Sega Master System Reviews A-E

Its name would suggest a side-scrolling brawler, but Action Fighter is actually a vertical road shooter along the lines of Spy Hunter. Its bright, colorful arcade graphics feature inviting palm trees, building-lined city streets, and ports with shimmering blue water. And there's certainly no shortage of action. You begin on a red motorcycle, where you tend to be knocked around by other cars and cyclists on the road. As in real life, you need to retaliate by shooting them from behind. This is the first game I've played when you earn points by shooting ambulances. Your speed is determined by how high you are on the screen, and it's best to move at the same rate as other traffic. Keep an eye out for the red Sega truck, which effectively upgrades your weapon from a weak peashooter to devastating rockets. Collecting letter icons in the road lets you upgrade to a sports car and eventually a jet! At that point, the game turns into a Xevious clone as you shoot down aircraft and bomb targets on the ground. The concept behind Action Fighter is absolute money, but a few rough edges prevent it from being an elite Master System title. First off, I hate how you instantly explode when you touch a freakin' guardrail. Since the road tends to suddenly branch or become narrow, you'll be crashing on a regular basis, disrupting the flow of the game. If the guardrail just slowed you down, that would have made the game much better. By the same token, I found the controls to be extremely touchy. There's nothing worse that being outfitted with brand new weapons, only to suddenly veer into a guardrail accidentally! Other flaws include the cheesy looping soundtrack and the fact that your score doesn't truly seem to convey how well you played. Action Fighter is fast and addicting, but could have benefited greatly from some fine tuning. © Copyright 2007 The Video Game Critic.

I'm always in the mood for a rapid-fire shooter and Aerial Assault fits the bill perfectly. This might just be the most addictive game I've played on my Sega Master System. In this intense side-scroller you pilot a fighter jet against formations of planes, battleships, and missile bases. The graphics looks terrific. The jet on the title screen looks practically digitized, and the cockpit interior shown on the mission screens looks awesome. As you begin your assault you'll face small but relentless waves of enemy planes. I like the way they rotate and peel off their formations. My wrist gets really tired from tapping the fire button, but then I remember I can just hold it in. Duh! The second button drops bombs. Aerial Assault is extremely challenging, partly due to crossfire conditions created by planes in the air and anti-aircraft fire from land. The first stage is set over water with gorgeous clouds blooming on the horizon. You can fly low to take out ships but be careful not to crash into the water. Icons provide power-ups but it's hard to tell them apart. The triple-shot weapon is sweet, but many other weapons are just plain irritating (like the one that fires in the direction you move). A speed-up icon is helpful, but if you grab more than one you'll find yourself careening out of control! The problem is, these icons move so far up and down they are almost impossible to avoid! The first boss is a mammoth battleship but the fact that it doesn't sink after a protracted battle is anticlimactic. The second stage takes place up in the clouds where you'll contend with missile barrages and... lightning? How am I supposed to dodge that?! The looping music is okay but some of the "bloop bloop bloop" weapon sounds are weak. It has its flaws, but there's something about Aerial Assault that keeps me coming back again and again. © Copyright 2015 The Video Game Critic.

The first two Alex Kidd games were nothing to write home about, but Alex hit rock bottom in High Tech World. If making bad games was a crime, the designer of this one would have gone to the chair years ago! High Tech World is a clumsy combination of puzzle solving and platforming. The main character is "Prince Alex" who resides in a sprawling mansion. In the first stage he discovers there's a new arcade in a nearby town, but the only way he can locate it is to find and assemble eight pieces of a map. That's the kind of stuff people had to do before we had the Internet. Fortunately for Alex, all of the pieces are conveniently located in his house. To gather them up you'll move between floors, explore rooms, speak with people, and collect random items. It's like Maniac Mansion, except for the fact it makes no sense. If you try to put on a suit of armor, you die. If you turn on a computer, you die. There are bizarre messages posted on the wall like "Sega #1" and "Katie is the fattest". When you ask your father for a piece of the map, he'll give you a "fake" one the first time, so you have to ask a second time. Who came up with this garbage? In one case a lady won't give you an item unless you take an actual test with math, science, and history questions! I actually failed the first time! Stage one is mainly trial and error, so thank goodness you get a password after completing it. Stage two is a shoddy side-scroller where you battle ninjas in a forest. It's crazy hard thanks to unforgiving collision detection and deplorable controls. A single hit sends you all the way back to the beginning of the stage. The final two stages include a village area where you need to "pray" exactly 100 times in order to acquire a critical item! This game is an atrocity, and I'm still trying to figure out why it's called "High Tech World". I've played my share of bad games, but this one is Verizon Customer Service bad! © Copyright 2012 The Video Game Critic.

