cat and mouse MANIA

although my first foray into the sega dreamcast library was fairly random, there were several dreamcast-exclusives that were high on my list of games to check out. among them was the party puzzler chuchu rocket!, created by none other than the sonic team. i’m not exactly sure where i first heard about the game, but it looked like a colorful, quirky sega game, and although it’s not that well known those who do talk about it give it positive reviews.

the entry at wikipedia gives a good run-down of the space-mice-guiding, space-cat-avoiding gameplay (according to the manual chuchus are not mice; they’re space mice). i enjoyed the frantic pace of the multiplayer mode at first and definitely appreciated the style, well within the usual flashy-but-fun sega aesthetic, but i lost interest once i realized the game doesn’t require very much strategy: the outcome changes so quickly that winning involves more luck than skill. there are two other modes, stage mode in which you place arrows in real time to direct the space mice to their rocket, and puzzle mode where you’re given a limited number of arrows to position before setting the space mice and space cats loose on their fixed paths, rather like setting a rube goldberg contraption in motion. the former gets prohibitively difficult without another player to help out, but fortunately the puzzle mode is worthwhile enough that it makes up for the deficiencies of the other two modes. beating the stages in puzzle mode oftentimes ends up being a matter of trial and error, particularly for stages that are highly dependent on the movement speed of each space mouse or cat, but many of the stages are so ingenuous that the entertainment comes as much from finding the solution as just the act of setting the chuchu machine in motion and watching it chug along. the game apparently includes 100 of these puzzles and allowed users to submit levels online; apparently 2500 of them were included in the game boy advance release of the game. although i enjoyed beating a fair number of the puzzles in the dreamcast version, 2500 more seems like overkill. still, once i get through the dreamcast puzzles i’ll know where to head to next.

chuchu! make way for a rocket-full of space mice links!
- if you’re looking for wallpapers, the game disc actually includes some. rad!
- FAQ at gamefaqs
- list of unlockables at gamespy.com
- a review of the GBA game (apparently a launch title) at nintendojo.com

beasts altered

i finally got a dreamcast (just in time for its 10th birthday). continuing the trend, instead of starting off playing one of the classics i ended up playing something totally random, more specifically, one of the sega genesis games that appear on the sega smash pack compilation, the now-classic altered beast.

i’m pretty much a n00b when it comes to sega and its long and colorful history. the genesis version of altered beast was apparently the original pack-in game for the system in most areas outside of japan and is well known, although nowadays it seems to be among the many games that are universally panned (see poor milon’s secret castle as another example, which i recently reviewed). for a sample of modern-day reviews and people’s comments on altered beast, nintendolife.com has reviews of both the the original arcade version as well as the genesis version. both reviewers give the game the same score (3 out of 10), although the latter review seems to contain more nostalgic affection. for a run-down of the game itself, check out this page at i-mockery.com.

having no such nostalgia factor but having a much higher tolerance for old games and their flaws, i actually quite enjoyed this one. the “homoeroticism” is clearly just that peculiar brand of japanese humor that takes the form of extreme camp, which i found amusing, even more so when i contemplate the nations full of confused kids and their baffled parents that must have resulted. i was also entertained by the complete disregard for actual greek mythology (not unlike the classic kid icarus). the graphics are definitely impressive, keeping in mind this was almost exactly two years before super mario world was released for the SNES, and the character, enemy, and boss designs are all pretty well done. the enemies in particular are entertaining, with some classic japanese wackiness thrown in, e.g. the purple jump-kicking unicorns and yellow goats in the final level. i wasn’t bothered by the slowness of the gameplay, and although there’s not much variety in the main attacks they were still varied enough to make them worthwhile. the “altered beasts” and their attacks were the best part, and although i didn’t find the game to be overly repetitive, at five levels the game is definitely quite short; i would’ve definitely enjoyed another level with each of the beast forms. the ending is anticlimactic and the harder difficulties not much different than the normal mode, but the co-op was fun and the soundbites have added some classic quotes to my repertoire (the apparently much-appreciated “wise from your gwave!” as well as the baddie’s sinister “welcome to your doom!”).

i’ve settled on a few simple rubrics to help me rank games, including “would i want to play this again?” and “did i like this enough to check out some of the sequels?” for me the answer to both of those questions for this game is actually yes. and it turns out that there are a coupla sequels, and they’ve been catalogued by the good folk at hardcore gaming 101. sweeeeet. i mean, roooooaaaaarrrrr!!!

altered links:
- cheats at gamefaqs, including how to continue and select a level and difficulty
- screenshots of the ending at vgmuseum.com
- entry at wikipedia
- random page with sprites
- FAQ at gamefaqs (although no one probably really needs it)

shake those wiimotes!

