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Retro Roulette #102: Crazy Taxi 2 (Dreamcast, 2001)

EDITOR’S NOTE - this review was originally published on January 16, 2020 at www.retro-roulette.net. Be sure to check that site for all the latest reviews There are ten more reviews there that haven’t made their way to Tumblr yet!

You know that Crazy Bread from Little Caesar’s? This is like that, but with taxis.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, Sega dared to picture a world dominated by The Offspring and Burger King, and where any taxi ride costs hundreds of dollars. Now that’s a utopia. The result was Crazy Taxi, a game about taxis that I guess is crazy.

If you’re unfamiliar with the series, the main game is pretty straight forward. You drive around in a taxi, picking up people, and then taking them where they want to go. Crazy, right?!?! The difficulty comes from the game’s clock, which is pretty unforgiving. A standard game gives you 50 seconds to start, and gives you more whenever you pick up a new ride (and a bonus of a few seconds here and there for having a quick fare). In practice, it’s tough to not fall behind on time (it’s very much in the spirit of quarter-eating arcade games), but it’s still pretty frantic fun.

Crazy Taxi 2 adds a few new things to the mix, including some new drivers to play as:

In addition to the different drivers, there are also two different maps to play on, and a few different modes for each – the usual arcade mode, and some modes with set amounts of time instead of the constant “race-against-the-clock” scenario. I quite like these, as there’s a bit less pressure in finding fares and such. You can also pick up multiple fares at once, which offers another layer of strategy when figuring out who to pick up and when. It also leads to people entering your cab in weird ways:

Oh, and you can jump. I know you’re a car, but it’s still true. Maybe that’s the crazy part. My favorite aspect of Crazy Taxi 2, however, is the Crazy Pyramid, a mode that is truly, unabashedly crazy.

This tasks you with a bunch of mini-games – some are based on taking a fare in a world filled with weird jumps or ramps, while others are simply focused on going off a huge jump or, uh…playing golf:

Rather than explain this further, I’m just gonna include another screen shot.

Completing two of these challenges that are next to each other in the ‘pyramid’ will open up the challenge above both of them, moving upwards until you get to the final challenge. These can get VERY difficult, and they’re super fun to try and figure out and optimize.

There are a few rather abrasive things about Crazy Taxi 2, which I can easily chalk up to the time it was released (early 2001) – one is the profoundly annoying announcer, who sounds like if Tom Waits was a 22-year-old surfer dude who wanted you to suffer. It’s terrible. Some of the controls feel a bit archaic as well – if you need to drive in reverse (and you probably will), you need to come to a stop and manually change gears, as opposed to the standard “the brake is also the reverse” paradigm that’s common in a lot of games. I realize that this is literally how actual cars work and I probably shouldn’t complain about it, but dammit, I say it’s annoying. If you don’t like it, make your own blog. The game is still pretty fun in general, though.

One more original title was released in the Crazy Taxi series, the Xbox exclusive Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller, which had a Las Vegas-y vibe. Attempted ports/remakes for the GBA and PSP followed, but that was all she wrote for these crazy taxis. I’m kinda surprised no one has dug up the corpse of this franchise…it’s probably only a matter of time, though. I wouldn’t mind seeing a modern take on the concept.

Next week’s game is another super rad Dreamcast sequel, and one with a truly stellar (and well-deserved) reputation. I’m excited to take it for a whole bunch of spins. See you then!

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Retro Roulette #101: Alien 3 (NES, 1993)

It was only a matter of time before the horrible rainbow of LJN made its return.

I’ve talked before about my disdain for LJN, the company behind this week’s game – they specialized in two things: poorly made adaptations of popular IPs, and getting kids killed (for real – check out the details in that link). An adaptation of Alien 3 is exactly the sort of thing that LJN would do, and, well, here we are. I honestly know nothing about this one specifically.

The game works like this – in each level, there are some number of prisoners that you (Ripley) have to find and rescue, all while hopefully not getting killed by a xenomorph or whatever. Each level is fairly labyrinthine, and the prisoners can be fairly spread out. You’ve got a variety of different weapons at your disposal, and just need to platform your way through before the time runs out. Oh yeah – and there’s a timer.

I hope you think this image is really cool, because you’ll be seeing it a lot. For whatever reason, the timer in Alien 3 is incredibly unforgiving. Did you skip a prisoner on an otherwise optimal path, or go to a dead end mistakenly? There’s a decent chance you’re just screwed. If you’re on a level you’ve never played before, there’s a decent chance you just have no shot. Helpfully (and I use that word somewhat loosely), when you die to the timer the game pans around to show you the locations of the prisoners you missed…and then shows you their deaths.

Alien 3 isn’t all bad, to be fair – the environments are solid, the soundtrack is surprisingly good, and the character animations are impressively detailed. For example, Ripley has a tumbling animation that literally made me laugh out loud:

I found that once I had a really good feel for where all the prisoners were in a level, trying to safely and efficiently rescue them all wasn’t so bad of an experience. If the game offered up a more helpful map (there’s a radar thing, but it’s pretty useless), this would be a considerably better title. Of course, this is LJN, so naturally we can’t have too many nice things.

I feel like LJN had a remarkable ability to makes games that would seem good. Their graphics and sound were typically passable, the gameplay was often functional on the surface, and they made stuff based game based on [insert popular thing you like here]. I guess when you’re making a game based on a big franchise, seeming good is all you really have to do to make it sell. Well, that and crawling through vents like the cool hero you are:

It’s hard to recommend this to anyone but the most die-hard of Alien and/or Sigourney Weaver fans. The NES has a bunch of great action games with varying degrees of people rescuing and time restrictions, and this isn’t one of them. Code Name Viper, Contra, etc. Play those.

Next week’s game is a turn-of-the-century racing title that will certainly make me feel like a high schooler loser all over again. I can’t wait.

