Review a Game You Like

[SegaAges]

I searched and didn't find any thread like this.

This is a spin-off thread from all those "let's cuss at crappy games videos".

I don't want to play crappy games. I want to play sweet games or games I did not know were awesome.

In this thread, your post is a written review (this is not a college thesis, but make it nice).

Just reply and give us a review of a game you really like to play. If there are 50 SMB3 Reviews, so be it.

Really, any game you really like to play. You can go as in depth as you want, or just say:
"
graphics = 5
sound = 5
gameplay = 10
"

Whatever you want. I just made that thing up off of the top of my head (not all that original, but who cares).

If you need to start cussing and talking about diahrrea in your review on this post, then it is pretty apparent you don't like the game, and hence that is not what this post is about.

Seriously, any game you like to play, give us DPers a sweet written review. Let us know why it is such a great game for you.

[Deadpixels]

This isa review I posted on my site, Heypoorplayer.com, for Clash at Demonhead for the NES.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clash at Demonhead
Developer: Vic Tokai
Year Released: 1990

This week I'm going to try to (hopefully) make things a little more structured by introducing my new retro-roundup, Past_Pixels. Past_Pixels is going to be dedicated to bringing tasty bits of info and impressions on some of the lesser talked about games of the past, delivered straight to your monitor in no more than 10 paragraphs or your money back.

So without further jawing, let's get to the goodness.



Clash at Demonhead, also known as Dengeki Big Bang in Japan, is an action platformer released for the NES/Famicom in 1989 by Vic Tokai. Rather than stick to the tried and true formula of contemporaries such as Super Mario Brothers and Castlevania, Clash at Demonhead incorporates an extremely non-linear adventure that utilizes a route system that expands to over 40 stages which can be traversed at will.

The main character in your adventure is S.A.B.R.E. special agent Billy "Big Bang" Blitz. While vacationing on the beach, the Blitzenator recieves an urgent message-Professor Plum, the creator of the Doomsday Bomb, has been kidnapped by (no, not ninjas) Tom Guycot, the chief of the Governors of Demonhead (Metal band material? I vote yes), who also happens to be a skeleton wearing nothing but a cape.The only way for Bang to save the world from immanent destruction is for Big Billy Badass to hunt down the six governors, slaughter them proper, and recover their medallions to defuse the ticking bomb.


Thankfully, Bang isn't alone on his fantastic voyage. While Coolio is nowhere to be found, Bang has the ability to call forth Ron Jeremy, shop clerk of the stars, to aid him in his bloody journey towards plums and vengeance. Using your Call Shop item, you're teleported to the store where you can buy new armored duds, a jetpack, more powerful weapons, and other special goodies. Most of these items are helpful, but some are actually required to access important areas of the game.


One of the things I very much enjoy about this game is just how wide open it is. The world is full of areas to explore, items to uncover, and secret areas to tumble into. If you fall in a hole, chances are you're not dying, you're instead trapped in an entirely new underworld of a level. Sharp, colorful visuals accompany the large world nicely. Everything has a 70's anime look, and it really suits the game well.

Clash at Demonhead is a fun, and very silly adventure that really should be checked out by any fans of the genre. The game is a bit difficult, with some very challenging boss encounters, but definitley a satisfying experience. Another game I'd have to recommend which plays very similarly is Conquest of the Crystal Palace, if you've played this game, you will have a pretty good idea what to expect from Clash at Demonhead, at least in terms of gameplay and style-minus the cool route system.

Anyone looking for a quality retro-romp with a sense of humor, be sure to check this forgotten gem out.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Up’N Down
Colecovision
Sega
Maze Collect

I have to admit it, I don’t think the Colecovision is a bad console in any way but it just hasn’t been my cup ‘o tea as so to say. I am much more fond of the Intellivision and Atari 5200, I finally had to hook the console up to test some controllers and decided to start playing a few games that I haven’t played before, as I finally started to get used to the clunky controllers I decided to pop Up’N Down in the console since I bought it over a year ago and haven’t tried it. Wow, was I pleasantly surprised. This has to be perhaps my favorite Colecovision game now and it’s a complete sleeper hit.

