Of course this got more plays on here than Attack of the Mutant Penguins, I bet all of you were just as disappointed as I was. Yes, I know who you are.
One of the most embarrassing shmups I've ever played, and it wasn't even due to the photoshop jobs of animal heads on top of human bodies. The graphics and low-quality sound effects make me think I'm playing some shockwave or flash game on Nickolodean.com. Levels are long and horrifyingly dull, the first ten seconds of a stage is the rest of the five minutes you get to experience in it. Nothing new is pulled on you, and time slows to a standstill. The game's strategy is to bore you into drowsiness, and hope you blunder into obstacles by accident. It's the antithesis of Super R-Type, it suffers from a serious case of pillow fists and not only respawns you on death, but also respawns you on continue, effectively giving you like 15 lives or whatever. If you're expecting music during gameplay then you're sorely mistaken, this ain't your mama's Thunder Force IV. It's goddamn Trevor McFur and it's soundtrack of shitty sound effects, and a composer who was only paid in a free Happy Meal and some Chuck E. Cheese tokens. The only way it could be more underwhelming would be if the frame rate tanked, and I honestly wish it did so I wouldn't have a stealth compliment to give it.
The weapon system is bullshit, whatever special weapon you collect instantly replaces the one you had and in order to switch you have to use the number pad to pick what you need out of the nine, or cycle through them via the option button. I love accidentally calling my useless wingman instead of using my screen-clearing bomb or my shield. My favorite weapon is the cartoonish magnet that you can accidentally kill yourself with, by firing it and having it pull the asteroid behind your ship in addition to everything else on screen.
It wasn't all for naught though, yes there's actually something uplifting about this dopey game. Most of the stage backgrounds and themes are fairly boring, but for whatever reason the graphics guy just had the time of his life and went ballistic for the planet Zephyria. I assume they just got absolutely loaded one day, and came out of it with the funniest screenshot I got to upload to IGDB yet. A stage that resembles Andy's Bedroom from Toy Story with you fighting some smarmy-looking chrome cupid asshole in sunglasses, flanked by the hummingbird from Kolibri, and ships that resemble the batarang cursor from the main menu of Batman Forever on SNES. I seriously couldn't make this shit up if I had tried. There's dragons too for some reason.
When your launch lineup for North America is this and Cybermorph, it's seriously no wonder that Atari died and became the dancing corpse on strings that it is today.
One of the most embarrassing shmups I've ever played, and it wasn't even due to the photoshop jobs of animal heads on top of human bodies. The graphics and low-quality sound effects make me think I'm playing some shockwave or flash game on Nickolodean.com. Levels are long and horrifyingly dull, the first ten seconds of a stage is the rest of the five minutes you get to experience in it. Nothing new is pulled on you, and time slows to a standstill. The game's strategy is to bore you into drowsiness, and hope you blunder into obstacles by accident. It's the antithesis of Super R-Type, it suffers from a serious case of pillow fists and not only respawns you on death, but also respawns you on continue, effectively giving you like 15 lives or whatever. If you're expecting music during gameplay then you're sorely mistaken, this ain't your mama's Thunder Force IV. It's goddamn Trevor McFur and it's soundtrack of shitty sound effects, and a composer who was only paid in a free Happy Meal and some Chuck E. Cheese tokens. The only way it could be more underwhelming would be if the frame rate tanked, and I honestly wish it did so I wouldn't have a stealth compliment to give it.
The weapon system is bullshit, whatever special weapon you collect instantly replaces the one you had and in order to switch you have to use the number pad to pick what you need out of the nine, or cycle through them via the option button. I love accidentally calling my useless wingman instead of using my screen-clearing bomb or my shield. My favorite weapon is the cartoonish magnet that you can accidentally kill yourself with, by firing it and having it pull the asteroid behind your ship in addition to everything else on screen.
It wasn't all for naught though, yes there's actually something uplifting about this dopey game. Most of the stage backgrounds and themes are fairly boring, but for whatever reason the graphics guy just had the time of his life and went ballistic for the planet Zephyria. I assume they just got absolutely loaded one day, and came out of it with the funniest screenshot I got to upload to IGDB yet. A stage that resembles Andy's Bedroom from Toy Story with you fighting some smarmy-looking chrome cupid asshole in sunglasses, flanked by the hummingbird from Kolibri, and ships that resemble the batarang cursor from the main menu of Batman Forever on SNES. I seriously couldn't make this shit up if I had tried. There's dragons too for some reason.
When your launch lineup for North America is this and Cybermorph, it's seriously no wonder that Atari died and became the dancing corpse on strings that it is today.
2 Comments
Just thinking of the poor furry who as a kid got a Jaguar for Christmas in 1993, and the only games their parents could get them are the world's most underwhelming commercially-available shmup, and the game that's only known for a green head telling you you're shit at flying.
Weatherby
1 year ago