3406	319	103	108
Forum Posts	Wiki Points	Following	Followers

Famicom: Clone Wars

By TwoLines May 7, 2010 4 Comments

Famicom, NES..

Famicom, a revolutionairy console, known in the USA by the name of Nintendo Entertainment System. Now, considering this is a website about video games (video game website about video games) you probably know all about Famicom, and you've seen or played some of its 8-bit titles. Even so, a little background info is needed. So, the original Famicom came out in 1983 in Japan, and then in 1985 in the USA, Europe and the rest of the world where it was known as the Nintendo Entertainment System, NES in short. As I said, you probably know this. What you may not know though, is the history of the NES clones. Countless bootleg duplicates of the system, that included hacked versions of the original games.

Original Nintendo Family Computer

..or Pegasus?

When I was little, I always thought my console was an original Nintendo console. Well, I was a bit too young to know what I know now, or even what I knew some years back, when I used the internet to get the scoop on the Nintendo consoles. So I type in "Nintendo consoles", and look through their systems. Wait, no Pegasus on that list? Yes, Pegasus. You see, here in Poland, NES was REALLY REALLY rare, so nobody had one. Instead all kids had a Pegasus- a clone of the Famicom system from Taiwan, nobody knew, and most don't know even TODAY, what was/is a NES.

The controller has six buttons..

Now, I don't know what the hell you had in your house, but for me the mighty Pegasus was an original Nintendo Entertainment System. It wasn't cheap, either! What was really peculiar for me even back then (with my tiny brain of a seven year old) was that the cartriges had 400 games on them. Well, okay, that's like a mix tape sort of thing, I get it. What was weird, is that there were about 60 games on that cartridge (which was still plenty) and after the 60th, they started to repeat. Why? Well, the 2nd Contra had double the lives. What? Yeah. The 3rd Contra had a powered up version of your gun as your default gun. And my favourite Contra had infinite lives.

I suspect there was nothing like that on the original Nintendo console, but I may be wrong. The weird thing is, people still buy Pegasus consoles here in Poland. They think of it as a rare item, and some buy it because of nostalgia. It's a weird situation, and I really don't want to enlighten them, ruining their childhood memories. Don't get me wrong, it's not like our experience with the console is based on its originality, but I felt somewhat betrayed when I learned that my first console was a crappy duplicate.

Countless Clones

You think the Pegasus was the only NES clone? Or maybe you've seen a few brandless vids (coined by Jeff) consoles on sale at a crappy kids store, or in a back alley, sold by a creepy looking guy with a weird accent and waxed moustache.. no? Well, either way, there were many more, and here are my favourite ones:

Arcade Station and Arcade Action
There were countless console duplicates sold in the USA as well as Europe, China and Japan, but these little fuckers are the worst. You see, My dad bought me a NES that looked somewhat like SNES (that's Pegasus for ya) but he still KNEW it was an 8-bit console. In fact Pegasus was advertised on TV. These consoles though looked like N64s! A parent that's not into gaming would buy this piece of shit diguised as the cutting edge Nintendo console. The very next day the guy in the back alley would be gone with the money. Awesome.

Polystation
This bastard looked like Playstation. It even had a similar logo. But it was EVEN WORSE than Arcade Station/Action, cause it was sold as a console that can read CD's, but when you've opened the disc tray- there was a cartridge slot instead of a laser. Classy. The funny thing is, Polystations are STILL IN SALE. Three years ago I've seen a brand new Polystation being sold on a local market. Holy shit.

There's no need for caption here, is there?

As you can see these two clones were used to fool the parents into buying something that's ten years old. There were ones resembling Sega systems too, like Sega Master System or Sega Mega Drive, it didn't matter though, cause under the hood, they were all Famicom clones. Beautiful. But there were better ones out there.. Pegasus, as I mentioned before, was a really good one. And apparently, so was Dendy- a popular Russian NES duplicate.

The End..?

I just mentioned a few, but there are about 100 (or even more) NES clones in existence. Can you imagine Xbox360, Wii or PS3 clones being created in Russia today? I guess those days are over. But don't be sad. I'm sure somewhere, someone is just about to sell a Polystation console to a naive parent.

Pictures used from Wikipedia.
Links to check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_hardware_clone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendy_%28console%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_%28video_game_system%29

Edit: There's an awesome list of NES clones here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_hardware_clones

4 Comments

Remember?Net Yaroze! 5/8- Fatal Fantasy VII edition!

By TwoLines May 5, 2010 9 Comments

Did "Fatal Fantasy VII" draw your attention to this little blog? Well you've been tricked. Cheated, conned, played, bamboozled (my favourite one). Okay, there is a game with that title here. #50 "Fatal Fantasy VII", and it's pretty scary how close its gets to the source material. But first, a little introduction to the horrible world of..

Net Yaroze. A PS1 development kit responsible for 84 games shipped on PS1 demo discs. For every good game you stumbled across, there were ten awful, awful ones waiting around the corner. I'm more than half way through, and I couldn't be any happier. You see, most of these 'things' after the 30th one aren't even games. People sent out their tech demos, and pre alpha versions of their homebrew products. I enjoy bad games, I laugh a litte bit and move on. But there's nothing funny about tech demos. Ironically (Bender would disagree) the first game on today's list is..

#45
"Tunnel Demo"
A fitting name, it's a demo of a racing game (that rhymed!). Now, a demo consists of actual gameplay, or so one would think, but what awaits us here is a short tunnel (hence the name) and a ship. Now, make no mistake, there are NO other opponents. Which is kind of sad really. It's just you, no music, no sound effects, no goal. You- going in circles. The controlls are bad. Worse than you might think, by pressig up you speed up, strangely enough you go straight to your maximum speed, and that means it leaves you with only limited controll of the ship. You turn left and right with circle and square. Again, why the weird controll scheme? Left and right too normal for you? You had to make it more fancy? You can go to the 'track viewer' and view the one track. So that's all I can say about this game. Or should I say "steaming pile of.. garbage".

