Robocop - Arcade

"Half man, half machine, all computer game" -Actual advert.

In what was one of the forerunner films of the 80s and finally put the police as the heroes in a "5 minutes into the future" setting of Detroit, Robocop (1987) was something of a breakthrough with violence and story even for an 80s action film. The premise being that a cop, freshly moved in from another precinct, is out on duty with his cop-partner and gets a call to respond to a robbery, shit goes South, things get fucked up and he ends up becoming a shotgun target for the gang that committed the crime.

The less said on this the better...

Rather than leaving him dead, the company OCP which owns hospitals, insurances, banks, the police etc. (Gives us a lovely little privatisation situation possibility there) decides to use the dead officer in a new project that basically gives him a brain wipe, suits him up in titanium and sends him back out on the street as a robot cop... Hence, "Robocop", who is now a walking tank, and systematically starts claiming back the streets while corrupt politicians are throwing money around and trying to keep the crime going.

Enforcement Droid 209 series, the first one at least...

The film is well worth the watch despite also being one of the most violent films of the 80s, nay, all time. The tongue-in-cheek attitude to modern media and the (at the time) current trend of evolving technology and the economy are rather accurately lampooned and seen with considerable foresight in such a way that even today it's clear to see that some of the humour still pays off with the steadily increasing trends that were identified nearly 30 years ago.

Since when did anyone have a chainsaw in this film?

As a game based on a movie, you're going to have to be familiar with the movie to get the references that are used within the game, as the game follows this rather closely and uses locales, weapons, bosses that reference events happening within the film. Although even without the game/movie knowledge, there's still the fact that there's a game underneath the graphics and audio even if some of the references will be rather out of place and seem like they're thrown together for the sake of the game. Such as the first boss being ED-209 which is a giant of a robot walker, but makes sense if you've seen the film as you'll identify what he is straight away and the audio bytes synonymous with its identity. (20 seconds to comply, I think you'd better do what he says Mr Kenny...)

Powerups, while strong, are few and far between

Your game will take you through the city streets with a mishmash of gang members carrying knives and guns to grenades and the occasional use of a motorbike (Given the Emil incident in the film when they blew up a petrol station, see... more references), to the slums of the gang, a working scrap metal factory (not in the film), a drug factory/warehouse (with a very out of place boss) then the involvement of criminals taking over OCP which leads to the 2 more futuristic levels and repeat of earlier bosses but are beefed up for the ED-209 series. So some of the game follows the film and takes liberties with others, the film does have a scene involving OCP HQ but not to the same degree that the game makes out.

There's lots going on at this scrapyard. Fairly certain H&S will complain though.

And where the hell did jet-packing enemies come in? Robocop himself gets a jetpack in the 3rd film which was released WAY after the game was, so it's a bit of a random moment in this instance but fits in with the style and flow of the game.

Pimp my Ride meets ED 209.

Control-wise, Robo moves along at a steady pace for someone weighed down with hydraulics and titanium armour but can jump faster than he walks... fair enough, it's a game. Shooting comes in the 5-way directional flavour in that he cannot shoot downwards unless walking on stairs at that angle, any attempt to aim downwards invariably has Robo ducking and shooting in that direction instead. However, it's functional, gets the job done and the controls and the rate of fire set in such a way that you can almost always avoid gunfire and other such issues if you're careful and don't just charge head-first into bigger issues.

This week on "Shit that never happened" this boss!

Your usual cap-gun (The Auto 9 from the films) does sufficient damage to be useful even if it's supposedly the weak "standard" weapon. You can hammer the fire button and butcher the health bar of bosses quite readily. Alternatively you might find other weapons like 3-Way shots which can be just as lethal up close to the more heavily armoured enemies like the chainsaw-nutcase; armour piercing shots which shoot through items and blockades and does a lot of damage but limited in ammo. The final weapon is the Cobra Cannon from the films, which is a huge blast of a shot that slaughters most enemies and cripples bosses in 2-3 hits but as with most of these weapons, you'll find them at a point where you end up with little to no ammo left to use for the actual boss fight. So most of the fights will be you and a pop-gun Auto 9. Unless you're very conservative.

