Old Games: Encyclopedia Bombastica: Life Force

I love this game! Great to see Alex do another one of these.

Hooray! My favorite east coast correspondent!!

Fuck yeah Life Force! Abadox was my shooter of choice, but this was a fun game.

One of my favorite shooters of all time!

BRAINZ!

Oh dang! More Bombasticas! Never stop! Wooo!

I prefer to say 'graydius', but if you ever hear it spoken in the games it's pronounced 'graddius' (I'm pretty sure it's spoken in Gradius V).

Graydius is better though.

Pretty sure it's pronounced Gladius?

See you next time indeed.

Always hhaaated Gradius. I hate the powerup system (few middle fingers in gaming are this prominent), the esthetic, the god awful BLEEP BLAAAP DÆÆÆK BLØØP music. It's just a shitty unpleasant game to play.

It's great to hear that Alex fixed his sound levels! I can't stand blown out mic sound...

Gotta love the Innerspace reference!

Hell yeah, Metz!

This takes me way back. Lifeforce was one of my earliest NES experiences. One of the first console games I ever played.

If I had played this as a little kid, it would probably have freaked me out. This is some serious Inner Space / Fantastic Voyage stuff.

Now I really want to play some Twin Cobra. Doubly glad sites like VirtualNES exist.

I've missed you Bombastica.

I can finish this game while blind folded. Thats how much i played this when i was a kid.

Don't sweat it on the pronunciation issue. It's supposed to be "graddius" because of its actual name "Gladius" (which unfortunately befell that L/R phoneme issue Japanese speakers have trouble with) but "grady-us" kind of fits too because of "gradient". Not a big deal either way, but then I say that as someone who gets "Suikoden" wrong at least half the time.

Life Force is neat though. I like how someone thought flying through a giant alien's insides was the best part of Gradius (well, Salamander technically, then added the Gradius parts later) and re-worked the game to be almost entirely that.

Fucking loving the Metz t. Sick band.

I was thinking a lot of stuff in the 90s had something to do with people going in a ship and inside a human body, I remember The Mask animates series had an episode where the mask goes into Milo the dog and fights a computer virus in Milo's brain.

Is honey I shrunk the kids the movie Alex was talking about? or one of the spin off movies cause there where a couple of those too.

Oh man, I completely forgot about this game. Used to play it all the time, loved it.

@pop: No it was Innerspace as he said. I remember a ton of these movies from when I was young. People get shrunk down in a tiny ship and have to fight a virus or something while traveling through the body.

This feature is great, glad to see the whole GB-crew starting to pitch in with this as well. More content in general is always welcome.

Go METZ! They're gonna take the world series!

@pop either Innerspace or Fantastic Voyage.

Awww, Alex?

Just kiddin'! This was great, I loved the shit out of this game back in the day.

That was a cool looking game. That fire level was something. It had a lot of elements that reminded me of Solar from Star Fox 64.

Also, that dragon boss was sick.

The Guns of giant bomb playing some good games here :).

Rad entry, Alex!

A couple FYIs for you - Salamander splintered off into its own series after this game and evolved and changed alongside Gradius until it was a markedly different shooter.

Also I didn't play enough Life Force as a kid for me to know how it works in this game, but I DID play a ton of Gradius III on the SNES, and that speed up power up becomes CRUCIAL. Each one increases your ship's movement speed incrementally, so while the first one doesn't feel noticeable, if you keep activating the power up three or four times you'll be more than twice as fast as when you started out. This comes with its own frustrations because the game becomes way more finicky, but allows you to actually outrun (out-fly?) obstacles and bosses.

That Metz album is killer. I haven't watched this video yet, but yeah!

Hell yeah Life Force.

Now if someone does a SMS version of R-Type, then my two favourite 8-bit shooters will be covered

I had no idea Alex was into Metz. Fuck yeah Metz!

sweet shirt, Alex

Yo! circa 1980's Konami! get your aesthetic themes straightened out.

I loved Life Force! We used to see who could get the most speed ups and still control your ship, once you get in the teens the tiniest little twitch sent you across the whole screen until it became completely uncontrollable haha

There's just something about Konami side scrollers of this era that just squeeze my nostalgia sack.

Life Force, Contra, Rush N Attack, and later on games like Axelay and Cybernator. Yeah, back when Konami had the touch.

Fuck yeah Lifeforce. Get yer Gradius on!

Oh man I was experiencing just a rush of memories watching this bombastica. I played a ton of Life Force as a kid and sometimes played co-oped with my brother. I remember really liking it though it looks a little rough now. That skull is a jerk. I had to look up that 30 lives code in a magazine. I really enjoy listening to your honest and open opinions on this old gem Alex. It was a strange time for gamers that's for sure. Please do more of these awesome videos!

There's a game for the original Gameboy that I used to play a shit ton called Nemesis. Always thought it was a Gradius descendent, but now I realize it borrows its style more directly from this game, from music to environment. Nice stereo effects on that Nemesis.

SPACE EGYPT!

I loved this game when I was a kid. So much nostalgia!

I can't be the only one who is apathetic towards top down and scrolling shooters right?

Alex do Big Rigs again!

Damn. Considering it's Alex I hoped this would be about...

The game seems pretty cool too, but is SERIOUSLY lacking in naked space vampires.

@alexInnerspace.

Personally, I loved that movie. For me the first thing I think about when it comes to stories (or levels in a video game) about going inside a body is Innerspace. It was the movie that got me into that concept and then I saw Fantastic voyage. I then read the fantastic voyage books (if I remember there was 2? I dont know, I remember reading two of them but they're arguably better told versions of that story as Innerspace, I guess, is technically an homage or something of that).

Back in elementary school, before I had an NES, I was at my best friend's house. His parents called him up to his room for a minute. A few minutes later he came down and said come upstairs. When I got up there I saw his parents had given him an NES. It wasn't even Christmas or anything, just random. Life Force was the very first game we played, even before Super Mario Bros.

You never have to be defensive of your love for Life Force! It's a solid follow up for Gradius even if there are some weird changes in the US version. Love seeing some more Alex on video. I like your writing but I like you talking more. Please talk more.

So glad these Encyclopedia Bombastica videos are back.

Hell yeah. I played the shit out of this game as a kid. Never knew it had a following!