 |
| image from the Data East Fandom page |
Data East. We’re
not number one, and we don’t try harder.
Founded in
1976 by Tetsuo Fukuda, Data East started making video games three years later,
and became famous for early hits like Burgertime and Bump ‘n Jump. Later games
by Data East took the concepts first explored by other publishers and took
them in (slightly) new directions. Super Mario Bros. became Karnov, Double
Dragon became Bad Dudes, and Street Fighter II became Fighter’s History. By the
1990s, Data East developed a reputation as a B-lister, riding the coattails of
more successful game developers. By the 2000s, Data East was driven into bankruptcy,
rocked by a lawsuit from Capcom and socked by the rise of 3D gaming. Capcom,
Konami, and Namco had all prepared themselves for the polygonal paradigm shift of
the late 1990s. Data East? Not so much.
Some things
worth mentioning before I move on to the game reviews. First, Data East’s president
was the inspiration for Karnov, a flabby Russian fire breather who the design
team would squeeze into many of the company’s arcade games. Second, Data East was
the fertile ground that brought other publishers like TAD Corporation and
Technos Japan to life. TAD didn’t stick around for long, sputtering out after
its initial success with Cabal, but Technos had more luck, giving the world the
Double Dragon series which would survive long after its 1996 bankruptcy.
Bad Dudes
“I’m bad!”
That’s very healthy!
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Like Altered
Beast, Bad Dudes makes a strong first impression, but can’t hold that momentum for
more than ten minutes. As one of the titular dudes- who are bad, in case you’ve
forgotten- you’ll battle Dragon Ninjas across seven disconcertingly flat stages.
Stages are typically split into two floors, with players leaping from the top
to the bottom and back, but it feels superficial next to Double Dragon’s
elevated side view.
 |
Some of the ninja are kinky kunoichi in fishnet
stockings, just to see if you're still paying
attention after four or five stages.
|
Speaking of flat
and superficial, the combat in Bad Dudes boils down to swatting away dozens of ninjas
with punches and kicks. The ninjas fold in one hit, so there’s no combo
potential, no throws, no pursuit moves, no nothin’ resembling a real
fight. Even if one of these ninja nerds manages to hit you, they quickly sneak away,
denying you a chance for revenge. The ninjas’ rice paper constitutions and
their reluctance to commit to combat seriously makes you wonder how they managed
to kidnap an American president. Yes, even one as famously frail as Ronald
Reagan. He had bodyguards, you know!
Bad Dudes
does have its moments. The graphics have the same gritty urban vibe as the artwork
in Robocop, but with more variety… one stage sets you on the top of a moving semi-trailer,
with ninjas crawling up the sides to engage you in unsatisfying combat. The
first boss is Karnov, one of the earliest examples of a video game crossover.
You can play with a friend, which is always a plus in a late 1980s arcade game.
Past that, the Bad Dudes experience is pretty hollow next to the competition. No
amount of wimpy Dragon Ninjas could ever beat a Double Dragon.
Bump 'n
Jump
Now that’s
driving excitement! Bump ‘n Jump is a top-down racing game where the goal isn’t
to beat the other cars to the finish line, but beat them into scrap metal. You’ll
do this by either forcing them off the road, or crushing them with a well-timed
jump.
 |
Trucks hauling dirt will unload
their cargo on you if you get too
close. In the NES version,
sometimes they've holding a 1UP,
but you won't know for sure
until they drop it. Pretty sneaky, sis!
|
It’s not all
fun and vehicular homicide, though! There are frequent gaps in the track, which
you’ll have to vault over with the jump button. You can’t jump at lower speeds,
and you can’t reach the higher ones with all those rival cars bumping into you.
Pay close attention to the warning signs that blink at the top of the screen…
that’s your cue to pull away from the pack and hit the jump button, sometimes
hitting it again to launch yourself off islands set between the end of
one road and the start of another.
It’s a little
tricky to play, but oh so fun! Muscling cars off the road gave players the
same visceral, violent thrill as the much later Burnout series, and each new
stage brings with it a new season and even more hazardous roads. Bump ‘n Jump
was a hit in arcades, nearly as popular as its Data East stable mate Burgertime,
and quickly found its way to all the major consoles released before the crash.
