I was never a huge comic book nerd growing up, but I always had a soft spot when it came to Spider-Man. I ate up the cartoon like the sugar injected cereal that accompanied it’s viewings. I dumped a small fortune of birthday money on action figures and playsets. When all the parental planets aligned and I was able to rent a game from our local Hastings, I would usually pick up Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage.

To give you a brief overview, Maximum Carnage is a early 90’s beat’em up out out by LJN/Acclaim that features Spidey and Venom as they try to put a stop to the serial murder Cletus Kasady, better known as the symbiote infused supervillain Carnage.

While I had some really great games for the SNES, Maximum Carnage still stands out to me as the most memorable. Since we were a Nintendo town for the most part, and only one of my friends even had a Genesis, I didn’t know this game came out on anything other than SNES. That being the case, I still hold it among my top favorite SNES games of all time. When I found it recently at a used bookstore, I decided to pick it up to see if it actually was any good or if my memories were blurred thru the lens of nostalgia and youthful fanboy-ism.

"He's the ultimate insanity, in case you were wondering."

The first thing I realized as I played thru the initial level is that I was really terrible at this game as a kid. I mean REALLY terrible. In a few minutes of playing I was further than my 10 year old self would ever dream of achieving. I know I rented this game at least a half a dozen times, and I’m fairly sure I only beat the first level once. I also realized that there is a decent amount of strategy in how you have to handle a group of thugs; tactics that my younger self wouldn’t be able to comprehend or pull off through his mixture of confusion and button mashing. Moves I did as a kid that I had chalked up to flukes, like webbing two baddies and smashing them together overhead, were now no problem to pull off. I was swinging and slugging like an old pro.

As I scaled the side of a building, using my spectacular spidey sense to avoid Shreak’s sonic blasts and Dopple-ganger’s swinging kicks to the head, I thought about how much I used to dread this part. It was a short walkway to certain doom for my younger, chubbier self. As an adult, I was showing these rouges how it’s done. I made short work of them, until a cheap shot sent me over the edge of the building and crashing into the ground below. Having only made it this far once, it caught me off guard for a moment before I realized it was a scripted event. I played my share of beat’em ups growing up, but I can’t remember any that had stronger story elements than Maximum Carnage. Between the scripted events, the comic panel-like cutscenes, and the cameos by other Marvel heros and villains, this brawler still has a lot of charm.

"Spider-Man can't get enough hobo-punching"

In addition to being charming, it’s also incredibly quirky. The cartridge is encased in a bright, blood red plastic shell, with an ominously hungry Cletus Kasady ready to eat your face. It also was one of the first games on my radar to feature licensed music, and while I had no idea who Green Jelly was, I felt like the game was something special because of it. And while a lot of beat’em ups gave you a choice of characters to play, Maximum Carnage tied it into the story, requiring you to make some progress before having the payoff of playing as Venom.

I had to put the controller down after the first 3 or 4 levels, but I’m looking forward to having enough time to finish the game, and sharing that experience with my son. While I’m sure he won’t understand exactly how he webbed a crook and threw him off screen, or smashed those two thugs in the air, if history is any indication he won’t care. He’ll just have fun doing it.

Back in the SNES era, one may remember a title Interplay and Visual Concepts developed that bears the word “Clay” in it. Probably to most, the first game that will pop in your head is the memorable Clayfighter fighting game. But there is another lesser known “Clay” gem they both produced in the same year called Claymates, a colorful platformer that hid under the shadows throughout the console’s life.

Claymates is about a boy named Clayton who one day is in a laboratory with his father, who has created a serum that can transform clay into animals. Apparently witch doctors fiend for this stuff because one magically appears out of nowhere and demands that Clayton’s father hand over the serum. He denies him and the witch doctor then strikes Clayton with lightning, transforming him into a blue ball of clay, then proceeds to steal the serum and Clayton’s father away in a flash. Clayton vows to rescue his father and the serum, even if he is just a ball of clay.

