Retro Review Tuesday: American Gladiators Genesis

After last weeks wicked winter sports extravaganza, I was in the mood for something just as EXTREME! So I choose the genesis port of the American Gladiators game. What's more extreme than a bunch of oiled up muscular athletes competing in absolutely ridiculous events that have little/no true sports value?

Introduction

If you were born in the eighties there was a good chance you wasted a portion of your childhood watching the ridiculous testosterone fest that was American gladiators. The good folks at Gametek figured this would lead to lots of cartridge sales for them. Little Johnny and Suzy surely would love to take on the role of an athletic underdog working to topple the tyrannical oppression of athletes so powerful only one word names like Nitro, Lace and Malibu could truly convey their power!

This is American Gladiators! If you can't tell by the main logo the tiled background is there to really bring the point home.

Overview:
Controls vary from event to event. They are however similar in that they almost always involve button mashing and they're quite annoying. That being said they're fairly quick to respond in most events, it just that they aren't good, or convenient. The only exception being Atlasphere (you know the one you always wanted to play as a kid because you got to be in what amounted to a giant hamster ball?), because it only uses the Dpad.

Look at that excited crowd  entirely composed of pieces of cut rock candy

Graphically it's lacking. In most places the sprites are too small and when they aren't there's an attempt at detail, but it remains firmly in the realm of attempt rather than a reality. The do however move pretty smoothly in most games. The animations aren't great but most have good frame rates. Additionally while these aren't good graphics especially for the genesis, they aren't so terrible they distract you either. Perhaps the real positive about the graphics is that the limits on detail and color palette keep you from being subject to a digital version of this.

Soundwise...well it's not the most awful thing I've heard. It is however still awful. You get one track for every event and it NEVER STOPS. Seriously, once you hit the start button the music starts up and you're locked into it until you win, lose or hit pause. It doesn't stop when you start an event, or when you win an event, or when you lose an event, or even when you're in that screen between events. It just keeps going and going and going. By the end of the game you're pretty much ready to murder whomever composed it.

Gameplay
 You get two options when you start off, head to head and tournament. In head to head you compete against a friend in one series of events to determine which of you  is the tannest, most muscular hair gel abuser of all time!

 In tournament mode you compete against the computer and/or a friends in a series of matches until the field is whittled down to the greatest, oiliest most muscular competitors! If you win the tournament you may get a special screen or some sort of reward, but no one really knows for sure. I certainly didn't make it that far and nor did anyone else as far as I could find.

So once you determine whether it's best to go after your friends or after the computer or both, you can choose your gender and enter your name. Choosing your gender will determine what you look like and which gladiators you'll go against.  It really doesn't matter much as except for in joust, the sprites aren't very different, in fact in most cases they're exactly the same.

Regardless of which you choose you'll always get the same events in the same order. These may or may not be listed in the correct order here as quite honestly, I'm too lazy to go through the game again to check.

This event should have made a great game but it doesn't work out that well

First up: Assault. This event may as well be called, the tennis ball gun, because that's what we all remember it as. It's actually not a bad interpretation of how it works on the show. You run around trying not get hit while trying to hit whichever gladiator is shooting at you. (The game tells you which gladiators are going after you at the beginning screen for each event, but honestly it doesn't seem to matter because the sprites look and react the same). Here you get your first taste of awkward controls, you have to be right on top of the gun to pick it up. Once you've got it you try to shoot the target above the gladiators head, aiming is done via a small box in the upper right hand corner and is almost impossible to do with any sort of accuracy. Your best bet is to fire the gun blindly, hit the button to put it down and run to the next station. Trying to aim will just get you hit in the face with a tennis ball, which is going to happen anyway so you might as well get some points before then.

They shouldn't call it Joust if they aren't on birds and there's no pterodactyl

Next up: Joust. Unlike in the show the object here is to beat the crap out of the gladiator rather than just knocking them off the pedestal. The controls for this one are better than most but ultimately boil down to a lot of button mashing. If you're the victorious masher your opponent will fall down exhausted on to the top of the pedestal in what can only be described as the world's most ridiculously contrived death pose. If you lose you end up in the same pose, in either case it's pretty absurd looking.


