Batman Returns [SNES]

I've never seen the movie, so I didn't really know what kind of stuff to expect when going into this beat-em-up. Of course, if I expected license games to be faithful to their sources, I'd be sorely disappointed over and over again, so that's kinda moot.

But the problem is that that doesn't leave me much else to talk about. The most I can say is that this game is that it is average. Run-of-the-mill. You won't see anything in here you haven't seen before, right down to people on motorcycles trying to run you over. But what really drags this game down is the feel of it. Batman is supposed to be a "ninja beating up a bunch of thugs." (There's more to him than that, of course, but this isn't a blog about comics so we won't get into all that.) However, there is no feel of ninja-ness to this Batman. There's no sense of agility or fluid grace to this impostor. Almost all of his movements are slow and plodding, and, while that may be par for the course for the genre, when Batman is moving like Mike Haggar then something is terribly wrong.

And then there's the fact that sometimes he'll use his cape to fly around like a flying squirrel. What the hell?

Bottom line is, I don't think Konami ever has or ever will match TMNT II-IV.

Drill Dozer [GBA]

A platformer from Game Freaks. A girl and her person-sized drill machine goes around...drilling stuff. Blocks, walls, enemies, etc. It's a great game. Not perfect, but then again what is these days. It makes intelligent use of the drilling mechanics and it never becomes gimmicky. It controls really well. What more can I say. It's a lot better than Game Freak's other franchise so it's a shame that it didn't sell well because that just tells Nintendo to keep on milking the Pokemon franchise for all its worth instead of ever again releasing the studio to try and make anything new. Go out and hunt it down.

Metal Storm [NES]

There are many games out there that play with gravity. Strider and Strider 2 have you walking on the ceiling and flinging all over the place at times. Metal Warriors has an item that lets you put yourself up there as well. Even the more recent Prey has you walking on walls and ceilings like so much Fred Astaire. However, usually you have no say in the matter when gravity manipulation is present, or, when you do, the choice isn't that long lived.

And then there's Metal Storm. Metal Storm is an obscure title from Irem featuring a mech going through some base shooting up stuff in a futuristic platformer environment. Stuff we've all seen before. However! There is something that Metal Storm has that sets it apart from all the rest (and I'm sure you've already figured it out from the article's lead-in. I'm not exactly the master of literary deception.); gravity control. At any time you can choose to jump up or down to the ceiling or floor. And many times you have to; to get out of the way of obstacles, to get past spiked surfaces, to open doors that orient themselves accordingly to how you have yourself oriented, and to take care of enemies that you wouldn't be able to head on. You're constantly moving yourself up and down and it never becomes gimmicky. It's both a joy and a challenge, and refreshing to see it used so well. It sets what would otherwise be an average game above all the rest.

T&C Surf Designs [NES]

*vomit*

Fuck you even more, LJN. Fuck you even more. Jesus. Go play California Games instead.

Tetris Attack [GB]

A pretty faithful port. The only only problem is the same as another Gameboy port: slowdown. However, while it does make pulling off some chains harder, it's still serviceable, unlike the aforementioned title. The only real difference is the story mode, which, instead of having two characters both trying to keep their screen clear is more like the Bowser boss in the stage clear mode of the original; the enemy has a bar of HP and will regularly drop garbage blocks on your screen. It's still pretty good and will do for taking the Attack on the go.

Lack of Updates [Meta]

I apologize for the recent grievous lack of posts. I've mostly been playing Orange Box titles lately. I don't know what the other two's excuses are, though. Hopefully you'll be seeing more regular posts here soon.

Our schedule:

Various gameshow games [NES]

Gametek, your games were bad and you hopefully felt bad!