Planet Bob

2015 Ant-Man // Avengers 2

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:04:00 +0000

Hi there!

I assume that Ant-Man will end with the unleashing of ULTRON

Avengers 3 should then feature Vision and an epic battle against ULTRON

Greetings,
Manuel

Mission: Beat all European Released Capcom Games #01

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:49:00 +0000

Hi there!

I started this mission in early in 2011 and now have a first milestone covered: I'm done with the first 10 games!

What follows is the list of games I'm already done with, adding a few comments to each. What is true for all of them, is that I beat each on the default difficulty and without cheating. I did use stuff like built-in auto fire and continues though. For the games played through the "Capcom Classics Collection" I additionally unlocked all available extras.

Ghosts'n Goblins (Wii VCA)
Thank heavens the Arcade version is not as hard as the NES one. Still, playing through both loops took over 10 hours, most of which where spent in the 6th level. I thought I'd like it more, but certainly all follow-up G'n'G games are better.

Commando (Wii VCA)
I think that game was the fastest to beat, IIRC it took less than an hour. Hasn't aged too well either and the music of the C64 version beats the Arcade tunes.

1942 (Wii VCA)
1942 was very hard to beat even with unlimited continues, because of the bullet-hell boss planes. Again I think each sequel of this was a better game.

Exed Exes (Wii VCA)
That's probably the worst of Capcoms starter games. I played through it with a friend in co-op and at least it was over in 1 1/2 hours

Sonson (Wii VCA)
Now that's the first one that was really hard to beat: Since the the Wii version doesn't offer continues, I had to complete the hole game on one credit. Still it was the most fun I had in my mission thus far, so this is the first game I can recommend still today!

Vulgus (PS2 CCC)
Another one credit completion. I even bought a PS2 Arcade Stick for it, although I'm not sure if it really helped Other than that it's been yet another lame vertical shoot'em up. (Even when they made half the line-up of the first 10, I didn't like any of them)

Pirate Ship Higemaru (PS2 CCC)
Coming in for a surprise, this was by far the most fun Capcom game I beat so far, even when it forced me through yet another one credit completion. It really has superbly crafted gameplay mechanics and it's very rewarding since you really get better with every new try!

Trojan (NES)
I beat the Arcade version first, but didn't really like it. Some reviews on GameFAQs then convinced me to try the NES version as well and really, it was worth it! It's much more balanced and fun than the Arcade version and a lot better than e.g. G'n'G for the NES, so it easily claims the #2 spot in this list!

Gun.Smoke (PS2 CCC)
Probably the best from the vertical shooters, but also the hardest and most unfair one. How I hate that boss called "Wolf Chief", I was stuck there for 6 days!! About the best thing in the game is the music for level 2 I think

Section-Z (PS2 CCC)
Another very easy one, it took only 2-3 hours to play through it. Most of it is quite forgettable, except maybe that one section that did look like a flipper table

So that's what happened so far. We'll see if the next 10 games will take me another 8 months to play through and if Capcom will eventually deliver a vertical shoot'em up that's fun to play

I won't tell you which games I'm playing next, but one thing I'll reveal is that I'm getting a PSP and Mega Man Powered Up from my wife this Christmas

Greetings,
Manuel

Playing Scramble Spirits (C64)

Sun, 22 May 2011 20:20:00 +0000

Hi there!

So this is what do you get, when a lame programming team converts a lame arcade:

The main problem with this Sega conversion, which is immediately obvious, are the graphics. They're so bad, that even now after completing the game I couldn't tell whether this Xevious clone featured spaceships or aeroplanes

The best part of this vertical shoot'em up game by far is the nice title music. During play you only get to hear some constant mix of firing and explosion noise, using the same few sound effects over and over again. It reminded me a bit of listening to someone typing like mad on a typewriter

On top of looking ugly, the game itself feels a lot like being made with the Shoot'em up construction kit, as it's as generic a Xevious clone can be. The six levels mostly look and play the same, and end bosses aside you're shooting one single type of enemy throughout the entire game. The bosses are all similar as well. They're basically big rectangular blocks with a couple of hot spots you're supposed to destroy with your shots.

Some attack waves in the game are very unfair, with foes crashing into you from the bottom of the screen, but in most parts the game isn't that hard, except maybe a few tight spots in the final two stages. The game ends just with another "Well Done" message, which I didn't bother to make a screenshot of.

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Sega Arcade conversion in the form of "Sonic Boom", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Playing Snoopy and Peanuts (Amiga)

Wed, 18 May 2011 19:34:00 +0000

Hi there!

Yet another license game, albeit with graphics amazingly close to the TV Show:

The graphics of this game were really quite good, even in motion. The whole rest of it... is another story though...

So what we got here is some kind of an adventure game. The story is pretty simple: Linus has lost his blanket and it is Snoopys mission to get it back to him.

In order to to so, he's moving back and forth through the 20 screens of this game. In the 5th or 6th room you can already see the blanket, it's in a locked in a locker of the school building

So getting it out of the locker is the actual task. In order to achieve that, Snoopy can carry around one item at a time, using it for exactly one purpose within one particular screen. That's basically all you're doing in this game: Find out which item to use in which room next. Upon success you usually get another item, which you can use elsewhere

While that sounds simple, in most parts it's quite obscure stuff you're supposed to do, so I basically played most of the game with a walkthrough.

About 95% of the game is dead simple to perform, so one could eventually consider it being designed for children, but there's on horrible platform jumping sequence in the game you have to execute pixel perfect twice(!). This bitched task took longer than playing the whole rest of the game combined

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another anime license game in the form of "The Jetsons", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Playing Magic Johnson's Basketball (C64)

Sun, 15 May 2011 18:53:00 +0000

Hi there!