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Retro Roulette #100: Wizards & Warriors (NES, 1987)

Starting off with a bit of news - to celebrate reaching 100 whole entries of the Retro Roulette game blog, I've decided to upgrade/change a number of things - the first of which is the launch of retro-roulette.net! The new site will be the first place to check out new reviews and more (including Twitch streams, videos, and special features), but I plan to cross-post regular content to Tumblr for the time being. In addition to that, I've also finally acquired a capture card, meaning I can take screenshots in a far less stupid way. Lastly, I'm also in the process of paring down my physical collection a bit, and embracing emulation and flashcarts a bit more - this means the potential for titles that can appear in future reviews is going to change a bit. I'll break down exactly what that'll look like a bit more once all of this has been fully realized, but rest assured there will be a steady stream of cool old games in the meantime.

Speaking of which, our 100th Retro Roulette entry is none other than Rare's 1987 NES release Wizards & Warriors.

Crap, this is already going wrong.

There we go. Wizards & Warriors is an action/platforming hybrid, with a bit of item collecting along the way. To put it really simply, it's a bit like a more linear Zelda game, but there are only dungeons. Sort of. Also, it's great.

You play as Kuros, a guy who is presumably in that suit of armor that's running around. In each level, you simply need to find and open the door with the boss in it, typically by collecting an item or key that lets you reach another key, and so on. In that sense, I guess it's also a lot like Doom, if you ignore everything else about it. The boss battles are all pretty cool, and typically all look impressively menacing.

As you progress through the game, you'll also pick up various items that'll help you along your way. There's a shield that reduces damage, a 'feather' that slows you down when falling, and a series of throwable weapons, like this excellently-named thing:

GRRRR! This is the only game I know of where the available battle axe works like a boomerang. The far-right item in the inventory can be occupied by a few very different items, including boots that let you walk on fire, fire a super strong projectile, and more. Another of them is, in all seriousness, one of the most useless items in video game history:

Guess what the Cloak of Darkness does! Actually, I'll just show you:

See that crosshair-looking thing in the upper middle of the screen? That's you. The thing is, you're cloaked. In darkness. The shimmering makes it a little easier to see where you are, but no matter how invisible you are, it doesn't appear to impact enemy behavior at all. So, you're really only invisible to yourself. Thanks, game.

The game's music is also great - interestingly, it switches to another, more dire-sounding song any time you're very low on health. I like to think that this is their way of acknowledging how the "your health is low" beeping noise from the Zelda series is helpful, but incredibly annoying. This feels like a much better way to do that.

The platforming and combat in Wizards & Warriors are both well-executed, though they can both be occasionally frustrating. The game has several levels that are largely vertical, and a poorly timed jump can lead to a time-consuming fall. There's no fall damage, but some falls are big enough that you'll wish there was. In combat, most enemies die upon making contact with your sword (even when you're not swinging it, oddly), but at certain angles it can be difficult to get hits in. Throw in the occasional bat-who-kills-you-out-of-nowhere and the game can feel a bit punishing at times. Don't let that dissuade you though - it's a ton of fun, even when you're a corpse being devoured by bats.

When I was a young, video game-addicted weirdo, one of my favorite things to do was to rent VHS tapes from the library about games I'd never heard of - this was basically the Twitch of its time. Typically this would come from a video in the Game Players' Game Tapes series - this was how I first learned about this week's game, Wizards & Warriors. To my ~9-year-old self, this game was the absolute coolest (tied with a few dozen others, probably), and I'm so happy that it still holds up. I figured this video was likely lost to time, but it seems I've once again underestimated the internet! If the timestamp doesn't work, the W&W bit starts at about 41:35 of this video:

The W&W series was somewhat brief, but definitely notable for at least one reason - Ironsword, the second game in the series, featured a shirtless Fabio on its cover. That was followed by the Game Boy release Wizards & Warriors X, which I assume is meant to be the letter and not a '10' - there are definitely not 10 games in this series. The final release Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros Visions of Power, is not great, and maybe helped the series fade into relative (and unfortunate) obscurity.

That's not the cover art for Ironsword, to be clear, but I'm happy with my choice. As you likely know, Rare went on to make quite a name for itself, developing the mega-hit Donkey Kong Country just 7 years after the release of our game of the week. Even with the occasional frustrating set piece, it's very clear that they were a talented bunch.

Holy cow, I've written 100 of these! If you're reading this, especially if you've been reading a lot of these articles over the last two years, I can't thank you enough. It's been a great way to revisit some childhood memories and explore some great (and also not great) games that I missed over the years. Here's to the next 100! Next week's game is another NES title, though this time it's one from a crappy developer that sucks. I can't wait!

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #99: Ballz (SNES, 1994)

Nothing truly encapsulates the 16-bet era more than, well, balls.

Sorry - ballz. My mistake. Ballz, or Ballz 3D as it’s sometimes known, was released for 16-bit consoles in 1994, to the joy of at least one juvenile advertising person, who was having the time of his or her life:

The mid-90s were interesting times. As we’ve discussed several times before, it was also a time when every studio was making a weird fighting game, to hypothetically cash in on the craze fueled by Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat and so on. One of the more heavily marketed titles of the era was Ballz, a game by PF Magic and Accolade. Accolade are also the folks that brought us Bubsy, so I guess keep that in mind.

Anyway, Ballz is a 2D-ish fighting game that did a remarkable job of pushing the graphical envelope while still daring to look super dumb. You have a weird cast of characters made from balls, including a clown, a ballerina, a caveman, and a rhinoceros. Your nemesis is a jester, who is also made from balls. Did I mention that there are balls?

Okay, yes, there are plenty of “balls” jokes to be made here, but ultimately is the game any good? Ehhhh, not especially. In most resepcts, Ballz struggles to offer much in the way of reliability or variety. There aren’t a lot of game modes, the hit boxes are weird, there isn’t an enormous amount of variety between the game’s characters, and the pacing of any particular fight feels awkward. The result is a rather clunky product that’s somewhat functional, but just isn’t well executed.

Still, I can’t resist giving it some minor points for being so weird. As you may have noticed, there’s a video screen in the background in every arena that just spits out weird phrases to punctuate how much “action” you’re “enjoying” with your “balls.” Balls!