It even got an NES port, but like Gyruss, it’s really more of a next generation
sequel, with all the usual Nintendo era tropes. It was a fun rental in
the late 1980s… you could do a whole lot worse.
Burgertime
Hope you’re
hungry! The burgers at this restaurant come extra-large… and covered with footprints.
Uh, hope you’re more hungry than picky.
Burgertime is
an incredibly creative platformer coming from Data East, a company that spent
much of its later life “borrowing” ideas from other game companies. As chef Peter
Pepper, you’ll make burgers by stepping on the ingredients. Completely flattening
a bun, meat patty, or lettuce leaf forces it downward, until it all settles onto
a plate at the bottom of the screen. Order up! Uh, ignore the scuff marks.
 |
Peter Pepper is about to wind up
with egg on his face.
|
Sounds easy
enough, right? Sure, until the Food Foes get involved. Animated hot dogs,
pickles, and a fried egg chase after you, weaving up and down the ladders
scattered throughout each level. Crushing a Food Foe with a burger ingredient
earns you points… but luring them onto a bun as you’re flattening it is worth more
points, with the added weight forcing it down two floors rather than one. As a
last resort, Peter Pepper can throw pepper, stunning nearby Food Foes and seasoning
his way out of a jam. However, pepper doesn’t grow on trees! Once you run out,
you can only restock your supply with a bonus prize in the center of the
screen.(By the way, pepper grows on vines, in case you were curious. Because I was.)
Data East hit
the bullseye with Burgertime… it’s fun, challenging, and surprisingly original,
making it the most popular game in the company’s early library. Mattel quickly
swept in to buy the home rights, and released an excellent port of Burgertime for
its Intellivision. That port would soon be followed up with conversions to the Atari
2600, ColecoVision, and even the NES. There were also sequels, but the only one
that’s worth a second glance is Diner, originally designed for the Intellivision
as a He-Man game. By the power of Greyskull, I have the pepper?
Darwin
4078
Data East was
an early pioneer in the overhead shoot ‘em up genre, releasing Mission X and
B-Wings before the tidal wave of Xevious clones hit Japan in the mid-1980s.
Unfortunately, they were never all that good at making these games, and Darwin
4078 is just further proof.
As the name
suggests, the headlining feature of Darwin 4078 is that your ship evolves as
you play. Grabbing icons that look like Ultraman changes it from the default
design, Beas, to a range of more advanced fighters, all with strange but effective
weapons. Shesuem lets out twin blasts of fire, Twipet unleashes swarms of white
worms, and the grand prize Gyasharru chokes the playfield with laser rings.
 |
If you think this background is
ugly NOW, just wait 'till you
see it scroll.
|
However,
getting hit with a bullet regresses Darwin into the fittingly named Pister, a pathetic
little runt of a ship that’s hopelessly outmatched by the armies of… whatever
those things are supposed to be. Better grab another Ultraman quick! Otherwise,
Darwin will be stuck in its larval form, and there’s nowhere to go from there but
dead!
The game is a
comedy of errors. It hurts to look at it directly, with gruesome backgrounds
and enemy designs that are somehow less exciting than the bulbous chrome
monstrosities of a UPL game. It’s also kind of cheap… Darwin is long enough that
dodging bullets and the spastic enemies is harder than it needs to be,
especially when they’re camouflaged against those eyesore backgrounds. Yet Data
East persisted, making sequels to Darwin 4078 in the desperate hope that someone
somewhere would want to play them.
That person
only exists in theory. The reality is that with so many superior options
available, gamers have long evolved beyond the need for this crap. Ain’t that a
Pister?
