Pick a Peck of Preferred Pac-Men

It's Pac-Man's 40th anniversary, and to celebrate, I'll take a look at my five favorite games in this dot-munching, ghost-dodging, table-turning series. Some of my picks are pretty obvious, while others might take you by surprise, like the sneaky monster who ambushed you from the other side of the warp tunnel, but they're all worth a look.

PAC-MAN

There's also a quarter scale Pac-Man arcade
cabinet, not to be confused with a quarter
sized Pac-Man arcade cabinet. Although I'm
sure someone's working on that.
(image from Numskull) 

The original is... not the best, but it was the first, so it gets top billing. Look, I was fascinated with this game as a child. Many others were as well, to the point where it inspired a crapton of merchandise and the nickname of football player Adam Jones, called "Pac-Man" because of how voraciously he nursed from his bottle as a baby. There were even a couple of cartoons... neither of them very good, but they were certainly there.

Pac-Man served as the foundation for dozens of sequels and countless clones, a few inspired in their own right and many more shameless in their imitation of the real deal. For every Pix the Cat, you'd find ten games like Clambake for the Apple IIe or Cosmic Cruncher for the VIC-20, which limited their "innovations" to new maze designs and redesigned characters. Not much needed to be changed, really, because the strength of Pac-Man lies in its simplicity. There was room for improvement, however, and that would come with the release of...

MS. PAC-MAN

Brighter colors! Better music! More mazes! Bouncing fruit prizes that add a new dimension to the cat and mouse gameplay! Yes, Ms. Pac-Man had it all, but what's most surprising about this sequel is that it wasn't designed or even sanctioned by Namco, the creators of the original. General Computer took the reigns of this one, starting with a hack called Crazy Otto and folding in suggestions from the marketing department of Bally-Midway until ultimately crafting the classic we know today.

Ms. Pac-Man was big in the 1980s, with ports for over a dozen computers, game consoles, and handhelds, but its presence started to fade in the years since. You might be tempted to think that Namco was jealous of its success, but it goes a little deeper than that. After it reclaimed the Pac-Man license from Bally-Midway in the latter half of the '80s, partial rights to Ms. Pac-Man remained with GenCom, and were later sold to controversial mini console manufacturer AtGames. Namco would have to make its own superlative Pac-Man sequel without the rights sharing baggage, but first would come...

PAC-MAN 2: THE NEW ADVENTURES

Both Midway and Namco were responsible for releasing plenty of misfires

Depending on the situation, Pac-Man
can either be friendly and good-natured,
or morbidly depressed, or a
trouble-making bastard. In this case,
he probably got nailed by the player's
slingshot too many times.
(image from HG101)

based on the Pac-Man license. Midway gave us the bewildering pinball/video game hybrid Baby Pac-Man, the unexpected and unwanted quiz challenge Professor Pac-Man, and Jr. Pac-Man, with a seemingly endless horizontally scrolling playfield offered as an ill-conceived "bonus." Meanwhile, Namco gave us a lousy NES port of Ms. Pac-Man, the quickly forgotten platformer Pac-in-Time, and a largely hands-off adventure title they had the cheek to call Pac-Man 2.

But wait! Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures is an odd beast, taking way more of its inspiration from the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon than the dot-munching arcade game, but it's not without its own oddball charm. It's a bit like a point and click adventure title, but a bit more like a virtual pet sim, with the player guiding Pac-Man through each colorful locale with simple commands and slingshot pellets. Sometimes he'll be happy to follow wherever you lead, but sometimes he'll be furious and throw a tantrum instead. Sometimes he'll even eat a caterpillar and go on a psychedelic bender... when that happens, you'll just have to put the controller down and wait for the inevitable slapstick that happens when he stumbles into a bucket of paint, or a carelessly placed rake, or a stray cat with an attitude problem.

There's no penalty for dying and the game's antics border on hilarious, so feel free to soak in the cartoony goodness and toss Pac-Man an energizer with your slingshot whenever he's menaced by ghosts. (Or just do nothing and watch him faint from the stress... your call.) If tormenting a video game icon isn't your idea of fun, you can always play a more traditional Pac-Man title, like...

