Twelve Months, Sixty Dollars and a Gameboy Advance: October

F24 Stealth Fighter
by Majesco

The fun thing about this project is the opportunity to discover great new games for a beloved system that are inexpensive.  The real joy is uncovering a DK: King of Swing or Sword of Mana.  The exact opposite of that is F24 Stealth Fighter.

I was dismayed last month when the Pirates of the Caribbean game turned out to be a pile.  Thanks to F24 Stealth Fighter, those look like the salad days.  Oh how I wish for a game as playable as Pirates...

As I might have mentioned, I'm not a big cockpit fighter gamer.  I like Blazing Angels for the Wii.  I like Rogue Leader and Rogue Squadron.  If it's going to be a cockpit fighter game for me, it needs to be intuitive and easy to control.  The fancier you get and the more complicated you make the controls the faster you lose me.  And if you are going to make the controls really complicated, you need to ease me into it so I get a chance to learn (the same goes for race car games, Alfa Romeo...) and then master.  Majesco didn't get this memo.  Either that or they simply do not love me.

Maybe less cockpit and more sky would help...

Oh sure, the first mission seems simple enough: take out some enemy fighter jets in straight combat over the ocean.  Easy.  Excepting that it is next to impossible to maneuver your stealth fighter, or if it is possible to maneuver it, it is impossible to know that you are doing it right.  Oh sure, I read the 4 pages of in-game instructions on how to pilot the craft (you only have to hold 2 buttons simultaneously to alter your thrust, you know, intuitive).  I realize that all you have to do is bank left or right and climb or dive.  It sounds simple enough.  I get where the radar is and what it says.  Heck, I even get the targeting system.  But "getting" those things and putting them to use are two very different things.

Once in the air, I was lost.  Turn this way or that, fine, but it is impossible to tell if you are moving forward and if so at what rate.  A point of reference would be great, anything, a big cloud, cresting waves in the water below, I'll take it.  Instead, nothing.  But, wait, here comes an enemy jet!  That's fine, focus on it and forget about the disorienting environment.  Here it comes....WHOOOOSH!  there it goes.  Turn, turn, turn!  Quick!  Turn around and get behind it.  No wait, don't roll!  Turn damn you.  Turn!  Wait, where did it go?  Did I turn? I know I rolled, but I think I turned.  I should at least be able to see it somewhere on the screen.  The radar says it should be right there.  Maybe if I speed up, I can catch it.  Which two buttons increase speed again?  There.  Did I do it?  No way to know.  Oh, wait here comes the jet again!  Shoot!  Shoot!   WHOOOOOOOSH.  There it goes again!  Turn!  Turn!  No!  NOT ROLL!  Dammit!  Now I'm upside down.  Great.  Where is the enemy jet now?  No way to know.  Radar says it is nearby.  Maybe it is under me.  Dive!  Get that bastard!  THUMP!  Shit.  Something shot me from behind!  Turn!  Turn!  Where is it?  This is stupid.  Wait, am I still diving?  Uh-oh....

And that was about all I could take.  I spent 3 more attempts very eerily similar to the one described above in an effort to learn how to play this game.  The game fought back hard and eventually won.  I tried to use the targeting display in the hopes that it would take some of the guess work out.  Chuck Testa with another realistic mount.  (yeah, I know it's an annoying meme, but it cracks me up).  Maybe it was the game, but I just couldn't crack this one.  So I spent about 30 minutes tops (as much as my $5 was really going to buy if the game didn't grab me) and then decided it was time to move on.

Speaking of things that crack me up and moving on, let's forget the horrible waste of $5 that was F24 Stealth Fighter and look forward to Thanksgiving coming up by watching this bizarre video:

See you at the end of November....

Twelve Months, 60 Dollars and a GBA: September

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
by TDK

Here is exactly, word-for-word, how the meeting at TDK went about two months before this game was released:

Big Boss:  Great news folks!  We landed the rights to the new Disney movie based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  Test markets suggest that this movie will be big.  If that is true, then a Pirates game will sell huge!

Mid-Level Executive:  Uh, sir.  Two months isn't anywhere close to enough time to create a tie-in game for this movie.

Big Boss:  Hmm. Yes, that is true.  Even with developers working around the clock, we wouldn't make it.  The bad news is, I already have the boys down in marketing working on the ad campaign.  Do we have any development teams already working on a pirate-themed game?

Mid-Level Executive:  Well, those guys down at Pocket Studios were working on a Sid Meier clone.

Big Boss:  Perfect!  Get them on the phone!  How far along is their progress?

Mid-Level Executive:  I think they are almost to playtesting.