Followed by, The Wall. Your competitor shimmies up the wall with a couple of second head start on the gladiator. If they don't catch you, you reach the top of the wall and win some points. If they catch you you both fall off in a stunning display of poorly rendered graphics and you get nothing. Simple enough  in theory but like the others, annoying controls make it borderline unplayable. You have to button mash and move with the d pad, but you often get hung up on the air for no clear reason. I personally never made it to the top even though I played the event at least 5 times.

Human Marble Madness seems like it would also be an apt title for Atlasphere

On to fan favorite: Atlasphere! Like I said back up in the control section this was the game you wanted to play as a child. What's not to love about rolling around in a big hamster ball? Sure there are other guys trying to hit you , but that's just more fun! Well it's not more fun when you're trying to roll your ball into to the goal to get points(as is the aim of the game) and you keep getting thwarted. But I still think it would be fun in person. This game has the smoothest controls and is the most fun to play, most likely because you only use the Dpad and because, I can not stress this enough, HUMAN HAMSTER BALL! My only complaint about this game is it would have been cooler if it were first person instead of top down.

Next up: Powerball. This is a really stupid concept for a game you alternate from one bin of balls to the other while trying to stuff them into things that look like trash cans and not getting tackled by gladiators. It's harder than it sounds and controls for crap. The controls are reasonable enough in theory, but in reality they're very sluggish and very finicky about where you're standing. It's a losing combination.

Finally: The Eliminator. In a stunning display of your athletic prowess you run a gauntlet style sports course. You start by  running up a treadmill, take a hand bike across a line, carefully walk a balance beam without being hit by punching bags, take zip line to the ground where you sprint towards the finish jumping hurdles and pushing aside the gladiator who may or may not be in your way (depending on door choice).

This portion of the game could basically be ported into a modern Ninja Warrior game and no one would notice

This is probably the simplest to control of all the events. You button mash alternating A and C the entire time. If you're a decent masher and your wrists don't kill you, it's usually a fairly easy victory. Sadly it won't mean much after all those previous losses due to shoddy game controls.

Once you've had a chance to test yourself against all these top athletes in games of pure skill you'll sit back and think to yourself: "Dear god those crappy controls made everything needlessly hard.Why would anyone want to play this game?"

I didn't lose, I'm just stretching with some pre-match yoga

Conclusion

Overall American Gladiators is an OK title for a TV game show port. It bears passing resemblance to what it's based on and is playable. However, I still think it's a disappointment. American Gladiators really could have been a lot of fun of done correctly. The campiness of the gladiators coupled with the silliness of the events themselves really was a recipe for fun. Sadly it didn't come out that way. A combination of poor controls and most of the AI rivals being just about perfect at everything made this game too difficult to really be enjoyable for most people. I never made it to the end of a tournament and if my travels around the internet are any indication, neither did anyone else. If you want to attempt to enjoy the game I suggest you find a friend and play in head to head mode, you can have some surprisingly fun, intense matches if you can keep the gladiators themselves from driving you crazy.

~Stephanie



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Retro Review Tuesday: Winter Olympics: Lillehammer 94

If you read our twitter account you'll know that I've been absolutely glued to the television during Olympic coverage (and that I'm late with adding this review because of that addiction). I don't normally care for televised sports much, but for some reason all that changes during the Olympics. I suddenly become the world's biggest fan of athletes I've never heard of and sports that often seem silly. Summer or Winter, it does not matter, I simply must watch any and all televised Olympic events. Since I like to cross my weird obsessions whenever possible, it's only natural that I've been collecting video games based on the Olympics for a long time. So, I thought it a perfect time to highlight one of these gaming gems and share it with the world. This week I bring you Winter Olympic Games: Lillehammer 94.

Introduction

The year was 1993, owners of the Sega Genesis console had not yet been blessed with fantastic gaming achievements such as Clay fighter, Boogerman, and Madden 94 . They were craving some some new action. Something gritty, some real, something unlike anything else out there. Something OLYMPIC! Sure they had a chance at the summer games with Barcelona '92, but they wanted something so cool it was ICE COLD! They needed hardcore realistic sports action and they got it. It was time to strap into EXTREME WINTER EXCITEMENT!!!!!

According to this mao there was one heck of a worldwide earthquake in 1994

Overview

As you'd expect with an Olympic game you compete in Olympic events. You don't get to do all the Olympic events that were available at the time, but you do get to do 10 of them: Downhill, Giant Slalom, Super G, Slalom, Bobsled, Luge, Freestyle moguls, Ski jumping, Biathlon & Short track speed skating.

