Aliens (1986)

There's a nice little title animation where the letters fade in from some sort of hole.

Name:Aliens
Number:222
Year:1986
Publisher:Activision
Developer:Activision
Genre:Action
Difficulty:4/5
Time:3 hours 50 minutes
Won:Yes (93W/70L)

Aliens is one of those films I hope needs no introduction, considering how many times I've brought up something related to it in passing over the years, recently calling Xenomorph another unofficial adaptation of the game. It's one of those things that I sort of just expect the audience interested in someone yapping about old shooters and survival horror games to know about enough that I don't need to explain.

Naturally, given the number of unofficial titles, it was inevitable that I'd play an official game based off it eventually. They're not all strategy games and Pac-Man-clones. This brings us to 1986's Aliens, the US one by Activision as opposed to the EU one by Electric Dreams. It's funny to think about two different companies being able to make games on the same license, but imagine telling someone in 1986 about Fortnite.

It would be really cool if at the end of the game you got to see the same image, but minus whoever you lost. Instead they don't really matter.

We start with a recap of the movie, told through walls of text and then a shot of the marines talking on the ship. Ridley is recovered from the Nostromo's escape pod, they don't believe her when she talks about the Xenomorph, and they penalize her. But uh-oh, the space marines contact her since they've lost contact with the colony after a report of something exactly like Ridley described.

Actually, I don't think that even if you haven't seen the movie you'd have too much trouble with this, since most are fairly obvious.

This is one of those mini-game games that were popular around this time. To start with, we get an identification game, which may be copy protection. If it is, it's the worst copy protection I've ever seen, because I could easily solve it and I don't necessarily recognize any Alien equipment outside of the pulse gun.

Then we get...a series of rings I have to navigate into. Holy crap, it's the Superman 64 thing. It's less crap, but the general concept means that this was never going to be anything but an annoyance. I say less crap in the sense that this isn't some absurd maze the game expects you to make in a certain amount of time, but a series of increasing hard to follow rings that just aren't fun. While it may control better with a joystick, with the keyboard it can be hard to build up the momentum to make the sharper turns the game asks for. Even if you hit the rings, the game may decide you fail anyways because you didn't hit them well enough. Infinite attempts or not, I'm glad there are codes for later levels.

I don't know if the scale on the Xenomorphs is right, but it certainly feels right, towering over my guys like that.

The story cuts ahead somewhat, with some of the group having gone off...somewhere I don't remember, and now I have to recover them. (In retrospect, this might be the part where they find the cocoons) I screw this up the first time, which ironically enough makes this section really, really boring. I didn't know you could change characters by pressing the function key below their lifesigns, which in retrospect was stupid of me. So instead of a tense scene fighting off aliens, I'm slowly walking with just the sounds of my footsteps as my squad slowly die, before I end up fighting the aliens in vain. Rather than with the flight thing, this automatically advances to the next stage. We'll do these in order though.

What I also didn't get the first time was that the controls are ideal for 1986. The joystick moves and the fire button shoots. Hold down the fire button and you strafe. It's hard for the Xenomorphs to kill you while you're shooting, since you just hit things in front of you. The motion detector tells you where more Xenomorphs are coming from. Once I got that down, or half my squad on the inital attempt, it becomes boringly easy. The endless occasional hordes are quite boring to shoot. It's an endless maze with no real way to navigate it outside of guessing.

However, the key point here is that paradoxically, you need to go the area that's been built up by the Xenomorphs to get out, as that's where the APC is. This area also has them coming out from areas you can't walk across, but this isn't that tricky. The only thing that killed one of my guys was that for a time before I could finish one fight against them, another group was approaching another. You can save a guy who gets captured, but it's such a brief window of opportunity that you have no chance of doing it unless you can specifically set it up.

Next, we get something that looks like a weird game of Tapper. Not quite the best comparison, but when you're sliding up and down giving someone something, even if they're aliens and flames, it's what comes to my mind. We're waiting for the guys at the bottom to cut through a steel door, and I'm preventing them from getting kidnapped by the Xenomorphs who have to get past my guy, either by dashing up and down causing the Xenomorphs to retreat or by shooting them with the laughably short-ranged flamethrower. Unsurprisingly, I die here straight away.

This one isn't really fair. Sure, there's the illusion of fairness, for a while even with the fast Xenomorphs you can reach them from the opposite side of the screen before they go to the right. But quickly this doesn't seem true even if they're alone. With how many are thrown at you, there's no getting past it, you're losing a guy unless you get lucky. This is even knowing that there are two tricks, that it's about causing them to retreat when you're forced to, and that you can cause groups of two to retreat even when one is past you. I think this is a preset pattern, but even if it isn't, I hate it. I looked up a longplay after a while and saw that even someone that good at this game was screwing up.

This is actually a good situation, I'm about to get out of their sight and they're all behind me.

Somehow I manage to win with two guys left. I can believe someone can win with everyone remaining, but damn, you'd have to be insanely good to pull that off. This is followed up by a maze of ducts, which makes the last section look reasonable. Xenomorphs randomly spawn in, but only chase after you if they see you. Your defense seems to be your remaining soldiers, who function like explosives killing one of the Xenomorphs. Oh, and they automatically make turns based on which direction it is to you. Hope you saved more than two guys like I did.

