Shinobi - Arcade

Not a very good ninja if we can see him.

In what has become a slightly less iconic character for Sega these days, Shinobi was, at the time, a popular arcade platformer with the lovely little ability to play with multiple levels within an area while getting to relive the fantasy days when ninjas were cool and mysterious little things that children wished to aspire to before that lovely little hammer of REALISATION comes slamming down and informs you that ninjas are covert assassins and generally underhanded in their approach to their missions.

Kill peoples, save kids, rather noble really. But, Rocket Launcher???

However, what we have here is a simple, but smart, platform game from the late 80s that takes the idea of the ninja from childhoods and has them gallivanting off around the world to stop some prick from achieving some nefarious goal of similar. Joe Musashi takes it upon himself to travel the world and stop the evildoers from kidnapping children and also stopping world domination/destruction across 5 levels and multiple stages within each level.

I screwed up the special level... And taking this screenshot.

Joe Mysushi has a selection of talents within Shinobi. The ability to jump from the ground to higher platforms and back again, unlimited shurikens (not always prevalent in future games in the franchise), a special one-off move that kills everything on screen or damages bosses fairly heavily, and if he rescues the right kids he'll receive an upgrade to his attacks in the form of a large POW sign that gives him rockets instead of shurikens (What stealth was involved here again?). Sadly, Joe sushiboy is a one-hit wonder and any slight impact from any enemy's weapons will result in his death, though he can bump into some enemies and knock them about a bit. But the general rule in Shinobi is that you're a fragile little thing and getting taken out can be done sooner rather than later and often while being presented with nigh-ridiculous situations and circumstances.

There's a boss? Use the special for a few extra hits on it.

The levels within the game are fairly linear at the start, with the usual progression from left to right being considered the normal approach, but it's about half-way through the second level's second stage that the approach differs and you'll find yourself scanning back and forth through the level while seeking a way and means to ascend to the top while fighting off gunners, sword masters, ninjas and finding more kidnapped kiddies. It's at this point that a new approach to the way one plays the game needs to be developed (and quickly) so that the player can progress without coming up against the key issues of dying repeatedly. Checkpoints are a rarity in the level design and as such the happenstance of seeing the end and dying while it's in sight, becomes a little too regular to be fun.

Even if the boss is an attack chopper.

The audio within Shinobi is fairly lacklustre, the music takes a back foot for the mediocre plinks and plonks of an attempt to sound like some oriental mishmash fusion but is so weak that it comes across as poor ambience at best while the grunts, hits and impacts of shurikens upon metal are far more crisp and more pronounced, curiously it does sound like Joe Sugarboy has been recorded and digitised for his speech (read: grunts when getting hit or bounced about), which makes a welcome change to some of the characters from the 80s making the generic beepy boop noises.

A dossier of the mission... Or, just turn up and kill everyone.

Overall it's a solid little game that has a sharp incline in difficulty that spikes periodically just to try and catch people off guard and to encourage credits from pockets, there's an added frustration factor in Shinobi in that pumping in more credits will still leave you with no progression through the level as you don't pick up from where you left off within the game. Meaning you'll actually require some skill to beat it rather than paying your way through the game from start to finish. Ah the old days where you needed to be good at a game, I miss those.

Contra (Probotector) 2

1 Player or 2, to be brutally abused by a NES game?

Contra 2, Super Contra (not on the SNES) or Probotector 2, all of which are the same game on the NES in whichever guise you want to take them. Is likely the quintessential Run and Gun game for the Nintendo Entertainment System in all of its 8-Bit glory. Though in fairness, I'll state now that the 16-Bit versions with Super Probotector, Contra 3 (same game on SNES) and the Megadrive (......Genesis) version, are the same for that generation of console. It's a solid platformer series (I'll discuss the later games another time, or not, I'm talking of the sprite-based games here) and this game is no exception to the rule.

Toothpaste sales went through the roof

You take the guise of the two main characters, one Red, one Blue, which some will argue are Bill, Lance, Dave, Sharon, Twatface and Fuckwit. Names for this type of game isn't really an issue, it's the controls, it's the action and the challenge that is represented by the game. Which I'll say right now, it's a lot harder than the first game and a lot harder than the 16-bit games.

It's not actually a boss, it's a mid-boss. Hard to tell and where the hell is the background?

