Cadillacs and Dinosaurs - Arcade

Not the most exciting start image, I know.

It's not the first amalgamation I'd consider if someone said "Put two things together and make a game with it from an original comic book" and while I might have chosen Dinosaurs, because they're dinosaurs after all, it's unlikely I'd have chosen Cadillacs. Likely I'd have opted for Dragons and Dungeons... no wait...

Odd when the language doesn't match the threat.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs started originally as a comic book series in the late 80's, set in post-apocalyptic world where pollution and disasters ransacked the planet, people moved underground for centuries and when they came back to the surface, dinosaurs were around again. Our two main protagonists, Jack and Hannah, fix cars and science dinosaurs respectively while trying to survive in a world where driving down to the corner-shop is likely to get your head chomped by something large and scaly. (Not using a mom joke there...)

I get to punch out T-Rex looking things, awesome.

From this, in steps Capcom to publish Cadillacs and Dinosaurs as a brawl-em-up. Take your two main chars, add in a few extra minor chars, give them some pointless stats details and have them punch, kick and fight their way through multiple enemies, levels, bosses of both human and dinosaur in nature, and some enemies that are a little of both. The special skills are laughable at best, "Good Skill", "Items", "A move everyone else already has" and "Useless" are pretty much the spectrum on that one.

I don't get the appeal of driving a Caddy, but I do get the appeal of running mooks down.

In so far as a plot is concerned, our intrepid heroes embark on a journey to stop poachers from killing dinosaurs and selling the skins, get ambushed on the way home and find out it was a ploy by some nutcase in a lab coat who wishes to fuse humans and dinosaurs together through 'Science' and become the perfect being. Sadly this was doomed from the start as he never wished to become me, oh how fickle life is. Cue this as a reason to fight your way through multiple levels featuring bosses, returning bosses, dual bosses, transformation bosses, bosses that become standard enemies and effectively hitting all the usual feature one might find in the arcade gaming tropes section. Even the obligatory sewer level and elevator level turn up.

No, no mix tapes were dropped here, someone started this fire.

You're not alone in Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Of which the Caddy rarely turns up but thankfully the dinosaurs do) you've a wealth of weapons to help you ranging from pistols to shotguns, clubs, rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, dynamite and knives with the usual smattering of arcade brawling food items and points items to help push you up onto the bonus lives limits. Depending upon the machine you're playing on, you can have 2-3 players on screen at once trying to work out which dinosaurs are nice/nasty and which enemy is about to hit you before your mates screw it up and take you down by accident.

"Parts to include in beat-em-ups, #12 A boss rush of previous bosses: Check"

I can't say that I know of the source comics or the cartoon series (which may or may not have come out after the game anyway) but as a game, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs shows that the motion and controls are fluid and quite responsive. Running is done easily with a double tap in a direction, jumping and fighting is pulled off easily while the use of weapons and items comes fairly intuitively. There's little difference between the main characters in choice of skills and abilities, they all have combos, they call can run and jump and attack, they all have the "2 button" desperation attack that floors everything around themselves and costs a small amount of health in the process.

"Parts to include in beat-em-ups, #8 Elevator/Lift/Funicular sections: Check"

Graphically everything looks ok, though there's a little chuckle to oneself when you see the Twin Towers stood next to some new-age Mesopotamian Pyramid, maybe they rebuilt it. The levels don't seem to have the same attention to detail one might expect from Capcom and the detail on the standard enemies is somewhat lacking for quite a few of them, however the focus on the dinosaurs and dino-related creatures is sublime and there's a guilty pleasure in punching out a T-Rex type dinosaur while body slamming a boss into several standard enemies.

Thankfully, that IS his final form.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs also delivers on the sounds, solid and loud explosions, synthed voices punctuating screams and shouts of triumph and jubilation as well as a rather overly enthusiastic "GO" sign that pops up when you need to progress to the right for more fighting. The music however doesn't seem to have been considered suitably for the project in that you can go from 20 seconds of intense rooftop fighting, to a jazzy number in a chaotic hallway before going back outside to a epic, adrenaline inducing rush of music before the boss turns up and it becomes a lower key tune that doesn't have the same rush. It gives the impression that whoever assigned the music didn't have the same ideas as the person that composed it.

STFU! I've got more credits!

Sadly for an arcade game, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs doesn't have much of a replay factor. Once you've beaten it you might give it another go and use another character but there's little deviation from the standard play here. Even before you've beaten it, chances are you've seen everything already and there's little reason to come back and go through it again. Which is a shame as it's quite the fun game to play.

Die Hard Arcade - Arcade, in case you hadn't guessed!