I never actually needed the flares, honestly, you get enough time to make it out anyway.

Next up, another shooting section, this time without the soldiers acting as lives, this time you're Ripley, finding Newt. Ninety-nine bullets and eight flares. Or not in my case, because the joystick button is the space bar. It's not that difficult though, since you can just walk past most of the Xenomorphs owing to them no longer blocking you. This is actually wiser, since they respawn on the same screen. It is more difficult to stand and fight now.

I started with 17 minutes, and this is how long it took the first time to reach Newt, it's not that tricky.

Eventually, I find Newt, and she follows me back. Before I can return to the ship, I have to outwit the Xenomorph Queen. I try it a couple of times, first by shooting it, then by trying to trick it with movement somehow. Neither works. Aha! I think, this must be a job for the flares. Because I've figured out how to make save states in Denise, I've been using that. (Neither Denise nor WinVICE are Linux-native or have good screenshot functions, so Denise gets the edge now, and those are the two emulators I've found that work the best) Because of it being in Windows, there's an issue where sometimes the configuration menu doesn't work properly which causes it to not save changes. Fortunately, I can manually change the keycode to something other than space. Oh, flares don't work, must be an issue with my emulator, I'll just see how it works in a longplay...oh damn it, I've done it all for nothing.

After considerably more time spent fixing the issue than I'd like, I take the plan into action. It's simple and clever, but surprisingly difficult to figure out. Move to one side and wait for her to reach that side, turn sideways, then shoot from that way. She won't move while you're shooting. Hope you saved enough ammo for it. It's beautiful really. After that, it's simply a matter of getting back to the elevator you started from. The Queen comes back on the ship and it's time for us to fight.

The power loader section is one of those from the back fighting game sections that were common around this time. Left and right move in that direction, while up and down move the arms of your power loader. Hit the queen with the arms while not letting her reach the bottom of the screen. Only one hit for you, of course. She meanwhile, gets a massive health bar that regenerates. One mistake on your part, and death. I suppose it's been the same the entire game, but it really hits when it's a genre known for pretending to be fair even if it isn't at all.

The manual's advice is somewhat terrible, because while it's both true, it's also seemingly false. Hit her as often as you can. This seems false because, again, massive health bar, but at first it doesn't even seem like you're damaging her. When I actually had a strategy, it didn't seem like I was dealing any damage at all despite several good hits. No, you need to be hitting her often, otherwise she regenerates it all back. You need to get her into a loop where you constantly hit her, but not the kind of loop where if she gets out of it she runs away from you until her health restores. Which is probably related to where your prongs are.

And then it sort of just falls into place. I guess once you get into a proper loop of hitting the queen it all just falls into place. To finish her off, you need her health bar to be entirely green, then bring the prong down, then towards her, before pressing the button, then drag her into the middle of the airlock.

Did someone object to the white blood?

Then we get the ending of Aliens. They put a lot of effort into it, it's nice. But, that's not something that will be nice in the rating.

Sweet dreams, because when you wake up you're all going to die horrible deaths...

Weapons:
The pulse rifle is something I enjoy, but not particularly interesting of itself. Oddly, despite my frustrations with the level it was in, I felt the flamethrower had some depth to it. 2/10

Enemies:
Just Xenomorphs, no facehuggers, and two fights with the queen. The former is more of a puzzle, while the latter is tedious. Still, the whole package was nice. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
Tricky, because the non-player characters are your lives, and in their first appearance, a squad of sorts, though not even pretending to have the depth of even the crudest AI you'd see down the line. Since they stand there getting killed if you aren't playing as them. 0/10

Levels:
Six levels of varying quality and difficulty. Obviously my favorites were where you were moving around shooting things, despite their shortcomings. The others just sort of mixed things up and were there because they were in the movie. A lot of my more disliked missions made obvious how random enemies spawn and act sometimes. 3/10

Player Agency:
Everything is very smooth, it's telling that my complaints are all about randomness, not the controls. The top-down shooting sections were absolutely perfect for the era, and would be worth imitating today. I do think the fighting controls in the last section take a bit to get used to, since moving the joystick up and down to do something happening sideways is unintuitive. 6/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
It's Aliens and feels like it. 5/10

Graphics:
Very smooth and well-animated, with lovely backgrounds. Obviously some of the smaller sprites lack detail and some uninteresting objects are made very uninteresting because of the low resolution. 5/10

Story:
It is recognizably Aliens, and you'd be able to follow the story even if you didn't see the movie, with a few things happening out of game. 3/10

Sound/Music:
Pretty good. Most things sound like a good enough imitation, outside of what I presume was a Xenomorph screeching. The sole music track is nice, but because of how many times you'll restart a mission, it can get slightly grating. 3/10

That's 29, somehow, pretty high up in the ratings for now, but feels more generous than I should be giving it. Eh, let's go with 27.

