504 reviews liked by Jamesbuc


The following is a transcript of a video review which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/1L6E7T_a0Pc

The Super Nintendo library features a handful of games that push the system’s capabilities far beyond the perceived boundaries that most other developers worked within. The system’s Mode 7 function enabled some games to go beyond anything that had been done previously and create experiences that were unique to the platform. The ability to rotate large objects would allow developers to expand their platformer ideas, allowing for swinging platforms on the smaller scale, and entire gravity shifts if they were feeling experimental. One developer, led by a star programmer, would take advantage of the new features and push the console to the extreme. After the release of the first Bubsy game, Solid Software were awarded some freedom by Accolade and decided to make an attempt at a new, trendy mascot for themselves. And no other character is more appropriately late 90’s than Mo Hawk. Sporting a Walkman, some sunglasses and nothing else, Mo Hawk is condensed 90’s energy as a character. Solid Software had mathematically devised the perfect mascot for themselves and would implement that character into a mathematically appropriate platforming game. So while there are a lot of heavily calculated factors involved in Mohawk & Headphone Jack, and technological feats to be impressed by, does the game do anything more? Does Mo Hawk have something important to convey to the player, or is there something about the level designs and themes that mimic Sonic the Hedgehog’s environmentalist ideas? Was Mohawk & Headphone Jack created to be something beside a tech-demo or a Sonic copycat? And most importantly, is this game a secret Bubsy sequel?

Released in 1997, Mohawk & Headphone Jack tells the story of the evil General Headslot’s attack on Party Planet’s music collection and Mohawk’s adventure to get the collection back. The CDs had been scattered throughout the planet’s seven layers and the player must collect as many as they can, as well as battle a few of Headslot’s commanders to continue through the layers. Since the events are occurring beneath the planet’s surface, the gravitational forces that Mohawk will experience are constantly changing and the levels within the game reflect that by rotating around the character. This is where the game’s infamous motion sickness generation comes from. The game engages somewhere in the region of 32 gravitation directions and frequently utilises as many of them as possible, including frantically shifting between them. The Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 function was unmatched at the time, and most home PCs and the Mega Drive were not capable of replicating the unique aspects of this game. So while it is safe to say there was nothing exactly like Mohawk & Headphone Jack, the game does heavily borrow from it’s forebear.


Bubsy Bobcat made his first appearance in 1993’s Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, and the character has been marred by disinterest ever since. Bubsy’s original adventure was Accolade’s attempt at a mascot platformer of their own, hoping to capitalise on the popularity of Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. This first game emphasised collection and exploration and would be among the many early collect-a-thon style platformers. This amounted to yet another entry to the mascot-platformer-pile and Accolade were even stubborn enough to continue giving the go-ahead for more entries into the Bubsy franchise, ultimately resulting in the infamous Bubsy 3D in 1996. Meanwhile, those core attributes of Bubsy gameplay - the exploration and collection - were being expanded upon by one of Accolade’s development partners.

Mohawk & Headphone Jack levels are split by two overarching objectives, the first is to collect a number of CDs that causes a portal to open to the next level, and the second is to defeat a boss. Travelling throughout the entire level is almost mandatory while collecting CDs while the boss levels don’t require more than defeating the enemy. Mohawk has a fairly high top speed and the level can fly by if there aren’t any obstacles in the path. This rarely occurs, though, as every level is heavily populated by enemies that will force the player to slow down in order to deal with them. Initially, I found this quite frustrating as I wanted to zoom around the levels and avoid hazards instead of having to walk around hoping to avoid enemies. My opinion changed a bit on this as the game continued, but by about the fifth world my lenience had evaporated and I was just hoping the levels would open up for once. Mohawk has up to 5 health and two different attacks; a screen clear that requires ammo to use and totally not Sonic’s spin-dash. Strangely, this spikey ball form cannot be held indefinitely so the player can’t just roll around at the speed of sound, although there are many places to go and there is certainly a rainbow to follow. The ball attack also sits right in the middle of the game’s attack hierarchy so Mohawk can attack through some projectiles, but things like fire will always hit through the spikes. Mohawk also has two different types of jump which might seem unnecessary at first but that lower jump does come in quite handy throughout a lot of tight, perilous platforming sections. Landing on the edges of those platforms can be a pretty aggravating death sentence so the player has to make sure, safe movements at almost all times. There are also a number of powerups to utilise while exploring a level, ranging from underwater breathing to flight. Flight is rather challenging within the gravitational changes and can result in some of the worst screen flipping in the game.

