Showing posts with label Master System. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Master System. Show all posts
Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Zeed Again...
Wordy preamble for 8-bit Master System sequel The Cyber Shinobi, a minor effort by Sega to say the least. Jerkily contort a hunched, despondent Joe Musashi through six stages of flickery seizure sprites and criminally inaccurate collision detection! What fun. Despite being dreadful, Cyber Shinobi has a stranglehold on my imagination, partially inspiring the half remembered title of this blog. There's a vague hint of premise promise, macabre ninjutsu mixed with techno-brutality like some kiddy cool adaptation of Elektra: Assassin. I remember sitting there fixated, lurching on with Joe on a hand-me-down black and white TV, desperate to smash that test tube brain boss to pieces. Children do not discriminate by quality. The closest thing to proof of concept this title has is this elongated intro sequence: pop science terror spiels accelerating into a prodding, sneaking, electro pulse theme. Techno-Ninja prowls out of sight!
Monday, 9 June 2008
Shinobi: Kill Them All Sneaky Joe!
A rather short review of the first game I ever owned: Shinobi on the Master System.
Multi-plain spam attack, obstacle course, platform genius. Sega's bite-back response to Namco's Rolling Thunder arcade series sees one-man-army Joe Musashi going up against kidnapping mobsters Zeed. They done a steal on a load of kids. Rascals! As well as being able to hurl infinite shurikens Zeed's way, Joe can crouch into a little crafty crawling crab-ninja form and lash out with a swift shin-kick. POW!
Levels are broken up with slightly astounding first-person bonus stages where our Joe hurls ninja death stars at advancing, conveyor-belt surfing enemies. Let one slip through and it's curtains; annihilate the lot and you're rewarded with Ninja Magic.
This Master System conversion lowers the arcade's difficulty by gifting the player an energy bar rather than a one-hit death. There's also a wider variety of ranged and melee attacks too - including hand grenades, pistols, nunchaku and the mighty manrikigusari - a giant weighted chain. Scaled back detail wise from its Arcade forebear, Master System Shinobi makes up this deficit by pumping the gaudy colour factor up as high as tech permits. Block colours never age. Gorgeous. Followed by an avalanche of sequels over nearly every format ever.
Thursday, 1 May 2008
A Handful Of Ways Master System After Burner Can Be Improved Immeasurably
Willing myself to sleep last night, I was hindered by a nagging little idea that just wouldn't go away. It is awful when that happens. You can lie there and peel it apart whilst remaining comfortable (but not asleep), or you can hideously but momentarily inconvenience yourself by getting up and scribbling it down in the hope it isn't a load of old shit and might have a relevance come morn'. I did the latter, the issue of relevance is for you to decide.
Master System After Burner is unplayable bollocks. It is. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It is. It's supremely pretty and so devoid of landscape ambition that it's lent a stark, waterworld wasteland vibe, but you die for no reason all the time. All the time. So! In a feat of some-decades-too-late anti-foresight I give you a handful of ways to make it super loads better:
1. Infinite Lives - but it breaks the game yet further you might moan! Quite right, but I'm going somewhere with this. Have faith. Infinite Lives for the player, so there is no chance they won't get through this game to the (alleged, but unseen by me) Big Flying Fortress Last Boss.
2. Have a United States Navy expenditure counter - the crux of my idea really. If you're going to find anything about this fun or amusing, it'll be happening now. Everytime you fire off a round from your M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling Gun, or launch an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile your Navy expenditure account will be credited. It'll be quite big and in the top right hand corner of the screen. F-14 fuel costs money, so it'll be constantly ticking up, nevermind when you actually do something fun like fire back. I can't seem to find a unit cost for Vulcan bullets (or rounds or whatever), but let's say around $20 each. That sounds vaguely plausible. Feel free to correct me. They'll be going all the time. All day. All infinite. A Marine Corps fact file website I just got off google reckons a Sidewinder costs about $83, 000. $83,000 everytime you fire at an enemy MIG. It better hit for that! Lets say you've got infinite of those and carte blanche to use 'em to end the Flying Fortress Menace. How are you meant to succeed without them?! The counters wheezing.
Deaths would total up too, wiki reckons an F-14 Tomcat will set you back around $38 million. So $38 million a pop every single time you die. With infinite lives and a complete lack of survival mechanic, that'll add up.