#46
"Pune Yaroze"
Homebrew games have a tendency of being treated as direct clones of other games. In many cases that may be true, but this is actualy a quite interesting game. It's

Nice choreography!

Snake. Yeah, that goes against everything I said in the previous sentence, eh? Well, sue me. It's Snake, but for two players. It' ain't bad, it's actualy FUN. Something I can't say about most of these.. things.

So, if you're not familiar with the gameplay, let me lay it out for you. You're a snake (duh) and you grow constantly (or after eating an apple/some other fruit) and your goal is to eat enough fruits to unlock the door and reach the exit. Here though, you don't eat apples. You just grow. In fact, your ass doesn't move even an inch from the place you start. So you're this humongous line that keeps growing and you need to close your opponent in a tight space from which they cannot escape.

It's like someone would combine Snake with Tron races. Hmm.. there was this great Tron races game on Linux.. Damn, I'm starting to think about better games again. Sorry 'bout that. So yeah, this is fun. Now, what was that Linux game called..?

#47
"Car Demo"
No sense thinking too much about this one. It's from first perspective, it's ugly and it handles really bad.

#48
"Between The Eyes"
What would you get if you'd cross previously mentioned Tunnel Demo with a hooker's wardrobe? Between the Eyes.

This is how this game would look like if it existed.

A game with a style so hideous and the controlls so bad, it would put all the makers of the previous Yaroze racing games to shame. "You can do worse that that!" it would say. It would laugh at them, cause the would be producer of such a game- let's say a man named Lewis Evans- to shoot himself, as he created the most foul, disguisting and terryfying game that has ever roamed the earth. Hundereds would die from swallowing their own tongues in seizures, as the game would constantly switch colors inducing epilepsy. Such a game would be cursed, CURSED for all eternity. Thank God that game was never made. And that's how I'd like to end this little paragraph. Nothing happened here, there's nothing to see here folkes. Go home.

#49
"Second Offence Demo"
They meant Tech Demo. We're greeted by the mechanical voice that says the name of the 'company'(?) "MOBIOUS CODEWORKS" it doesn't stop after saying it once, no,

AAAAAAH!

it's actualy a part of the remixed tune that repeats itself throught the demo. Then we see a shiny doughnut rotating hopelesly in the vacuum. ANd then a scary lady. Well, to be fair, all this stuff looks really nice, considering PS1's capabilities. But.. why? Let's mov--"MOBIOUS CODEWORKS"--e on.

#50
"Fatal Fantasy VII"
Hahaha.. really, I'm not joking here. Fatal Fantasy VII.

Wow. First thing that caught my eye, is that this "game demo" was produced by the same people behind "Terra Incognita" which I reviewed back at the very begining. That's great- I thought- the english translation of TI was absolutely hillarious, so this is going to be even better. I was a little dissapointed when I've figured out there's no way to switcjh from Japaneese to English. Well, whatever, let's take a look anyway.

You press start and there it is, does this remind you of something..?

Yeah, yeah.. it does. It swirls around for a bit too. Okay, how about this then:

This is starting to get a little creepy. And then you turn around.

Hey, look, Cloud's STOKED! Goddamn! For once in his miserable emo life. I'm glad, really. You walk around some more, exit the bathroom and go into another dimension

This dimension is famous for its bathrooms.

(apparently to take a whizz you have to cross the gates of oblivion itself- as my friend stated) and end up in a nice garden. This is where the first battle would take place.

I said 'would' as this is the end of the demo. The 'Final' (*nudge* *nudge* get it?) screen reads: "Fatal Fantasy VII, coming in december?" No. No it's not. Never again have I heard anything about Fatal Fantasy or Team Fatal. The history of this project remains a mystery.

So that's all I've got to say about Fatal Fantasy VII. It was a great dream. And it's amazing how the graphics in the game look like the graphics of the original, I'm actualy impressed. Maybe that's why they did this? To get Sony's attention? I hope these guys were hired by Squaresoft. As far as I'm concerned, they've earned it.

Thanks for making Terra Incognita and Fatal Fantasy VII guys, wherever you are!

I'll just post this on some FF7 fan site and say that you can get here after breeding six golden chocobos.

#51
"Fujiyama"
What a HUGE step down from FFVII. This is a weird one, it's aprogram that allows you to view Mount Fuji from couple perspectives. There are about twenty pictures of ths glorious volcanic cone, but it's pretty useless today (although it was useless back then too I suppose). I'd rather look up the "Thirdy-six Views of Mount Fuji" on the internet. Case cl--"MOBIOUS CODEWORKS"--osed.

#52

Uhh.. yeah. This one's a top down shooter. It's impressive, although it doesn't have music nor sound effects, but that's really frequent among Net Yaroze games. Either way, it's enjoyable, it has nice 2D graphics, balanced gameplay, powerups, and cool enemies. Overall it's pretty good.

#53
"Appointed Station"
I really wsh I could say something about this game, but there's SO much going on, I can barely see anything. It's chaos. You're a ship flying through space, shooting things,

What the hell is going on?

there are space birds here and there.. flying.. but.. they don't don't hurt you, and.. well.. that's it. Erm.. Yeah.

#54
"Sam The Boulder Man"
Another Boulder Dash clone, but made by the same guy(s) behind "Clone" reviewed earlier. So that means.. the same sound effects? Yeah.. yeah it does. The music, the sound effects, it's all there. So, again, I don't like Boulder Dash very much, so I've got nothing to say about this title. Apart from the fact that it looks pretty decent.

#55
"Gravitation"
Developed in 12 weeks- is always a good sign with Net Yaroze titles. I'm not being sarcastic, most of these games were apparently done within days. A longer hatching period means a better game (there are exceptions to this rule,a nd I'm sure one game in particular is a world record braker in this discipline) and that's the case with Gravitation.