Sega was one of the better game publishers in the early 80’s but never seemed to get much of a foothold outside of the Atari 2600, they only produced a few Atari 5200 game carts and one game a piece for the Intellivision and Colecovision. Fortunately as I stated earlier it’s a great game. The game was ported from its arcade counterpart to several computers and consoles including the Colecovision and Atari 2600 and no matter what console you choose, it’s very rare to find a copy of this great game.

Up’N Down is essentially a vertically scrolling pseudo Pac-Man clone. You drive a car through a maze in an endless loop avoiding other cars and trying to collect ten flags to advance to the next stage. There aren’t any powerups this time but instead your car can jump and land on top of the opposing cars and destroy them for points, you can go forward or in reverse to avoid collisions and it’s essential to master going in reverse in the later stages. The tricky part comes in when there’s several cars after you and your near a turn in the road, if you jump to destroy a car and don’t make the turn then you’ll be destroyed from landing off the road. Later stages have flags placed in dead ends and on bridges and you have to learn to slow down collect the flag and reverse. To add to the fray there are hills that will speed you up or ramps that will slow you down, it gets pretty interesting when you hit a ramp with several cars after you. The game also gives a point bonus depending on how fast you finish a round and the faster you finish the more points awarded and the more extra lives gained so it pays to be fast.

The game has very colorful graphics and is a beauty to look at, all of the obstacles are drawn very well and are easy to distinguish, trees are visible in the background and the hills and ramps are drawn nicely and add to the already impressive eye candy, the bridges that appear later on are also a beauty to look at. On top of that there is a pretty large variety of enemy cars that come after you so you never feel like the same enemy is constantly chasing you.The one area that the arcade does well with the graphics is with the ramps, they actually drew mountains that the ramps go up, in the Colecovision they are just ramps. Again not a huge flaw but I know the Colecovision could have pulled off better graphics if Sega spent a bit more time with it.

Sound is also very pleasant to the ears with a smooth background tune constantly playing and a catchy theme when you complete a round, they aren’t my favorite themes by any means but I found myself humming along to them. Control is spot on and perfect even with the clunky Colecovision controller. Several difficulty levels are selectable as well as two player game play.

The only thing that could make an already great game perfect aside from the addition of mountains in the background would have been to add some variety to the stages such as night time or desert backdrops or something on that line and maybe an extra tune or two after a few stages but it’s not a big problem and doesn’t hurt the game much at all and I don’t fault Sega too much here since they were sticking with the source material.

Honestly, Sega created one of the Colecovision’s masterpieces and easily one of the top ten on the console. This game is definitely worth tracking down even if it costs a lot, it’s that good. I was playing this while a friend of mine was over and it quickly caught his attention and he wanted to give it a try too. It’s got one of the easiest learning curves and is able to be picked up and played but is tough to master, I’ve made it to round five now but it took lots of practice, stage five is pretty tricky, if you touch a flag that has been picked up already then it has to be recollected. Games like this are big in my book because many other games play great but are too easy and get boring too quickly, not this game, it never lets up!

Hint: Master being able to stop quickly and reverse especially at a ramp or a dead end. It’s better to reverse and crush a car then have several cars chasing you when you go up a ramp.

Hint: Collect each flag on one side of the maze at a time then go to the other side and then the middle, you’ll collect them faster and have less backtracking to do.

Hint: Finish as fast as you can to get a point bonus and a better chance of gaining 1ups.

Game Play 10
Graphics 8
Sound 9
Overall 9

[kupomogli]

Even though my favorite game is Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together, I'm going to talk about another great game. Arc the Lad 2.

Arc the Lad 2/Arc the Lad Collection
Arc Entertainment/publisher Working Designs
Playstation

Coming off from the original Arc the Lad, a very generic and boring tactical RPG in gameplay although having a decent storyline with some good characters and some great music, Arc the Lad 2 puts the main characters of the original as sortof side characters with some new characters coming into play. The games storyline is amazing, so much that they created a subpar anime to attempt to profit on it.