Everyone likes this, which makes my distaste of some parts feel more pronounced. It's all fair once you figure out the trick, but it can take a while before you're any good at some parts. You really need to get a perfect way through the first two missions with the marines before you can make it through the ducts, in which you are completely at the mercy of the RNG. That first one isn't too tricky, but man, oh, man, is that second one ever.

I feel like it's probably worth it if you like the movie and the period, but if not, you aren't going to be pressed for a game that feels like the movie. And if you are, you don't really need to hear what I have to say about the game, now do you?

Next up, you know what's the best game to play after one inspired by Aliens? Another game inspired by Aliens.

Wibarm

Name:Wibarm
Number:124
Year:1986
Publisher:Arsys Software
Developer:Arsys Software
Genre:Side-Scroller/TPS
Difficulty:4/5
Time:50 minutes

Wibarm is the debut game of famed Japanese company Arsys, who would go on to develop the famed Star Cruiser series. The company was formed by disgruntled Tecno Soft employees, and as I understand it this is an advancement of the tech developed in some of those games. However, today we're only interested in the direct ancestor of Star Cruiser, which is this, a side-scrolling platformer/TPS with RPG elements. What's interesting about this game is that there's a DOS version ported by Broderbund, which I didn't start off with, instead trying out the FM-7 version.

The base screen, get used to seeing this a lot

The intro, which was in English originally and then rewritten to be clearer for the Broderbund release, tells us that in the aftermath of a nuclear war, the "big countries" continue to produce weapons. A rebellion breaks out, which I think causes monsters to be released, who then break the communication link between a power plant tower and the power plant orbiting around the Earth. The power plant's orbit is decaying and will soon smash into the Earth and destroy it. Music accompanies this. After that, the game goes straight into a weapon selection menu. You don't know what any of these starting out are, even checking the manual. This could have just left out of the American manual though. (I admit its a bit weird playing the Japanese version with the American manual, but what can you do?) The way they work in practice seems to be that some enemies are vulnerable to certain kinds of weapons.

The overworld, I am traveling in the flight mode, which is faster than the tank and mech modes

When the game starts up its not terribly clear what it is I'm supposed to be doing. Pressing the X key changes me between a flight mode, a tank mode, and a mech mode. None of these seem to do anything and there's no guidance. At this point I find the manual for the American release, because information for a different computer is better than no information. Turns out you select a weapon with a menu used by the ESC key, good to know

The tank mode, which doesn't seem to have any reason for existing

There are a bunch of door things here and there which one can enter with the Spacebar key and then enter. This is the third-person section. Third person shooter implies you get to shoot someone in this mode. Instead its a JRPG-style dungeon crawler. Only instead of randomly bumping into enemies, they're all visible on the "overworld". Bump into one of their icons and then a real fight will begin.

Hello my old friend, level-gating

This turns the game back in a side-scroller. Its one of those side-scrolling sections that's hard to describe, but you know it as soon as you play it. Basically think like of it like a fighting game. You attack with Z and space. Z is a kind of laser weapon attack while space is the secondary weapon. These drain energy, lose all that, or take too much damage, and game over. The enemies inside buildings are invulnerable to damage. Aha, you say, this is a RPG, clearly you just need to grind outside. The team behind Wibarm thought of that too. Each time you defeat a random enemy, you get more points, sure, but the enemy also increases in strength when it respawns. Even better, they're sometimes not even killable by default. Yes, this is going to be one of those games. What is it with Japan and RPGs that creates the absolute worst kind of padding?

Indigo apparently means something different to the Japanese

The intended progression, as far as I can tell, is that the player searches through all the interiors, dodging all the background enemies, while trying to collect as many items as possible. Its through these items that the real progression seems to take place. Unfortunately, since you don't enter these areas outside the exit, you have to find it. And sometimes the exit is going to be behind some enemies. Its at this point I figure out that some weapons work better than others on certain enemies, and you can fly past an enemy. The latter isn't always a wise idea, since entering combat with an enemy sometimes drains the Mental stat, and I'm pretty sure getting it to zero kills me.

An item in the interior stage, note the red icons on my mini-map, which just tell you something is there, not if they're enemies or items

Its at this point that the game pretty much stop responding to my commands if I enter any menu. Even if I restart the emulator. Clearly, I am not going to be doing anything more here. What about the DOS version? Well, that works until I try to actually enter the game, whereupon it says it can't find the path, and makes me retry or quit. I could at this point restart with some other version, its on basically every Japanese computer from the time. But I don't really want to have to fiddle around with every version of this, and let's not kid ourselves, this isn't very good as a shooter. You don't even aim your weapon, it just automatically aims itself towards the nearest enemy.