It's fuuuun. This is a multiplayer only game. To describe it, I'll have to use other games again. It's like asteroids, but it's a two player game. So the objective of the game is to kill each other. There

DOGFIGHT!

are 8 different maps, and each one is like a maze, it has it's shortcuts, and strategcly placed holes in the walls- through which you can shoot down the second player. The tricky part is to kill your rival, while manouvering through the maze. Most of our lives were wasted by crashing into the walls, but when your opponent collects a powerup, well, you're pretty screwed. They range from switching your left-right directions (which means instant death) to bullets being shot from each side of the opponents ship, making a previously simple act of destroying his ship almost impossible.

What can I say, my friend is rather picky about his games, and he said this game's alright. We also went through all of the eight maps. And that's the best recomendation for Net Yaroze game I can give. Just don't play "race" play "dogfight".

Untill next time,
TwoLines.

9 Comments

Remember? Net Yaroze! 4/8 (Half way through!)

By TwoLines April 29, 2010 6 Comments

As you see- I'm half way through this ordeal. What have I learned? Well, it's ovious now to me that the standards in homebrew gaming have risen. Xbox360 homebrew titles- dreadful they may be- are so much better then this crap, I'm amazed. Well, without further ado, it's the "Remember? Net Yaroze! half-way-there special extravaganza"!
And JUST for this occasion:

#34
"Net Yaroze Intro"

Yes, it's the whole thing, right there. Why was it.. why was the Star Wars th.. hmm.. well it's the half-way-there special extravaganza! So anything goes!

#35
"Bendy Demo"
It's a tech demo, where you're looking at a crazy image, that shifts left and right. Yup, I've got nothing.

#36
"3D Breakout Game"
Finaly, a game! Oh.. oh.. ohhh no. It's hard to express how bad this game really is, so.. there:

So.. how can you fuck up a breakout game? Well.. just like that. You know, breakout is pretty cool on it's own. It doesn't need anything else. So what the fuck is this? I'm serious, WHY? Why, why, why, why, why? Why is the camera constantly turning? It's suppose to be challenging? Well, yeah, it kinda is, I'm amazed I've been playing it for so long, cause it's desorienting, and you feel sick after a while. It would be okay though, if the screen was a little bigger. How am I suppose to see ANYTHING on that little square there? And did you see how the ball glitched through the tiles? Even the game, in the little box is unplayable. Awesome.
You're ruining my 4/8 special extravaganza, 3D Breakout! Get the hell out of here! Git!

#37
"Car Racing"
Oh, what a great name. I just wish it was more representative of the game. Guess what, there's no collision detection system.

I'm the red one. Yeah.

Again. It's the second fucking racing game without a collision detection system. how is that even possible? This game is even worse, it's 2d! I think it's possible to make a 2d game, that is capable of determining whether you hit an another car! Is that REALLY so difficult? Who made this game? Why did he make it? It has no point either. Or maybe it does, but I had no idea where to go, and there's nothing on the screen telling me how many laps am I suppose to do, or have done. It's pointless, it's bad, it's ugly. So there you go, Car Racing, a game which is bad and unfinished enough to have the same name as it's genre. Hey, I'll name my game "Third Person Perspective"! I'll name my game "Adventure Game" (previously on "Remember? Net Yaroze!"...)! Hey, I'll name my game "Action Game"! ... Massive.. Action.. G.. Hmm..

#38
"Clone"
Oh, yeah. now we're getting somewhere. I'm a big fan of old FPP shooters. Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem- awesome games. So how about "Clone"? Well, I'll tell you something about Clone. Or better yet, I'll show you:

So, yeah. It's a blatant copy of Wolfenstein/Doom. The sounds are literally *ripped* off from Doom. The main problem is this wall of darkness before you. How can I shoot the weird.. clone.. things, when I can't see them? The draw distance is terrible. You know what, maybe it's for the best, casue the graphics are absolutely abysmal. The less I see, the better. So, about the gameplay- you're strolling through these corridors, shooting these.. clone things. You find keyes to open these weird brick walls, and poof, you're transported to the next level. I've found a machine gun in the first level (same as your first gun, only shoots faster), but I doubt there are other weapons in this game. So there you go. Clone. A bad game, go figure.

#39
"3D Demo"
It's a tech demo. Again. Nothing to say about this one.

#40
"Feedback Demo"
Another one. Seriously? Guys, come on! Part 4/8 is suppose to be eventfull!

#41
"Flag Demo"
Oh My God. This is.. torture. Another tech demotherfuckingshit!

#42
"Manic X"
Yes, a game! A real game! And a good one, too! It's a Pac Man clone. Nothing too fancy, but it's well done, and the visuals are pretty good. When you die you even hear the

Power Pellet time motherfuckers!

classic Pac Man sound, which is a nice touch. Really, this game saved my gamepad today, another shitty tech demo, and I'd throw the controller through the fucking window! So anyhow, a Pac Man clone. One of the better ones. And that's all there is too it.

#43
"Snave"

Space tunnel!

A bad shooter. You fly through an endless corridor, shooting badly designed enemies, and collecting weird anime girl pictures. Yeap, blowing apart space ships and collecting manga, is a match made in heaven. The controlls are awkward, the graphics are terrible, the music's pretty bad, and.. yeah, that's the whole game. Yuck.

#44
"Sound 2 Light"
A sucky visualizer, you swap CD's, play the music, and viola! Pretty lights appear!

Fuck, this is the last title I review in "Remember? Net Yaroze! half-way-there special extravaganza"? Well.. this is kinda.. anticlimactic..
...
...
...
So.. yeah. See you next time.

6 Comments

Remember? Net Yaroze! 3/8

By TwoLines April 23, 2010 5 Comments

Once again- Net Yaroze, a PS1 developement kit, and me, engage in a glorius combat, from which neither me nor the system walk away victorious. Why would I prolong this gruesome spectacle? I won't, here's the next game.

