Outrun - Arcade (Yes, that one with the red car)

It's all about the car.

It's a simple idea, car racing through picturesque places and locations, wonderful sights, nice chilled theme tunes to listen to and if you find the right arcade, a big ol' impersonation of a sports car to sit inside and move around while you're trying to drive with a TV screen sat in front of you showing some pixelated tracks and cars. On top of that there's not much here really beyond this scope and aspect of the game.

Lots of choices, some levels harder than others.

Outrun, probably one of the more iconic arcade games of the mid-80s and awarded best arcade of the year by Golden Joystick Awards for 1986, beating out Bubble Bobble (Which I think should have won over this...) involves players driving a Ferrari Testerossa across the sprawling landscapes of Someplace while trying to hit the checkpoints that magically assign more time to the players and at each checkpoint, gives the player the option of going left or right, in search of new scenery and things to look at, as well as crash into.

I... saw this a lot...

That said, Outrun likely will hold a special place in a lot of people's hearts. The simple style of play in getting just to the next checkpoint (and if you run out of time, game over. No continues, no slowing down to try and inch over the finish line here) and racing back and forth through traffic while trying to avoid harder corners that will cause you to slide out and slam into various obstacles, which will cost you more time as you wait for the game to put your car back on track.

Use checkpoints to extend gameplay, or just quit.

The audio is likely the best part of the game, composed and sequenced wonderfully and adding to the overall feel and pace of the game in that while you're trying to gun the engine for all that you can, there's nothing really to compete against other than the arbitrary clock, it almost leaves you feeling that you can take your time playing this game. In truth you can't.

At least the scenery changes from route to route

The time limit for Outrun is tight, very tight against any and all errors if you want to be able to beat it. As such you'll get about 5 - 6 minutes of gameplay if your driving is perfect and a lot less if you crash, bump or generally take too long to get up to speed before switching the gearbox from low to high while driving. Outrun is rather unforgiving in that regard.

Scenic, but deadly trees.

As such, because it is so very unforgiving it becomes difficult to enjoy the game without having to dedicate a lot of time and energy into the situation in order to get much back from Outrun as it is. There's a fair amount to enjoy here and with multiple different endings depending upon the routes that you take and the journey there, there's a level of replay factor for people but getting access to that level in the first place is going to be more difficult for some than others and it becomes a sticking point for Outrun.

Fighting Fantasy - Arcade

Nice pixel art, but that's about it.

I wasn't entirely sure of what to expect when I started playing Fighting Fantasy. I was worried initially it was going to be one of those QIX based games where you slowly carve out an arena while the image of a nude woman sits behind a screen that slowly is revealed while you progress through avoiding pointless enemies. Thankfully this isn't one of those games as it is in fact a beat-em-up. Sadly it's not a very good one but it is one of the more creative attempts I've seen from the older sets of games.

Thankfully, no hippos were harmed in the Hippodrome

The premise of Fighting Fantasy is a simple one. You've been chosen as some sort of badass with a sword to take part in interstellar games of gladiatorial combat, where all the other creatures also happen to be from the mythos of the same planet. Not quite sure how that figures out but at least there was an attempt to do something other than "Here's enemies, go crack skulls" which is almost neatly explained in the title sequence after you pump in your cash.

For a particularly non-human enemy, it's well coded.

Controls are simple enough, harkening back to the days of Barbarian on the old early 80s home computers. You've an attack button, a jump button and 8directions of the joystick. Tapping the attack while pushing a direction will result in an attack of some nature while hold back and attack will block (usually) an attack for a short while. Interestingly, after each fight you can purchase weapons and items to keep yourself alive and give different stats. Longer weapons tend to hurt less while short range weapons do the most damage (except against the last enemy where everything does 1 hit point of damage, the cheap bastard).

Just a little bit one-sided in this battle...

Your opponents in Fighting Fantasy are as varied as they are difficult to fight. Each enemy requires a different tactic (Though getting them into a corner and hammering them repeatedly works almost universally well. Ranging from a Lamia (snake woman), Gargoyles, lizard men, scorpion men, dragons, an obligatory twin battle, wizards and the last boss who might as well be God with the health and over prioritised attacks and moves he's got.

Just as unfair as it looks, the 2nd hardest battle in the game.

