Another bad Spider-Man game. Not 1.2 average bad, but bad. It looks great for sure, but I'd say that's to be expected from the guys who did Vectorman 1&2. The main problems boil down to bad level design and enemies taking tons of hits. It gets really exhausting managing your health around them, and sometimes its faster to just swing over them with your web. That has a meter as well though, and is pretty much equally hard to keep high if not harder. Usually if you make it to the ceiling though, you're home free until the boss. Whatever route you take, it's pretty dull and unfun.

It's also worth noting that after the final boss dies you have to do an escape sequence under a REALLY strict timer. If you don't have a lot of your web meter left it'll dick you over, and you'll be back at the start of the level, and you'll have to fight the fucking boss again! I failed to pass this probably three or four times, some even with enough web, and when I did make it I had one second remaining. That part really sucks ass and it's especially cruel as like a very final obstacle, really left a bad taste in my mouth.

I think there's potential here, tackled to the ground by poor execution. Could really use easier enemies, better level layouts and a more lenient end sequence. It's a great deal better than the animated series game for the SNES/Genesis, but it's a very low bar.

Worth a look for the crazy art direction, reminiscent of H.R. Giger, not so much worth a play. You collect a few spells as you progress, and the first level as a result is really dull with your starting attack and not an ideal first impression. When you have all the spells around stages 4 and 5 it's pretty solid for a while, then it gets way too difficult afterwards. The final boss in particular takes a fucking obscene number of hits, even if you save up all your lightning spells (which work like shmup bombs) up to that point. Basically, did not get much fun out of playing it, but moreso out of looking at it.

played as:
sheena (missile ending)
ray (big magnum ending)

Probably the apex of the Contra series. Sweeps the floor with the (already good) previous installments, and a part of me doubts they topped this one since. There's four different characters to play as, all with different weapons, and there are multiple paths with different bosses and endings to come across, allowing for a lot of replay value. I did the two routes that interested me the most first, and will be coming back for the others some day as well.

Difficulty wise, it's the hardest in the series up to this point. You know how hard the final boss in Contra III is? Imagine that for like, a decent half of the game. I plow my way through these older games with savestates, so it didn't hinder me too much of course, but it's very noticeable and I'd imagine doing it normally would be a hell of a task, albeit not as bad as some other nonsense I've played thus far. Luckily there's the Japanese version, which both adds continues and a life bar (new to the series!).

I see this compared to Gunstar Heroes a lot in here, and for good reason. They're very similar AND very close in quality. It could absolutley be coincidental, but keeping in mind Treasure was founded by former Konami employees who broke off after the latter rejected Gunstar Heroes, my guess is this game must have been an attempt to counter that one when it turned out successful. Who knows, though? They both kick ass and you should give them both a go. If I had to choose, however, Gunstar Heroes wins me over just a little due to easier difficulty and aesthetics.

Subpar platformer. It's worth noting the timer will absolutely dick you down on Normal and Hard, because almost every level has a strict time limit, but that's all of note really. On Easy you have more than enough time usually, but stage design is still rather poor. I don't think Asterix and Obelix play any differently, besides Obelix being a little bigger. Music is surprisingly solid, except in earlier stages where it's pretty boring.

I wouldn't play this one, primarily because there's too little of interest but also because it's longer than it needs to be and it just isn't fun. There are videos around going through Hard mode so I don't have to (such as "Worst Levels Ever #35" by whoisthisgit, which encompasses the whole fucking game lol)

Feels like playing through an OVA, much like Battle Mania Daiginjou except nowhere near as good lmao. Seems to share a universe and timeline with Earnest Evans, as he's a character here in some cutscenes and this game supposedly follows that one. It takes place in 1928 and the Empire State Building is not only existing but complete, although it wasn't even started until two years later, which I found kind of amusing. I did not find the ending amusing. Decently more grim than I was expecting, although I guess it could be worse.

Gameplay is a lot better than Earnest Evans, although this game seems to be a couple months older. Anett is thankfully made of just one sprite unlike Earnest, and controls just fine. Bosses are weirdly mixed once again, early ones are pretty rough but all the later ones are easy. Qualms here mainly come from enemies and such instead, especially the bats. Fuck those bats, dude. That entire last level can go to hell.

There's a bit of a cliffhanger in the credits, leading me to believe these games are two parts of a trilogy. Might seek that last one out and see how it goes, although I don't think it's in the Genesis library.

Fairly standard platformer bogged down by controls and overall feel. Our friend Earnest here is composed of various sprites pieced together rather than just one, and as a result he looks rather uncanny, constantly gets stuck on things, and is generally a major chore to maneuver around. He has like, a half crouch and a full crouch, and you have to hold down longer for him to do the latter, which really takes a moment and often won't be much help if you have to duck under anything. You also have to hold up just as long to get him standing fully upright again. You can roll around while crouching as well, but there's no real use to it and once again it's a real hassle to get out of. Basically, you'll feel like a clumsy oaf trying to move this man around and it just really isn't fun at all. Attacking is fine though, I guess? There's not really much else of note, I suppose bosses are really easy except the big fish near the end of the game who is completely full of shit.

It might be more fun to watch another friend play this and continuously stumble around. That could make for an entertaining afternoon, I'd imagine.

This game is stupid as hell, in both good and bad ways. My favorite thing about it is the sheer absurdity of it all, in which Michael Jordan has to rescue teammates from a mad scientist who plans to make his own basketball team with clones of them. You attack with your ball, but you can also get powerup balls that freeze or home in on enemies for example. But also, it's very exploration based (not inherently bad ofc, but), levels are massive, and actually finding the teammates is a lot more difficult than you'd expect. This makes for a rather tedious experience, and the strangely murky and drab environments don't help at all. Why are they so sad? You'd think with a game so silly in every other regard that it'd be bright and colorful, no? Only the train levels have any semblance of life to them, and they only serve as intermission between worlds. It sounds like a minor complaint, but for a 4 hour game you'd be wishing they breathed some more life into it too.

The product placement is really goofy as well. All the health items are Wheaties and Gatorade, and in case you can't tell from the sprites, their logos are also written above the scoreboard at the end of every level. It reminds me of like, those dinky PC games you would find in your cereal box sometimes if you got lucky.

Very creative and ahead of its time, honestly. It's a bit shocking how well the mechanics are utilized here for an early NES game, predating Mega Man 2 and Metal Storm for example. I played this in a vc and pretty much everyone thought this game was a much later NES title at the least.

Speaking of Metal Storm, it bears a lot of similarities with this game and now I'm in the mood to revisit it soon I think. I'm sure fans of that game will definitely like this one, and vice versa. Reminds me also of Mr. Gimmick in that with some fine tuning (and some more varied colors) you could probably fool someone into thinking this is a retro indie game or something like it.

Painstakingly attempted to complete each game on the Genesis version, managed 46 before I ultimately threw in the towel. Which seems pointless when you're that far in, but like, I'm really tired and want to stop playing this now. Not a single game here is close to acceptable, but the "high" and low points are probably Alien Attack and Dedant respectively. A couple games listed are impossible without dying at least once or twice, even with savestates (Dedant, Man at Arms), a couple appear to be outright impossible (Bonkers, Challenge), and Darksyne, while likely possible, was simply way too fucking hard for me. I don't know why I bothered with this, really. I initially thought it wuold be amusing but as I went on I was just very sad. I have other and better games to waste my time on, and at the end of the day this was just one of my very many poor decisions.