#23
"Psychon"

Ugly ass-game.

Well, the name of the game is pretty representative of this title. You walk around killing innocent people. The sounds are nice I guess, and it's definitaly better then some other Net Yaroze shit I went through in my previous reviews, but even so, this game is bland and uninteresting.

You walk around civilian filled hallways of some underground area 51 complex, and shoot everything you meet. Not that anyone wants to do you any harm, so it's never explained why you mow down these poor bastards on your way to the exit. Well, okay, there's no exit. The objective is to kill as many people as possible in a certain time limit. Maybe someone along the way had a gun, cause I died at

Why did you have to sneeze, Mike? Why can't we have ONE nice family photo?!

the end? I don't kow, the game's so cluttered it's hard to see anything. Yeah, the graphics are pretty bad. It's all shown from the top-down perspective, so it's like Crimsonland (a great game worth checking out) in a tight, ugly looking maze, and on top of that, you kill some bland civilians instead of aliens.

So to sum up: boring, bland and ugly, but sure as hell better than most of the Net Yaroze stinkers. Not that any of you will ever play these piles of.. Ehrm.. Onto our next title then, which is..

#24
"Adventure Game"
Hooo boy, adventure game indeed. How can I even describe this? It's.. Well.. It's trying to be good. But at the same time, it kinda laughs from itself, and it makes the game look really pathetic in the process.

Let's start by.. well.. pushing start. "Written in four weeks" Well that's not so bad (sarcasm), let's see the menu. Clever, you use the main protagonist to choose options in the menu, okay, let's start the game already. It looks like Final Fantasy VII world map, which ain't half bad, really. But then, you try to move around. And that's when the horror begins. The controls are awful. they're beyond anything I've ever experienced.

The camera at work.

The whole game seems to be a big ice world level, cause I don't see any other explenation for all this sliding that's taking place here! The music loops. It loops after twenty-thirdy seconds. And it's horrendous. It changes after I enter the city though. Too bad another, even worse tune hops into its place. Gah! The camera is the worst thing ever to grace the world of computer games. It's locked in one place, Resident Evil style, in an open 3d world. So it hops around every few steps, locking onto the next pre set position. Euuugh! The fighting is just mashing the X button, the enemies don't have an attack animation, so it doesn't even look good. Bleeh!

Then we arrive at the city, and that is where the first conversation takes place. The guard asks me: "What do you intend to do in this city?" And our main hero responds: "Not sure, I think I probably have to talk to someone and they'll give me an item I can pass on to someone else who will give me another item, etc, etc." Heh, well at least it starts of with the breaking the fourth wall joke. Pretty clever. The conversation goes on, some jokes, not all of them funny, and then

Hahaha, hahahaha, haha, ha, hahahaha, haha.. ha.. :(

another game related joke. And another. And another. The deeper into the game, the more self referencing jokes about the game. Some don't just brake the fourth wall, they smash it with a sledgehammer. "I'm low polygon" says one character. Haha.. yeah. That stopped being funny twenty minutes ago.

The author is showing us every bad thing about the game's plot and graphics. What am I to do then? Well, they never say anything about the gameplay, so I guess I'm left with that. It sucks! There. Put that in your game. One thing I liked was an old ferryman, that asked me if I had the permission to go through the river, I said I do, and he just said he believes me, and lets me through. When asked if he wants any proof, he just says it's my conscience, and if I lied, I'll have to live with it. A Monty Python situation almost. Heh, clever, but does it work if I don't ask the king for the permission prior to the conversation? No. No it doesn't. Ehh.

I see what's going on here. The game tries to become its own punchline, and to its disadvantage, it succeeds. It's funny for about a minute, and then it's just embarrassing.

#25
"Super Bub Contest"
It's a nice Bust-A-Move clone, and that's pretty much it.

#26
"Pandora's Box"
It's Sokoban, but from the First Person Perspective. The graphics look on par with those in Wolfenstein. Yup. You're better off playing "Pushy" from my last review, or just Sokoban, that- I'm sure- can be found and played, online.

#27
"Opera of Destruction"

The graphics are hideous.

It's a 3D shooter, where you're a pilot of a futuristic looking plane thing, and you're suppose to destroy the other players (or CPU's) town. So you fly around, destroy enemy ships, fly over to the enemy town, and destroy it. that's your mission. To defend, you can use your turrets, but that means switching your camera from your ship, so it's not always a good move. Now, this is a sound concept, and the game would be great, but the graphics are pretty bad. The draw distance is terrible. You can't see shit. Thank God the enemy town has this big violet light on one of its buildings, but when you destroy that building, you're screwed! The sound effects are good, there's no music, but fuck that. It's a good game. Especialy when you play with a buddy. Can't think of any other flaw.. oh yeah, it's not Time Slip.

#28
"Time Slip"
One of the greatest games ever. Don't be fooled by the primitive graphics, the lack of music, and the horrible, horrible sound effects. This game, is good. It's better then good, it's the best Net Yaroze game ever. It's fucking amazing. And I'm not pulling a Jim Sterling here, I really DO like this game.

Okay, time (hah!) to tell you what's this game all about. So you're a snail. You jump around, collect coins. Collect enough coins, and the exit open. Pretty easy, eh? Ha, the

What, never saw a future version of yourself before?

twist is, every 30 seconds a past version of you respawns. It follows your moves, like a ghost from a racing game, and if you touch him, you die. Now, imagine, every 30 seconds the same thing happens. And there's no limit to this. It would be easy to just avoid them, and collect coins, but you have to use your past selves to open doors that close if you get off a platform that opens them.

So your left with many snails walking around the level, opening things for your other past selves. Every move you make, you're thinking about your future self, where he'll be standing? Over here, over there? You're thinking about 'him' not 'you'. You are your own enemy. You'll see those past versions of you, and you'll curse them. It's mind bending. You're looking at a door, knowing it will be you, standing there in thirdy seconds.