I guess there’s something to be said for being so goofy that it somehow becomes endearing? Kind of? Anyway, as with a lot of games of the era that had even marginally objectionable content, Ballz is censored a bit on the SNES. Where as the Genesis version uses the original tag line, “You gotta have Ballz!,” the SNES version says this instead:

Now this is just a travesty - it’s not enough to play Ballz, you’ve gotta have them, too! I like to think that by being so dumb, this phrase is what made Nintendo change its mind about this sort of thing and not, say, Mortal Kombat’s sales numbers.

Ultimately, while it’s not without its charms, Ballz is a game that relies a bit too much on its uniqueness and not enough on being a quality experience. I can’t fully recommend this one, but if you simply must have a quality 16-bit balls experience, let me introduce you to this fellow:

Now here are some balls of a different color!

Here’s something I definitely didn’t know until writing this week’s article - remember the “Petz” series, which included Catz and Dogz and...this?!

This means that Petz Hamsterz did well enough to get a sequel! That says a lot about our society. Anyway, some of the tech used to make Ballz went into these games - if it weren’t for Ballz, the entire Petz Hamsterz franchise wouldn’t exist. What a time to be alive.

Speaking of which, next week’s game is the 100th in the Retro Roulette series! It’s a good one, too - one of my 8-bit faves. Until then, let me know your favorite balls-related games, and remember to have your Petz zpayed or zneutered.

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #98: Mercs (Genesis, 1991)

Y’all ready to get MERC’D?

Mercs, an action game by our friends at Capcom, was released to arcades in 1990 and adapted by Sega for the Genesis, in October 1991, around the same time the Minnesota Twins were winning the World Series.

What were we talking about? Oh right, Mercs! Mercs is the sequel to the 1985 action game Commando, and it follows the same premise - you have to stop a bunch of terrorists, who have taken over a country where boxes containing guns and medkits are strewn about everywhere. Like its predecessor, Mercs is a run and gun game, meaning you’ll be given plenty of time to both run and gun. Let’s take a look at how well it does both of those things, shall we?

First, the running - especially starting out, this feels more like a light stroll and less like full-on running. There are speed pickups that help with this, but it can be really tough to safely navigate a crowded area or get out of the way of an explosion at times. That said, you can always turn around quickly (which is great, since enemies tend to come from all sides), and it never feels unfair, especially after you’ve had a chance to get used to it.

Second, and perhaps more important than the running, is the gunning - there is so much gunning. There are a bunch of different weapons, ranging from a basic, single-bullet rifle to a spread gun to a big ol’ flamethrower. By and large, they’re all quite powerful and effective at making the bad men go away, so it’s up to you how you want to take care of business. In general, the gunplay is well done - I feel it does a good job of making you feel powerful without being so powerful that the game is a cakewalk (it’s not). As you might expect from an early-ish Genesis game, the frame rate can noticeably suffer when a lot is on the screen, but from my experience it runs fine more often than not.

In addition to having a port of the original arcade version, Mercs also offers up an entirely different mode, which contains its own story, its own level design, and so on. It even has some of its own unique mechanics, including shops for buying upgrades, new characters to play as, and helpful tips you can buy for an in-game dollar.

Thanks, lady! This new mode is really difficult, but it’s a lot of fun.

Mercs does have one big weakness, though, and it’s significant - while the arcade version (and most other games of its ilk) support cooperative play with 2 or more players, this one does not. This is a truly bizarre design choice, and one that will probably make it a less interesting purchase for a lot of people. This is a pretty fun game, but not being able to blast bad guys with your friends is a real bummer.

If you don’t have a Genesis, the arcade version of Mercs is also available via several Capcom compilations, including the excellent Capcom Classics Collection that was released for the Xbox and PS2. A third game in the series, titled Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, was released a full 17 years after Mercs as a downloadable game for the Xbox 360 and PS3. I’ve heard it’s not great, but can scratch the shoot-em-up itch if you’re prone to that.

The next two Wednesdays are holidays in the US, so the next couple of entries will be releasing on Thursdays. I’m also excited to note that there will be some big changes coming with Retro Roulette #100, which you won’t want to miss. In the meantime, our 99th game is another wacky entry from the much-beloved “everyone was making weird fighting games” era of video game history. I’m very excited for this one. See you then!

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #97: Destiny of an Emperor (NES, 1990)

I feel like an emperor’s destiny is to be, like, an emperor. Right? I feel like it’s fairly straight forward.

1990′s Destiny of an Emperor is a strategy RPG by Capcom based on the historical manga Tenchi wo Kurau (which has the much cooler meaning “The Devouring of Heaven and Earth”). Capcom managed to make four entirely different games based on it, including the arcade beat-em-ups Warriors of Fate and Dynasty Wars. The story is based on the classical Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is itself the subject of a super popular Koei series that now has...let’s see...*checks* 13 entries now?! That’s almost 40 kingdoms! Such history.

Unlike some of its brethren, this is not a beat-em-up game. Not by a long shot. Destiny of an Emperor is an RPG, along the lines of the early Dragon Warrior games. It looks something like this:

Hang on, that’s the wrong Destiny.

No, that’s...somehow even more wrong.

No!

Okay, there we go. That looks like Dragon Warrior alright. At the start of the game, you start with a few solid generals and are tasked with fighting of bandits, recruiting more/better generals, and then repeat that process as you get stronger, get better items, and so forth. You’ll need to make sure your armies are fed and well-equipped. If you know how RPGs work, you get the idea.

The game’s combat looks a lot like similar 8- and 16-bit games in the genre, with ‘tactics’ taking the place of the “spellcasting” that you normally see. Those can be very handy at times, but more often than not I found myself sticking with standard attacks and having good luck with those. As a result, while I appreciated the quantity of available options, the game started to feel tedious quite quickly. This is more of a matter of personal taste, but I also found the setting to be a bit more dull than Dragon Warrior and its ilk - at least in the latter, you’re killing cute slimes and so forth. This one feels a bit more like looking at a spreadsheet, which I do enough at work.

While it can be a bit repetitive and lacking the fantastical stuff that most other RPGs do, Destiny of an Emperor is well-executed and has a good amount of fun to offer if you’re willing to put in the work. There are a lot of characters to talk to recruit, defeat, and so on. That ultimately means that it’s impressive, but not for everyone (or even a majority of gamers, realistically). If the above sounds appealing to you, though, I’d say go for it.