PAC-MAN ARRANGEMENT

A word of warning! There are actually two games called Pac-Man Arrangement, but the one you want was released in 1996 as part of the arcade title Namco Classic Collection Volume 2. This can also be found as part of Pac-Man Collection for the Game Boy Advance and the first Namco Museum for Xbox, Playstation 2, and GameCube. The other Pac-Man Arrangement, a dull, plodding affair with 3D graphics, was included in Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox 360 and Namco Museum Battle Collection for the PSP.

With that out of the way, Pac-Man Arrangement (the good one) is the ideal mid 1990s sequel, with graphics so kinetic and colors so vibrant it makes Ms. Pac-Man look like a Civil War tintype. Even the dots bounce along to the peppy soundtrack, giving the atmosphere a joie de vivre that will leave both newcomers and old fans spellbound. There are new play mechanics too, and not just for the player! A new monster named Kinky roams the playfield... he turns the other monsters blue if you can catch him, but if he fuses with one of his friends first, it becomes larger and a lot more dangerous.

Pac-Man Arrangement is a great sequel, but maybe a little too predictable for its own good. It simply polishes the wheel rather than totally re-inventing it, like...

PAC-MAN CHAMPION EDITION

In 2007 Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani decided that he wanted another bite of the

Namco released a quite serviceable PSP
port of Pac-Man Championship Edition as
part of the PSP Minis line of digital
downloads.
(image from Playstation Europe)

seven hundred point apple, and came out of retirement to make Pac-Man Champion Edition. With its mazes built from neon lines and a pulsing techno soundtrack, Pac-Man Champ has the atmosphere of a rave, but its gameplay is deeply rooted in the old school. It's a high score challenge, with the player clearing dots from both sides of a horizontally oriented screen. Eat all the dots on one side of the playfield and a fruit target appears on the other side... grab that and the dots are replenished, sometimes bringing a new maze layout with them. This frantic relay race continues until time expires, or all of your Pac-Men if you're unlucky.

Pac-Man Champ received two sequels of its own, but I prefer the original... the gameplay is less rigid and pattern-focused, and feels more like classic Pac-Man than either Champ DX or Champ 2. The later games introduced bombs and chains of monsters and running energizers, leaving behind the simplicity that had made the series so approachable and appealing. If the first Pac-Man wasn't enough and Pac-Man Champ 2 was way too much, the first Pac-Man Champ is just right.

Waterloo

Well, they got me. Epic Games, that is. I didn't have much interest in the company's digital distribution service, having taken root with Steam many years before. I ignored their weekly freebies and even their Epic coupons which shave ten bucks off your purchase, but this was a bridge too far.

I'm speaking, of course, about the Samurai Shodown Neo-Geo Collection, which was recently announced by SNK. It'll be available on four different formats and costs $39.99 on each of them... except the Epic Games service, which will just give it away from June 11th to June 18th. Granted, I have a lot of these games for a lot of different systems, but the Neo-Geo Collection will also include Samurai Shodown V Perfect, a previously unreleased upgrade-to-the-upgrade which balances the gameplay of SamSho V Special and gives all the characters their own endings. Yes, it's like putting a new hat on Malibu Stacy, but nobody was giving Malibu Stacy away for free, were they?

So now I'm an Epic Games customer. It wasn't brand loyalty to Valve that kept me from getting an account... just a desire to keep my aging computers from getting bogged down by a billion different software launchers. However, it seems that everybody has their price, and six great Samurai Shodown games (and Samurai Shodown III) was mine. 

I do have one question, though. Why isn't Samurai Shodown RPG included? I mean, it's technically a Neo-Geo game, albeit one for the short-lived Neo-Geo CD. Maybe I should just be happy with what I'm getting in a couple of weeks rather than looking a gift warhorse in the mouth.

There was one other thing I wanted to mention! Unsatisfied with the lackluster performance of the Sega Saturn version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a Chinese hacker rewrote the game to make it work with the Pro Action Replay and other four meg RAM cartridges. This gives you faster load time between sections of the castle, quick access to the options menu, a handy keystroke that brings up the map, and improved animation. If you're wondering why the Saturn needs a RAM cart to play Symphony of the Night well when it ran just fine on a stock Playstation, you'll have to take that up with KCE Nagoya. 