Wheee!

Controls vary from game to game. In general they're OK for everything that isn't a downhill skiing event. Fairly responsive and easy to use once you've figured out what they are. Admittedly figuring that out isn't always easy, I had to break out my original booklet for several of them. The downhill skiing events have very difficult to deal with controls, it's just the d pad, but even with the ability to change how you want your d pad to work, it's quite a feat to make it down a hill without crashing let alone making a qualifying time or even managing not to get disqualified by missing gates.

Soundwise, It's pretty meh. There are some surprisingly good tracks on a few events, but nothing really WOW worthy. The tracks are actually fairly complex so they don't get too repetitious, which is a big plus for a game of this period.

Graphics are graphics what you'd expect from a game made in 1993. They're not bad but they're not fantastic. You know what everything is suppose to represent and that's good enough. The exception being the bobsled and luge events. Those are actually pretty nicely rendered "3D" style graphics for the time period without any of the weird control issues usually associated with it.

Gameplay

Once you've gotten past the intro screen you hit the main menu. As far as the play modes go you can choose: Full Olympics and play all 10 games and will see Opening and closing ceremonies, Mini Olympics where you choose just the games you want to play with no ceremonies, or Training where you can train the events.

Before heading into any of the game modes I suggest checking out the options screen first where you'll want to put the difficulty on skill level 1 unless you're a complete masochist. Setting this game to easy does not make it easy, it makes it almost fair. You can also add another player if you feel so inclined in this screen, play with a sound test and show your international flair by changing the language. Just don't forget to adjust the difficulty for your own sanity.

These games are difficult to master even for a veteran gamer so your first stop should be to training to get a feel for them before attempting the Olympics. Once you start either of the Olympic events you can choose the country you want to represent, set your name and set the countries you want to compete against. No matter what country you choose or which name you put in for yourself you will instantly become the greatest athlete who's ever lived able to compete in EVERY SINGLE event offered in these games!

So assuming you're starting off in a full Olympics, in your role Mr. Super athlete (you can actually choose to be Ms. Super athlete but the sprites look the same) you start off on skis doing the downhill course. I really feel this was an unfortunate choice as downhill (and the other events like it, super G, slalom & giant slalom) is one the hardest parts of the game. You're very likely to run into the trees or one of the gates sending your skier sprawling resulting in what the booklet claims are "fatal injuries". It's OK though because you apparently hold on to conscious thought just long enough to see how the other skiers did as well. Very convenient.

Generally going down the mountain on your back is considered poor form

Luckily for those of us who just can't keep our dendrophilia* in check, the Norwegian Olympic committee kept necromancers on hand! So even though you may have died from fatal injuries while skiing down that first hill you can continue your Olympic dream and compete in subsequent events. Pretty much all the downhill events work this way: attempt to ski between the gates, crash into something, suffer horrific fatal injuries, see how much better every other country did, be resurrected, go to next event.

With some practice you can skip the whole crashing into gates and trees bit and just get to the bottom of the hill. However, getting to the bottom of the hill without getting disqualified and while making good time, takes quite A LOT of practice even on the easiest difficulty setting.

The other events on Skis work quite a bit differently than the downhill events and as a consequence are a bit more fun for the average gamer.

Ski jump is pretty much what it seems like it would be. You do a ski jump, that's it. It's got easy controls and is probably the event you'll be the most likely to learn to do well in. As an added bonus it's also the only one that doesn't completely disqualify you for crashing. If you fall on your first run you'll still get some distance points (though no landing points) and have the opportunity to preform your second jump.

Moguls while a little bit easier than downhill are a still hard. You jump from mogul to mogul occasionally trying to land a trick. Tricking looks cool but it often leaves you head first in a mogul. The booklet doesn't list falling into a mogul as fatal so while it will end your run and not earn you any points you can avoid the death and subsequent necromancy hopefully leaving you in a better less zombie-like state before competing in the next event.

The final event on Skis is biathalon, where you ski for awhile and then shoot at some targets. Then you ski for awhile and then shoot at some targets. After that you....well, I think you get the idea. Biathalon I think is impossible to really screw up on, you can just get a really crappy time. The cross country skiing portion controls simply enough but when shooting, your Athlete aims like he's pounded roughly 50 shots of the highest quality grain alcohol available prior to hitting the course. Each missed shot costs you a 1 minute penalty, though aiming one good shot takes about as long. On the upside it's at least not a fatal event.