When it comes to gameplay, Arc the Lad 2 has it in all areas. The battle system itself is like your average tactical RPG with a few exceptions as characters not only level up, but weapons, armor, accessories, and magic also levels up with usage. One character is a monster tamer and pretty much any enemy in the game can be recruited, each having the ability to change to different class types to learn different skills later on in the game.

One of the biggest parts in the game aside from the main game itself is the hunter's guild. You're really not required to take any guild jobs, but if you skip it then you're pretty much missing out on half of the game(and it really does give quite a bit of backstory doing these jobs.) Aside from the jobs, there are multiple wanted monsters to kill as well as a large amount of dungeons that can be explored for better equipment.

If you end up getting Arc the Lad Collection it also comes with Arc Arena(Monster Tournament.) With this you can actually load your data from Arc the Lad 2 and use your monsters(and characters after beating the first tournament) to fight some battles and get extra weapons/armor and powered up monsters with skills they couldn't learn normally.

Awesome game. I'd recommend it to anyone who even remotely likes tactical RPGs.

Gameplay 5/5
Graphics 5/5
Replay Value 4/5
Story 5/5

-andrew- -kupomogli-

[DigitalSpace]

I'm going to keep this short.

Super Metroid (SNES)
1994

Best. Game. Ever.

Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Replay Value: 10/10
Box Art: 10/10
Story: 10/10
Babes: 10/10 (You play one.)
Dur Butter: EAT COMMUNISM!

[c0ldb33r]

Day of the Tentacle. This is an awesome game. If you haven't played (and finished) this, stop reading this post. Now. And go play it. The text version (on floppy) is a little crappy, but the voice version (on CD) is a slice of pure gold.

The graphics and animation look like a cartoon.
The sound and music are great.
The story and puzzles are interesting, intriguing and funny.

As a bonus, the original Maniac Mansion is hidden inside the game.

I'd give this game 11 purple tentacles out of 10.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s182/c0ldb33r/18127_full.jpg

[Deadpixels]

Day of the Tentacle. This is an awesome game. If you haven't played (and finished) this, stop reading this post. Now. And go play it. The text version (on floppy) is a little crappy, but the voice version (on CD) is a slice of pure gold.

The graphics and animation look like a cartoon.
The sound and music are great.
The story and puzzles are interesting, intriguing and funny.

As a bonus, the original Maniac Mansion is hidden inside the game.

I'd give this game 11 purple tentacles out of 10.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s182/c0ldb33r/18127_full.jpg

Great review, as I myself have a soft spot for purple tentacles.

The Maniac Mansion series is deep-fried, candy-coated bacon.

[BHvrd]

Burn Cycle - Philips CD-i

http://www.blogfiles.blackmoonproject.co.uk/image/burncycle_cdi_cover.jpg

Interactive video at its best!

This game is a total head trip (literally) and the storytelling and gameplay are very engrosing and fun. When I first bought a Philips CD-i it was to play Dragon's Lair and Space Ace mostly, but this game made the system tops and I was very glad I bought one.

I can't count the number of times I beat the game cause it just intrigued me and kept me coming back mainly cause the puzzle elements were so fun and actually fit in with the story. The ending is a blast!!! To this day I sooooooooooooo want a sequel!

My PSN is an abbreviation of the main characters name Sol Cutter in case you wondered just how much I freakin loved this game. A classic in all regards imo, really showed what could be done with interactive video and in many ways is still DEFINITELY ahead of its time!


Gameplay 10/10
Graphics 10/10
Music/Sound 10/10
Replay Value 10/10
Story 10+/10
Overall 10+

[Press_Start]

The Guardian Legend! A great underrated IMO! :love: :love: :love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPgAoabGv2k

I hope video reviews are allowed.