Fighter’s
History
Fighter’s
History was just one of many versus fighting games in early 1990s arcades, but
it’s the only one that got a lawsuit from Capcom. Why Capcom chose to single
this game out for legal action is unclear. Fighter’s History is a pretty
shameless knock-off, but it’s not any less shameless than World Heroes
for the Neo-Geo. Beyond that, there’s nothing about Data East’s game that presented
a serious threat to the income stream of Street Fighter II and its updates.
 |
The teen judo artist is based on a real
martial artist, Ryoko Tani. And she's not
the only one! There's a similar character
in ADK's World Heroes II. |
Fighter’s
History is the most “there” fighting game in fighting game history. It’s got
the same three punch and three kick button layout as Street Fighter II, along
with analogs of the Street Fighter cast. Chun Li gets replaced by opera singer
Fei Lin, Zangief gets swapped out for Greek wrestler Marstorius, and Mizoguchi
is a hot-blooded punk with the DNA of Ken and Ryu. None of the characters fight
as well as their inspirations, with awkward joystick motions and odd attack trajectories,
but they get the job done.
The game’s headlining
gimmick is a weak point for every character. For instance, Mizoguchi wears a
headband… repeatedly strike him in the head and it’ll be knocked off, leaving
him dazed and wide open to attack. (Apparently it was a load-bearing headband.)
Weak points do add strategic nuance, but it’s not enough of a factor in fights
to make much of a difference.
Fighter’s
History got a Neo-Geo sequel, Fighter’s History Dynamite, with two new
characters, larger sprites, and enough improvements to the core gameplay to
make it one of the better fighting games on a system overloaded with them. Data
East also leaned into the silliness of the first game, giving the CD version a
bombastic arranged soundtrack that assaults the player with boisterous horns.
Fighter’s History Dynamite knows exactly what it is and doesn’t apologize for
it, and you’ve got to give it credit for being so joyously, defiantly tacky.
Heavy
Barrel
The most Data
East thing you can do is take a smash hit arcade game, file off the serial
number, inject your own creative juices, and throw in a twist to the gameplay
to keep the lawyers at bay. (Or not… see also Fighter’s History.)
Heavy Barrel is
Data East’s take on Ikari Warriors, a military-themed shooter which hit arcades
like a hand grenade two years earlier. While the game is certainly inspired by
Ikari Warriors, it’s also superior, with smoother gameplay, heavier firepower,
and soldiers with slimmer shoulders. The stars of Ikari Warriors were wider
than Buicks, but the heroes of Heavy Barrel are smaller and more nimble, making
it easier to dodge bullets while aiming with the stubborn loop lever on the top
of the joystick.
 |
This waterfall is a really nice
set piece. Heavy Barrel could
have used more scenes like this,
and fewer fights inside
military warehouses. |
The arsenal
of weapons also does more to dazzle the player; more creative and “video gamey”
than the merely functional firepower in Ikari Warriors. You want grenades? Okay,
but have you considered this giant screen-clearing yo-yo instead? Or maybe these
gas clouds which hover in place, killing soldiers faster than you can say “Raid”
and burning through the metal plating of helicopters and tanks? It’s a
guaranteed war crime in a can!
All these weapons
of mass destruction are obtained from chests, unlocked with keys found on red
soldiers. However, the grand prize is “Heavy Barrel,” which has to be assembled
piece by piece. It takes a while to find all six pieces, but when you do, the odds
violently tilt in your favor. The player who grabs the last piece of Heavy
Barrel gets a weapon best described as shoulder mounted death. This all-consuming
beam cannon only lasts for about thirty seconds, so savor the moment.
Heavy Barrel
is pretty terrific, with a clean near-future aesthetic that brings to mind old
episodes of GI Joe. It’s fun whether you’re alone or in a crowded arcade,
rubbing shoulders with a friend and hoping you’re the one who finds the last
piece of the coveted super weapon. If you’re not, just try to be happy for your
buddy as he sprays hot death in all directions. It must be nice, killing soldiers
that easily. I have to settle for a giant yo-yo.
Karate
Champ
Karate Champ
is one of the earliest fighting games, released at a time when technology could
finally handle the large characters and deep gameplay demanded by the genre. It
was also designed by a team within Data East that would go on to form Technos
Japan. Technos would quickly develop a talent for bringing martial arts mayhem
to the world of video games, but not quickly enough to make Karate Champ as enjoyable
as its later hits.
 |
The match of the millennium!