That's hardly fair! But who cares, bring it!

The music within the game takes directly from the films, the first level being a good rendition of the Robocop theme tune and the boss music taken from the fight between Robocop and ED-209 in the OCP tower from the film. Later levels take tunes from other key points within the film such as the car chases and scenes set within the warehouse. Further sound bytes are taken from the film such as Robo's pseudo catchphrase of "Dead or Alive you are coming with me" during boss battles, or "Drop it" at the start of most levels or against key opponents wielding the heavier firepower within the game, such as the Cobra Cannon.

See above for Jetpack comment in review.

You can power through the game on credits, each time you die you get the chance to continue back where you were with another credit, though it cannot be recalled if there is a maximum number of continues that one could use within a single session, some games for example have a max of 6-7 continues before you get a compulsory Game Over, while others will not let you continue once you get past a set level (usually when on the final level), but in this case for the most part you'll get back up with full health and time and be straight back to the battle. Which is usually enough for the rest of the level and/or boss except on the final few levels when the firepower directed at your can be criminally overwhelming.

Some could say I've played this a bit before.

But you do have some respite, there's 2 bonus levels that act as "shooting ranges" in a sort of first person perspective and gaining high scores here will gift you with extra food/health for the next level, while in levels you can occasionally find the baby-food pickups that will replenish limited health or the even more rare bonus containers that will increase the maximum health Robo can have (and not fill it at the same time) while dying will reset that health level back down again upon continue, making levels harder as a result of failing and PAYING to continue the game again. Not quite a working economy model there.

If you're not careful you CAN kill hostages... If...

Of course, it's not quite enough but then again, that's the whole point of getting cash out of the players. It is however a good game which is quite strange given that a lot of licensed games are not very good and are running solely on the merit of the original film/franchise. In this case however, you've got a very good game which pays homage to the source material in a closer way than a lot of other games would do, is very playable and responsive and keeps in with the theme of the original material. It does take some different routes like the Wrecking Ball (no Miley here) boss that features not in any film (save the 3rd, but again, way after this was made) and the junkyard battle which isn't part of the original film at all, nor are the super-powered ED-209s, or fighting 2 ED-209's at the same time in the last session of the penultimate level only to then take on ANOTHER tower of climbing, ANOTHER ED-209 (with rockets! which you can punch!) and then the final duel with Dick Jones though sadly you can't blow him out a window.

...I win.

It's still a fun, fairly enjoyable and reasonable game, looking very gritty in the right places and fitting in with the gritty theme of the sort-of futuristic Detroit and firmly stylised after the first film. It could have done a lot worse and given that it's made by Data East, which has been hit and miss quite regularly with their games, shines through as a diamond amongst the shit.

Contra - Arcade

Enough crap, it's Arnie and Sly.

 

Some will argue this is one of the hardest games out there in the Run and Gun category of gaming. I however, feel that the follow up game to this one is FAR harder but that's for a later review, possibly. That being said, it is still a very tough game and the arbitrary limit of continues on the machine itself is just only a small part of that problem. Though it's not a very big problem as it's great to see games that have that one thing that a lot of games nowadays are missing, challenge!

It's an odd perspective/ratio and keeps you from seeing too far ahead.

Contra follows that lovely idea of starting from the left and running you rightwards (usually, more in a second) where you'll be jumping platforms and hammering the shoot button to fire in as many directions as possible at the limitless spawning enemies, the set-piece enemies and all the way until you meet the boss of the level and have to blow it up. There's no back-story mentioned in the game and to be fair, it's really not needed as the premise is simple, "Run, Gun, Kill, Win" though that last part is a little bit of a challenge.

"We really wanted to be Aliens" is all this game screams.

