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.

Pac-Land - Arcade (Not quite Pacman)

Welcome to the platformer attempt.

Of a time when Pacman was something of a legend in gaming, back in the early 80s, there was the usual palaver that comes with a trend setting product. The game usually first, then the action figures, cartoon show, lunchbox and next thing you know it's become attack of the merchandisers and the only way to repel the borders is to pump cash at them until parents are screaming for an end to its greedy, monetary food supply and that the fad moves on to something cheaper (usually it doesn't... Turtles anyone?)

Bright, colourful, fairly uneventuful thankfully.

Pac-Land, is a game based on the cartoon that came for the original game. Mr Pacman happens across a fairy that got lost one day and decides to the charitable event of escorting the fairy home, while hiding it under his hat. On his way, the usual ghostly enemies of Dicky, Shitty, Twatty and Arseface (I'm not sure on the names, but those seem to fit well) will do whatever they can to hinder and stop Pacman. These acts range from running him over, dropping bombs from planes and windows, pogo-sticking him to death, crash-landing UFOs at him and all other manners of tricks and traps. If you manage to rescue the fairy, you'll be granted a pair of magic air-jump boots and have to run ALL THE WAY BACK to the start and be greeted by your generic 2.4 Pacman family (complete with "dog" and "cat" for want of better graphics)

Power pills and ghosts running away, some original elements have carried over.

Controls in Pac-Land are very simple, you've got a joystick for moving back and forth (though you'll be slowly stalked by a constant ghost as a timer for the game) and a jump button. That is it. Walk from side to side using the joystick but, and here's the clever bit, you can run by double tapping the joystick. A feat told you at NO POINT during the game, introduction, attract screen or even on the side of the cabinet. What's worse is that to get past one particular set of traps, springboards over water pools, you have to repeatedly double tap the joystick after take-off, FROM RUNNING, in order to float over the water pool and HOPE you have enough speed and height to clear it. Expect most people to not make it past the 3rd level as a result of this.

Those logs spin and will shift you off the platforms.

Aside from the BRUTAL DIFFICULTY CURVE at key points in Pac-Land, it's a fun and cheerful little game with minor frustrations at being caught at key points namely because the player likely didn't slow down and thought they could chance it. Take your time and progress slowly and you'll make it through with little problems... Until the springboards show up again. Once you've gotten back to your family, the next round of levels begin with everything getting harder and more intense. The cars from the first level are back and now with Double Decker Buses, ghosts are throwing things at you from windows and everything has just become a little more intense and difficult, get far enough and you'll find new areas that will host their own challenges too.

You win, your prize is shoes and a run back to the start.

Pac-Land looks very much like the original cartoon, in that it's bright, colourful, clearly defined and uses the main primary and secondary colours and little else. Whether this is because the arcade has used some impressive graphics or the cartoon was just quickly hashed together, is up for debate. (Totally a weak cartoon). The game runs smoothly, the graphics and animations are nice and fluid and the game plays well aside from those key, pixel-perfect moments of timing that require lightning reflexes the likes of which the Gods on Olympus would be proud to have.

Give me something to break! - That's enough Limp Bizkit

As long as you remember the original cartoon, you'll be familiar with the main tune of Pac-Land. It runs on long enough to remain being slightly varied and bridges well into the final few bars at checkpoints and ends of the level and yet doesn't grate too much on the nerves when it begins to repeat itself, though if you're playing well enough it shouldn't repeat by the time you hit a check point or a level end. The return music for the last stage is a slower, staggered rendition of the original and despite the lowered tempo and tone, the gameplay is as every bit as frantic as it has been over the previous rounds.

There's some significant variation in levels to keep things interesting.

Pac-Land is an odd one to be part of the series. Gone are the maxes and dots, but the power pills remain (Stay in school kids, pop pills and eat ghosts) and the ghosts take on a personification/anthropomorphism from the maze to this rendition of their selves in no small thanks to the cartoon. It's a lively little platformer if a little short with some vertical curves in the difficulty if one isn't ready or prepared to quickly experiment for a solution.

Spy Hunter (C64)

Thankfully it's not like Tron. Though Tron's LightCycle game was good.