Brent Spiner vs. David Garrison!
|
Instead of a
back-alley brawl, Karate Champ is a controlled and disciplined karate tournament.
Two angular fighters, who look like Data from Star Trek or Marcy’s first husband
from Married… with Children, trade blows in a best of three point contest. Quick
jabs earn a half-point, while the more theatrical and difficult to land strikes
get a whole point. Attacks are performed with a second joystick, giving the
player fine control over where their fists and feet will land.
Reach three
points before your opponent and the judge, who looks like the love child of
Cheech and Chong, lets you proceed to the next stage. If you’re good
enough, you might even get a chance to go toe to hoof with a raging bull, a
cheeky reference to martial arts master Mas Oyama. If you’re not good enough-
and you won’t be- you’ll be sent home in shame.
Karate Champ
is a tough game, and an awkward one to play. Combinations of the two joysticks trigger
your character’s attacks. There’s a lot of them to remember, and nothing comes
as easily as it does in Konami’s more spritely Yie-Ar Kung Fu. It does let
you challenge a friend, a feature Yie-Ar Kung Fu doesn’t offer, but you and your
buddy will just be stumbling blindly through each match, kicking at thin air
and cheering when somebody finally lands a blow. It might actually be easier to
learn karate than play Karate Champ.
Technos had
to start somewhere. You’ll just be glad fighting games didn’t end here.
Karnov
Russian
circus attraction Karnov must atone for his past sins by finding a hidden
treasure, but it’s the player who gets punished in this brutal
side-scrolling platformer. Karnov is a bit like Super Mario Bros., if Super
Mario Bros. felt kind of janky and looked kind of disturbing and offered too
many power ups. Instead of mushrooms and fire flowers, comrade Karnov gets a
ladder for those hard-to-reach K marks, wings for when the ladders aren’t high
enough, speed shoes, bombs for blasting holes through barriers, a mask for
spotting hidden pathways, scuba gear for fast travelling through lakes, and fire
orbs to boost Karnov’s natural talent for spitting fire. (Whew.)
 |
It's like Data East played Ghosts 'n Goblins,
then said, "Hold my vodka, comrade." |
You could argue
that more power ups mean more variety, and more access to the hidden nooks and
crannies that were so fun to find in Super Mario Bros. At the same time, there’s
something to be said for the streamlined design of Super Mario Bros., which
does nearly as much with its small handful of power ups as Karnov does with its
mountain of them. Beyond that, a fully powered up Mario is sturdier than Karnov,
who falls to one hit no matter how much stuff he had tucked into his
pocket at the time. (The NES version threw players a bone by letting Karnov get
hit twice, and it’s a hugely necessary addition to a game this tough.)
At least
Karnov is weird. Not the friendly Alice in Wonderland kind of weird, like Super
Mario Bros., but unnervingly strange, with creatures from Mesopotamian
mythology all hoping to sink their jaws into our husky hero. Is that an army of
skeletons astride skeleton ostriches? Why is that vaguely humanoid trout trying
to kill me with a water jug? Does anyone feed those winged gremlins? Maybe that
mud man should throw one of his molasses cookies at them instead of me. Karnov’s
set for food… he’s using the last notch in his Borscht belt.
When several programmers
at Data East left to form TAD Corporation, they took the core play mechanics of
Karnov and refined them, creating Toki. Power-ups are restricted to a reasonable
number and the level design is tighter, making for a more approachable
experience. It’s still plenty weird, but it’s more of a “ten year old boy’s
gross sense of humor and fascination with the monkey house at the zoo” weird,
rather than an “Iranian history professor’s worst nightmare” weird.
Lock ‘n
Chase
Maze games
were all the rage in the early 1980s, and some brought new ideas to the table
that floated them to the top of the ocean of Pac-Man knock-offs. Witness Pepper
II, which had your angelic/demonic hero dodging eyeballs and claiming territory
on four connected stages. There’s also Eyes, which is like Pac-Man if everybody
had guns. Yep, I’m sold already! And we can’t forget about Dig Dug and Mr. Do!,
which let you dig the mazes yourself.
