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Games are rated relative to other games for the same system.
Next up is curling, which might be the best video game adaption I've played of the sport. That's saying something considering it's 2D! The sport involves sliding round stones onto a bullseye, using brooms to control the direction and speed of each stone. The controls are streamlined but there's still plenty of strategy. At four rounds this event runs a bit long, but you can always press B to skip the CPU's turn.
The third event is Bobsleigh which provides a behind-the-sled view as you rumble down the chute. There's little sense of speed, but ample sense of boredom. The final three events: skiing, snowboarding, and slalom, are nearly ruined by a camera angle that's way too close. It's hard to judge the bounds of the course much less navigate the flags. And one miss means you're disqualified.
The medal ceremonies look funny; the athletes are painted head-to-toe the color of their flag, as if all were all members of the Blue Man Group. Salt Lake's bright semi-digitized graphics are easy on the eyes and the musical score captures the majestic spirit of the Olympics. It's a shame this is a one-player only game because a few of these events would have been fun to play head-to-head. © Copyright 2019 The Video Game Critic.
The first stage takes place in a mineshaft where you hop between platforms, collect tiddlywinks, and bash cavemen with your sack. Snowballs later prove a much more satisfying weapon, shattering enemies on contact. The jumps are floaty to the max, but I like how you can fall from any distance. You can even climb across ropes hand-over-hand, a la Tomb Raider (PS1, 1997).
You'll avoid standard dangers like flames, spikes, and plungers. Crates contain goodies, but you can only open them by throwing snowballs downward which is really bizarre. You'll need to scour every maze-like level to obtain the necessary keys. I did gradually warm up to Santa Claus Saves the Earth.
The graphics aren't bad, with characters having a somewhat claymation appearance. The scenery isn't very Christmas-y, save for a few stages with snowy mountains and icy trees. What are these clocks and pictures of clowns doing on the walls? The music is obnoxious; I had to turn down the volume completely. The game has a score, three continues, and a password feature. Santa Claus Saves the Earth may not be a genuine Christmas title but it's really not a bad little game on its own merits. © Copyright 2018 The Video Game Critic.
For the first half of the game you play Santa, leaping between frosty platforms, collecting milk and cookies, fighting snowmen, and solving not-so-challenging puzzles. Have you ever noticed that snowmen are increasingly being portrayed in the media as psychotic creatures? The platform action has all the standard elements like spikes, falling ice cycles, and crumbling platforms. And if you think you suck at jumping between iced-over platforms, don't worry, because you'll be an expert by the time you're done playing this! Tempering the difficulty is Santa's ability to double-jump and float down gently.
Between stages digitized stills are displayed that follow the story from the film. The stages are short and sweet, but you always have the option to return to completed stages to search for hidden items that unlock new features. The one aspect I didn't like is fighting those annoying snowmen who take forever to kill. There are two bonus stages. In one you are an elf scrambling to locate toy parts in a factory. Sadly this elf is less agile than Santa and prone to dying a horrible death in the gears of a toy-making machine. A second bonus stage puts you in Santa's sled, dropping presents onto houses at night.
For the second half of the game you are Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) stripped of his Santa magic. You can no longer glide but you can throw snowballs, so that's something. Just beware of green security guards who are fatal to touch! The game saves your progress automatically. The Santa Clause 3 is an unexpected surprise, and if you're looking for some holiday cheer this lighthearted platformer will not let you down. © Copyright 2015 The Video Game Critic.
Weaving through traffic is a thrill and I relish the little details like working tail lights on my convertible. Just be sure to steer clear of the eighteen-wheel trucks that can literally run you over! Something possessed me to play this on my big HDTV (via the GameCube Game Boy Advance player) and the results were astonishing! It's all the speed and excitement of Outrun rendered in glorious chunky pixels! It's like playing the game on an Atari 2600 for crying out loud!
Super Hang-On follows a similar formula except this time you're on a motorcycle. The "lean" steering begs for analog control but the digital pad is adequate once you get a feel for it. The two flying games aren't quite as fun but still impressive. After Burner is a frantic airplane shooter that feels a bit laggy compared to the arcade. You'll unleash heat-seeking missiles at targets on the horizon and incinerate enemy jets that linger in close range. The bright blue sea, orange sunsets, and white snow stages are striking in their beauty.