Some pre-recorded message I didn't bother translating

Weapons:
Having sub-weapons work better against some monsters is a good idea, except that there's no way to find out how that works short of just firing away at them. There's no way to change them in-combat, so you have to get out and return to see if something else works. 2/10

Enemies:
There are some nice graphics for these guys and each kind of enemy has a unique behavior, but they do feel quite a bit samey despite this. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
I don't think much thought was left here. Everything is just sort of placed down. 1/10

Player Agency:
Even before it stopped responding to my commands, the game was never really the best at registering my commands. The ESC key was always loose, and there is no back movement in the 3D spaces. The various modes seem unnecessary, especially the tank mode. Could have just used a single mecha mode and allowed it to fly on the overmap, or simply design it differently. 2/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
Its definitely that Japanese style of sci-fi. 1/10

Graphics:
Make no mistake, while this game looks nice in stills, in motion its not really great. There's that persistent blocky movement that always comes from these early PC free-scrolling side-scrollers. 2/10

Story:
The intro story is something I'm still not clear on. In-game there are a few recorders lying around with information on them, but I didn't bother translating it. 1/10

Sound/Music:
You get some very basic sound effects and then some music. The music is nice...the first time you here it. Unfortunately, it loops, and as I previously mentioned, this is a game with a lot of padding. 2/10

That's 13.

Wibarm's in an awkward middle position where none of the genres its trying to do work well. Its not all that bad, but a harsh opening and having several game-ending bugs will stop many from playing it for very long. We'll see if Star Cruiser shows any sign of fixing these issues.

SeeNa

 

Name:SeeNa
Number:96
Year:1986
Publisher:SystemSoft
Developer:SystemSoft
Genre:Racing
Difficulty:5/5
Time:8 hours

The history of Japanese computer games is a perplexing thing. Sometimes they pointlessly tread the same ground the west has done for years and years, and other times they innovate. SeeNa is one of those innovations. A first-person racing game is nothing unusual, this is far from the first title to do it. However, once you see some screenshots, you'll realize why this is an impressive title.

Behold, a racing game

This is because SeeNa hits upon almost exactly the same notes as Hovertank, Catacomb and all the rest of the untextured FPS titles would do. Now, admittedly, the game is somewhere between a maze game and a racing game, but to see it done much earlier is shocking. Midi Maze, was one year after this, I admit, but SeeNa feels so much more modern. Levels, in the sense I expect them, secrets, secret levels. This doesn't really feel like a commercial game because those usually aren't this impressive technologically.

When the game starts off you have two modes, one called Mode A, and one called Mode B. You can think of this as Adventure Mode and Race Mode. Adventure is effectively the actual game, and Race Mode is what you expect from a racing game. A series of tracks you try to get the fastest time around. I'll start with that mode first.

Note the sections where the track goes back in on itself, this is achieved via teleporters

There are several unusual things about the game even in this mode. The most obvious is the damage meter and the gasoline tanks. Take enough damage, or run out of gas, game over. There's a pit stop so you can repair and refuel. I say gas is obvious, but I didn't figure out that it was a thing until considerable time spent in the game. Mode B was something I didn't play right away. Then you have break and slip zones. Break zones slow you down, slip removes your traction, I.E., turning, speeding up, speeding down, the time between you pressing it and it happening is very slow. But not too dissimilar to slow down zones and ice in other games.

Just your average racetrack

Some of the tracks in Race Mode are weird, and there's no rhyme or reason to where they're placed. One moment you have a normal track, the next your map isn't showing everything there, and then you're in something that wouldn't be out of place in Catacomb Armageddon. Then it finishes with something normal. If you played it after the finishing the other mode, you'd probably be disappointed, because its just a simple time trial, and one that you can't lose; Unless you're a complete beginner at the game.

Behold, a racing game...?

Mode A is where things change from being a racing game with unusual tech, to something interesting. You start off in a room, you turn around, there's nothing here. The only thing unusual is a flashing wall, so you drive through it. Its a map tool and this isn't just some race track. No, this is an actual level, with enemies and things you pick up. Its very unusual to play a racing game like this, and its other features are also unusual. You have limited gas and you need to find pick-ups that restore it. Later on there's a powerup that allows you to recharge it in certain zones, but this is of limited utility.

On top of an enemy, taking damage

But what's striking about this is how you deal with powerups, switches, enemies and the level exit. A lot of this stuff is in the form of flashing walls. You can destroy everything (except level exits) if you pass over it at a certain speed, which is good for enemies and I think switches, but not so good for everything else. Naturally, the game is designed around making this concept as annoying as possible for you, including putting enemies you wish to kill right next to solid walls, which hurt you.

For the early part of the game, level design is interesting. Its unsurprisingly not too dissimilar to the typical FPS, released 5-8 years later. Altered, of course, to accommodate the speed aspect of the game, and no saves. The game doesn't allow you to save, at all, and it isn't all that much worse for the wear for it, at least starting out. The game encourages you to play it in the best way possible, finding items in the correct order, using as much gas as you need, and ignoring places you don't need to travel through.

Every bit of the map is like that, even the parts I haven't uncovered

The level where the game really starts screwing with the player is Saka. Or at least that's one of its names. The level is a series of corridors that resemble train tracks. The sort of turns they put in so they don't tip over. Its a very large, very complex level. There is some fuel, but it is limited in nature. This area has a city, or I guess super computer, you destroy in order to win. It continues the cruelty by hiding the level exit, and possibly causing it to be lost forever if you hit the wrong switch. Destroying the super computer starts a timer, of which you have sixty...something to get out of the level. I eventually manage to win this level...but the game continues. I wasn't expecting that.