Thanks to RetroRGB for the news, and YZB for his hard work in ironing out the wrinkles in the original release.

Neo-Geo Mini, Take Two

Yeah, I know Pac-Man just celebrated his fortieth anniversary, and I want to talk about it, really! But not right now. I haven't gathered my thoughts on the subject yet.

In the meantime, I'd like to talk a bit about the Neo-Geo Mini. Opinions on the pint-sized system range from "eh, it gets the job done" to "they were charging $120 for THIS?!," but thanks to the efforts of a handful of hackers, it's getting better. A guy named Shinrukus has been singularly dedicated to the device, crafting new firmware builds which expand the system's library of games. Not to be outdone, another hacker named hy-lo is working on the option to select a BIOS, restoring the blood in Metal Slug and eliminating the four credit limit in other games. (Back in the far-flung year of 1992, you'd buy a Neo-Geo game for two hundred dollars, and you get a dollar's worth of credits to play it. Gee, sale of the century there.)

The brass ring, of course, is eliminating the pixel smearing in the Neo-Geo Mini's HDMI output. Hy-lo claims that this is feasible, but may require "weeks to months" of reverse engineering. If you're not that patient, you could always buy the Neo-Geo Arcade Pro Stick for around a hundred dollars, which never had the problem in the first place. Personally speaking, I've got way too many joysticks already. I just got rid of a joystick... I don't need more freaking joysticks! I'll just wait for whatever solution these guys have to offer, whenever it's available.

Gorillas in the Switch

One of the fringe benefits of having a Switch is that I can finally have an arcade perfect port of Donkey Kong. That should have been a possibility at least twenty nine years ago when the Super NES was launched, and we shouldn't have to pay eight dollars for this long overdue privilege, but it is what it is. 

Anyway, here are some observations on the game so exciting it made an eight year old me pee his pants. (Look, I had a quarter and the Dairy Queen had both a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet and a pay toilet. Talk about Sophie's choice.)

• When I was a kid, there was only one way to play Donkey Kong... with the levels shuffled so that the player frequently had to play the barrel stage. The barrel stage is a Donkey Kong trademark, but it's also hard, with the rolling containers having a nasty habit of meeting you halfway on whatever ladder you're climbing. Each time you reach a new barrel stage, it gets harder, until DK starts throwing barrels with the uncanny precision of a trick bowler. Luckily, the Japanese game with its more straightforward level arrangement is included in the package. This means fewer barrel stages, and fewer chances for a zigzagging blue skull barrel to lodge itself into Mario's brain.

After all those barrels, you deserved that concussion.

• I've frequently bemoaned the lack of the cement factory stage in home Donkey Kong ports, but after some reflection it really does seem like the most expendable part of the game. It's not terrible, but it lacks the seat of your pants thrills of the barrel stage, the challenging jumps of the elevator stage, and the clever hook of the final encounter with Kong. Here, you just race up ladders, occasionally fighting the momentum of conveyor belts and bounding over cement pans that seem downright passive next to the barrels and fireballs in other stages. It's functional, just nothing exciting, which is likely why it was always the first stage to get the axe in the home versions.

• I mentioned the fireballs earlier, and they're worth discussing in further detail. They're tricky little bastards, moving erratically but with just enough purpose to make you think they're watching you... and waiting for you to screw up. Try to leap over the plumes of flame in the plug stage and they reverse course, guaranteeing a trip to the burn ward. Climb a ladder to reach that last plug and a fireball is almost certain to intercept you. One of the rare mercies of the barrel stage is that there's only one fireball onscreen (rather than the two in the elevator stage or the small army in the plug stage), but even it can catch you if you hang around the bottom of the playfield for too long.

Epyx later released a game called Jumpman Jr., which
somehow did not spark the wrath of the fiercely
litigious Nintendo. Maybe Howard Lincoln was on
vacation that day. 

• Hamster, the company that ported Donkey Kong to the Switch, refers to Mario as "Jumpman" in the instruction screen that briefly pops up while the game loads. I'm surprised someone still remembers! It's a shame Nintendo didn't make this Mario's official last name, opting instead for the redundant Mario Mario. (My personal choice would have been Mario Brothers, like the late pop psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, but I digress.)