Space Harrier is a jet-pack shooter with a sci-fi vibe. It's fun to blast dragons and dodge pillars, but the scaling is a little rough and your character tends to block your view. One pleasant surprise is the quality of the music. OutRun's selectable tunes sound terrific and the high-octane musical score of After Burner will get your blood pumping. A cartridge like this one will catch you off guard. Sega Arcade Classics harkens back to when video games were colorful, action-packed fun. © Copyright 2014 The Video Game Critic.
If you ever wondered what Sega Rally would look like on the Atari 2600, this might give you a good idea! I like to review GBA games on my TV (via GameCube GBA player) but Sega Rally looks like pixel soup! I feel like I'm plowing through a sea of little boxes! On a smaller screen (like a DS) the game looks a lot better. Details like signs and spectators are indistinct but you still get a sense of them.
The driving action is very forgiving and I'm not sure it's even possible to crash into anything. It's fun to shave seconds off your best times though, and always satisfying to pass another car just before you cross the finish line. The races are short and sweet with best times recorded to cartridge. The tracks incorporate all sorts of environments, weather conditions, and different times of day.
I found the desert tracks a little hard to follow, but the snowy village and tropical isle locations look absolutely beautiful. Completing events awards you with coins used to unlock cars, galleries, and even mini-games. The graphics may come across a little rough, but if you stick with it this miniature Sega Rally is sure to satisfy your craving for off-road racing. © Copyright 2016 The Video Game Critic.
Though presented in half the resolution (if that), this portable Smashing Drive offers the same NYC courses, wild shortcuts, and over-the-top weapons. This action is best described as unbridled mayhem as you barrel around turns and fly off ramps. You can ram into any vehicle and it will blow up. Special weapons like monster truck tires, buzz-saw wheels, and sonic horns clear your path, leaving devastation in your wake. Every race is a mad dash to the finish as the seconds tick down.
In some respects I prefer this portable version. The graphics, while chunky, still look good and the frame rate is remarkably smooth. The game froze up on my Retron 5, but it's probably for the best as it doesn't look nearly as impressive on the big screen. The audio is a marked improvement, mainly because there's an option to shut off the abrasive music while preserving the sound effects.
I feel like the snow is accented more in this version, giving it a festive holiday-in-New-York-City vibe. A simple four-letter password is provided to mark your progress. Smashing Drive is a showcase title, demonstrating how to effectively scale down a game to the small screen without sacrificing its spirit or sense of fun. © Copyright 2023 The Video Game Critic.
The graphics in Sonic Advance are roughly equivalent to the original Genesis titles. Predictably, the first zone is a tropical paradise, conjuring up memories of the Green Hill Zone. Most zones are new, but longtime Sonic fans will find their designs derivative at best. I love whizzing over the snowy peaks of the Ice Mountain zone, but wading through the water in its lower reaches is a drag.
Apparently somebody at Sega really has a thing for those annoying pinball stages, because the Casino Paradise Zone is as irritating as it gets. Other zones are hampered by tedious platform jumping or dangerous blind jumps that cause you to fall off the bottom of the screen. The 3D bonus stages are fun but surprisingly elusive. I'm not crazy about the fact that there are two enormous stages per zone - the second ending with a boss. Not only is it easy to get lost, but the whole "exploration" aspect is compromised.
I do like the stage select feature that lets you bypass those you've completed. The well-orchestrated background tunes range from the mysterious, grinding jams of the Secret Base stage, to the tranquil, peaceful melodies of the Ice Mountain Zone. Extra modes include a two-player race mode and a time trial mode. Although the time trial saves the best times, it inexplicably does not save your initials. Sonic Advance has its share of issues, but it still feels good to see the hedgehog back in 2D. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.
Thankfully the new zones exhibit a great deal of imagination. The first, Leaf Forest, is an unconventional world of angular green shapes, and its soundtrack is equally edgy. In the Music Factory zone, your character bounces off piano keys and gets sucked through organ pipes, and the music is fantastic. The scenic Ice Paradise features a welcome holiday theme, although falling off the bottom of the screen is a constant hazard.