One of the secret levels I couldn't beat

But, no, it keeps going. Not just for one level, but for two more, at least. There's even a secret level here. This had me perplexed on many levels, because Saka felt like a proper end to the game, and two, because of the game not having any saves, we're starting to get really long. This isn't annoying for me, because I have save states, but for someone playing on actual hardware or legit? Nuts. You have to get everything right. There are even more super computers to destroy too.

This would be annoying in any game

Unfortunately, I'm forced to put a loss column here for this game, despite almost winning it. Almost. I think. I don't really need to cite anything other than this screenshot, but I'm going to explain. In all of this, I need to find a level exit. I may also need to find a switch to open that door. Which adds the total number of things I need to find, with limited fuel, to 2. In all of this. I remember thinking this would be a fun game to see people speedrun, and while that's still something I'd like to see, I'm not sure if that person is even human anymore. 

Winning levels show you these pictures, sometimes complete, sometimes mixed in with ones from other levels

The secret levels, at least those I could find, were pretty good as secret levels. I only finished one of them thanks to it being a 1-in-3 chance of automatically winning the level, but I gave the others a valiant effort. Thanks to some incompetence on my part, I'm not sure if that's because I screwed it up or if the game was intentionally designed so that these levels would be unbeatable if I didn't find the right powerups beforehand. I still felt like I had succeeded in doing something when reaching them, which is the important bit.

Mahjong tiles feature heavily in this level, for some reason

Let's talk about the real problem with the game, the audio-visual package. You've seen the pictures. Its very cool seeing this in 1986. However, it is very hard on the eyes in motion. And because of the limited color palette, sometimes the movement looks awkward. Further, the music sounds pretty sweet the first time you play the game, but this game is at least 8 hours long and there's not even 20 minutes of it. There's no way to turn off the sound without changing settings.

Weapons:
None.

Enemies:
Incredibly basic and practically non-existent. 0/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
There's a wide gap in the quality of the best levels and the worst levels. Not necessarily because the best levels are the greatest thing ever, but because the worst levels are about as bad as you can possibly get. There is just no point in time where the last level in this game is acceptable. 5/10

Player Agency:
You move smoothly when the game wants you to move smoothly. You don't when they don't. There's a really awkward period at low speeds where you have a really slow turn arc, but not at minimum speed, which is annoying. Otherwise no complaints. 5/10

Interactivity:
Its basically Quake rules, if you were a car. 0/10

Atmosphere:
There aren't many in-door racing games, be they sci-fi or otherwise. It feels like a journey through a futuristic world, even if the story could be about something else entirely. 2/10

Graphics:
Simple, but very interesting for the time. Unfortunately, thanks to the way the game is set-up, it quickly becomes very tedious to look at. The HUD is incredibly busy too, took me a while to figure out what area had my fuel. 2/10

Story:
None in-game, though there could be something in the manual.

Sound/Music:
The sounds are very simple, and the music, while interesting at first, quickly became annoying. 1/10

That's 15. Its an interesting game, but it has several severe flaws. Its an area ripe for new material. Not like some actual racing games some have made in the Doom engine, but something like this, solo, alone in an alien world.

I don't really know how many more titles the lead programmer of this game, Tinyan, has, nor how many SystemSoft have. SystemSoft seems to be the Japanese Microprose, developing original simulations and publishing similar games from other regions.

Game 77: Outrun

Name:Outrun
Number:77
Year:1986
Publisher:SEGA
Developer:SEGA
Genre:Racing
Difficulty:3/5
Time:3 hours

For a guy with a lot of games to play, I sure find ways to add more to my trouble. I forget when it was, but I was thinking, hey, a lot of games you're looking forward to playing involve driving cars, so why not play some games that revolve around driving cars? Thus, another genre started to bloat up my list. I think my reasoning is sound at least. There are none that strike my mind as much as Outrun. There are earlier games and there are better games, but Outrun is a perfect balance of early and quality. And it was probably the first game of its kind I played. In my mind, these kinds of games are all Outrun-clones, even if it wasn't the first game in this style. I'll be playing the Saturn version, a first for this blog, though I've spent most of the time I've played Outrun in the past on Genesis. This is different from that version in where places are located.

This game is a double-edged sword in what it succeeds in being. A first time player could be fooled into firing up the game, and getting distracted by the beautiful scenery. The game lets you pick what musical track you want, so what could possibly go wrong. You're driving at 180 MPH, in a Ferrari, a beautiful woman by your side, and as you pass by the sea, the music changes. One could be fooled into thinking Outrun is a very chill game right until the point your Ferrari hits something, and flips through the air like it was made out of paper. Don't worry you're fine. You probably won't make it to the next check point before you run out of time, but you're still alive. Which, come to think of it, would be some good shakes in real life.