• Hamster also gives you the option to play Donkey Kong with a border. Unfortunately, it's not the bezel art with a chibi Kong sticking his tongue out at Mario, who's always two steps behind his ape antagonist. It's a missed opportunity considering that Atari Flashback, also for the Switch, does have border art taken from the original arcade games. At least you can play Donkey Kong with its original vertical aspect ratio, although that doesn't work quite so well on the Switch Lite with its smaller screen and hardwired controllers.

The East We Could Do

Just before my Nintendo Switch arrived, the eShop had wrapped up a sale on classic Data East games. This was frustrating, because Data East was a little piece of my arcade-hopping childhood, and it pained me to miss out on reliving that experience for a reasonable price. 

However, a friend on Twitter assured me that these games went on sale all the time, and that I'd get another crack at them soon enough. Sure enough, a few weeks went by and that friend alerted me that the sale had returned. I learned that pretty much everything in the Johnny Turbo's Arcade line was discounted to two dollars, so I hauled ass to the eShop to clean house.

Ugh. Didn't I get enough of you in GamePro?

Before you ask, yes, these games are presented by that Johnny Turbo. The hefty, hirsute hero appears in the corner of the menu, and each title is introduced with the nasal voice of his real-life inspiration, marketer Jonathan Bradstetter. It's anyone's guess why he's still using the name "Turbo," given that the console he championed went down in flames decades ago, and that these games have absolutely nothing to do with the Turbografx-16. (I mean, if Bloody Wolf was here, maybe? But it's not...) Nevertheless, he's here, and like the pesky mother-in-law who frequently stops by for unexpected visits, you'll have to accept that he's part of the overall package.

Speaking of grim acceptance, you should also know that the emulators running these games weren't designed by M2, or Hamster, or Code Mystics, which means that you won't be getting the features or the performance you've come to expect from those talented studios. The options in each game are typically limited to aspect ratio, a handful of video filters, and loading and saving your progress. 

This isn't really the way I want to play it. Can I- no?
It's this or nothing? Okay.

Controls are locked to B for jumping and A for attacks, which feels awkward on a Switch Lite. Say you want to move the heavy attacks to X and A in Fighter's History, or aim directly with the right thumbstick in Heavy Barrel, rather than slowly rotating the gun in either direction. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? Well, forget it. You're in Brandstetter's house now, and you play by his rules... his senseless, uncomfortable rules.

The games run well enough, but aren't airtight as they tend to be in M2's emulators. I've had Heavy Barrel loop back to the title screen after I finished the first stage (just one time, but the first time, which was a little alarming), and Night Slashers exhibited flicker and sprite issues. Admittedly, this was a pretty obscure game in arcades, and it could have had the same problems there, but you definitely notice it here.

Past these issues and the developers' tendency to play musical chairs with the insert coin and player start buttons, the games offered in Johnny Turbo's Arcade are as playable as they've ever been. Of course, not every game is as enjoyable as you thought they were when you first played them... as I quickly discovered with Bad Dudes. Let's look at the eight Data East games I purchased, shall we? I'll end each review with a final verdict; whether the game was worth the price or if it left me with two dollars of buyer's remorse.

BAD DUDES

I won't try to leave you in suspense... I mean, the warning is right there in the title. Bad Dudes was aggressively advertised by Data East, which claimed on the back of EGM that it would topple Double Dragon as the king of beat 'em ups. While the arcade version of Double Dragon has problems that are more obvious in hindsight, it's nevertheless a hell of a lot better than this. 

I can't believe I played the whole thing... (gurp)

Bad Dudes takes the flatness of a side-scrolling platformer and combines it with the sluggishness of a brawler, then tops it all off with a limited move set and a flood of cheap enemies barfed out from either side of the screen. You can't perform holds or throws, and you can't pull off slick combination attacks; not that they would be of much use since each cardboard ninja falls to a single punch. Aside from the bosses, which take huge chunks of your life bar in the later stages, nothing ever feels like combat against an evenly matched foe... just crowd control.