As another aside, one of my favorite things about playing second-hand copies of old games is that sometimes you’ll come across an old save file that makes you laugh hysterically:

Heh.

Next week’s game is a 16-bit action title that I know nothing about, but it seems 90s as heck. Is that good? Probably not, but we’ll find out together.

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #96: Brutal: Paws of Fury (SNES, 1994)

Why do I have a feeling this one’s gonna be...brutal. Ugh, I hate myself just for writing that.

The year was 1994, and Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat had ruined everything - everyone was going bat-crap crazy for fighting games, and every company under the sun was trying to dole out one of their own to capitalize on the craze. This led to some pretty cool things (Killer Instinct), some incredibly bad things (Ultra Vortek, Way of the Warrior, other Jaguar nonsense), and some incredibly weird things, like this week’s game, Brutal: Paws of Fury.

Brutal was developed by GameTek, a company whose earlier output was largely game adaptations of game shows, including Jeopardy!, Hollywood Squares, and Family Feud, meaning we have them to thank for the greatest tool-assisted speed run of all time:

In all seriousness, if you’ve never seen this, stop reading this blog for a few minutes and watch it. It’s chaos. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Anyway, this week’s game began its life, as all good things do, as a Sega CD exclusive. After it sold poorly due to being a Sega CD exclusive, it was ported to some real consoles, including the SNES and Genesis. In short, it’s Street Fighter but with anthropomorphic animals.

As with similar games of the era, Brutal has all of the standard fighting game characters, including Kung Fu User, Overweight Strong Person, and Girl. It is also easily the most lazily named character roster of all time. From our friends at Wikipedia:

I will say, for what it’s worth, that I’m a big fan of the phrase “A coyote who is motivated by greed.” That’s good stuff. I was hoping that “Dali Llama” was a llama who resembles a Salvador Dali painting, but it turns out he just sucks.

First, the good news - this game isn’t terrible, and has a few innovations I really enjoy. When playing through the game’s regular arcade/story mode, you begin with no special moves. As you progress through the game, you receive more, providing a feel of “leveling up” your character - this is a really neat idea, and I’m mildly surprised I’ve never seen another fighting game do it (or at least, not until an intrepid reader explains how I’m wrong about this). It even puts you in a little dojo to learn your cool new skill:

In addition to the level up mechanic, the game gives you a truly impressive amount of statistics at the end of each fight - what attacks you used most, your accuracy, and so forth. There are definitely other games that do this, but it’s always cool to see this sort of thing, even if it’s relatively meaningless - your Brutal: Paws of Fury stats aren’t going on your resume, and you know it.

Having said all that, I really wish these features were part of a more enjoyable game. The fighting is competent and decently fun, but it feels a bit clunky - after unlocking some special moves I had a surprising amount of difficulty executing them at times. Additionally, the only single-player mode is the main ‘quest’ (i.e., you can’t play a one-off match against the A.I.), and the enemies in it are always fought in the same order. That’s a definite bummer and takes a lot away from the replay value.

I’m also really not into the aesthetic...it’s just very odd to me. I imagine some other folks will be into it, though, while others still are really, *really* into it - needless to say, this game has an entry on a furry enthusiasts wiki, which I will not be linking here or anywhere, ever.

Brutal feels like it was largely made to appeal to the “Mortal Kombat is too violent, why can’t it just be cute” crowd, and to that end I suppose it sort of succeeded. It’s not an especially great game, but it’s still an okay curiosity if you’re into old fighting games. I’m not a big fan of assigning point scores to games for a bunch of reasons, but the best way I can explain this game is that it’s the embodiment of a “6/10.” I don’t have a better descriptor than that.

Because this series evidently wasn’t weird enough already, it received a quasi-sequel with more characters that was exclusive to...MS-DOS and the 32X. The mind boggles. I’m honestly a tad surprised it hasn’t shown up again in some fashion in the intervening 20+ years, though perhaps the Bloody Roar series just superseded it.

Ugh. There are mercifully fewer weird animal characters in next week’s game, which is one of Capcom’s lesser known NES releases.

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #95: Super Adventure Island (SNES, 1992)

“Let’s just make the same stuff as before, but add the word ‘Super’ to it” - every SNES developer in history

It was long, long ago in October 2019 that I took a look at the late NES release Adventure Island 3. That one was a late enough release, in fact, that this week’s game pre-dates it by about 6 months, in terms of their original releases in Japan. So for those keeping track, numbers go 1, 2, Super, and 3. It’s canon.

As before, our hero Master Higgins detests wearing clothes and most of God’s creatures, forcing him to kill them all with axes and boomerangs to stay alive (you even kill penguins in this one). Outside of that, it’s your fairly standard simple platformer - run, jump, don’t die, fight the occasional cool-looking boss.

As with other games in the series, you have a ‘health’ meter that is always slowly draining, but can be replenished by picking up various fruits. This is because Master Higgins has scurvy, and spends his life seeking a cure. It consumes him.

Throughout the game, you’ll encounter a number of different standard ‘2d platforming’ sorts of levels - vertical climbs, underwater slogs, and even a mine cart auto-scroller, which is an interesting portent of things to come on the SNES. While they’re generally well-done, none of the levels are all that lengthy or complicated, and the whole thing can be beaten in less than an hour without a ton of trouble. This keeps the game from feeling truly essential, but it’s definitely an enjoyable platformer, if also a bit of an unambitious one.

When playing this, I couldn’t help that while it isn’t an especially exciting game for an adult, this feels like the perfect introduction to this sort of game for younger kids. If you’ve been dying to start corrupting your children by getting them into video games (and admit it - you know you have), Super Adventure Island is an excellent choice. If you’re not a kid but still a fan of simple platformers, this is worth an hour or two of your time, too.

I just realized he looks constipated and now i can’t unsee it. It’s the same in EVERY screenshot, too - just scroll up and look. It’s weird.

In addition to the subsequent NES game Adventure Island 3, there was one more sequel, Super Adventure Island II, released in late 1994. That one commands a weirdly high price tag, and is apparently pretty good, and made an effort to do more with the series’ relatively simple formula.

