The last in my series of reviews of bowling games is Championship Bowling for the Sega Genesis.  This is not to be confused with Championship Bowling for the NES.  Championship Bowling for the Genesis was released in 1993 by Mentrix, and it plays pretty much like other bowling games of it’s time.

I have a few Sega Genesis games where the bottom half of the front label has gone missing. I wonder what causes it.

Before you start the game,  you choose from 1 of 4 bowlers, the weight of their ball, and the speed of the game.  To actually bowl, you position your bowler, and then press a button to bring up a spin meter.  You press a button to stop the meter on where how you want to spin the ball, press it again to bring up an aiming arrow, press it again to stop the arrow, and finally that brings up a power meter where you press a button when the meter stops at your desired shot strength.  You can also do some last minute movements with your bowler at this point.  As the ball is rolling down the lane, your bowler’s reaction is shown, and some of the reactions are a bit strange.  Sometimes I can’t even tell if they are happy or mad.  It seems harder in this game to get strikes, or maybe I just haven’t figured out how to do it consistently yet.  The physics are pretty good, but sometimes one pin will float around, or act like a pinball.

There is nothing wrong with the graphics, but they’re not going to blow you away either.  The quality of the sound effects are a bit distorted, but I find that most games that try to use digitized sound effects on the Genesis will sound distorted.  So as far as sound effect quality for a Sega Genesis game, it’s not bad.  Changing the speed of the game will also change the music.  The music for the “fast” mode keeps getting stuck in my head for some reason, even though it really shouldn’t.  I get a chuckle every time the “game over” screen appears.  It shows a little bowling ball shrugging it’s shoulders, and is about to cry as this depressing music plays in the background.

If you want a bowling game for your Sega Genesis, Championship Bowling will not disappoint.  However if you want the best 16-bit bowling game, I would recommend Super Bowling on the Super NES.

The Sega Genesis has a LOT of sports titles, and it’s sometimes hard to sort the good ones from the bad ones.  For golf games, I can’t see there being anything better than PGA Tour Golf 3 from Electronic Arts released in 1994.  This old game packs in a whopping eight different courses to play on, and it has a surprising amount of realism.

I never knew they manufactured games in Puerto Rico. This one has lasted 20 years so far, so maybe they make more there.

PGA Tour Golf 3 plays a lot like other old golf games.  After choosing your club, and aiming your shot, you press a button to start your windup, press it again to stop your swing at the desire strength, and press it a third time to hit the ball.  Mistiming your third hit has more of a dramatic effect on your shots than most golf games, so you had better be perfect.  Also having a big effect on your shot is the wind.  It isn’t just a gentle breeze either.  The wind might be calm one second, and then you’ll be waiting for a huge gust to stop, so you can take your shot.  That part reminds me of playing golf for real.  The putting is also well done.  You press a button to bring up a separate screen showing the contours of the green.  Don’t trust the power meter when putting though.  The meter might say a max swing will give you ten yards, and you might think that half way would give you five yards, but your shot will probably end up going just three yards.  Another minor gripe is that all of the courses are flat.  This can be forgiven though, because 3D polygon graphics isn’t what the Sega Genesis was design to do, and the courses as is load very quickly.  There is a tournament mode where you play against PGA golfers, but I skipped it, because I suck, and got tired of seeing myself at the bottom of the standings.

The game might lack 3D graphics, but as is the courses look good enough.  A bit more variety to distinguish one course from another would have been nice.  The golfer looks good, and is animated very nicely.  The game is very quiet.  The only sound effects are your swing, the birds chirping, and the ball hitting the ground, or going into the hole.  I solved the quietness by simply turning on my own stereo.  I was very surprised at how well this game has held up over all these years.  I haven’t been impressed with the newer Tiger Woods games, but I was impressed with PGA Tour Golf 3.  The game is challenging, but fair, which is kind of like real golf.  Personally my favourite golfing series is Hot Shots Golf, but PGA Tour Golf 3 is playable and fun for when I want something a little different.

One of the most controversial video games of all time is 1992’s Mortal Kombat by Midway.  The graphical capability of arcade machines, and home consoles had gotten to the point in 1992 that details things started looking more real.  Mortal Kombat was one of the first games that used motion capture, and digitized graphics for it’s characters, and the results for the 1992 arcade machine were amazing.  By adding blood and violence to this realistic looking game, Mortal Kombat sparked so much controversy that eventually the ratings system that you see today for video games was developed.  Acclaim brought Midway’s Mortal Kombat to the Sega Genesis console in 1993.  Despite the huge success of the Mortal Kombat series, both Midway and Acclaim both went out of business years later.