Ya Dead? Yeah Mon.

But not all of our extreme winter sports are on skis, they're also on sleds! So in come bobsled and luge. Bobsled and luge are probably the easiest to master and most fun events of the entire game. They're additionally the best animated as well. In addition to the cool looking and very innovative for the time period 3d style courses, I personally am a little bit enamored with your butt in the bobsled animation. It rivals the pinky demon bottoms in the original Doom for best but detail in an old school video game.*ahem*Putting that aside, they are easier than the skiing but it's still not easy to win, and you are very likely to flip over on to your head. It's just that it's more of pleasant defeat rather than the soul crushing defeat the other events can offer.

I'm clearly not particularly good at this event

But if you don't like Skis or sleds, you've got one more chance to find your happy place, Short track speed skating. It's a fairly easy to deal with event, button mash and avoid the other skaters who can and will knock you down if you don't move out of their way. Like the others it's nigh on impossible to master, but it's one of the easiest events to successfully complete especially since the other skaters can fall down independently of you and get disqualified.

Once you've finished the competition you'll get to see your standings as compared to the rest of the competing countries and then be treated to a medal ceremony (if you did well enough in all the sports to earn one) and the closing ceremony. It's enough to bring a tear to your eye.

Conclusion

Being that I go out of my way to purchase and play games based on the Olympics I know that this isn't really a bad example of one. It's actually better than most of the vintage ones I've played. However, most people who attempt to play this game aren't going to see it that way. It's impossibly hard and doesn't really inspire you to take the time to master it's more poorly planned out games *cough* downhill skiing *cough*. That being said the not so poorly planned out games can be a lot of fun especially if you're playing head to head with a friend. While it's nice to play a sports game that isn't just a generic baseball, football, basketball or soccer clone, sadly there isn't enough going for it make this game something I'd really recommend. It is an interesting novelty title though and quite a challenge. So it's worth picking if you consider yourself a hardcore vintage gamer. Anyone earning the gold here would certainly earn my respect.

~Stephanie

* love of trees

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Retro Review: Pac Man 2: The New Adventures

Today's game is one I recall spending many happy hours playing with my siblings, Pacman 2: The New adventures. It was released on two platforms, the SNES and the Genesis. I prefer the Genesis version because of some small sound differences so that's the one I'm basing my review on.

Introduction
The team at Namco, drunk on the riches of the enduring success Pacman, decided that 1994 was the year they'd finally make a numbered sequel* to their ubiquitous arcade hit. Fourteen long years the fans waited to lay eyes on an updated, innovative title and Namco devised and delivered a unique experience.

* it's worth noting that the numbered part only corresponds to the western release of the game, it's called Hello Pac Man in Japan.

Overview
Apparently taking place sometime after Pac-Man's initial and bumpy foray into "normal" life, Pacland, Pacman 2 sees Pacman ready to put his wild days of wandering confused through dark labyrinthine hallways trying to get his pellet fix. He's managed to shake off his old ghost dealers cleaned up his act settled down in a nice neighborhood with Ms.Pacman, their two children and the family dog. Sadly it seems that years of unchecked pellet abuse have lefts Pac-Man's mental state a bit lacking. He's incapable of doing even the most basics task without guidance from the unseen omnipotent entity.

The controls for this game are simple. A shoots a power pellet, B uses the normal slingshot and C makes Pacman look in normal city areas or do the special action if you're in a mini game screen. I can't really say how smooth and responsive they are because you aren't controlling Pacman directly but, I haven't noticed any significant lag or any other problems of that sort.

On the surface it's graphically about the same as any other well rendered game in this time period with big, bright, cartoonish backgrounds and sprites. Once you've played it for awhile, you realize that this game is in fact a fantastic graphical feast of physical comedy. Pacman has dozens of animations, almost all of them hilarious. Pac-Man's follies and triumphs are each accompanied by a series of fantastic facial expressions and actions. The kind of stuff you'd expect to see during a looney tunes short only funnier. This game could have been aptly titled "The Many Faces of Pac" as that's what you really grow to associate with the game.

Sound wise the game is great, all those aforementioned expressions and animations have appropriately absurd sound bites accompanying them and the music pairs perfectly with the vintage cartoon feel.

