Appare Gateball

~ APPARE GATEBALL ~

Hudson Soft / Azuma

HuCard

1988

I'm not going to explain how the game of gateball works, as that would be boring, but suffice it to say it's a ball-and-mallet croquet sort of thing and its rules are easy to pick up on in this video context.

It's a straightforward kind of competition, but Appare here lets you "customize" your experience, offering two types of playing surfaces, three play modes, and a dozen nutty characters to choose from.

Despite that remarkable cornucopia of options, the game lacks charisma and can be quite boring. The characters look like wackos in their "close-ups," but they're all business when they hit the court. There are no celebrations when a tough shot is nailed, no displays of frustration when a foul-up occurs, no sideline-clearing brawls when one player screws over another. Yeah, I'm being a little silly here, but something could've been done to liven up the proceedings.

Sadly, a lot of players will find Appare not only boring but awful through and through. Its graphics are dreadfully primitive, and its targeting/shot-power system never truly feels reliable or precise.

I'm no gateball fan, but I do know that someone doesn't need to follow or enjoy a particular sport to have a good time with a video-game representation of it. I'll never be able to sit through a round of golf, but I poured plenty of hours into PGA Tour. There are many people (read: fools) out there who dislike hockey, but everyone played and loved NHL on Genesis. Unlike the aforementioned classics, Appare isn't going to make a convert out of anybody; but I wouldn't say that it makes a mockery of gateball (which is actually considered quite exciting by a lot of people who know the ins and outs of it), and I do get some enjoyment out of playing a good round and using a little strategy to screw over my opponents.

World Sports Competition

~ WORLD SPORTS COMPETITION ~

Hudson Soft

HuCard

1992

I've never been into these "summer games" types of titles. For one thing, I don't care for summer games. For another, they all instantly bring to mind NES Track and Field, which I feel is utter crap. I don't like it when a game forces the player to partake in rapid button annihilation to the degree that the process becomes a cardio exercise in and of itself. And in the almost-never cases where I've been willing to use a turbo-blessed controller to earn a cheap triumph in such a game, I've preferred to cheese my way through something a bit more entertaining, like Pro Wrestling.

World Sports Competition doesn't act ignorant of the fact that there are lots of folks like me out there, players unwilling to mash their thumbs and joypad triggers into oblivion. So while most of its events do call for some old-fashioned smashing, you can activate an "auto-fire" option pre-play. (Of course, with a TurboPad you can just flick the turbo switch and, voila, problem averted, but I digress.) And the designers tried to make even the call-to-smash events a little more interesting by incorporating other elements (which will be covered momentarily). But really, unless you're truly into this summer stuff and you feel compelled to set records for each type of trial, you'll probably find that there just isn't much to these mini-games. And while eighteen events sounds like a lot, don't kid yourself: there's plenty of redundancy from one to the next. With decent graphics and not-so-good music in tow, WSC rounds out to an average title.

The gun-based events are probably my favorites, as they don't involve button hammering and they do involve good timing, especially the pistol-firing trial. Small crosshairs make practice necessary in clay blasting.

Archery actually plays like a lot of golf games: you have to aim your shot while considering the strength and direction of the wind, and you have to utilize a quick-filling "accuracy meter." It's a decent, if not particularly hard to master, event.

The "throwing stuff" games require you to make your tosses at precise angles and power your efforts via button bludgeoning.

Most of the track dashes place heavy emphasis on mashing, as you might expect, though timely leaps are sometimes required for success.

Rafting and swimming competitions demand that you get into a rhythm of refraining and hammering lest you deplete your energy/oxygen supply. Getting the timing down can be challenging.

The game presents records for you to break--a little incentive for mastering everything, I guess. I couldn't find many other good reasons to stick with WSC for long.

Snatcher Pilot Disk

~ SNATCHER PILOT DISK ~

Konami

Super CD-ROM

1992

Load up this Snatcher promotional disc and you'll be given five options. Let's cut to the chase and take a look at each of 'em:

You can play through the game's first couple of scenes. Considering you get to view the opening cinematics, become familiar with the menu system, see a bit of gore, partake in a shooting sequence, and listen to some great music, this is one heck of a sample.

There's a long trailer that quickly moves through images from the adventure to the tune of cool musical tracks. A few scenes are displayed with different coloring here than in the actual release. Some might complain that this montage actually shows too much--it contains even more spoilers than your typical Duomazov review! But at this point, I think most people who'll watch this are Snatcher fans who have already played through the game anyway.

Then there's what amounts to a Snatcher encyclopedia. It provides lots of information on everything from the game's plot to the vehicles the characters pilot. The character profiles feature some nice artwork (tip: sometimes it pays to give a profile a second look...).

You can listen to interviews about the making of the game. This is where things get a little goofy, with the digitized photos and all, but I bet this makes for a pretty cool feature for people who can actually understand everything that's being said.

The music mode allows you to listen to three red book tracks. Very cool stuff, but I wish the game's excellent chip numbers were included too.