Black Belt features the worst box cover art in the history of games, with a single foot in the lower left side of its plain white box. How lazy is that?! The game itself isn't half bad. Black Belt's fighters are realistically-proportioned and the kung fu action is non-stop. The first stage takes place in a courtyard as a parade of henchmen who all look exactly the same approach from both sides. You can punch and kick in a rapid-fire fashion, causing foes to literally shatter into block-shaped chunks! Good times! The real challenge is trying to snag the food icons that occasionally travel across the top of the screen. You need to press down-and-up to leap, and it's hard to get the timing right in the heat of battle. Periodically the thugs clear out and a sub-boss appears to break up the monotony. These specialized martial artists each have their own distinctive fighting style, and many carry weapons. At this point Black Belt is already on par with most fighting games of its era, but then it takes things to the next level. The end-of-stage boss battles are presented in a "close up" view with larger, more detailed characters! They don't exactly fill the screen, but for the Sega Master System, they look positively huge. And these guys really mean business! The best strategy is to let the boss unleash his fury, and then move in to land a few quick hits when he's catching his breath. Upon defeating a boss, your character will automatically unleash a flurry of rapid-fire kicks or punches as a "finishing move" of sorts. It's kind of awesome, but mostly silly. Black Belt won't win any awards, but if you can embrace this game in all of its absurdity, you might be surprised by how much fun you have. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

I enjoy games with depth and intricate strategy, but sometimes I just want to blow [expletive] up. Bomber Raid gives Master System fans the destruction they crave. This vertical shooter puts you in a WWII bomber against plane squadrons, tanks, destroyers, and submarines that actually submerge. The vibrant graphics are extremely easy on the eyes with bright orange beaches, deep green foliage, and inviting blue waters. The action begins with a nice cut-scene of your plane taking off as your crew waves you on. Once in the air you can fire your cannon rapidly, but alas, there's no rapid-fire option. That said, I felt lucky as hell to own a rapid fire attachment (bump up the grade by a letter if you own one). The second button is used to unleash cluster bombs. Bomber Raid's gameplay is simple and fun as you blast targets over jungle, desert, and sea locations. The looping enemy planes and huge destroyers look great, but what in the heck are those rotating flying square things supposed to be? Keep moving when tanks or cannons are in the vicinity, because their turrets are always trained on you. Bomber Raid's power-up system is bizarre. The icons appear almost constantly! Most reveal either a weapon boost (P) or speed increase (S). At first the weapon icons cause your narrow missiles to become longer, which frankly doesn't make much of a difference. After collecting a few more your shots become wider, and eventually you're firing large circles. Enjoy it while it lasts, because losing a plane puts you all the way back at square one. The speed power-ups are helpful at first, but eventually your plane becomes hard to control, at which point you'll want to avoid them like the plague. On rare occasions you'll encounter a special power-up which adds an escort plane (or two) by your side. These escorts would be great if they didn't tend to fire sideways and backwards! WTF? Also annoying is the monotonous, happy-go-lucky music. Your high score is displayed at the end of each game, egging you on to try again. Bomber Raid could have been better designed, but at least its heart is in the right place. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

After being disappointed by the Genesis version of California Games (Genesis, 1991) I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to track down its 8-bit incarnation. As is sometimes the case however, this lower-tech version is actually more fun, with more events to boot! You can tell the programmers took pride in their work, constructing a rich audio/visual experience easily mistaken for a 16-bit title. The opening screen plays a tuneful rendition of Louie Louie over a shiny California license plate, which really gets you psyched. The opening half pipe event is challenging as hell, partly because you have to unintuitively press up and down to increase your skateboard speed. Footbag (aka hacky-sack) is more accessible as you use good timing to keep a little ball in the air with your feet. A bridge provides a scenic backdrop, and hitting a seagull nets you bonus points. There's not a whole lot to the surfing event, as you just carve around and perform the occasional jump. Still, the frothy blue water looks refreshing and it's cool how a shark or dolphin will cross the screen after each wipe out. The skating event really has a fun-in-the-sun beach vibe as your bikini-clad babe navigates a boardwalk strewn with hazards like cracks, grates, sand, and beach balls. In the BMX stage you race a bike along a hilly dirt track, launching off ramps and performing stunts. Wrapping things up is flying disc which takes place at a picturesque park. After first hurling the disc with a golf-style meter, you then move a second player to catch it. It's very satisfying when you make a diving catch! You'll probably want to keep the manual handy to reference all the elaborate controls. It also includes a glossary of California lingo like gnarly, tubular, and aggro. I enjoyed playing California Games both alone and with friends. It's ideal summer fun and probably the best version you'll find. © Copyright 2019 The Video Game Critic.

