Battletoads & Double Dragon

This is the fourth time I have written this. Lost twice due to computer crashing, once due to hard drive failure, and once due to the fact that I’m really sick but wrote it on my work computer, which is at work, because it seems to be the only computer in my life that isn’t crashing daily… you don’t care about my problems. Am I trying to kid myself?

Battletoads and Double Dragon is, in essence, Battletoads. Double Dragon has an influence here or there, but make no mistake: from the first level’s spaceship exterior to the following jetbikes and spelunking levels, it’s BT through and through, just slightly remixed.

This is the first game we’ve played multiplayer for this: I, as the Battletoad Rash, and Brian, as the… Double Dragon? I forget his name. Ricky or Bobby or Jimmy or something suitably borderline-white-trash-kung-fu-movie-from-the-80s. Sorry if that’s your name. I’m sure in the context of you it’s a wonderful name.

This game is a joy to play. The combat, while not among the best beat ‘em ups of all time, is made up for by the fact that there are so many gimmicks. Once you run across the first level, and figure out that headbutting everyone is the only way to stay safe, you go into a spaceship thing where you can knock guys into the ground like tent pegs. Then you get to hit people with the legs of giant robots. Then you’re in a jetbike, kicking douchebag-looking guys and jumping over stuff (this, btw, is the best example of 3D I have seen in a Super Nintendo game, period). then you’re descending into a pit on a rope. If it’s anything like the other games (I didn’t get that far in this one), there’s an ice level as well, with brutal falling icicles everywhere, and a level with giant snakes that you need to stand on as they float through some weird snake nest thing.

Anyway, here’s the thing: this game is a lot of fun. It feels very glidy, as if the entire game is an ice level, but it gives your attacks a degree of momentum that makes it incredibly satisfying. Who owns the rights to this franchise, anyway? I tried playing detective a while ago, and I think I succeeded, but that was about 3 rewrites ago and I can’t be bothered to do it again. It may be Rare, or EA, or Tradewest, or Williams, or Midway, or, hell, it could be Microsoft even that this point. Whoever it is, MAKE A NEW BATTLETOADS GAME. It’s ripe for the nostalgic ruining. I can’t wait to not like these games anymore.

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs

Rare brings another delightful experience to the table. This time, it’s in the form of a lovable, two-player beat’em up. Who can resist the charm of our favourite battletoads Zits(TM), Rash(TM) and Pimple(TM)? This time they’re out to save the world from being turned into an evil virtual reality! Oh noes! Oh, and of course to rescue one of the three, and the helpless female, cause having 3-player support world be awkward for the SNES.

The game is predictably about being awesome. What else would you be as a giant ass-kicking toad? You move through levels karate chopping big bad pigs!

Judo Chop!

You double-punch the cheap ones!

HaHA!

And you bash up the annoying ones good!

Anvil to the face, biatch!

The game is full of great times for two players. You can select between two modes. In one mode, you can hit your teammate. In the other mode, you can’t it each other. The first is great for trash talking. The second is great for actually making it anywhere in the game. It’s rather hard to beat each other up when you need every last life for those awkward jumps.

The game primarily fails in its mixing of platform with beat’em up. The beat’em up part of the game is entirely marginalized by the fact that you can lose all of your lives on a single jump because of the difficult positioning and hard-to-see relative distances into the depth of the ground layout. You can die three times in 1 second and game over. The beat’em up part, you can take quite a beating, for a while, and not lose a life, so they really act as interludes between the jumping puzzles.

The game is nearly impossible without cheat codes. Even with cheat codes, the game can still be frustrating, especially in the second stage where you have to navigate through awkward vertical spaces.

Vertical scrolling can be fun, but also annoying if the difficulty is too high.

It brings forward some amount of game design from the NES era where games had to be difficult to make them last. However, it’s good times. It’s fun, even when it’s frustrating. You have to memorize a stage in order to pass it. There’s no time to react unless you know what’s coming.

So break open a couple of beers, load up the Game Genie, and have some good times. Don’t worry if you die a whole lot. If you get annoyed, just switch game modes, and take your frustrations out on each other. Turn it into a sort of improvised fighting game. Oh, and of course, hawt chicks.

