Monthly Archives: March 2012

Shufflepuck Café for Famicom

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This is a game I’ve been playing quite a lot lately. It’s fun, entertaining, but super hard o_O


You have a bunch of opponents in some kind of cyber-futuristic café (looks more like a bar) where you can battle each of them in a game of “shufflepuck” which resembles air hockey.

The story: “You are the galaxy’s most successful Krypton-3 salesman on the way to close the biggest sale of your career. Your brand new Nash Sombrero has blown a capacitor in the reactor valve. You exit the gravy and coast down into the wrong side of town. Now all you need to do is find a phone and a repair sled will be on its way. The only signs of life seem to be coming from a shoddy structure three doors down and across the street. Opening the door you make your way down a flight of debris-covered stairs. Something loathsome scampers over your feet on its way to the activities below. A shout of recognition is heard as whatever it was enters the smoke-filled room. You stumble into the room and suddenly it’s as silent as the depths of space. Several pairs of hostile eyes, and a few sets of three, challenge you to enter. The only thing that stands between you and the telephone is eight galactic misfits, and obsolete droid and a few “friendly” games of shuffle puck. Relax, if you lose, you’ll earn their contempt. Win, and you’ll earn their resentment.”

All of the opponents are different, they all have different styles of playing and various difficulty levels (where most of them are ridiculously hard, and some even unbeatable!!)

The only easy one is Skip, some kid that just moves in slow-motion when you’re playing against him.

The goal is to get a score of 15 first. There are only 2 or three other opponents that I have even a chance of beating.

This is Vinnie, winning over me.. .>_<


This is Visine beating me..

This is the grim reaper.. or I mean, Nerval (!?)…

Here’s the drunken Lexon getting wasted whenever he scores…

Here’s the General:

Here’s DC3 the Robot waitress with nipples o_O

And Biff with anger management issues.. damn, he really wants to kick your ass!


I did get a few hits in there though.. ^^ pure luck…

And this is Bejin, the worst opponent there is.. she cheats by using the force!!

All in all, an entertaining game which also brings quite a lot of frustration ;D

Here’s a video I put together of the gameplay, the music is quite good :) in between stages that is, during stages you only have the sound effect of the puck bouncing around >_<

The Odyssey 2001

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So here’s a little something from my collection:

ODYSSEY 2001: SPORTS FIELD THRILLS ON YOUR TV SCREEN!

Sounds exciting doesn’t it? ;D Well it wasn’t, I couldn’t get it working since the power adaptor is broken :( I’ve been searching and googling for a replacement, but it’s a really odd and rare one..

Anyway, it’s still a nice edition to the collection and really fun to look at ^^

It comes with the original manuals and papers. There’s a double sided manual, or 10 of them actually, in different languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Italian, French, Spanish, Finnish, German and English) so I guess this is the version that was released all over Europe. There is also a typewritten letter from Philips in Swedish which states “Corrections to the user manual” so I guess it had some typos to begin with ;D It’s dated from 03.11.1977.

Btw Philips released the Odyseey 2001 in Europe, in the rest of the world it’s known as Magnavox Odyssey.

The Odyssey 2001 has 3 games built in to it, there are no cartridges of games for this one. The games are Tennis, Hockey and Squash.

They’re all basically the same, just different versions of Pong. They have different colors on the screen, the Hockey game has some lines resembling the goals and the Tennis has a “net” in the middle. You really had to use your imagination back then ;D

By the way, if anybody has any clue on where I can find an old (European!) power adaptor for a Philips Odyssey 2001, I would much appreciate it ^_^
 

NES games & Nintendo Power: vol 33 -92

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I got some more games from Ebay this week :D I also started buying Nintendo Power magazines, and in this lot there was a Nintendo Power issue with TMNT III. I also got a book called “How to Win at Nintendo”, written in 1988 by Jeff Rovin. It actually only has 30 games in it, described with the story and strategies to winning. Including games like Arkanoid, Balloon Fight, Castlevania, Commando, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Gradius, Kung Fu, Metroid, Mega Man, Zelda II and many other big titles. However there’s no pictures, only text describing everything. I’m not much of a reader, I need pictures to look at to stay focused >_<

The games I bought were Millipede, Wurm, Lone Ranger, Xenophobe, Friday the 13th, Dungeon Magic, Joust, Twin Eagle and Predator. Wurm is awesome <3

Well, in this post I think I will take a closer look at the Nintendo Power issue, volume 33 from 1992. (all images are clickable to view full size)

You just gotta love Nintendo Power. 16 pages of a comic about Zelda a Link to the Past, 8 pages Super Mario Adventure comic, Nester’s Adventure and a bunch of game walkthroughs, guides, pictures, game promotions, ads from the 80′s and early 90′s and more!