The gameplay is as simple as a platformer gets, with a small twist. You control Clayton as a blue ball of clay with the ability to punch and jump. Throughout each stage you can transform Clayton from his simple blue ball form into different animals by collecting smaller, different colored balls. These are usually placed at specific spots where that animal is needed to progress further. There are four animals you can turn in to: a mouse, a cat, a gopher and a bird. Each have their own attacks and abilities, some of which will be required to progress further in the stage. Collecting another colored ball of the same animal will gain you an extra hit. If an enemy hits you, you go right back to your plain blue ball form. Enemies usually are pretty straight forward and simple, with each one usually taking one to three hits to defeat, and they vary depending on the theme of the stage.

As noted on the front cover of the box art, Claymates features “Blaze-processing” which allows you to run at blindingly fast speed when controlling the rat. This was specifically featured, as at the time there were a small handful of games on the SNES that allowed you to move quickly, much like Sonic does on the Genesis. In some cases, this can be useful for speeding through the game. But what I found to be more enjoyable is finding all the secrets and collectibles by exploring each area of the stage

The game does stray away from the usual platformer in terms of progressing between stages. After each level, you are sent to the world map and given several robots who only walk forward until they hit a wall or obstacle, then change direction at a right angle and continue walking. You have to manipulate them to help open the way to the next stage, whether it be cutting down a tree or moving a boulder.

Claymates is somewhat of a short game. There are five worlds, with roughly three to five stages in each. Throughout the game, Clayton travels across Japan, Asia and even Outer friggen’ Space. At the end of each world, like any respectful platformer, there is a boss to defeat. There are no save points or passwords, so players looking to beat the game can look forward to about a one to three hour play session.

There’s nothing too impressive with the generic soundtrack and the bland graphics, so gameplay is about the only strong point in the game. The further you progress, the more repetitive and predictable the puzzles become. Around World 4, you will have seen everything Claymates has to offer. The usual concept would be that the more content, the better the experience. Not so for Claymates. Little is just enough.

There are not too many games in the SNES lifetime that have witch doctors transforming the protagonist into a blue ball of Play-Doh, but Claymates finds a way to mold the usual platforming experience with different animal characters and abilities that are used to keep it from being a bland adventure. It may be short and the story is nonexistent, but if you go into it expecting a fun playable game to keep you occupied for an hour or two, you will be pleasantly surprised.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

When the Game Boy hit North America in 1989, it brought with it a new Mario game. The first Mario game that was portable (outside of Game & Watch devices, that is).

Originally, the Game Boy was going to be sold with Super Mario Land. But as the legend goes, Henk Rogers was able to convince Nintendo that packaging the system with Tetris, which he had the license to, would give their new handheld a wider appeal and sell to a larger demographic. With the wild success of the platform, you can’t really argue that he was wrong.

Still, Super Mario Land was available at launch in both Japan and North America. Even though it was a bit of a departure for the series, it sold incredibly well.

Unlike the regular games in the series, SML takes place in Sarasaland (which I think technically is supposed to be part of the Mushroom Kingdom). The cast of characters is also changed up. Instead of Princess Peach, we are introduced to Princess Daisy. Rather than having Bowser get up to his old tricks, there is a crazy alien named Tatanga. But the rest of the plot is what you would expect. The princess is kidnapped by the bad guy and Mario has to save her.

Sarasaland is broken up into four worlds (instead of the eight from the original Super Mario Bros.), each of which has its own theme. In addition to the platforming, there are also two vehicle levels that continuously scroll to the right. Other bizarre differences include turtles that explode when you stomp them, “superballs” instead of fireballs (which bounce off of surfaces at a 45 degree angle and can collect coins for you), and gameplay that doesn’t pause when you get hit or collect a power-up.

"Moai: Not just for Gradius Anymore!"

Why did I pick this game?

Nintendo just launched their Virtual Console service for the 3DS. The three titles that came out the night of launch were Super Mario Land, Alleyway, and Radar Mission. I wanted to try out the service, and even though I remembered Super Mario Land as a fairly mediocre game, I bit the bullet and purchased it.