Just to add to the mounting stress, ally pilots will fly directly into your firing line every so often for no reason what-so-ever. You'll defo kill them dead too. So that's coin for the plane and a nice settlement for the family back home. REPARATIONS! might flash up on screen in big yellow hideous letters. Do it often enough and there might even be a Bonus Stage were you get to bomb the families house before they can put a claim in. Take that bereaved family!
3. Back Home Window Screen - This counter system does not end there. It's too dry and not funny so far. So we'll have a little window in the bottom right hand of the HUD. The window will be a picture into the lives of the average US citizen whilst Navy expenditure totals up. They'll start off all super Patriotic and happy, maybe shouting little speech bubble slogans and laughing everytime you crush a foreign fighter pilot. "Hooray!" they'll shout. It'll be a little family - Mum (or Mom), Dad, and two kids. They might even have a Dog. They'll have a nice big house too, with a flag. It'll be Sega sunny for sure. That's how it'll start. Then you'll fire off (far) too many rockets and it'll start look a bit shitty for Pop US.
The little window screen will display a short sequence of congress raising taxes to pay for your gallantly homicidal efforts. Immediate effect on our little window family? The youngest kid can't go to college. Too expensive I'll wager. The shortest figure will begin crying. It's a little girl. She won't stop.
Oh no! You died loads because you're rubbish! Congress will freeze wage increases. The little man is a spendthrift, he was counting on a raise to bail him out on the second mortgage he took out to pay off his mounting gambling debts. His wife is now shouting at him. They've lost the house and have now moved to crime alley! It's dangerous and crack-housey!
This sort of business will continue everytime your constant ballsing up reaches a significant monetary amount. Eventually the dog will run away, the son will be drafted into a pointless street gang and killed, the little girl will continue to cry. Mum and Dad'll split up, so wifey will depart. And so on, and so forth. By the time you've killed the Flying Fortress Final Boss, the Dad'll be smacked up living in a bin. But! You'll have saved the world. Good work soldier!
Your ending will therefore be based on whether or not you were total shit all the way through. If you hopped straight up to the corner and cheated your way through (good call), it's parades and peaches. Hooray! Your high-school sweetheart will put out for sure! But! If you attempted to play the game as was intended it's home to countless slums, desolation and baby-eating. Nice work dick-face!
Master System After Burner is unplayable bollocks. It is. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It is. It's supremely pretty and so devoid of landscape ambition that it's lent a stark, waterworld wasteland vibe, but you die for no reason all the time. All the time. So! In a feat of some-decades-too-late anti-foresight I give you a handful of ways to make it super loads better:
1. Infinite Lives - but it breaks the game yet further you might moan! Quite right, but I'm going somewhere with this. Have faith. Infinite Lives for the player, so there is no chance they won't get through this game to the (alleged, but unseen by me) Big Flying Fortress Last Boss.
2. Have a United States Navy expenditure counter - the crux of my idea really. If you're going to find anything about this fun or amusing, it'll be happening now. Everytime you fire off a round from your M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling Gun, or launch an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile your Navy expenditure account will be credited. It'll be quite big and in the top right hand corner of the screen. F-14 fuel costs money, so it'll be constantly ticking up, nevermind when you actually do something fun like fire back. I can't seem to find a unit cost for Vulcan bullets (or rounds or whatever), but let's say around $20 each. That sounds vaguely plausible. Feel free to correct me. They'll be going all the time. All day. All infinite. A Marine Corps fact file website I just got off google reckons a Sidewinder costs about $83, 000. $83,000 everytime you fire at an enemy MIG. It better hit for that! Lets say you've got infinite of those and carte blanche to use 'em to end the Flying Fortress Menace. How are you meant to succeed without them?! The counters wheezing.
Deaths would total up too, wiki reckons an F-14 Tomcat will set you back around $38 million. So $38 million a pop every single time you die. With infinite lives and a complete lack of survival mechanic, that'll add up.
Just to add to the mounting stress, ally pilots will fly directly into your firing line every so often for no reason what-so-ever. You'll defo kill them dead too. So that's coin for the plane and a nice settlement for the family back home. REPARATIONS! might flash up on screen in big yellow hideous letters. Do it often enough and there might even be a Bonus Stage were you get to bomb the families house before they can put a claim in. Take that bereaved family!