[bangtango]

A good arcade style basketball game with a tight franchise mode and lots of dunks can make for a good aphrodisiac. Last gen examples of such a game include NBA Live 2003 (PS2) and NBA Inside Drive 2003 (Xbox). Sometimes when I need to blow off a little steam, I put both of these games on and change the difficulty to "Rookie Mode." Then I proceed to plow the AI team with lopsided scores such as 138 to 40. Plus with the year that those two games came out, I am able to run up the score on the computer with my favorites from the 1990's. This includes the likes of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp, Mitch Richmond, Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway (all of whom were still playing then). Doesn't matter that these guys were all past their prime in the 2003 games. In less than 40 minutes, I end up feeling like a million bucks. Really, it works......

[SegaAges]

The Guardian Legend! A great underrated IMO! :love: :love: :love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPgAoabGv2k

I hope video reviews are allowed.

Hey man, review it how you want, I don't care.

I made this post to be laid back. No cussing a buttload on crappy games, just reviews of great games.

Burn Cycle: Wow, I had no idea. See, that is what this thread is about. I got my cdi for the zelda games (crappy, but mine is till sealed :) ) and for space ace and dragon's lair. I will have to hit up eBay and get myself a copy of Burn cycle.

Here is a review from me from my all time favorite game.
================================================== ================
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/all/boxshots2/198809_42995.jpg
Game: Steep Slope Sliders
System: Sega Saturn

Backstory
This game is actually a port of an arcade game that was released under the Sega ST-V Titan hardware. It is a snowboarding game, but also a full on arcade game.

The easiest way to describe this is Top Skater with more options. This was actually released around the time that Top Skater was released, and funcoland for a very long time had Top Skater as a release for pre-order. Well around the end of the Saturn life span, Top Skater never came out, but Steep Slope Sliders made its way out.

My personal guess as to why is because it was easier to port SSS because it was already on the ST-V hardware.

Game play
What you had to do to make it through a level depended on which level you played. Slalom is the level where you wanted to see how fast you could get through the course, where the others were based on doing as many tricks as possible for a high score (Think Tony Hawk here people).

There were 7 courses to choose from, ranging from slalom to just a mountain terrain course to an "extreme" course. There was also a snowboard park and halfpipe course.
http://www.satakore.com/satengine/screenshots/T-91/T-9116G_5,,Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-5-Steep-Slope-Sliders-Satakore-JPN.jpg

My personal favorites were extreme and the snowboard park. Extreme just felt good. You started by dropping into the level from a helicopter and then pulling off some moves making your way down the nasty slope.

Snowboard park was just that, a snowboard park. Now this part was fun. It was your own personal playground. Near the end of the level, there is a huge rail that I would love to grind. I could, sometimes, go from start to finish on that rail.

Speaking of grinds, I will make a gripe that although grinds were possible, it did not count towards the score.

Then add in the mix "complex" tricks. What these were, were special tricks in which they could only be executed in a special button combination. One trick off of the top of my head was the McTwist. You could do spins, flips, and grabs right off of the bat, but if you wanted to get "tricky", then you had to bust out the complex tricks.

Also, There were unlockable characters too. The most notable one was the Alien. This gave the game some replay value.
http://www.satakore.com/satengine/screenshots/T-91/T-9116G_6,,Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-6-Steep-Slope-Sliders-Satakore-JPN.jpg

Also there was the ability to edit replays which was pretty fun to do.

They also added a mode I personally dubbed "Stoner Mode". This was where it would play the soundtrack of the game (which was Techno) and you could select from 3-d moving images that would move along with the music.

Graphics
For a Saturn game, the graphics were above average. I say average because they were not phenominal, but they were not bad. They were also better than many Saturn games that came out.

http://www.satakore.com/satengine/screenshots/T-91/T-9116G_7,,Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-7-Steep-Slope-Sliders-Satakore-JPN.jpg

Sound
The sound was awesome. A good mix of fast paced techno music. The sound effects were good as well. This does lead to the grinds again, because it was very possible to grind, but since the game would not count it as a grind, we also got no good sound effects for grinds.