But the uniqueness in Fighting Fantasy is that each character will fight in a different way. Lamia will use her snake tail to attack at times, Scorpion man will try to poison with the stinger, the twins will do dual-moves, wizard attacks with a huge selection of spells, the Dragon is enormous and more like a boss than a fight and all the fighters have a certain charm to them that shows there's something fairly well developed in this game.

I did not beat this guy, I am ashamed.

Sadly the execution of the game is dross. Fighting Fantasy has the ideas and the ambition but lacks the actual game to pull off what it's attempting to do. While the graphics are impressive for the time and the enemies are clearly and well thought out in their design and performance, the gameplay is the key issue in that it becomes a hammer and button basher very quickly and the idea of using tactics in combat is laughed out the window unless you effectively study this game like you're learning a new language. (And no, not because it's partly in Japanese)

Will kill you unless you fight dirty.

If the combat in Fighting Fantasy (you know, the very CORE of a fighting a game) had been improved and made more accessible and playable, this would have been a solid hit of a game. Unfortunately it's become an unexciting mess punctuated with impressive idea but horrible execution.

One of the MORE infuriatingly cheap enemies. Akin to putting a slingshot against a Howitzer.

Almost fitting that the last two words of my previous paragraph are entirely suitable for what to do with this game.

Xenophobe - Arcade

The crazy split screen... It's only going to get worse.

I imagine a meeting at Midway's office.

"Yes, let's ride the success of Aliens (the film) the idea of huge monsters that kill humans very easily and very rapidly running around space stations and planets, nomming down people like candy and causing something to burst from their chests in that odd parody of pregnancy and birth that results in the vasectomy rate going up each time this film comes on for some reason. Let's take that idea, not buy the actual license (Because Konami has it anyway) and make a game that is basically a big send up of the original material."

Game over? I'm FREE! YES!!!

"However, lets royally fuck up the control system and make it as awkward as hell, unplayable by those casual gamers (you know the ones I mean, people that have never played before and expect arcade games to be intuitive and easy to use while real skill comes from experience) and overwhelm people with this abysmal mess and scare them off because we've already got their credits so what the hell do we care after that."

And they were applauded and given a raise and they made this game.

The controls... The horror... But all because of the controls.

I'm not being entirely fair though. So let me break this stuff down.

In what is supposed to be a 3-player game, Xenophobe can allow up to 3 players to play through the game at once. Each one can wander the space-station corridors, meet up and play together or go solo through the space station in search of the key components to beat the mission. Or play until time runs out and the place blows up. Your main mission being to kill every single alien in the space station before the self-destruct kicks in.

So I'm an alien, fighting other aliens, in a game titled "fear of aliens"...

That being said, the levels wrap around themselves so if you keep heading in one direction you'll end up back where you started, but the aliens can move around too. There's multiple weapons to find and keep for yourself in which you can use to kill the aliens from different guns like the laser, gas and lightning, as well as grenades but you're more likely to blow yourself up with those and the aliens tend to attack from most places. Creeping little critters that look like shelled face-huggers, mid aliens that crawl and pounce, big aliens that spit acid and use their mass to attack and other undesirables along the way.

Sadly, you never blow up on ship, you get teleported out. So you can suffer some more.

The biggest problem in the game is the completely unintuitive control system. You've an attack button, and two actions buttons. One used for getting up and jumping and interacting with the backgrounds, the other for crouching, throwing off enemies, picking up objects and throwing grenades. That's right, one button crouches, the other jumps. At times it's simply easier to just crouch, let the aliens come to you and blast as many as you can before the timer runs out in Xenophobe. Speaking of which, if you find switches and buttons, you can find out how many aliens are left and how much time is left before it all blows up. Usually around 100 or so are in most levels, more in the later ones but with the controls how they are, players aren't going to be keen to find out.

Forget the timer, where's the "Blow it the fuck up now!" button?

Add to this an ever diminishing health count and unfair attacks from monsters you simply cannot avoid and monsters that can shrug off damage JUST to hit you (seemingly, but almost always happens) and you end up with an largely unplayable mess that most players will blunder their way through until they get bored or their credit runs out of health. Usually the former. Steer clear of this chaotic mess of a game.