New gizmos include rails you can "grind" (Tony Hawk style) and loops that are twice as big as those in previous games. My main gripe with Sonic Advance 2 is the same as the last game. The zones are so huge that it's easy to get lost in them. Sonic 2's difficulty is just right however, and most Sonic fans will appreciate the added emphasis on speed. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.
Instead of whole-heartedly embracing this tag-team concept, I chose to largely ignore my partner. Does that make me a bad person? Another feature I didn't care for is the new "zone within a zone" concept. I'd rather just select my zone instead of having to locate it within a maze! Otherwise Sonic 3 is similar to its predecessor, with fascinating new zones and a higher degree of difficulty.
The first zone, Route 99, is set in front of a bright city skyline. I love it, because it's so reminiscent of the graphics in those old Double Dragon games. The second zone, Sunset Hill, features a gorgeous orange sunset over scenic tropical scenery. I freaked out when I realized its theme music is actually a remix of the Green Zone music from the original Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis, 1991)!
Sonic 3's gameplay is more challenging than previous Sonic Advance games. Each zone features three expansive stages, and the boss stages even feature sub-bosses. New gadgets include button switches, teeter-totters, and bungee cords. You really need to watch yourself because it's very easy to get squished by moving blocks. In the end, Sonic 3's "teaming up" aspect fails to excite, but you can't deny Sonic Advance 3's classic gameplay. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.
It offers two tables, one based on Sonic and the other on Nights (although I'm told there's also a secret Samba De Amigo table). Fans of Nights will probably appreciate this cartridge a lot, considering the lack of attention that series has received over the years. Pinball Party's flipper controls are responsive enough, but why aren't they assigned to the shoulder buttons?
The main problem with the game is its dull, uninspired tables. The targets are hard to make out, and there are far too many "modes" and words to spell out. Most of the time the ball just rolls around the lanes without even hitting anything. There are multiple "stages" for each table, but these do little more than alter the color scheme. You get three balls per game, but if you count all the times your ball is "saved", it's more like 20! When you see a ball get saved three times in a row, something's wrong.
The scoring is uneven as well. You can execute all sorts of crazy combos to earn a few thousand points, and then effortlessly rack up millions during some easy ring-collecting mode. You'll need at least 50 million to break into the high score table, but in my experience netting even 20 million is nearly impossible. Sonic Pinball's playful soundtrack has that Sonic charm, but like the game, it wears thin in a hurry. © Copyright 2006 The Video Game Critic.
The ill-conceived first stage requires you deliver five pizzas (!) around town. Okay, I get it. The designers thought this would give the player a chance to acclimate to the controls. So why did this stage need to be so difficult and confusing? It might be the toughest stage in the game! Since you have no idea where the customers are, you're forced to scour every building in sight and even punch out windows in your frantic search. Thank goodness you only need to play this stage once. That auto-save function is worth its weight in gold.
Subsequent stages aren't much better as you try to escape a burning lab, beat up bank robbers, or quell a prison riot. I feel like the controls are too "sticky". Once you get on a wall or ceiling it's hard to get off. You'll make heavy use of ventilation systems to navigate between locked rooms, but Spidey tends to become awkwardly wedged in them, with half of his body extending through the wall. Sometimes you can punch and kick through doors. There's a surprising amount of slow-down, especially in the burning lab stage.
But the most ill-advised aspect of this game are its pseudo-3D stages where you freely roam a pixelated city. They should have never attempted on the Game Boy Advance. Everything is so blurry and jumpy, you might as well be drunk! It's not a pretty sight.
Otherwise Spider-Man 2 is just okay. You can use the experience points you gain to purchase upgrades like combinations or an upper-cut move. The stages are detailed but areas tend to repeat and enemy clones always move in the same predictable patterns. Despite its high production values, Spider-Man 2 has a cookie-cutter quality that makes each stage feel like a tiresome, repetitive exercise. © Copyright 2021 The Video Game Critic.
The game offers a nice variety of objectives, from saving hostages, to escaping a crumbling building, to destroying barrels within a certain time period. The levels are brief but hidden secrets add to the replay value. The characters are well-defined using black outlines, and the background scenery looks pretty realistic.
