Arcadia 2001 Reviews M-Z

Mobile Suit Gundam is an old anime series that has spawned many games including a few Playstation 2 mech shooters. Who knew the original Gundam game was released on the obscure Arcadia 2001 console? When I first discovered this game on my Arcadia multicart, my sense of shock was on par with the time I discovered Halo for the Atari 2600. And when I saw Gundam's elaborate high-resolution title screen with the detailed robot face, I thought "that must be all there is." But no, this is a full-blown, legitimate robot shooter. The first wave begins with a white ship flying across the screen to deploy your mech. Your white robot can fly freely and aim his one-pixel blaster in any direction - even diagonally! It's a good thing, because you face an alien armada from above, roving tanks below, and bombers that cross the middle of the screen. The graphics are sharp and clear, and a little theme song even plays in the background. Once you clear the first screen, a space stage begins where you face off against other flying mechs. Mobile Suit Gundam is well programmed and so action-packed that the controller once flew out of my hand! As it turns out, the controls are the game's Achilles' heel. The Arcadia joysticks are stiff as hell to begin with, and the robot's stilted movements force you to wrestle with the controller. I guess that's just how a giant robot would handle in real life. Another issue is the loose collision detection, although that tends to work in your favor. Mobile Suit Gundam is one of the more interesting titles for Arcadia, but beware of its tendency to inflict physical pain. © Copyright 2014 The Video Game Critic.

Monaco Grand Prix is a two-player head-to-head racer that looks promising at first. The screen layout consists of a white road winding around fancy high rise hotels, not unlike those at the actual Monaco speedway. I would have been happy with a simple overhead racer but failed to anticipate was how badly they could [expletive] up the controls. For some inexplicable reason Monaco eschews the joystick and buttons in favor of the keypad. That's right, the controls are 100% limited to a freaking numeric pad! The number 5 accelerates, 0 brakes, 7 turns left, and 9 turns right. Unreal! Not only this the most counter-intuitive scheme ever devised, but it's also the least responsive! You need to hold the accelerator button for at least five seconds before your car finally begins to inch forward. Hold it in a little too long and your automobile launches like a rocket! Your car maintains its speed when you release a button but your turn radius is so wide you're constantly getting caught on the edge of buildings. You're better off driving slowly and focusing on turning. I assumed the entire course fit on one screen but at some point the screen changes to reflect another section. This next segment is just a small strip running across the bottom. You drive off the right side and it repeats with a different building pattern. There's no finish line so apparently you're just playing for points. Once you get a feel for the unwieldy controls Monaco Grand Prix is halfway playable. If only it were halfway enjoyable! © Copyright 2018 The Video Game Critic.

Route 16 is one of those obscure, long forgotten titles that's so good it catches you completely off-guard. This boldly original maze racer is best described as a cross between Dodge 'Em (Atari 2600, 1980) and Venture (Colecovision, 1982). You begin by guiding a car through a simple maze with three police cars on your tail. Exiting the maze puts you in a giant grid of 16 city "blocks". Here your car looks like a red pixel as you steer it around while avoiding the swarming police. Each block contains openings that let you enter a unique maze. You can tell which blocks have loot, and the idea to snag all the money symbols to clear the level. Your car handles well and you can even reverse direction. The cops never rest, and when they're approaching your maze you can see them driving along the border (even over your score!). This adds excitement and forces you to think ahead. There are times when it looks like you're hopelessly trapped in the grid view, but if you duck into one of the mazes you can draw the cops in and perform some evasive maneuvering. Route 16 also contains mystery icons that cycle between cash (good), oil (slows you down), and a skull (instant death). Clearing the entire level becomes an obsession, and subsequent levels feature more aggressive cops and rearranged icons. My only real complaint is the whiny "siren" effects that play when you're on the grid view. One reader compared the sound to a broken smoke alarm, and that's pretty accurate. Otherwise, Route 16 is hard to fault. It's a shame more people don't know about this exciting and refreshingly original maze chase title. © Copyright 2013 The Video Game Critic.

Finally someone has figured out a way to make normal Chess even more tedious! Star Chess replaces pieces with star ships, bombards your ears with beeps and boops, and throws convention out the window. My friend Chris and I attempted to figure this out without a manual, but we got nowhere. Fortunately a helpful reader directed me to an on-line copy of the instructions. As it turns out, the controls in Star Chess are roughly ten times more complex than they need to be. You need to press about 12 buttons on the keypad to move a ship three spaces. The directional pad is inexplicably not used at all. A cursor is used to select your ships, and its light color practically blends into the background! The keypad functions are non-intuitive to the extreme, and one particularly useless button relocates the cursor to the top corner of the screen (I always hit that accidentally). How far you can move each piece is never clear. When you attack a ship, the game emits a lengthy series of high-pitched beeps that give you impression that the program is stuck. You never know how much damage your ship sustained, and you'll need to use your entire turn just to check its status! One interesting aspect of Star Chess is the way you can temporarily "warp" a piece off the screen for the few turns. This is accompanied by a flashy effect that might just leave you with the impression your ship just self-destructed. You never know where a warped ship will reappear, so it's a risky maneuver. My friend Scott indicated that the instructions lie, pointing to some text that describes Star Chess as "a two-player game of strategy and fun." Any promising ideas the intergalactic theme may have introduced were squandered by bad execution. © Copyright 2012 The Video Game Critic.

These days the term "Super Bug" calls to mind infectious diseases and antibiotic-resistant viruses. Was this old game sending a message to future generations about global pandemics, genetic mutations, and the fate of the human race? Nope, Super Bug is just an insect-themed maze shooter. You control a hideous bug with a jumble of legs who controls (and even sounds) like a tank. Your goal is to snag fruit in each stage and exit without being caught. Each screen is unique in design with a pair of wandering insects like beetles and dragonflies. The fruits include apples, cherries, lemons, and even marmalade. The graphics are chunky but the animation is smooth. Super Bug isn't as easy as it looks because your shots move slowly and enemies are unpredictable. They aren't that smart either. Sometimes they will bear down on you only to turn away at the last moment (*whew!*). When you shoot one, the insect will respawn a few seconds later either in the center of the screen or near the exit. Respawning near the exit is problematic but it does add strategy. My friend Brent discovered that you can "snipe" these bugs as they reappear. Sometimes it's best to just leave them alone if you can maintain a safe distance. You rack up the big points by reaching the exit so don't dawdle. When you escape a tune plays that sounds a heck of a lot like Frosty the Snowman with a slightly different ending. Each screen has scattered obstacles in the form of card suits (spades, diamonds, etc). Sometimes you can shoot these, sometimes you can walk over them, and sometimes they are deadly to the touch. I have mixed feelings about these arbitrary rules, but it's always fun to see what each new screen has in store. Even with its flaws, Super Bug is infectious fun. © Copyright 2014 The Video Game Critic.