If I had held out until the next day, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX hit the shop.

How does it hold up with time?

Unlike its NES big brothers, Super Mario Land does not hold up well. Everything feels off, and I’m not talking about the plot and setting (Super Mario Bros. 2 being a series favorite of mine). The running and jumping aren’t right. The speed at which you and items you are trying to collect fall is way too fast. The level design seems simplistic and uninteresting.

When I think of Mario games, I think of them controlling a very specific way. Super Mario Land doesn’t control the way it should. The tight control and interesting level design of other Mario games is what makes them stand out from the crowd.

It is also incredibly short. There are only a total of twelve levels, many of which are short themselves. Once the game is complete, you unlock a hard mode, but I had absolutely no motivation to try it out.

Strangely enough, the two scrolling vehicle levels were the most interesting thing in the game. They play like a simple SHMUP, and are actually pretty fun. I haven’t played SML since the early 90′s, so I had forgotten that the final boss was also fought in one of the vehicles.

Super Mario Land is a very forgettable entry in the pantheon of Mario titles. Fortunately, it was followed up with the far superior Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Also, was it just me or was Chai Land super-racist?

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

In 1992, when adventure games still reigned supreme with PC gaming nerds, LucasArts released one of their most beloved titles, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. It had everything a fan of both the adventure genre and the Indiana Jones movies could want.

You get to play as Indiana, traveling the world, fighting Nazis and solving the mystery of a lost civilization. What more could a fan ask for?

Fate of Atlantis is another in the long line of SCUMM adventure games. It uses the now famous point and click interface where the bottom half of the screen is used to make sentences wherein you “use kerosene on spiral design”. As you would expect, the bulk of the game consists of talking to the NPC’s, collecting various items and using those items to solve puzzles.

Being Indiana Jones, you also have to do a little archeological research. To keep things interesting, Fate of Atlantis has a set of solutions found in Plato’s Lost Dialog (a book within the game you have to retrieve) that are randomized. There are also three different paths you can choose which even more drastically change how to solve the game’s puzzles.

It’s up to you whether or not you want to head out into the world on your own, with your former colleague Sophia Hapgood, or with fists a’blazing. On the wits path, Indiana goes out on the adventure solo, relying on his wits and charm to solve the puzzles. The team path allows you to defer to Sophia, who will help you get on the good side of otherwise unfriendly characters. And of course the fists path requires lots of keyboard based fisticuffs.

No matter which path you choose, your mission is to figure out what happened to Atlantis and stop the Nazi’s from acquiring it’s rumored hidden power. All in a days work for everyone’s favorite globe trotting, beefy guy punching, whip wielding archaeologist.

Why did I pick this game?

As a fan of both adventure games and the real Indiana Jones films (you know Crystal Skull doesn’t count), I am amazed I didn’t play this game sooner. This is a recurring theme when it comes to the LucasArts series of adventure games. Outside of Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle, I mostly played the Sierra adventure games, like Space Quest.

That isn’t a knock against the LucasArts games in the least. I just personally didn’t have access to their games back then. That’s the real reason I chose Fate of Atlantis. I had always heard good things about it, but never had a chance to play it for myself.

How does it hold up with time?

There are two big factors that go into an old adventure game holding up. First, is the story entertaining? In most games, story isn’t really all that important, but what always drew me to adventure games was that feeling that you were playing through a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

Despite the fact that the voice actor for Indiana Jones sounds nothing like Harrison Ford, the voice work and story are both well executed. It’s a little on the cheesy side, but the quirky sense of humor associated with the LucasArts games is definitely intact.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, do the puzzles hold up? This is the tricky one. Now that the answer to any puzzle can be looked up in a few seconds on GameFaqs, it’s a lot tougher to determine. Was a puzzle just too confusing or poorly designed, or would you have eventually solved it? Having finished several classic adventure games back in the day as a collaboration with friends, I think Fate of Atlantis would be one that we wouldn’t have spent too much time getting completely stuck in.