Pixelated booty badguys ftw!

Verdict: Battlemaniacs is a classic. It brings the difficulty of NES games into the SNES era, but preserves the fun format of the silly, wacky combat genre. It makes decent use of the SNES’ graphics engine, and the music creates a fun atmosphere. It’s a must for inclusion in the SNES two-player party game list, but doesn’t have as much long-term single player value. You wouldn’t want to break this game out if you were looking for something with depth.

Battle Clash

This is it. The dance. The only dance I ever loved. The only rose I ever held in my mouth. The only twin-linked machineguns that ever locked on to their target in my soul.

Games that are essentially a series of interesting boss battles hold a special place in my heart.  As such, Battle Clash charmed me immediately.  A really neat twist on the shooter-on-rails thing the Super Scope usually ended up accompanying, it’s a game where you duel with other mechs and have to figure out how to shoot them to death while defending yourself from their rockets and laser balls and whatever other sort of nastiness they fire at you.

Now, you defend yourself by shooting their shots, which immediately strikes me as unfair; you have an instant-hit machinegun or a charge-up laser blast that you have to lead a little bit, whereas they have slow globules of purple plasma and very gradual rockets that seem to be wind-powered.   I guess that makes up for the fact that your mech moves in the exact same pattern every thirty seconds, and is completely unable to dodge any gunfire whatsoever.

The best thing ever, though, is the dialogue between pilots, which consists of plain statements of their emotional states, declaration of the intent to fight, and then a tip – from yourself – on how to take advantage of the enemy’s weakness.

“You called me crazy! That’s a terrible insult.  I’m very annoyed.  Let’s fight!”

Let’s fight indeed.

I actually played this game for about six or seven rounds, facing a number of very different opponents before dying at the hands of a dude who can move super fast.    This little gem is a bastion of hope to which I cling as the endless tide of unspeakably terrible SNES games crashes down upon me, threatening to sweep me into a black, howling oblivion from which the only escape is turning off my emulator and receiving a polite message about how terribly late I am with my reviews and could I please get those done, thank you (me), that would be swell.

Batman Returns

SWEAR TO ME.

Batman Returns is a pretty sweet game.

I’ve never been a fan of the 2d beatemups, really.  I never understood the point.  It always felt like button mashing and holding forward; either it was a game designed to eat up quarters, where there’s really no way to successfully defend and stay alive and it’s a game of attrition, your wallet versus the cabinet.   Either that, or it was too easy, and you were just wading forward, tapping the attack button as waves of feeble clones fell beneath your reaping fists.

This game, though, is absorbing. Much like another game I’m playing a lot of right now, which rhymes with Teat Biter Whore, you have to do a lot of “zoning,” controlling where your enemies are in relation to you so that they are vulnerable to your attacks, but you’re not getting hit by theirs.  Pick the right attacks to do damage enough to kill and chip away at the wave, but don’t get carried away, or a fat clown will jump on you and take away about a sixth of your health.  The tradition of the zeroeth life last chance before a continue is dropped, here, so you have to be very careful.

What this amounts to is a game that makes you feel like a tiny black god of murder.  Waves of clowns – it’s always fucking clowns, isn’t it - waves of them crash down on the beach head of Gotham City, and break on the obsidian rock that is the Batman.  You are the Batman, and you don’t just punch punch kick in little canned combos.  You grab dudes, just like other beatemups.  But all you have to do is walk into them.  They don’t even stand a chance; your grim might is overwhelming.  And what do you do when you grab one of these puny jerks?  You cast them aside like the low scum they are.  You fucking hurl them against the wall, often taking down two more filthy clowns on the way.

You can jump kick, of course, sure – but you can also press down and attack to fling your cape wide and come down on your enemies like an vengeful spirit.  I’m sure I could see the fear in their eyes, if there were enough pixels for eyes, if they weren’t soulless clown automatons. You’ve got a batarang but it does not damage, it only stuns, and you have a grappling hook for swinging.   You have vials that you can drop, a nod to Bruce Wayne’s genius, which explode and kill everyone around you.

Really though, all that other shit is just there for when there aren’t walls at which to throw clowns.

