe Deadly Alliance. This game embodies the early 00's 3D fighter craze. That heavy emphasis on combos I mentioned earlier? It comes at the expense of so many of the things that make a Mortal Kombat game, well, a Mortal Kombat game. Specifically, the special moves, stage interaction and fatalities. But, before we get into the meat of my issues with the game, let's start with the characters that debuted in Deadly Alliance and my various praises/complaints about them.

Blaze - An elemental who was on some vague quest before being imprisoned by worshippers of the Dragon King who forced Blaze to guard the egg of the Great Dragon. One of the two actually secret characters in the game (the game claims every character you unlock to be "secret", but they're not exactly a secret when they're on the damned select screen now are they?) and in the vein of previous MK secret characters, Blaze's fighting style is a composite of other characters (in this case, three) in the game. This results in Blaze having no weapon style, which is strangely distracting. He also has no fatality, in a Mortal Kombat game...

Bo' Rai Cho - A legendary martial arts master from Outworld, who I guess was too fat and lazy to help out in the previous games. I hope you think fat, flatulent, drunkards are the funniest people ever, because that's all you're getting from this one-note joke. Both fighting as and against him is an exercise in patience as he fluctuates from one of the most awkward to play as to biggest spambot in the game in the blink of an eye. The best thing I can say about him is that brutally murdering him never stops being fun.

Drahmin - One of the two oni that freed Quan Chi from his imprisonment in the Netherrealm, thus causing much of the plot. I hate Drahmin. The average human lifespan is roughly 71 years, yet that still would not come close to describing one one billionth of how much I hate him. Drahmin is the only fighter in the game built entirely on juggle combos which, by itself is fine, but he lifts his design almost wholesale from the equally uncreative Meat from MK4. The only major difference being his right arm being encased in a club and his vaguely Japanese myth-related mask. The straw that breaks the camel's back, however, are the flies that incessantly buzz around him for the entire match. Just a constant high-pitched buzz the entire fight, it's maddening, made even worse when he fights himself (which you have to do if you want to finish Konquest mode). What pisses me off even more is that he has one of the better fatalities in the game, must be the reward for not blowing your brains out the minute you heard the buzzing.

Frost - A Lin Kuei prodigy with powers very similar to the Grandmaster and her mentor, Sub-Zero. Is anybody even going to read this one? I've already established I'm a Sub-Zero fan, so of course I'm going to think more of him is even better. Ah well, might as well give her a write-up anyways. Actually, despite the similar powerset, Frost's general fighting style is quite different from ol' Subby. She's much quicker and precise, which can best be demonstrated with her two specials: a ray of ice projected from her hands and a sliding kick. Certainly sounds like Sub-Zero, but both come with a twist. First the ice ray travels along the ground, so it can only freeze a grounded opponent that doesn't step out of the way, this difficulty is balanced out by the fact that Frost has plenty of combos that can leave the enemy reeling. Second, the sliding kick, rather than propelling her opponent back, flings them overhead, making it great for escaping when your back is literally against the wall (invisible wall, that is). If you ask me, Frost is one of the best characters in Deadly Alliance, especially with how much effort was clearly put in to make sure she didn't feel like a clone of her master.

Hsu Hao - One of the most trusted members of the Red Dragon Clan, Hsu Hao works as the enforcer of Mavado's will. Mongolian Jax, seriously, just ask the creators. Planning to make Hsu Hao as iconic of a foe for Jax as Kano is for Sonya, what they wound up with instead is a cardboard cutout evil brute with absolutely nothing remarkable. In fact, his main outstanding characteristic, his cybernetic heart, functions exactly like Kano's eye. Come to think of it, he uses a rough, brawling style, a grappling style and dual-wields small bladed weapons. So in trying to make Jax's greatest foe, Midway created a plainer, bulkier clone of Kano. Klono, if you will. Though considering all of the missteps over the years, how he is Ed Boon's most despised creation, continues to elude me.

Kenshi - An arrogant fighter brought low by Shang Tsung's treachery, Kenshi seeks to redeem himself and kill the traitorous sorcerer once and for all. The only good male fighter introduced in Deadly Alliance and probably the only one most readers will recognize. To wit, he is the only DA character in MK9 and even with all the room given in the reboot, he remained almost unchanged from his first appearance. Then again, it's pretty hard to strike greater gold for a fighting game than a blind, telepathic samurai out to avenge his ancestors. His fatality is also one of the most brutal (if a bit long) in the game, not exactly the highest bar, but still a plus.

