This is a pretty average mode 7 racer, there's not much else to talk about in terms of gameplay aside from the rubberbanding AI that was kinda standard for the time. I rented it a ton as a kid for some reason probably thanks to the spikey car on the cover.

The composer though was apparently a wizard who could make a SNES sound like a Genesis and make rad tunes out of it and that's worth checking out for sure.

https://youtu.be/oa5RzY8mZvo

Let me make one thing clear: Quad Challenge is worse than you could ever expect.
This was my timeline of playing the game:
- See negative reviews online
- Start playing, game looks okay for a Genesis racing game and the controls are fine
- Later find out that the game is so horribly made, that the game is almost humanly impossible
- Give up and cheat using passwords to just look at each track and consider that 'beating it'
Here's what goes wrong after the first 2 races. The AI cheats, it's rubberbanding is insane, and it goes faster than it should whether it's behind you or in front of you. The track design starts to have some turns that are physically impossible for your vehicle to comfortably make. Even if you can make them, you spin out if you turn too fast, and you need to slow down, allowing your opponent to get ahead you. Doesn't matter though, it got ahead of you at the start of the race and you'll never catch up to it. The tracks all look the exact same despite supposedly being in different parts of the U.S.. The backgrounds are different, but the track itself is the exact same dirt track style that you can't distinguish tracks.
This game is garbage, and it's impressive that Namco made something so bad, it's barely possible.

Initial concept is poorly translated into the NES port. The idea is that each attack is mapped to a combination of a direction and a button (A, B or A+B). The problem is that the game doesn't have strict focal targeting, so much as the character only turns after a proper attack, when the positions are reversed. In practice, this means that it is not possible to learn actions in terms of forward-backward, but rather in terms of absolute direction. This deviation from the norm is a concern, as it is not necessarily possible to estimate the direction of our character's gaze. On the other hand, the automatic guard is particularly permissive. Overall, the title does not accept priority, which means that two attacks made at the same time will cancel each other out, regardless of the direction. The game then becomes a mid-range battle to force a certain favourable pattern (in my case, I estimated that baiting a jump with a low kick allows you to hit with a front kick or back kick, if parried). Indeed, since it is a karate game, there is no confirmation system, since each hit will stop the fight. In short, this is a title that did not transition well to the NES.

This otherwise arcade classic received a few shoddy ports on platforms such as the ZX Spectrum British computer, Atari ST, Commodore 64, or Amiga; none could rival the arcade version, but the System-16 clone itself. Midnight Resistance is an almost arcade-perfect port of the Contra clone - unfortunately - it does not feature the 2-player mode like its arcade original. The game is very 80s, a muscular Platoon hero must defeat a drug cartel who kidnapped his family after his father develops the cure to narcotics addiction. This is a short game, less than a half-an-hour, made replayable with a high score system and its highly action-packed, testosterone-fueled gameplay.

One day, while I was fucking about on the Genesis Mini 2 that I definitely have, I stumbled upon this random game called Midnight Resistance, and I thought “Eh, why not, it may not be the worst thing ever”, and then one microsecond into starting the game, I then realized that it was a blatant Contra clone. I then got a tiny bit upset for a split second, until I then realized this game was made by Data East, and I thought “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh… that makes way too much sense.” So, after that discovery, I then decided to stick through with the rest of the game, and to my surprise, I discovered that the game wasn’t a steaming pile of dogshit, and is instead somewhat good. Yes, it is still a blatant Contra clone, and it doesn’t do too much to stand out against it, but it is still fun at times, and there are things that the game does that I would actually like to see in an actual Contra title (and if they actually are in one of the games, I probably haven’t played that one yet, so stop typing that comment right now).

The story has plenty of plot elements that usually aren’t in games of this era, such as drug cartels, family kidnappings, and governments not wanting to help out (which isn’t too far off from the truth, AMIRITE), which is generic for the type of game this is, but the effort is appreciated, the graphics are fine for what they are, but not gonna lie, the animations for your character’s actions are pretty damn bad, the music is pretty good, even if some of the tracks are very samey, the control is not that good at all, with it being pretty hard to get used to, even if some parts of the control are admirable, as I will touch upon later, and the gameplay is what you would expect from a Contra clone, but there are some unique elements that make it stand out from it.

The game pretty much plays almost exactly like Contra, where you go through plenty of side-scrolling stages, shoot up anyone that stands in your way with plenty of weapons, gather said weapons and items from enemies to help you out along the way, and take on bosses at the end of each stage. Again, it is pretty much exactly like Contra, but unlike Contra, there are additions to the game that make it standout (somewhat) from those titles. First off, unlike in Contra, you have a button which allows you to lock onto a direction to aim while shooting, so for instance, if you are shooting up, and you hold down the button, you will continue to shoot up no matter what direction you move in afterwards. Not only is this a pretty good change to the gameplay, but it helped out tremendously when taking on the threats you face in this game (as well as helping deal with the jank-ass control).

In addition, the way you acquire weapons is also different. Unlike in Contra, where you can grab them from enemies whenever they drop them, instead here, at the end of each stage, you are taken to a storage room where you can use keys gathered from enemies to choose weapons, bombs, and other items to use for the upcoming stages. Yes, you could say this is more limiting compared to what Contra had, but it does let you try out the weapons to see which one is best, as well as strategize while using said weapons, which is appreciated. What also helps this is that, whenever you die, your weapons and items drop to the ground, allowing you a chance to pick them back up when you respawn, which was also really helpful, especially when it happened in some pretty tough fights.