Here’s the Zelda comic for those of you who want to read it ^^ All 16 pages, large enough to read it clearly :D

 

Now I’m actually not that into the Zelda franchise.. I know many ppl think I’m weird now, but it’s a long story and I basically just never got into it.. but I know there’s a lot of ppl who do love Zelda so this was for all you hardcore Nintendo fanboys, and girls ^___^

Now this is some hardcore advertisement for the Nintendo Power!

And what the hell do they mean by this? Hook your SNES to your NES?! I guess they just wanted people to keep buying games for both systems..

They feature a lot of games in this issue, such as Gradius, one of my favorites ^_^

Another featured games is Super Hunchback for Gameboy, never heard of it. Has anybody played it? There’s apparently many bells to ring…

And T2, “He said he’d be back”, he sure did!

And here’s the Super Mario Adventure comic for those of you who are interested in reading it ^_^

There’s also a 10 page long walkthrough for the game  ”The Legend of the Mystical Ninja” for Super Nintendo. I haven’t heard of that one either. It looks kinda fun though, however all the stages seem to have the same shade of orange throughout the game, usually SNES games were more colorful..

The poster for this Nintendo Power volume was Lemmings:

 Super Scope was the shit back in ’92!

And all the children playing Gradius wanted to become an Astronaut! ;D

The Nester’s Adventure cartoon is only  1 page, it’s quite good though. This one is about Castlevania IV:

And last but not least, here’s the Top 20 of the NES, SNES and GB games in February 1992!


There’s a bunch of other stuff in this issue, like walkthroughs of TMNT III, G.I. Joe, Rampart, The Simpsons Bart vs the World, Asteroids, Q*Bert and Wanderers from Ys. If there’s anyone of these in particular that you’d like to see then just leave a comment and I’ll post some more pics :D

The Baconing – Xbox Live Arcade

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Sorry I haven’t published anything in a few days, but I’ve been busy the last three evenings playing the third Deathspank game! The Baconing! It was a lot of fun ^_^ and I just finished it tonight! :D

I didn’t buy it when it just came out, since it was 1200 microsoft points at that moment, so I’ve been waiting, and finally they lowered the price so I bought it ^^

For those of you who haven’t heard of Deathspank, you should really check it out, it’s a really fun action rpg that kind of resembles the Monkey Island games, since it has a lot of humor and it’s filled with silly quests where you have to figure out what to find and where to use it. I really love it!

Deathspank is created by Hothead games which also made Braid (an amazing puzzle-platformer that you should play NOW if you haven’t already!) and the Penny Arcade Adventures.

It also has co-op, however your friend will be more of a sidekick and only the main player will get achievements. It might make it easier though when there’s hordes of enemies coming at you. I died quite frequently however that was mainly because I always rush into close combat and don’t pay attention to explosive barrels, so I always smash them and commit suicide >_< You always spawn at the nearest checkpoint and only loose a bit of cash (which you can run back and collect where you died) so it doesn’t really matter.

This game really has it all.. Cyborques, Pirate ships that you can commandeer, Leprechaun Mafia, A Casino, Valhalla, A two-headed dog, Clones, Z.I.M.O.N says, Aliens, The King (Elvis), and much much much much more!

All three games (Deathspank, Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue & The Baconing) are available on XBLA, and for those of you who don’t play Xbox, it’s on PS3 and Steam as well ^_^

I’m already looking forward to the fourth one!

Gyromite for NES

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Yesterday I watched the episode ROB the Robot from AVGN, and it made me wanna play Gyromite, even though I didn’t have the Robot.