We’re sticking with the SNES next week, for a very weird game in an extremely overdone and early-90s genre. I’m excited! See you then.

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #94: Lode Runner 3-D (N64, 1999)

You know those times when you just have to run a lode?

Yeah, me either. Lode Runner 3-D is a puzzle platform game, and part of a well-regarded series that dates back to 1983. The original, which was a hit on the Apple II and other early computers, was among the first games to have a built-in level editor, which is always a good feature to have, right?

Hmm. Anyway, if you’ve played a Lode Runner game before, this will feel reasonably familiar. If you haven’t, it works like this - in each level, you need to collect a sufficient amount of coins and then reach an exit, all while avoiding bad guys and removing blocks and other obstacles. Each level is essentially its own little puzzle (or series of puzzles, as they grow more and more complex), and timing and sequencing are always very important. For instance, you will very often need to destroy blocks, but those can only be destroyed by either a bomb (which you don’t always have) or if there is nothing on top of it and you are both above and next to it. That’s a weird sentence, so here’s an example:

In the image above, if I destroy the closest block to me and then drop down, I would then be stuck - I can’t destroy the block that would be next to me, and that block is above the one I could otherwise destroy. Therefore, the correct sequence is to destroy the top right block while standing on the top left block, then destroying the top left block while standing on the ramp, and then dropping down and destroying the bottom block to move on. The blocks respawn after a few seconds, so all of this needs to be done rather quickly. This sort of thinking ahead and ensuring that you don’t screw yourself over is pretty interesting, and is paramount throughout the game.

There are 100 levels to play through, and they get tricky very quickly. Eventually more enemies, tiers of puzzles, and other things that can screw you over are added to the mix. There can be a serious amount of trial and error, which can get frustrating at times. The game’s controls are acceptable, but there are definitely times when I wish they were tighter (and in a puzzle game, To make matters a tad more frustrating, as is the case with a lot of early 3D games, the graphics are muddy enough that it’s often hard to see everything you ideally need to see. Thankfully, there are some okay camera controls if you need them.

Despite having its share of frustrations, I really quite enjoyed Lode Runner 64. I do tend to enjoy puzzle platformers in general, but this one is decently well-designed and offers an enjoyable challenge that will keep players busy for a good while. If you’re into this sort of game, it’s probably worth tracking down. A loose cart goes for around 10 bucks. Games in the series are still being made, with the most recent being PC/Mac/Switch game Lode Runner Legacy. That one, delightfully, mimics the visuals of the original:

Big Bang Software, the company behind Lode Runner 64, has a surprisingly brief history. They worked on a PS1 version of Star Wars: Dark Forces, the 32X port of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, and...not much else. The studio’s head, Scott Tsumura, is a bit more notable however. In addition to working on the original Lode Runner and other early classics including Moon Patrol and Spelunker, Tsumura was also a developer on more recent gems like Pokemon Puzzle League and WaveRace: Blue Storm.

Oh, and your guy’s name is Jake Peril. Jake Peril! That’s worth a couple of bucks on its own. Can’t believe I almost forgot that.

The drive to 100 Retro Roulettes continues next week, with a 16-bit follow up to an NES game I reviewed just a few weeks ago. I will see you then!

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #93: Winter Games (NES, 1987)

Picture this, everyone - games, but in the winter.

The developer Epyx released the sports mini-game compilation Summer Games for the Commodore 64 in 1984, a time when Americans had Olympics fever due to the LA games. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was a big hit! The game spawned a number of sequels, including the “radical” California Games and this week’s Retro Roulette title, Winter Games. It’s already frustratingly winter-y here in Minnesota, so this is a frustratingly apt choice.

If you’ve played Track and Field or other similar titles, you have some idea of how this one works - there are a few different sporting events with simple controls that you can play one by one or in succession. This one also comes with a little opening ceremony:

You can’t skip this, by the way. You WILL get into the Olympic spirit, and dagnabbit, you’re going to like it. While some versions of Winter Games have up to 8 different events to choose from, the NES version has a whopping *four* of them. Oof. Let’s break them down.

“Hot Dog Aerials” is aerial skiing, but with a far stupider name for some reason. You’ll use various button combinations flip and spin around, and then hopefully land on your feet, perhaps. This one’s frustratingly brief, but it’s kind of enjoyable to try and get enough tricks in for a perfect score (which I totally did, for the record):

Next up is speed skating, which is the game’s most Track and Field-esque offering. All you need to do is alternate between pressing left and right to move your skater. Unlike Track and Field, however, you can’t just do this as fast as possible - you have to take a certain leisurely pace to actually achieve the top speed. While I appreciate that this isn’t literally just button mashing, once you find the ideal speed, there’s really nothing more to it. Also, the race takes around 40 seconds, which may not sound like much, but it’s an agonizingly long time to be doing this.

The game’s third mode is figure skating, and it’s just about the least fun game mode I’ve ever experienced. The manual goes over what you’re supposed to do here, but it was basically no help whatsoever. Here’s what it boils down to in practice - you slowly and continuously skate in a straight line to the tune of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers,” and sometimes push A to fall down. After 60 seconds, you see this screen:

That’s figure skating! Just like in real life. The last even is bobsled:

Oh, I’m sorry - THE bobsled. It’s the only one. This is definitely my favorite event of the bunch, though it also isn’t especially complicated. You use the D-pad to lean your sled around turns and (hopefully) not crash, all while going as fast as possible. It may be the Stockholm Syndrome kicking in, but I kinda enjoy this one...it’s quite simple, and there’s just one track, but it’s really not bad.

To summarize - Winter Games features four mini-games that range from okay to abhorrent. Even as a big fan of the Olympics, I really have a hard time finding much to enjoy or recommend about this one. It does feature a two-player competition mode, so I suppose you can always challenge your friends to see who can be the least bad at this.

While Winter Games leaves a lot to be desired, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the final release in the Various Games franchise, titled World Games. This one isn’t amazing either, but it delightfully ignores all pretense of any organized sports competition and just offers up with a whole bunch of weird things. Your options include caber tossing, sumo wrestling, and my personal favorite: cliff diving.

