What I'm Playing (Volume 69): Command Keen: The Armageddon Machine

The Armageddon Machine is the fifth game in the Commander Keen series, and the second part of the Goodbye, Galaxy! duo of games. We last picked up with the story with Commander Keen trying to rescue the Oracles on Gnosticus IV, and now head across the universe to stop the dreaded Shikadi from blowing up the universe and remaking it in their image!

The game has a similar setup to the second Keen game, in which you find yourself on board a huge spaceship, and must disable key components of the ship in order to prevent an alien race's dastardly plans from succeeding. It isn't original, but it works, as plot was never really the aim of Commander Keen.

The game is built on the same engine as Secret of the Oracle, so the gameplay remains essentially identical. The game has a new soundtrack which is pretty good but not as good as its predecessor. Like the previous trilogy, these games succeed or fail based on level design and execution, so how does this one stack up with Keen 4?

The level design here is not quite as good. The new ideas in level construction are nice, with new robotic and futuristic looking enemies for Keen to fight, and a more straightforward and less exploratory approach to level design. If Secret of the Oracle is more DuckTales than Mega Man, then The Armageddon Machine is more Mega Man  than DuckTales. Straightforward level design can certainly work, but generally it needs to have excellent control mechanics and fun combat, and Commander Keen really has neither. Thus, the game's scheme works best with more exploratory and experimental gameplay, encouraging you to explore a vast world freely with imperfect controls, rather than being forced into the same difficult tight corridor.

To boot, some of the new enemies are positively infuriating, in particular, an electric dog that can jump, run WAY faster than you can, shoots balls of lightning, and behaves in no discernible pattern that I can discover. Your best shot against these little devils is to point and shoot, and hope he doesn't jump. Good luck!

On the other hand, some of the new enemies succeed extremely well, in particular huge and imposing red robots that shoot huge volleys of lasers at you whenever they see you. This encourages you to experiment with different ways of avoiding them rather than fighting them, and the programmers give you several clever ways in which to accomplish this.

Ultimately, this game is just not as good as its very good predecessor, and it largely falls on the vision of the game. The closed off nature of level selection and exploration leads to some of the most dull and repetitive Keen experiences yet, and due to the inclusion of some unfairly difficult enemies, the game feels far grindier than truly fun. All things considered, it's a fine game. But Secret of the Oracle was really the peak of this series, so I'd recommend this one only if you're interested in the conclusion of the story, or have a strong nostalgia for the series. I'll give it a 7.5/10.

I'm not going to be playing Aliens Ate My Babysitter, the sixth game in the Commander Keen series, for two reasons. First, I'm Keened out! I'll swing back eventually, but not for a while. Second, the sixth game isn't included in the pack of games I bought on Steam, so I'd have to figure out how to get an abandonware copy and brush up on my Dos emulation. Ugh. Next up in the home version of What I'm Playing will be an old member of the backlog I've been meaning to finish up for a very long time.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 68): Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle

Secret of the Oracle is the fourth episode in the Commander Keen series, and is the free part of a two part shareware game titled Goodbye, Galaxy! This is the Commander Keen game that my friend and I played most frequently as kids, as it was decidedly the most attractive and polished of the two games we had (1 & 4, the only free ones). As such, I have the most nostalgia for this one, so it may slightly color my review.

Secret of the Oracle picks up from the conclusion of the third game. Having thwarted disaster in the original trilogy, Commander Keen sets off on the very reasonable childhood goal of building a faster than light communications system. Having completed this task, he hears on the system that an alien race is planning on blowing up the galaxy, and sets off for Gnosticus IV, to consult with the Oracles who live there to find out the identity of these aliens and how to stop them. Upon arriving he discovers that the aliens have kidnapped the Oracles, necessitating a rescue operation! Keen must set off on his biggest adventure yet to bypass the traps laid by the aliens to rescue the Oracles, discover the aliens' sinister plans, and head off to stop them.

The most notable changes in this game are in visual and sound design. Secret of the Oracle adds significantly to the format of the original game by adding in a remakable set of improvements in visuals and actual music! The visuals are definitely a ton better, featuring some faux 3D effects using parallax scrolling and just general improvements across the board. If the original trilogy looked like one of the uglier NES games ever made, Secret of the Oracle looks like one of the prettier ones! I won't say that it looks nicer than, say, the late Mega Man games, and certainly falls short of the advances achieved in the already released Super Mario World, but it definitely looks nicer than Super Mario Bros. 3, so it's a decided advancement.