Jump over me, future me! I know you're there!

Sometimes, you're standing around with four copies of yourself slowly walking around, afraid of stepping onto their future selves. You have to jump over yourself at times, and you know this, so you're walking around in the past (your present) for the future you to stand a chance, while avoiding your past self, who's walking around pushing buttons, cause he has to open a door for your past past self that's about to spawn.

About the lenght- It has about 10 levels, and a password system, so you can start where you left off. But the puzzles are so mind bending, you're going to spend some time trying to find the coins and the exit.

Don't be fooled by the graphics, gameplay wise, it's Braid before Braid, its past version, if you will.

#29
"TanX"
Still have to check this out with my buddy. It's only multiplayer.

#30
"Decaying Orbit"
Ever played Lunar Lander? This game is very much like that. Only you're trying to manouver from planet to planet, from a top down perspective. There are some space

The planets look pretty ugly, but they animate, so it's not so bad.

turrets shooting at you, and if you fly far enough through the edge of the screen, you will die. Those are the dangers of Decaying Orbit. You can upgrade your space ship, buy weapons to bust those turrets, new engine to fly faster, and so on. The ship behaves like it would in the vacuum, it's very easy to loose control, and fly through the edge of the screen. The map's are getting bigger, with more planets around (crushing into planets- also deadly) and more space turrets. It's pretty cool. The graphics are pretty nice, you know what? This game's alright.

#31
"Blockz"
A pretty cool title. It's like Zoe Mode's "Chime" only a little clunkier. Worth a try.

#32
"Video Poker Simulator"
Ehh.. Don't be fooled, it's not 'poker' poker. There are no other players, it's more like a slot machine in Vegas, with looping music, and terrible, terrible graphics. Well, if by graphics one can mean a pair of gloved hands animating poorly. Next game.

#33
"Yaroze Rally"
Oh yeah. This game is fun. The best thing about this game is that it.. it doesn't have a track. it's just a bunch of roads connected randomly. There are checkpoints, and yeah, they're named 'checkpoint 1' '2' and so on, but you don't know where's the next one, and there's no map. It's chaos. You know what else? There's no collision detection system!

"Some kind of a detection system?! In a racing game? Surely sir, you jest!"
"Yes," I reply "it's the future of this genre, it's the main point actually. It has been done before you know."
"What?! What is this blasphemy you talk of heathen! To the torture chamber, you shall tell us all about this 'Coh-Li-Sion" thing!"
Oh yeah, you can see the cars through the track. Yep.

Aaaaand the trees are just for show. No collision detection there eiher. Stopped to show you this fine lookin' tree over here.

Yeah, I'm done for today.

5 Comments

Remember? Net yaroze! 2/8

By TwoLines April 20, 2010 5 Comments

The bar has been set dangerously low.
I'm not talking about games 1-11. No, those games were pretty good. In fact- it makes me think about some of the games I called awful before. Blitter Boy is pure gold (I'm not joking, it's actualy a decent game) compared to the shit we're about to witness here. People- I'm talking about the worst Net Yaroze games, this is going to get bad. Now- the last game I've 'reviewed' on the 1-11 list was named "Gas girl". It was about a young woman fighting aliens with her farts. Even that was better than what's coming.

#12
"Hover Racing"
We start off with something above avarage. Ever played F-Zero? Yeah, this game is a clone of that game. But that's not a bad thing, the game's really awesome. I was kind of

Ah, okay. Cool.

afraid to go on after I saw the 'help' menu, but what I've learned from Terra Incognita was that not every game SHOULD be translated into english. Or at least not by an automatic dictionairy.

Well, the game turned out to be addictive and had some good music. The graphics were pretty nice and I didn't get bored with it at all. There are some things that grind my gears though, like the fact that L1 makes you turn RIGHT and R1 makes you turn LEFT. Who thought this was a good idea? It's called Left 1 and Right 1, it's not like you can inverse the buttons. You can't expect this to feel natural to any living being on earth! The other thing is that picking a car somehow alters the difficulty. I'm not talking about the handling and

IT HAS MUSIC! Trust me, that's really something.

speed- but I'm talking about the A.I. This game was insanely hard with one hoover car, but very easy using another one. They wereen't even that different!

Best racing game so far.

#13
"Insects"
A pretty nice puzzle game. It's hard to explain the concept without seeing this game in motion.You controll a ladybug, and you have to get from point "A" to point "B" on the

"Insects" is a pretty good title, but you'd have to play through the whole game in one sitting. No, thank you.

map. Nothing new here- but the thing is, there are these scorpions that really like you. It's kind of weird actualy, they're trying to get as close to you as possible, and they pick the shortest route to do so. They don't kill you, they just get in your way. If they're far away, then they copy your movements, so you're using them to push blocks into the water, and solve other puzzles. The concept's nice, but the graphics are terrible.

But, hey, it's a Net Yaroze puzzle game, I wasn't expecting miracles. Somebody interested in puzzle games would enjoy "Insects", but not for a very long time. And since it doesn't use a password system, I doubt anyone would have the patience to play through the entire game in one sitting. Too bad, cause it's level design is pretty darn clever.

#14
"Nana Tan"

Remember that dark void on the edges of every road back in the 90's? Yeah, that sucked.

Most Net Yaroze games are not analog compatible. Which sucks, because if they were, then maybe the controlls in "Nana Tan" wouldn't suck ass! Well, it's not like this is the only thing that's bad with this title. This is a tank game. Okay, I'll admit, it's pretty hard to make a decent tank game, and doing so without the analog support is damn near impossible. So yeah, I gave up after ten minutes. It's pretty bad. It's your everyday shooter, but with broken controlls, and an empty void on the edges of the screen (that you may fall into) which is kind of ridiculous. No, thank you.

