Lemmings (NES)

The 3rd option is a lie.

Perhaps it's an odd thing to watch multiple things running and scurrying along before unwittingly hurling themselves to their deaths. But enough of thinking about investment bankers, I'm here to review Lemmings and in particular on the NES. Brace yourself, shit games are coming.

DIE!!!

If you've not worked out from the first paragraph, I'm not in favour of this game in the slightest. This goes two-fold on the grounds that as a rendition of Lemmings, the NES version is very weak and in my opinion (and when I compare it to other systems and platforms) shouldn't have been ported to the NES as a crappy cash-in attempt but rather left for more powerful and more capable systems that can handle the workload of sending hundreds of bankers (Sorry, Lemmings) off to their inevitable doom.

At least I get to kill one of the little bastards.

For those not in the know, take up to 100 furry little critters and drop them into an arena where there's possible jobs to give them in order to get a prerequisite number of the lemmings back out again. This can be from 1 to all of them back out through the exit doorway. Your basic lemming will walk back and forth and fall off edges if it can. Falling too far will kill the lemming while so will water drown your lemming, traps will trigger to kill it and you can always blow it up yourself if you want.

Sometimes there's a little trick to the levels, spelled out like a slap in the balls.

Lemmings can be given various job is you've the option to do so, from bashing through the walls horizontally, mining down through them at an angle, digging straight down, given umbrellas to survive long falls, ability to climb walls, build bridges... slowly, stop and prevent other lemmings walking past (until blow up), blow them up or blow them all up because a) You like fireworks or b) You screwed up the level too badly to win and you're not waiting 2minutes for the end of the level time limit to pass.

Just kill them all.

For a lot of levels at the start, it's quite simple. You get x amount of a key skill that you'll need to assign to get the lemmings into the exit and out in the open world of ... another death trap. While later levels it becomes a little more vague what needs to be done in that some of the possibilities won't help at all and others will but only if one lemming is doing x, another is doing y and a third is doing your mum. Or not, but it might as well be. Other puzzles end up being pixel perfect requirements of where to place bridges and blockers and losing too many lemmings because your bridge was a pixel too high at the end of its length, that all your bankers fall to their doom, is a very common occurrence.

The fun begins... oh dear god help me.

While I have to admit I'm not a fan of the game, I can still appreciate the puzzle structure that is picking and choosing which chars will go where to do what and when, it's just a very finicky control system that tends to be time and time again not so much the players fault for getting the wrong choice, but the wrong choice at the wrong time offset by one pixel.

I think the bigger question is, would I care enough to want to do it again?

While on the NES, it gets far worse. The graphics have been toned down, but one would expect that for a 16bit game going onto an 8bit machine. But in doing so the levels looks like pastiche's of the original and there's little here that's original that would have suited the NES better. The controls aren't bad for the game, holding B will let you select between one option and another while attributing lemmings with that skill/ability is done with A and it works well for the two-button system. But the way the game is displayed and the odd transfer in resolutions of original screen size to NES screen size, means that the reticule is slightly elongated in one direction and there's a fair level of imprecision when picking a lemming.

I lost mine with this game, a long time ago

And thanks to the lack of graphics in the game compared to other ports, you don't even get a nice firework effect when you nuke all the annoying little shits. If you're a fan of lemmings, stay away from this one, get it on something more powerful and don't even take the time to look in, it's really not worth it at all.

Super Dodge Ball (NES)

Hello to you too.

It's rare that I'll like a sports game but with this adaptation of Super Dodge Ball, I can't help but find it charming while offering an interestingly tactical game. Depending upon where you're from and what you understand of dodge ball, the basic premise is that you have a ball and have to hit people with it while also avoid being hit by it. Hence, Dodge the Ball... Clever that part, is it not? (No... it's dumb). Aside from dumb and obvious naming conventions, the game itself in this case has two teams of six, balling each other to the point where people are trying to avoid being smacked in the face by balls.

Yep, it's going to be one of those reviews.

Odd shaped balls... It's not rugby.

The first team to get hit by the other's balls more times, is out. In this case, there's a health bar system in play too where each character in the centre of the court can survive until they take too much damage and then they're removed from play. Those on the outside of the court cannot be knocked out but don't count towards the winning conditions. So you can slap them in the face as much as you want with your balls, it won't end anything.

Another ice level.... Oh how much I hate these

Each character also has the incredible ability to adjust their balls depending upon how they handle their balls. If running for a short while before releasing their balls, they can turn their balls into different shapes and in some cases, multiply their balls as a sort of "special shot". Being hit by the players balls while in a special shot, can cause more damage or penetrate through multiple opponents if not caught. It all depends upon which character is unloading their balls at the opponent. Though it's hard to remember which character has which effect on the balls and this also changes depending upon running or jumping after running for differing attacks and special balls.

Balls balls balls, balls (ok sorry...).

You win, here's the mirror match in 1950's Russia... Odd location.