That’s right. There is no better way on the NES to dive straight into a pile of jagged rocks, all while a dumb looking pelican watch in horror. Thanks, World Games. You’re a real pal.

Next week, we continue our trudge towards 100 Retro Roulette games with a late-90s reimagining of an early 80s classic. See you then!

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #92: Comix Zone (Genesis, 1995)

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is an area we call...the Comix Zone.

Wait, that’s not right.

Back when the games industry still came up with new ideas, Sega developed and published Comix Zone, a heavily comic-inspired beat-um-up, near the end of the Genesis’s life cycle. Its story is pretty fun - the impossibly named Sketch Turner is working on a comic book whose villain comes to life and attempts to kill him. You know how it is. Throughout the game, you need to beat up a bunch of bad guys, solve a few simple puzzles, and save the world or whatever.

Visually, Comix Zone goes to great lengths to emulate being inside a comic book, down to having the protagonist progress through individual panels and pages. It’s a pretty darn neat motif, and I can’t stress this point enough - as a kid in the mid-90s, this sort of graphical coolness was *mind-blowing*. There hadn’t been a game that looked and moved like this one did, and at least as a kid, that was enough to be completely enthralled. It didn’t matter how good the game actually was; seeing it in motion was more than enough. The point of this story is that kids are dumb and have dumb opinions.

In all honesty, Comix Zone still looks and sounds pretty great. The stylish animation holds up surprisingly well, and the way the characters move through the environments is really neat. Having said that, it’s a bit harder to look past some of its other elements. The combat is pretty tedious - you don’t have a ton of attacks at your disposal, and a lot of enemies take a dozen or more hits to kill. I also can’t help but question the decision to give the player just one life - for a game that’s pretty difficult to begin with, and one that does things like damage you for punching obstacles that you *have* to destroy, this feels needlessly mean. There isn’t much to the game as a whole, either - just six levels, none of which are especially long.

I do appreciate that the fighting is broken up by small puzzle-solving bits, some of which involve Roadkill, a rat who is your friend. Roadkill is also one of several items that can fill your small inventory, which can also hold explosives, weapons, and healing items. This is also a nice addition, as it gives you a few more options to deal with trickier enemies and situations.

In hindsight, Comix Zone was always a pretty good game, but it probably wasn’t ever a great one. It still feels original, and it’s enjoyable to run through the pages of a comic book kicking various alien butts, but a few design decisions - repetitive combat and relatively short story, to name a few - make it feel just a bit short of excellence. It’s solid, but I want to like it more than I do. If you enjoy action games of this era, it’s probably still worth a playthrough.

The game’s reputation is still pretty good, so a loose cartridge will still run you around $15 (or $50 if you’d like a complete one). Thankfully, there are several more practical ways to play it for yourself. It’s available on Steam, as a mobile mobile app and as part of numerous retro Sega compilations. It’s also on the Genesis Mini console that was released recently. Among its more surprising ports its the one for the Game Boy Advance, though that version was only released in Europe. Everything about that fact is weird.

Next week, we’re going back to the NES for a title that’s eight games in one, sort of, and there are maybe a couple of good ones. Maybe. See you then!

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #91: Knight Rider (NES, 1989)

You might believe that shovelware based on licensed properties is a relatively new phenomenon. Of course, if you’ve read this blog before, you’d know that you would be wrong.

Knight Rider was first released in Japan in 1989. A lot of times that means it’s some original Japanese concept with a US property tagged on, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here - as far as I can tell, it was always just Knight Rider. It also has this cover art, in which David Hasselhoff is nowhere to be found:

I sure am pumped by the captivating tagline “You Drive the Car From the Hit TV Series.” In truth, driving that car about all the TV show and the game have in common - the TV show Knight Rider was very largely non-violent, where as this...

They kinda got the car right, at least. Much more akin to, say, RoadBlasters, Knight Rider is pretty much your standard late-80s "drive and shoot” fare. As you progress from city to city, you’ll be able to power up your car with more weapons and other power-ups.

I’ll admit that while it fails as a Knight Rider adaptation, this isn’t entirely awful as a racing game - it’s well-paced and looks decent. However, like a lot of games of this type, it is sadistically hard. You aren’t given a reasonable amount of any of the things you need to keep playing, including shields, gas, and available time, both of which deplete surprisingly rapidly. There are yellow cars that you can shoot to replenish these, but there aren’t a lot of them, and there’s a lot to avoid while trying to get to them.

Ugh. A lot of these old games were designed to just suck up quarters, which is understandable, but translating that concept to a home console just feels mean (I’ll also note that this was never an arcade game, despite really feeling like one). The game does mercifully have a password system, as well as a ‘Drive’ mode where there aren’t enemies to deal with and it’s more of a time trial sort of thing. Of course, then you don’t get to talk to Devon...

If you can put up with the difficulty, Knight Rider is a decent amount of fun and certainly not the worst racing game on the NES. A loose copy will run you less than $10. If you do check it out, I recommend doing so while listening to the song “Michael (Jump In)” by No More Kings, easily the best song I know about Knight Rider.

Next week’s game is a 16-bit classic, and one that also has a well-deserved reputation for being brutally difficult. I have fond memories of being awed by (and hating) this one as a child. I’ll see you then!

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #90: Adventure Island 3 (NES, 1992)

A whole island. Of adventure. Can you even imagine it?

The original Adventure Island was developed by Hudson Soft as a re-skin of Wonder Boy, a platforming game published by Sega. The adaptation was a big hit for Hudson, so they developed sequels on their own, which have no relation to the Wonder Boy series. This week’s game is the third in Hudson’s series.

As previously mentioned, this is an action-platformer a la Super Mario Bros. or last week’s stupid game, Kid Kool. You play as a shirtless fellow named Higgins. Higgins! I can’t believe his name is Higgins. Over the course of the game, you can acquire a number of different weapons and other powerups, including throwing axes, a boomerang, and a handful of different dinosaurs that you can ride around. I’m partial to the one that poops lightning:

While the powerups are cool, the way the game stores them for you is arguably even cooler - if you pick up a new powerup when you’re already holding one, the prior one will be stored in an inventory that you can access at the start of every level. It’s basically the best of both Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3′s item systems, and it’s sweet. Having an axe or boomerang is very important (especially because you can’t jump on enemies to kill them, generally), so having a few spare one is immensely helpful.