3. Back Home Window Screen - This counter system does not end there. It's too dry and not funny so far. So we'll have a little window in the bottom right hand of the HUD. The window will be a picture into the lives of the average US citizen whilst Navy expenditure totals up. They'll start off all super Patriotic and happy, maybe shouting little speech bubble slogans and laughing everytime you crush a foreign fighter pilot. "Hooray!" they'll shout. It'll be a little family - Mum (or Mom), Dad, and two kids. They might even have a Dog. They'll have a nice big house too, with a flag. It'll be Sega sunny for sure. That's how it'll start. Then you'll fire off (far) too many rockets and it'll start look a bit shitty for Pop US.
The little window screen will display a short sequence of congress raising taxes to pay for your gallantly homicidal efforts. Immediate effect on our little window family? The youngest kid can't go to college. Too expensive I'll wager. The shortest figure will begin crying. It's a little girl. She won't stop.
Oh no! You died loads because you're rubbish! Congress will freeze wage increases. The little man is a spendthrift, he was counting on a raise to bail him out on the second mortgage he took out to pay off his mounting gambling debts. His wife is now shouting at him. They've lost the house and have now moved to crime alley! It's dangerous and crack-housey!
This sort of business will continue everytime your constant ballsing up reaches a significant monetary amount. Eventually the dog will run away, the son will be drafted into a pointless street gang and killed, the little girl will continue to cry. Mum and Dad'll split up, so wifey will depart. And so on, and so forth. By the time you've killed the Flying Fortress Final Boss, the Dad'll be smacked up living in a bin. But! You'll have saved the world. Good work soldier!
Your ending will therefore be based on whether or not you were total shit all the way through. If you hopped straight up to the corner and cheated your way through (good call), it's parades and peaches. Hooray! Your high-school sweetheart will put out for sure! But! If you attempted to play the game as was intended it's home to countless slums, desolation and baby-eating. Nice work dick-face!
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
21 Year Old AM2 Game Is News.
If you've ever seen Terminator 2, or more accurately, if you saw Terminator 2 aged 10, you're definitely a bit in love with the gyroscopic death-rolling plane game John Connor wastes ill-gotten gains on whilst Robert Patrick stalks him through a Cali mall. No, trust me. You are.
"What was that wonderful game?" you more than likely ask, unable to sleep at night - any night - until you know the answer. It's probably ruined your life, unable to commit, letting all those nice presentable significant others slip through your fingers. You're a mess! Well luckily, Doctor Red is here to save the day (and re-heat an oldish review to boot)! Exciting! I'm kind like a Christian.
That wonderful game was After Burner. It was great. It was also created by Sega supremo Yu Suzuki. He's Sega's answer to Shigeru Miyamoto don't you know. Mr Suzuki is likely a kindly sort, I'll wager he regularly (and generously) donates to all manner of charities. I bet he even leaves a platter of food out for night animals every evening. Probably gets the first round in too. What a gent. Mrs Suzuki, you're lucky to have him. Fumbling through his Wiki CV, he appears single-handedly responsible for the Summery blue sky love-hug I associate with Sega's arcade division. Mr Suzuki produced / directed Space Harrier, Hang-On, Outrun and of course After Burner. I bet he's ten feet tall.
Did Mr Suzuki have any part in the game under review (it's the Master System port of After Burner, doubt I mentioned that)? I cannot say. Information such as this is a trifle thin on the ground. I can tell you that Tengen are responsible for the NES port. Not very helpful though is it? Who Knows? Maybe he did. Maybe he was very happy with the final result. Maybe the work experience kid did it? Oh dear. That's coloured the review slightly. Jumped the gun there. Ruined the end a bit. Definitely don't want to mention that the arcade experience was woefully represented on home consoles the world over do I? Keep you on the edge of you seat and all that. Anyway, if anyone does know who is responsible, I would dearly like to know. Dearly. I assume there's a comments bit below. Go nuts!
Look! It's my first blog review! It's quite purple.