You'd think an old promotional item like this wouldn't serve much purpose at this point, but this one is fantastic and defies all that conventional wisdom stuff. I'm not the world's biggest Snatcher fan or anything, but I was thrilled with what this disc has to offer, and I imagine that people who are really into the game will love it. I kinda wish there were something like this for every cool game that's out there.

Snatcher CD-ROMantic

~ SNATCHER ~

Konami

Super CD-ROM

1992

People never hesitate to call Snatcher a classic and present it with the PC Engine digital comic title belt, whether they've played through its contemporaries (or even the game itself) or not. It's easy to discern how the title has been able to make such an impression on players, even those who have experienced it only through a small share of screen caps. Snatcher's boldness, manifested in all the blood and bare skin it flaunts and the many terrifying actions of walking mechanical monstrosities it depicts, has made it the legend that it is. I'm not one to allow a title to garner my reverence and eternal allegiance merely by featuring a few shocking moments, but I do appreciate Snatcher, as it plays a stylish game of suspense and actually gets more and more interesting as it goes along (for the first two of its three acts, at least). Also working in its favor are intense chip tracks that make the proceedings extremely exciting at times.

The formula wouldn't work, however, if it involved only shock and gore (and to be honest, the game does get somewhat predictable later on, when you're all too prepared for the odd events that take place with almost every move). While Snatcher does its job mainly with heavy atmosphere, it's bold enough to have a sense of humor, juxtaposing ultra-intense scenes with goofy segments that somehow manage to fit right in.

It also offers brief shooting scenes that make for reasonably enjoyable changes of pace and are definitely preferable to the worthless maze sequences that many other adventure comics force players to endure.

The only thing really disappointing here is that the final act is a total momentum killer, indulging in ridiculously long periods of nonstop babbling.

Well, at least most players will be able to enjoy the thrills that lead up to that dull last stretch even if they aren't fluent in Japanese. Now, make no mistake about it: you won't get through the game sans assistance if you don't know the language. But there's nothing that should completely stump someone who's willing to experiment a little and pay a few visits to GameFAQs.

I've experienced the entire adventure multiple times now myself--and I'll say that I don't consider Snatcher the best PCE comic. It's not as entertaining as Cobra II or as shocking as 3x3 Eyes or unendingly enjoyable like Galaxy Fraulein Yuna. But it's a great game with an effective soundtrack and more than just a few truly exciting moments.

Final Blaster

~ FINAL BLASTER ~

Namco

HuCard

1990

Final Blaster is a maddeningly inconsistent shooter. It supplies you with a sweet charge shot that takes the form of a phoenix, and it gives you plenty of options regarding the management of your companion pods (you can utilize them as stationary frontal shields, have them trail or rotate around you, or set them off as smart bombs), but your craft's main gun blasts and auxiliary laser beams are not terribly interesting. The soundtrack scores winners with its Stage 2, Stage 6, and final boss themes (energetic, ominous, and chillingly dramatic, respectively) but wastes time with plenty of forgettable numbers as well. And while the last boss's cocoon-lined lair looks very cool, the generic space-and-base scenes that precede it do not.

Although the last level is the only one that makes a good impression visually, some of the others fare well conceptually, particularly Stage 5 with its gauntlets of mechanical pincer claws and rotating barriers and Stage 6 with its ancient ruins and strange sketch-beasts. Unfortunately, there's also Stage 3 with its tiny cannons that look like randomly etched lines and circles.

FB's erraticism extends to the lineup of enemies it sends at you. Stage 4 stars neat gun-toting robo-troops who leap from the backdrop into the fray, but they're accompanied in battle by lots of little riffraff villains that make no mark at all.

It's the same story with the bosses. Among the memorable ones are a multiform vegetation abomination and a duo of scythe tossers flanking a bullet-spewing, many-faced cranium; among the throwaways are a junk serpent and some cheap string-riding circle thing.

While the game obviously has many highs and lows, its "difficulty system" is ultimately what will make or break it for most shooter fans. The system judges your performance in one stage and then sets a new bar for you prior to the next, with as many as four variations for each board. Make it to the high road and you'll definitely have a challenge on your hands--an occasionally irritating one at that. Suffer a wipeout and your post-continue takeoff will see you back in easy land.

And that really pissed me off. The difference between the Level 1 and Level 4 settings is vast; get demoted and you'll find that your enemies have had all their speed, toughness, and aggressiveness drained out of them. I never want games to feature bullshit training-wheels systems like this one, and for players who do want to take it easy, there should be a traditional mode select presented at the outset. The Level 4 challenges are not insurmountable, but they do require practice, and it's hard to put in that practice when the game insists on treating you like a baby; such a system does not encourage learning and improvement. Nexzr, Tatsujin, and Raiden didn't knock me down to some Fisher Price kid setting when I first failed at them; they kept kicking my ass until I honed my skills and reaped rewards by conquering them the old-fashioned, true-warrior way. Final Blaster can be rewarding, but its stupid challenge-adjustment system makes it a bitch to stick with.