Megadrive/Genesis: Gunstar Heroes

Treasure has had an odd history over the years; it’s created some incredible games and some real stinkers. This is one of the former and one of their first ever games, many touted it at the time as a game too ambitious for that generation of console but that never stopped them making one of the best run and gun games I’ve seen for a long time.

I still hate Curry and Rice though.

The premise is simple enough, colour-coordinated characters battle an evil empire that has found some gems and using them to bring back a super powered robot monster with another colour based name. Your playable characters, Red and Blue, will fight Black, Pinky, Orange and Green (several times, several several times in Green’s case) in a series of levels to then fight Golden Shower (Sorry, Golden Silver). I’m really not selling this am I.

I don’t think there is any real way I can describe this game without just saying how mind-blowing it is to witness what is done here. Let’s try again.

Your player character, using 8 directional shooting and running, utilising a combo system of 4 possible guns where picking up 2 items will combine the output of the firepower from a high power machine gun, to homing weapons, massive flame throwers, laser beams and multiple combinations of the 4 (i.e. homing machineguns, beam swords, explosive shots and remote control flamethrowers to name but a few) will run, jump, climb, cling, flip, punch, kick, slide, throw, drive, anti-grav, spaceship, dice roll and view-screen their way through a plethora of levels and many MANY over the top bosses and enemies (all of which pretty much explode, excessively).

From the Bravoo man made of blocks, to giant plants, robot crabs, a creature made of curry in a non-firepower room (hate... hate you...) to farting military commanders, airships, tiny soldiers, a jelly, time changing rockets... It’s one of the first boss rush games to exist and every fight is just stunning to watch and reveal. Particular focus and mention to the Green boss fight (first time round) where you travel along mine carts that look like knock-off fujikomas from that anime with cyborgs... I know, not being very descriptive here... Ghost in the Shell I think. Switching gravity to overcome lots of enemies and chasing a train (down a wall at times) until you fight a boss that is several bosses at once. Each boss phase made up of segments used in different ways to create very different bosses to an impressive and pulse-racing soundtrack.

Even now, I’m not getting close to describing this. Compared to what was around at the time, there was little that could hold a candle to Gunstar Heroes when it was released, even today there’s few games that could be as busy, action packed, and FAIR (bullet hell games... I’m watching you) where you could run your way through, or you could just melee and ninja your way through like a thing possessed. Standard enemies would keep appearing while you travelled the level until you reached a checkpoint battle or the boss. All bosses had a health value that waned as you (and maybe your partner) fought it until it ran out of health and blew up.

There is a lot of replay value in the game, for a start the first 4 levels can be taken in any order at all. The combination of guns alone can be worth of several runs through the game just to see them all let alone pick your preferred combo. Given there’s shot, flame, homing and laser and any combination of any 2 including the same twice, there’s plenty for all to enjoy. Later levels are linearly approached however but even after gunning your way through the game, you can still attempt to just melee attack your way through, in some places you MUST (curry and rice...). Black’s dice maze will take several replays to get every boss fought there in what is a boss rush section of a boss rush game. On top of this there’s the co-op way to play it with just as much action and multiple difficulty settings and changes in game play from run/gun, spaceship, mine carts, board game and an odd variation on where you’re watching yourself through a screen the bosses are watching.

This game turns you into Arnie. A 2D Arnie from his hay-day doing films like Commando, Raw Deal, Terminator 2, where he turns up with a huge amount of firepower and just lays waste to everything in short order. Standard grunts and enemies with no names drop like flies and die to the mildest touch while the tougher opponents take a bit of tactical dodging or exploiting of weakness before being rent asunder in a fiery blaze of glory and overkill.

The game is not perfect, far from it. In some places and cases, your choice of weapon and combination may be entirely ineffective against a boss and you’re left to slowly ping its health down in a slow pattern that will drive you mad long before you’re half way to killing it. In fact, dying and then hoping to get better weapons might be the more preferable alternative to a long drawn out fight.

In some cases the controls can be a little off when jumping from walls and hanging from ledges, not enough to be a problem but it can catch you off guard if you’re not expecting the result. Most awkward though is when you’re caught in a stream of attack that hits and hits and hits for consecutive damage and just slaughters you when other attacks knock you aside for just one mild hit. If it’s intentional then it’s quite the dick-move but if it’s a bug, it’s a rather detrimental one.

Aside from that, there’s really little else I can find fault within the game. A thoroughly enjoyable run and gun romp with such a varied source of bosses and enemies that will leave you wanting a few good runs through the game and trying out various combinations and possibilities.

It certainly won’t be my last Treasure review. 

Gripe: Achievements, Trophies and other such "carrots" of gaming.