James from AVGN made it clear that it is possible to play the game even though you don’t have a robot. However, it demands control over both the P1 and P2 controller, since the P1 controller steers the character while the A and B button on the P2 controller controls the pillars that you need to move up and down to guide the character through the stage. Here’s AVGN’s solution:

I didn’t quite go to the extent of sawing apart two controllers and attaching them together with duct tape. Instead I played it together with my friend Becky, it’s a great game for 2-player co-op ^_^ However I did need to use two controllers myself while recording the game today for the review, one in each hand, not too difficult except when you need to pick up or place a radish which is controlled with A on the P1 controller:


The cartridge says Gyromite, but the title screen claims the name of the game is Robot Gyro… anyway, Gyromite or “Robot Gyro” is a classic arcade style game where you have to collect all the dynamite on each stage to clear it.



There are Dinosaurs that kill you if you touch them, and your character can not jump, so you will have to figure out ways to go around them, or try to crush them with the pillars. You can also pick up radishes and place in front of the Dinos, this will make them stop and eat for a while so you can pass them.


Gradually the stages get harder, and you will have to collect the dynamites in the correct order, otherwise you might get stuck with no way to get back up to collect the remaining dynamites. Then there’s no other option than to crush yourself or wait for the time to run out..

I made it to stage 35 today, apparently there’s 65 stages in total. I might give it another go the next time I have a friend over, cause it’s just more fun that way ;D
 

If you haven’t seen the AVGN episode with ROB the Robot you should check it out. I definitely have to get me a ROB eventually ^_^

Here’s a video I put together of the 35 levels I got to:

..and even more Sega games =D

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Today I got more games!

Here’s the lot of Sega Mega Drive games, and one Sega Master System game:

Chakan, DJ Boy, Fantasia, Greendog, Last Battle, Rambo III, Rolling Thunder 2, Taz in Escape from Mars & Double Dragon.

I tried all the games briefly and got stuck playing a few of them. First off Fantasia which was really hard compared to other Mickey Mouse games like Castle of Illusions (looove that game!!!). You start off with a few shots (represented by the magic hat at the bottom) and they disappear immediately! Even if you die you don’t have new shots, you will have to collect them through a random magic book that comes flying (if you can catch it, Mickey is really slooow..) and even then you just get two shots. So you basically just have to avoid all the dangers by jumping, which is not easy since there’s enemies everywhere…


I made it to the second stage and then I gave up… >_<

Rolling Thunder 2 was nice, much like Rolling Thunder 1 that I have on Famicom and NES (where it’s called Code Name: Viper).

You can choose between playing as the male or female character, Albatross and Leila.

It wasn’t too hard if you took it slow and figured out where all the enemies came from, but you can’t rush through the game. One hit kills you. And you can’t jump and shoot, which is really annoying. It was the same in Rolling Thunder 1, but in the NES version (Code Name: Viper) they changed it so that you could jump and change directions and shoot while in the air.

I will try to finish this game later, I just managed to get to lvl 2 in my first attempt.

Then I played Last Battle.. and the first thing that greets you is a bunch of scrolling text. The Story. And it never ends…

It even scrolls just a little bit too fast so that it makes it hard to read, and you will miss a few rows here and there. What were they thinking?!

At least they made a nice title screen after the story…

Then there’s the gameplay.. it’s stiff… and slow.. and the enemies are easy, they die from just touching your toe.

The stages are really short and at the end you meet  some person that tells you something and your character responds:

What?!?!?!?!?

Seriously?!?!?!?! Who wrote this???!

And after a 2 stages I must have taken a wrong turn on the map cause I ended up at some boss that I could hardly even get close to and that killed me in a few blows….

One life, that’s all you get!  ò_ó

Chakan was really cool though, great story and nicely told, with music, images and good writing (compared to the shitty Last Battle way of doing things…)

Awesome…. ^^

So I tried out the four stages I could find in the room, and I couldn’t beat them. This game is really hard.. there’s flying enemies coming at you from all directions and almost unbeatable beasts on every stage. It was a good game though. I will have to practice and try it again.