Big Boss: More perfect!  Call down there and tell them that we need to make a few minor cosmetic changes to the game.  See how fast they can get me a demo.

Mid-Level Executive: Uh, sir?

Big Boss:  You're right, screw the demo, just take whatever they've got and get it over to the manufacturer. I want this game on the shelves in two weeks.

Mid-Level Executive: Yes sir.

Move along, nothing to see here.

There is a moral to this story:  Do not buy Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl for the Game Boy Advance.  Even if you see it for $5, or even $2.95 like I did.
Basically it's like a kids' game that really sucks.  Slow, low on action, and riddled with boorish tasks that create the illusion of a story where there really is none, and a virtually non-existent relationship to the movie that it is supposedly based upon.

I'll waste no more of your time this month, or mine: the wife wants me to play Earthbound (I'm a virgin)

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a GBA: May

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
from Nintendo

I love F-Zero.  The N64 version is probably my favorite, but the franchise as a whole provides one of the best, turbo-charged racing games you will ever play. So when I was at Too Many Games earlier this month and saw the GBA F-Zero for only $4, May's installment of 12/60/1 was a no-brainer. (Apologies MUST HAVE Music and More, I'll be back in June...)  Little did I realize just what I was in for.

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity for the GBA is TOUGH.  I mean, I've played my fair share of F-Zero and still this game kicked my butt, repeatedly.  For the shameful record, I never completed the Pawn circuit on Beginner as of writing this article and it was not for the lack of trying.  However, I'm not sure that my difficulties were with in the game, I think it has more to do with the inherent learning curve that is associated with these kinds of games.  Simply put, you have to learn the tracks and race them repeatedly to master the game.  I know this because I have pretty much mastered the first track and now win it while lapping all of the other cars. Given the busy month I've had, I wasn't able to devote the kind of time it requires, but rest assured, I will, because while the game is hard it is also fun.
I'm also not entirely sure that I'm not having trouble with the controls on the GBA:SP I am using.  The shoulder buttons either activate the booster or the brake depending on how you set it up.  Unfortunately, I was unable to settle on a configuration that really fit my play.  So part of my difficulty could merely be in getting comfortable with the controls.

But none of that takes away from the fact that F-Zero: MV  is a lot of fun.  It's everything that is great about F-Zero, only it goes with you.  And the fact that I was able to find it for under $5 means, that you don't have to break the bank just to enjoy a great racing game on the go!  The graphics are solid, the sound is decent, but the game play is pretty much spot on.  If you can find F-Zero:MV for under $5 I strongly recommend you snag it.  Heck if you can find it for $10, you should still snag it.

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a GBA: April

A Sound of Thunder
from our friends at bam!

This was going to be Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but Aimee said, "don't get another movie tie-in," so I started looking for something else.  Tucked away at the back of the case was this game, A Sound of Thunder which no one in the shop, customers or staff, had ever heard of.  It was priced at $1.95, a sure sign it was a real winner.  As a courtesy, the owner of the store made an attempt to look the game up online.  The only thing he could bring up was a picture of the box art: an image of a man shooting a dinosaur in the mouth.  Things were looking up.  How bad could a game be where you either shoot a dinosaur in the mouth, or you try to eat a puny human as he meekly tries to defend himself?  Either way it's a win, right?  For $1.95 I was willing to find out...

Oh how I wish this were a Prince of Persia review...

 

Would that I could, Mr. Gyllanhaal...

But instead here we are with A Sound of Thunder, which as it turns out is a movie tie-in after all.  I'm probably the only person who has not seen this 2005 neo-classic, but if there are others like me out there, let me give you the scoop.  The movie, and subsequent game, centers around a time traveling hunter who inadvertently causes a butterfly effect when he accidentally sets off a chain reaction in the prehistoric era that  threatens to rip the fabric of space/time apart.  All in all, what could be a fun premise. If the movie was executed half as poorly as the game, it is no wonder Franchise Pictures is not a household name.

Think Tomb Raider without a buxom brunette and interesting level design and you pretty much have A Sound of Thunder.  The level design is uninspired.  The puzzle elements are weak and poorly implemented.  Difficulty is a mixed bag: some levels you can literally sprint through, in others you run out of ammo so often it's tiresome trying to alternately run away from the little dinos and zap them with your taser stick.  The game never inspires much fun and to that point I only made it about half-way through before saying enough was enough.