In an age of gaming where the current generation consoles are lining up to be online, where games are expected to have some form of online mode (or a good excuse why not, in some cases it doesn’t NEED the online mode but many of the whining public won’t accept that) It has become a standard to have a means of saying “Hey look, I managed to do this in a game, am I not awesome?” 

No, no you’re not.  But more about that later.

Unless corrected, this all began back in 2005 with Microsoft and its Gamerscore implementation. But over the years it has seeped into Windows games, Playstation with its Trophies, Flash games with their own achievements (satirised fantastically by the flash game Achievement Unlocked), to various mediums in the digital age including smart phones and apps.  A lot of these achievements are utterly pointless or diverge from the key focus of a person playing a game.

Some may argue, some may disagree, to state that Achievements and such Tasks are a good way of increasing a games’ longevity and reward the players with recognition for their skill and ability in the game. For some achievements I can agree with that, such as for perhaps “Beating the game” and awarding the player a suitable moniker for such. However when it comes to “Beating the game” then “Beating the game on Hard” and “Beating the game on Hard while using one hand and punching yourself in the face repeatedly” we’ve struck upon an issue of mindless repetition just to get players to keep playing.

The premise is a good one, get people to play the game, reward them with a big fat ego boost for playing it in specific ways, once they’re keen to boost that score and their ego, the games can put in whatever ill-conceived achievements they want to keep poor saps going and claim to make their game last longer. No, it doesn’t last longer, it becomes a painful chore after a while and once the player has gotten all they can or even all the achievements, they will never touch the game again. Good achievements can boost a game, bad achievements will bury it in a bargain bucket.

But it’s all very well me just stating that, but let’s take a look at such aspects.

“Find all the collectables”

In some games you’ll be rewarded for finding and collecting all of a set number of items. Again, this can be positive and negative for a game. If the number of an item to collect is small, it should be something that might take a few “secret routes” or a few paths off the main track to find them, but not something that requires the player to be awake at 3am, their character to be dressed in a macaroni outfit while the feet and toes are indirectly dyed a rainbow spectrum helix that crosses over with their gloves and fingers, just to find a single item. Ideally the items to find should be part of side-quests or provide the player with a means of starting on a trail to locate them.

Alternatively, if the number of an item is huge, then there should be a map available IN GAME for the player to locate all the items, or a scanner, or search function of some sort. Hiding them away in something like a sandbox game, with no means to locate them or even to track how many they have, is a cheap and poor way of getting the player to cover every square inch of what the map-designers have made, this will usually be the last achievement gained from the player before the game is buried IF they bother to go that far.

“Fake longevity”

Games with an achievement for beating those games are perfectly fine (assuming you have a game that allows for that). An achievement that recognises a person has played the game, played it enough to warrant seeing the final boss, beating the last team to win the championship, figured out the last puzzle, are a positive side of achievements and EVERY GAME should have an achievement for beating it.

Where this has gone horribly wrong, is when achievements are provided for beating the game under specific conditions... Easy mode, Normal mode, Hard mode, Impossible mode, Even the Programmers Can’t Beat This mode... the list can go on forever (Playing badminton on the moon while engaging in a 72way porn film mode... actually I want to see that). It’s a fake longevity as you’re forcing the player to play through the game in a way they’re less likely to enjoy. Some games allow for beating the hardest mode to unlock all the easier achievements as well, but not everyone is going to be able to beat the hardest mode or have the time and patience for it. Have the game with Easy, Medium, Hard etc, but regardless of the difficulty the achievement should just remain for beating the game.

“Online achievements”

This is a trickier one to tackle. If a game has an offline and online mode, then any achievement that can be gained online, MUST be able to be gained offline as well. Achievements ruin a game when it’s demanded that not only must a player be able to meet the criteria but OTHER PEOPLE AS WELL must also meet the criteria, then you’re not awarding an achievement for playing but being in the right place at the right time.

If a game is fully online ONLY, then have online achievements that reflect the players own abilities (And not bullshit like become #1 in the world, or #1 rank in a game) but if it’s based on experience points gained, such achievements will be attained eventually by everyone, the better players getting them sooner rather than later. Games that have achievements for doing something once or a hundred times, as these are things a lot of people can still achieve (and NOT coming first a hundred times... dick move...), should be commended for encouraging people to play for the sake of playing and enjoyment, not overly brash and forced competitiveness. (It might also get some of those screaming kids off the mic)

“Lost Achievements”

Another tough one, this refers to any achievement that cannot be achieved for whatever reason. In some cases it could be because a player died during their game (not so bad on a short game but with some games lasting 25hours+ that’s a real headache to have play it ALL again just to get that achievement), not picking up an item right at the start of a game that was behind where you began, having to make a choice that takes the game in two different direction and each direction is laden with its own achievements (this can be done well if the diversity is LARGE, with many achievements on each respective path, but forcing players to play a game twice just to say either “yes” or “no” at one key point is another example of fake longevity).