Who has bigger billing here? Fox, or Sega? There's only one way to find out, FIGHT!

Normally, one associates a game based on a film to be utter dross. A steaming pile of Atari E.T. Or worse. I could look back over a lot of Movie to Game adaptations and wonder aloud the immortal phrase "What the hell were they thinking?" while recanting various hashes and screw ups over the years from the Atari 2600 onwards, through the NES and SNES days, 8-bit, 16-bit and beyond. But as with all things involving large statistical data sets, eventually you'll come across outliers and extremes at that. Die Hard Arcade isn't quite one of those extremes but it's quite close to it.

The hardest fight in the game, this guy doesn't wash his hands before trying to punch you.

For those not the know, Die Hard is a film. Go watch it, now. When you're done come back and you'll understand the plot of this game almost flawlessly. For those who've already seen it and those that haven't done as they were told, I'll recap briefly the game anyway. Terrorists invade skyscraper, president's daughter is amongst hostages, you're sent in to infiltrate and rescue. Shit goes down, stuff gets blown up and you're left alone (maybe with a 2nd player, it's possible) to fight your way through the game and engage in a few Quick Time Events. Yes this game predates Shenmue, but so do a lot of others.

Given the time, it's not a bad attempt at recreating the film in limited polygons.

What do we have though with Die Hard Arcade? We've a multitude of levels and arenas in which our protagonists steadily get less and less dressed for the occasion in keeping with the idea of the not having any shoes etc, while punching, kicking, combo-ing and blowing up gangsters, crooks, ninjas, fat people, crooked cops and bent fire-fighters with the occasional big robot (yes I know...) and a few VERY large men here and there before fighting the boss, twice.

Hilarious, the boss can't find the child, it's like some whacky slapstick comedy show!

It plays quickly and the transition between one area and another is done smoothly as you watch the characters physically running down corridors wherein your Quick Time Event will take place, either jumping, punching, or kicking as required in order to incapacitate the enemy, otherwise you're going to have to fight a particularly tougher battle than normal. Almost a real credit eater in fact. Each area has its own features, some will have fans that hurt if you walk into them, a radar dish that moves quickly back and forth, weapons and items to use in combat, a fire engine spraying water like it's cannon time at the local riots and so on and so forth. Giving a mixed feel to each area and keeping things a little more fresh and different as they go.

QTEs, win them and kill an enemy outright, lose them and either get hurt or fight some tough characters.

There's a lot of variation even within the combat for Die Hard Arcade, multiple different combos and attacks to perform including back attacks, charged attacks, jumps, holds and combos, holds and throws, holds and combos INTO throws. *take a breath* pistols, machineguns, Anti Tank rifles (stolen from the terrorists I assume), pepper spray (works on masked people too), poles, sticks, brooms, robot arms, rocket launchers, chairs, boxes, barrels and even some health pickups of different strengths. Speaking of which, with pistols you can arrest enemies and take them straight out of the game if you get to grapple them while holding the pistol, a very nice touch indeed! Though if you run out of ammo, you throw the gun, which can cause damage too and is one truly hilarious way of ending a fight.

I don't remember this being in the film...

The music isn't all that memorable but it does play second fiddle to a wealth of explosions and fisticuffs, voices of enemies begging for mercy before trying to sucker punch/kick you, over the top hammy voice acting during cut scenes (always welcome) and a healthy compilation of gunshots, laser blasts (see robots for explanation) and water impacts during various traps and locales. Though the arcade itself can be customised to lower the noise setting, you likely won't hear the music over the sound effects and fighting anyway.

Paid poorly, the window cleaning robots go on the rampage, with lasers...

Despite the linear approach to the game, there's some replay factor in this in that it's just very entertaining and if you've got two players and get through to win the game, you go back to the Double Dragon method of winning in that victory becomes a fight to the death between Player 1 and Player 2. It's a bright and colourful game with enough tongue-in-cheek humour at the source material to be entertaining enough and steadily paced to bring back players for another go at the game. Not quite a long term play but worth a few run-throughs all the same.

C64 Barbarian

For some games it can be hard to tell whether it's a blatant rip of a franchise or other Intellectual Property, a parody of the source material or if it's a genuine attempt to reproduce the source in an alternative form of entertainment. Beyond that, it is done for money, for the challenge or simply to advertise themselves and their talents.

It's almost always for the money, a company that sets up to not make money, isn't a company. It's a charity.

Barbarian, on the C64, is harder to categorise as to whether it's a blatant rip or an actual genuine attempt to honour the Conan films. It's certainly not what one would call or describe as a parody of the films. Given the lack of plot beyond "Beat the warriors, kill the warlock, save the scantily clad cluster of pixels" the game itself is an interest blend of homage and beat-em-up.

