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Saturday, April 15, 2006
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Quick follow-up on Taito Legends 2:
The fuzziness created by the filter damages a couple of the puzzle games. It's especially annoying in Puzzle Bobble 2, where it makes judging those pixel-perfect shots deeply frustrating.
The original arcade version of Puchi Carat, as featured here, isn't a patch on the PS1 game. It's not only the lack of the home version's extra modes that does it - more serious is that the option to dim the backgrounds isn't present here, which means it's all but fucking impossible to floow the path of the ball properly as it bounces around the screen. Really highlights the importance that one small change can make to a game.
Gekirindan is very good indeed and I'm seriously considering tracking down the Saturn version (depending on whether or not it contains a tate mode or any extra material).
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 00:00
Monday, April 03, 2006
Monday, April 03, 2006
Taito Legends 2 arrived today and I've just had a quick go on it now. Figured I might as well post some impressions here as a follow-up to the review that I wrote for Pixelsurgeon of the previous compilation.
Immediate thoughts: it's just as lazy as last time around. The front end is identical in almost every way. Same music, same design, same everything. The only real difference I've noticed is that it now includes the option to turn off the distracting background in the vertically orientated games. Otherwise, all the moments of stupidity are present and correct - the default screen option being to have vert-oriented games stretch horizontally to fill the screen, the complete lack of a tate option for any of those games, the default difficulty on everything being set to Easy, the lack of customisable controls (and the fact that the Bubble Bobble setup remains the wrong way around, with jump where you'd expect fire to be and fire where you'd expect jump).
Where it wins out over the last comp is in the selection of games. There's less of the barrel-scraping that was present there. I don't see why Empire felt the need to include Space Invaders DX, though, when Super Space Invaders '91 and Space Invaders '95, also here, are far better games ('95 is excellent). Oh, and when the last comp itself included three or four other versions of Space Invaders...
The other reason I much prefer this second comp is because more of the games fit in with my personal preferences. In other words, it has a number of good shmups. Gekirindan (which I've never come across before) feels like it must be the template from which Cave formed a number of their repeating motifs - most noticably in the available choice of player craft. Rayforce is brilliant, its dual-layer gameplay later being lifted wholesale by Raizing for their Saturn classic, Soukyogurentai. Darius Gaiden is as cool as ever, even if the original arcade music that's used here isn't as bizarrely hypnotic as in the rerecorded soundtrack used in the Saturn and PS1 versions.
The real star of the show isn't a shooter. It's one of my favourite puzzle games - the genius Puchi Carat, a blend of Arkanoid and Puzzle Bobble that works perfectly and provides one of the greatest two player games in existence. The downer here is that as it's exactly the same as the arcade game, it doesn't include any of the excellent extra modes that were added to the PS1 version. That damages it to an extent, but it doesn't make it any less worth playing. Still worth the price of the disc on its own, in fact - £12.99 on Play.com right now. Take note that if you do enjoy the game then you'll definitely be wanting to track down the PS1 version (it did get a UK release, by the way, although I'm fairly sure it came very late in the console's life and might be a bit hard to find for that reason alone).
In terms of line-up, there's no other classic gaming compilation that can touch this. It may contain the odd duffer again (I LOLled heartily when the in-game info told me that Metal Black has "amazing graphics" - or words to that effect - because it's undoubtedly one of the ugliest shoot 'em ups ever created) but they're very much in the minority.
There's also the issue of how the publisher has decided to make four games exclusive to the PS2 version and a different four exclusive to the Xbox, effectively forcing anybody who wants the set to buy both versions. They want shooting for that, they really do.
In terms of presentation, what I said last time remains just as true here: the lack of effort is a fucking disgrace and Empire should be deeply ashamed. They're probably too busy rolling in my cash to care.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 18:29
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Losing the fight against mediocrity for the last few years. Fire a volley |