This stage was unbearable! Flying shit and fishes everywhere and everything drains the life of this so-called “immortal” Chakan character >_<

If there is any game you would like to see more of just let me know and I’ll make a longer review if I can ^_^

My Sega Collection

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Thought I’d share what is in my Collection of Sega right now. They’re in alphabetical order just taken down from the shelves (except for Castlevania on Sega Mega Drive at the end, since it has it’s place among my Castlevania collection) ;D









There are a few carts and one Mega CD game, but I didn’t bother to take a photo of that ;D

I also just bought more Mega Drive games that hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll post a picture when I get them ^_^

And this is what my Retro video game room looks like:

I’ll try to go through all my Atari, NES and Famicom games and everything else eventually with detailed pics like the Sega collection.


This is my Castlevania shelf and below that I have the space shooters and various other Famicom games and my Metroid darling (there’s a Japanese version in mint condition of Super Metroid in the back corner, hard to see). At the bottom you can spot parts of the Atari collection.


Here is my shelf of stuff I like and other stuff that just couldn’t find a place somewhere else ^_^ I love Bucky O’Hare for NES, and Binary Land (Famicom), Mega Man X and my mint Mario Bros for Atari 2600, that one always baffle people ^^


And another shelf with my Virtual Boy games and and stuff.

Sega Mega Drive games received!

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I was E-baying a few days ago and found some interesting titles through one seller, and I just ended up buying a few extra since  I was gonna pay shipping anyway…

So here’s what I got by mail today:

Battle Squadron, Skeleton Krew, Phantom 2040 and Wings of Wor.

I had recently lost an auction with Skeleton Krew so this was the game I was actually out looking for. It’s a really cool platform shooter or as they call it on the back cover “outeRAGEous blastfest!!!”.

It really does have some cool effects to it that are not usually seen in Mega Drive/Genesis titles. It kind of felt a bit like the advanced SNES games.


When the Boss appears he is hovering up and down and also sideways. It’s really well made, and they really manage to give a good three dimensional feeling to it. The controls are also smooth and easy once you get into them!

I only played through the first stage and saved the password, so I will make a longer review of this game later perhaps. =)

So after finding Skeleton Krew I browsed through the sellers other Sega titles looking for things I previously didn’t have, and looked up videos of the gameplay of the ones I found. I usually don’t buy Sega games without boxes, but after finding Wings of Wor and seeing the gameplay on youtube I had to have it!! And there were only cartridges of Wings of Wor on Ebay… I assumed it was rare..

I read a bit about it and found that the original Japanese version was called Gynoug, and there were complete Japanese versions of Gynoug on Ebay, however my Sega Mega Drive is PAL so I wouldn’t be able to play them.. So I figured that the Wings of War needed to be the PAL version. However, reading about it today on wikipedia it says that Wings of Wor was the north american version?! So I am now officially confused >_< Either way it worked when I played it on my Mega Drive.. (!)

I also briefly tried the other two games today to make sure they were in working condition. Phantom 2040 was horrible, no horrible doesn’t even describe it.. I will have to dedicate a whole angry post to it later, IF I will be able to put myself through playing it again >_<

And Battle Squadron was a mediocre shooter similar to many others. I will have to attempt it again though and perhaps I’ll grow fond of it, the back cover made it seem intriguing with Biotech Wingmen, Mutant Cybersnakes, Magno Strykers and MechnoGuardians! i didn’t get that far this time though.. Also it has the benefit of being 2 player. I love 2-player games so I can play simultaneously with friends ^_^


It seems like the Danish  people have developed Battle Squadron, hooray for Scandinavia! ^_^

Gorbachev’s Pipeline (or ゴルビーのパイプライン) for Famicom

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Yes, it’s a japanese Famicom game featuring the former President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the goal is to lay a pipeline throughout Russia. Each dot on the map represents a stage, and the difficulty rises progressively.

Gorbachev however only appears on the Title Screen.

It’s actually a quite entertaining game if you like puzzle games. It resembles Tetris a bit, except here you have pieces of two pipes in each falling block and you will have to connect a pipeline from the right wall to the left by rotating and placing the blocks correctly.

There are quite a few games that resembles this one, like for example Pipe Dream for Game Boy. However Gorby’s Pipeline has a uniqueness to it. There’s different music on the stages, I only played through the first three, but they were all different. I guess it will start looping eventually. Both the animation and music has a very USSR feeling to it, the japanese have portrayed a very cosy image of old Russia. It makes me think of ballets like the nutcracker and swan lake, snowy landscapes, and of course the old fashioned Tetris.