It's also different from the arcade version, which stops after the 2nd Bird's-Eye-View boss, while this carries on but I'm getting ahead of myself here. For the controls, which are much more developed and tighter than the arcade version (which may or may not have been trying to fuck cash out of your pockets with poor directional shooting) with your usual run, jump, shoot for the D-Pad, A and B buttons. You can shoot in all 8 directions though sometimes hard to shoot down unless jumping or falling as you'll ending up ducking. Your jump is a set height for a maximum and you've little to no inertia problems with acceleration and deceleration, movement is steady and consistently paced which makes for a near flawless control system.

The first boss, you're outgunned but not outplayed. Especially with the scattergun.

You've also got your selection of weapons to enjoy, standard shots from your rifle, machine gun, a much improved fireball gun from the first game, the spreadgun/scattergun and the laser. There's a few barrier shields for you too while there's also more smart bombs littered through the levels giving you a few moments of peace before the relentless armies assault you once again. It's a solid game with a decent mix of weapons and each one giving clear advantages over the other with a better balance to the system than the first game had.

It's big, it's ugly, it's... I've no idea what this thing is.

The level's are intriguing enough to be uniquely interesting though lack the coherency between levels without plot and such in that they simply become "levels" almost for the sake of levels with later levels steadily becoming more and more organic to match with the theme of aliens being the suppressive rates. There's also the inclusion of a few mid-bosses which comes as a bit of a surprise at first when you kill them and the level continues to be played while some levels have just one boss fairly quickly after the start of the level and of such low difficulty to make you think it's the mid-boss, then the level's over almost as quickly as you started it.

Mouths in the floor, spider things approaching, it's another day in bio-flesh levels.

There is however the key problem in that dying is very easy, very quick and usually instant as there's NO health and the mildest touch of a faint feather brushing to your cheek is just as lethal as the XM190BigDick-super-death-cannon (version 4) is to your character. On dying you lose your weapon and the advantage it gave you and dying often occurs at a new boss that's attacking you with a weapon, with which you are not currently familiar. Bonus points if it's the last life and by the time you get back to the boss on a continue, you're already dying and haven't remembered it has the Giant-Willy-Wang-Death-Blast move. More lives were lost.

And so it begins!

There is the further dick-move on the part of the developers where some enemies won't spawn until you're right at the edge of the screen with no indication they're going to spawn there, until they actually DO spawn and by then it's already killing you and mopping up your entrails with half a loaf of bread. There's few design flaws along this scale in the game but in a one-hit kill series, you can't help but feel cheated by not your lack of skill but lack of foresight on the designers part. Especially when everything else is so responsive, there's little to no lag/delay between hitting a button and getting a reaction from within the game, so unless reflexes are required of the super-human level, or there's simply insufficient time to get synapse to muscle firing within the boundary of "alive" character and "dead" character.

Always nice to see that someone is creative with the sprites and artwork.

The music picks along at a steady pace, suitably composed for your standard level, your creepy-alien level and works well for most boss fights where the tempo picks up and the further use of adrenaline inducing tempos add to the subtle increase in thrills when combating more difficulty opponents, from mid-boss, to bosses and the final boss. Though sometimes the music can be a little overwhelmed by the sound effects but there's always going to be that kind of trade off when you've a lot of action on the screen and only so much power available in the game and console as it is.

I'm sure there's a reason everything looks like this, I'll be damned if I know why.

Not forgetting, there's the co-operative mode, it should be noted that two players of equal skill in almost perfect synchronicity should attempt this otherwise one will become more annoyed at the other dying regularly, likely caused by the better player trying to rush on ahead and get through the level and traps. In this particular instance, the co-op mode is likely harder than the solo unless you're truly a co-operating pair of players. Having said that, it's not my place to put people off playing the game in this way but I'd recommend that both players KNOW the game somewhat before attempting it outright. It's a LOT harder than the first game.

H.R. Geiger might sue someone here...

But I love that it is. It's hard, it's proud that it's hard and it's going to bash you to death repeatedly for you making your own mistakes with this game. My real regret with this game though is that it feels shorter than it should do. There's an underlying feeling, an odd sensation when playing this game that there's some half-levels in here rather than full levels and that it's just not fully the game it was originally intended to be.

My mission complete, it's time to go enjoy some Chinese Takeout. Bring on the Lemon Chicken!

But, I still love it.

Contra Hard Corps (Probotector)

Get ready, it's going to be a bumpy ride of explosions

The Probotector and Contra series has been an odd one as a victim of censorship over the years. Contra, being simply 2 guys running and gunning their way through bigger and bigger levels, against bigger and bigger bosses and so on. While Probotector doesn't like the idea of humans and humans killing each other (especially in Germany) so Probotector is basically Contra but you've got robots instead of humans doing most of the killing against other robots and aliens.