It's a 1-2player game with a world tour mode, a straight up versus mode and a more interesting Free For All mode where characters just go mad at each other. In the world tour you'll take on the rest of the world as USA (why?) competing against England (Houses of parliament in the background) Iceland (Slippery floor) India (Taj Mahal and the team has low HP but high Def stats), China (shades of ping-pong tournaments perhaps? And a chance to use Wang as a name) Kenya (playing on mud which drops your running speed stats like mad) Japan for the semi-finals (Not holding onto any war grudges here are we?) and finally Russia. (No surprise there...) followed by a bonus-boss team.

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing it's Mount Fuji in the background.

For controls, you've your ability to double-tap to run, you jump with both buttons (awkward as you're likely to either take a shot with your balls or lob your balls at your teammates rather than jump) shoot with B and pass with A. That's it really. Simplistic but gets the job done and does it fairly well even with another player playing at the same time. There is a slight delay at times because of the large amount of events happening on screen which can throw off your timing and force someone's balls into your face.

There IS a 6th person there, but flickering sprites...

The biggest issue here, is that it's got so much going on screen with so many large sprites, you end up missing most of them, or flickering as it's the game's way of showing which character has been selected (why not put a P1 or P2 over their head?) that you can quickly lose track of what's going on and the vanishing sprites through sprite overload, looks horrible and shows an over ambition here that failed to take into account the limitations of the NES. Maybe if it was just two characters on the court it might have avoided this issue.

Now it just needs Hollywood to make another bullshit film about it...

If you can look past the staggered frame rate and slightly unresponsive controls, you've a nice little game here that would otherwise be overlooked, but that said, there's better and more fun sports games out there than this on the NES with better graphics and controls. I could mention Double Dribble for a start by the synth-speech makes me laugh my balls off.  

Yep, now get lost and read something else.

Snake Rattle and Roll (NES)

Snakes, they rattle and roll.

Two snakes, one called Rattle, one called Roll in an isometric game by rare called Snake Rattle and Roll. That didn't quite pan out how I had originally hoped but I blame fatigue on this one. What we do have however is a rather charming little isometric 3D platformer by Rare that promotes team play and solo in the same way.

One looks dopey, the other looks like it takes things far too seriously

It's a little bit aloof but the basic premise is that two snakes, Rattle and Roll, have decided to climb a mountain filled with traps, enemies, spikes and Nibbly-Pibblys (I'll explain...) In order to find a spaceship and leave the moon. How they get from the mountain TO the Moon is something else but I'm not exactly going to pick apart this fine bastion of story-telling at this point.

Another bonus level, where the Nibbly-Pibblys are running away

On each level, you've got your snakes, you've got (almost always) a weighing machine and a rather unending supply of Nibbly-Pibblys that get spat out from generators or can be found under lids. Eating them will make your snake gain tail segments and more importantly, weight. Once you're heavy enough to ring the bell, the door will open and you can make your escape. Your tail will grow faster if you eat Nibbly-Pibblys of the Yellow persuasion (fast and tend to run the hell off quickly) or your own colour. Eating your friend's coloured Nibbly-Pibblys will get you a minimal boost.

Pancaked

Each segment of tail will act as a health point and getting hit, attacked, sliced, collided, bitten or such will lose you a point of health, get hit with no tail and your head blows up. You also lose a life. There are (thankfully) very few enemies that can one-shot you, such as falling to your death, spikes, Bigfoot (and Ice foot by extension) and heavy items like anvils and fishtails (to be used to climb a waterfall). Later levels will have more emphasis on boulders and such that can kill you quickly too.

Big fat snake, the only way to open the exits with weight machines.

On the way, you'll encounter a wide variety of enemies and objects. From checkers pieces to large feet, pincushions that blow out spikes, toilet seats (starting to sound like old 80s video games with random objects), ice blocks, bombs, fake lives and sharks. You've some weapons and items to help you out though, tongue extensions to make it easier to lick enemies to death (yes... including the foot, lick the foot to death), lives, continues, clockwork keys to speed you up, diamonds to make you invulnerable (hard as diamond perhaps? not sure the relevance) and more Nibbly-Pibblys than you really want.

The fish-tail power up lets you swim up this. I don't know where the snorkel set comes from though

Depending upon the location, there are some hidden secrets like level warps, for the really quick, a warp from level 1 to 8 is possible at the start of the game. While others are hidden around in places, some more obvious than others. There's also bonus rooms where you get a flurry of Nibbly-Pibblys (getting cramp typing that name out) that you have to devour quickly before they make a lap of the room and escape.

Magic carpets and flying icons, all the fun of a platform puzzle.