The music is actually very good, too. I didn't really get any sense of nostalgia listening to it, so I think this is a fairly uncolored opinion. I'm not even sure if my friend had speakers for his computer, so I may never have heard it before. In any case, I enjoyed it. There are only a few tracks, but they're all solid and evoke the silly nature of the series in general.

The controls are slightly more slippery than in the original trilogy, however. The faux 3D effects used can make it difficult to see how far out you can step on a ledge, especially in comparison to the clarity of the original trilogy. Jumping to tiny ledges is really perilous in this game, but it at least helps that Keen now has the ability to grab onto ledges and pull himself up. If you miss your jump by a bit this will bail you out, but it still doesn't feel fantastic.

The level design has taken a serious step up this outing, which is the biggest selling point for the game. To date, the second game had by far the best levels, but this game blows it out of the water. The levels are set in a wide range of environments and have a sprawling exploratory approach similar to that of DuckTales. The game here, like in the first two games, relies on exploring the levels and finding the necessary keys to open the colored doors and advance throughout the levels. Unlike its previous iterations, however, the level design here is bigger than ever and far more thoughtful. You can't really go very far in the wrong direction, which limits the degree to which you'll have to wander around looking for the right objectives. The game will naturally funnel you in the right direction, but never in a way that feels linear or restrictive. You're limited only by your progress and exploration, but the game keeps a good balance by making sure that there are only so many places that you can go.

This is certainly the best Commander Keen game to date, and represents a remarkable jump forward for the series. In contrast to the first Commander Keen game, this doesn't feel like a halfway measure to hook you and get you to play the later, and non-free, games in the series. It's a true full platformer in its own right. It takes the game from a Super Mario Bros. clone into a game that begins to have its own identity, along with all of the bells and whistles that one would expect from a console platformer. Its execution and presentation would put this one among the better NES platformers, but not among the best. It loses a bit here on innovation, since it is building tremendously on the huge accomplishment that was the original trilogy, but it's a great polish job on what was a nice technical accomplishment, and feels like a game that can stand on its own legs apart from the technical advancements present in the game. I'll give it an 8.8/10.

Next up will be the 5th and final (for me) chapter in the Commander Keen saga, which I've already completed (so I'll probably be back tomorrow). Stay tuned!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 67): Commander Keen: Keen Must Die!

Keen Must Die! is the third and final game in the Invasion of the Vorticons trilogy, and, having recently completed both the first and second parts of the series, I finished up episode three over the weekend. As with my review of the second portion, I won't spend a ton of time discussing the similarities between the three games, but will focus primarily on where this one diverges from the previous two.

The story of Keen Must Die! focuses on Keen taking the fight to the Vorticons' home planet in an attempt to discover the identity of the Grand Intellect, a mysterious force who has been controlling the aggressive actions of the Vorticons.






Graphics, sound, and controls were all identical to the first two games in the series, and are generally fine.

The approach of this game, however, is much different than in the first or second games. The basic strategy in the first game is to save as much ammo as you can due to its limited supply and avoid enemies wherever possible. The second game takes a much more strategic approach, requiring you to be very thoughtful about the paths that you take and the different environmental factors you can activate in order to move through the game successfully, especially as many of the enemies in the game are completely immune to your gun. The third game, however, takes a much more run and gun style of gameplay, as ammo is generally plentiful, but enemies are harder to avoid than ever, and can all be killed with the gun.

Unfortunately for this title, the difficult controls make this game the weakest of the trilogy for me. Gunning down jumping enemies karate kicking is fiendishly difficult. The game doesn't control like Mega Man, which makes this run and gun style tough to accomplish with your slow movement speed imprecise firing, and slow speed of your projectiles.

The game definitely steps up the story conveyance, however, and is the best in the series (thus far) in that regard. The development team goes to weird and absurd levels to demonstrate Vorticon society, including seeing the first sight of female Vorticons, making your way through Vorticon schools (the students are learning to read English by learning how to spell "Keen Must Die"), and seeing Vorticon apartment complexes. It also has an absolutely hilarious ending, in which Keen receives a medal for saving all of the Vorticons who he "didn't slaughter". The reveal of the Grand Intellect also has a very funny and personalizing touch that helps to draw the story to a close.