i was never really into sega growing up (nintendo fanboy that i am, even back then) and am only now slowly working my way through the backlog of great sega games. i’d been intrigued for a while by the wii-make of samba de amigo, which came out in the US last september (although it has yet to make an appearance in japan, oddly enough). usually i like to play earlier iterations of a game before later ones, but after spending a fair amount of time trying to find a pair of the original dreamcast maracas on ebay i gave up and decided to jump into the wii version, particularly since i’m planning on taking the game home to play with my family in a couple of weeks.

the game’s mechanics are immediately appealing, but i quickly ran into the problem that everyone complains about, which is the accuracy of the controls, particularly at the higher levels of difficulty. i was really curious if reviewers’ complaints were fair or not, and for a fair amount of time i was undecided. on easier levels the controls are pretty forgiving, but on harder levels i was definitely having a lot of trouble getting my movements to register. but i couldn’t believe that a powerhouse studio like sega would ship a product with broken controls, so instead of giving up and declaring the game faulty i tried a lot of different things.

eventually i figured out how to get the controls to work pretty much perfectly, and now the only thing that mystifies me is: 1) why so many reviewers (such as IGN’s; yet again, IGN proves to be a poor source of information and my interest in them continues to wane even further) didn’t bother spending the time figuring out how to make the controls work. granted, maybe these people were used to the dreamcast controllers, but it can’t be that hard to figure out the wii controls because, judging by the leaderboards, apparently tons of people other than i have independently figured out how to make them work; and 2) why sega didn’t include a tutorial on how to use the controls properly. because once you understand how the controls actually work, the game is an absolute blast.

in case you too need tips on how to use the controls, it’s really simple. there are three positions: high, medium, low. the game registers positions based on the tilt of the controllers, so for the high position hold the controllers straight up, and then to shake tilt them down (i.e. away from you). for the medium position, hold them flat in front of you and perpendicular to the floor, and to shake just tilt them down (towards the ground). and lastly, for the low position, hold the controllers straight down, and to shake just tilt them towards the wall behind you. to do crossovers (the remotes pointing in the same direction), your arms (and your wiimotes) should actually be crossed over for them to register correctly.

and that’s it! the controls work extremely well with this setup, although i’m really curious to see if others have come to the same conclusion. anyway, as i said, once i figured out the correct way to use the controls the game was (and continues to be) incredibly fun and addictive. as anyone who may have been reading this blog may have noticed, i don’t give out high praise that often, but this game is frickin’ awesome and is a great example of what the wii is all about. i’ve been getting really bored with guitar hero-style gameplay, so this was a real breath of fresh air. the wackiness of the design and the fact that you’re frickin’ shaking your wiimotes like maracas to spanish songs and random songs like “groove is in the heart” thrown in makes this classic, totally stupid fun. as a party game this is an absolute no-brainer, and the new “dance” moves added to this edition just add to the ridiculousness of it. and on my version of miyamoto’s “wife-o-meter” (i.e. the “bf-o-meter”) this was a definite win (and i have some embarassing photos to prove it!).

this is one time i’ve been tempted to buy a game’s downloadable content. at some point i probably will, but in the meantime i A-ranked about 1/3 of the songs on the hard level. but after playing the game day after day for hours on end my arms were getting frickin’ tired; this has got to be the biggest workout i’ve gotten from playing with my wii yet (hahaha). the one complaint i have about the game is that when you make one mistake you drop a rank, so getting an A rank is sometimes artificially hard since you pretty much have to get the last section perfect with no time to recover from even one mistake. but i suppose it’s all just part of the challenge. the fact that you can do crossovers on single notes to up your points adds even more depth to the game, but the game mechanics themselves are just fun, no matter what the level of difficulty. i’ve set the game aside for now, but this is one that i’m definitely looking forward to coming back to. samba!

shake to these samba links!
- entry at wikipedia including a table comparing the different songs in the different versions
- page at metacritic. it’s noteworthy that ye olde nintendo power gave the game the highest score (a 9 out of 10) and just goes to show that yet again NP and i are on the same wavelength.
- random blog post of someone who also came to the same conclusion that i did: “… the controls are great. Early reviewers were either: a) bad at the game, b) confused or c) lazy.” i’m voting for C on that one. he suggests experimenting with the calibration option, but i didn’t try messing around with that much.
- there’s an official site here. doesn’t have much, but includes some wallpapers, screenshots, and a video previewing the first download pack.

the legends of gauntlet

i’ve been really slow about playing N64 games, but i finished gauntlet legends a couple of days ago. i was actually surprised at how much i enjoyed this game. it seems one of the main complaints about the game is that it’s so easy, but after having played some more effortful games recently it was actually nice to have something completely mindless. it was also one of the few games i could not only coerce the bf to play with me once but that he enjoyed enough to play with me a second time.