It was fairly hard though, if you are not used to puzzle games it will take some time to think where to put the pieces. I myself have played quite a few puzzlers and love the genre, but Tetris is always easier. (Unless you’re playing NotTetris2)

Here’s a movie I put together of the gameplay:

Recording Famicom gameplay and NTSC vs PAL

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I have finally found the optimal solution, and still being able to use the Elgato Video Capture i bought (see previous entry about Playing & recording 8-bit and 16-bit consoles on you Mac / computer). While the Elgato / DVD recorder combination worked excellently with all my PAL systems I still couldn’t get it to work with my NTSC NES and my japanese Famicom, since the DVD recorder was PAL region it messed up the images.

I had to buy rca y cable splitters since the Famicom only had one output of composite image and video cords, now being able to split the signal to two places I can play through connecting the Famicom to a TV while also having it connected to the Elgato, which actually captures the video and image perfectly however generates a black image (“no signal”) while recording. The rya y cable splitters might not be necessary for the regular NES since that console already has two outputs, one for the antenna input in a PAL television and also the composite on the side, however it is more nimble not having to search for the channel and just playing through the AV channel ^_^

If anyone has any questions about this topic feel free to ask me, I’ve been researching into it and going through a lot of trial/error phases to know a thing or two about it by now ;D

Abobo’s Big Adventure!

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I remembered watching this trailer quite a while back, and I was totally psyched about this Ultimate Tribute to the NES! Then i forgot about it.. and after browsing through my favorites on Youtube I found it again, and it has now been released since some time in January!

Tonight I’ve been playing through the whole game, it took me about 1 hour and 40 minutes, watching all the cutscenes and stuff (that are awesome btw!) ^_^

This game has it all, the retro 8-bit feeling and references to all the games we love <3 And it’s extremely funny! Here are just some of the things you will be able to enjoy and experience when playing Abobo’s Big Adventure!

Playing as MEGABOBO!

Earning medals for silly and funny things usually referenced to old NES games:

Working up your RAGE for amazing mind-blowingly awesome special attacks that are unique for each level!

References to Mortal Kombat, and in general pretty gory gameplay! =D

Finding hidden areas, where all the fun is at ;D

Abobo in Zelda:

Abobo in Balloon Fight!! With the Reaper from Castlevania!!!!

Encountering various famous NES characters all through the game, and with original NES music:

Awkward moments:

Or having babies with a mermaid.. or as they call it Merbobos!

Abobo in Contra, vs Krangby!!

YES! IT IS KIRBY WHO SWALLOWED KRANG TO BECOME KRANGBY!!!

Fighting Jaws, and even bigger Jaws!

Abobo vs Donkey Kong!

And much much more! I suggest you play it online or download it straight away!

What are you waiting for?? Go play it!

I always knew Kirby was evil…

Play & record 8-bit and 16-bit consoles on your Mac / computer

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Making reviews and wanting to be able to record what I’m playing so that I can show through video what the games are like. This has turned out to be a difficult problem to solve, but today I managed to solve all my previous issues.. with a little help from my friends ;D

I started out trying to record with a film camera, filming the TV screen. This was crap. Crappy quality, shaky, bad angles, ugly sound.. etc. So i moved on to borrowing my boyfriend’s brother’s HDPVR, this worked on and off, didn’t work with my NTSC or japanese systems, only my PAL. The recordings got a constant humming in the background sound and it was also a hassle to connect the thing, cords from the HDPVR to the TV, to the laptop (not being able to use my stationary computer=inconvenient) and to the console. I then had to transfer the files from my laptop to my stationary to work with them.

After talking to some stores, I got convinced to buy a DVD recorder. This worked, but not with my NTSC or japanese systems.. also it was a hassle having to record on DVD’s then transfer the files to my computer and convert them to files I could use. The recordings also carried a constant humming sound in the background and the image was laggy..

However the DVD recorder purchase was not in vain. A friend advised me to get the Elgato Video Capture from the apple store.

When I first connected it to the system and straight into the computer it didn’t work. Apparently because the consoles have some built in anti-piracy code (according to my engineer friend). The image looked like this and froze immediately:

BUT when I connected it through the DVD burner into the console the image was perfect, no lag, and I could play the games straight on my iMac, while recording!

It doesn’t look too messy, not too many cords or machines to connect together, and best of all, the sound is perfect!