It’s fairly easy to die if you’re not careful.  But that’s okay.  Because when you come back, you can grab that little bastard by the throat and punch him to death.  You can punch all of them to death, and you will, because you have a horde of little bats hiding in trashcans, waiting to give you powerups, little avatars of your rage bearing gifts.

Besides your standard 3d stage, you also get a 2d stage with ducking and projectile-focused combat, and occasional mode 7 street battles in the Batmobile.  It’s all pretty cool.  There are even some really, really slick little cutscenes with high quality graphical versions of the actors from the movie.  It’s a very pretty game.

I really have to emphasize, though, that throwing a Fat Clown into a wall, crushing a Thin Clown between the two, is one of the best feelings you will ever get from a video game.

Go do it right now.

Battle Grand Prix

A race against mediocrity

Battle Grand Prix is an excellent metaphor for my life: though I’m generally unaware of where I’m headed, I go there as quickly as possible and move erratically to defeat the attempts of imaginary snipers.

Continuing this AMAZINGLY accurate metaphor, I often crash headfirst into bags of sand and/or barrels and spin around in circles. Spending this much time in hospital beds grants me many opportunities to write reviews of SNES games! I’ve been explicitly told by doctors to stop doing this since it takes away from my will to live, but I stopped listening to medical advice as it conflicts with my love of drug cocktails. Drugs are fantastic! Take note of this, minors: now is the best time to experiment with as many drugs as possible because your still developing bodies are pretty resilient – not to mention there are a lot of nice adults that will give you all sorts of drugs if you just close your eyes and imagine that you’re at the doctor.

Seriously kids, drugs are great. I think I speak for everyone at Every Game Ever when I say you should do as many of them as often as possible. Mix and match! See what craaaazy combos you can create. Has anyone ever done heroin, speed, LSD, meth and HIGH-GRADE MAPLE SYRUP rectally? You can be the first! (You probably won’t be the first)

Let’s talk about the game for a little while so I don’t get fired from this website.

Have you ever wanted to play a racing game where you can’t really see where you’re going and your upcoming turns are determined by arrows that flash across the top of the screen a split-second before you spin out of control because you’re horrible at playing games and write reviews containing run-on sentences? Battle Grand Prix is the arrowful, crashtastic opportunity for which you’ve been waiting! It will help you to invent new curse words, many of which involve Dale Earnhardt’s grieving family and their sexual orientation.

But enough about Battle Grand Prix! I think we as a country have more important things to do with our collective time than opine on the various aspects of Battle Grand Prix. What has Battle Grand Prix really ever done for society? Did it invent penicillin? No. Did Battle Grand Prix contribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989? Again, no. Did Battle Grand Prix have anything to do with producing the excellent E4 drama Skins? Surprisingly yes because Maxxie’s wardrobe was completely financed by racing video games. I don’t know what that last sentence was supposed to mean: I write with my heart, not my brain. That’s why most of my work is about pumping blood through blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions and also Wikipedia.

Why should you waste your time playing this game when you can go out and steal a real race car? Your drug cocktail should be going full bore now and this sounds like an amazing idea! DO IT!

Battle Cars

If Bill gets there first it's the slave pits for me for sure!

So I’ve been playing a lot of Street Fighter 4. A lot. Like 250 matches in 4 days alot. It’s not right. While I was slogging through the arcade mode I was wondering why there was even a plot anymore. I thought that I basically might be happy with being given a selection of weirdly dressed international stereotypes and have them fight. Maybe they don’t even need names. Stretchy swami guy vs. punch drunk boxer guy. That might be enough.

But there’s still a plot, and still cut scenes and they’re a little irritating because I don’t really care. I just want to fight weird stereotypes against other weird stereotypes.

But Battle Cars, my friends, Battle Cars. Battle Cars reminds me what it’s like to be dumped into a game without being told anything. If I had been a SNES owner when this game came out and had chanced to rent it, I probably would have at least recieved a hastily photocopied manual explaining what exactly I was to do with my car. You begin the game. There is a title screen, you choose to play single player and you are driving. It is Mode-7 with kind of an F-Zero feel. You start driving, there are other cars. You have some missiles and things that you can shoot at them if you feel so inclined.

