Retro Review: Winter Games NES edition

I mostly finished this review way back at the beginning of January, but life is didn't allow my to finish tweaking it then. Here in Minnesota it's still winter and will be until around June, but in other place spring is approaching so I thought I'd better finish this up while it was still relevant.


Introduction

This was the follow-up to the successful Summer Games and in spite of Epyx not getting IOC liscensing, it couldn't reasonably be considered anything but an Olympic game. I absolutely love Olympic themed video games. For more evidence of this strange compulsion check out my review of Lillehammer 94 game on the Genesis. In any case, given my weird need to play Olympic games it's no surprise that winter games is in my collection and that I feel compelled to share it with others. It's worth noting that this game was released on several platforms each varying slightly in content and presentation. I choose to focus on the NES version because it's the one I think most people, myself included are the most familiar with.

Overview

Controls vary from game to game,  most of them are fairly easy and responsive. And then there's figure skating. If you don't have a booklet handy, there is no figure skating (much to my infinite dismay in my younger days). Luckily while playing this time around I found this handy guide to the controls and strategies. Incidentally knowing the controls helps very little in that case, but I'll get more into that later.

Graphically it's crap. Animation is choppy, sprites are undetailed and backgrounds are a mess. It looks 100 times better on the C64. A PC to NES port losing some graphic luster was pretty common, but in this case it doesn't make sense the C64 version isn't anything special in the graphics department and it's nothing the NES shouldn't have been able to handle. Very disappointing overall.

Musically there's very little going on, the only event that really has music while you're doing it is figure skating and while the 8-bit rendition of the dance of the sugarplum fairy isn't really that bad, it gets very, very grating very quickly. There's the music after you've completed speed skating and done the aerials but unless you really want to hear it you're not likely to sit on the results screen and wait for it to play so it's not very memorable. The best music is probably the snippets of each counties' national anthem and the fact that you're forced to listened to whichever one you've chosen before stating an individual event kind of takes away from any minute amount of enjoyment they could have given you. The other sounds are pretty appropriate there just aren't very many of them.

Gameplay

Once you've navigated past the title screen and the emotionally gripping opening ceremony you're brought to your main options screen. Here you can choose to participate in all events in order, Participate in one event at a time, practice the events, see the records or watch the delightful opening ceremony again. Participating in all the events or just one of the events doesn't really matter as in both cases you'll set a record if you don't fail completely. There's not a medal award ceremony or a closing ceremony, or even a congratulations for competing in them all at once. Though there is the distinct advantage of only having to listen to your chosen country's anthem snippet once instead of each time you select an event. Practice gives you the advantage of not having to bother with country selection at all, but you won't set any records and who doesn't want all their friends to know that they got perfect 10's in hot dog aerials (until the game is turned off or reset). In any case regardless of how you choose to compete in them, there are 4 events.

First Up Hot Dog Aerials:

Before we get into playing this event, we must first question the name, yes there was a type of freestyle skiing referred to as "Hot Dog" But the term had mostly died out by the end of the 70's so why they'd choose to use it in a game made in 1986 is anyone's guess. For me personally it brings to mind a guy in a hot dog suit doing ski tricks, which would be cool, but that's not what you get at all.

This event is probably one of the most playable of the ones included in this port. You have three attempts to  launch your skier off a hill do some fancy tricks and land on your skis instead of your face. You can do back flips, front flips, and splits. The right combination will get you a perfect 10 and a digital roar from the crowd as well as the world record. Though to be fair the world record can be gained by doing dismally as well so long as no one played before you after the game has been turned on.

Next up Speed Skating:

Every game with mini games always has a button masher and that's speed skating in this collection. Once the "buzzer" goes of you mash the d pad back and forth like mad to get a good start and then ease up a bit to pick up the rhythm and if you're better than the AI you win.

 Once you get the hang of it you're all but guaranteed to win. This game is pretty much only fun if you've got a friend to play with, even then it's of limited entertainment value. However there is some needlessly epic music that plays when the game concludes whether you're the winner or loser, which provides a modicum of entertainment.