Controls
The controls were excellent. The controller was very responsive and the tricks were easy to pull off. Once you figured out the complex tricks, you were pulling them off as easy as a normal trick. The complex tricks normally consisted of holding in certain buttons and holding a direction on the D-Pad. That was about it. Most of the time messing up on a trick had nothing to do with controls, but more of not fulling knowing the course and what tricks can and can't be done off of certain jumps.

http://www.satakore.com/satengine/screenshots/T-91/T-9116G_8,,Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-8-Steep-Slope-Sliders-Satakore-JPN.jpg

Replayability
Honestly, outside of wanting to beat your own score and possibly make a really cool replay, there was not too much replayability as far as options went. Great game, but you could easily get and unlock all 7 tracks and all 8 characters within an hour or 2.

The Games replayability comes from the core gameplay itself.

Ending Comments
This is a small gem in the rough. The Saturn was dying out, House of the Dead, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Burning Rangers were all released very close to each other, which at the same time we had this game. Do not be confused, this is not a sequel to Winter Heat. These two games are much, much different. This game nailed snowboarding. It is not super realistic, but incredibly fun. This is not 1080 for N64. I remember that game being super complicated to do moves (think pulling off Street Fighter 2 moves for snowboarding). This was also not super unrealistic like how Cool Boarders was starting to turn out.

They did eventually make a sequel to the game, but it was not released on the Saturn. It was actually brought to the states by Capcom and was called Trick'N Sbowboard.

I highly recomend this game to anybody that owns a Saturn. You do not have to be huge into extreme sports to enjoy SSS. It is a port of an arcade game, and definately has that feel when you play the game.

I give this game 4 snowboards out of 5.

*Images used are from http://www.satakore.com

[vintagegamecrazy]

Guys keep these coming and hold onto a copy as I'm in the process of becoming the review editor and am going to start updating the review section and would love to add these.

[j_factor]

Comix Zone (Genesis, 1995)

Graphics: 24/25
Sound: 14/15
Gameplay: 99/112
Presentation: 5/6
Control: 2/2
Replay value: 25/38
Lasting appeal: 27/38
Story: 3/6
Learning curve: 13/13
Cartridge durability: 99/100
Theme song: 8/9
Main character: 12/13
Secondary characters: 11/17
Main villain: 12/13
Regular enemies: 12/17
Bass: 10/10
Treble: 7/10
Horns: 0/10
Vocals: 1/10
Fun factor: 7/7
Cheese factor: 11/10
Sex factor: 3/15
j factor: 1000/1000

Overall: 1405/1496

[cyberfluxor]

Guys keep these coming and hold onto a copy as I'm in the process of becoming the review editor and am going to start updating the review section and would love to add these.

I'd love to review a good amount of computer games. :)

Game: Total Annihilation (TA)
Release date: September 1997
Platform: Windows and Macintosh OS
Developer: Cavedog Entertainment
Publisher: GT Interactive
Primary genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS)
Players: 1-8 with a single player campaign
Price: under $10, more if accompanied with either one of the official expansions.
Overall: 9.5/10

Description:
Here is a game that I consider one of the kings of RTS titles. Although basic in nature by modern standards it has elements that still make this a ground breaking, unique, and enjoyable title today. You begin each skirmish with a large Commander, your main unit that is able to construct basic building structures and hasten construction of units quicker than any other builder available. The goal is to destroy your oppositions Commander. In some game modes you may continue after its demise but only after a huge explosion, so it’s a fair assessment to retract your Commander from vital buildings when under attack.

An offensive is accomplished with a triad of land, sea, and air. On each of the triads there exist three tiers of units where each is stronger, but operate in different manors. Depending on which race you choose you will either be constructing vehicles based on mobility via treads or legs: bipeds, tripods, and so forth. Fundamentally they each contain units with similar abilities or attacking mechanisms, but in addition each has a few unique classes of units.

A defensive is accomplished with offensive units or construction of a variety of buildings. There are laser towers, torpedo launchers, missile turrets, and cannons that can be constructed on land and over sea to fend off units on each level. Some can defend against others in better fashions. There exist stealth and underwater units each of which can be seen with radar and sonar scanners along with various aerial scouts.
The expensive yet powerful buildings to have are those of nuclear capabilities. You can build silos to start a cache of warheads with delivery capabilities of short or long range depending on the building. As a counter measure you may build anti-nuclear missiles, which are short range but if spaced strategically may be found quite reliable.