You've your usual spectrum of weapons in Contra, gun, machinegun, fireball thrower (avoid this like the plague), laser, Spread/Scatter gun and the rarely found, occasionally picked up, Barrier which makes you invincible to everything except falling off the bottom of the screen. The guns have their uses, machinegun negates the need to press the button but lacks the stopping power of the bigger guns. Laser is highly powerful but requires a lot of accuracy which isn't that easy in this game as there's a sort of sweeping direction movement going on with the aim rather than the arbitrary key 8 directional points. Spread/Scatter gun is great for clearing out waves of enemies but only does heavy damage when up close so that all shots hit at once. Fireball thrower... Well, the less said, the better. There's enough variety there for those that like it and a weapon for everyone's preference. (Mine's the spread gun, stay off it)

Mix it up with some pseudo-first person fighting

The controls in Contra are an odd bunch at times. They're less precise and more fluid than the home console versions of the game and by that I mean that you can shoot in angles between the 8 key directions (Up, down, left, right and all 4 diagonals) as the game takes a sort of turning momentum when you're pointing to consecutive directions, but if you change suddenly from Left to Right, you'll switch immediately, however in turning from Left to Up/Left and Up, you'll spray in multiple directions while the aim turns towards the new directions. Going from Left to Up with a slight pause though, will switch the direction immediately, this tends to catch most people out when trying to aim for something that's going to kill you and needs to be shot, as it's usually miniscule in size and very fast.

Some of the bosses offer quite the challenge. Others offer a HEAVY challenge.

There's plenty to hear in Contra, ranging from the pops and squeaks of dying enemies, explosions from bosses, klaxons going off as bosses are damaged and near death/destruction while there's the semi-synonymous noise of dying that seems to have carried from most games across the series, they're clear and precise and don't strictly interfere with the music which is another bonus point in favour of the game. Konami seems to have nailed it perfectly with Contra in that the levels, challenges and bosses in the game are punctuated with suitably appropriate music and most key boss music really sets the adrenaline going, especially after the tunnel levels.

It's not a boss, it takes about as much damage as one.

Graphically, Konami looks stunning. The action and motion is fluid as you traverse the levels and the gameplay is never overwhelmed by what's going on but the looks and appearance of the mechanical structures, odd alien-esque biomechanics (Though I feel Geiger might have been more than a slight inspiration here...) and even the ice levels, jungles and underground tunnels are lavishly designed and realised through the artistic merit of the game.

Space American Football Player Boss... The what now?

It is a tough game though, while there may be several camps of people decrying it as either IS or IS NOT the toughest game of the genre before we start looking at games like I Wanna Be The Guy or platform bullet-hell games, it's difficult but not the toughest. That said there are some issues regarding jumping and shooting accurately especially when trying to aim for diagonal shots but these were ironed out in the console releases (Which have far more levels too).

Laser, Scatter/Spread, rapid fire. All good weapons, just don't get the fireball gun. It's crap.

Play Contra if you can in the arcades, it's quite different from the NES version of the game and will have enough surprises and similarities that would interest and keep a steady gamer curious as to what changes there are. Just remember there's a credit limit before it's an auto-game over and there's no 30 lives cheat for this one.

Super Probotector/Contra 3: The Alien Wars

And so it begins, on the SNES!

I do have a rather fond relationship with the Probotector/Contra series of games, to a point. That point being this game in particular in which having played the first and second game in the series, then getting a SNES and seeing "Super Probotector" (an odd thing to name all games "super" just because it's on the Super Nintendo, causes a problem when you already called it Super on the NES... Right? SUPER Mario brothers...) and seeing the 8bit classic, favourite and challenge of a console brought to the 16bit era and sitting back and going "....wow..." having spent the first few minutes of the game running through a war-torn city, jumping into a tank, taking out barricades, tanks, being hit with an airstrike, somersaulting over fireballs and eruptions before fighting a giant mutant tortoise. FOR THE FIRST LEVEL.

The dynamic ways in which you'll have to fight enemies, are numerous.

It runs the same format as the other games before it have. You've yourself and maybe a second player, running from left to right with your guns, killing everything that moves and trying to get to the end where you can kill a boss. (usually... this game does mix it up a little). Accompanying this is your new abilities to climb walls, hang from ceilings and supports and now have the ability to select different weapons or fire both at once in a "web of death" spiralling move. You can also carry bombs that wipe out most enemies and do some damage to bosses too.