Then Figure Skating:

Figure skating is just awful, not even good enough for me to bother coming up with some sort of silly analogy. It's just your good old fashioned terrible implementation,  pure and simple. Controls are needlessly complex and require very precise timing. You'd think finding out the controls and what exactly that timing is would fix the problem. Unfortunately it doesn't, the controls aren't responsive enough for the timing required. If that's not bad enough there's an element of "artistry" involved meaning you can't do the same trick twice (even if you fail the first attempt) and need to string together a variety of trick types to get a decent score. In all fairness you can teach yourself to play this game if you're really committed to doing so and even get a decent score or two, but really it's not worth the time and frustration involved.

And finally a big finish with Bobsled:

In spite of being my "big finish" and being a cool sport in general, the bobsled event is really boring.  First problem is that for some unfathomable reason they developers choose to make the event itself take place in the upper right hand corner of the screen, while the map which is static save for your blinking position marker dominates the screen. Second the gameplay itself just isn't fun. You steer occasionally and you don't have to be particularly precise, steering away from the turns or into the turns nets about the same results. Which isn't of course to say that the event is easy, you flip over more often than you successfully get down the hill.

Conclusion

Even my weird love for Olympic games can't make this game legitimately enjoyable. The best events are playable, maybe and the worst are a waste of perfectly good cartridge space. As whole it's not good enough to be good, it's not even good enough to be mediocre,  nor is it bad enough to be notably bad. They only way I can see this being legitimately enjoyable is if you're playing with friends while drunk, and given I haven't tested that theory personally, it may prove just as disappointing.

~Stephanie

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Retro Review Tuesday: Fester's Quest NES

Introduction
I'm not sure if this happened to everyone, but when I was a kid sometimes it seemed as though the hand of fate simply placed cartridges in my NES collection. I didn't recall buying them or asking for them, they were just there. Sometimes I found a wondrous treasure in these foundling games, like Life Force, but sometimes I found something that should have never been found. Things no human being should have ever been exposed to, especially at an early age. One of those awful things was Fester's Quest.

Overview

Controls:

It's an NES pad and a standard adventure style game so they're simple enough. Move with the D-Pad. Shoot with B, context sensitive actions with A. Get into your inventory screen with Start. In spite of that simplicity this game manages to control terribly. The controls are very clunky and fester is pretty darn unresponsive. It would be ok that he moves like a tank if he could stand up to damage like one, regrettably nothing is further from the truth so you're going to get hurt fairly often because fester didn't move when he should have.

Graphics:
Graphically it's a bit substandard. It isn't terrible, but the limited color palette in game play screens really brings already mediocre graphics down a notch. The character sprites are a mix. Fester seems to be constantly suffering from some sort paralysis, if you've got the gun the only part of his sprite moves most of the time are his feet and if you've got the whip one of his arms moves. The alien bosses seem to be suffering from a similar affliction, though some of them can move both arms! Woo! The normal alien enemies on the other hand are actually pretty well rendered, fluid and very mobile.

Isn't that the frog from Blaster Master?

Music:

The music is one of the best parts of the game. Like all NES games it can get incredibly annoying and repetitive after awhile. Barring that, it's actually quite catchy and enjoyable most of the time. It's much more complex and interesting than your standard fare, perfect fodder for an OC remix if only someone would get around to it.

Story:

The basic concept of this game is pretty unclear going by the opening sequence,but it seems Fester is moonbathing on a clear night when a flying saucer comes by and starts abducting the townspeople including his brother Gomez. Naturally, Fester has no choice but to go out and kick some alien butt and embark on an epic quest.

Gameplay

You start off on the street with a what the game calls a gun, but looks like a gramophone horn. You wander the alien infested streets killing aliens and collecting power ups for your gun and whip. This is a lot easier in theory than it is in practice. The aliens are quite strong and a lot quicker than Fester is and it takes quite a few shots to take even the weakest creature down if you don't have any powerups for your weapon and of course to get those power ups you need to kill them. If that's not annoying enough on its own there are negative powerups that decrease the power of your weapon when you pick them up. Given that items drop almost every time you kill an enemy and that it's very easy to position yourself at an enemy respawn point, it can be neigh on impossible to avoid picking these bad drops up which is a cause for great agitation and swearing.