Sometimes simple artwork is the best.

Mortal Kombat of course is a one-on-one fighting game.  It’s hard to believe, but one-on-one fighting games weren’t that common back in 1992.  The only other popular one was Street Fighter 2.  Mortal Kombat uses five buttons.  You have buttons for a high punch, low punch, high kick, low kick, and a block button.  Each character also has some special moves such as projectiles.  These moves are pretty easy to pull off, and the controls all around work very well.  I also find that the speed of Mortal Kombat to be just right.  This is not a game where everyone is jumping all over the place pulling off 20 hit combos.  It moves at a slower pace, and you have to try to make each hit count.  After you defeat your opponent, you are given a few moments to enter some button presses to pull off a fatality.  Some examples of fatalities include Kano pulling a heart of out someone’s chest, or Sub-Zero ripping someone’s head off with their spine still attached.  Each character in Mortal Kombat has just one fatality, but at least they are easier to pull off in this version compared to later games in the series.  In other Mortal Kombat games, I find that the CPU is frustrating to play against, but in this version you can make the game very easy, or very hard.  It’s also the only Mortal Kombat game to keep score, and that adds to the replayability.

The Sega Genesis version doesn’t exactly look like the arcade game, but it’s still a good looking game for the Genesis.  The sound effects are disappointing, because they didn’t include very many of the voice samples.  However the exclusive remixed soundtrack in this Genesis version sounds great.  Overall this might be my favourite version of Mortal Kombat.  The combination of easy gameplay, great controls, and score tracking still make this game relevant today.

Breakout is a perfect example of how good games are timeless.  It was originally released to the arcades way back in 1976 by Atari, and ported over to their Atari 2600 game console in 1978.  Using the very precise Atari paddle controller, you move your paddle left and right along the bottom of the screen, and you bounce a ball into six rows of bricks on the top of the screen.  You get points for each brick you hit, and lose a life if the ball gets past your paddle.  The higher the brick is to the top of the screen, the more points it is worth.  Hitting a brick in the top two layers will increase the speed of the ball, and hitting the top of the screen will shrink your paddle in half.

Breakout is all about pure skill, and can be very difficult.  Whenever there were just a couple of bricks left on screen, I found it very difficult to hit them.  Like most early Atari 2600 games, there are alternate game play modes as well.  One game mode allows you to hold on to the ball if it hits your paddle, and then aim and release it.  Another mode allows you to steer the ball.  The breakthru mode has the ball going through the bricks rather than bouncing off of them.  Of course no Atari 2600 game would be complete without the invisible mode, which makes the bricks invisible.

At the time of this blog, Breakout is a 36 year old game, so don’t expect much in the way of graphics, or sounds.  Blocks and beeps is what you will find here.  A lot of Breakout clones have been released over the years, but for me the original Breakout, and it’s sequel Super Breakout remain the best.  The reason why is that games like this play best using the analog paddle controllers.  Still fun, and challenging after all these years, Breakout is a must have for all Atari owners.

Rating – 8 / 10

Shoot-em-ups are one of my favourite genres of video games, but they don’t make as many as they used to.  When I saw Deathsmiles in the bargain bin for $10, I immediately picked it up.  Shoot-em-ups don’t get the publicity that other games get, so I was surprised to find out that this was released in the arcades in 2007, and on the Xbox 360 in 2010.  Also the Japanese developer Cave have released quite a few games like this on the Xbox 360.  I’m going to have to track down some of the others, because Deathsmiles is awesome.

Trick your Call of Duty loving friends into playing “Deathsmiles”, and see their faces when they realize it’s a crazy shoot-em-up with Japanese anime girls.

Deathsmiles is a side-scrolling shooter in which you play as one of four girls who have been somehow get transported to another dimension to a city called Gilverado which has the appearance of of an early 20th century European city.  The girls are given a place to live by a man, and in return they use their magical powers to defend the King.  The land is also overrun by monsters, and it is the girls job to defeat these monsters.  You press a button to shoot left, and another to shoot right.  You can choose to use a more powerful shot, or a weaker shot, with the difference being the more powerful shot slows down your speed.  You also have your usual “smart-bomb” type of weapon which destroy everything on screen.  Deathsmiles fits into the “bullet hell” sub-genre of shooter, because the screen has an insane amount of enemies, bullets, and explosions happening almost all of the time.  The enemy designs are very bizarre at times, such as a giant cow who’s head takes up almost the entire screen, or Victorian-era dancers.  If you like that unique Japanese weirdness in your games, then you’ll find a lot of it here.