Long before Captain Jack Sparrow made pirates fashionable (in more ways than one) Captain Silver ruled the Sega Master System. As one astute reader observed, this is one of the few games not named after its protagonist but instead it's villain! A side-scroller with colorful graphics and simple gameplay, Captain Silver is captivating fun. Assuming the role of an old-world adventurer by the name of Jack Avery, you jump and slash your way through towns, ships, islands, and caves. Complementing the rich visuals is a rollicking musical arrangement that embodies the carefree spirit of a swashbuckling adventure. Your sword has terrific range and pixie power-ups enable you to unleash bursts of shooting stars. You can direct these up, down, and even sideways while hanging off masts and ladders. The action is slow and methodical but satisfying. Defeated enemies leave behind floating letters, and collecting enough to spell "Captain Silver" to earn a free life becomes an obsession. Your first few foes are pretty tame, including giant teddy bears (ahem... "werewolves"), green pumpkins, and Cheshire cats. Later you'll battle bloodthirsty buccaneers, poisonous frogs, and natives with spears. The game doesn't keep score but your gold can be used for this purpose. American gamers may find certain aspects of Captain Silver confusing. Why don't the pirates fire their guns? Why does the instruction booklet show a witch, cyclops, dragon, and banana king? As it turns out, this American version omitted large chunks of the original game to save memory costs. We're talking about enemies, bosses, and entire levels! Fortunately you can still get the full experience by importing the European version. In retrospect, this abbreviated Captain Silver feels like a warm-up to the real thing. © Copyright 2016 The Video Game Critic.

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Genesis, 1990) is a wholesome, leisurely platformer that enchants everyone who plays it. That's a fact. This Sega Master System version offers less enchantment but more challenge. The graphics are exquisitely detailed beginning with the castle in the opening scene. The first three stages are set in a magical forest, a toy land, and wonderland of sugary confections. You can play these stages in any order you want, and that's always a great feature. The gameplay is not what I was expecting. It's actually more complicated than the Genesis version, oddly enough. It's all about picking up and throwing objects. If you push Mickey against an object and he wraps his hands around it, you can pick it up and chuck it. But if you approach an object you can't pick up, like a radio transmitter, you take damage. That's kind of bogus. I like how the stages have multiple paths and hidden goodies. There's plenty of variety as hop between tree branches, climb down into caves, and leap between floating leaves. You'll perform your lethal butt-bounce to take out spiders, animated chess pieces, and toy airplanes. Castle of Illusion is fun but not without its irritations. Sometimes you'll fall right through a solid floor, which is really cheap! Nothing's worse than surviving a perilous sequence only to fall through a floor. In the confection level it's really hard to tell what you can or can't jump on. It makes no sense that floating candy is harmful considering you collect cake slices to refill your health! The music incorporates the same melodies as the excellent Genesis soundtrack, but its high pitch is less soothing to the ears. Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is no walk in the park but it's still one of the better platformers for the system. © Copyright 2018 The Video Game Critic.

It's rough around the edges but I love having this homebrew in my collection. Digger Chan is a brand new Sega Master System game that comes complete in a case with a glossy, full-color manual. Heck, there's even a Usage and Precautions booklet! (Side note: Do not submerge this cartridge in water!) The game's premise will be familiar to those who've played Mr. Driller (Dreamcast, 1999). You control a little guy digging into the earth by making groups of colored blocks disappear. Destroying larger groups of contiguous blocks lets you descend quicker and rack up more points, but you'll need to keep a close eye on your "milk meter". If you spot a bottle of milk, be sure to work your way over to it so you can replenish your health. Occasionally you'll stumble upon a bundle of dynamite, and when that happens you'll need to run for cover. Digger Chan is easy to grasp and fun to play for score, but its controls are a liability. It's easy to get stuck on the edge of a block and occasionally you'll even get stuck in mid air! Scientists have been unable to explain this strange phenomenon. The erratic controls are especially frustrating when you uncover dynamite and Digger is suddenly less-than-responsive. In terms of graphics the colorful blocks look nice but the animation is pretty stiff. The music that plays throughout the stages sounds a little random, but the tune that plays between stages strikes a nice old-school chord. My friend Scott made a good point about the main character. Could they have come up with a less-Asian-looking guy to play the part of Chan? I mean, the guy has blonde hair and blue eyes for Pete's sake! Was the name "Digger Olaf" already taken? And don't get me started about that haircut. Despite its quirks this game is a commendable effort that deserves support from classic gamers. For more information check out the official Digger Chan web site. © Copyright 2012 The Video Game Critic.