The levels vary an acceptable amount, though they’re never especially complicated. Despite that, they’re very enjoyable to work through, without being overly hard or insultingly easy. You’ve got your standard “in the sky,” “underground,” and “under water” sorts of things, the latter of which has a very cool Nessie-esque helper in some levels.

So. Cool. If I could sum up Adventure Island 3 in one word, it would be “pleasant.” It’s a fun little ride with a bunch of cool toys/dinosaurs to play with and that never asks too much of you. None of it is overly difficult or complicated, but it looks good, is fairly fast-paced and has a decent variety in level design. Plus, his name is HIGGINS! Ahhhhh. Also the plot involves aliens, in a way I don’t quite understand.

The Adventure Island series continued onto the SNES, with a couple of Super Adventure Island releases to go with the NES originals. A reboot of sorts, titled Adventure Island: The Beginning, was released via WiiWare in 2007, and is about as good as you think it is. I’m mildly surprised this hasn’t gotten some neo-retro revival like a lot of franchises in this vein have (including Wonder Boy, on which the first game was based).

Somewhat unfortunately, Adventure Island 3 itself is a bit hard to find - it was released in late 1992, well after the NES’s prime, and so its print one wasn’t as big as a lot of the console’s staples. Between the low print run and decent quality, a cartridge copy still sells for about $50. If you’re really into NES games, it’s arguably still worth picking up. It’s a lot of fun. Higgins!

Next week’s game is yet another NES game, and this one’s based on a TV show. I have incredibly low hopes for this, so you’ll probably want to check back and see how it went.

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #89: Kid Kool and the Quest for the Seven Wonder Herbs (NES, 1990)

I’m back from vacation, and it’s time to play...whatever this is. This can’t actually be its name, can it?

Oh god, it is. Alright, let’s see what we’ve got here.

Kid Kool was released by Vic Tokai for the NES in 1990, and adapted from a Japanese version that was released a couple of years earlier. The game’s central character is a kid based on a real life Japanese child actor who somehow hit it big impersonating a specific baseball player (which is so ridiculous, I couldn’t make it up if I tried). He is also, apparently, very kool.

Just so cool. Or kool, rather. The game is a rather straight forward platformer, without a ton of bells and whistles. You jump on enemies, over gaps, and so forth. On occasion, you get a little red guy who you can throw at enemies, which makes things measurably easier at times (and he boomerangs back to you, which is handy).

You might think that description probably doesn’t sound like much, and you’d be right. If this were exceptionally well-executed, it’d probably still be a decent game, but Kid Kool is...not a decent game. Movement and level design are critical aspects of any good platformer, and both have serious issues. The game’s title kid struggles to jump forward without a significant amount of momentum, meaning that if you didn’t get to much of a running start you probably won’t jump as far as you wanted (possibly even effectively jumping straight up), which means you’ll probably die. The game’s levels do a poor job of accounting for this, and task you with making jumps that are needlessly frustrating. The game’s second level begins with a jump so large that you can’t see where you’ll need to land as you take off, which is just preposterous.

The game also apparently has a night/day mode, which changes some aspects of the game. However, this only changes once every real-time hour of gameplay. Considering the above, I’m guessing very few people even tolerated the game long enough to discover this mechanic (and I don’t blame them). While the concept is interesting, it’s not executed in a way that’s even remotely workable. Nothing about this game makes sense.

Ultimately, Kid Kool is about as misleadingly named as a video game can get. It’s a dull, frustrating game that mildly resembles Super Mario Bros., though it’s worse in every conceivable way. It’s clear what Vic Tokai was going for, but this is just an unenjoyable mess.

Despite not being especially well-liked by anyone Kid Kool received a couple of spiritual sequels. One of those games is Decap Attack, a Genesis exclusive that is actually quite good! You can play that in a few different Genesis compilation releases, including the recent Sega Genesis Classics for modern consoles.

Next week, we’re sticking with another action-y platformer on the NES, though I’m pretty sure this one isn’t hot garbage. It even has dinosaurs, so you’ve got that to look forward to. I’ll see you then.

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #88: Vanguard (Atari 2600, 1982)

This week’s installment of “Incredibly Misleading Atari Art” goes like this:

I feel like this sort of artwork only serves to set players up for disappointment. I mean, just look at what the arcade flyer for this game is like: 

About 80% of this flyer has absolutely nothing to do with the game. I don’t even know what’s going on here, but I think I want to be Laser Eye Beard Man when I grow up.

Anyway, Vanguard was an early-ish release for SNK (the Neo Geo folks) that hit arcades in 1981 and made its way to the Atari 2600 a year later. It’s an early entry in the “shoot things until they die” genre, which I think accompanies basically all games now (and, regrettably, also real life).

I’m gonna warn you that my 2600 seems to be having some real video issues, but I assure you the game looks a bit better than this in real life:

The Atari version of the game is a relatively solid recreation of the original, as far as these things go - you have to make your way through a bunch of auto-scrolling areas (both vertical and horizontal, which is cool) while dodging a series of weird looking enemies who don’t like you. This eventually ramps up in speed and difficulty, but the basic idea never really changes. It feels a lot like a prototypical version of Gradius or R-Type - while it’s certainly a lot simpler than those, and there aren’t really any upgrades or the like, the idea is generally the same.

My biggest gripe with this one is the controls - while you can both move and fire in four directions, you generally have to use the same joystick for both. This means you can only fire in a direction in which you’re moving, which isn’t always ideal. There are a few different other configurations (which are controlled by the 2600′s difficulty switches), but they all have similar issues. Isn’t awful, per se, but it’s hard not to imagine how well it would work as a Robotron-esque, twin-stick shooter.