And then
there’s Lock ‘n Chase.
 |
"N'ahh! How's it feel to be locked
up, coppers? It's not fun, see?"
|
Lock ‘n Chase
finds ways to distinguish itself from Pac-Man, but they’re frustrating ways
that leave the player feeling helpless. You’re a gentleman thief, and it’s up
to you to void a vault of valuables while dodging four colorful cops. Wait,
those eyes and foreheads look familiar… aren’t those really just the monsters
from Pac-Man with police caps?
Oh, they’re “legally
distinct” from the monsters in Pac-Man? I wouldn’t count on that excuse holding
up for more than a decade tops.
Your
gentleman thief would never do something as uncouth as swallowing his enemies,
so instead he sets doors at intersections, hoping to confound the totally-not-ghost-monster
cops. Sometimes it works! Sometimes he’ll even catch a cop between two doors
for bonus points! However, setting doors requires advance planning, and because
of unclear trigger points, you’re just as likely to catch yourself
inside a door as the Keystone Copyright Violators close in on you. There’s no
way to stop the cops cold like in Pac-Man… a bonus prize in the center of the
screen will freeze them, but just long enough for them to wince in frustration
and hit Roscoe P. Coltrane with their hats. If they’ve already surrounded you,
you’re going to Sing Sing the minute they continue their pursuit. Sorry, but crime
doesn’t pay! Or entertain!
Despite
Pac-Man being right there, Lock ‘n Chase was popular enough to get some
home ports, with the Intellivision version and a Game Boy sequel being standouts.
There was also an Atari 2600 version, but don’t do that to yourself.
Midnight
Resistance
The sequel to
Heavy Barrel ditches its top-down gameplay for side-scrolling action more in
line with Konami’s Contra series. You and your kid brother must free your
family from the clutches of a villainous drug dealer named King Crimson. Yes,
like the band. He even looks like the goofy face on the cover of their debut
album, and you’ll be seeing a lot of it if you can make it to the final battle.
 |
Power to the people! But not loop levers,
the people don't want those. |
Anyway!
Midnight Resistance uses a loop lever for aiming, which worked well enough for the
previous game but isn’t a great fit for this game’s new perspective and
faster pace. While Contra let you blast aliens from all angles as quickly as
you can tilt the joystick, Midnight Resistance forces you to wrench a dial in
place as drug-crazed super soldiers charge toward you. Blast it all, you made
me drop my keys! I hope there’s Fentanyl in your next dose of Ketracel White…
Like Heavy
Barrel, weapons are earned with keys held by red soldiers, but unlike Heavy
Barrel, you won’t be able to use them right away. There’s a storage locker after
each stage with items held behind glass. Some items, like the ammo refill, only
cost a couple of keys, but the really good stuff, like the always handy spread
shot, may cost three or even four. This delayed gratification is a weird design
choice that gets even weirder when the final storage locker is filled with members
of your kidnapped family. “You’re safe now, Tommy. Thanks for this nifty
flamethrower, by the way!”
It’s no patch
on Contra, feeling a bit stiffer and a fair bit more contrived. However,
Midnight Resistance scratched an itch for Sega Genesis owners in the system’s unsteady
early years. You lose the second player in the Genesis port, but the gameplay
improves without the accursed loop lever, and the music carries a lot more impact
thanks to an arranged soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto. The game’s high points, especially
the lengthy battle with a phalanx of stunt planes, taste so much sweeter with a
scoop of Basiscape on top.
Night
Slashers
(from previous blog entry The East We Could Do)
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.
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.
Nitro Ball
(from previous blog entry The East We Could Do)
"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.
Robocop
When viewed strictly
as a video game, Robocop is nothing special, and not up to the standards of Namco’s
Rolling Thunder or Sega’s Shinobi. You walk slooooowly through the grimy streets
of Detroit, punching thugs up close and picking them off from a distance with
your gun… when your hero decides to start using it. You had a motorcycle
rolling straight at you a minute before… now you pull your firearm out
of your thigh?
 |
| Heh. Neither here nor there, pal. |
Here’s the
thing, though. Robocop isn’t just a video game… it’s a Robocop game. The
film does a lot of heavy lifting for the game, but at the same time, the game
does a magnificent job of capturing the atmosphere of the movie that inspired
it. Messages sweep across the screen in a jagged green font, Peter Weller growls
his catchphrases at key moments, and each level has the same clash of shiny
high-tech weaponry and low-to-the-floor living conditions as the film. Data
East understood the assignment, aced the final, and went for extra credit just
to be sure.