All in all, the third game is probably about the same as the first, although I tend to prioritize gameplay and level design over polish, so I rate it slightly lower than that one, which is more bare bones in visuals but also slightly better in terms of design, in my opinion. I'll give Keen Must Die! an 8.2/10.

Next up in the home console edition of What I'm Playing is the fourth (full) game in the Commander Keen series, Secret of the Oracle. I'd guess I'll have it done in the next few days, so keep an eye out!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 66): Commander Keen: The Earth Explodes

The Earth Explodes is the second chapter in the Commander Keen 1990 shareware trilogy, and feel free to check out my review/backstory for the first chapter here. The second portion either cleans up a lot of the problems with the first, or perhaps is intentionally more polished and thoughtful due to the fact that you actually had to pay to play this one, as opposed to the demo nature of the first chapter.

The backgrounds are generally more detailed and fun looking than the plain gray of the first game, although the graphics are generally very similar between the two games. Most of the time, however, the background is simply the checkerboard gray that you can see in the screenshot above, which is definitely an improvement, but only marginally so. The graphics are generally fine for a PC game of this era, although they still pale in comparison to even the most rudimentary NES platformers of the day. There are also a few weird visual quirks in the game, such as when Keen stands on a moving platform, he appears to shake as he rides the platform. I'm not sure what the cause of this is, but it definitely doesn't look intentional or good.

The sound is identical to the first game, as far as I can tell. More blips, bloops, boings, and zaps for everyone, and still no music!

The controls and gameplay are also very similar, although they introduced a few new features. You now have control of a Vorticon ray gun, which works similarly to your old one, but is more powerful. And blue. Charges of the gun are far more available, too, making it so that managing charges is not nearly as important. I actually don't like this change much, as planning your ammo usage and conserving it was one of the more fun and original components of the first game. But the gun in this game is ultimately secondary, as the most challenging enemies in the game cannot be killed with the gun, requiring you to use your brain to avoid them or lure them into hazards instead. There are also new elements in the levels with which you can interact, including switches to build bridges or bomb the earth (seriously) and light switches, a critical new addition. When the lights are off, your enemies will not jump, which introduces a new layer of strategy to the game. Sometimes you'll want your enemies to jump so that they move up and away from keycards, while other times you'll want them to remain bound to the ground so that you can lure them into pits or jump over them. Manipulating the lights thoughtfully is key to finishing the game, and was a very nice addition.

The addition of the lights is just part of a general trend of significantly improved level design from the first game. Levels are now smaller but require much more thought and strategy rather than on the fly decision making. Mechanics like the pogo stick are now required to navigate the game, and give it an extra layer of complexity that is rewarding. The levels also have a significantly more impactful end goal to them than in the first game. While retrieving your ship's parts to escape from Mars was a nice plot, and gave you a measurable demonstration of your progress through the game, in this one, the Vorticon spaceship has huge cannons trained on eight major Earth cities, which requires you to shut down each of the eight cannons before escaping the ship and heading home. Accidentally triggering one of the weapons before you shut them down will result in the "bad" ending, which is a nice touch to the game, and a good piece of storytelling.

The controls are, again, pretty clunky. This game was dying for true d-pad support and crisp controls, but for 1990s PC, it's really not that bad. You will find yourself getting killed by the controls at time, and I can't imagine that the native joystick support is all that much better (remember when we used to play video games with huge joysticks????).

This game was greatly improved from the first one, but still falls short of the platforming pack in 1990, and FAR short of the majesty that is Super Mario Bros. 3. But given that it was really the only scrolling platformer on PC at that time, it's probably more far to compare it to a game like Pitfall or Donkey Kong than the exemplary Mario trilogy on the NES, or the three Mega Man games that had been released by that time. This was PC gaming pushing its own boundaries, and it was definitely light years ahead of anything I'd seen on that platform up until that date. So I'll keep a certain amount of originality score for this one, just like I did with the first game, since they were developed at the same time and released simultaneously. I'll give The Earth Explodes an 8.8/10.

Next up, I'll be completing/reviewing the third and final game in the Invasion of the Vorticons Trilogy, Keen Must Die! Sounds tense!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 65): Pokemon Alpha Sapphire

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire is a remake of one of my favorite games of all time, the Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald cluster/trilogy/family/generation (?). I am cheating a little bit by including this as a completed game, as I had previously beaten Pokemon Omega Ruby, a very similar game, but I lost my copy of the red game and wanted to go on an adventure in Hoenn again, and I technically have never beaten it, so I'll count it.