Li Mei - A villager from an Outworld town under the boot of the Deadly Alliance, Quan Chi and Shang Tsung have promised her home's freedom if she can win the tournament. Mileena, at some point Mileena was supposed to be in this game. That doesn't come from any info given by the creators, there's just no way to not see Mileena when you play as Li Mei. She's a dark-haired stunner who wears purple, relies heavily on kicks much like Kitana (who is in the game) and wields a pair of sais. In truth though, I wouldn't count her among the bad newcomers, her sympathetic backstory certainly helps endear her.

Mavado - Leader of the Red Dragon, the predecessors to the Black Dragon, Mavado has pledged his and his clan's loyalty to the Deadly Alliance in exchange for the head of Kano upon the Alliance's victory. Do you like Kabal, I sure as hell hope you don't. You think he got a raw deal in 9? At least he died on-screen there. Here? He gets iced off-screen with zero fanfare and only faint mentions about Mavado killing him like he was nothing. If it was anything like how the computer uses him, Mavado likely sidestepped Kabal's attacks and spammed his stupid ass grappling hooks. To further twist the knife for Kabal fans, Mavado uses hookswords that the game openly states he took from Kabal's corpse. Much like his minion, Hsu Hao, Mavado is little more than a cheap attempt at creating more evil Earthrealm characters while expending as little effort as possible.

Mokap - "A former martial arts teacher on the North side of Chicago, the man commonly referred to as Mokap was called upon by Johnny Cage to do some motion capture work for his new movie "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance". I'm not even bothering to do my own version of his bio. Mokap was intended as a tribute to Carlos Pesina, the man responsible for Raiden's motion capture in the first three games (Mokap! Get it? Get it? It's so damn clever!). Much like Blaze he...you know what? Screw this! It's fucking Mokap! Who the hell wants to play as Mokap!?

Moloch - The other oni that helped free Quan Chi and the resident "Why couldn't you just be Goro?". Moloch is one of the worst bosses in fighting game history. His design is unbelievably plain, he's little more than a blueish-gray, hairless gorilla with a ball and chain. He also has about five attacks, one of which can only be dodged by sidestepping, but sidestepping it just means he slaps you in the face with his balls...that came out wrong. The other attacks are so quick that it's next to impossible to interrupt any of them without spamming, which is also the only consistent way to beat him. Between him and Drahmin, I hope to God that there is never another oni in Mortal Kombat, ever.

Nitara - Contrary to Earthrealm folklore, vampires are in fact a species from the realm of Vaeternus, a realm that Shao Kahn merged into Outworld during his many conquests. Having heard of an orb that can restore her people's homeland, Nitara seeks to obtain it, but the Deadly Alliance and their tournament stand in her way. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the best summary I could write. Next to Frost, Nitara is probably my favorite Deadly Alliance character. She also brings to mind the question, cyborg ninjas, a skinless man and Jarek really came first in a series built around blood and horror before a sexy vampiress? Really? Anyways, Nitara is a good all-rounder with a good mix of ranged specials and close combos. The fact that her grapple restores some health makes her an even better choice for beginners. Well she would, if you didn't need to unlock her.

Onto my previously mentioned meat...I really need to think before I speak. Let's start with my issues with the fighting itself, because I have never had such a love-hate relationship with a fighting engine. On the one hand, it's a solid, occasionally great, fighter in the style of Virtua Fighter. On the other, it's Mortal Kombat in-name-only. Sure there's blood spraying everywhere, but special moves vary from almost practical to completely useless, can only be chained into juggle combos and even then, not every character has a good enough pop-up attack to give you time to initiate the special. Then you have, aside from the acid spitting dragon orb statue things in one level and some destructible objects in two others, zero interaction with the stage, including no stage fatalities. Even 4 had stage fatalities! And that brings me to my biggest complaint, the fatalities that are in the game (barring a small number) suck. They just suck. Ranging anywhere from the overly-ridiculous one where Sub-Zero rips out his opponents entire skeleton whole, to the outright pathetic, like Quan Chi stretching his opponent's neck and that's all he does. Behold:


If that is not the single worst fatality in Mortal Kombat history, I don't know what is. For even greater comparison, here's his fatality from 4:


But that's just par for the course for Deadly Alliance. It gets so much right, but at the expense of the core concepts of Mortal Kombat.

