Platform Game Review: Commander Keen - Invasion of the Vorticons: The Earth Explodes

The Earth Explodes is chapter two of Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons, a three-episode platform game developed by iD Software and published by Apogee Software.

Commander Keen flies his Bean-with-Bacon mega-rocket home from Mars, only to discover that the Vorticons have a cannon aimed at Earth. Commander Keen must go to the Vorticon mothership to stop the destruction of his planet. 

Episode two continues Commander Keen’s fight with the Vorticons, as he explores the caves of the Vorticon planet, does battle with the top Vorticon ninja fighters, and discover the secret of the Grand Intellect.

Compared to the first episode, this one does have a steep difficulty curve. The levels are harder both in terms of enemies as well as in terms of level design. When I played this game as a little girl I got stuck near the end because I couldn't traverse one of the later levels. Even as an adult, I had to check YouTube for the way to the exit. There's only one level that is truly that dastardly, but it does bring the quality of the game down a bit as it's never fun to fight against the design of the game.

Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons is the second episode of a trilogy, but sadly it is not as well designed as the first. It has a steep difficulty curve, and one level in particular is difficult to get through without an external guide. As this is part of a trilogy of games based on the same engine, the lack of music is one of the real drawbacks in this game. Like the first episode, however, this is solved by using the excellent fan-produced music pack in the modern interpreter of the game, Commander Genius.

It pains me to say it, as I love the Commander Keen series, but this episode is just not worth playing unless you want to play through the entire trilogy. The other two episodes are better than this one, so it's worth picking up the trilogy bundle, but I would recommend giving this one a pass.

Final Verdict:

2½ out of 5

Arcade Fighting Game Review: Mega Man - The Power Battle

Mega Man: The Power Battles is a very unique arcade game. Mega Man is a platforming game icon. The mid-1990s brought him to other video game genres including board games, soccer, and racing. 1995 brought him into a genre that Capcom had mastered at that point, two-dimensional one-on-one arcade fighters.

Mega Man's boss battles are essentially one-on-one fighters themselves. So, Capcom stripped away the platform game aspects of Mega Man's most popular games and left just the battles. There are three fighters to choose from, each with their own bosses and storyline. Mega Man faces six boss battles taken from his first two games. Proto Man takes on six bosses taken from the next three mainline games. Finally, Bass takes on bosses from Mega Man 7, which was the game that saw the premiere of the character.

The gimmick of the Mega Man series thankfully returns here. When a robot boss is defeated, the current playable character earns it. That weapon can then be used on other robot bosses with the press of a button.

Once the six robot bosses are defeated, a penultimate boss appears. Mega Man and Proto Man both face the Yellow Devil from Mega Man's first outing as a hero, while Bass faces VAN Pookin, a boss that appeared in his first appearance in the series. As is usual with Mega Man games, the final boss for all three characters is Dr. Wily, who appears in a killer robot that he invented. This time around it is a giant floating Wily Machine which must be defeated in three different forms.

The artwork is spectacular, bringing the Mega Man to life in all of his 16-bit glory. It looks very much like Mega Man's Super NES outings, which is a good thing indeed. The SNES games contain some of the best sprite and background work in the entire series The soundtrack is spectacular, taking full advantage of Capcom's venerable CP System, or CPS-1, board. The music is just the right mix of Mega Man and Street Fighter II, and using the board that powered the latter was a stroke of genius. The board was discontinued in 1995, the year that Mega Man: The Power Battles was released. It was long in the tooth but still contained enough bite to bring the blue bomber to arcades a game that was one of four final games for the CPS-1, and was a great capper to that system's legacy.

Mega Man: The Power Battles is an arcade game that takes one of the best aspects of the Mega Man games, the boss battles, and presents them in the form of a one-on-one fighter. The venerable CPS-1 arcade board is utilized fantastically here. The artwork, gameplay, and music are all fantastic. The fact that all of the nuances are here, including the capture and use of boss weapons, makes this an arcade game that will certainly entertain fans of the Mega Man series and fighting game fans alike.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Free-to-Play Endless Runner Video Game Review: Super Mario Run

Super Mario Run is Nintendo's successful attempt to take the tried-and-true Super Mario series and blend it with the popular endless runner genre for Android and iOS devices.

It's a no-brainer really. The Super Mario series consists of 2D and 3D platforming games that are all about running and jumping. Super Mario Run takes these elements and wraps them in 3D graphics on a 2D scrolling playfield. Of course, when you simplify Mario's moves down to a single screen tap, things have to be changed up a bit. Tapping the screen when Mario is on a wall causes him to perform a wall jump, an acrobatic leap first seen in Super Mario 64. There are also pause blocks on the floor which cause Mario to stand in place. They don't appear often, but when they do, Mario can use them to better time his jumps.

