Outrun - Arcade (Yes, that one with the red car)

It's all about the car.

It's a simple idea, car racing through picturesque places and locations, wonderful sights, nice chilled theme tunes to listen to and if you find the right arcade, a big ol' impersonation of a sports car to sit inside and move around while you're trying to drive with a TV screen sat in front of you showing some pixelated tracks and cars. On top of that there's not much here really beyond this scope and aspect of the game.

Lots of choices, some levels harder than others.

Outrun, probably one of the more iconic arcade games of the mid-80s and awarded best arcade of the year by Golden Joystick Awards for 1986, beating out Bubble Bobble (Which I think should have won over this...) involves players driving a Ferrari Testerossa across the sprawling landscapes of Someplace while trying to hit the checkpoints that magically assign more time to the players and at each checkpoint, gives the player the option of going left or right, in search of new scenery and things to look at, as well as crash into.

I... saw this a lot...

That said, Outrun likely will hold a special place in a lot of people's hearts. The simple style of play in getting just to the next checkpoint (and if you run out of time, game over. No continues, no slowing down to try and inch over the finish line here) and racing back and forth through traffic while trying to avoid harder corners that will cause you to slide out and slam into various obstacles, which will cost you more time as you wait for the game to put your car back on track.

Use checkpoints to extend gameplay, or just quit.

The audio is likely the best part of the game, composed and sequenced wonderfully and adding to the overall feel and pace of the game in that while you're trying to gun the engine for all that you can, there's nothing really to compete against other than the arbitrary clock, it almost leaves you feeling that you can take your time playing this game. In truth you can't.

At least the scenery changes from route to route

The time limit for Outrun is tight, very tight against any and all errors if you want to be able to beat it. As such you'll get about 5 - 6 minutes of gameplay if your driving is perfect and a lot less if you crash, bump or generally take too long to get up to speed before switching the gearbox from low to high while driving. Outrun is rather unforgiving in that regard.

Scenic, but deadly trees.

As such, because it is so very unforgiving it becomes difficult to enjoy the game without having to dedicate a lot of time and energy into the situation in order to get much back from Outrun as it is. There's a fair amount to enjoy here and with multiple different endings depending upon the routes that you take and the journey there, there's a level of replay factor for people but getting access to that level in the first place is going to be more difficult for some than others and it becomes a sticking point for Outrun.

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.

Pit Fighter - Various

...I'm... just going to have a cry in the corner...

Oh dear God please kill me. No seriously, smite me now for having to put up with this abortion of video gaming. Please someone, take my brain and run it through a bleach-coated cheesegrater on the hope that even in my dying moments that I will NEVER REMEMBER THIS GAME AGAIN. It's Pit-Fighter. (Shit-Fighter, I'll drop this one in now and promise to not use this punchline again).

Words... fail me.

Let's give it some credit though, it's the second fighting game to use filmed actors for animatation, before Mortal Kombat hit the scenes a few years later. The fact that it's the second game to do this should be a huge indicator that this game was never going to be anywhere as polished as it could have been given the almost ground-breaking foray into the field, but Pit-Fighter seems to have lost its way with the game play, and the graphics which is the ultimate irony there.

A shame nobody executed the product staff.

Game wise, Pit-Fighter is for up to 3 players to enter into an underground arena of illegal bareknuckled fighting and combat their way to the top against established pricks of varying magnitude. Join Buzz, Ty and Kato as they take on the underground circuit it a choppily animated and complete lack of flow between frames, fight to the top. Scoring points and cash on the way up by fighting in various styles and winning specific criteria or getting flawless/perfect victories against bosses that take priority with their attacks over your own. Fairness is out of the window from the start and so it's down to who can exploit the AI fastest.

I really wish I hadn't made it.

If you even could! The controls are sluggish and unresponsive at the best of times and Pit-Fighters use of combat is risable at best and downright insulting at worst. Using your mess of a jump, kick and punch, it's down to you to fight and beat multiple boss-like opponents either solo or in a 3vs1 battle with your friends (you will soon lose these friends if you're the one that suggested to play this abysmal game). The joystick lets you move in 8 directions around the arena including moving to the background and foreground while you try to buy some distance and time to learn the moves or pick up some items or just run away and play for a little bit long from the poison challice that is this Pit-Fighter.

It's like a real fight, only pure shit but just as painful.

The graphics in Pit-Fighter, look like people and quite rightly so given the technology used but the flow and style of the animation is horrible to watch and as such the collision detection for the fights are usually "off" from the images that are being shown. There remains some level of detail and colour, if a little pixelated, but for what it's worth, the items and people you see do look like the items and people they're meant to represent. But then a photo of an object should still look like a photo of that object.

Sadly you cannot grab the weapons and bash yourself to death with them.

Annoying, clashing, woefully digitised and barely recognisable. Key words anybody should be using to identify the audio within Pit-Fighter, but perhaps with all the graphics being used in the memory, there wasn't much left in the budget or the game itself, for decent sounds. It's another nail in the coffin here and for those that can find out how to, silence the game before playing it.

And now the background is painful.

There are some interesting aspects of Pit-Fighter though, the crowd can get involved in the fight if the combat strays too close to them, pushing players back into the arena or stepping in and attacking players that get too close, thankfully this includes the bosses of the arenas. Once you've beaten the selection of fighters, you'll end up fighting them all again anyway until you hit level 15 and then you get to fight the last boss and beat the game.

B is for BAD GAME, BLOODY AWFUL and BULLSHIT. Remember this well.

But you can't beat Pit-Fighter. Once you start playing, it has already won. Your money is in its chutes and anything you try from here on will just be a meagre attempt to regain what you've paid, and you will always find yourself coming up short in that regard. Stay away, and if possible, burn any machines you find of this game. I will now be carrying a lighter and aerosol can JUST for this purpose, at all times.