When I did find myself getting stuck and referring to a guide, none of the solutions were so obtuse that I had a “I never would have thought of that” moment. I do condone looking up the answers if you are so stuck in the game that it is sapping your enjoyment.

The biggest thing that didn’t hold up for me was the combat. Thankfully, it is completely optional in both the Wits and Team paths.

All in all, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis still holds up as a great example of the adventure genre. If you haven’t played it yourself, you should really give it a shot.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

After being framed for a crime he didn’t commit, Spider-Man has to fight to clear his name and save the city. To do this he’ll have to take on super villains that any Spidey fan will immediately recognize and appreciate, like Venom, the Rhino, Scorpion, and Carnage.

This is the premise of the original Playstation Spider-Man. No movie tie-in, just a super hero game for the sake of having a super hero game.

There are a number of secrets to find, costumes to unlock (some of which upgrade his abilities) and comics littered throughout the game.

The voice acting is surprisingly good with most of the actors from Spider-Man The Animated Series reprising their roles. However, like many games on the original Playstation, the graphics look terrible now. I can’t think of anything scarier than the Black Cat’s character model in this game.

The combat is very simple. Square is your punch and circle is your kick. Spider-Man also has several special moves he can pull off with his webbing. You can create web gloves which do double punching damage, trap enemies in a web, or even create a web dome which protects you for a brief time. I found that webbing up my fists and mashing on the square button got me through 99% of the fights.

Fans of old Spider-Man cartoons will recognize the web swinging. Instead of attaching his webs to buildings like in the recent movies, Spidey seems to have the ability to attach his webs to thin air. There were a couple of times where I plummeted to my death because the game decided that the air I was trying to swing on didn’t work for some reason.

Why did I pick this game?

It might seem strange these days, but there was a time when super heroes like Spider-Man weren’t starring in blockbuster movies every summer. There were super hero games, but they mostly involved walking to the right and punching people in the head or jumping on platforms and then punching people in the head.

Spider-Man was really the first video game that actually made you feel like a super hero, like you were Spider-Man. All of his spider powers were there; swinging on webs, climbing up walls… it is even narrated by the one and only Stan Lee.

How does it hold up with time?

When it was released, Spider-Man was a revelation. It proved that video games could actually capture the feel of being a super hero. Unfortunately, the game has not aged well at all. Even if you can get past the laughable PS1 graphics and the simplistic combat, there are two glaring problems that will have you yanking out your hair in frustration. First off, the game’s camera feels as though it is actively trying to cause your death. The other problem was annoying 10 years ago when the game first came out and time has only exacerbated it. Spider-Man can go wherever a spider can right? So if you walk up to a wall Spidey will attempt to climb it even if you were just trying to get out of the way of a charging Rhino and you didn’t mean to try to walk up the wall.

There are some games that I play for Friday Old Games just to make fun of. But there are others that I genuinely remember as being awesome. Playing through Spider-Man left me a little sad. As much as I enjoyed it 10 years ago, Spider-Man is one of those games that just feels painful to play now. There isn’t much to it that isn’t done better by a shinier, prettier newer game.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

“It has been 50 years since the nuclear disaster. The sport of sprint racing is now a ruthless battle between armed cars. These races take place on tracks built in the ruins of the dangerous nuclear zone known only as the BADLANDS. This is sprint racing gone BAD! It’s all-out war on the track as players blast away at the drones (and each other) to finish first! Players shoot playfield targets for extra points and bonus missiles!” -Badlands Manual

Badlands is a top down racing game set 50 years after a nuclear disaster. Sprint racing is now a ruthless battle set in a post apocalyptic wasteland. As the games manual eloquently puts it, “This is sprint racing gone BAD!” Three cars race on a single screen track, dodging obstacles like mines, retractable barricades, and oil slicks.

There are wrenches that you can pick up to purchase power ups in the shop at the end of each race. You can purchase better tires, turbo, a higher top speed, or missiles that you can use on the other cars. These missiles are the biggest addition to the series. Shooting another other car with a missile causes it to blow up forcing the other player to wait for a replacement car to get airlifted on to the track.