There are also many other characters that can be unlocked, including Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Toad, Toadette, and multiple colors of Yoshi including green, red, blue, yellow, and purple. These characters have their own quirks that help out in game play. Many of these abilities stemmed from the international Super Mario Bros. 2, including Luigi's high jumps, Peach's glide ability. The speed inherent to Toad in that game also applies to Toadette's by proxy. Yoshi's flutter jumps from the Yoshi's Island subseries of Super Mario games also appears here. Daisy gains an ability unique to this game, which is the capability to perform a double jump.

Since this was Nintendo's first mobile game, it employed the fair process of upgrading from free to premium as seen in most of Nintendo's free-to-play Nintendo 3DS games. Paying a set fee of $10 USD enables the entire game. This unlocks worlds past 1-4 in World Tour mode. It also opens up the ability to unlock Peach, as the ability to play as the Princess Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom unlocks after she is saved from Bowser's clutches in world 6-4.

The music in these World Tour levels are at a quality expected from a Nintendo title. It really has a nostalgic feeling, only heightened by the use of classic sound effects and short vocals from the same actors who portray the characters in other games.

Other playable game modes include Toad Rally, a fun game where the goal is to play against a saved run from another player to see try to collect more toads than your opponent. Picking up coins cause more toads to flock to your side. Picking up a star or wonder flower causes a coin rush, in which many coins appear in the game field. The winner of the game is the player with the most coins, which means they have amassed the most Toads.

Coins can be used in Kingdom Builder mode to purchase items to place in the player's Mushroom Kingdom. This is highly customizable and gives each player a unique kingdom, although sadly it's for your eyes only as other player's kingdoms can not be visited. Some unique decorations have also appeared periodically to promote various games in the wider Mario series.

The last game mode is Remix 10. This adds some spice to the World Tour levels. The goal is to complete short remixes of these levels. Each level contains three bonus medals. Collecting these range from easy jumps to harder jumps that require Mario to jump off objects or enemies. A special award, a decoration to use in your Mushroom Kingdom, is gained after completing ten levels. After thirty levels are completed, the player will unlock Princess Daisy.

Super Mario Run is a fun little mobile game that places Mario firmly in the endless runner genre. It contains all of the hallmarks of games in the wider Super Mario series, including the fantastic cartoony backgrounds and character models, music, sound effects, and vocals. The fact that there are five unique playable characters and five variants gives it more variety, as does the various play modes. The standard world-based gameplay of World Tour is the game's bread-and-butter, but once that is completed there is still fun to be had in Remix 10, which adds short remixes of these levels and collectibles for the player to use to decorate their Mushroom Kingdom. The real standout here is the online Toad Rally mode. It's a lot of fun to play against ghost runs from other players to see if you can do better than them before time runs out. Chances are this is where most of your time playing this game will accrue. The game didn't light the world on fire, but for a reasonable price to unlock everything, it's a satisfying little time-waster.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Arcade Beat 'Em Up Game Review: X-Men

X-Men is an arcade beat 'em up. It is one of approximately ten arcade games in that genre developed by Konami in the 1990s

It is the only video game which has character designs based on the animated pilot X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men. The playable character roster includes Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler and Dazzler. The fact that the character designs are taken from the Pryde pilot actually works well for the game because those designs were based on some classic art from the comics, albeit sometimes in different colors such as Dazzler's jacket being brown instead of blue. Some of the designs are great for comics fans, such as Wolverine in the brown and tan colors given to him by the Marvel Comics artist John Byrne.

As is usual for Konami beat 'em ups of the era, the sprite work is superb. The pixel art really does resemble its source material to a tee. The animation is great here, with expressive movements that bring each Marvel hero to life as well as the animated series it is based on. The backgrounds are also well designed, perfectly bringing the world of the X-Men to the pixelated world of 1990s arcade games.

The music was always excellent in the classic Konami arcade games, and X-Men is no exception. The music captures the atmosphere of the Marvel universe fantastically. The sound effects also compliment the music. They also fit into the game world well, as they range from the mundane fight sound effects to futuristic sounds when the game veers from comic logic into science fiction territory, which is often.

The plot is simple. The X-Men have to defeat their archenemy, the master of magnetism, Magneto. He is once again trying to upend human civilization and is sending many mutants that are on his side after the X-Men. There are many classic X-Men villains that appear in this game. The villains that appear the most due to their non-human nature are the mutant-hunting robots known as the Sentinels and the X-Men-hating cyborgs known as the Reavers. The former should be familiar to most X-Men fans as they appeared in one of the best X-Men movies produced by 20th Century Fox, X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Other enemies that appear in the game are classic X-Men villains. Many should be familiar as they have appeared in various X-Men films. These mutants include Mystique, Pyro, Blob, the White Queen Emma Frost, and Juggernaut. The small Sentinels in X-Men: Days of Future Past were based on the nearly indestructible Sentinal-descendant known as Nimrod from the comic of the same name. He appears in the game in his full glory. The other villains never appeared in the films, but they have crossed the paths of the X-Men in the comics many times. These two villains are the Living Monolith and Wendigo.