#15
"Cat Game"
So I said something about the analog support, guess what? This game doesn't even work with the 'analog' option on. Great, that means it's awesome I'm sure. Ladies and gentleman, our first abysmal game! *Claps slowly*. Okay, okay, settle down. Writing about it can't do this game justice, it's so bad, it's.. I can't express how bad it is. i'm stuck. I'll show you how it looks like:

It's 'horrable'. You think that's the stream, and you're suppose to catch the fish in the basket? Well, actualy, no. It's so absurd, it's hard to explain. The fish are falling through the stream to the bottom of the screen. If a fish touches the ground- you loose a life. Why? I.. I don't.. know. Now you're thinking- "Oh, so you move the basket? Catch the fish in the basket?" No. You can't move the basket. The fish bounce off of your head, and you have to bounce them in the direction of the basket. Ehh.. there's almost NO animation involved here. The cat just slides left and right, the fish barely move.. the horrendous music loops after 5 seconds, and the funniest thing is the game is preceded by three logos that take about thirdy seconds to disappear! Next game. . for the love of God, next game.

#16
"Tan Tank"
Sounds very much like Nana Tan doesn't it? Well, as I said before, it's actualy good. Well.. saying it's good is a little too generous. It can be enjoyed. Again though- analog

It looks pretty bad on the screenshot, but it looks even worse in the game!

support would do wonders to this title's controll scheme. Every button is used, L1 and R1 are used to turn the main gun left and right, L2 and R2 are used to deploy shield and fire homing missiles (The 'deploy shield' button has to be pressed at all times if you want the shield to work) X is used to fire the turret, square is used to fire the main gun.. well- you get my point. It's crazy. I'm not capable of using all these things at once. No human is. Or ever will be I'm afraid.

The graphics.. are bad. really bad. The music is nice, and it changes every 10 levels. There's something about this game that makes you go on, maybe it's the explosions, or maybe it's the fact, that you get better with time. You get familiar with the controlls, and start to kick ass. Still- I was unable to use the shield, and mostly I tried to keep the main gun centred, but maybe that's something that can be mastered as the game goes on. Sadly, it gets boring pretty fast. I've beaten 30 levels (29 to be exact) and got really tired of it. It was fun 'till then though, so I guess the game's not bad.

#17
"Columns"
Not much to say about this game. It's like tetris- but your main objective is to match colors of the falling blocks. I'm a fan of this type of game, so I guess I'm a little biased, and shouldn't be listened to when I say- this game's alright.

#18
"A Bob"

Hit the square button to cut off the manticore's wings! Oops, wrong game.

This is a weird one. You tap the square button to speed up your bobsled, then you race for a while, but instead of a finish line- there's a big ass ramp at the end. You fly into the air, get out of the bobsled, play a mini game that consists of pushing the combination of buttons that is presented to you at the top of the screen, you open your parachute and land. Can.. can you imagine all of this without the help of a screenshot? The controlls are shit. The only part of the game that you can actualy controll the bobsled are at the race, but they're so jiggery you're constantly hitting walls. Can't say much more about this one.

Kick, punch, it's all in your mind!

#19,20,21
"Cart" "Bom!" "RC Race"
So- we've only seen one bad game untill now. Why did I say we're at the bottom of the barrel? Middlesex University. Those are the people that made these three games. Fuck them. Fuck those people. Why? I get it, you wanted to train your programing skills, but for the love of our maker, why did you insist on sending this pile of shit to Sony? I've put them all together here. All in one family grave. Let's blast them to hell zusammen, shall we?
Cart:

I could show you many screenshots, you wouldn't understand even then. There are two ambulances, controlled by two players. It's pretty much a tag game variant- who has the light can acquire points, by touching the opponent, you acquire the light. the points are these geometric shapes in the middle of these big green hills. No music. No sound. The graphics? Yeah, a pretty ground texture resembling a blood splattered pavement. This game is bad.

Bom!

ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE!

This game is even worse.
You can look at the screenshots. What am I saying? You're looking at the actual gameplay footage right there! If I don't press anything, this game looks like it was frozen. No animations. No- the flame on the lit fuse does not animate. Nothing animates.

The point of the game is tu run around and play the game of tag. The landscape is endless. And the start button resets the position of the two bombs. There's no music, no sound, you have to make up your own rules, count your points or measure time. All by yourself, cause the game doesn't have any of this stuff. Is it really a game though? Can this be called a game? Well, I guess. If the Magnavox Odyssey can be called a video game console, everything can be called avideo game.

REAL LIVE STREAM FOLKS!

Let's meet our next contestant:

RC Race

My God. This has to be the worst of them all. Okay, Bom! was worse. But this is pretty bad. Let's see.. It's a racing game. Again, calling it a game is a bit too much. It has some rules, a timer, a speed meter, so yeah, it's more of a game then Bom! But seriously, it doesn't have any music or sound effects, you know what, look at this:

Look at the draw distance! Everything is cut off by a big black wall- not only before you, but behind you too! This doesn't happen very often, most of the time the draw distance is better, and you're meant to fly through gates, yadda yadda yadda. I've lost my will to live.
Next game please.

#22
"Pushy 11b"

Our last game for today. And thank the Lord it is good. It is good, ladies and gentleman, it's actualy playable. Remember Sokoban? This is Sokoban. 100%. So, yeah, it's good,

It's Sokoban. I like it.

(can't stress that enough, IT'S GOOD!), it has this awesome password system (passwords are people's names) and the graphics are pleasant. What else do you want? It's the perfect Sokoban game. The levels get more complex, I've came across these blocks that slide untill they hit something, and suprisingly, the level that introduced this, was really simple, so even someone who doesn't play games can take a swing at it.

More to come!

5 Comments

Remember? Net yaroze! (Reviewing horrible games 1/8)

By TwoLines April 18, 2010 20 Comments

Remember? Net Yaroze? You don't? Good. Run for your life.