Levels in Mohawk & Headphone Jack are gigantic and often packed with smaller platforming challenges and extreme geography. Their sizes make finding one’s way and remembering where one has been difficult, and the ease of getting lost is often exacerbated by the lack of effective landmarks and visual distinction. Flying through this big grey, circular room could lead to having to complete multiple laps and I did find that I was frequently having to do that. Sometimes the levels include lock and key scenarios too and these would often be the least convenient they could be. I spent upwards of 40 minutes within one attempt at a level because it required returning back to the same place three separate times. And I had a map to follow. And whoever thought 7-2 was acceptable needs some form of therapy. What the hell. Most stages in the game contain a system of pipes that Mohawk can squeeze into to be slowly transported around. Some of these pipes are impossibly absurd. 2-1 contains 2 separate pipes that take more than a minute to finish. The player has to sit and watch Mohawk spinning around in these pipes for some unbelievable lengths of time. Some levels have very similar mechanics which just teleport Mohawk to the exit. I can hardly understand any reason to do this deliberately. And if you didn’t think it could be more tedious, 7-2, the final level in the game, uses the pipes as a maze. The map I found ran out of alphabetical labels for the entries and exits, it then ran out of single digit number labels, and managed to get to Am in just pipe entrance and exit labels. That’s 50 labels. Excluding the 18 teleporter labels. And I had a map. What were kids supposed to do in 1997? And I didn’t even get into the secret areas!

Mode Seven allowed for some very unique functions and became even more important with the implementation of the Super FX chip, but embracing new technology blindly doesn’t always result in something valuable. While the inclusion of the background rotation is fascinating, a handful of accommodations would have gone a long way to making that spinning tolerable. Falling through a transition or entering a tight space with a flight powerup can cause a lot of rotations to trigger in quick succession and if it were possible to put a limit on the number of rotations that could occur in that time I think that would have made those instances less disorientating and more bearable. Similarly, scripting transitions through environments would mean that the view of Mohawk would always be consistent and it would make progress through levels predictable and clear. Currently, the level design favours wide rooms with very little gravity implementation or narrow halls filled with hazards and regular gravity changes, so scripting a camera within these layouts would likely do little to help the problems. But those scripted camera changes would offer some form of landmark for the player to use as a breadcrumb. Because most of the worlds rarely feature much in the way of visual luxuries.

I enjoy some janky visuals and I’m always happy to look at pixel art, but they sure did pick some colours for this game. Mohawk & Headphone Jack features some interesting palette choices. Most of the levels are grey with some accent colours, and I suppose this is thematically appropriate, although the themes are really hard to see if you don’t know the names of the levels. The non-grey levels are brown, or purple, or… Oh no! This palette is a crime. Whatever artistic idea this is supposed to convey has been totally overshadowed by the sheer eyesore. I don’t even see how this represents “Guts”. That stereotypical 90’s aesthetic never features palettes like this. Their design algorithm was way off. There is a strange secondary issue with the palettes in that the enemies of most levels will use the same colours. Camouflaging the enemies makes the exploration even slower and Mohawk’s high speed even less applicable. And those enemy designs are subpar. This game features a desolate selection of sprite-sheet animation, almost every enemy is a collection of rotating shapes which makes them quite uninteresting to engage with and very easy to forget. Unfortunately, the bosses aren’t much better.

There are 8 total bosses throughout the game, and while one is repeated it has been altered significantly to seem like a new encounter. The Walker, the Tiki, the Octopus, the Orb, the Parasite, the Lava Surfer, and the Brain are all encountered within the second half of every world while General Headslot is the final encounter and occurs immediately after defeating the Brain. I defeated the Orb and the Parasite on my first attempts, the Octopus didn’t take much more than a handful, and every other boss was as challenging as the rest of the game. The Walker has a surprisingly wide range of attacks to throw at the player that can be fairly difficult to deal with when getting to grips with the controls. Somehow, when the player encounters General Headslot at the game’s conclusion, this battle is still tough. I think quite positively of these encounters, although their visual spectacle is quite lacking. The Tiki and the Lava Surfer were the largest hurdles for me to cross, as I just wasn’t able to enter the battles with a sufficient plan of attack and enough health to concoct one. It was possible to kind of aggress onto the Walker and win, so when the Tiki refused to be taken down by this strategy I had to reassess my approach to combating the higher tier enemies. The Lava Surfer is more of an endurance test that gets kind of boring after a while. The player must dodge the dolphins before getting to take a swing at the boss, and then the boss leaves the safe area so the player has to wait for them to come back. The Brain, the Orb, and the Parasite have very little in the way of dangerous attacks so the player can often sit right on top of them and continually deal damage. Overall, I think the bosses are decent but nothing noteworthy. They almost never use the game’s unique aspects within the fights but they aren’t disasters for it.