Why bother we designing a power up sprite when you can write "gun" and call it a day

The other things the aliens drop are:
Money: used at hot dog stands to replenish your life
Light bulbs: used to light things up
Keys: open locked doors.

They keys and light bulbs are one use items so if you leave an area and backtrack you'll have to use one again so it's a good idea to keep an eye on your supply of them.

Additionally if you visit the houses you'll occasionally meet other members of the Adams family who will give you stronger special power ups which are:

Vice Grips: which bring you back to normal speed after being slowed
Potions: which bring you back to full health
Missiles: send six missiles out towards an enemy.
Noose: summons Lurch to clear the screen on enemies.
TNT: which explodes on your enemies doing a lot of damage.
Invisibility potions: which make you invincible for a short period of time.

Frankly you'd think pugsly would look happier about the TNT

The special items are a rarity so it's best to conserve them for bosses or emergencies.


The streets are full of large gaping chasms kind of like an early version of the Silent Hill maps. So you're going to need to find away to get around them which in this case it means going underground. The underground levels are labyrinths of varying complexity and difficulty and often have stronger more troublesome monsters. Additionally if you haven't picked up light bulbs they're pitch black, save for a small pool of light around Fester, making a difficult situation worse.

Sewers in video games clearly have a dedicated cleaning crew because they're so often immaculately clean

Once you get through the underground you'll find yourself back on the town streets where you'll continue in the same fashion until you come to a building larger than most where you'll walk through another a classic corridor labyrinth until you find the door the alien boss is hiding behind.

I wish the game took this opportunity to become a corridor RPG instead but alas is does not, it's a pretty good 3d effect for the NES though.

Each boss has it's own specialty and a pattern it always follows. Once you've figured it out you're pretty much home free, though sometimes Fester's lack of maneuverability will get in your way. Most of the bosses honestly aren't much harder than the normal aliens you see around town, they just take a lot more hits to go down, but it's easier to avoid them too. Though the bosses holding shields take an almost inhuman amount of patience to finish off without getting hit.

We sure did believe in deadly bubble technology back the NES era

Once you defeat the boss you're rewarded with a clue piece and find yourself outside with full health. From there you continue on your quest which in the same fashion, wander the streets, kill the aliens, find the alien boss, kill, continue, repeat. When you've defeated the 5th boss you complete the clue which shows the UFO, you know in case you forgot what it looked like from the opening sequence... Anyway, you walk around exploring for a bit until you come to a park where you'll find the flying saucer which beams you up.

This follows the alien spaceship in an NES game rule and is filled with some sort of vaguely menacing red organic material.

The interior of the space ship plays like one of the underground levels. It is essentially a maze-like gauntlet of booby trapped, monster packed hallways leading you to the boss. The Aliens here are even stronger and faster than the ones before, so it's going to take a small miracle to get to the boss. Once you get there, things just get worse for poor Fester as this boss is quite a challenge. It has two secondary guns to distract you while it fires a volley of energy blasts which home in on your position and are quite a chore to avoid. Hopefully you've been saving your special powerups because you need them if you want to finish the battle with any sort of sanity intact.

Once you beat the final boss you get to see a loving reunion between the brothers, which consists of two, maybe three frames of animation, Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Conclusion

Fester's Quest could have made a mediocre game at best, nothing about it was great and nothing about it was awful either, at best it could have been forgettable. What pushed it into the realm of bad games is the difficulty. If you're going to make a game so unforgivably hard you've got to make it fun or interesting or pretty. Sunsoft neglected all of that with Festers quest. However, for those of us who foolishly played it as children, you can't help but have developed a vendetta. You just keep coming back for the punishment, convinced that this time will be the one where you'll finally be able to get past it and put the unpleasantness behind you. With enough patience and skill you can, but I can tell you from experience it's hardly worth doing so.


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