Gameplay

The game starts off with a brief tutorial on how to play. Normally forced tutorials are insanely annoying, but not having complete control over your character is going to be a bit jarring for most gamers making this one pretty useful. Once Pac-Man feels you've gotten a handle on things you'll start the game with a cutscene of Ms. Pacman and Pacman at home with Pac-baby, she tells Pac-Man to get more milk.This initial mission sets the tone for the tasks Pac-Man needs you to help him complete.

The main plot of the game is getting Pac-Man to check off his family's to do list by hitting him with a slingshot. It's fun ans easy enough for the first 10 minutes or so but after that you'll have probably made Pacman look at/walk past/be in close proximity to something that either makes him sad or angry. Whenever Pacman is less than jovial you start to see more of his unruly, disobedient nature come out. He rarely will look at things and your slingshot becomes ineffectual. When this happens, you're stuck until Pacman "dies" ,which will happen quite a lot when he's angry,  or until you find something that makes him happy again. Unless it's one of the  few times when you need him to be in a less than happy mood to properly accomplish a task. Keeping track of Pac-Man's moods is simple enough in theory but it can get really annoying rather quickly. If you've put Pac-Man in the wrong mood for a certain task and end up having to restart it's not much of a problem because you've got infinite chances to start over. However, when you really want to progress being able to do it over again won't help to stem the tide of rage that washes over you with each of Pac-Man's inept actions. There is a saving grace which is that some of Pac-Mans most amusing actions happen when he's extremely angry,  and the game is short so there's no need to rush forward anyway.

As Pacman progresses and completes each task, it becomes clear that he still hasn't fully escaped the beady little eyes of Inky, Blinky Pinky and Clyde. The ghosts will pop up from time still trying to exact their revenge on the round yellow menace. This time they've got the Ghost Witch aiding them. She sets up headquarters in the ABC gum factory and hatches a variety of plans to help the ghosts thwart Pac-Man's plans while working on her insidious gum monster for reasons that are never completely clear. Ignoring he murky motives, under her tutelage the ghosts have learned to assume disguises and that's how you'll see them when you encounter them whilst wondering the town. For the most part these town encounters are only triggered when you interact with the disguised ghost so you can wait until you've got a power pellet handy to become super Pacman and take care of them with ease.
When you e
ncounter them while doing one of your mini game they cause a much larger issue. They don't bother with their silly disguises this time, instead they focus on using a variety of nasty props to stop Pacman's progress. Unfortunately this time you can't just give Pacman a super pellet to take care of the issue. Instead, you'll have to be pretty vigilant about giving him directions, these encounters are easily the most challenging portions of the game.

When Pac-Man's tired of ducking the ghosts he can take a break at one of two arcades in the city where he can play an updated version of the original Pacman and, if you've found the secret cartridge pieces, Pac-Jr (which is really just a hack of Ms.Pacman).

Once he's done reminiscing about the good ol' days he finishes up his task list and sits down for some relaxing TV watching only to be presented with a news report on how the ghosts and the gum witch have been stealing gum from children all over town. Even more shocking the witch herself takes over the broadcast and calls out Pacman specifically. Pac-Man's machismo can't allow for that sort of public mockery of his skills to pass without incident, so he heads down to the gum factory to teach the witch a lesson. What happens once he arrives there is mostly up to your quick reflexes with the slingshot. If you're successful you become a hero, If you screw it up well, you can't really die in this game, discounting of course when your turn of the game in anger without first taking down the password.

Conclusion

Pacman 2 is not a great game when you look at it by normal gaming standards. It's short, it's got crazy controls, and a fairly small environment. However, it's cartoonish story and cinematics make it highly entertaining. It's unique elements can get frustrating but, if you're not trying to progress you will learn to love them. Failure is honestly one of the most memorable and enjoyable parts of this game, yielding some of the most humourous sounds and animations seen in any game. Besides, any game where you can learn to embrace your failures and even welcome them is one definitely worth giving a try.

~Stephanie


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Retro review Tuesday: Toejam and Earl: Panic on Funkatron

Toe Jam & Earl: Panic on Funkatron is one of those games you either love or hate. If you were a big fan of the original, then chances are pretty good that you won't like the format that was chosen for the second game. However, if you're like me and an unabashed fan of platformers, this is a great one.