30 SECONDS LEFT flashes on your screen. You keep driving, wondering where you’re going or whether you’re supposed to shoot that guy, wondering who in the future decided to name a city Newtroit.

10 SECONDS LEFT flashes on the screen. You try to pour on the speed even though you can’t because you’re already holding down the A button and there’s no button for go faster so you stay the course.

A race starts right after that, you go around the track. There’s nothing that tells you what place you’re in, or indeed what you’re supposed to do. You just drive circles around this track for awhile and maybe shoot at guys and then it tells you you won. Then you go back to another road trip. I did this three times before it told me I lost. I’m not really too sure what’s going on with this.

Battle Cars feels less like a game and more like a morning commute in the future. Like you get in your car and your wife (except they don’t use that word anymore, they use a word that means the same thing but has more Zs in it) yells a string of well-meaning expletives after you. You check your air filter that’s made by one company because in the  future one company makes everything because the free market and human hubris leads to political oppression and commercial monopoly. Your air filter is still good so it’s time for you to head to the MegaCorp Omniplex in downtown Newtroit and you have to get there before your workmate Bill who has an eyepatch and wears that Mad Max biker gear even though everyone is doing the silver jumpsuit now. If he gets there first he’s gonna tell your boss that the notes on the Xulutsemon account aren’t done yet and you’ll get thrown in the slave pits for sure.

Review Over!!

You have some missiles.

It’s go time.

BattleBlaze

Imagine a peaceful land. A land undisturbed by evil, uncorrupted by anger, jealousy, and hatred.

Imagine a land where men can gather and compare dicks over a pint of mead. This is the fabled land of Virg.

A land so pure that having the milky bounty of your junk wrestled out by someone’s mighty calloused fists is totally cool in the middle of a bar because jerking some dude’s hairy boner off in public is
commonplace. So your hands get a little sticky. No big deal, they have packs of wild dogs roaming around the bar. They’ll take that mess of your hands in a quick second.

Virg is a place where dudes can put whatever they want in each others’ dick holes. And no one every bleeds from fucking too hard. And you never get poop on your wiener. Or if you do you don’t care. Once again: wild dogs. Virg is a family vacation hotspot.

And then in the middle of slapping some dude’s wang around with your mouth this fucking guy, the Dark Lord, decides he’s going to murder your dad because the Cosby Show is a rerun and he’s fucking bored. So one minute your dad’s got some dude’s meaty hog halfway to his lungs and the next he’s a pile of blood pulp and flesh ribbons. And you’re pissed. So you go on a fucking quest to kill this dude.

You’re fucking mashing the same button over and over because the people at American Sammy don’t give a fuck enough to help you on your journey of justifiable vengeance. You can’t do shit. You flail around with your fucking sword like an epileptic at a disco. Oh shit, you’re fighting this fucking dog man named Schnauzer (like the dog). So you
beat his dick off and then you continue on your way.

Ok you get bored and really want to head back to the bar. Fuck. This sucks. Your dad was kind of a prick anyway right? I mean he wouldn’t let you watch Robocop because there was too much blood so you had to finish your pizza at the kitchen table and not in the living room. And then you came home from Karate class and he made you watch an episode
of My Little Pony with your sister. It was the one where this pop singer helps his manager steal people’s souls. Fuck it. You return to the bar to suck everyone’s sweaty dick.

5 stars.

- Scotty

Batman Forever

Batman Forever

Oh em gee! Batman is like so totally awesome! I get to play and review Batman Forever!  Joyest of days!  I love Batman!  He’s so kool, and sexy, and kevlar-covered!  I turn on the game, my glee barely contained…

…

Mommy?

…

Why is that man putting that thing up Batman’s bum?

…

Mommy?

…

Why does Batman look like he’s liking it?

…

Yes, my friends, this is what we refer to as FRANCHISE RAPE!

It was from Akklaim, so I had my hopes that it wouldn’t blow donkey chunks.  Clearly I was smoking some good pot.  And I want some more.  The game is one of the first to use characters that are actually /filmed/, and then transformed into awkward looking, impractical, SNES-y feel characters.  And they display this fact PROUDLY!  As if it’s some sort of epic advancement in game development.  Look! We can make our sprites look like retards that sway back and forth between /3/ different movement effects!  Don’t you want to give us $70 for this!?!