The tracks are interesting, especially for a game from the late 80′s. There are twists, jumps, and figure eights.

The key to success is in powering up your vehicle. Coming in first and collecting wrenches mean the difference between first and last place. It could be rough if your buddy managed to get completely souped up and you were stuck with the stock car from the beginning. He would be sliding around turns perfectly and lapping you as you chugged along running into walls and exploding over and over.

Why did I pick this game?

I was always a huge sucker for the Sprint series; Badlands is the spiritual successor to those titles. My cousins and I have wasted days of our lives playing Sprint games both at home and at the old nickel arcade that was down the block from their house.

However, I didn’t even realize this game existed until recently, and even then it was a case of me trying it because the start up screen art is amazing.

How does it hold up with time?

It takes a second to adjust the switches in my brain for top down racing. The mechanics are just something that modern video games no longer employ. But there is something to be said for the simple, timeless pleasure of blowing your friends up. You can play single player, but this is a game that was meant to be played with a couple of buddies. Blowing each other up or causing each other to miss a tight turn will probably never get old for me.

However, some of you have grown up in a post Gran Turismo and Burnout world, so top down racing will seem strange and foreign to you. You’ll probably turn left when you meant to turn right and end up getting blown up. But if you can persevere through the initial learning curve, you’ll find a very gem of a game.

This review is based on the edition of Badlands found in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 for the Xbox.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

As the resident Mega Man fan here, you… oh wait, I guess Jesse is here too. As the resident other Mega Man fan here, you might think I love the series all over and I think it can do no wrong. I mean, I do maintain a Mega Man fansite and try to shill for it at every opportunity I get. But the truth is I’m pretty discerning in what I see as quality in games, and Mega Man 5 is an interesting case. While it was the first Mega Man game I ever owned and I do have fond memories of playing it, I’ve come to determine it’s one of the weakest games in the series.

It’s by no means a terrible game; it was derived from a tried and true formula and had the benefit of a few years of experience and fine tuning. It’s probably still one of the better NES games out there. But Mega Man 5 is also where the series really starts to run out of steam. If Mega Man 2 was lightning in a bottle, Mega Man 5 was a bottle opener. Had I not been 10 when I played this game, my perspective of the whole franchise might be wildly skewed from what it is today.

So let’s get to the details. In Mega Man 5, Dr. Wily creates a shape-shifting robot to impersonate Proto Man and kidnap Dr. Light, making Proto Man appear to be the villain. Oops, did I spoil it? Truth be told, this is actually a fairly interesting story. Proto Man is a very mysterious figure introduced in Mega Man 3, where you only find out at the end that he’s Mega Man’s long lost robrother. Proto Man only makes a brief appearance in 4, so a Proto Man-centric story seems like an interesting place to explore. Though, since this is one of my first Mega Man games, I probably figured this Proto Man guy was just around all the time and the significance was lost on me.

Mega Man 5′s new features are pretty underwhelming. He’s now equipped with the Super Mega Buster, which allows him to charge up an energy blast the size of his body, any time he wants, with no real cost. This effectively negates any challenge the majority of enemies might wield. The game also introduces a robotic bird that follows Mega Man around and attacks enemies by crashing into them, although you have to find plates that spell MEGAMANV to unlock him. Beat is pretty useful against certain bosses, but otherwise isn’t all that amazing. And is it really any fun to just run around and let Beat do all the work?

Finally, they changed how Rush Coil works, which is just ridiculous. Now instead of launching you into the air, Rush launches himself up with you on top. As newbish as it sounds, there are so many times I’ve slipped off this and made Rush leap up without me. Fortunately, there are fewer places than ever that you’ll need to actually use Rush Coil. This style of Rush Coil was never revisited in another Mega Man game.