The premise is simple enough; each warrior enters from their respective side, armed with a sword. They each get 6 life spots and lose a half per hit they receive while a timer counts down. The first one to lose all their life spots is dead and the green goblin creature drags the dead body away. Failure to kill the opponent results in a draw and rematch, back at full health, as opposed to the "one with lowest health, loses" rule we see in more cash-based franchises, especially in arcades.

Depending upon the opponent, whether in single player or vs. mode, the background changes after each battle from one to another, given the complexity of the combat, one could forgive the lack of choice in backgrounds. But the game's main focus is the combat and there's a lot of it there in the arsenal of moves the characters each have. Graphically there's no differentiation from one enemy and another save for the colour of shirt they're wearing and the specification of which level you happen to be on (Save for the Warlock but more later). Each combatant has the same moves, mirrored depending upon whether they're on the left or right side of the fight.

While on the subject of graphics, the combatants are fairly recognisable as Barbarians, while the goblin looks green enough to be a goblin, the backgrounds form enough of the artwork to be recognisable as a dungeon, throne room etc. Blood spots in the soft red shade, the snakes hiss and animate each time a wound is scored on the opponent, serving as borders to the screen and the play area.

One would be forgiven for thinking the combat would be limited if each player has a simple joystick and just one button as a control system, but borrowing heavily from International Karate, the control system works well on the C64 to provide a suitable selection of moves and abilities. Each character responds to the 8 directions of the joystick by ducking, rolling, walking, jumping up or holding a block stance to cover the body or the head from attack. Each direction used with the fire button depressed, permits the character to attack in one of 8 different ways, from kicks to leg chops, body attacks, head butts, twirling the sword and the infamous, "flying head chop".

While all this is going on, the characters are duking it out to a fairly solid rendition of the main theme music to Conan the Barbarian and reproducing faithfully with the SID chip, even taking the full length of the piece of music into account that many viewers of the films would likely miss save for the longest fight scene, the composer having really done their research on this one and it shows. Thankfully it can be switched off too to listen to the sounds of swords being twirled, flesh being chopped and laughing little goblins when they collect the corpses.

The complexity of the game permits a level of depth that one wouldn't normally associate with a game of this time. For each move there is a counter, be it ducking a high attack, blocking a mid, rolling or jumping around moves and such, for there's one move you WANT to avoid at all costs, the flying-head-chop, an easily accessible, long build up move that if it connects, decapitates your opponent and sends their bonce sailing away from their neck. Instant win, goblin collects body, kicks head off stage, next level. But thanks to the large run up time to the move, it can be easily avoided and even if barely avoided, takes half a life spot if it hits anywhere other than the critical area.

In single player, the game progresses from one opponent to another for 8 levels, each opponent getting tougher in difficulty as the player completes each one, later opponents will also attempt the flying head chop and shocking, can achieve it. If the player loses, game over, thanks for playing. However, should they progress far enough to the Warlock, the game play changes to either jumping or ducking magical attacks while trying to progress across the stage to the opponent. One hit from a magical attack spells death while just touching the Warlock, beats the game. The shift in game play and objective usually is so jarring, and without warning, too often kill the player before they realise what is going on. After beating 8 opponents in sword-combat, to suddenly play a game of fatal dodge ball, is a huge dick move on the part of the designers.

It's on the same lines as playing a game for 20 hours, you're well versed and practised in how to play the game, and you know the moves and have come to learn several combos and specials. Then in the last five minutes, you have to play a version of Tetris where the colours have to link up rather than beating lines, you learn it quickly but the final boss already has 20 specials performed on you before you do the first piece.

The game play however does suffer from the clunky movements of the walking-meat-sacks, moves take a short time to perform, while this gives an opponent a chance to dodge, also allows the pixel perfect reactions of the AI to slaughter someone before they realise what they're doing. Rolling is BEYOND annoying, the animation is jerky, movement unrealistic and it knocks the opponent down if it connects with them. Holding down the attack just after, raises into a kick move that most opponents cannot avoid, giving you a hard and fast method of beating EVERY opponent (AI at least), for another amazing flaw in AI routines and exploitation methods.

Barbarian is an interesting piece, while it might appeal to fans of the source material, the stories, the films, the comics, there isn't enough here for the average player to want to come back to it, though playing it with another player and trying to fake each other out for the decapitation moves, is worth a chuckle at least. Nowadays there's less substance within the game than one could expect from games like Street Fighter 2 and onwards, Mortal Kombat and such but there is a level of charm, lightly glistening upon the surface of the game which shines through as a mark of dedication by the programmers.