Space Gun - Arcade

You're in Space, and you have a gun... Gun Space! -ah shit...

Light Gun time again as we venture to planets unknown in search of the mystic plot device as to why people have gone bye-byes and odd creatures are in their place making life miserable for all and sundry. Yep it's the age old alien space monster plot of Distant-Planet-Lost-Contact-With-Space-Ship-Go-There-To-Find-Aliens-Kill-All-And-Run motif. Or DPLCWSSGTTFAKAAR for short.

Blood guts and gore everywhere.

Very quickly the plot in Space Fun falls into the Aliens category of space monster madness in that a spaceship goes silent, so people go to investigate it, then a planet, then you stop an alien army... By yourself (and a friend perhaps) while armed with a machinegun and an assortment of weapons and, wait for it, a PEDAL! Yes that's right ladies and ladies, you heard it first here, a pedal used in a light gun game before Time Crisis was on the scene. Predating Namco's title by around 5 years or so.

The player is hardcore, a slash damage that size from something akin to a bear is an Ouch...

While the gun remains as one might expect, a gun. Space Gun allows us the ability to select between four different special attacks. While specials were available in Beast Busters (and quite a few there too) and also in games like Revolution X, Operation Wolf (Ah the grand-daddy) this time around we're able to select which special we wish to use. Ranging from the flame shot that incinerates most enemies if they're grouped together, rockets for the welcome-home feeling, a laser sword swipe that cuts through all enemies but is very narrow in it's spread of attack and an ice shot that freeze enemies for more damage with the main gun and could shatter most smaller/basic enemies.

Nice and large bosses to battle

All the usual cliché’s are there in Space Gun. Dark and difficult to see corridors filled with monsters that can have arms and limbs blown off, HEADS blown off and still attack you, pods that release ravenous teeth-filled spores, critters, creepy crawlies and many more assorted monsters that get bigger and more stubborn to succumbing to death and are otherwise known as boss monsters. While at the same time you've also got plenty of pods around that can give you ammo and health, or shields against the aliens, other people are around that need saving for bonuses at the end of the level (If you make it that far) and then there's the pedal that lets you backtrack to either slow down the onslaught of enemies or go back for something you missed! EPOCH MAKING!

AHEM-Ripping off Aliens-AHEM

Aesthetically there's some lovely little touches in Space Gun, the occasional instance of blowing glass out of a spaceship results in shielding coming down to prevent exposure to vacuum (but who puts GLASS between a walkway and outer space?), mutations of would-be hostages that become aliens just before you save them are animated in an interesting and fairly unique manner, while most of the game seems to rip/borrow from Aliens up to and even including the planet base looking like the main site of LV-426 from Aliens. Thankfully nothing in the game actually LOOKS like it's from alien... Aside from the eggs and wall crawling little critters... And most of the aliens.

Last boss, Hint: Be accurate...

Plagiarism or Homage? That's not for me to decide, but what I can comment upon is that while the game is fun, it has its hang-ups. For instance, the selection of the extra weapons is sequential, so getting to the one you want, while under the extra pressure and stress of fighting off aliens, you're likely to over shoot the one you need, or not hit the one you want and make various, multiple mistakes. On top of this there's the issue of the game purposefully overrunning you with more enemies than you can attack at once, or just hurling at you bosses and monsters that shrug off multiple shots before arbitrarily just giving you a dry slap.

Did you kill something, or sneeze?

It's not a huge list of awkwardness, and the reverse function with the pedal is rather downplayed. The biggest gripe with the game is the brevity, it's just too short but having said that, the final fight is made all the more interesting by having your accuracy be paramount to success. A fight between yourself and the last boss, while in front of the control panels that fly the spaceship. Happy shooting! It's certainly worth the time to play but don't invest too many credits for it.

Night Slashers (Arcade)

It's like killing monsters... Actually it's just killing monsters.

Data East has a history of hit and miss gaming. This one is more of a "skewed off to the side" kind of game. In the same vein as Final Fight, Mutation Nation, Violent Storm and other such brawlers, Night Slashers takes a sort of Van Helsing approach to gaming and pits three characters (The Heavy, All Rounder and Nimble Minx) against a medly of monsters from various franchises and source materials and you get to beat them up in a variety of fashions and ways.

How's it "uncanny" if he knows lots of martial arts?

You've your strong character, a mix of cybernetics and cheesy rock with a dash of California in there. Capable of picking up monsters and leaping around while using combos and attacks others can't. Your all rounder character that looks very synonymous to Van Hellsing while having a balance of combos and moves and then there's the token bonus nimble character that nobody really wants to pick as they can't take a hit as well as the others and has more moves than most people will bother to try and learn to be effective with them before having to select another character as they've just lost their last life... again. Night Slashers knows its cliches and falls into the same trap as almost every other similar game (Undercover Cops... Monster Maulers... Dynamite Cop 2... I'll stop there...)

...maybe

INTROOO!!! Actual fighting is not as fun/easy.

Plot wise for Night Slashers, you get various monsters roaming the world and these 3 people are going to fix it. By killing everyone and not looking for a cure. Zombies are roaming the streets, Doctors have gone mad, Frankenstein's Monster is stalking in the shadows, a pastiche of Dracula causes trouble, someone gets to punch out a helicopter, a Mummy fights using wrestling moves (not bad for an emaciated guy...girl...dead person), all because some demon is returning to this plane of existence and your characters need to kill it. (No spoils but if you've seen certain episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, you know what to expect. Yeah that episode with the possessed book that got scanned into a scanner...)