Granted however, that players usually do not see everything on their first play through unless the game is VERY linear and forces them to do absolutely everything they must do, achievements can and will be missed by players not taking the correct route or such. This is easily rectified if the player has an option (usually at the end of the game) to go back and play key parts again, or pick specific puzzles, or some function of a game that permits them to return to an earlier point to try something again or try something new they didn’t or couldn’t try at the time.  It should be noted that such achievements should not require the player to have to play through 3-5 hours of a game just to get that alternative route/choice etc, because once again that’s the fake longevity. 

All in all, achievements can really add to a game and make it more fun if they’re thought out carefully and implemented with the right level of care and attention to the focus of making the game fun and enjoyable. Otherwise they could all just be removed. 

I still go back and play older console/computer games and they didn’t have achievements in them because, guess what, they’re still fun to play!

Arcade: Splatterhouse

I remember back in the day when I was a little short(er), and wandering around the seedier sites of St Osyth's arcades by the sea front. A handful of 10 pence pieces all ready to be slipped into an arcade cabinet of my choice and played, that dangerous risk of finding a machine with fully functioning controls and an attract mode that appealed and didn't have an overload of ash in the cigarette trays. Yes it was those good old, dark, dingy, paedophile in the corner, carcinogenic inhaling days of arcades.

Then I found Splatterhouse. I recalled seeing someone playing it before I did and watched them slaughter their way through monsters, creatures, bloodworms, bosses and other such ghoulies and ghastlies from the graphical pits of pixelated hell. When I grabbed the controls to find it out for myself, I was enthralled with the violence that was displayed before me.

Which is the sticking point. This game is very violent and very gory. Heads chopped off, bodies smashed into background, torsos blown apart, chainsaws biting into flesh, hanging foetuses.. foeti, puking acids and bile before being disintegrated viciously. If you've not got a weapon, you're either punching, kicking or (if you work out how) sliding your way to blood fest central, courteous of your protagonists mask-fuelled rage of anger.

The story is simple enough, you and your wafer thing girlfriend enter a spooky house during a storm, the kind that screams “Stay The Fuck Away” even if you were dying of rapid explosive blood loss most people would take one look and walk off to their safer death. Once inside you get knocked out or killed and your girlfriend Jennifer is abducted. Thanks to a magic mask of horror, you get back up and start punching your testosterone fuelled revenge through 6 levels of gore and violence against monsters, worms, paintings, demons, wombs with hearts and pizza-melted faces.

Monsters and casual opponents take one to two hits of your feet or fists while weapons are often a one hit kill except for bosses. The bosses themselves will tank your damage necessitating the use of strategy (or exploiting flaws, I'm looking at you Biggyman and those shotguns in your level), while the levels leading up to those bosses will try to chip your health down to get your time with the bosses to be as short as possible and avoid you learning their patterns.

And that is the biggest flaw here. The game is one BIG pattern. When it got to the point I could do the first level blindfolded, flawlessly, shows that the entire game is scripted, every placement and enemy is dependant entirely upon where you are on the level. If you hold right from the start, you can time every single enemy, jump, punch and kick to get through the fight. The last few bosses will break pattern but that doesn't change how things are in the levels, when you KNOW when something will happen and not just accurately guess, the suspense of the game is gone.

It doesn't help that your main character, Rick, is rather large as far as sprites go and you'll pretty much have to fight everything on your way to the bosses, you might be able to dodge the occasional projectile but you'll play safer stopping the enemies from attacking. Eventually though, the death animations get repetitive and the challenge of fighting enemies becomes too formulaic, the bosses themselves become a case of If Boss is doing X, then do Y and it becomes flawless save for the few that change their strategy towards the end of the supposed ass-kicking.

While the game is visceral, the mechanics behind the game are laid bare fairly quickly to be a plain brawl ‘em up with few platforming elements. Occasional quirks such as a route optional level are an added touch but it's unlikely anyone will see them besides focused and well-versed gamers. Yep, when you die it's refight the level or the boss, back at full health and so are they, so unlike other games, you can't just pay your way through with enough 10 pence pieces.

All depending upon whether you're fascinated by violence or not, will determine whether you want to play this game all the way through or not. It does however take some serious gore fans to want to get past what is a tough but solvable game. This game is Hellraiser's Puzzle box, solve it and the violence is there for your reward, but you'll likely succumb to pinhead before you get the game beaten.

A fun butcher fest of excessive violence and gore, but it'll be unlikely you'll want to play through to the final fights knowing they're tougher and tougher and with little pay off for it. But then, masochists might enjoy it, it's likely made for them.