Robocop is
one of those rare games based on a film that absolutely needs the film
to work, but is so in sync with it that it feels like a logical and necessary
extension. A movie as action-packed and violent as Robocop needed a
video game, and it deserved one as good as this.
Sly Spy
Sly Spy is
everything you could possibly want from a James Bond 007 game but the actual
license. The hero looks like lesser Bond Timothy Dalton in press materials, and
you’re given the option to pick a three-digit code name before the game starts.
By the time you’re finished, you start to imagine Data East’s president strapped
to a table with a laser pointed at his crotch. Hey, I wouldn’t put it past MGM’s
current owner and real-life James Bond villain Jeff Bezos. “I don’t expect you
to talk, Mr. Fukuda. I expect you to obey copyright law!”
 |
Here's a clear tribute to Thunderball. Or
maybe Never Say Never Again? Apropos of
nothing in particular, I always thought that
Sean Connery sounded like a typical
Scottish drunk, while Patrick Stewart
(RIP) sounded like the same guy the
next morning, in the throes of a hangover.
"Shut up, Wesley, and get me my aspirin!"
|
Anyway! Sly
Spy is a side-scrolling action game, feeling like a hybrid of Bad Dudes and
Namco’s Rolling Thunder. Unlike Rolling Thunder’s spindly star Albatross, your
spy can soak up a fair amount of damage from enemy agents, and can even assemble
a “Golden Gun” from pieces strewn through each stage. It’s really just the Heavy
Barrel from Heavy Barrel, but it’s still a death-dealing super weapon, and it’s
as welcome in Sly Spy as it is in any of Data East’s other games. (It sure
would have been helpful in Burgertime. Would you like a free hot dog shake with your order?)
What’s also
welcome is the amount of variety in Sly Spy. Your spy jumps out of airplanes, dives
through shark-infested waters, drives a custom motorcycle down a city highway, and
infiltrates cruise ships, all to the tune of an exciting soundtrack you swear
you’ve heard somewhere before… probably in some spy movie starring Sean
Connery. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, there’s no game
company more sincere than Data East.
Did I say sincere?
I meant shameless.
Tumblepop
Tumblepop takes
Taito’s Bubble Bobble and gives it a twist straight out of Ghostbusters. As one
of two spectral exterminators, you’ll travel around the world, sucking up the native
pests with a vacuum cleaner. Unlike Ghostbusters, your captive prey doesn’t stay
captured forever. Release the vacuum button and you’ll fire the monster outward
like a cannonball, bowling over his buddies, earning you big points, and
revealing hidden bonuses. Don’t release the button, and the monster will
eventually burst out of your vacuum bag, costing you a life.
 |
| And there's Karnov again! |
In that fine Data
East tradition, Tumblepop isn’t even vaguely original, and it’s not as good as
the best games in its well-worn genre. You’ll have more fun with Snow Bros, but
Tumblepop is at least as good as Nightmare in the Dark on the Neo-Geo,
or Bubble Bobble’s awkward middle children Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars.
It’s explosively colorful, makes even better use of its globetrotting theme
than Street Fighter II, and is worryingly addictive, even when you’re pretty
sure you shouldn’t have died from the monster you were starting to vacuum.
Screw it… I’m dropping in another quarter anyway. I’m having too much fun to
stop!
The bottom
line is that Tumblepop is a strong entry in the Bubble Bobble genre, and well
worth your time. Data East should have quit while they were ahead, though… Diet
Go! Go!, Funky Jet, and Joe and Mac Returns are so similar to Tumblepop that it
feels like Data East was making and re-making the same game, with increasingly
diminishing returns. Joe and Mac Returns is literally prehistoric Tumblepop.
Who asked for this?