A typical day at the office

Graphically, the game is alright for a GBA game.  The characters and enemies are a little garbled, but the environments are well rendered.  The real shame is that the backgrounds are pretty bland, mostly office buildings and abandoned streets for the first part of the game.  Not terribly eye-catching for a game about shooting dinosaurs in the face.  And all of that would be have been fine, if the game had tried to build to something, but a bland plot about fixing the mistake in the past by doing something or other, and trying to stay alive while doing it needs a lot of help from interesting characters or plot twists.  This game has neither.

I would like to think it is impossible to waste $2 on a Gameboy Advance game, but A Sound of Thunder proves me completely wrong.  Anyone who paid full price for this game when it came out should be refunded their money and given a free copy of one of those popular Pokemon games the kids all rave about.  I just picked up a Mary Kate and Ashley game for the original Gameboy that is more engaging than A Sound of Thunder, and I only wish that were hyperbole.  Aovid this game at all costs, don't even accept it from someone for free, your AA batteries deserve better.

A Sound of Thunder gets the first EF Wooden Nickel Award...

  

Next month, a Too Many Games Exclusive Secret Game goes on the chopping block....

12 Months, Sixty Dollars and a GBA: March

Spyro: Season of Ice
by Universal Interactive

STEAL ALERT!  3 months in and we already have our first steal alert!  Spyro: Season of Ice for the GBA is a definite steal at a measly five dollars!  The game is lots of fun, pretty deep, and challenging enough to keep you coming back for more!



I don't really know that much about Spyro.  Up to this point my exposure to the little purple dragon had been a demo CD for the PSX oh so many years ago.  I was familiar with the game's cutesy main character and its roaming 3D platformer set-up, but I had never really invested any time into the games.  That said, as an introductory game, Spyro: Season of Ice is an exceptional ambassador for the franchise!

The storyline centers around our hero as he tries to free fairies who have been frozen in ice by some evil dudes that are some kind of rhinoceroses (not rhinoceri as I would have thought and preferred).  It is your job as Spyro to hunt down all 100 fairies and save them before the big bad guy, who has mistakenly given himself two heads through some nefarious mischief of his own, brutally slaughters the fairies and uses their wings to fix his self-inflicted condition (no indication how that works exactly...).  The game doesn't say "brutally slaughters," but I mean come on, it's a two-headed rhino-monster, those fairies aren't going to go quietly...

In any event, Spyro must travel to four different fairy kingdoms and free the frozen fairies either by simply finding them or by completing other tasks that will help subvert the evil rhino plot.  The good news is, you'll not have to go it alone.  Apparently, and this is where my ignorance of all things Spyro kicks in, Spyro has a dragonfly companion who goes along with him in his adventures and seemingly takes the brunt of the damage for him. (to wit, the fly represents your hit points).  In addition to being Spyro's simulacrum, the dragonfly also gets to have adventures of his own.  In each area there is a special dragonfly level that is more akin to a top-down shooter than a platformer.  These additional levels can be pretty tough and add a nice break from the platforming action.

Light all of the Jack o' Lanterns in the Autumn World and you'll free a fairy!

The majority of the game, however, is pretty standard platforming.  In each level Spyro must navigate the playfield, defeating foes and avoiding perilous pitfalls.  There are obvious fairies to find, as well as "go get this" missions from NPC's populating the levels, and other similar "mini-quests" that will ultimately reveal the captive pixies.  Level to level the basic quests change only superficially, but that doesn't discount the fun and challenge each level presents.  To give you a break from the platforming, in addition to the aforementioned dragonfly levels, each area also features a flying obstacle course that you can tackle.  These courses present the game's greatest challenge and are the only things I have not completed as of this writing.  You can free two fairies by running the course through on both the normal and hard settings.  Normal is hard enough, and hard is just stupid.  That said, it is nice to be able to take a break from a particularly frustrating level and do something else for a minute.

My one gripe with the game is the controls.  There are some levels that want precision jumping that is not really facilitated by the control set up.  Spyro's default moves are based on the standard cardinal directions, but he can also work diagonally. The problem comes when a jump needs to be aligned in just such a way, but making the diagonal work on the D-pad isn't as smooth or consistent as it needs to be.  The result is Spyro heading off in the wrong direction and ultimately dropping off the playfield.  This can make some levels more frustrating than they need to be.  Other than that, there is little to quibble about with this game, unless you just don't like whimsical platformers.

From Mermaid beaches to Time Travel Laboratories, Spyro: Season of Ice is a light-hearted, action platformer with a lot to offer, especially for only a modest Lincoln.  This game earns its Steal Alert status and is well worth half its original MSRP on the second hand market.  If you enjoy platforming games and don't mind a bit of whimsy, then don't pass up Spyro: Season of Ice!