The game is very similar mechanically to the Pokemon X/Y generation, featuring a largely 2D world map with 3D battles, and a few 3D cutscenes here and there. As I truly think that Pokemon X/Y is the best Pokemon game of all time, although not my favorite (Pokemon Red for life!), the mechanics of this game are flat out fantastic.

As the third generation games upon with Alpha Sapphire is based are about as close to perfect as video games get, why make a remake? It certainly couldn't be cash, could it? In all seriousness, they didn't have to do a ton to this game to make it an A+ experience, and they altered little enough in the game to preserve the essential feel of the games while updating them with some of the modern conveniences introduced in the internet era. The graphical additions are fine, but offer little improvement. They're technically superior to the GBA, and are certainly among the finest on the 3DS, while also preserving the cartoony and childish spirit of the Pokemon franchise, but it's not a reason to buy the game. The primary additions here are the ability to trade Pokemon and battle online, as well as an additional side quest at the end of the game. The side quest is fun, but trading online opens up a world of Pokemon collection and exchanging that we could have only dreamed of in 2002 while exchanging Pokemon over cables connecting our Game Boy Advances.

If there's one weakness to the game, it's that I felt that they could have leaned in a bit more and tinkered with the game to more fully express the strengths and changes of the sixth generation of Pokemon. In some areas, they do a nice job. For example, Wally (your young ward who you encourage to go on a Pokemon adventure) now has a Gallade rather than a Gardevoir as his final Pokemon, and his Gallade can now Mega Evolve. This puts enough of a twist on the story and presentation to keep it fresh and interesting to newcomers. However, characters like the Elite Four could have included newer Pokemon in addition to their old standbys to reinforce the notion that these characters are indeed expert Pokemon trainers, but not a single member of the Elite Four has a Pokemon which can Mega Evolve, and they still have the same old Pokemon, which is baffling as several of them still have two of the same kind of Pokemon, with plenty of relevant Pokemon who could have been inserted into their lineup. These kinds of creative swings could have made this a more compelling remake, although I do think that adding the online elements are more than enough to warrant its existence.

They also made the game a bit too easy by failing to increase the levels of your opponent to account for the new Exp. Share item, which automatically distributes half of the experience earned in battle to all of your Pokemon, rather than distributing it only to the Pokemon who appeared. I love the new Exp. Share, but it needed to be balanced better than it was in this remake, with all trainers having Pokemon a few levels higher to balance the challenge presented to the player. I was able to comfortably clear the Elite Four on my first run through, despite making a few mistakes during the fight, which really shouldn't happen if the game is balanced correctly for difficulty.



They also could have cleaned up some of the weaknesses of the third generation, and most specifically the use of HMs. Game Freak went way overboard on the HMs (moves that can be used outside of battle to solve puzzles and progress through previously blocked off areas of the world) by having an absolutely brain bending 8 HMs! HMs are generally worthless in battle, and each Pokemon can only hold 4 moves at once, meaning that you need to have every move slot for two of your six Pokemon filled with HMs, which really reduces your ability to build cohesive teams. They stumbled onto a great idea that they then fully incorporated into the seventh generation, with an item which allows you to call your Latias to you and fly around the world, rather than needing to use the HM Fly to get around, but you still will need all seven other HMs, which is a bear. Thank goodness for Ride Pokemon, as including them almost cancels out the cancerous lack of a National Pokedex in Pokemon Sun/Moon/Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. But the weakness is still in this game, so be prepared to carry a Gyarados with you solely for the purpose of having 4 HMs.

It's easy to nitpick at a game I've played so many times, as I know it extremely well, but let me be clear, Pokemon Alpha Sapphire is an excellent remake of an excellent game. I'd recommend it to any Pokemon fan, and certainly to any person who never got the chance to play the original. I'll give it a 9.0/10. I'll be compulsively trying to fill out my Pokedex until I get done or bored, and then I'm going to finish off a game that I've been hanging on to since high school. Here's a little teaser below:

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 64): Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars

When I was a kid, I would frequently go over to my friend's house to play on his computer. While I had an NES (and later an SNES and Sega Genesis), there was something very original about playing games on a PC, and we really enjoyed a wide variety of games on his PC, none more than a few Apogee/id Software releases in the Commander Keen series and Wolfenstein 3D. We were cheap little children, however, so we only had the free portions of these shareware titles, rather than ponying up the dough for the later releases.