It’s actually nettoyaroze (from japaneese "Let's do it!")- and that’s how I pronounce this development kit for the PS1. What is it? Well, nothing more than homebrew games of the old, like those Xbox indie games today. Sweet, sweet moonshine that turns into bitter vomit once you push the start button. I’m going to write a small review of these games, yeah I’m that masochistic. So I just downloaded the 83(!!) Yaroze games from the internet, and I'm going to play them using an emulator. Judge me not, these games were practically free back in the day, now they're nowhere to be found. I got my hands on some of them back then by buying the "Playstation Magazine" with demo CDs.

Well- thank the Lord that’s out of the way, let’s play our first stinker.

#1 "Terra Incognita"

I push the start button- choose a language with the select button (Japaneese or English, hmm..) and then I'm presented with the story:

He knows a rumer. Okay. The mesmerizing conversation continues.

You know, I've heard a rumer that this game is horrable. But do go on mysterious stranger.

Okay- this isn't going to be my whole review. But here are some highlights:
"You are still a coward guy."
"But.. I am really scary."
"Well, I see. You keep eyes on this ship."
Wow. Awesome. Let's venture forward!
I come across a sign. I read it with the square button:

This is great. Already loving this game. So let' me explain the game mechanics. It's a zelda clone. Well, okay- not exactly.

TA DHAA DHAA DHAA!

But you lift boxes, throw bombs jump around, kill some enemies and- yeap, your energy is represented by hearts. And you collect heart containers- as seen on the right. You really do have to read all those great text entries. So awesome. The game's fun though. Compared to the crap we're about to go through- this is a gem. Anyhoo- you get 60 minutes to beat the game, just like in prince of persia, if you don't make it- the captain- so called friend of yours- leaves without you. Thanks.

Zelda can suck it!

As I mentioned before- you use boxes. All the time. In fact- using boxes is key in this game. You can throw them on signs (cool), monsters, on other boxes (duh) and also, on your head. Yeap. Now that's what I'd like to see in Zelda. I kinda wish you could place your dick in a box, but- alas, this game is not M-rated. There are some monsters in the game (slime balls) and you can kill them with your knife. Yes, a knife- I won't call that thing a sword. It has no reach, and that's pretty much how the monsters kill you. Blue slime balls are the worst. So watch out for them, if you ever decide to play this game. Haha- right. Only kidding, so silly. This is joke, joke from old.

The main antagonist of the game is unknown- and I have no intention of going through the whole game to find out his identity. I'm sure a great conversation takes place before the final battle, but sadly, I got stuck. It's not really my fault though. There was this sign that told me what I had to do. It said: "By riding on slime ball you can go across to where you cannot without it." Peachy. How do I do it? I jump on the slime ball? No, it hurts me. I stun it? Nah- you can't stun shit in this game. I don't know. I've tried to explore a different part of the island- but I got stuck again. I think I was suppose to stack two boxes on each other, and then place a lit bomb on top to make the jump, but I was too slow and I died.

So, in conclusion- this is an awesome game. Mainly due to the charming story and skillful writing. Hahaha, kidding again, so silly.

Yeah, I hate that movie too.

Next game:
#2 "Blitter Boy: Operation Monster Mall"

Just follow me to that van over here..

I don’t want to say much about this game. Because.. well.. it's weird. You collect babies. Yeah, caucasian and afro american babies. I don' t know why there are no asian babies there. Or maybe there are- it's tough to say, the graphics are.. well it looks like it was made on the SNES. it's not that I don't like 16 bit graphics- but.. you know what, whatever. The game's awful. You collect babies, transport them somewhere, kill ghost that look like they were ripped straight from pac man.. I don't want to play this anymore. There's this one thing though.. it's kinda buggin' me. The main protagonist has a very familiar logo on his helmet, that- by the way- also looks familiar... well, it's only my imagination, I'm sure. Let's carry on.

This upgrade will make the game so much easier.

#3 "The Incredible Coneman"

3D Pac man clone. Really, nothing more can be said. Oh yeah, it stinks.

#4 "A Dog Tale"

Jesus Christ.. You know what- no. This game is so bad, I.. I won't get past the first level. I'll show you a screenshot of this 2d turd, and let's move on. Really, the controlls.. I know- it's homebrew but.. Argh! It's the WORST 2D platformer I have ever played. Hell- i've been more entertained by crappy cell phone games than.. Oh, whatever. Also- shouldn't it be called "Dog's tale"?
P.S.: Pro tip: The cacti are deadly.

#5 "Rocks n’ Gems"

Boulderdash clone. A pretty good one, but I never liked the original, why would I like the clone? Not for me. Moving on.

#6 "Total Soccer"

A top down view soccer game. I don't like soccer, I don't like this game.

#7 "Mah Jong"

Yup, it's Mah Jong all right!

#8 "Haunted maze"

"Give me back that heart token, It was an anniversary gift for my girlfriend, also: Braaaains!"

Yeah, the name's terrible. But the game is.. good. it's addicting. Like a good flash game. Sure, it looks like total crap. Yeah, it's simple, and there's no story whatsoever. But- it's not broken, and it doesn't piss me off. So that's something. I've played through 10 levels, which is saying a lot. The concept is really simple- you run around avoiding zombies and collecting weird floating tokens. You collect all the tokens, an exit opens up, you leave- next level. A simple, but well done, arcade game. Nice.

#9 "Bouncer 2"

Was there a Bouncer 1? The controlls are terrible. They're not explained well enough- and you're left scratching your head. It sucks. The graphics are.. there are no graphics. It's like I'm playing Atari again. Oh shit, I named the screenshot amiga.. ah, whatever. See- taht's how much I care about this game- I'm adressing a screenshot mishap instead of reviewing this shit.
It's like breakout, only more complicated. No, thank you.

Avoid Net Yaroze games at all cost.