Some of the bosses make sense. This is not one of them.

Contra Hard Corps (Probotector on Megadrive) follows the same routine as before but with far more bosses and monsters in the games. Becoming what is in essence, a Boss Fest of a game. The difference between this and other types of running and gunning is that normally you'd get someone running along and fighting a boss at the end of the level. In this game you'll fight multiple bosses on the way through each level and usually the last boss of a LEVEL is often multiple staged and sometimes multiple stages within a stage.

Contra Hard Corps, certainly takes the latter approach in almost every single level, and it's crazy.

Another boss, often killed before it can do anything creative. Turns it out it makes a cup of tea.

It gets to a point where you realise that the standard level and enemies are so insignificant that eventually you'll barely remember they're even there. Shown further by the fact there's so many throwaway enemies in the game. Fight once and never seen again, when most games like to recycle things at least once to validate their existence.

One of the last bosses, a giant mutant head with a another that cries blood, and coughs up maggots

You've four characters and only the robot really makes a difference in control with a double jump and low stature that means they're always ducking and dodges all body-aimed attacks automatically. Which each character has their own four weapons. So rather than picking up the spread gun, you actually pick up one of four lettered weapons that "unlock" your characters weapons. While bombs are rare but everyone can pick those up and use them in the same way. Dying while having a specific weapon selected will remove it from your inventory until you collect it again.

A boss referencing the final boss of the 3rd game.

Some weapons are very odd, some are crazy and some are overkill. There's a very one-sided balance with specific characters and once you realise which weapons slaughter the enemy, you'll have an easy time with most of the game aside from new bosses attacking you with new patterns and methods you'll not have been prepared for. Incidentally you do have a new move from previous games, along with running, gunning, climbing and such, you've a ground slide that leaves you invulnerable while doing it. Which in many cases is the ONLY way to get past certain boss attacks and situations and if you miss-time it, or forget you can do it because it's not listed in a lot of games, you'll lose a life.

Given this boss is the hero in the prequel game, he should have known better.

This seems to be the biggest issue with the game. It's bright, it's flashy, it's loud and fast paced, but in some places you can fight a boss and kill it without it even getting a single attack off. In other cases you'll be killed on the first strike simply because you were stood in the wrong place and the wrong time and that's just where the boss was aiming to be and you're not one life down with a weapon lost and barely any idea as to even why. In some cases you'll be hit by an attack that won't be telegraphed too clearly. Some bosses will attack directly and some will attack in every direction except the one in which they're clearly aiming at.

Yep... you're still a berk.

Aside from this, there's little really in the way of running and gunning, more often than not, particularly in the endgame, (of which there are many) it's just gunning and dodging, or finding that soft spot where you can't be hit and kill everything easily (too many bosses let you do this). But speaking of endgames, there's MANY different ways through the game and endings to be gained. One of which has you fighting in an arena before being sent back in time, another will have you duelling the last boss atop a giant space station, others will have you gunning the hell out of an alien creature while riding a giant missile whilst another is a huge mutant battle in a tripped out arena. With this, there's the multiple routes, your first end-boss for the first level depends upon which option you take, which then affects your 3rd boss and it's attack patterns. Same boss but different attacks. There are subtle changes in some places that are explained if you pay attention to the game.

Multiple characters, but few have the best weapons.

The replay factor is very strong with this one as you've a lot of game and a lot of possibilities, even going so far as to side with the bad guy and become his bitch in kicking arse and ruling the world. Failing that you can be embodied in the stars or just marry an ape and rule the dinosaurs (historical accuracy not applied here).

Riding a jet-copter, punching flames at a jetpacking assassin. Nice.

The music is hard to pick up in places as the most common sound effect is gunfire and explosions, in the calmer moments when you're transitioning from one scene to another, you'll get to hear some very well composed pieces of music and the shift and change in tone and atmosphere within the ambience is usually a clear indicator when you're fighting from boss to end level boss or final boss. It sounds more serious as the game gets more serious and adds to the adrenaline flowing pace of the action within the game.

Take 1 alien, combine another, fight the result. The professor gets devoured.

Konami seem to have managed to pull all the stops out for this game, making full use of the system available to themselves. The game is fast, fluid and certainly visually appealing though the spikes in difficulty and the inconsistency in the flow of gameplay leaves a sort of hit and miss sensation between and during some levels rather than playing as a steadily increasing challenge or a rapidly increasing pace. It's an odd one for the planning but the execution of the game is impressive considering previous games in the series and even games on the Megadrive (....... Genesis....fucks sake).

Arms crossed, shades on, look like prick. It's all here.