Robo Army (1991)

Game: Robo Army

Time to complete: 45min

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Difficulty:4

Fun:6

Rating on a 1-10 scale

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I didn't own or play this game as a kid to my knowledge. It's on of those Neo Geo games that I've always been interested in due to mostly to its visuals. The story involves a evil head that wants to turn the world into a robotic play-land or something. The aforementioned evil head has sent his legion of evil robots into town to do just that and only you and player 2 can stop him! That's about it for the story. At the start of every new level, he will warn you about the repercusiones for trying to stop him. It's one of those moments when I wonder if there has ever been someone so timid that they have been warned and decided they better stop playing or else. There are also the usual SNK bites on CAPCOM...

looks like someone at SNK has been playing...

Strider...

Anyway I digress, for a title made in 1991 the graphics are quite nice, specifically the design style of the futuristic backgrounds. Sound is pretty good and the voice is the same exact one used in Baseball 2020. Gameplay is typical side scrolling beat'em'up fair from the early 90's. There is really not a whole hell of allot strategy to be used, and the game has a weird power-up system that uses the same button as Kick so once you use up your power-ups you can kick as well as punch the enemy. Odd. But not as odd as the fact that you can turn into a car!

Thats you, the Pink Car Thing...

The game is pretty easy but is worth a play. I can't say that you will want to ever play it again but for one hour of your life I can think of worse things to play, cough, Burning Fight, cough...

The Super Spy

Game: The Super Spy

Time to complete: 2h 30min

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Difficulty:5

Fun:7

Rating on a 1-10 scale

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Welcome to The Super Spy! There is nothing "Spy" about it! But it sure is "Super". I've always liked this game and after playing through it again I still do which is nice :) The story you ask? Save the world from the Terrorists! Next to saving the princess, it's one of my favorits. I'm not sure where the "Spy" concept came from though. Your goal is simply to kick ass, no sneaking around required. I guess "Super Comando" was already taken...

This game has to be one of the first "First Person Shooters" ever made. It came out a full 2 years before Castle Wolfenstein 3D and certainly is one of the few 2D FPS ever made.  It pre-dates Crossed Swords by a year but has a very similar gameplay concept. The game takes place in 2 buildings. The first of which is the factory where "The Terrorists" have take over to get the "Bombs". It has 4 or 5 floors and you essentially fight waves of enemies in a series of corridors as you make your way through each floor. The cool thing here is that there are rooms in the corridors you can enter to either fight more enemies, get tips, health, or the bad ass machine gun. You can also control which way you move through the corridors and there are points where you can chose which way you want to go.

Once you make it through the factory you learn that the "Terrorists" have made off with some of the "Bombs" and are headed to the automotive company? I'm not sure what they have against a car manufacture, but hey, terrorists don't tend to be the most clear headed folks. Anyhow the automotive building is much larger then factory. I believe it's 16 floors. Overall its more of the same but the floors introduce dead ends and there are 6 "Terrorist Bosses" waiting to take you on.

Gameplay wise it's a little simpler then Crossed Swords in that you can only duck but you do have the choice of fighting with guns, a knife, or your fists. The waves of bad guys do get a little dull at points but one of my favorite aspects of the game is all of the crazy color combinations they come up with for the same 4 enemies. There are points later in the game where terrorists in Hot Pink spandex with Day Glow Orage head wraps are the norm. Hard to beat that.

In closing The Super Spy is a fun and very original title that I will always enjoy chewing through every once and a while.

Burning Fight

Game: Burning Fight

Time to complete: 1h 30min

Rating on a 1-10 scale

Difficulty:3

Fun:3

Burning Fight, wait...that looks allot like...

...Final Fight

Where to start with this one...
Ok I owe a big "You were right and I was wrong" to my buddy Brian. For years he has referred to this game as being crap. I, for some unknown reason, disagreed. I had some odd impression that it was actually a positive take on the "Final Fight" side scrolling beat'em up. What I have now come to tearms with is that this game is nothing more then a shameless, plagiaristic copy of the fore mentioned game. When I say "shameless" what I really mean is pathetic, lame, poor, crappy, etc...


Ok to the review. As I've stated in the open this game is really nothing more then a shameless clone of final fight. Now you may say, "well lots of games of that era took their cues from Final Fight due to it's comercial success" and I agree. There are a wide number of games that I love that owe allot to Capcom's Final Fight. The fundamental issue here is that we are not talking about a game that leveraged the concepts Final Fight presented, and builds upon them. What we are talking about is a game that literally tries to recreate Final Fight with just enough alteration to not spend the next decade in court.