Spidey's hits are punctuated with "Thwack!" and "Bam!" graphics, just like the old Batman TV shows. The action is fairly conventional until you reach the amazing 3D bonus stages, which let you swing through the city via a first-person point of view! That's pretty impressive for the Game Boy Advance!
Control is often a sticking-point in Spider-Man games, and this one is no exception. In the outdoor levels, it's easy to swing around from building to building, but in close quarters you tend to stick to everything, which gets annoying! Even so, Spider-Man The Movie is a quality title, delivering old-school charm with a new-school flair. © Copyright 2003 The Video Game Critic.
Controlling a well-armed sports car, you embark on a series of missions with multiple objectives, but your primary goal is always to destroy one or more special targets. The controls are fairly responsive, and gunning down enemy cars and motorcycles is a pleasure.
Spy Hunter's graphics are reasonably good, but its flat scenery makes the stages feel repetitive. You sometimes drive a boat, but it feels more like a car sliding around on an oily surface. Spy Hunter is playable but not particularly satisfying. There is one major incentive to play however, and that is to unlock the original Spy Hunter arcade game, which is far better that this one by the way. © Copyright 2003 The Video Game Critic.
The graphics look perfectly fine with slick sports cars and lush green scenery along the side of the road. But the controls... oy! I don't know if they were trying to emulate some kind of analog control or what, but the steering is atrocious! Holding the directional pad to either side for more than a split second sends your car veering out of control. And if you try to recover you're magnetically sucked into the trees on each side. You'll barely scrape against a motorcycle and your entire car is instantly engulfed in flames. To be fair, those flame effects are the visual highlight of the game.
The pacing is horrible, with long stretches of road with nothing to do. The game over screen displays a message like "your score ranking is 3" which might make sense if there were a high score screen! The second game, Super Sprint, doesn't fare much better. The miniscule cars look more like little roaches scurrying around a track. The steering is far too sensitive, causing you to curl into walls. The ensuing mushroom cloud is followed by a helicopter flying in with a replacement vehicle. Explosions notwithstanding, both Spy Hunter and Super Sprint are a pair of turkeys, and even a two-for-one deal can't hide that fact. © Copyright 2018 The Video Game Critic.
The controls however are unresponsive, stiff, and poorly conceived. As a result, playing Attack of the Clones is about as satisfying as eating soup with chopsticks. Your Jedi (Anakin Skywalker) walks so slowly that completing each stage feels like an extended ordeal. You'll frantically search the manual for a dash move, but your efforts will have been in vain.
Episode II's mechanics are downright bizarre. You actually need to be moving forward to swing with your lightsaber! Turning around is a chore, and it can be frustratingly difficult to strike an object directly in front of you. Droids tend to hover just between your slashes and low-kicks, prompting some players to use profanity. Losing a life sends you all the way back to the beginning of each lengthy stage.
The 3D stages prove just as frustrating, with heat-seeking missiles that are practically impossible to avoid. The best part of the game is how you can deflect laser bolts back to their source with your lightsaber. I enjoyed the movie, but this is awful. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.
The fighting engine is pretty nifty too, letting you employ a variety of saber techniques to disassemble an army of droids. Your foes fall to pieces in a satisfying manner, and you can even attack from the front and back at once - eliminating the painful "sandwiching" deaths seen in similar games. There's some interaction with the scenery, and you can skillfully deflect laser bolts with your lightsaber.
In one stage you must defeat a tank using deflections alone. Even the one-on-one lightsaber battles are well executed, requiring a series of well timed blocks and counters. Your Jedi gradually earns new skills and attributes, and you can play as Obi Wan or Anakin in storylines that diverge before fatefully merging near the end. With its fresh graphics, tight controls, and clever concepts, I started thinking "finally they got it right." But sadly, the fun does fade as you progress through the game.
Hacking up droids is mindless fun at first, but eventually you'll face tougher droids that require you to pound the heck out of them ad nauseum. Worse yet, the stages tend to be long and boring with endless corridors. When the game throws the same set of five droids at you again and again (in the same room no less), enough is enough! Apparently the developers were attempting to artificially lengthen the game, but it really backfired. Even with its flaws however, Episode 3 does represent a big step up from previous Star Wars titles on the Gameboy Advance. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.
