My on-going SMS test thread

General and Gaming > Classic Video Games

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soera:
I do a lot of my reviews on a 5-10 minute tryout. Basically what it would be like if you were sitting at a kiosk and this is the game you selected. I am not using the booklet/manual to figure anything out, Im not reading the back of the box or anything. I put it in, turn it on and go.

With that being said, today I did my "D" and "E" games.

Danan the jungle fighter - A Lord of the sword/Rygar type game. You are (of course) Danan and your goal is to stop the Morasan tribe from waking the ancient evil known as Gilsar (or something like that). You have to attack your way through the jungles to find the 3 "light" items to be able to destroy him forever. Controls are a bit off but nothing horrible. A mediocre title with an above mediocre price. Grade : C+

Dead Angle - This is a game that I assumed would be a light phaser game but its not. Kind of looks like S.W.A.T. on the arcade. Your image is just an outline of a person. Mobsters will come out from alleys and windows and stuff and shoot at you and you have to shoot back. Seems fairly fun if your life bar was more reliable. Sometimes you can survive waves, other times you will drop in a single shot regardless of your health. And hearing the guy say "Ouch" when he dies in a Justin Beiber kind of voice diminishes the badassness of the hero. Grade : C+

Desert Speedtrap starring Road Runner/Wile E Coyote - This is a Sonic like game. You play as the road runner out to pick up stars and make it to the exit. There are various obstacles in your way and a timer. Bird seed is scattered throughout the stages to help refill your health. Jump controls are horrid. When you are nearing the end, Wile will fly back and forth across the screen trying to kill you. Either he will succeed or you will make it to the exit sign and he will crash into the wall. Would be a fun game for kids. Grade : B-

Dick Tracy - W.T.F? Very disappointed in this title. I expect some sort of James Bond-esque kind of game but what I got was a side scrolling mess. You are walking down the sidewalk and mobsters come to attack you. Sometimes you fire a gun, other times you punch, other times nothing happens at all. There are mobsters on the opposite sidewalk shooting at you and you can not do anything to them. You have to just take it and go on. The life bar is pretty pathetic too. Not nearly as cool as you would expect of a game with this name. Grade : D-

Double Dragon - Finally. This game is fun. Its just like the arcade/NES version of the game. I burned through all the continues before I was finally done and had made it to level 4. The hit detection is just as off as the other versions of the game but thats expected. All in all, probably one of the best games on the SMS so far. Grade : B+

Double Hawk - Goofy little shooter that is hard to control at first. It seems like you cant do anything but fire along the line in front of you. But the more you play with it, you realize you have to actually be firing the weapon to move the sight onto other enemies. Once you figure that out, it becomes more enjoyable and actually a decent little title that will be fun to play in the future. Grade : C+

Dragon Crystal - An action RPG that reminds me of Hydlide/Gauntlet hybrid. Attacking is very limited to running into monsters and just hoping you win. Story line of anything was not mentioned at the begining. Also you are being followed by (what looks like) an egg. Im guessing its a Dragon of some sort with the name of the game. I personally am interested in playing this game more but if you are not into action RPGs, I would avoid this title completely. Grade : B-

Dynamite Dux - Weird side scrolling game. You are a duck with a very short range punch attack trying to get from one screen to the next. You can pick up random weapons along the way that are MUCH better than your punch but they dont last long. The story of the game is unknown cause as soon as you turn the game on, it goes straight to title screen with no explanation of anything you are doing. Game definitely has some lag points from graphic overload (such as the 3rd boss for sure). Nothing totally unique about the game though. Grade : C

E-SWAT - Side scrolling shooter. Nothing really too outstanding about this game. Could be fun if you survived longer per life. Grade : C

Enduro Racer - This is what Excitebike should have been. You are driving down a dirt track with jumps and rocks and buggies. You have a limited time to get to the finish line to get to the next race. Decent title for what it set out to be. Grade : C+

soera:
Today, we tackle the "F" games (also got Assault city in last night and updated the "A" reviews).