Of course though, this is no Contra, and as such, it does have issues that need addressing. Ignoring the control and graphics issues I already mentioned, some of the bosses can be pretty damn annoying, which is understandable, given what the game is, but it is still apparent, there is limited ammunition for special weapons, which just seems unnecessary for this type of game, and there is plenty of slowdown that can be found in some sections where a lot is happening on screen. In addition, unlike Contra, which had different types of stages to mix up the gameplay and keep things fresh, this game just has the 2D side-scrolling stages only, which isn’t really all that bad, but I’m just saying, if you are gonna blatantly copy another game, you may as well go all the way with it. Really though, those are the only real problems that I have with the game, as aside from that, it is only held down moreso by just not holding up in comparison to the big boys, and anyone who has played said big boys would know exactly what I am talking about.

Overall, while not a bad game by any means, and while it does have a few admirable elements that I wish that its inspiration series would take after, at the end of the day, this is just when you ask your parents if you can have Contra, but they tell you they have Contra at home, and of course, it isn’t as good or exciting as the original thing. I would only recommend it for those who really love Contra, and want something else to satiate that desire for more of it, but aside from that, it doesn’t really warrant any kind of attention. It really makes sense though, when looking at the title of the game, since it really is a MIDnight Resistance that we are dealing with here.

Game #252

While I may be proud to say that I am a bad enough dude to rescue the president, there’s not much else that I can say about Bad Dudes that would be positive overall. It is different then other beat-’em-ups, where you are on a 2D plane rather then what you would usually expect, but it is more clunky and resides on the BS part of arcade design more then anything. I wouldn’t say that it is that bad, but at the same time, it isn’t really worth playing through more then once. However, it would still end up getting a sequel despite the quality of the original, and just like any good sequel should, it doubles down on everything the original game had. Unfortunately, this means that the game would not only double down on the ridiculousness… but also on the poor design. This would result in a game with a name that is trying way too hard, Two Crude, or Two Crude Dudes.

Out of all of the games I have reviewed so far, this one probably screams “90s” more than any of the others. Everything about this game is extremely stupid and ridiculous in the best possible way, covered in that 90s cheese that so many products back from that time were known for, which makes the game much more hilarious and wonderful to experience as a result. However, at the same time, I can see that this game is not as good as the original game whatsoever, and the original wasn’t even that good to begin with. Where it progresses forward with the stupidity, it manages to regress when it comes to design, and while I still wouldn’t say it is outright terrible, it still needs a lot of tweaking to make me consider wanting to play it again.

The story is your typical “bad guys destroy place, you gotta stop them” plot, but once again, it is presented in such a dumb way that I can’t help but somewhat love it, the graphics are… alright, looking good on their own, but all of the character designs are so over the top in certain instances, that I can’t tell if they are good or bad, the music isn’t really all that special, with plenty a good number of the tracks being forgettable, but hey, it’s not as bad as if there was terrible music, the control is acceptable, with movement being very slow and jumping and combat feeling awkward, but it could be a whole lot worse then this, and the gameplay is basically the same as the previous game, but not as good.

The game is a 2D side-scrolling beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of the two crude dudes, go through several levels of similar themes, beat down a seemingly endless set of tough, expressive, and very bizarre enemies, grab a set of projectiles and weapons that you can use to your advantage to take down your opponents, and take on some of the weirdest bosses that I have seen lumped together in one of these types of games in quite a while. When it comes to the core gameplay, it is your typical beat-’em-up affair, with no real features to make it stand out from the rest, aside from possibly how you can grab background objects and use them to hurt enemies, but that is just one feature in a pool full of unoriginality. However, where the originality does shine in is, again, the ridiculousness of this game.

This game is basically the “bad enough dude” line from the original game times 10. There are so many weird, strange, and “what-the-fuck” moments to be found in this game, which can come from the character designs, especially with the main two characters looking like virgin Duke Nukem immitators, the bizarre enemies that you end up fighting throughout the game, and the voice acting, with the characters saying some of the cornniest shit, and yet saying it in the most gruff tone of voice that I can’t help but laugh. Seriously, just to get a grasp on what kind of game we are dealing with here, some of the bosses you fight end up being a giant spider-man guy, a guy that transforms into a wild beast, a terminator-type man, and a guy with a snake wrapped around his body that he can send out to kill you. If there is one thing I can praise Two Crude for, it would be how it keeps your attention in the best possible way.

Unfortunately however, the gameplay isn’t good enough to where I would recommend you trudge through it to experience that ridiculousness. Just like with the last game, this game does suffer from arcade syndrome, throwing plenty of enemies at you that can take you down really fast, and there is a boss rush near the end of the game, but this time around, there is more to it that makes this game more frustrating. The invincibility frames you get are a fucking joke, where whenever you get knocked down and get back up, you get them for like 1 second, but when you come back from dying, you get them for a good while, so yeah, not a fan of the inconsistency there. In addition, there is also the issue of the combat just feeling bad. Landing hits on enemies doesn’t feel satisfying or concise, feeling like guess work to see whether or not you actually do manage to land hits or not, and when it comes to a beat-’em-up, if you screw up that aspect alone, then what you have here is a failure of a game.

Overall, despite being an absolute joy to watch and listen to because of its absurdity, to actually play through Two Crude yourself isn’t really worth it at all, and while I still wouldn’t consider it one of the worst of this genre, it really isn’t one that you need to try for yourself. I would recommend you experience this game ONLY by watching a playthrough of it on YouTube, because that is the most enjoyment you will ever get out of it. Trust me. Also, before we end this review, can we talk about how the final boss of the game is literally just Dr. Wily? Specifically the one from Mega Man 2? I don’t know about you, but I think Capcom missed out by not suing Data East when they got the chance.

Game #328