First, we have the repetitive stage layouts and frequent shoot-out sequences that artificially lengthen the game. You can fire diagonally (using the shoulder buttons), but not straight up or down, and you can't shoot while climbing.
When navigating platforms, you can grab onto them and pull yourself up, but sometimes your grabs don't register and you just fall right through. Of course, when you're trying to jump down, your character inadvertently grabs onto everything, which is annoying. There are lightsaber and space battle stages further into the game, but these are only a marginal improvement.
The graphics are plain, and the characters are rendered with thick black outlines. Despite its shortcomings, Trilogy does cover a lot of ground, and it is Star Wars for Pete's sake. I kind of enjoyed the Time Pilot-inspired shooting sequences. But all in all, you have to admit this is pretty uninspired stuff. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.
First you have to sit through one of those slow, obligatory text crawls. Are these things really necessary for every Star Wars game? Each level involves either flying or driving, and you view the action from just behind your vehicle. Fortunately, the Falcon's shape is thin enough that it doesn't usually obstruct your vision.
The 3D graphics aren't bad, and the mission locations are enough to make any Star Wars fan salivate, including the Death Star Trench, the forest of Endor, the streets of Tatooine, and the cloud city of Bespin. Unfortunately, aiming is done using a tiny crosshair, and you have to be dead-on to hit anything. In the driving stages, the scenery blends together, making it hard to tell where you can and can't go.
Making matters worse, the stages drag on for far too long. In the first stage you have to shoot about 100 tiny Tie fighters! And once you lose a ship, you'll have to start all over again! At least the audio is reasonable, with digitized music and trademark sound effects. But that's the only bright spot in a game I generally regard as a waste of time. © Copyright 2003 The Video Game Critic.
Despite its lofty production values, New Droid Army is an absolute chore to play. In a storyline that immediately follows Episode 2 (Attack of the Clones), you guide Anakin Skywalker around expansive areas on the planets Tatooine, Coruscant, and Metalorn. As you move from one area to the next, characters send you off on various errands to search for people and objects.
Along the way you'll fend off endless Womp rats, Sand People, and Imperial Droids. It's button-mashing hell, although I do like how you can deflect laser bolts. The game might have been respectable had the locations not been so damn huge. Stumbling across the Tatooine desert takes an eternity, especially when you have to stop every few feet to slice up a gang of attacking Womp rats.
Every stage plays exactly the same, and the repetition will dull your senses. You'd think the "speed" force power might remedy the situation, but it's only available in five-second spurts! It's easy to cycle through your force powers, but they are almost totally defensive in nature. You'd have to be a very loyal Star Wars fan (perhaps stranded on a desert island) to derive any enjoyment from this by-the-numbers time-waster. © Copyright 2006 The Video Game Critic.
SPF2 incorporates several cool concepts that elevate it above most garden-variety Tetris clones. For one thing, you get the characters, backdrops, and musical themes from the Street Fighter II and Darkstalkers series. If you're a fan of those classic fighters, the familiar sights and sounds are very appealing!
It may seem like window dressing, but SPF2 really does convey back-and-forth action similar to a 2D fighter. The idea is to strategically stack colored blocks (gems in this case) and use "crash gems" to initiate combos. Combos send "counter blocks" (which count down over time) over to your opponent's side which really tend to clog things up. The numbers can be a little hard to make out. The arcade mode pits you against the CPU, and the short, competitive matches are madly addictive.
Unfortunately, by the third round the CPU opponent becomes nearly unstoppable, so even if you continuously bang out combos the CPU overwhelms you with blocks. Sometimes your side will be almost totally clear and the CPU will unleash the mother of all combos, sending over an avalanche of blocks to bring your game to an abrupt conclusion. It's a little cheap, but playing for score is fun, especially since they are recorded on a nice high score screen.
Besides playing the CPU, you can hook up with a friend or try to unlock bonus items in the "street mode". These items include alternate outfits, different music themes, and locked characters. Puzzle Fighter looks like a gimmick on the surface, but pairing the sights and sounds of Street Fighter with an intense puzzle game turned out to be a winning combination after all. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.