Beyond the Final Fight issues the game is just not that much fun. The graphics and animations are OK. Music is so so and the levels are pretty bland. Beyond the elevator and subway stages there is not much in terms of creativity and what is there is is straight up stolen. This game heavily relies on making you fight the same enemies, albeit in different colors, in addition to a end level that makes you fight all of the earlier bosses over again, which is a real pet peeve of mine.


In closing I strongly recommend you play this game. Really I do! The trick is to also play through Final Fight. Only then, as I did, will you realize the true glory of Burning Fight. Every thing that Final Fight did well, Burning Fight somehow manages to take and make bad. This is truly, in my humble opinion, SNK saddest hour...

Crossed Swords

Ok just wrapped up the second game in the project. I'm going to use the format below to review each game from now on.

Game: Crossed Swords

Time to complete: 2h 30min

Rating on a 1-10 scale

Difficulty:5

Fun:7

I've always liked this game. It's very unique and has a certain charm to it. The only thing I can think of thats similar is Dynamite Duke on the Genesis. Story wise there is not much to it but that's pretty typical for SNK. There are branching paths that leed you to different special weapons but have no real effect on the overall experience. Visually it's a pretty nice looking game for being this early in the Neo's life. Sprites are nice a big, and the color pallet is bright and colorful. Gameplay is of the "Hack and Slash" variety but a heavy reliance on blocking up or down when an enemy attacks adds to the challenge. There is also an assortment of weaponry you can buy throughout the game. I guess the weapons have different strengths based on cost but what you really get is the magic power that comes along with them. This is the main reason I can see every really wanting to play through this game again. For example I used a weapon, an Axe I think, to play through the second half of the game. It gave me the power to use a shield 10 times per life. As a result most of my strategy involved using the magic at just the right time to essentially make myself invincible during boss battles. Other weapons came with attack magic which would lead to a totally different way of playing.


Overall I had fun playing through Crossed Swords and I figure will probably do so again sometime in the future. Yes it gets very repetitive, and you will have many moments when you wonder how many posible color combinations they can come up with for the same villan, oh and the final boss level is a total bitch, but as I said in the open, charm, this game has it in spades.

Baseball Stars Pro

Well well well, if it's isn't Baseball Stars Profesional. So I've had this game forever. I'm not sure why exactly... I never play it. If it's a baseball mood I'm in, its Baseball Star Pro 2 for sure, and if I'm feeling frisky perhaps Baseball 2020. It's not worth much cash so I 've never bothered to sell it. In any event, now with the "The Great Neo Geo Project of 2012" underway I can finally learn all about what I've been missing since I was 13.. to the review!

Let's talk visuals. To understand Baseball Stars Profesional it's important to understand where it came from. There are 4 games in the series, 2 on the NES (BBS and BBS2) and 2 on the Neo Geo (BBSP, BBSP2). Check the visuals...

Baseball Stars (NES)

Baseball Stars 2 (NES)

Baseball Stars Profesional (NEO GEO)

Baseball Stars Profesional 2 (NEO GEO)

Ok so now you know the deal. Visually, yes, BBSP is better then it's 2 8-Bit predecessors but as you can see, it's a far cry from the glory that is BBSP2. Though it's one of the first NEO GEO games so I can give it a pass, and it's not like we are talking about the visual suck-fest of "Legend of Success Joe"...

Now let's talk gameplay. This is where the game really shines like a fresh turd in the hot summer sun. It's hard to explain just how screwy the mechanics of this game are. It's odd since the gameplay on BBS2(NES) is quite solid. It's like when they upgraded the graphics they decided to rework everything else to a tragic result. It's unbelievably easy to hit the ball and there is not really any specific skill to be applied to the pitching in the game. Those aspects aside, it's the fielding where things really go off the cliff. The game has a amazingly annoying habit of locking fielders to a base even when the ball is hit in their general direction. The result is you often have to use the next closest player to get the ball, and unless your lucky, you are often not close enough. It's also very hard to see where your players are in relation to the ball, until it's to late. The runners are also very quick so even an infield roller is often an easy single. 

I could go on but I'll resist. Needless to say this game blows. There is really little beyond a pretty snappy soundtrack to point to as a positive. Oh did I mention that there are 16 teams and each one has different skills but there is no real way to tell what said skills are? In any event I did play through the 4 games it takes to complete the season/tournament mode and I'm glad I did. If this experience results in one positive I can say I've done it and I never will again. 

Trading card madness

As I continue to dig through the reassess of my game collection I've come across a great set of accolade Sega Genesis collectors cards, these have to be worth a ton now right? I mean, how many people actually kept this crap?

I own 10 Sega Genesis Systems...

So I've been clearing out allot of my video game collection. This is the point at which I learned that I own 10 separate versions of the Sega Genesis. I'm glad it was 10. 9 would have been a real disappointment...