-Overview-
The basic concept of this game is that when Toe Jam & Earl came back from Earth from the first game, they brought a bunch of earthlings back to their home planet of Funktron by mistake. Now their job is to capture all the invaders and send them back home. This is done by using special capture jars which you toss onto the earthing capturing them like bugs. unlike bugs though you don't scoop them up with nets or anything, you just through a bunch of glowing jars until they get squished into one (unless you've got a superjars powerup in which case as soon as a jar hits them they're in it). About midway through the game you also get a subquest to bring the funkapotomus, Lamont, out of hiding by locating all his favorite things which are hidden in secret areas.

The controls are simple and quite responsive, especially if you have a six button genesis controller. C jumps and controls the swimming speed while underwater, B throws the capture jars, and A uses your "funk". With a six button controller, X is your funk scan, Y is your panic button, and Z is your funkVac. If you have a standard three button controller, all you have to do is press start then your a,b,c buttons will fill in. Those are just the defaults, you can to change them to anything you like in the menu screen.

Graphically it's a bright and colorful with large fluid sprites. The character designs for TJ and E are pretty much the same as in the first though they're quite a bit larger this time around. The designs for the denizens of Funkatron are unique, interesting and memorable. The earthling cast features some from the fist game, like the boogeyman and some absolute insane newcomers like a duck on a flying carpet and a ghost cow. The background landscape of Funktron is a mix of dr.suess type landcapes with the sort of questionable structures that only appear in platform games and as a nice bonus especially for the time period is quite interactive. You can, and will often be forced to, shake trees and search bushes.

Sounds wise is an area where it really excels, as one would expect with a planet name like Funkatron, the music is most certainly funk. Much more the your standard game beeps and boops it's got rich layering and sounds more like the background track to a 70's pimp flick than a video game made in the early 90's. The other sounds are just as appropriate, with the earthlings having annoying catchphrases and words of encouragement such as "awesome" and "funk that" when you pick up power-ups.

-Difficulty-

This game has two difficulty settings, normal setting or kid mode. Kid mode only allows you to go through the first seven levels, but it allows you to play the game in an invincibility mode which allows you to get a good grasp of how the game is played and an opportunity to find secret areas without worrying about being killed by the pesky earthlings.

On normal difficulty the game can get pretty challenging. It is very easy to get hurt, but there are a large number of "food" items around to heal yourself. Like in most games though, it always seems plentiful when you don't need it and scarce when you do. The underwater areas can be a total deathtrap, there's not much to hurt you down there, but your oxygen meter runs out fairly quickly and when you're stuck in one of the maze like areas you can forget finding a "kissy fish" in enough time.

In playing in two player mode you can share health, when of you is low you can just give each other a high five to set both health meters to middle. Unlike older games where you can really screw your friends, both players have to consent to this health swapping by pressing down on the control pad. Though since you're sharing health (and lives for that matter) it can be much easier to die. So if you're on tow different skill level you may find yourself at the continue screen more often than you'd like. Luckily for every human you jar, every power up or secret you find, you get points and you get another extra life at every 10,000 points, so once you've got a grasp on the game and the point earning system it's pretty easy to earn enough lives to keep you safe.


-Gameplay-

When you first start the game assuming you're playing alone you get the option to choose how you want to play. You can be Toejam and Earl , if you're playing two player mode. In one player mode, you can be just Earl, he's much slower than Toejam, but stronger and can move items faster and takes more damage or, just Toejam, he's quick but gets hurt easily and takes longer to move heavy items. Once you've made your character choice, you start in the games early levels with the basic task of finding the earthlings and capturing them. You do this by tracking them down and tossing jars on them. There's a convenient sensor at the bottom of the screen that lets you know which direction you should be headed in, in order to find them. Once you grab them all you head to the end of the level and toss them on a rocket headed back to earth. With that patch of earthlings cleared out you get launched into to space and fall back into a new human infested area of Funkatron where you do it all over again.

Once you hit level eight or so, you start hearing from the
other aliens you encounter (either via bonus stages or ringing their doorbells) about how the great "funkapotomus" aka Lamont is hiding and won't come out
due to the earthlings. So while continuing to round up all the earthlings your additional mission becomes to find his favorite things to help coax him out of hiding. The aliens give you clues throughout the levels as to where to find the hidden doors and the objects, but it will still take quite a bit of searching and "funk scanning".