Give it now! Cut this 'running away' shit and get to the fighting!

Graphically, Night Slashers is certainly riding high in the blood, guts and gore department. Everything you fight and kill dies (un-dies?) in a violent or gruesome fashion while cut-scene images look impressive and reek of 90s comic book stylings which adds to the cheesiness of the game but not in a negative manner. Likewise, getting critical hits on enemies throws up a comic book style effect to illustrate that you just hit harder than you ever hit before and often resulting in an instant kill with standard enemies. The largest problem, graphically speaking, is that the animations of the creatures and the characters becomes less fluid depending upon which movements the characters are forced to go through, usually getting up or moving more dynamically beyond the point of the generic "menacing walk" down the street.

At least he has an idea of what to do

Having said that, the audio in Night Slashers tries its hardest to give the player an experience with the music that ultimately falls flat in places but ambles along amicably enough to set a suitable mood without the emphasis on being too serious while not being overly slapstick (the graphics and Over The Top violence do that already), and while it's impressive to hear digitised speech and sound samples for the combat, it's rather repetitive to hear the characters repeating the same words over and over, ad nauseam, every time they get up or do a special move. The first few times it's ok, after that it simply becomes dull and monotonous.

Obligatory lift level

There's little here to come back to for Night Slashers, after the first time the game is beaten, aside perhaps to see the excessive violence and cheesy horror setting and in all regards, even that isn't enough to determine more credits from pockets. Repetitive gameplay despite the option for more attacks and combos and an awkward control system coupled with monsters and bosses that get stupidly high levels of priority in attacks, bury any chance of a real replay interest with the very undead it has with its own monsters.

Don't care, kicked your arse already.

Captain America and the Avengers (Arcade)

Who and who?

As far as the realisation of comic books into video games goes, there's far worse ones than this. Captain American and the Avengers is a healthy mix of the more colourful ear of comic books before they become darker and more gritty and suffered a series of ongoing reboots. So expect the bright colourful spandex, the ink-draining colour schemes as if bubblejet printers had carte blanche to print EVERYTHING possible and some of the fruitiest plots and excuses one could imagine.

With enough credits, yes I can.

In this particular game, Red Skull, the nemesis of Captain America, is going to put a laser on the moon so he can blast the Earth for what can only be for "Shits and giggles" as it's established in the intro that he has PILES of gold (no, seriously, he's shown standing next to more gold than one could carry and it's as tall as he is) and offering it to various villains on condition they become brain washed to fight the Avengers, so he can build this laser.

Where's the fairy come from? What do you mean 'which one?'?

I don't think I'm supposed to bash apart the plot holes in this plan, or maybe in the 80's and early 90's this was considered to be award winning comic book villain plan material... But this is what captain American and the Avengers have gone for. I also just realised this is one LONG title and won't really fit into the website but oh well.

...Translatorman was fired after this incident

So cue our four intrepid heroes, Captain America being one, Android (Who? Enlighten me please), Iron Man (pre Robert Downey Jr) and Hawkeye before he traded spandex for black leather and an attitude problem. All of which will run the gauntlet of levels offered by the game and punch out anything dressed worse than they are. But this isn't a fashion critique (I do that on weekends) but a game assessment and as such, it seems to fit in rather well with the Saturday Morning Cartoon Club approach to comics and video games. Bad guy does bad stuff, go kick arse off.

Starting to lose track of what's going on here

Each character in Captain America and the Avengers has a reasonable arsenal of attacks, ranging from standard melee, long range beams and shield throws, jumping attacks, a shield/barrier if one holds the attack down to reduce damage and can also pick up and hurl cola cans, spanners and enemies before hurling them into the stratosphere, or another enemy. Using your jump button and attack button, you can quickly exhaust all the moves within the first few seconds of the game and learn most of the more effective attacks. Each character utilising their trademarks within their moves, so Hawkeye shoots arrows, Iron Man has his repulsor beams, Captain America has his shield and Android pulls out a mobile phone... Or shoots lasers or something.

Ah the old "WABOOM" a perfect reason not to use good sound sampling

The levels within Captain America and the Avengers run from being the usual walking, scrolling brawling variety to the flying and shooting variance every few levels or so. Allow for an air battle, undersea battle and space battle and for a welcome change in gameplay every so often to keep things interesting, while running battles tend to be the type that is, 'walk forwards, fight some dudes, walk forwards, fight more dudes, fight mid-boss, walk forwards, scene change, fight more dudes, fight boss' and while it's fairly formulaic there's something about the delivery here that makes the game somewhat of a chore to play through.

Yes, where inded IS Sting these days?

Combos against enemies within Captain American and the Avengers, are difficult at best. The standard enemies tend to be able to interrupt your moves with their and your health will steadily dwindle down from your starting 100 points to zero very quickly unless you slap in a few credits or you play keep-away by jumping and hitting from a distance (avoid being Hawkeye and Captain America for this...) though this doesn't really lend into the idea of being gung-ho heroes and the best cure for villainy is a punch to the face.

Please let it be over soon...

All things said, the gameplay is quite fluid, the graphics a little on the simple and small side for what other games are offering but this gives the wonderful trade-off of allowing more on screen to happen at once and with that, feels like a lot of action is happening, which also leads to some fights being nothing short of overwhelming and the arcade becoming nothing more than a pocket vacuum sucking up your credits. It's ok, but there's a lot better out there doing a lot greater things.