So its a hardcore racing game, right? Well, it sort of is if you crank it to the hardest difficulty, and choose a particular route. Even then its just a hard arcade-style. On regular difficulty, you'll probably reach most of the areas after a few tries. One way or another, you're going to master the opening section and one of the two next sections. Actually, its kind of tricky saying this, since you have the option of choosing the overseas or the Japanese mode, which affect where sections are placed. I played the overseas, which is not the same as the Genesis release you might know and love.

I know the game is based off Europe, but this whole game feels very American in places. We've got scenic beaches, mountain ranges, vaguely savannah areas. Okay, we don't have an abundance of windmills and sandy deserts, but otherwise this is very buyable as America. Maybe we're driving across Mexico too.

Regardless of location, Outrun is a joy to drive...for the most part. Like I said, the difficulty isn't consistent and the point where you're going to care about it, you aren't going to know which way you should go. If you go down, you could be randomly driving along, when suddenly you're in some harsh hellscape. Well, in the Genesis version, or the Japanese mode on Saturn. The two opening paths on the overseas mode are about the same, both being more unforgiving than most. I thought I had it bad in the Genesis title back then.

One of the worst examples of the difficulty is the absolute top path. If you want to reach all the endings, its unavoidable, you can't skip past any of the top ones. The first is this grassland, where you pass by a series of arches that look kind of like Stonehedge. I kind of wish this road existed in real life, but I feel like that would be an accident waiting to happen, not to mention it wouldn't be as cool. But what makes it annoying in-game isn't those arches, its the turns towards the end of this area, which I seemingly always crash into some guy's windmill.

There's a desert area that isn't too bad. Its got some bendy turns, but it isn't too bad. This area doesn't really feel like it should exist in either Europe or America, both locations' deserts to my knowledge are more rocky than sandy. Sand dunes are more Middle East or Africa. I swear I saw a pyramid here too. That could be in America, apparently there's an abandoned set to some Egyptian movie just lying around, buried. Someone could have turned it into a tourist trap in the Outrun universe.

To the absolute hell that is this thing. It doesn't look like much, but this gave me the most crap. This one's so bad there's even a tree practically in the road. Yhugh. This one took me so many tries to get through. So many. I had my difficulty set so I had the least amount of cars on the road, but the least amount of time. The thing is, this section's idea of few cars is not my idea of few cars. Maybe the odd one I can pass, not three, sometimes even blocking my path like I'm stuck behind the trio from The Grand Tour.

But while that selection was hell, the rest doesn't tickle my rage nearly as much. You've got a scenic mountain with a castle in the distance; Villages next to rivers; Old castles. The racing part in some of these do approach that window dressing feel. Which honestly is all I really want out of a driving game. There's a river to my left, and a castle up over there. I can't necessarily drive to either of those, but it should feel like I can drive to those scenic places. So many driving games shackle themselves to mundane things like street racing or race tracks. That is the ultimate appeal of Outrun, driving somewhere not tethered completely in reality.

Weapons:
None.

Enemies:
Other cars on the road, not much worth speaking of. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
I'm not especially clear on how tracks are actually different from each other, but the scenery goes a long way towards making each area feel different. 5/10

Player Agency:
I don't care for how the car drives in this game. Its not quite arcade, yet its very obviously not realistic. That combined with the gear changing makes an unorthodox experience, that I ultimately don't have strong feelings for. 3/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
This perfectly captures what I like about driving games. Interesting scenery passing by, cool car and some nice tunes. There is just something about seeing every single gorgeous bit of scenery you can think of passing by. 10/10

Graphics:
The gorgeous scenery bit wouldn't work if the scenery wasn't gorgeous. Now, of course the game has some fuggly bits that have become obvious over 20 years, and sometimes the scnery can screw with your mind. But it does have it where it counts, amazing art direction. 6/10

Story:
None.

Sound/Music:
Unfortunately, here I think the Saturn version lags behind the Genesis one. You only have three tracks, and one of those tracks is inferior to the Genesis version. You get three arrange tracks, but they lack the charm, and in one case don't really sound like the original track. Still, it'll last you long enough. The sounds are fine, everything sounds like it should, and some decent engine roar. 5/10

That's 30. Taking the crown from The Sentinel as the highest rated since Freaks. Its not surprising that it got a high rating for a game with quite a few weak categories, its the 16-bit racing game for a good chunk of people. Checking Mobygames, all the bad ratings are for half-baked home computer ports. They're not even worth mentioning, because they're not worth playing today.

Next up, 1000 Miglia, an arcade racing title that I don't think I'm going to be doing justice to.

Game 69: The Sentinel

Name:The Sentinel (AKA The Sentry)
Number:69
Year:1986
Publisher:Firebird Software
Developer:Geoff Crammond
Genre:FPS
Difficulty:2/5
Time: 4 hour 30 minutes

The Sentinel is the kind of game I have the wrong attitude for. What's this all about, completing games, seeing if they're good, pointing out why I think its good or not. The Sentinel is more of a puzzle game, like Sudoku or a crossword. You don't really complete all the ones that exist, you just beat one. Completion does nothing; The game loops. The developer didn't think someone would play all 10,000 levels. A fair assessment, though considering passcodes exist for the final level, that's not entirely true. But about as true as defeating the final level of Solitaire or Monopoly. It doesn't exist.