But the real meat and potatoes of any Mega Man game is the bosses; the Robot Masters, and their weapons. And this is where Mega Man 5 really begins to falter. I do have to praise the Robot Masters for being on the unique side, and there are a handful which use themes previously not seen in a Mega Man title. But at the same time, they kind of come off as… un-MegaManish. And I can’t really put my finger on why that is. Perhaps it’s because they started getting too detailed looking, eschewing the simple but effective designs of the previous games. And honestly, there’s nothing especially cool about a Robot Master modeled after a steam engine, or a Robot Master made of bricks. Sure, every Mega Man game has at least a couple of oddballs, and the likes of Napalm Man and Gravity Man are pretty cool. The Mega Man 5 crew ultimately accomplishes being one of the more unique sets of bosses, yet at the same time it’s almost entirely uninteresting.

What’s much worse than the Robot Masters are their stages. They are largely devoid of any interesting features. Something is definitely wrong when you introduce new stage types such as a train, a space station, and a Vietnam War-esque jungle military base, and yet none of them make a strong impression. Wave Man’s stage doesn’t even have enemies during the entire first half of it. Only Gravity Man’s stage comes off as particularly interesting, where the gravity is constantly being flipped and you spend stretches walking on the ceiling. I would have much rather had this concept revisited in Dr. Wily’s castle instead of the ceiling presses from Dust Man’s stage in Mega Man 4.

Speaking of the castles, I will concede those stages are better designed and provide a real challenge. It’s a nice treat if you’ve invested yourself this far into the game. Also, I love that Dark Man’s castle is shaped like Proto Man’s head, as if Dr. Wily thought he had to try that hard to make sure Proto Man appeared to be the villain.

Then there are the weapons. The only nice thing I can really say of them is they’re better than the weapons you get in Mega Man 6. I would suppose Crystal Eye is the best weapon for its low energy consumption and ability to split into smaller crystals that ricochet off walls. Gravity Hold is interesting, but uses too much energy to be used effectively. Gyro Attack is a take off of Magnet Missile, except slower and you have to prompt which direction it goes. Charge Kick only activates while sliding, and joins Napalm Bomb and Water Wave as weapons that only work on the ground’s surface. Power Stone isn’t awful but you’d be lucky to hit anything that isn’t right next to you. Star Crash at least has a wide area for a barrier, and you can throw it which makes it entirely better than the previous title’s Skull Barrier. You also get the Super Rod with Star Crash, which is an interesting but not highly useful device. It’d be fun to use the arrows to ride through stages if not for the fact doing this immediately drains the power. Ultimately there is no weapon better than your ridiculously powerful charged shot, which you start the game with.

Other than that, it’s pretty typical Mega Man fare. A lot of the game’s little enemies come off as weird shapes and don’t have much character, though they did use this game to really diversify the types of Metalls and Joes. The game’s music is good and well composed, and fun to listen to as a soundtrack. But as game music, it comes off as more environmental and doesn’t really push you as hard. A lot of the songs are long and overly technical as opposed to just relying on a strong, catchy melody and a good beat. And why is there only one theme for the respective castle stages? This just seems entirely lazy. At least they’re some of the game’s stronger themes (if you haven’t realized, Mega Man 5 only starts getting good after you beat the eight Robot Masters).

All in all, you just get the feeling the developers really stopped caring with Mega Man 5. When you look at the first three games in the series, each one builds off the last and adds more content and ideas. But following Mega Man 4, it’s like Capcom decided, “This is enough for a Mega Man game. We don’t have to do anything more.” Evolution of the series became centered around adding useless features and using plot contrivances to make you believe Dr. Wily isn’t the real villain. Again, it’s not an awful game, but Mega Man 5 wastes a lot of its potential just being phoned in and cookie cutter, and that’s a major warning sign for any series.

Why did I pick this game?

I have a friend who swears up and down that this is his favorite classic Mega Man game of all time, and I really just can’t grasp why that is. Granted, it’s not like I’m discontent to let him sit with his opinion, but I’ve lately felt the urge to go back and analyze it to see if there’s something I’m really missing.

Besides that, as I mentioned, this was my first Mega Man game and I have fond experiences with it as a kid. I can even remember when I thought the game was pretty hard! It’s fascinating to me that a game that holds such strong nostalgic value really turns out to be one of the laziest Mega Man games ever made.