There was always something amazing about cars when I was growing up. Before I knew of the wonders that were traffic jams and being pulled over having been driving at 90+ MPH (not 100, never take that risk... sometimes), but the fact you could get into a vehicle as a kid meant that you HAD to have high speed car chases. Films with car crashes and chases ruled supreme until you were old enough to watch people getting limbs blown off in high detailed blood splat gore. So here I'm going to review Spy Hunter on the C64, simply because it's got a car that has guns built into it.

Fuck this, I can't handle the pressure of such questions.

It's the ultimate spy car. Inspired by the Bond age (heh, bondage) of cars where you get smoke screens, oil slicks, machinegun placements behind the lights and rockets for the most painful enemy you'll encounter. However the game translates into a top-down display of you chasing your car as if from orbit while you navigate in and around roads, avoiding pedestrian vehicles and taking down other spy cars.

You can only shoot the one that has cotton ear buds for wheels. You'll want to though.

In the arcade, you had a sit down cabinet, high and low speed gear shift, buttons on the steering wheel for you to navigate through multiple weapons and then use them to fullest effect against your opponents and a good rendition of the Peter Gunn theme tune. Not quite so in the C64 version, though you do have a nice rendition of chip tune Peter Gunn theme tune and there's a few extra sound effects that don't sound too terrible on the C64. Instead of a steering wheel, you'll get yourself two joysticks (need the extra fire button) or the keyboard.

All the spy gear in the world and we still use a TUG BOAT

You get to start off with your car being rolled out the back of a van and then you're free to drive along and shoot everything. Though that's a bad idea as you're left with few points if you shoot non-enemy characters. While shooting the spiked wheel cars and ramming off the bullet-proof cars will give you bonus points, while also using oil slicks and smoke-screens will help in this regard. There's the challenge of getting around the spiked cars, slamming into bullet-proof cars while simultaneously avoiding other cars and falling off the track. Once again, this is a one-hit kill game, you get spiked, you're dead. Bombed, dead. Go off the road, dead.

The chopper (mad bomber) will quickly become the bane of your play time

During your driving you'll occasionally hit routes where the track narrows, splits up, goes over bridges and have to take a quick exit into a house where upon you become a boat so you can travel down the river instead of crashing your car off a bridge. Once in the water, you'll be boating your way idly down the river with a rod in one hand and getting shot at by torpedoes and mines. Ok so not so relaxed and the idea of having your rod in your hand makes me wonder who here is thinking that was a wanking joke.

I'm all of a second away from having my tyres blown out.

You can start at either Novice (wuss) or Expert (less of a wuss) where you either get one car on the road at a time, or four. Initially at least, as once you get to the next area, it gets harder anyway for both sides. What is interesting, is that you've a 999 timer, while this is on, it's impossible to lose a life. You can die, but it's not game over. But once the counter hits 0, your lives come into effect and the lovely gun car rolls out to take one straight off if you're not ready for him. He'll turn up every time the 999 rolls around but you won't see the numbers from here on. Once you get to the 2nd area, the helicopter comes in to drop bombs on you.

Being a boat stops things like....

The difficulty ramps up steadily in the game, though it's easy to get caught between cars in Expert mode and blown up or smashed apart. Power ups come in the form of trucks/lorries that have the icons on the roof indicating if it's rockets, oil or smoke screens. To gain them, just let the lorry overtake and drive up into the back of it. While of course not being killed from the various enemies around you. Ammo is limited on oil and smoke to an unspecified volume while you get 3 rockets at a time and you CAN miss the chopper with them.

....this from happening. Unless you cheat like I am here.

For those who are looking to an end to the game, you're in for a bad time as there's no actual end to the game. It loops between the 2nd and 3rd areas in that it's either yellow background or ice level (yes, even in this game there's a fucking ice level!) with the usual situation for bridges being out, boats needing to be jumped into and sudden colour changes implemented at all times. It does however have that appeal of being a game you could quickly play again and see if you can get just a little bit farther into it. Or run up the side of the screen and cheat your way to bonus lives, assuming the chopper doesn't get you while you're doing that. It's still fun but feels a little unfinished.