Its concept is sound, an advanced psychic being rebelling against a never-ending army of robot sentinels. He crosses the universe for all eternity, absorbing the energy of each sentinel he manages to reach, then using that energy to teleport further across the stars. His journey will never be over, he will never fall, but neither will the machines. Each time he dies, time rewinds. His victory assured, but it is a hollow victory. This battle will end when the last star in the universe dies. Well, the last couple of bits are my own inventions, but it might as well be canon for all the story matters.

The game itself is a weird quasi-FPS/strategy/puzzle game. Your objective is to take out the highest sentinel. You don't move, apparently advanced psychic beings have non-functional legs. Instead, you make boulders out of energy, then spawn a replica of yourself atop that boulder. From there, you absorb your old body, find a new spot to repeat the process. Along the way you avoid the sight of Sentinels and absorb energy from trees. Eventually you get high enough to absorb a sentinel, and your life becomes so much easier.

This managed to entertain me for about 4 hours. The reason why a game that has 10,000 levels in 1986 is because of procedural generation. Shocking, I know. All of these are completable, but some are much harder than others, which is where the strategy kicked in...except not really because I could brute force those really well. So its more of an FPS, right? Well, the only shooting you do is point and click. This is where I'm glad I'm playing the Amiga version instead of the BBC Micro original. That would have ended badly.

What makes this game shine here is the atmosphere, another Amiga plus. David Whittaker did the music, and it is amazing. I'm pretty sure its only 10 minutes long, but oh, wow, does it give a mood. For a brief moment, it can really feel like you're that psychic being locked in eternal conflict against machine. A sci-fi wistfulness that you wish the galaxy was a better place, but those thoughts must be stopped for now. Violence is unavoidable.

Its a shame the game doesn't have the substance to go along with that. This is a coffee-break game, before coffee-break games were a thing. The thing about those is, you were never going to get any decent gameplay out of those. If that is your requirement, then this comes with the highest honors, otherwise, well, I'm afraid you'll have to look for something more.

Weapons:
There's no real weapon, only falling under the label of FPS by the loosest of definitions. 0/10

Enemies:
There are basically two enemies, Sentinels, who slowly drain your health, and Meanies, who instantly drain your health. Not much variety. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
None, really.

Levels:
I think I lasted around 30-40 levels before giving up. There are a few types, but the differences become minute as you get used to the game. 1/10

Player Agency:
As cool as the concept is, its got some very obvious flaws. You don't really move, you just sort of teleport. Turning is slow, very slow. You get a 180-degree turn button, but it doesn't help much if you're under attack. 2/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
This game may not have set out to do it, but it has a very specific and interesting alien mood. It captures the spirit of two invincible entities fighting each other for all time. I want to see this mood in something else. 9/10

Graphics:
I like the whole unearthly feel of this game. Untextured polygons are my thing. Here it feels like some strange alien world...if that alien world suddenly stopped at designated edges. Its very effective for 1986. 2/10

Story:
It doesn't have an impact on the game. 0/10

Sound/Music:
Top notch stuff, musically. Would actually listen to. The rest of the sound effects are solid. 6/10

That's 21. The highest rated game since Freaks. In ranking terms, its below two of the lesser Catacomb games, and above Lethal Tender and Blake Stone.

Reviews of the game are generally positive, from greatest game ever, to unrateable to mere indifference. My comparisons to Sudoku are not unheard of, one compared the game to chess. This popularity has not extended to videos on the game, though there is a walkthrough on the ZX Spectrum...which is part 1 of 7 and clocks in at nearly 12 hours. That's just great. Seeing as I've seen video reviewers complain in the past that there aren't enough games to review, this strikes me as a glaring omission considering that this game has had no shortage of print praise.

Next up, Cholo another weird proto-FPS published by Firebird.

Game 73: Dark Castle

Name:Dark Castle
Number:73
Year:1986
Publisher:Silicon Beach Software
Developer:Silicon Beach Software
Genre:Side-Scroller
Difficulty:5/5
Time:1 hour 30 minutes

I couldn't do it, I couldn't beat Dark Castle. Its one thing to be unreasonably hard, but its another to mess with what little progress I can make. I've seen about 75% of the game, but taking that last 25% and actually beating it is just soul-draining. But let's not kid ourselves, if Dark Castle was good it would have some kind of trick so you don't feel like you're pointlessly playing the same screens over and over again. It doesn't, so I don't feel like I missed much.

Dark Castle does deserve plenty of credit. Most of its contemporaries had either had no aiming or simple 8-directional shooting. While I'm sure something later could prove me wrong, by what has survived in public conscience, Dark Castle is the first on a path to the kind of system something like Abuse would eventually use, the ideal side-scrolling shooting system. As it plays, it shares more with artillery style games like Scorched Earth than anything else.