Sure, the graphics are a little crisper and more realistic than they were in Double Dragon, but there's no prettying up the repetitive gameplay and the control, which never feels as tight or as deliberate as it should be. We may not have realized it in 1988, once you play this for fifteen minutes, wishing you were doing anything else, it will be crystal clear... this sucks.

WORTH $2?: HA HA HA no

CAVEMAN NINJA

I have fond memories of Joe and Mac in arcades and on the Super NES... and this threatens to unravel that nostalgia. I used to play this with my brother and a friend, and it turns out that the experience is a lot different with two players. You've got someone at your side, helping you clear the screen of scruffy neanderthals. If you die, your next life appears where you lost the previous one. If you run out of lives, you drop more quarters into the machine and keep going, no worse for wear.

Single player Joe and Mac is not so forgiving. Your caveman has a deceptively long life bar that steadily drains on its own and loses great big chunks from contact with enemies. If you get hit three or four times, the screen fades to black and you're dragged back to a checkpoint, or forced to restart a boss fight. This turns what was a fun if insubstantial action game into a brutal test of your reflexes and memorization. Fail and you get to do it again. And again. And again. And- whoops, you just threw your Switch at the wall. That'll be expensive to fix!

The Super NES version of Joe and Mac had all the comical, color-drenched graphics of the arcade game, but was tweaked to be a more palatable single player experience. Levels were structured differently, the health bar was more honestly depicted, and getting hit cost you a lot less of it. It was simple fun even without a friend along for the ride, but the arcade game practically demands one. Understand this before taking the plunge.

WORTH $2?: Not without 2 players

FIGHTER'S HISTORY

I wish I could recommend this. I'm a fan of versus fighting games, and I even like Fighter's History, albeit ironically. It's dumb, shameless fun, with a cast of characters that straddles the fence between familiar and ridiculous. You've got an onion-headed Terry Bogard armed with baked potatoes, punk rock Guile, the Frenchiest French man in existence, and of course the blubbery Karnov, who serves as the final boss. When they win, they spout off impressively rude lines of dialog, and when they lose, they look like they've been beaten with the ugly telephone pole. If you've been playing fighting games for a while and can have a good laugh at their expense, you'll devour this one like Pringles. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen... and I want more."

At least the announcer is a little better in Fighter's
History, sounding like Dark Helmet threatening
Princess Vespa. It fits in a game that feels
like a parody of its genre.

If you like the cheese-slathered combat of Fighter's History, you're better off jumping straight into the sequel Karnov's Revenge. It's not only got more characters, with a wild ox offered as the final final boss, but the emulation is superior, with Hamster offering features that are deeply missed here. You can't change the button configuration, you can't change dip switch settings, and you can't lower the difficulty; something you'll desperately want to do, because the CPU fights like a rabid wolf when his life drops to twenty-five percent and the music picks up tempo. 

Fighter's History at least looks nice, in a store brand Street Fighter II kind of way, and the gameplay is on par with other games in the genre, but you can do better on the Switch. Hell, you can find a better game in its own series.

Worth $2?: Do you have an extra six dollars? Get Karnov's Revenge instead

HEAVY BARREL

Top-down military combat was big business in the 1980s. You had your Commando, your Ikari Warriors, and of course Data East's contribution to the genre, Heavy Barrel. It doesn't look substantially different from Ikari Warriors, with the same rotary dial joystick and waves of relentless enemies, but Heavy Barrel distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack with a clever hook. Specially marked enemies carry a key which can in turn open chests, which award new guns and bombs. These weapons are generally a lot more powerful than the ones in competing shooters, but the king of them all is a shoulder mounted laser cannon that must be assembled from six different pieces. Collect them all and the game is your bitch for about forty seconds.

Past the secret toy surprise, Heavy Barrel is a standard issue military shooter. It pumps out a lot more enemies than other games in the genre and it has a slightly more futuristic look, but if you've ever played Ikari Warriors, you can jump right into this one without missing a beat. It's a little repetitive- the industrial stage with its elevators and grated metal floors just never seems to end- but the arsenal of weapons and of course the all-powerful Heavy Barrel should hold your attention for at least a few levels. You can also invite a friend to play with you... just try not to get mad when he gets the super weapon first.