Although he isn't a playable character, the benefactor of the X-Men, Professor X, appears in the game when he is kidnapped by Magneto. As it is based on the Pryde of the X-Men pilot, it's only natural that when Charles Xavier is captured, Kitty Pryde would be captured as well. This culminates in a tense final boss battle against the master of magnetism himself.

X-Men is a fantastic arcade game that brings the world of the X-Men circa the 1990s to life in a bombastic fashion. Although the Pryde of the X-Men animated television pilot was never picked up for a full series, the choice to use the character models for the game was a wise decision. The pilot had looks for the X-Men that were pulled from classic comics but were rarely seen outside of them, including Wolverine's classic brown and tan suit. As an X-Men fan, it was fun to see these designs in action in a video game. The sprite and background art are fantastic, the music and sound effects are top notch, and the beat 'em up formula is Konami at its best. Any fan of arcade beat 'em ups owes it to themself to try this game at least once. It's truly astonishing.

Final Verdict:

Arcade Multidirectional Shoot 'Em Up Game Review: Asteroids

Asteroids is a multidirectional shoot 'em up game that was released by Atari to arcades in 1979. It was highly successful, led to many sequels by Atari and its successors, and inspired games from other companies.

It is a game where a spaceship is floating in space and asteroids are flying into it. The goal is to shoot asteroids as well as the asteroid chunks that explode from them. The ship has a thruster which can be used to avoid the asteroids, but the ship will continue in the direction of the thrust unless another is initiated in another direction. Flying saucers will also periodically appear, and like Space Invaders before it, bonus points will be awarded if they are destroyed.

As the ship is in space, the ship can be rotated three-hundred sixty degrees. This rotation can help aim towards the asteroids to line up a shot as well as to choose a direction to move the ship. It is really helpful as the rotation happens quickly, so a well timed activation of the thrusters can keep the ship from blowing up from an asteroid hit.

For as timeless as the gameplay feels, the sound is relegated to simple sounds for the thrust, shots, asteroid explosions, ship explosions, and saucer sounds. There is also a thumping sound, akin to a heartbeat, that increases in intensity as the game goes on. 

The graphics in Asteroids are something that the video game industry hasn't seen in decades outside of retro releases. The displays we are used to are raster that use grids of pixels to display graphics, while Atari's Asteroid used a vector monitor. These monitors used sharp lines for its graphics, which created geometrical shapes without the ability to fill in objects.

There were color vector monitors, but Asteroids was completely in black and white. This actually works well for a game set in the endless dark of space. The triangle-shaped ship with two prongs at the bottom should look familiar to most people. It's the shape of the default marker on navigation devices using the cluster of over thirty satellites that make up the United States Global Positioning System,

The reason for this is interesting. Etak, the company founded in 1983 by Stan Honey, Ken Milnes, and Alan Philips was funded by Catalyst Technologies, a technology incubator that was founded by Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari. Etak pioneered navigational systems and designed the arrow icon specifically after the ship from Asteroids. Modern GPS navigators descend from the Etak Navigator, and the Asteroids ship is the most visible aspect that shows this today.

Asteroids is a classic that is still fun to play today. The vector graphics are antiquated now, but they still do an admirable job portraying the space ships and asteroids. The vector trail left by the shots are also trippy when played on real hardware or in emulators that have simulation of that effect. That's something that isn't seen in today's screens without purposefully coding a simulation of the effect into a game. The uniqueness of the vector effects and the timeless gameplay make this a game that deserves to be played by any shoot 'em up fan for a game or two, if not more.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Arcade Vertically Scrolling Shoot 'Em Up Review: Meta Fox

Meta Fox is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Seta and distributed by International Video Consumer Systems and Romstar.

This was the first fully working arcade cabinet I ever owned, way back in 2000 when I was 20. It is the reason that I used the name MetaFox on the internet for years. I still use that name, as a matter of fact, on projects for which I volunteer, such as in my work on the ScummVM wiki. That's why it took me a while to even consider to review this one. I've decided to do so now, as I'm fully confident that I can separate the game itself from my intimate history with the name in order to do as close to an unbiased review as possible.