You've probably noticed that I have yet to talk about Konquest mode. That's because there's nothing more to be said, it's literally a tutorial mode with a couple "challenges" sprinkled in for "fun". Konquest exists solely as another mode to gain Koins to use in the Krypt, or as I call it, the most tedious way to unlock anything ever. The "koffins" go from AA to ZZ and each one requires one of six different kinds of Koins, two of which can only be earned in the Test Your Sight and Test Your Might minigames. I'm going to be honest here, by the time I was done unlocking every character and had finally finished Konquest mode (which can't be done until you unlock every other character) I made it through arcade mode (which I did about ten times prior to get the Koins required) one more time before I about lost my damned mind.

Like I said before, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance embodies the early 00's 3D fighter craze, especially its worst aspects. Specifically, the tendency to completely ignore the appeal the series, even if that meant making a less fun game, in order to make a game that appealed to tournament players. So I feel it's only appropriate to give it two scores, one for its quality as a fighting game, and the other for its quality as a Mortal Kombat game.

Fighter Score - 6.5/10
Mortal Kombat Skore - 4/10

Wednesday 6 May 2015

Guest Review: Altered Beast - SEGA Mega Drive (1990)

Altered Beast (1990)
Platform: Mega Drive
Published: 1990 (EU)


GUEST REVIEW by GARY HENEGHAN

I first experienced Altered Beast back in 2002, a time of gaming limbo for me. Disillusioned with my PS2 and needing a break from Pro Evolution Soccer, I picked up a Mega Drive and a few cheap carts. One of the carts was Altered Beast. At the time, I considered the game's...well, naffness to be charming and really took to it.

When I purchased SEGA Genesis and Mega Drive Classics from Steam last year, Altered Beast was the first game I loaded up, to see if it was as...entertaining as I remembered.

The Game
Originally released in arcades in the Summer of 1988, Altered Beast was ported to practically every video game system under the sun. The Mega Drive port is the best remembered of all the ports as it was the 'pack in game' that came with the console...before a certain blue hedgehog became a global phenomenon.

The plot is fairly simple. Zeus' daughter Athena has been kidnapped by the evil Neff and taken to the Underworld. Zeus chooses to resurrect a fallen soldier to rescue his daughter and defeat Neff. This begs the question – why would Zeus need to resurrect someone to save his daughter? Surely, he could have solved the problem himself?
At least Zeus has given our resurrected hero some new powers – if he collects orbs, he will power up. One orb will bulk our hero up, two orbs will make our hero look like he's been on the 'roids and three orbs will transform him into a superpowered beast. The screen showing the transformation into a beast is one of the highlights of the game; an over the top cutaway showing the hero becoming a monster, complete with digitized scream.


Probably my favourite bit of the game.

These transformations sum up Altered Beast's graphics nicely. The game has an 80's horror feel about it, full of dark, murky caverns and mutated, supernatural enemies. While the graphics are nothing special by Mega Drive standards, they certainly do a good job of emulating the arcade game. Altered Beast's sound, on the other hand, stands out a lot more. Everyone knows about the infamous speech, but little thought is given to the music. This is a shame as the music is very underrated in my opinion; moody and epic, it really contributes to the atmosphere of the game.

The Experience
Playing Altered Beast in 2015 was no different to playing it in 2002...or 1990 I'd imagine. Even by retro standards, the game feels very basic in structure. The five short levels offer little variety – it''s simply a case of 'Punch enemy, keep walking right”. There aren't any clever set pieces either – enemies generally just wander on to the screen waiting to be destroyed. Even the bosses can be beaten fairly handily.

The boss of level three looks tough, 
but can be beaten by standing next to him and hammering B.

As a simple side scrolling brawler though, Altered Beast does the job. Sure, the controls feel heavy and I can't deny that the game does rely on cheap hits to challenge the player (looking at you, Chicken Stingers). Yet I found the game compelling – the challenge of quickly getting the orbs and transforming into an altered beast is addictive and the game doesn't wear out it's welcome. I can see why SEGA used Altered Beast as a pack in game – it was a port of a well known arcade game, with impressive graphics for the time, and by bundling it with the console, no one would feel cheated by the lack of depth offered.



Damn Chicken Stinger...
as long as you don't get hit once, you'll be fine....
otherwise, you're getting spammed to death.


Overall
I see Altered Beast as a 'guilty pleasure game'. I can't recommend it based on quality – it's horribly dated, sluggish and very shallow. However, I can recommend Altered Beast for it's accessibility. In an age where games often have 30+ hours of gameplay, extensive multi player options and additional content, Altered Beast is a fantastic alternative to modern gaming, a mindless twenty minute arcade blast. Sometimes you want the finest steak for dinner. Sometimes you want fast food. Altered Beast is the gaming equivalent of a sausage roll – cheap, simple but pretty satisfying.

Score – 6/10