#10 "Stonegate"

Warning: This game is a piece of shit. Just wanted to warn you. Go enjoy life. Don't play this grabage. -The Author

I'm greeted with a half-assed menu, and a giant title- Stonegate. Okay, at least it's trying to be original. I check out the "info" of the game. And there it is- a short note on the bottom of the screen: "This game isn't complete(...)". Awesome. He goes on to say he did not have enough time to complete it, yadda yadda yadda. Damn, this has to be awesome. At least something to laugh about! Let the battle of the titans comence!

...
NEXT!

#11 "Gas Girl"

You fart to kill enemies...

...

Okay.. okay, i'm done for today.
So.. eleven games reviewed.. 72 remaining..
...
I.. I'm going to lie down now.

P.S: Many horrable mistakes in text found, sorry, but better text has to be than Terra Incognita!

Seriously though- hope you had as much fun reading this, as I had playing these games.

20 Comments

Retro Look: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sob sob

By TwoLines April 10, 2010 11 Comments

So what can I say about this game that you haven't already heard? The franchise started off with The Legend of Zelda for the NES in 1988 (or Zelda no Densetsu for the Famicom in 1986). It featured a boy named Link on a great adventure to save Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon by collecting pieces of an artifact known as the Triforce.

It wasn't a really convoluted plot- but the gameplay was groundbraking to say the least. You could go wherever you wanted to, buy items, explore dungeons, and so on.

Then came Zelda II, four years later Zelda on the SNES- and finaly Zelda on the N64. And here we are- 1998, the game is called the best ever, and we just got our hands on this legendary piece of software!

11 Comments

Retro Look: Super Metroid

By TwoLines April 9, 2010 6 Comments

Retro look is something I thought of not long ago- maybe it was boredom, or maybe the fact that so many people praised old games that I've never played before.

I don't know. What I do know is that these games changed the gaming history- revolutionized the genre, were ahead of their time, and so on.

The superlatives never end. Best, greatest, prettiest. Well I'm here to test them out- without nostalgic feelings or bias. So let's jump into my first choice, Super Metroid for the SNES.

>>Tuh duh duh duh Tam dam dam dam Tuh duh duh duh<<

Metroid is a franchise that started in the early days of Nintendo Entertainment System. Metroid on NES (which I'm also going to play) was an amazing game- it's open ended level structure was unlike anything else on the console.

It didn't have the fancy-pants Zelda save system- but it did "save" us from frustration of starting all over by using a password system.

"Us" as in "You", I never saw a metroid cartridge in my life (although I did play NES as a child).

Then came the Gameboy version, it established Samus' look and from what I've heard, it's also a great game worth checking out.

Finaly metroid appeared on SNES. Super Metroid (not enough "Super " games on the SNES- let me tell ya..) came out in 1994.

It was established as the best metroid game ever- it created speed runs and transformed Samus into one of Nintendo "mascots"- right next to Link and Mario.

So lets play the game I like to call- "how long can you play without looking at a FAQ?".

Here's what I call a "BALLLS" moment.

BALLLS!

The "Wall Jump" was the first thing that got me stuck so badly- I had to look for a YouTube video instructing me on the matter.

Here's how it goes. You're exploring the map, looking for a way to progress through the game by using collectied power ups.

You stumble upon a suspiciously unprotected power up. "Well.. this doesn't happen everyday. Oh joy." You run up to take it and..

"What the hell? Ghost floor? You've got to be kidding me! Well whatever. There's a save point- I'll save and get back up there somehow.."

You save and move on only to discover.. it's a dead end. With some little picolo-moguai monsters jumpng from wall to wall. Etacoons or some shit, I don't know.

Let me tell you- I've spend two hours looking for another exit- in what was a save point, a corridor, and this dead end room.

You had to learn the "Wall Jump"- which, I can honestly say, ain't as easy as it looks. Another half an hour passes- I'm finaly out of that hell hole.

Old games are much much harder than what I remember them to be.

The rest of the game ran smoothly. It was basicaly the same thing over and over again. You search for a place that you can access, you expolre it, find a power up,

head back, and look for a place that you can access with your new ability. Standard metroidvania gameplay, pretty straightforward but enjoyable.

The graphics are really nice, there are several different enviroments- like a fire/lava enviroment, water enviroment, crashed space ship and so on.

The music is terrific. It's just out of this world, it's a big part of the atmosp..

BALLS!

I'm stuck again! For fuck's sake! Can't a man enjoy this game without looking for hints? Care to guess where?

You have to break this tube with a power bomb. Really cool.. but fucking insane, how was I suppose to figure it out?!

There was a time when people had waaay too much time on their hands. Or were children. Same thing.

Where was I?

Oh yes- the music's awesome. And the last "dungeon" is really memorable, you don't fight many enemies, but the scripted battles are really something.

Too late for a spoiler alert? The game's been out for 10+ years so I guess there's no sense in doing that. You fight a giant metroid that sucks your life juices,

but stops before you die. What the hell? Apparently this metroid's Samus's.. baby.. something. Should've played the previous games in the franchise I guess.

Anyhoo- it doesn't want to kill you, then helps you at the Samus vs Mother Brain cat fight. The game has a great ending with the whole planet blowing.. up..

So.. Why? Why would anyone do that ? Why killing the mother brain makes the planet blow up? Didn't the space pirates think this through?

Or was this Mother Brain's doing? I bet it was her.

Well the game ends, and if you finnished it really fast you get to see Samus in a bikini. Right. Because when for a change the main protagonist is a woman

you have to make her wear a bikini. That's your reward. For completing the game really really fast. *sigh*. Well that aside- I had a blast with this game.

It lasts for about 9 hours (first playthrough) and it's insanely addictive. The story is really weak, evil jellyfish used as a wapon, typical B movie Sci-Fi bullshit.

That's what we get? I guess that's not what one wants from Metroid. Gameplay is the core of this game, and I can understand why, even now it's suprisingly pleasant to play it.

So there you go- to anyone that didn't play this yet- I'm pleased to say it's worth it. Two thumbs up, and onto my next game..

Legend of Zelda the Ocarina of Time for the N64.