Meta Fox is one of several vertically scrolling shooters in the vein of Capcom's 19XX series. Up to to players simultaneously take control of a plane flying over terrain or water. Planes will attack and ground weapons will also fire up at the red and blue player planes.

The controls are simple. Each player has an eight-way joystick to control the vertical and horizontal movement of their respective airplane. There are just two buttons. One fires bullets, which are unlimited. The other button fires a limited number of bombs. The bombs are especially useful as they will clear all enemies from the entire current screen.

There are upgrades that can be grabbed from some defeated enemies. P powerups will upgrade the primary weapon by increasing its power, the rate of fire, and the spread of the bullets fired in order to hit multiple enemies at once. There are also upgrades which allow players to carry and release more screen clearing bombs.

The graphics are what you'd expect from a game of its genre. They cover desert terrain, large swaths of water, aircraft carriers, and enemy targets like bases, tanks, and trucks. The bullet animations get bigger and brighter as the upgrades are gained, which really help to sell the bombastic presentation when paired with the sound.

Speaking of sound, this is the part that really elevates the game over many of its competitors. Everything is big and loud by design. The firing and explosion sounds are intense. The collect sound has a unique quality that keeps it noticeable while the soundtrack is playing. The soundtrack is where the game shines. The main song loop has a nice 1980s punk rock vibe that is just a blast to listen to. It gives a dash of adrenaline when it starts at the beginning of each stage. The really unique part is the song that plays during the final boss fight and the ending credits. It's a punk rock song complete with vocals from a female singer that has a voice reminiscent of Joan Jett or Nancy Wilson from Heart. 

Meta Fox is a fun vertically scrolling shooter. It isn't a classic of the genre as it is derivative of games such as Capcom's much more well known 19XX series with its graphics, gameplay, and powerups. The thing that takes it beyond mere clone territory, however, is its sound design. The sound effects are big and bombastic, especially paired with the fantastic punk rock soundtrack. It's that aspect alone that might entice you to give this one a try if you ever manage to come across it.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Action Game Review: Spider-Man

Spider-Man was an action game by Parker Brothers that was developed by one of the earliest female video game designers, Laura Nikolich. It was the first video game based on a Marvel Comics character and it was the first Spider-Man video game.

  
Spider-Man scales a building while defusing bombs set by his iconic enemy, the Green Goblin. The limitations of the Atari 2600 actually worked in favor for the game, as he doesn't climb up the wall but uses his webs to swing vertically and diagonally. This gives it an authentic Spider-Man feel and differentiates it from Nichibutsu's Crazy Climber, which was still fresh in the mind of gamers as it had only been released two years earlier.

However, its age and console limitations also limit the amount of sound produced. There is the whoosh of the web, clacking of the Green Goblin's glider, and explosion from the bombs. Beyond that, there is a neat chiptune track that plays at the start of the game. The limited sound doesn't really hinder the game that much, all things considered, as it's a classic arcade formula that works for the time period of the game's release.

Spidey has to avoid criminals that move randomly through the building, can be seen in windows, and can be captured. He can also capture them upon contact. There's an additional challenge due to the fact that the criminals in the window will cut Spider-Man's web if they come into contact with it. However, the web slinger can prevent himself from losing a life by slinging a web before he falls too far down the screen.

As Spider-Man gets higher up the building, he can defuse bombs set by the Green Goblin. The bombs are black until they change to red when they are about to explode. If Spidey defuses a red bomb in time to prevent its explosion, he will gain more points than the bombs that remain black. 

Just as he doesn't have to capture the criminals in the windows, he also can just avoid the exploding bombs. However, capturing criminals and defusing bombs will refill Spider-Man's web fluid. If this fluid runs out, Spidey will fall off the building and lose a life. The amount of web fluid left in his web shooters can be seen via a red indicator bar at the lower right of the screen.

At the top of the building, Spider-Man has to stop Green Goblin's plan. He has set several small bombs as well as a large super bomb. Spider-Man has to stop a set number of enemies and bombs until the super bomb has its fuse lit. Once Spider-Man successfully avoids the Green Goblin and defuses his super bomb, the level ends. 

Because it is a game from the early 1980s, the point of the game is to earn as many points as possible, as it is designed like an arcade game. Once the Green Goblin is defeated, Spider-Man will have to climb a building with faster enemies and bombs. The levels continue until Spider-Man loses all his life.

Spider-Man is a solid first outing for Marvel's resident web head. The arcade-style gameplay is fun and challenging, and the use of his webs and web fluid is well thought out and works perfectly in sync with the source material. There are limited sound effects and music, as the latter is restricted to the beginning of each level. It's not a classic, but it's not a dud. You can still a fun time playing it for a quick game fix today. That's the real test of time, and Spidey definitely passes the bar. 'Nuff said!

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5