For those of you not blessed enough to experience the shareware era, the basic idea was that you could get the first part of a series of games for free via download from the early internet (or far more frequently, from a friend who copied the game onto a floppy disc) and then you could mail in to the company who developed the game with a check for the remaining parts of the series. This had a few advantages, including the fact that companies could cut out the middlemen in Babbage's and other assorted retailers for PC games and handle distribution themselves. They didn't have to worry as much about backstock either, only making as many copies as people wanted. But by far the biggest advantage was in marketing. Giving away copies of a fairly fleshed out game gave people a nice taste for the game, and encouraged them to go and buy more if they liked it.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Commander Keen, I'd highly recommend that you go check out some resources! It's a really fascinating story that launched the genesis of some of PC gaming's most beloved titles and franchises, including Wolfenstein (not quite the genesis, but certainly the start of the series' most popular era), Doom, and Quake. Basically, Commander Keen began as an attempt to replicate the scrolling of Super Mario Bros. on a PC. Prior to this time (late 80s), PC gaming generally featured very different kinds of games from consoles. Games like point and click adventures, text adventures, and single screen games were far more easily accomplished on PC, while side scrolling platformers were the bread and butter for console games. The technical details evade me, but the reality is that while side scrollers had been around for nearly 5 years at this point on consoles, the genre hadn't been capable of existing on PC, at least not with the ability to scroll in more than one direction. Enter genius John Carmack, who figured it out in short order with the idea of pitching Nintendo on making a PC version of Super Mario Bros. 3. Nintendo declined, leaving Carmack with really cool tech, and a team of developers worked together with him to make Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons as a shareware title, offering the first episode, Marooned on Mars, as the entry level free drug to hook the unsuspecting populace. Episodes two and three were then available for purchase for the reasonable price of $30.

Marooned on Mars tells the story of Billy Blaze, boy genius, who builds a rocket ship and becomes trapped on Mars without critical parts to his spaceship. Armed with only his brother's football helmet (upon donning this, he refers to himself as Commander Keen), he must set off around Mars to combat the vicious Vorticons who live there, find the missing parts to his spaceship, and set back for home before his parents find out that he's missing.

If this sounds a bit like a hokey kids' comic book or choose your own adventure story, you're right! If it sounds somewhat out of character for the team behind the savagely gory and adult Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, you're also right! But as hokey kids, we loved it!

The game play is fairly derivative of Super Mario Bros., although it's admittedly far more rudimentary than even the first title in that series, while being positively laughed out of the building by Super Mario Bros. 3. When contrasting the visuals of the two, Super Mario Bros. has the edge in essentially every area, with more detailed sprites and backgrounds, smoother animations, and a wider range of highly differentiated areas than its PC copycat. I can't think of a single thing that Marooned on Mars does better than Super Mario Bros., as it completely lacks music, has typically bleepy (?) 80's PC sound effects, the controls are far clunkier (in order to shoot your gun, you need to simultaneously press the jump and pogo stick buttons, which results in wasted ammo all the time), is way shorter and has fewer levels, fewer and less impactful secrets, and less effective story conveyance than its NES brothers.

There are plenty of little quirks to the game that really keep it from being excellent, but none stands out more than the failure to use the fun mechanic of the pogo stick. While bouncing mechanics were not new to the platforming genre (having been featured extensively in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and DuckTales), the addition of the pogo stick felt like a late addition to the game that was only useful a handful of times. There was only one instance in the entire game in which you had to use the pogo stick to advance through a level, making the item a very unexplored mechanic.

Ultimately, this game feels like what it was-a tech demo intended to show off cool new advancements in PC gaming and to get you to try its later and far more refined sequels. It has a good sense of humor and nails a lot of things. Elements like the galactic alphabet, a coded language used by the Vorticons, and the cutesy characterizations and juvenile humor really help this stand out for kids, even in an era in which Super Mario Bros. 3 exists. If you had only a PC in 1990, this was really your only option for a Super Mario-lite experience, and on that count it delivers. There are plenty of problems with this game, but it's innovative, lovable, and is a landmark in PC gaming history that you should probably enjoy. It's also the first PC game I've reviewed as part of my What I'm Playing series, which definitely underestimates the length of time I've spent PC gaming in my life. I'll give it an 8.5/10.

Up next is my review of episode two of Commander Keen's Adventures-The Earth Explodes. Should be fun!

TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 63): Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is the seventh game in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. It doesn't bear that moniker, but it has very similar controls and gameplay to the earlier games, and is developed by the same team, so I'll stick to it. The THPS games are some of my all time favorite of the early 3D era, as I played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 extensively during middle and high school (THPS 2 is also excellent, but I never owned it, so I don't have the same attachment to it). The earlier games in the series were filled with a delightful amount of charm, huge areas in which to skate, infectious punk/rock/rap soundtracks, and most importantly, an insanely fun control scheme. The maps from those three games are indelibly etched in my brain, and upon starting up a replay of any of them, I know exactly the areas to which to go to rack up the highest score, how to find the secret tapes and decks, etc. So I was feeling another run through a Tony Hawk game, and decided to play one of the ones in my collection that I hadn't touched yet. As a note, I have never played Tony Hawk's Underground or Tony Hawk's Underground 2, so many of the changes that I note may have been introduced in those games, and I never knew.

This game is primarily notable for having one interconnected area in which to skate, rather than the older approach of having various levels which you could select from. The story mode, which comprises the vast majority of the game, features you getting on a bus to Los Angeles and trying to make it as a member of the skating community. You meet various people who give you challenges to establish that you can, indeed, skate, you earn their respect, and get involved in trying to prevent a sinister plot (seriously). While cheesy, the story works for the most part, and leans into the chaotic "us against them" skating culture that the other games in the series embrace as well. The story will lead you from area to area as you go, uncovering more of the plot as well as new areas in which to skate.

In theory, the "one big area" idea is pretty cool! In practice, however, it is very lame. Rather than having one true big area, you just have levels connected by bland hallways that just cover for the fact that instead of watching a loading screen, you can skate in a straight line for a minute to get to a new level. Call me a grumpy cynic, but I'd rather load for 8 seconds than skate straight for 60. Additionally, if they had taken a THPS 4 approach and had all challenges in a level available from the start, with you having the option to move back and forth between challenges at will, this would have been a FANTASTIC inclusion! In practice, however, you have two or three challenges available in each area, and completing these will unlock one or more. By trying to make it open, but also have a coherent story, they actually made this game feel the most linear and constrictive of all of the games in a series which has always thrived on freedom and creativity.

The levels themselves lack a lot of the charm of the levels from the first four games. Maybe this is pure nostalgia speaking, but I'll always remember levels like the Foundry from THPS, the Airport from THPS 3, or several excellent levels from THPS 4. I don't think any of these will be imprinted on my brain for a while, and a bunch seem positively barren and boring, like the Casino level.

The skating itself is excellent, again. The controls are tight and they don't destroy any of what works. Some of the new moves, like the Natas Spin, are really cool and add a ton to the game. Others, like the sticker slap, are dull and I found little to no use for them aside from clearing the challenges in which you have to perform them. Other additions to the game were even worse, including the option to get off of your skateboard and run (lame) and ride a BMX game (positively awful). THPS games have always been the best when they focused on level design and challenge, and less on gimmicks. Some of the new options in later games, like manualing and reverting, added hugely to the game. But now it feels like they're adding features for the sake of adding features, which is a good way to wind up with a messy game.

The challenges in the story mode were pretty lame. A lot of them felt like tutorials simply reminding you how to perform the nearly endless number of possible mechanics, and were typically over in about 10 seconds if you knew what you were doing. The game shines in situations where you have challenging and creative situations to enjoy, but these are mostly replaced by "do x over/on y" challenges, lining you up behind y, and ripping them off quickly.

The game's sense of humor was also a little less playful and a lot more malevolent this time around. Apparently this trend began in Tony Hawk's Underground, but it was a bit shocking to me. The game replaces ollie-ing the Magic Bum and hitting people with snowballs with intentionally causing huge car wrecks and destroying the top few floors of buildings. A note to the developers, this is not pranking, this is terrorism and attempted murder.

Maybe I'm just being a Stiffly Stifferson

The music is good again, with a bunch of standout tracks that I really enjoyed. Showing their continued good taste, they included a track from Mastodon's Leviathan, also known as the greatest metal album of all time.

The shining light of the game which saves it from an overwhelmingly negative review is the inclusion of a classic mode, which lets you reskate a selection of levels from old games with the old 2 minute time limit. There were levels from THPS, THPS 2, and others that I didn't recognize, but this was a really nice inclusion to be able to skate old levels with all the most recent additions to the game.