F16 Fighter - A game that is definitely a low point in my collection. First off the game looks horrible. Ive seen calculators with better graphics. Secondly the game has no .. anything. I played it twice. The first time I was flying and the screen turned red and all I could do is watch the elevation drop to 0 and I died. The second time I found the aircraft I was looking for. Shot it with both missiles and over 150 rounds from my gun. It did nothing at all to the jet fighter. I was done. Good bye forever. Grade : Z- (yes, its that bad)

Fantasy zone - a "cutesy" shmup. Your ship looks like some weird Easter egg (which sprouts legs as you touch the bottom of the screen). I had issues with this game. You will die for no reason sometimes to stuff in the background that you dont even realize is part of the frontground (new word from yours truly). There is no obvious point to what you are doing either. All I could do was shoot things that kept reappearing and coins would crap out of them although I saw no use in the coins. Death is also not only imminent but sooner than later in almost every instance. Im guessing with practice and recognition of all the frontground creatures, this game could be fun. Grade : C

Fantasy zone II - Sequel to the above title. Same situations (except for the frontground issue). Death is more dramatic and seems more permanent. But everything else is virtually the same. Ship = still an egg. Purpose = still shooting for useless coins. Death = still imminent. Grade : C

Fantasy zone the maze - Spin off of the above titles. You are still the easter egg but this game is like a strange Pac-man. You have to pick up all the pellets on the screen to move onto the next screen. There are no power pellets. Instead you can step on weapons and buy them with the pellets and then proceed to shoot your enemies or whatever else you pick up. There is also a weird little circle somewhere on the screen that gains power (by turning more and more red) and when its full, it will fire at you. If you step on it before its fully red, it resets. Odd game. Very odd game. Grade : C+

Forgotten worlds - Scifi shooter arcade port. Your character is like Brian Bozworth in his heyday yet you have a jet pack and a floating gun. One of the most obvious changes from the arcade and this one is you dont have enough buttons so the guns fire automatically. The two buttons rotate the gun clockwise or counter clockwise. This is a fun game on the arcade and its nearly equal on the SMS. You will get random blue coins out of the creatures/obstacles you destroy and eventually a shop will appear. You can upgrade your weapon, increase your life, buy 1-ups essentially, refill your life bar, buy speed, etc. Definitely worth giving a shot. Grade : B+

burningdoom:

--- Quote from: soera on June 27, 2014, 11:53:13 am ---Forgotten worlds - Scifi shooter arcade port. Your character is like Brian Bozworth in his heyday yet you have a jet pack and a floating gun. One of the most obvious changes from the arcade and this one is you dont have enough buttons so the guns fire automatically. The two buttons rotate the gun clockwise or counter clockwise. This is a fun game on the arcade and its nearly equal on the SMS. You will get random blue coins out of the creatures/obstacles you destroy and eventually a shop will appear. You can upgrade your weapon, increase your life, buy 1-ups essentially, refill your life bar, buy speed, etc. Definitely worth giving a shot. Grade : B+
--- End quote ---

Wanted to point out to you that there's a Genesis version of this game that you'd probably enjoy more if you liked the Master System version this much.

burningdoom:

--- Quote from: soera on June 23, 2014, 11:09:57 pm ---Assault City (phaser only version)- What a phaser game should be! This was entertaining for sure. You are Joe who is trying to stop a robot invasion from happening. The gun is pretty reliable and accurate (except on my TV where the left side of the screen is kind of scrolled away and I havent been able to fix it). You have a survivability which is unlike a lot of phaser games. I got to level 3 or 4 before my time was up. I would definitely play this again. The only downside is the actual price of this game which is by far the rare version and tough to come by. Grade : B
--- End quote ---

I saw a review of this one on CGR, and it looked like a ton of fun!

A word of advice to those looking for this one, though: There are two versions of the game out there. One version allows you to use the Light Phaser, the other version makes you use a controller only.

soera:
The controller version is definitely more accessible and cheaper.

And I wonder the difference on the SMS and Genesis version of Forgotten worlds. I know there is at least one other button so it may help more!

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