The Xbox 360 version of Deathsmiles has been given a graphical upgrade compared to the arcade original, and it is one of the best looking shoot-em-ups that I have ever played.  I know it was given a graphical upgrade, because the original arcade version of Deathsmiles is also included on the same disc.  The constant sounds of explosions in this game is like music to my ears.  The actual music is pretty good too.  Deathsmiles is one of my favourite games on the Xbox 360, and if you like shoot-em-ups, then it might end up being one of your favourites too.

Released in 1982, Night Stalker is another great game for the Intellivision.  You control a man who is trapped in a maze filled by bats, spiders, and killer robots.  As to who put him in this maze, and why, those questions will never be answered, because there is no storyline to speak of.  To object of the game is to shoot the enemies, and survive as long as possible in order to get a high score.

Night Stalker. Cool name for a cool game.

Your character is able to shoot in four different directions by pressing the buttons on the numeric keypad on your Intellivision controller.  The game moves pretty slow, and it may seem easy at first, but several factors make it more challenging.  First off, your gun only can only hold six shots, and you will have to retrieve more when you run out.  This can be tricky, as you have nothing to defend yourself with.  Your character cannot move, and shoot at the same time.  Also you can only have one bullet on screen at once.  Due to the combination of all of these factors, you will have to plan your shots well.  Each time you reach a certain score, a new robot type is introduced.  The grey robot kind of wanders around aimlessly.  The blue robot, with glowing red eyes, is more aggressive, and will actively seek you out.  The white robot takes three hits to kill.  The black robot takes three hits to kill, and his larger shots can go right through yours, so you will need to draw his fire first, and then shoot him.  Finally an invisible robot appears later on in the game.  The spiders, and bats will stun you.  This may not be much of an issue early in the game, but it will make your life very difficult when the more aggressive robots appear later on.

Night Stalker is a good looking game for it’s time.  The robot designs are cool, and you can tell what everything is.  The animation is done well, and in particular your character’s movement is smooth.  There aren’t many sounds in this game, but the explosion for the robots sounds nice.  The “music” if you want to call it that, is a constant low note being played over and over.  It actually does a good job setting a spooky mood for the game.  The Intellivision controller also works okay for this game, because you aren’t using the diagonal controls.  Overall I really enjoyed Night Stalker.  It’s cool, fun, challenging, and original.  It’s a recommend game for fans of early 1980’s games.

By Mattel, the Intellivision game console was released in 1980, and was designed to compete with the Atari 2600.  Many Intellivision games were far superior in graphics, and game complexity.  A few games were inspired by other Atari 2600 games.  Space Armada was such a game, as it closely resembles Space Invaders.

A brown console with a wood grain finish. This just screams 70’s.

Like Space Invaders, in Space Armada you control a cannon on the bottom of the screen, and shoot the aliens who are marching towards you.  There are even three shields in front of you to block shots, and a bonus alien that sometimes appears at the very top of the screen.  Unlike Atari’s Space Invaders, there are no game options in Space Armada.  Despite all this, Space Armada is right up there with the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders.  What makes Space Armada special, besides the timeless Space Invaders like game play, is the challenge.  The aliens don’t waste much time in marching towards the bottom of the screen, and more often than not I got a game over screen because they landed before I ran out of lives.  Just a few levels into the game, the alien’s shots will sometimes explode on impact, and you can be killed by the shrapnel.  Other levels feature some aliens that are invisible, and others have aliens shooting homing missiles which you will have to lure into your defense shields.

The aliens are very large, and have a great design to them.  The sound effects are mainly late 70’s/early 80’s beeps, and white noise.  The Intellivision controller can sometimes be an issue with games, but it works well with Space Armada, because you will just be moving left and right.  Space Armada is a lot more than just an Intellivision version of Space Invaders.  If you like really old-school games, I highly recommend Space Armada, along with many other Intellivision games.

One of the over 60 Super NES titles starting with the word “Super”

After a bit of research, I find out that there were just two bowling games released for the Super NES in North America.  One of them is Brunswick World: Tournament of Champions, and the other is the one I own appropriately called Super Bowling.  It was released in 1992 by American Technos, who are responsible for River City Ransom, and Super Dodgeball.