All in all, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is a mixed bag. I found myself enjoying it, but basically purely for the tried and true mechanics that make any Tony Hawk's game fun. But it just missed out on some of the charm and polish of the older entries, and ultimately the highlight of the game was just replaying some of the classic levels again. This is a good one for true fans of the series, but go jump in with the nearly perfect THPS 3 or 4 if you've never played one before. I'll give it a 7.0/10.

Next up is another clearout of an old denizen of the dreaded backlog. I should have this one cleared in fairly short order, so check back in soon!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 62): Punch-Out!!

Just when I think I've finally beaten the oldest game in my backlog, I find a new one, although I think this truly is my oldest game in the backlog. Punch-Out!! was one of my original NES games, although I had the Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! version that most people had. For the uninitiated, Punch-Out!! was an existing Nintendo arcade franchise that was technically extremely impressive in the arcades. Porting it to the NES meant some serious downgrades in terms of graphics, but the essentials are very similar, or so I'm told by the internet. The game was released in two versions, one with Mike Tyson as the end boss, and one replacing him with a sprite swap named Mr. Dream (following the expiration of the three year license obtained from Tyson). Other than the sprite swap, the games are identical. I've never played the arcade version, and up until I got my SNES classic, I had never played another game in the series.

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! destroyed me as a child. I could beat Glass Joe and Von Kaiser routinely, and also was able to win the first fights with Piston Honda and Don Flamenco on occasion, but was never able to get past stinking King Hippo. I did, however, have the codes somehow, so was able to try out most of the fights, getting savagely crushed by nearly every other fighter in the game. I was drawn to the game's simple controls, big gorgeous sprites, and sense of humor, but didn't really have the reflexes or the resources to clear this game or even come close. Now, however, as a grown man with fully developed reflexes and access to google, I finally dropped Mr. Dream over the weekend, and didn't cheat at all to do so. My copy of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! couldn't be saved, however, resulting in needing to get a copy of the much cheaper and nearly identical Punch-Out!! instead.

The game is a series of boxing matches in which you have access to a very limited set of punches and movements. You can jab with your left and right hand, throw body shots with your left and right hand, throw an uppercut, dodge left, dodge right, and block. Success in the game is based on your ability to dodge opponents' attacks and deliver your own in return, which depends on your ability to identify your opponent's patterns and react to them with sufficient reflexes. Such a pattern based game becomes largely about your ability to grind the game for a while until beating the opponents becomes nearly second nature. By the end of my run I was capable of polishing off every fighter in the game while barely being hit up until Mike...Dream... But up until the end, I would get capped off against various fighters, spending probably the longest times trying to get over Soda Popinski and Mr. Sandman. But once the patterns are learned, the game is reassuringly simple.

You box against opponents possessed of various degrees of offensive racial stereotypes including the drunk Russian, lithe and romantic Spaniard, and mystical turban wearing Indian. I don't believe any of these were intended in bad faith by Nintendo, as each is an impressive fighter in his own right, save for Glass Joe, but if this is the kind of thing that bothers you, stay away. You must work your way up the boxing circuits (Minor, Major, and then World) in order to secure the dream match against Tyson or Mr. Dream, depending on your version. By the way, for my money, just get the vanilla Mr. Dream cart. It sells for nearly $20 cheaper than the Tyson version, and is almost exactly the same. Also, stay away from this game on emulators like the NES Classic Edition or Virtual Console. The slight input lag from emulation makes this game extremely tough for anyone, so I'd go for the NES/cart option if at all possible, and certainly if you want to have a prayer of beating Tyson/Mr. Dream. Everyone else should be beatable, although Mr. Sandman and Super Macho Man might be pretty tough on an emulator.

So how does this game stand up today? It was absolutely fantastic! The beautiful art style, perfect controls, and excellent conveyance of plot with only the tiniest bits of text make this a true hallmark of the potential of 8-bit gaming in the 1980s. It is certainly in the top 10 of NES games, and one of the most original concepts/executions that I have seen in a video game up until the modern day.

The graphics are perfect. I would want absolutely nothing changed about the way the game looks. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the game's graphics is the way in which they used the limitations of the NES to advance a narrative in the game. In the arcade version, your boxer is a wire-frame person of similar size to your opponent. This allows you to see through yourself to your opponent, which allows you to react to his moves. It is a technical marvel for the time (released in 1983! Seriously, go look at this gorgeous baby!), but the wire frame boxer would have been impossible to replicate on the NES hardware. They had to find a way to make the experience similar, but placing the camera behind the boxer would have resulted in an obscured version of the opponent, which detracts from the core gameplay mechanic.