Meanwhile the earthling searches get more and more difficult with earthlings appearing in bigger groups and with attacks that are harder to avoid. These dark times are when you should use your power ups. Your funk vac will suck up any earthlings you can see on the screen. The panic button causes your character to throw out a barrage of jars as you run around flapping your arms. They're both rather imperfect methods of capture, but can really save your butt. And at around level 14 once you've used all your power ups and been "flashed" by numerous tourists and nibbled on by an endless barrage of poodles you start to really enjoy the rough and careless tossing of the jars full of earthlings into the rocket.

To break up some of monotony of constantly catching annoying earthlings, scattered throughout the levels there are several mini games, which are some of my favorite parts of the game. These are usually accessed by putting a coin into one of the numerous parking meters spread through out the levels or pushing one of the lighted "push me" buttons. There are the rap sessions "jam out", "hyper funk zones" bonus point collecting areas, and the "Fungus Olympics" where you bounce on sponge like fungus and get points and items from the judges. It's also worth mentioning that the parking meters and buttons can make all manner of secret snacks, platforms and other fun stuff appear as well as a couple of not so nice things, but it's usually worth the coin, or the few seconds it takes to push them to find out.

After 17 long levels of this nonsense, not including bonus levels, you've finally rounded up all the earthlings, hopefully found all Lamont's favorite stuff and coaxed him out of hiding, making Funkatron the peaceful patch of funkiness it once was.

-Conclusion-

Overall this game is a standard platformer though longer and more fun than most. It's uniqueness in terms of concept and characters makes it a games that will stay with you for years to come. Since I first played this years ago, I have beaten it numerous times and find a new hidden door or super jar power-up every time, it never gets old. Every vintage gaming fan should give it a try.

~Jen


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Retro Review Tuesday: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego Sega Genesis

In this review I'm covering a true classic, Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego. I vividly remember elementary school class days in the computer lab sitting with world almanac in hand searching for flags, currencies and landmarks, in my quest to capture the V.I.L.E. Henchmen and become a master detective. Finding a vintage late eighties or early nineties computer in the proper shape to play it would be a bit difficult for me the moment (though I admit I'd be oh so happy if one were available) so I decided to go with the port on the Sega Genesis.

-Overview-

I have to start off by saying this is an educational game, a way to trick kids into learning. I always liked to learn and world history and geography were just the sort of thing I was really interested in, so I found it rather enjoyable as a child and as an adult as well. However, I recognize this is a haphazard social studies lesson disguised as a video game. Moving on from that,  the basic premise of the game is that you're an agent for the Acme detective agency who's caseload apparently only includes high dollar, high profile robberies of national treasures from around the world.The perpetrators of these crimes are part of the V.I.L.E. crime syndicate lead by a lovely Ms. Carmen Sandiego, a former spy for Monaco. You track down Carmen and her crew by following some really vague tips from eyewitnesses.

The controls are pretty simple, it's converted from a point and click game and is still just point and click but with a controller instead of a mouse.

Graphically this game isn't one of the better genesis titles. There were several changes made to this release, but it still show the signs of being an early PC game. The pictures chosen for each countries "highlight" are highly pixelated, the images of the eyewitness' have some dubious proportions and some border on inappropriate racial stereotyping. Most of the game is static images, but there are some very simple animations, which are nothing spectacular but are highly amusing and one of the best parts of the game.

Sound wise there isn't much: the sound of footsteps, a plane flying and a couple of short midi tracks whenever you're on the right track and catch a glimpse of a V.I.L.E. Henchmen. They add to the ambiance of the game and I'd be sad if they were absent, but they aren't really anything special or particularly memorable.



-Gameplay-

You start of the game at Acme head quarters by signing in to the crime computer, this is basically so you can save your game and earn a password when you get tired of solving cases. After you sign in, you get a news flash which tells that a priceless world artifact was stolen. You get the name of the artifact, the country location and the sex of the suspect before being told it's up to you to solve the case before 5PM on Sunday. It's Monday morning at 9AM when you start off so you've got 6 days and 8 hours to catch Carmen or her cronies. It might seem like plenty of time, but every time you fly to new area it takes several hours,( the extract number of which depends on how far it is from your current location), getting a warrant takes a couple hours, and a growing detective needs 8- 12 hours of sleep every night (depending on what you're doing when it's past 10PM in the game). That's not even counting the time it takes to investigate the three areas in each location. Making matters worse if you accidentally choose an incorrect location, you have to fly all the way back from the location you left from before you can fly back to the country you should have gone to in the first place.