The game is very much a disaster, though. Ignoring the gravitation mechanic, the levels and the enemies are just lackluster. Shapeless, characterless blobs to run around and hope to not be killed by. And they will kill the player. Every time some flow arrives or some wacky geography appears, there’ll be some hazard ahead to spoil the momentum. The defining mechanic is a great concept, but it hasn’t been executed in a satisfactory way here. There’s too much danger for the chaos to be truly enjoyable which is especially disappointing for me because this kind of wild shit is exactly my thing. If you were ever curious about how Super Mario Galaxy would work on the Super Nintendo, then it’s worth playing the first level or two. For a casual playthrough, you’d have a better time with a lot of other games.

In the end, Mohawk and Headphone Jack has proven to be critically and artistically shallow, amounting to little more than a Bubsy spin-off with an AI generated 90’s skin stretched over it. Someone at Solid Software heard about Mode 7 and decided to pitch it as a game, without much consideration for any of the other factors that the game would include. Mohawk is just Sonic but slightly more naked. The levels are just Sonic levels without the flair. The player collects shapes and a developer said they could be CDs instead of balls of yarn and that was the entire narrative development up until someone had to write the manual. There’s very little to like about this game, but I’m happy I played it. I haven’t been so excited to finish a game in a long time.

This was a tough video to write, hopefully the next one won’t be so challenging.

Well, I mean, the title says it all. You color dinosaurs. That’s it. I guess it could be a good time waster for little, LITTLE, kids, but that’s it. I mean, is there any real reason why anyone would want to have this game? I dunno, let me just look it up online and see- HOW MUCH MONEY?!

Game #403

Y’all remember Dr. Marvin Monroe? He was one of the earliest characters that was ever featured on The Simpsons, playing a big role in the fourth episode, “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”. He didn’t really do all that much, just being the therapist for the Simpsons, putting them through shock family to try to “reconcile” them, but after this episode, he was rarely ever seen again. This was apparently because not only did the series creator, Matt Groening, find him annoying after a while, but also because the voice actor, Harry Shearer, said that doing the voice strained his throat, so they then had him “killed off” in Season 7, before fully retiring the character all together. Now, with all that being said, why the hell am I talking about such an obscure character like Marvin Monroe? Well, because he appears as a commentator in The Simpsons: Bart vs. The Juggernauts, and that was the one good aspect I could get out of that entire game.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is time once again to take a look back at one of the many garbage Simpsons games of the early 90s, talk about why it is so bad, and watch as I get closer and closer to the brink of insanity (happy thoughts all around!). This particular title of the series was one that I was dreading a whole lot more than usual, because it is the second Game Boy title after Escape from Camp Deadly, which was one of the absolute worst games of the bunch so far, so needless to say, I figured this title was gonna end out the exact same way. Thankfully though, I wouldn’t say this game is quiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite as bad as Escape from Camp Deadly, but yeah, it is still pretty terrible. This time around though, instead of having just one terrible type of game for me to rip apart, we have an entire minigame compilation to tear through, OH JOY!

The story is practically non-existent, just being about Bart participating in a game show called Juggernauts week by week to win cash prizes, but at this point, nobody cares about the story, so moving on, the graphics are Game Boy graphics, but admittedly, they look pretty alright for the system, having good enough sprites for Bart, the enemies, and the other characters from the show, but there is still plenty of jank models to see as well, the music is good enough, having plenty of tracks that are either decent, or make me wanna rip my ears off, but hey, at least it isn’t just the main theme of the show playing over and over again, the control… varies in quality, depending on what minigame you are playing at that point, but for the most part, it controls about as well as a car missing most of its wheels, and the gameplay also varies in quality depending on what minigame you play, but for the most part, it plays… actually somewhat decently, but there is definitely some crap thrown in there as well.