Worth the $2?: Yeah, I'd say so

NIGHT SLASHERS

Data East hit its creative peak with Night Slashers, a side-scrolling beat 'em up that replaces the usual sleazy thugs with decayed zombies and movie monsters. As either a Chinese martial artist, a brawny cyborg, or the hip descendant of the Van Helsing bloodline, it's up to you to send these wayward souls back to their graves. Punches and kicks are usually enough to get the job done, but you can also hammer the undead into the ground with an overhead smash, or resort to a stylish, screen clearing super move. It drains your energy, sure, but it's almost always worth the sacrifice.

Good luck putting Frankenstein back together
after this. Better get a ladle and a bucket.

There's so much attention to detail in Night Slashers that it almost borders on swagger. Zombies swing their shoulders wildly as they lurch toward you, hoping to sink their teeth into your flesh. Vampire hunter Christopher ends his combos with the flash of an enchanted jewel that liquifies any nearby undead creatures. Land a fatal blow on a boss and the flesh cascades from their bones, leaving a hollow skeleton behind. The monsters are brilliantly designed, with a puppeteer and his shambling blue sidekick being a highlight. Throw in responsive control and you've got a top-shelf product, easily on the level of Capcom's own beat 'em ups. Games like this will make you wish Data East had stuck around long enough for an encore. 

Worth $2?: Abso-freaking-lutely

NITRO BALL

"Hey boss, you know Smash TV? The game that's pretty hot over in America? We should make something like that."
"That's a pretty good idea. We can't JUST make a clone, though... not after that whole Fighter's History mess. What are you going to do to make it distinct?"
"Well, I... uh... people like pinball too, right? So we'll put in some bumpers, maybe a few of those little spinning card things..."
"You just pulled that out of your ass, didn't you."
"Please don't fire me."

Yes, Nitro Ball is the union of two play styles that no sane person would ever consider bringing together. It's got the rapid fire shooting action and the game show atmosphere of Smash TV, complete with an overly enthusiastic host and big prizes that pop out the thugs you've gunned down. However, instead of being reduced to a fine red mist, the goons you've blasted curl up into a ball and bounce around the playfield. For the most points, you'll want to lead their corpses into bumpers, drop targets, and holes that award a jackpot bonus. At best it's a fun added challenge and at worst it's a distraction, but it nevertheless serves the purpose of making Nitro Ball more than just a copy of Smash TV.

What's surprising is that Nitro Ball captures the sensory overload of a game show better than Midway's game. You're bombarded with loud colors, flashing lights, and urgent music, and the gift boxes from Smash TV have been replaced with sports cars, mansions, and glittering gold watches. The stages feel a little too confined in spots and the lack of twin sticks for firing is an inconvenience, but where presentation is concerned, Nitro Ball makes the game that inspired it look like an old episode of Jeopardy.

Worth $2?: Oh baby, yes!

SLY SPY

Sly, nothing! This game borrows so much from the James Bond franchise and does so little to hide the fact that you almost have to admire the brazen copyright infringement. As a secret agent with a three digit code name and a face only Timothy Dalton could love, you must infiltrate the Council for World Domination, fighting a metal-jawed giant and a heavyset man in a tuxedo who expects you to die. Yes, he actually says that... "I expect you to die." It's a small wonder that when Capcom sued Data East, they didn't have to wait in line behind MGM and the estate of Ian Fleming.

Party on, dudes!

Anyway. Sly Spy is a side-scrolling action title best described as the love child of Rolling Thunder and Data East's previous game Bad Dudes. You're armed with a gun, as are most of your enemies, but you don't crumple in a couple of shots like you would in Namco's game. It doesn't play as cleanly as Rolling Thunder, with your terrorist foes clumping together in large crowds, but Sly Spy does have the benefit of variety, with your secret agent diving from an airplane, racing through traffic on a motorcycle, and swimming through shark-infested waters. Unlike Bad Dudes, this game spends so much time changing up the action that you never have a chance to get bored. As a tip of the hat to Data East's other game Heavy Barrel, you can also build a devastating "golden gun" with pieces scattered through each stage. Really, it was like they were asking to get sued.