Instead of the wire frames, thus, they replaced the titular Little Mac with an actual little version of the character. Your character is perhaps 1/4 of the size of even the smallest opponent, and is positively dwarfed by the bigger boxers. Little Mac must literally leap to punch his opponents in the face with even a simple jab, which makes his path from unknown challenger to world heavyweight champion that much more compelling. At no point in the game after your fight with Glass Joe do you feel like, based on the look of your opponent, that you should be favored in any match. You have to win the game with your brains and your guts, because your body simply will not do. You need to hit dozens of punches on your opponent to score enough knockdowns to win, while some can knock you down in one or two hits. After each circuit title, you're treated to a montage of Little Mac running behind your trainer's bike, reinforcing the notion that Little Mac must work to get everything. Nothing comes easy to this little guy, and you can really identify with him, all because of a clever adaptation by a skilled development team.

The sounds are great as well. There is only one real song to the game, and it works pretty well in the background. It's definitely in the background, however, as some of the signals you can work with come from the sound effects (apparently some people can beat this game blindfolded, which makes my week and a half trek through the game feel a bit embarrassing). You can score stars by hitting your opponent at the right time of his moves, and can use these stars to unleash devastating uppercuts on your opponent. These stars pop up with a nice visual and sound effect, rewarding your skillful play.

The controls and gameplay are absolutely perfect, and this ultimately is the key that makes the game. If Little Mac didn't react on time, or did things you weren't telling him to, you'd have no prayer of beating this game. But ultimately only you can defeat yourself, and the controller just becomes an extension of Little Mac, a tool to bob, weave, and sting your way to victory. The game is as simple as could be, but so deep once you dive in that it provides the perfect curve of mastery.

The game is continued at various points by password, and you basically have to continue from the beginning of the last circuit. This is one weakness of the game, in that unless you use cheat passwords, you won't be able to grind an opponent repetitively, needing to reclear the same old fodder on your way up to your nemesis over and over again. Even with Tyson/Dream you'll still need to beat Super Macho Man before making your way to champ, which is extremely irritating. This comes across as and unnecessarily difficult part of an already difficult game, and create a lot of busy work to get to the payoff that you are looking for. By the way, you have my full permission to use the codes to practice any given opponent, as long as you go back and beat them the hard way once you've mastered it.

The game is one of the rare ones that has aged better as time has gone on. At the time I was playing it, there was very little way to know how to beat some of the trickier boxers in the game, save for a Nintendo Fun Club magazine subscription, or perhaps a Nintendo Power subscription. How, for example, am I to know that if I block while Soda Popinski is preparing to uppercut that he will stare stupidly at me and let me hit him in the face for a star? The entire game has reinforced the notion that only hooks and jabs are blockable, and that you can't guard against uppercuts. There are several annoying little tricks thrown in this game that make beating it really challenging unless you know them. And the most notorious trick in the game, the camera flash/guy nodding during both Bald Bull fights, was only recently discovered! This was a game made to be mastered in community in the internet era, so it really feels better now than it did then, with at least a small refuge there for you when you hit the wall.

This is not part of my review, but I just have to say that Tyson/Mr. Dream is definitely not the hardest boss of all time, unless you have average/poor reflexes. He would be pretty much unbeatable in that circumstance, but the developers give just enough time to react to his moves if you're paying attention, making him regularly beatable. I beat him the first time after probably a total of 45 minutes to an hour of grinding him, which is far less than I spent mastering the pattern of Yellow Devil in Mega Man, or even Dracula in Castlevania (this one was probably harder due to the fact that I was playing on an emulator with input delays). This boss is definitely beatable, so if you're holding out on the game due to thinking that it's simply too hard to beat, dive in! Part of the fun is getting routinely whipped, getting later and later into fights, and scoring more and more knockdowns until finally have your opponent's number. The grind is the game, and it sparkles.

This game is a true gem of the 8-bit era, and is a must play for anyone who enjoys good video games or the chance to experience a fun and largely unexplored wing of video game history. I feel like the concept of precision timing based combat could have been used in other games, but it pretty much died here, which is a testament to its brilliance of vision and execution. It definitely isn't perfect, but it's a true joy to play 31 years later, and should be a part of your collection and out of your backlog if you collect/play NES games. I'll give it a 9.6/10. Happy training!