It was a necessary misstep, however. While the extreme trial and era wasn't uncommon in the era, especially in Mac games, mouse aiming was uncommon. Its hard to imagine why someone wouldn't just try point and click, but such things would be more complicated with the way arcing works with rocks in this game. So in a way, that misstep was mandated by the artistic choices the developer made. At least that's what it looks like without understanding the true technical issues of such things. Today, its obvious that a Dark Castle-style game would take more effort, but that's not necessarily true then.

But the big problem here is the difficulty. The way the game is set up, everything kills you and its going to if you're not careful. Except a few falls which teleport you to a different room. That is when the game switches gears from difficult to obnoxious. But the thing is that without the massive difficulty, I would have beaten this already. So I understand why its there, a game that costs over 20$ needs to have something that makes it cost that much. But honestly, for most of it, I didn't feel that bad about the game. Its just the series of rooms, Trouble, that pushed me over the edge.

There are four series of rooms, named after where they take you to, Fireball, Shield, Black Knight and Trouble. Fireball and Shield give you items, Black Knight is the final boss. Trouble is exactly what it sounds like. Unlike the other series of rooms, the end goal is the door you start off in. You're supposed to go down some stairs, climb up a rope, jump across some more, knock out a special guard, take a key that isn't trapped (its random) and return to where you started. Along with the usual assortment of vermin and skeletons. The fun part is that everything that would be a pit trap in a different game, takes you to the last part of Trouble. So you can't avoid this screen.

But let's examine that difficulty, outside of that part. Its still very cheap in places. Oh, sure, everyone and their dog were making the player a one-hit kill back in the day, and this game does offer a few situations where you can escape instant death. But enemies respawn, which is a no-no in my book. Enemies that you stun are honestly easier to fight than enemies you can kill. Then there's the player character himself. He mostly controls well, except...he falls over everything. knocked out enemies, gaps in the floor. Is the intent humor? I probably take games too seriously in general, since I'm not much for the humor in most games, but, I could probably handle this situation better than the character I'm playing as. I don't mean that as a tough guy take either, this PC is a joke.

Now there are ways to alleviate some of the difficulty, as later you get a shield and a fireball attack...but by the time you've gotten those you're well on your way to actually winning the game, so you've already figured out how to pass most of the levels. When you need those you're getting assaulted by noise and enemies you don't know how to deal with.

Dark Castle is known more for its ports to other systems. Most of these all make the game measurably worse in some aspects. The DOS version, to my understanding, while looking impressive for CGA, uses keyboard aiming, which isn't ideal. The Genesis and CD-i versions limit the controls, making moving around harder, aiming harder, and arguably make the game look worse. The CD-i in particular looks awful and doesn't even show the full screen. The rest all at least look worse. Dark Castle is one of those games that only looks good in B&W.

Weapons:
You get rocks that are later upgraded into fireballs. With the latter, you can kill enemies you couldn't before. But either way, these are all just temporary solutions, since enemies respawn like crazy. 1/10

Enemies:
You have a nice variety of enemies, with one tiny flaw. Most of them just exist as things blocking your path. They either sit around or jump around the screen, and everything's a one-hit kill. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Its nice figuring out all the little tricks you need to do to win levels, but some aspects make this game really frustrating. There are pits on several levels, and instead of killing you, like the long falls elsewhere, you get deposited in one specific level you need a key to get out of. 3/10

Player Agency:
The player has reasonable freedom of movement and aim, although the clockwise aiming function is awkward to use. What isn't good is how our hero is constantly getting dizzy or tripping over things, like some kind of bad precursor to cinematic platforming. I shouldn't have to jump over a small dip in the ground. 4/10

Interactivity:
Rare interactions with the environment, usually for puzzles. 1/10

Atmosphere:
The spooky castle environment loses its special castle charm whenever you start fighting enemies. Most of the enemies feel too cutesy to be here, and the general stupid humor tone ruins whatever they were going for. 3/10

Graphics:
Very nice B&W graphics. Most of the ports lose this, but some pick up their own charm. The background is moody, but doesn't quite capture the feel of the old horror movies its trying to emulate, too much white. The monsters are simplistic, but well-animated. 6/10

Story:
Is the story about some random dude, or a prince, taking out the Black Knight. It doesn't really matter, since it doesn't show up in-game. 0/10

Sound/Music:
The only music is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Depending on what version it is, you hear it throughout the game. The rest of the sound is mostly weird voice samples and strange sound effects. Some of them feel borderline trolling. 1/10

That's 21. I'm going to dock 2 points because this game is using difficulty to extend its length way beyond what it needs to be. So, a final rating of 19. Putting this in the realm of solid, but very noticeable issues that can ruin it for some. As this got ported to other systems its qualities became gradually removed. Usually either the graphics or the controls suffer, but the CD-i version is notable for being worse in both respects. Huzzah for that.

Glowing praise is not rare for this game, usually on the Mac, no surprise there, since this is a big nostalgia game there. There was one on the Genesis that astounded me, given that it is worse on the Genesis. But this gets vicious in the negative reviews. Beyond the infamous Angry Video Game Nerd video, we have a whole host of comparisons that I don't really feel like repeating here. Suffice to say that a lot of people did not care for this.

Next up is...I dunno. I feel like playing a racing game.