The landscape is three dimensional (3D) so of these arenas although you can only build on land and sea, it is dependant on location, which cannot be on a slope or on top of certain terrain objects. Units and buildings are constructed using real time resources of Metal and Energy, where Energy is generated from power stations on land or tidal generators in the water and Metal is harvested from deposits. There are varying levels of generators and harvesting buildings where the more costly ones return more over time. Storage buildings may be constructed as a reservoir for later construction efforts.

An interesting aspect is of the communities that have evolved from this classic. There have been unofficial editors released and maps distributed throughout online fan websites. Modifications are widely available, very stable, and easily installed. An open source distribution called Spring is designed for Linux, Windows, and Macintosh OS. There are online servers that help host Spring multiplayer games. Another freely available modification is Talon, which is an update to Total Annihilation to adopt features found in Supreme Commander (Sup Com) and Forged Alliance. It is suggested that Sup Com is played after TA as it is the unofficial sequel due to copyright holders of the TA series during its production. I will refer to Sup Com a few more times to point out refinements of some shortcomings of this title that have since been resolved and even implemented into Talon.

Graphics: 9/10
This is considered the first 3D RTS and designed with a minimum requirement of a 100 MHz CPU and 16 Mb of RAM. With that said the units are limited in polygonal construction and the terrain is a bit bland. One wonderful feature is the resolution is adaptable to whatever your monitor and card can push. With that said, on higher resolution displays the units appear much finer and therefore keeping it a bit more up to par, while at the same time making it more difficult to view the smaller units. Projectiles, one of the greatest features of the engine, are amazing at how smooth they travel in 3D space along with the explosive details of a unit being destroyed. Although nuclear effects appear weak, this has been resolved in Sup Com on an exponential scale. Due to the animation quality and adaptability to newer repopulations this game looks wonderful even today.

Game play: 9/10
The layout of controlling unit actions is at a micromanagement scale. The AI of the units is annoying at times, but overall they can handle formations on their own. Construction buildings can be ordered to relocate new units and have convenient menus for browsing the selectable unit types. The queuing system is limited to the number of clicks one decides to make, which could have been shortened via an infinite build button or option that has been implemented in Sup Com. Games can last anywhere between several minutes to several hours depending on map size, resource availability, and number of opponents with their skill.

Difficulty: 10/10
Although it may appear odd at first the handling on this title is easy in nature. It may become difficult against other skilled players but the AI computers are limited and counter attacks along with defenses become simple. Once a player has grasped the concepts they are offered a massive variety of units and balancing exists on every field of battle.

Sound: 9/10
The soundtrack to TA is just amazing. Depending on the actions and events in-game various tracks are played. Explosions, although not perfect in playback are relational to the projectile type. Units produce sounds when clicked upon depending on role and during movement in relation to mobility. For example, tanks have a tracked, rolling roar sound when in motion and are louder when in groups. The only downfall is there appears to be a limitation to channels of sound, therefore some effects may not be played when there is a lot of action.

Fun factor: 10/10
Due to the large selection of maps and newer available there are many options on skirmishes. With the diversity in units there are endless mixtures of army builds to come up with. With the modifications available today and future releases there is potential in future reincarnations by fans to improve what other features and add new later on.


Here is a clip on YouTube of the action:
Part1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85vGL7aez4s)
Part2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPBpzLYMM-M&feature=related)
Part3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyGuZ9UMbYI&feature=related)

[Dangerboy]

Intellivision Bowling:

Greatest Game of bowling ever published before Wii Sports.

Why?

It's the only game where you:

a. Have to physically pick up the ball
b. Can actually watch the pin rack do it's job
c. Amazing pin physics for its time frame
d. YOU ACTUALLY HAVE CONTROL OF YOUR CURVE. No fucking golf meters!
e. True loft. You can snap that ball back at a 90 degree angle.
f. Fanfare baby. Fanfare.