They actually filmed it in a studio.  And they have /credits for the actors/ in the opening sequence.  The models look like they all have Parkinson’s.  I’ve seen bad GIFs on webpages that have more lifelike movements than these characters.

Still.  It’s 1995.  Let’s give it the benefit of the doubt.  Let’s play a few stages.  The game plays like Mortal Kombat Sub-Zero for PSX.  Only with worse controls and worse level design.  Yes, it’s possible.  In fact, I’m convinced that they used this same game code as the platform for the development of Sub-Zero.  The moves are cheapened, awkwardified versions of similar moves in the Mortal Kombat games.  The sound effects for the moves are sad.  The music is so bad that there’s an option to TURN IT OFF in the game menu.  After playing for 3 minutes, I reset and turned the music off.  Clearly they figured out it would piss people off, but instead of making BETTER MUSIC, they just added an option to turn it off.  Sad.

It's like the Street Fighter Movie game, only with worse graphics, worse gameplay, and worse level design. Who knew turds came in shades of greenish brown?

The game has loading times that are worse than disk-based games.  This is a CARTRIDGE-BASED SYSTEM!  I’ve seen PSX games load faster.  Every time you exit the screen, you pause for a 10 second load.  Inexcusable.  The level design is so bad that within 5 minutes of gameplay, you have to look up what the fuck you’re supposed to do because you’re stuck, in a room, with nowhere to go.  No exits, nothing.  You just walk back and forth.  It’s not a riddle, it’s retarted!

Srsly? You want me to wait for you to load the next 3 meters of stage? And it's not even the traditional "please wait". It's "hold the fuck up"! It's like this game was written by irate New Yorkers.

You would think that after the dismal failure of games like these in the SNES era, that companies like Akklaim would have learned.  But no, they went on to rape our franchises and our eye sockets again in the PSX era and beyond.  If you missed this one back in the day, be happy you did.

Verdict:  The animation uses the SNES’s power in a fumblingly-awkward way that is not at all appealing.  The loading times are pathetic.  The music is so bad you want to turn it off – and have the option to do so.  The controls are so terrible that in my entire play time I was able to execute a special move exactly twice – both times while flailing angrily at the controls.  The level design makes you want to choke someone.  This game is just a footnote in the attempts at merging cinematography with games.  An abysmal failure, but a step towards understanding how games and cinema really have closer ties than we thought back in 1995.  I suppose failures like this one were necessary to build the bridge to awesomeness like Metal Gear Solid less than a decade later.

Bassin’s Black Bass

Never has there been a video game more accurate to the human condition: you are named, and from naming, your existence is birthed (my character was named “Sad Old-Bastard”). You go from tournament to tournament, attempting to struggle to a respectable place in a competition whose relevance is… yeah, comparable to that of a bass fishing competition on a SNES game; you float around in a boat as a timer slowly ticks down the minutes to your miserable, lonely end to your miserable, wasted existence; bland boating moments are only interrupted by blander fishing moments, where the filthy, washed-out green-blue of the water is all you can survey from your stupid boat with your stupid rod and you stupid fishing hat.

I have looked Death in the maw today. I am now at peace with all. I am also hungry for braised fucking salmon. Go figure.

Bass Masters Classic: Pro Edition

We havin' fun yet?

Facts about me.

1) I hate fish.
2) I hate the way fish look.
3) I hate the way fish taste.
4) I hate fishing.
5) I hates games about fishing.
6) I would rather munch on my grandmother’s mangy decrepit box than play this game again.

I’ll be honest here. I had this game growing up, not that I ever played it but I can damn sure remember my dad playing. So I called Daddy up and asked him what he remembered about the game (so that I can get out of actually playing this) and while he didn’t remember much, he did remember the feeling that he had wasted a couple bucks buying it. Not a good start.

I played this game for 10 minutes. 10 minutes of boring. Here’s how things go for me. I turn the game on, I’m unimpressed by it’s graphics. The music is annoying, I hit the mute button on my laptop. I select a fisherman, I get out onto the water. Woopity do.

I cast my rod in, get it a little wet, pull out, go home. Just another day, I guess.

Don’t play this game.