Magic Johnson, a name in Basketball so big, even I heard of him!

Okay, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan got video games too, so I knew them as well

In school I always preferred Basketball over Soccer, since I was rather big and slow than small and fast. So unlike in Soccer, I managed to score in Basketball once a month

Well, the game is slightly better than the Soccer games I tried recently, but nowhere near a classic like e.g. Street Sports Basketball or TV Sports Basketball. It only offers a fixed two-on-two match, with 4 quarters of 2 minutes length. So the whole game last about 10 minutes and thank heavens, I won the match on my first try already

The graphics are not that bad, as is the music by Tim Follin. It's even quite playable, albeit I never figured out how pass or throw towards the basket at will. Wild button mashing just did the trick good enough for me to win, especially since the computer isn't good at the game either.

After I won the game it ended with saying "Game Over" and back in the day I'd have been seriously angry after forking out a lot of cash for such a completely content free package.

Some future day the Playing series may see another Basketball game in the form of "Tip Off", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Playing Space Harrier II (C64)

Sat, 14 May 2011 19:42:00 +0000

Hi there!

This is definitely a first: A Genesis game that got ported to the C64:

At least unless there was a Space Harrier 2 Arcade machine. (But I don't think there was one, or?). It's not unique though, as another one of Segas Genesis games, World Championship Soccer, got ported to the C64 as well.

Like Afterburner II on the Genesis, the 'II' in the name is more cosmetic and compared to the original Space Harrier it feels a lot more like Space Harrier V1.2

This Space Harrier sequel on the C64, naturally looks a lot worse than the Sega Master port of the first game. It's almost as fast though and has incredibly good music from a guy called Matt Furniss. He kinda slipped unter my radar so far, I definitely need to check out some more of his SID works

The gameplay is - well - Space Harrier. This C64 version kinda fails to give the shots, both hostile and friendly, enough depth motion in the 3D flight plane, so it's very hard to judge the distance they travel, which is significantly upping the difficulty of the game. To compensate for that, you get 2-3 extra lives per stage, so even when you think some collision was unfair, things are evened out a bit.

After 12 rounds the C64 version ends with a boss-a-thon for the 13th stage, which may have been a first on that machine as well, at least I can't think of any other C64 game ever doing that before right now...

The anti-climatic end is just another lame message screen:

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Sega game in the form of "Scramble Spirits", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Depeche Mode vs. The Damned

Sat, 07 May 2011 19:28:00 +0000

Hi there!

Now I've seen everything!

Greetings,
Manuel

Playing Die Hard (C64)

Mon, 02 May 2011 19:12:00 +0000

Hi there!

Hans Gruber, Holly Gennaro and John Mclane on the C64:

I had way too high expectations regarding this game, since I thought it was the follow up to one of my all-time favorites, Project Firestart. Further research surprisingly (for me at least ) revealed though, that just the DOS version was made by Dynamix. The C64 port unfortunately was made by the same team that did the horrible Roger Rabbit game before.

Now this is really weird. So Dynamix, who had the Project Firestart engine ready to go for the C64, did the lame 3D DOS version and some second rate developer did the C64 version from scratch instead. They ended up writing a game that plays actually quite similar to Project Firestart, albeit with much uglier graphics and neglected audio.

Besides the loveless sprite graphics shown above, the cut-scenes look actually much worse. Once again it seems someone just ran digitized PC graphics through some auto-conversion tool. Other than that it's a playable and (despite all my critic so far) enjoyable action game, that a bit too slavishly follows the movies plot. Also, it heavily borrows from the formula that Project Firestart (Can't mention it often enough! ) and Tusker established.

The game has a time limit of 20 minutes, but it'll take much longer to figure the map and required actions out. It actually took me 2 days to complete it, but I was too lazy to start the article on the first night

Bye bye, Herr Gruber:

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see the tie-in game for "Die Harder", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Playing Nuclear War (Amiga)

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:01:00 +0000

Hi there!

Nuking it out once again with Ronnie Raygun and Gorbachef:

Now that was one game that I totally loved back in the day. I really can't think of many other games operating on such an insane level of black humor

In its core Nuclear War is a dead simple, board game like strategy game. You choose four computer opponents out of a selection of strangely familiar looking faces and then you fight against them to the death on a simple map that is divided into 5 continents, one for each player.

Each players mission is to protect the 5 cities on his continent, while destroying all other cities on the map. Basically everyone fights everyone, until only one is left.

The players are taking turns and on each turn, one of only six possible actions can be executed: The player can produce weapons, try propaganda, do a defensive action, deploy a bomber, launch a missile, or, which is the most fun, drop a nuclear warhead.

The main task is finding working strategies against the current set of enemies. They are all having quite clever AIs and their own distinct playing styles, so depending on the selection of opponents no two games are the same. They also comment on their situation between turns, which is usually very funny, e.g. when losing a city they say stuff like "Just a scratch" or "I didn't like that city anyway"

The game is very fast, one complete round lasts about 15 minutes, so this game will provide some quick fun in small doses. It takes a while until you figure out how to win, but then it happens quite regularly. There is no real ending when the player wins, but there's a funny animation when the computer does:

(If none of the players survives, which happens surprisingly often, then there's another ending scene shown where earth is exploding.)

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another strategy game from New World Computing in the form of "Kings Bounty", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,
Manuel

Playdex 4.1

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:26:00 +0000

Hi there!

Here comes the second Playdex update for 2011, now indexing 180 "Playing..." articles!

Greetings,
Manuel