Because being stalked into the stratosphere wasn't scary enough, bring the spiked walls.

First thing you'll notice is that the graphics are stunning. There's no two ways about that one and the detail and focus on the 16-bit version here is mind-blowing, especially if you've not seen the games after this point. Destroyed cities look like truly dilapidated remnants of once former glorious locations, industrial landscapes as far as the eye can see, deserts within acres of canyons while riding a hover bike through along a fully maintained single road... Ok lost the plot a little on that one. But every single enemy, from standard alien creature up to giant flying armada space boss, looks stunning. The detail has been lavished on in every regard.

"I felt like such a twat when I turned around and saw what really scared them away..."

The gameplay hasn't suffered either. It's fast, it's fluid, your character runs and jumps as smoothly as the best of them and the added collar/shoulder buttons help with the standing still and shooting in all directions function while the jump and shoot are nicely placed as per muscle memory would accept while the switch and bomb buttons are added on and tend to be less used than the others anyway. (Unless you've an auto fire joypad, then it's double gun time!... yes I did do that back in the early 90's). If you die in this game it's for one of two reasons, either you've faced off against an enemy you've never met before or you didn't react in time. The controls are too solid for that to be the error here.

Once again, the computer can do something more cool than I can.

Musically and sound-effects wise, the game is fairly crisp, making good use of the onboard sound capabilities of the Super Nintendo, giving us heart-pounding beats and music filled with adrenaline to the point it'll be dripping from your ears while the shouts, screams, explosions and gunfire is almost constant but never quite enough to overpower the musical ensemble. Though some of the compositions rely on bridges that are dependent upon the character reaching a certain point in the level and it's not quite so smooth in such a transition.

Post-Air-Strike stance.

The multiplayer still holds the same issues that the first games did. If one person tries to make a huge jump that's beyond what you can manage if the screen doesn't scroll, and the other player doesn't jump... Then it's a quick trip to fuck-you town, population YOU.

First boss, suffering from Ectopia cordis (go look it up)

The game will overwhelm you at first, there's just SO much going on in each level, even the top-down levels where your view changes to a birds-eye-view of the battle, the shoulder buttons used to turn left and right and the d-pad to run around, jumping now makes you duck under bullets and some of the weapons take on different properties, the laser in particular is now a short range constant stream rather than the high powered beam weapon it was in the previous level.

Mode 7 used wonderfully here to show level 2. Though you really need to see it in action.

Your power ups range from the mundane but useful machinegun (of which you have anyway), crush gun that's short range but explodes powerfully, the flamethrower that acts like an actual flame thrower, homing bullets that do exactly what you'd expect; builds a house. No. The spread/scatter gun making it's almost trademark appearance and the laser. Bombs that will stop most bullets and small enemies and will also damage larger ones and the occasional Barrier that will give you a colour-coded shield that lets you know when it'll run out.

Level 1 and I get a tank, sadly not much else later on.

Throw in 3 difficulties of varying toughness, including the Hard Mode being the ONLY way to get the True Final Boss (a brain in an armoured suit that chases you up a pit while you're helicoptering out). Some obstacles also become invincible, some bosses speed up or hit in different movements, some enemies will now attack rather than sit in the background. There's a BIG jump from Normal to Hard mode that you will not see from Easy to Normal. In fact, with the Easy mode, you'll wonder why you even bothered, especially when most bosses are rather idle during the fights, the last boss has the 4 easiest options when fighting and you can likely outrun bullets. While conversely for hard mode, you'll be shot faster than you can say "what bulle...?", the last boss hammers you with every option and tends to favour even the grey snake special (you'll dread it when you see it) and then suits up for a final fight afterwards, and the giant turtle on level is invincible save for the heart (you can't break other bits of it).

The video game equivilient of "I'm a huge TIT", with guns.

It's a good example of how to do a strong, solid, run-n-gunner. Learn from it.