The dynamic of the levels change when you get further along, focusing more on jumping puzzles and later on being able to swim freely in free-space underwater though this is hindered by the lack of awareness of moving into the background unless you can see where your shadow is and the 2D perception in a 3D world REALLY hinders the progression unless you're very astute in picking up where your shadow is on the bottom of the pools. Some of the jumping puzzles are beyond annoying and later levels (ice... I hate ice levels) have decreased friction and sloped ramps to slide you off into the abyss and off the mountain with a comical "aaaaaaaaaaaarghhh" and a chipper little tune to announce your death.

Round 1, fight! Sorry... wrong game.

These niggling little issues aside, the game plays smoothly, the controls function incredibly well though you've that translation of movement where Up doesn't move you up, it moves you 45degrees around from Up to keep you moving in a compass direction along the 2D planar of the isometric view. In short, it gets fucking annoying, fast until your mind/hands adapt to the situation. It also is the cause of a lot of mis-aimed jumping and attacks as you can't tell how far into the background you actually are and appear to be the same size whether you're all the way back or right at the front of the screen.

Does exactly what it says on the tin.

It plays like it's based on a kids cartoon, the characters are bright and happily animated, being hurt makes them leap up into the air and gawp at the screen with a wide slack-jaws O.O face on their features while there's little in the way of violence beyond going pop, screaming aaaaaaaargh in a string of comical letters or getting pancaked by the heavier enemies in the game. The music is toe-tappingly pleasant enough though the more heavy music in the later levels does add to the sense that the game is tough from here on and the difficulty is about to ramp it up to the point that it's almost vertical.

Yes, you have to lick the foot. A disgustion solution to this enemy.

It would seem that the game, because of its fairly unique perspective, is difficult in only its control system and how it translates to the map/levels. Some of the jumps and traps are very fiddly (nibbly-pibbly?) and can be awkward at worst to navigate, and downright impossible save for blind luck or highly intuitive ability to control the game.

Despite this, it's still a very game, very enjoyable and fairly well polished. Another gem from Rare.

Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja (NES)

This game is definitely BAD enough to waste your time and grammar.

Are you a Bad enough Dude to play this game? Don't bother. However, I should be fair. The arcade game is a decent enough platform-ish romp, enjoyable to a point where it becomes more tedious than fun. THIS game, for the NES is diabolical by itself and atrocious in comparison. Granted I am taking into account that there's a significant scale-down from arcade to console, but if Bubble Bobble can do it, as well as Ramparts as reviewed earlier by myself, there's no reason THIS should be so downright unplayable.

Generic tittymen.

You've the nice graphics, which is signalling a big rip-apart coming up if I'm jumping straight to the graphics and the best I can say is "nice", but there's some strong presence of trying to replicate the arcade's graphics though perhaps that is where this game has fallen down, the attempt is so strong that there's little effort been put into realising that it's going to slow everything down.

Sadly, this is possibly the best part of this port of the game.

Controlling the game is a chore, your Bad Dude (With strong emphasis on the word "bad" to mean "SHITE") moves in chunky, blocky and almost in grid-like fashion, ninjas in all their off-colour glory run about in blocky movements and there's no fluidity behind anything regarding characters and motion. To add to this, there are significantly less enemies on screen to prevent sprite flicker but to compensate for this, some ninjas have multiple hit-points which does change the game mechanics A LITTLE, and note I said 'change' not 'improve'.

So painful, to even look at it, it's just... so "bad". In the bad way.

Combat is almost as hit and miss as Battleships, you've got to have some quick reflexes to be able to hit something that moves the way these ninjas do and also to be able to accurately time the difference between jump then attack, jump and attack, and finally, jump andattackalmoststraightaway, to get the spinning kick move that will basically let you trawl through the levels very quickly and not have to fight anything while you speed it towards the boss on the short levels. The auto scrolling levels do not give you this shortcut, you're in it for the very long boring haul.

Thank god that's over.... what? There's MORE LEVELS?!? Shoot me now.

The music is an assorted mess of squeaks and poorly processed notation with a possibly memorable instance of one bit of music that sadly, is so distorted, that it ends up sounding slightly better than it would do normally, so it's not really as a result of planning or composition but blind luck. Makes me wonder if it's Deaf-Luck when vision is not an issue... Never mind. The sound effects are barely existent but the most risible of all is the end of the boss fight when the pitiful attempt to copy the arcade's sounds of "I'm Bad" come out sounding like the most guttural grunt from the most base Neanderthal in existence. Or the final satisfying grunt from a constipated gorilla, I've yet to decide.

Sadly, I've not been decapitated by the awesome pose of the boss, it's just sprite flicker.

Granted, the game has the same variety of moves found in the arcade, you can jump, jump kick, spinning-jump kick, punch, kick, crouch, grab weapons, use weapons and so on but there's no polish and shine to the delivery, it's a very stale and clunky method of control beset with the issues of there being a shade of a game behind the original. The original wasn't that great either, but this could have been better.

Another boss, another step closer to ending this. Or I could switch it off.

This version, isn't worth playing through to get a burger with the president. He can rot for this one.