I’ve been playing a bunch of Streets of Rage on my iMac tonight, with headphones, and OMG that games’ music is just so awesome! This is what the image quality looks like:

This is totally ok for my purpose ^_^

Now I haven’t had time to try it out with my NTSC machines or the japanese yet, but I hope it will work o_O The Elgato is said to be able to take all formats, however I’m not sure if the DVD burner might f*ck it up..
I’ll update once I find out ^_^

Mario bros + Portal = Mari0

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Have you ever wondered what if would be like to play Super Mario bros with Mario possessing a Portal gun? Well now you don’t have to wonder anymore! A two-man studio called Stabyourself has created an open source game that has merged the two games, giving Mario a Portal gun!

“A complete from scratch recreation of Super Mario Bros. with a focus on perfectly imitating the feel the 1985 classic gave us. Then give Mario a portal gun, add puzzle game mechanics from Portal and there you go. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, play 4-player coop, with everyone having their own Portal gun!”

Here’s a teaser trailer for the game:

And if you want to play it, you can download it here for all platforms including OSX! (I love it when they do not exclude us Mac users) ^^

The creators also have some other great games on their page, like “Not Tetris 2“, which is a Tetris successor with no boundaries. Quite interesting, now I know what I will spend my afternoon playing!

Wolfchild for Sega Master System

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I recently bought Wolfchild for Sega Master System, mainly because the cover made it look like a really cool game:

Doesn’t that look absolutely rad?!

Well it’s not.. it could have been a really great game, the graphics are really good for an 8-bit game, the enemies and the stages are well designed, the gameplay is kind of fluent.. but.. there is NO MUSIC in ANY of the STAGES! why?? There’s a song during the start screen, this song is totally ok, if they were too lazy to just make any other songs then they could’ve just kept that one during the stages as well! But no, it’s just plain quiet, and you just hear the sounds of your punches and jumps… it’s weird..

Also the story is never being explained during gameplay, or even before that.. you will have to read the back of the cover to know that:
“Chimera terrorists have kidnapped Saul Morrow’s father and killed his mother and brother. Will his ability to transform into a lycanthrope warrior – a man-wolf with psychic powers – be enough to defeat an entire army?”
Or start reading the manual, where they’ve actually made a comic explaining the events, it’s 4 pages long.. or short…:

“Sometime in the future, high atop a remote island somewhere in the southern pacific”… WTF



Still, this comic only explains the event of Saul transforming into a Wolfchild. What about the Chimera terrorists? Who are they? Who is their leader? Why have they kidnapped Saul’s father?
When you’re Game Over the game tells you:

Who the hell is Draxx?!? There’s nothing about him/or her in the manual, or on the back of the cover! This story is really confusing and vague..

Well apart from this, here’s Saul:

After collecting hearts you turn into a wolf (or Wolfchild??) that has Psychic Powers, which apparently makes it possible for you to shoot laser from your paws….

The first boss i ridiculously easy.. you just walk under him and stand behind him and keep punching.. it doesn’t hurt you to touch him.

The game really has some nice graphics and environments, here’s stage 2:

The second boss wasn’t too hard either. There was a simple pattern to his appearances on the screen and you just had to position yourself away from his line of fire and try to get some shots in whenever he appeared.

On the third stage they increased the difficulty level quite a bit. The stage was overall longer than previous ones, also it had a lot of traps and enemies that came at you without a warning, like the larva randomly falling from the ceiling, and this almost always got you hurt.

When I got to the third boss I was really irritated by the game, not having any music and all.. the constant jumping, bumping and punching sounds really got on my nerves.. I wasn’t able to try the spider boss enough to figure out a pattern, and I got Game Over.. I did not feel like starting up the game again.. even though it does give you password codes for each stage, which is a bonus! And the codes are only 5 letters long! Thumbs up Wolfchild, you did something right!

Here’s a video where you can experience the frustration of not having any music while playing.. I eventually looped the intro song (since it is quite good) so you wouldn’t have to listen to the quietness forever.

Someday I might try to finish this game.. but not until I’ve forgotten about the traumatic experience of playing a 16-bit game that feels like an Atari game with bad sound effects and no music.. probably won’t take long though since my memory is terribly short >_<