There isn’t a lot of music in this version of Vanguard, but what’s there is rather interesting. When you pick up a temporary invincibility power up, it plays a version of a piece of music from the 1980 film Flash Gordon, which was composed by none other than Freddie Mercury. Why they chose this, I have absolutely no idea. On a similar note - in the arcade version, the first music you hear when you start is Jerry Goldsmith’s theme to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which would go on to be used as the TNG theme. So when you think about, it Vanguard is really just a prequel to this:

The 2600 version of Vanguard is also, according to reviews at the time, the first home video game ever to have a ‘Continue’ option. I can’t say for sure that that’s actually true, but it wouldn’t shock me. Considering the variation of the levels and the amount of progress there is to be made, this is a really welcome addition. It definitely made it so I played this a lot more than I would have otherwise. I appreciate a game that, well, lets me play it.

Overall, I was impressed with Vanguard. It’s a good amount of fun, and it offers more variety than a lot of the games of its time. If you enjoy retro shoot-em-ups, I’d definitely recommend checking this out as a cool piece of the genre’s history. The 2600 version won’t set you back more than a few bucks, and the arcade version is available on modern consoles by way of the very cool SNK 40th Anniversary Collection. 

I’m going on a big vacation starting next week, so Retro Roulette will also be taking a two week hiatus. When we come back in mid-October, we’ll be looking at an NES game whose title seems like it can’t possibly be real. I look forward to seeing you then!

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #87: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX (Game Boy Color, 1998)

Oh man, the hits keep coming.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was Nintendo’s first attempt at bringing their uber-popular Zelda franchise to their even more uber-popular Game Boy. It was a match made in uber. Over 5 years after its original release, a “DX” version for the Game Boy Color was released - that’s the version we’re talking about this week. This version has colorful sprites, an extra dungeon, and compatibility with the Game Boy Printer, one of the dumbest things in the world. It lets you print out images like this:

Ugh. Anyway, here’s a thing I didn’t know about this game until today - from the get go, it wasn’t meant to be a new Zelda game at all! During their off hours, some Nintendo developers were quietly working on porting A Link to the Past to the Game Boy. That plan didn’t work out, but it eventually evolved into the portable classic as we know it today.

The game’s story is actually surprisingly different than a lot of other “main” titles in the series. For starters, it’s not set in Hyrule, but on Koholint Island, a place whose name I swear I didn’t just make up. It also doesn’t actually feature the character of Zelda, which almost feels like a weird oversight. The game begins with Link, our usual protagonist, waking up on the island’s shore (this is, you could say, Link’s awakening). He is tasked with collecting a set of eight magical instruments, which can then be used to wake up something called the Wind Fish, after which he can go home. You’re given explanations and story tidbits by a weird owl, who seems to know a lot about this stuff and could maybe just do all of this himself. I’m just saying.

All of the essentials of the franchise are here - cool dungeons, interesting puzzles, mini-games, stabbing chickens, and so on. While it’s a bit short compared to other games in the series, Link’s Awakening still captures the essence of what this amazing series is all about (and, perhaps more importantly, what makes it great). The music you know and love is still there, the cool items are still largely present, and the dungeon design is top notch, complete with cool bosses and hidden treasures and so on.

As if that weren’t enough, the series also dares to innovate a bit - it was the first Zelda game in which Link can jump - a surprisingly big innovation! This also allows for a cool few side-scrolling sequences, some of which are just straight up Mario-y:

Link’s Awakening often appears close to the top of rankings of Zelda games, and with good reason - Nintendo did a remarkable job of shrinking the concept down to the Game Boy’s size without sacrificing much of anything in terms of functionality. Any Zelda ranking is going to be crowded at the top, but this game truly deserves to be in that discussion.

If this article has piqued your interest, I have incredibly good news! The Retro Roulette wheel has developed excellent timing this week, as a remastered version for the Switch is hitting shelves *this week* - whether you played the original or not, it’s gonna be a must-buy. No Game Boy Printer support, but nothing’s perfect, you know?

Next week, our impressive run of 90s classics comes to end, as we go back to before I was born. Is the game good? I have no idea. Probably not. See you then.

[retro-roulette]

Retro Roulette #86: Kid Chameleon (Genesis, 1992)

Folks, it just does not get more rad than this.

Kid Chameleon was developed and published by the good folks at Sega in May of 1992. This was a good time for Sega - at the time, Sonic the Hedgehog was still a smash hit and sales were booming - a Sonic boom, if you will. The game is regrettably unrelated is unrelated to the song “Chameleon,” which was sung by a kid at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.

I always enjoyed the backstory to this game - essentially, you’re a rad 90s kid who went to an arcade and got kidnapped by a cool new VR game. I figure we’re about six months away from that happening for real. The “chameleon” part comes from his ability to change forms through a series of helmets, which give him different cool abilities. You can be a tank, a samurai, a Jason Voorhees ripoff that throws axes, and a bunch more. It’s awesome.

Picking up a new helmet gives you full health (some give you a higher max health than others). If you have a helmet and run out of health, you change back to regular old, weakling Kid Chameleon, left to try and find a new one. You’re decently fast as your regular self, but your health is dangerously low and you have to be *super* careful.

While it’s a “run around and jump on bad guys” sort of game at its core, one of the most notable things about Kid Chameleon is that, especially compared to similar games of the time, it is absolutely massive. You’ll need to play through about 50 levels at a minimum, but there are branching paths and hidden things that brings the total level count to over 100. One hundred! That’s absurd for a game like this. There’s also no password or other sort of save option, so make sure you’re ready for the long haul.

Thankfully, if you can deal with that, it’s a really fun game! The different ‘suits’ all play really differently, and the levels are interesting and varied, with a bunch of cool, weird enemies in all of them. The music’s cool and 90s as heck - it’s a great retro experience. There are a decent number of extra life and continue pickups to help you get through it all as well, which is nice.

If you want to check this one out but don’t have a Genesis, there are a few different “Genesis Collection” compilations where it’s available. There’s also a *mobile* version available for free in the usual app stores. This version is similar to the original, only with more weird advertisements for how to invest like a woman:

I’m mildly surprised this never got a sequel (Kid Chameleon, not the Ellevest advertisement). He did show up in comic strip form in Sonic the Comic for a while (which is true of a lot of Sega characters of the time), but that’s really about it. Now that the 90s are cool again, I wonder if it’s only a matter of time.

Our improbable run of truly great games continues next week with one of the greatest portable games of all time, and one that’s a remarkably timely choice. See you then!