After Burner - Sega Master System
An enormous, gorgeous jet-plane sprite blasts along luxurious regulation blue Sega seascapes. It is flanked on all sides by dastardly rival camo-fighter MIGs, and scored with a slow steppin' bare-bones electro hum beat. Catchy, catchy. This is Master System After Burner. It is on a FOUR MEGA CARTRIDGE (512k)! Your jet fighter blasts along at a criminal pace, battling for it's life! Occasionally, zero progressive animation flicky death spheres appear right next to your craft and utterly obliterate it. This is war!
Played straight, success in Master System After Burner is so arbitrary that the whole exercise plays like a tre hip pixel art installation piece snidely commentating on the futility of modern techno warfare. You might well have a state-of-the-art 80s death arrow fighter jet and infinite missiles, but sooner or later you are going to blow up and die. Bet you weren't expecting a fatalist treatise on combat life expectancy when you booted up Sega's 8-bit were you?
If you're a cheater though, you can breeze through the whole game by jamming your plane into the top-left corner of the screen - no enemies need to be killed to progress, in that sense After Burner is more a survivalist race ride than a screen clearing maths shooter. Master System After Burner is less a conversion than an impression of Yu Suzuki's hydraulic arcade giant, skill and clarity are jettisoned in favour of getting the largest and prettiest possible F-14 Tomcat sprite dead centre on-screen. That's what you're paying for. That's what you're still paying for.
"What was that wonderful game?" you more than likely ask, unable to sleep at night - any night - until you know the answer. It's probably ruined your life, unable to commit, letting all those nice presentable significant others slip through your fingers. You're a mess! Well luckily, Doctor Red is here to save the day (and re-heat an oldish review to boot)! Exciting! I'm kind like a Christian.
That wonderful game was After Burner. It was great. It was also created by Sega supremo Yu Suzuki. He's Sega's answer to Shigeru Miyamoto don't you know. Mr Suzuki is likely a kindly sort, I'll wager he regularly (and generously) donates to all manner of charities. I bet he even leaves a platter of food out for night animals every evening. Probably gets the first round in too. What a gent. Mrs Suzuki, you're lucky to have him. Fumbling through his Wiki CV, he appears single-handedly responsible for the Summery blue sky love-hug I associate with Sega's arcade division. Mr Suzuki produced / directed Space Harrier, Hang-On, Outrun and of course After Burner. I bet he's ten feet tall.
Did Mr Suzuki have any part in the game under review (it's the Master System port of After Burner, doubt I mentioned that)? I cannot say. Information such as this is a trifle thin on the ground. I can tell you that Tengen are responsible for the NES port. Not very helpful though is it? Who Knows? Maybe he did. Maybe he was very happy with the final result. Maybe the work experience kid did it? Oh dear. That's coloured the review slightly. Jumped the gun there. Ruined the end a bit. Definitely don't want to mention that the arcade experience was woefully represented on home consoles the world over do I? Keep you on the edge of you seat and all that. Anyway, if anyone does know who is responsible, I would dearly like to know. Dearly. I assume there's a comments bit below. Go nuts!
Look! It's my first blog review! It's quite purple.
After Burner - Sega Master System
An enormous, gorgeous jet-plane sprite blasts along luxurious regulation blue Sega seascapes. It is flanked on all sides by dastardly rival camo-fighter MIGs, and scored with a slow steppin' bare-bones electro hum beat. Catchy, catchy. This is Master System After Burner. It is on a FOUR MEGA CARTRIDGE (512k)! Your jet fighter blasts along at a criminal pace, battling for it's life! Occasionally, zero progressive animation flicky death spheres appear right next to your craft and utterly obliterate it. This is war!
Played straight, success in Master System After Burner is so arbitrary that the whole exercise plays like a tre hip pixel art installation piece snidely commentating on the futility of modern techno warfare. You might well have a state-of-the-art 80s death arrow fighter jet and infinite missiles, but sooner or later you are going to blow up and die. Bet you weren't expecting a fatalist treatise on combat life expectancy when you booted up Sega's 8-bit were you?
If you're a cheater though, you can breeze through the whole game by jamming your plane into the top-left corner of the screen - no enemies need to be killed to progress, in that sense After Burner is more a survivalist race ride than a screen clearing maths shooter. Master System After Burner is less a conversion than an impression of Yu Suzuki's hydraulic arcade giant, skill and clarity are jettisoned in favour of getting the largest and prettiest possible F-14 Tomcat sprite dead centre on-screen. That's what you're paying for. That's what you're still paying for.
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