Now you're all stressed out, worrying about how you're possibly going to be able to fly across the globe , get a warrant, apprehend a criminal and still get your beauty sleep in so little time, but there's no time for that with dangerous criminal afoot so pop a Valium or something and get down to some detective work! The Acme detective agency apparently has a teleporter as you start at headquarters at Monday 9AM and at the scene of the crime was at the exact same time. You may take a moment to breath a sigh of relief as that's at least one bit of flight time you don't have to worry about. Now that you're in the right city, hit the little magnifying glass icon and start searching, you get three locations to investigate, out of nine total locations which vary depending on the city. In each location you'll talk to someone who had some sort of contact with your suspect and they will give you some really vague clues about where they might be headed and possibly some information about the suspect themselves.

This game is intended for children/young adults so if you remember what you learned in basic social studies in high school, you're probably going to know a lot of this information already. If you don't though a World book encyclopedia with all the information you'll need is included with the game. That's making the assumption that you're playing a physical copy that's complete in the box though, if you're playing it cartridge only or via an emulator, there's always search engines to help you along the way. It's also worth noting that this game is 18 years old, so some of the names of the cities and currencies are now incorrect, effectively giving you brief history lesson as well. While I'm on this topic, I have to admit that I have always wondered though how flight attendants and pilots would notice the type of flag the plane was flying and share this information, but not know enough to identify the country by name. These people travel to these places for a living shouldn't they know? (I can forgive the parrot's ignorance) But, I digress.

Once you've sifted through their information you hit the plane button and look at your possible destinations, hopefully you've gleaned enough information to figure out where you're headed. Choose your city/country and head out for another round of investigations. During your investigation you'll see little animations of V.I.L.E. henchmen letting you know you're on the right track. Once you've tracked them to their last location, you'll get animations making it clear that the detective isn't welcome 'round these parts, and if daggers and axes flying at you wasn't enough, the witnesses tell you that you should watch your step. Before you've gotten to this point though, you've hopefully gotten enough information about the suspect to get a warrant.

If you don't have a warrant then when you go to apprehend the suspect they get away and you lose the case. If you've picked up enough information you can just hit the computer button,chose warrant and put in the pertinent information to come up with a single match. However, you should be careful because there are several crooks with similar features and computing takes a couple hours so you should probably take a look through the dossiers to make sure you're going to get an exact match. Additionally sometimes the witnesses don't seem to give you enough information to pin point one crook by the time you get to the last city(especially if you're like me and choose your next destination at the first decisive clue) so you can guess at which one it is and add an additional trait to get the warrant to issue. I find myself curious though, as to why is it that the witnesses can recall how much the criminal did or did not like seafood and share that information with you, but don't think the detective would be interested in what color hair the suspect had. Same thing with note what sort of flag was flying off the vehicle they left in, but not what type of vehicle again... Putting that aside, so long as you've got your warrant you can track to the thief to the last town and capture them effectively.

Once you've captured the criminal successfully, you head back to acme headquarters where you sign in are told that the artifact has been returned to it's original location and let you know how many cases you have to solve until your next promotion. You're then given the option to choose to continue or quit. If you quit, you'll be given a password which will allow you to start from where you left off. Just make sure that you enter your name in exactly the same way as well. The game basically continues in this way until you've solved enough cases to become a master detective and capture Carmen herself. It honestly gets pretty repetitive and since there's a limited amount of countries, you'll probably become very familiar with flags, currencies and popular landmarks if you weren't already.

-Conclusion-

I can't say that this particular version of the game has stood the test of time particularly well. I've got a soft spot for educational games, and a penchant for recalling Jeopardy-esque useless information so it's got a lot of appeal for me. For someone not as interested in the educational game genre though this is going to get pretty old pretty quick. I can say though that it is a classic, I can't think of a single person over 20 that didn't get at least some of their social studies learning from a game or two of Carmen Sandiego. It's spawned countless games and variations as well as two TV shows and while the copy I reviewed may be old with some obsolete information, these games were popular for good reason. They're full of information and they're fun. This version of the game does have some life left in it though and it's interesting to note all the changes the world has gone through in almost two decades, besides if you're reading this there's a good chance you're a vintage gamer anyway so you probably remember when there were still francs and deutschmarks.

~Stephanie

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