The game is primarily a collection of minigames, where you take control of Bart Simpson (as if that wasn’t obvious enough), go through week after week of this show, compete in various minigames which will have you performing various stunts to earn money, take on very easy bonus stages to earn you some extra bonus money just in case you already aren’t swimming in the riches, and then turn off the game, grab a copy of Pokemon Gold or Silver, pop that into the Game Boy, and be refreshed, as you now finally remember what it feels like to play an actually good video game. It is just one of the most typical helpings of “licensed game slop” that you could possibly expect, and while most of these minigames are somewhat good, or at least competent, most of them aren’t all that good.

If you couldn’t tell already by the Played icon at the top of this review, I did not beat this game, and I probably never will. It makes sense, when you think about it, because no sane person would want to go through this entire game, but since I did quit early, I wasn’t able to play all of the minigames. But, I have seen all of them, so just like with Bart’s Nightmare, we are gonna go through each and every one of them, so HERE WE GO! The first one that I checked out was “Captain Murdock’s Skateboard Bash and Crash”, where you just skateboard down this ramp, trying to avoid these obstacles along the way, and try to bash the Juggernaut stationed before you on the giant platform. This one would be fine as a whole, as the skateboard controls are decent, and avoiding all the obstacles is easy enough, but the main problem lies when you actually have to bash into the Juggernaut. You have to jump off this ramp at the end in order to reach him, but depending on how fast you are going, or when you push the jump button, you can either miss the platform completely, go over it, or smash right into the Juggernaut’s shield, which counts as a lose. It takes a lot of experimentation to get this down, which takes a lot of tries and time that you don’t have, so that makes it more annoying rather then just plain awful.

The next one I played was “Hop, Skip and Fry”, where you have to take a basketball over to a hoop over on the other side of these electrified tiles, making sure to step on the safe tiles while trying to avoid these two big goons all while doing so. This is actually probably the best minigame out of the bunch, as not only are the controls easy enough to get a handle of when you figure out what to do, but the challenge isn’t too needlessly difficult, while still being challenging. In fact, dare I say, I may actually think it is… fun? Nah, I probably wouldn’t go that far. The next one I played after that was “Moe’s Tavern Shove Fest”, where you have to wrestle against both another Juggernaut and Barney, making sure to shove them out of the ring before they can shove you out. This is the minigame where I started to think “Maybe I should just stop now”, because I for the life of me could not figure out how to win. You have a few moves you could pull off, and they can be very effective if used in quick succession, but not only can the opponent take you down very quickly if you aren’t ready, but I swear, I for the life of me could not figure out how to do these moves correctly and consistently, with some moves I just couldn’t do at all. I guess you could say that is a skill issue on my part, but considering what game we are talking about here, I am gonna blame bad game design instead, cause its easier.

The last minigame I played before calling it quits was “Bop ‘Till You Drop”, where you are stationed on a platform over toxic waste, and you have to bop the Juggernaut off of his platform using the stick that you are given… and it is piss easy. Seriously, all you have to do is just stand in one spot and rapidly mash the attack button, as there is no way that you can lose after that. Yeah, you’ll get hit a couple times, but you will never be knocked off of the platform, and you will get an easy win. After that, I decided to just look up the rest of them, because I didn’t feel like hurting myself anymore, so the next minigame I saw was “The Krustyland Hammer Slammer”. This minigame not only provides us with the most terrifying Krusty the Clown sprite I have ever seen (skip to 17:24), but it also allows you to just hit a bunch of high strikers with a hammer to prevent any of the Juggernauts from reaching the ground. This one looks easy enough, and there isn’t much more to say about it, other then how you are able to hit the striker so hard to the point where it shoots one of the guys off of it, which is hilarious.

The next one after that was “Military Minefield Mayhem”, which has you start out by parachuting down the screen while dodging projectiles, and then running through a minefield while… dodging projectiles. They got real creative with this one, let me tell ya. Once again, like with the Hammer Slammer, this one doesn’t seem thaaaaaaaat bad, as there isn’t an onslaught of projectiles that you just simply cannot avoid, but it does seem like it can be quite difficult when you don’t know what you’re doing. And finally, there is the last main minigame, “The Kwik-E-Mart Doggie Dodge”, which is a platforming stage that you have to go through while avoiding and/or distracting a bunch of dogs along the way. Knowing my past experience with Simpsons games, I can only imagine this one is the absolute worst of the bunch, not only based on some terrible platforming elements, but also because of how long and repetitive the stage itself gets.