Super Bowling is a game that you can’t talk a lot about.  It plays similarly to other old school console bowling games.  Before you start, you choose a bowler, weight of the ball, and difficulty of the game.  The heavier balls have more power, but less spin.  Different bowlers can use heavier or lighter balls.  Two of the four bowlers are black, but they are just palette swaps of the white bowlers.  You start the gameplay by pressing a button after you have your bowler lined up, pressing it again to choose ball spin, and once again to choose your strength.  As your bowler moves towards the foul line, you can make last second left or right adjustments.  The system works very well, and is a lot of fun.  Like other bowlers games though, you can find a sweet spot for strikes.  Hitting that sweet spot on a consistent basis will take some skill though.

Aside from the strange blackface appearance of some of the bowlers, the graphics get the job done.  The sound on the other hand is really well done.  The rock soundtrack sets a fun mood, and the bowling sound effects are realistic.  The sound effects for the power, and spin meters help with your timing as well.  This is the best bowling game that I’ve played so far, and would be fun for an old school game night.

Here is a game that I missed when it first came out, it’s Super Pinball: Behind the Mask for the Super NES.  This was developed by KAZe, and published by Nintendo in 1994, and is one of the few pinball games released for the Super NES.  Super Pinball contains three tables, and I don’t know if they were meant to come off as creepy, but the whole game has a creepy vibe to it.  The three tables are called Jolly Joker, Blackbeard and Ironmen, and Wizard.

Behind the Mask? I have no idea what that subtitle means, but subtitles make things sound more important.

The tables in Super Pinball are fictional, but are inspired by early 90’s pinball machines.  There are ramps, drop targets, bumpers, a dot matrix display, and simple objectives to complete.  The themes are all rather bland though, and the tables play too similar to each other.  On the other hand, the ball physics are pretty good, and the game plays very well.  The game uses a 3D perspective, and it works pretty good on the Super NES.  The graphics get the job done for the most part, but some of the graphics are really cheesy.  For some of the graphics it looks like the developers simply dressed people in very cheap Halloween costumes, and used the Times New Roman font for the table name.  The sound effects get the job done, but the music is a bit dull.

There isn’t much one can say about a pinball game.  Super Pinball is a good pinball game for the Super NES, but it’s nothing special.  If you see it for a couple of bucks, then it’ll make a nice addition to your Super NES collection.  If you decide to pass on it, well you won’t be missing out on much.  I will have to check out the other pinball games for the Super NES to see if they are any better.

 

From the makers of Metal Gear Solid, Contra, and Castlevania, this is Frogger from Konami.  Frogger was first developed for the Arcades by Konami in 1981, but distributed by Sega in North America.  This Super NES port was released by Majesco on October 6, 1998, which is over three years after the debut of the original PlayStation.  I had no idea Super NES games were still being made in 1998.  It turns out that Frogger was the only game released for  the Super NES in 1998, and the last licensed game ever released for the Super NES in North America.  It’s also the last licensed game released for the Sega Genesis as well.  I will have to try to find that version, because I hear it’s different from this Super NES version.

The label has taken a beating over the years, but the cartridge still plays perfectly everytime.

If you don’t know by now, Frogger is a game where you try to move your frog across a highway, and across a swamp to the other side.  What’s on the other side?  I don’t know if that has ever been explained.  Maybe Frogger lives there or something.  On the highway there are cars to avoid.  Once you cross the highway, you have to jump on logs, and on the backs of turtles and crocodiles in order to avoid the water.  I’m going to assume that Frogger gets eaten by crocodiles if he lands in the water.  There are five designated spots to land your frogs, and once you do so you move on to the next stage where the traffic is faster and more dense, and there are less logs to help you through the swamp.  The controls are as simple as can be.  You control your frog by press up, down, left or right.  There are no diagonal movements, and no buttons are used.  I think this simplicity is one of the reasons of the widespread popularity of Frogger.

The Super NES port takes some liberties with the original arcade version.  The graphics are “enhanced”, but I prefer the more simplistic graphics of the arcade original, because it is easier to see what is going on.  The sound of this port is extremely disappointing.  The arcade Frogger has these cute little tunes that would play at the start of the level, and when you landed a frog on the other side.  In the Super NES version, all of the music has been removed.  There is really no excuse for this, and it takes away a bit of the nostalgic factor, and not to mention how eerily quiet it makes the game.  Despite the quietness of the game, the Super NES version is great.  It’s available for a number of other game systems, and is a must play for everyone.