i haven’t played a whole lot of hack ‘n slash games and no doubt the genre has evolved a lot since the 8-bit gauntlet days, but there was a lot i liked about this, the series’ first 3D iteration. first off, a lot of the elements of the original 8-bit gauntlet (and its sequels) that you know and love are intact, including the 4 characters (warrior, valkyrie, wizard, and archer) who are all still distinct, and the great voice samples (“i like food!” being one of the clear favorites, although we don’t get to hear my favorite line from the 8-bit days which was “wizard has shot the food!” since, thankfully, you’re not able to shoot food in this game).

in terms of additions, unlike the original game and the arcade version of legends the console versions don’t have your life ticking away every second. this of course makes the game much easier, as does the addition of turbo moves (your “turbo” meter continually recharges), a whole slew of powerups, and, most importantly, the ability to level up and buy stat upgrades (i.e. strength, speed, magic, and armor). so although the four character classes have varied starting stats and growths, over time the differences become much less apparent. the game also lets you pick the color of your character, which changes its model, and also includes animal skins of the four classes (e.g. falconess for the valkyrie) which, while not really adding anything, are kind of a nice little addition.

the game includes a world hub where you can choose any level you’ve already unlocked, and so the game becomes trivially easy since you can level up as much as you want before tackling harder levels. but even with its two harder difficulty settings (which didn’t seem that different to me when i took a cursory look at them) the game would still be pretty easy. a lot of this seems to come from the fact you can take out most enemy generators from far away before they’ve had time to spawn many enemies; in this game generators don’t spawn enemies until you get near to them, but i believe in the original 8-bit games they spawned enemies as soon as you start the stage, thus building up oceans of enemies for you to tediously plow through. and if you save the powerups you get and sell them instead of use them, you won’t have to spend much time level-grinding, if at all. i didn’t start off being very methodical about traversing the stages, so i ended up repeating a fair number of the levels because there are hidden items you have to find to beat the game (i.e. “obelisks” which allow you to enter other worlds, and “runes” which allow you to tackle the final boss) as well as optional items (e.g. the secret characters, weapons for use against the bosses). and you’ll find yourself wanting to repeat easier levels just to collect more health. without those repeats the game would’ve been more of a challenge, but the fun of the game really isn’t about the difficulty anyway.

another thing that people complain about is the graphics, which despite being N64-level didn’t bother me at all (although apparently the dreamcast version is better). the game does make use of the N64 expansion pack though. given that the screen could be full of enemies and up to 4 players, all in 3D, the sprites aren’t incredibly detailed, but they work much better than most of the screenshots would suggest. i also found the progression of the levels to be well paced: the first world contains levels that are mostly linear; the second world contains levels that are more maze-like, like the original gauntlet; the third world contains more large open field-like areas where you’ll find yourself surrounded by enemies on multiple sides, along with a fun level climbing up and down the rigging of an airship; and the fourth and final worlds are twistier and generally much less linear with more back-tracking. in the latter levels there are some areas where you’ll be a bit lost, but that generally comes more from the confusion from the graphics and areas looking too similar to one another than anything else. the automatic camera in general also works pretty well, and the music is fine although not particularly memorable. the enemies aren’t quite varied enough, but they’re serviceable. my primary complaint, and one shared by others, is the inclusion of boss battles; they’re mostly pointless, mainly because the bosses all have attacks that are completely unavoidable and unblockable.

so overall this one was a pleasant surprise and has lead me to spending a lot more digital ink on it than many other games i’ve played this year. i actually found it to be more enjoyable than the x-men legends game i played a couple of years ago, i think largely due to it having more variety and level design. there’s a remake with more levels and characters called dark legacy that came out on the gamecube that i’ll def. have to pick up at some point. and if you’re wondering, in terms of the three console versions of gauntlet legends IGN rated them in this order: dreamcast: 8.4, N64: 7.7, and PS1: 7.2. it looks like the PS1 version, while taking the hardest hit in the graphics department, has the inclusion of 4 additional hard levels after you beat the game.

you are now entering the dungeon of links!
- gamespot featured an interesting series of interviews when the game came out described thus: “Not only do these cover the current consumer titles, they also look at the evolution of Gauntlet, from the original coin-op in 1985 through the latest coin-op version – Gauntlet Legends – and onto the N64 and the PlayStation.”
- some cheats and a nice set of videos at IGN
- entry at wikipedia.org
- entry at strategywiki.org
- youtube video of first level (as the yellow wizard)
- pretty good FAQ at IGN and one at gamefaqs
- instruction manual of the PS1 version