Worth $2?: Live and yes, buy

TWO CRUDE

Even Worse Dudes? Yes! But also no! Look, it's complicated. Two Crude is essentially a sequel to Bad Dudes, with many of the same problems. Levels are nearly as flat as they were in the first game and the combat is brain dead, but Two Crude's got two things going for it that Bad Dudes didn't. The first is that nearly everything you see in the post-apocalyptic wasteland can be picked up thanks to a dedicated grab button. See that punk running toward you? Grab him and toss him into a few of his friends. See that traffic sign? Rip it out of the ground and bludgeon somebody with it. See that totaled car? Yeah, you know what to do with that. It's ridiculous and not at all realistic, but it's nevertheless liberating to interact with things that would just be wallpaper in other games.

The second thing is that Two Crude, as suggested in the title, is joyously tacky. The grey of the dying city in the first stage is splashed with colorful graffiti. Enemies include a psychotic Santa Claus and a man who accessorizes with a ten foot snake wrapped around his body. Your mercenary wears shades and a mohawk, and is as likely to throw around a cheesy quip as he is a nearby Buick. It's still not a good game, but Two Crude at least has personality, and for some players that might be enough.

WORTH $2?: Maybe? I mean, if you like camp...

SNK-o De Mayo II: The Rage and The Fury

Honestly, it's been a while since I've updated this blog, and there are plenty of things I could talk about right now. At the top of the list is the Neo-Geo Mini, which arrived yesterday. All of the complaints you've read in other reviews are right on the money... there's no internal battery or even room inside the unit for a pair of AAs, and throw on the joystick is so pronounced that left and right live on opposite ends of the country. This presents a problem in shooters like Blazing Star, where it's tough to move diagonally, and the King of Fighters titles, which under better circumstances give the player finer control over their jumps than other fighting games.

Lowered expec-tayay-tions...
(image from Amazon)

However, the system was so cheap that I'd feel guilty dwelling on its faults. If I paid the full retail price for this, I'd be more inclined to bitch about the tiny LCD display and the games chosen for inclusion in the international edition. I like Metal Slug, really, but nobody needs this much Metal Slug. However, the Neo-Geo Mini cost me just thirty dollars. If I dared to complain too much about it, I'm pretty sure the Jess from twenty years ago would catch the nearest TARDIS to 2020 and kick my ass. Or just complain about my complaining... even in my twenties, I was never the ass-kicking sort.

Anyway, what else was I going to mention? Oh yes, Streets of Rage 4. For the most part, the game was worth the twenty-five year wait. The comic book artwork gives the series a welcome push into the 21st century, with plenty of details that would be easy to miss if you're not paying attention. The art museum has a golden turkey on display, which can't be eaten but works perfectly well for bludgeoning enemies. Characters from previous games that aren't playable at least make cameo appearances... Ash shows up in a poster in an early stage, and you'll find Victy the kangaroo tending bar in a later one. (It's probably best not to ask how he has the fine motor control to make drinks while wearing boxing gloves.) The game also plays much like it did in previous iterations, with launchers and juggles adding to the excitement, not to mention the combo potential. 

Oh, and there's four player gameplay, too!
And Adam is playable for the first time in
nearly thirty years!
(image from Newsbreak)

On the other hand, the new play mechanic that forces you to win back health you've depleted with special moves is aggravating. Generally it's not a safe bet when the screen gets congested, because someone will inevitably stab you in the back as you're trying to refill that bar. Also, the playable characters are either too fragile (Cherry, Blaze) or too damn slow. I understand why a bruiser like Floyd- basically a hybrid of Max Thunder and the widely disliked Dr. Zan- would need to be shifted down into first gear, but Axel too? I guess the last twenty five years weren't kind to his joints. On top of that, boss battles are a little drawn out and tedious, at least if you're playing alone. Estel in particular is the worst, constantly countering your attacks with overhead kicks and raining hellfire down on you after she's lost a little health.

Aside from these issues, Streets of Rage 4 looks and feels like where the series should be after a twenty five year hibernation. Maybe we shouldn't have had to wait that long for a sequel, but then again, maybe it was for the best, considering the game that almost became Streets of Rage 4.