Aside from one or two elements I didn’t mention here, that is pretty much all of what you get to experience in this game, and what a shocker, it wasn’t really that good at all. I don’t necessarily have a problem with minigame compilation games as a whole, but more often than not, they end up just being either some of the worst games you could possibly play, or they offer nothing of value and are just completely boring, and this game is a mix of both of those. There are some minigames that are genuinely terrible, and then there are those that are actually a bit of fun, but most of them are just monotonous, tedious, and boring as a whole, with little enjoyment to be found in them. What also doesn’t help these games out is the fact that, in order to beat the game, you need to play through the games multiple times, up to three times at the most, and let me tell you, while I did like that basketball minigame, if I had to play through it two more times, I probably would’ve thrown myself on an electrical panel just to end it all as soon as possible.

Overall, despite some enjoyable minigames here or there, this is pretty much exactly what you would expect not just from a cheap collection of minigames, but also from a Simpsons game from this era, being poorly designed, repetitive as all hell, not that appealing to look at, and just overall very boring. I could give it some credit, cause it is better than several of the other Simpsons games that I have covered at this point, but that isn’t really saying much when it is still a bad game at the end of the day. I would only recommend this if you were either a fan of those other Simpsons games, or you don’t mind playing through a collection of cheap minigames, but otherwise, there are many other games you could be playing instead. Hell, if you want some fun minigames, just play Mario Party instead. Those games actually make you feel emotion, like the sweet satisfaction of victory, or the feeling of wanting to strangle the person sitting next to you.

Game #519

C'mon, it's still an ok alternative from Final Fight if all you have for some comfy playing session is the NSO.

Had to replay this to make sure I wasn't crazy about the weapon imbalance. After testing every weapon, Homing was the only thing giving me the consistent firepower and range I needed, S. Laser and Explode were okayish, everything else was totally ill-equipped to kill anything. And then one of the end-game bosses has the audacity to throw a nullifier at you that makes homing weapons useless.

It has generally fine gameplay and good background art if you can make it past that, but I couldn't get into this. I don't want to play a shmup where only 1 of 8 weapons feels comfortable, that just irks me in a deeply personal way.

The idea is pretty neat, but with some poor level design (like having to jump to rescue a person for then inevitably smash the window and get damage. Wow, funny).

I don't think it's as awful as people here are sadly negatively bombing.

Rival Turf is the first entry in the Rushing Beat trilogy, which are essentially beat em ups similar to Final Fight.

Before I started the game, I saw the lower score here and others calling this a brutally bad game, and I was surprised at first how decent it was. The combat is rather simple, you can jump, kick, punch and grab enemies in order to toss them around. The overall atmosphere is alright and the themes of the levels were stylish and charming.

The enemies were a major surprise because unlike Final Fight, here the different types can also behave very differently to your attacks. Some might counter you, some can hit you during a combo and these are really surprising, making the game feel more varied.

The bosses are very hit or miss, because some of them are really fun to fight with, the first one especially and the Captain near the end.

The problem is, that the game does not know when to stop a level, and some of them are so long that you lose interest in the whole game because of it. Level length should be the third most important thing to look out for when developing a beat em up. The first one is of course, the combat and the second one is sound and music, which are both serviceable here.

I do not get the hate and the 2,2 score, it is a bit boring, yes, but otherwise harmless beat em up.

As generic as this beat'em up can be, I still liked it more than others I've played.

Wasn’t really gonna review this but I wanted to rant. This game is just mid at best, it does nothing too awful but for 1991, this is just nothing interesting. I was just astounded at how there is just nothing interesting. You just shoot enemies, no interesting setpieces, no gimmicks in a stage, just shooting enemies and it’s so dull. Most of the bosses aren’t even that interesting either. The game has a lot of weapons to use but most of the game will have you using the S. Laser. Now about that final boss…

Noticed only like one other review brought up this boss. Screw this boss so much. I almost rage quit because I just kept dying really fast even at my top speed and I was barely doing damage to it. The only reason I didn’t quit was because I remember the options had the ability to go right in the face of an enemy and even then dodging this stupid boss’ homing projectiles is still really damn annoying! This alone makes me not want to replay the game even though the game being boring already made it so I don’t wanna replay it anyway.

It’s a shame it’s one of the only few shmups on NSO in general. In fact if you want to play a Super Famicom shmup, just play the other option which is Pop’n Twinbee. God I really should get back to reviewing Twinbee games. I guess the one thing I can give it is, the music isn’t too bad and there wasn’t too much slowdown. Yeah that’s about it, what a lame game. I need to stop playing SFC games by Jaleco. I still would rather play this over the first Rushing Beat game though so that one comment I made about it still stands.