How does it hold up over time?

Honestly… pretty well. I mean yeah, it was a lazy, dumbed down Mega Man game, but it was always that. While I may be old enough now to realize how hollow so much of the game’s content is, it’s not like it’s any worse to play now. It’s still Mega Man. It still has tight, well-defined controls. It just doesn’t offer up much of an adventure to go with it. Unless you disliked this game back in 1992, it still holds up well now. It hasn’t aged any more than any other NES game in comparison to today’s high definition, throbbing polygon games.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Gundam Battle Assault 2 is a one-on-one 2-D fighting game where giant mechs punch and shoot each other in the face. The game lets you experience several Gundam universes. The story loosely follows the events of the One Year War, the 13th Gundam Fight, and the Endless Waltz OVA.

Which I take to mean, “giant mechs punching and shooting each other in the face”.

The sprites are large, bright, and colorful and would have blown my mind back in 1994.

But Gundam Battle Assault 2 was released in 2002, which puts it squarely in the post Dreamcast, PS2 world. Sadly, the graphics were already starting to look dated on the day of its release. They are not bad by any means, but are a little underwhelming.

I could get past the dated sprites if the gameplay was good enough, but unfortunately the game is just too slow. I understand that these are supposed to be giant walking tanks. The slower pace could have worked if the game required more strategy or the mechs packed a bigger punch. But as it is, we are left with a shallow and slow fighting game with an amazing cover.

Why did I pick this game?

The cover of the game excited me.

Stan Bush would be proud.

Seriously, that was all it took. When I look at that cover, I hear an awesome 80′s hair metal power ballad in my head.

Having never watched the anime the game is based on, I could only assume that it has something to do with giant mechs punching each other in the head. As a fan of giant mechs and punching I knew I had to take her for a whirl.

At the very least I figured I would have an excuse to throw some Stan Bush on the stereo.

How does it hold up with time?

The game lacks the finesse and strategy of the top tier fighters. Mashing on the triangle button and blocking occasionally will lead you to victory a good 90% of the time. It is not the worst fighting game on the PS1, but is not nearly as good as its contemporaries.

Unless your room is covered with Gundam posters and your bookshelves are full of Gundam manga and your DVD collection consists entirely of Gundam DVD’s, you can probably skip this one.

I do have to say that I would love to see this game updated for the new consoles. The weapons, the mechs and the specials would look amazing with today’s technology. So see what you can do about that for me, internet.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

By 1991, games on the NES were already starting to be overlooked. The onset of fancy new 16-bit game consoles like the Sega Genesis stole a lot of their thunder. Heck, the Super NES launch was right around the corner!

Even games that were critically successful would often fall to the wayside. Sadly, Metal Storm suffered this fate. It didn’t help that it was also published by Irem, the people that brought us Deadly Towers, the game popular satirist Seanbaby refers to as “the worst Nintendo Game of all time”.

The good news is Metal Storm is no Deadly Towers. It’s an action platformer where you control a mech that must navigate some very tricky levels.

On the surface, Metal Storm seems like your average NES platformer/shooter. You are a robot, you shoot the other robots before they shoot you. But their is a very clever mechanic in the mix that really adds to the gameplay: you can control the gravity.

Simply by jumping and hitting A and either up or down, you can switch between walking on either the top or bottom of the screen.

"Crazy Upside Down Gravity"

It not only changes your own orientation, but that of many of the enemies in the game. There are also some levels where the gravity will also effects certain doorways. It takes some quick reflexes to properly use the mechanic, and is completely necessary to your successful progression through the game.

Stages are broken up into two sections and a boss battle. I was surprised to find that when I had to continue (which was a lot), I started at the stage I left off on rather than the first one of the set. Boss battles, however, do start at the level immediately before them if you have to continue. Since there is no limit to the number of times you can continue (and you restart play extremely quickly), I found my constant deaths less frustrating than I would have if there were an arbitrary limit of continues, or forced you back to the beginning of the set of levels, etc.

The real key to the game is memorization. You die in one hit (except for when you get a second hit from power ups) and while most of the stages are pretty tough, they are also fairly short. It takes more platforming than shooting skills to make your way through Metal Storm.

Why did I pick this game?

This is another game I picked up while hanging out with Dave at his place of employment, purely based on cover art. We were looking for something to do when the store was slow and he said, “You should play something for a FOG review.”

We initially threw in Judge Dread for the SNES, but it was a little too terrible to stick with for more than a few minutes. I noticed Metal Storm sitting on the back shelf, a recent enough trade-in that it didn’t even have a price tag. The giant mech on the cover made me curious as to what kind of game it would be.

How does it hold up with time?

I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun Metal Storm is. Indie darlings of today like Super Meat Boy, I Wanna Be the Guy, and VVVVVV owe their existence to games of yore like Metal Storm. The fast paced action, instant deaths, and super quick retry times make it just as accessible as any of these newer games in the genre.

In fact, if you like those games at all, you should go back and give Metal Storm a try. I think you will be as pleasantly surprised with the game as I was. It even has a rocking soundtrack to compliment the package.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Looking back on the history of video games, there are key points where any life-long gamer remembers getting sucked in. As a child of the 80′s with three older brothers in the house, my first experiences were on the Atari 2600.

We never bought an Atari new, but my brothers had a knack for finding lots of old games and systems at garage sales. Most games sounded amazing. Play as Spider-Man and stop the Green Goblin? How could that not rule? (Spoilers: It didn’t).

Then there was a little game called Pitfall! that showed me games could live up to the box art.

Using nothing but my own hazy memory of my childhood, I believe Pitfall! is the first game I ever played in one of my favorite genres, the platformer. You take on the roll of “little running man” (OK, he didn’t have a name just yet, but he is now known as Pitfall Harry), who is running through the jungle trying to collect treasures while avoiding baddies. You have only 20 minutes and 3 lives to collect the games 32 treasures. A feat I’ve personally still never managed to accomplish.

It’s a simple enough concept, but it stands out for a couple of reasons.

"Surprisingly close to the box-art, sans rainbows."

First of all, the graphics and animation were way beyond other games on the console. Nearly every Atari 2600 game has horrible flickering in the sprites to compensate for how underpowered the console was (even for the time). The animation was incredibly smooth, and while looking back the graphics look primitive, this high quality of animation really sucked me into the game’s world.

Second is the feeling of exploration Pitfall! invoked in me. We were a family that did a lot of camping and outdoorsy stuff in the few months when it’s nice in Washington State. This was the first time a game had given me that same feeling of exploring a world that hiking through the woods did. I never knew what was going to be around the next corner. Was it a rope swing with alligators like on the box? Would it be rolling logs I would have to perfectly time my jumps to avoid? Or would it be the dreaded scorpion, the baddie that took me forever to figure out the correct timing on?

The dual levels of play helped add even more to this phenomenon. Climbing down to the lower levels of Pitfall! felt like cheating at first. “I can run under all that junk!” I thought to myself. Then the aforementioned scorpion would come out of nowhere and kick my ass.

Why did I pick this game?

When I think back to the games that originally got me hooked on the hobby of gaming, Pitfall! ranks right near the top.

I spent hours just trying to get good enough at Pitfall! to run out the clock. My friends and I would pass the controller back and forth, not trying to out-do each other’s scores, but to cheer each other on as we made our way through the jungle maze.

How does it hold up with time?

Pitfall! is still an amazing platformer. The controls are tight and hold up well, and it is genuinely fun to go back to.

So many games for the Atari 2600 were so abstracted because of the limitations of the console, I couldn’t even tell what was supposed to be going on. Have you tried playing that Raiders of the Lost Ark game? It makes no sense.

I think David Crane’s idea of a man searching for treasure in the jungle is such a simple game concept and executed so exceptionally well on its hardware that the genre might never have taken off the way it did without Pitfall!‘s influence.

All gamers should take the time to revisit Pitfall! from time to time and get a sense of the roots of one of the most influential gaming genres.