Saturn Reviews T

TNN Motorsports Hardcore 4x4 defies the categories of "bad" and "awful", instead landing squarely in the realm of "you have got to be [expletive] kidding me!" I tend to enjoy off-road racers like Rally Cross (Playstation, 1996) and Excite Truck (Wii, 2006), but this is unreal! I wasn't expecting much from the graphics, and nothing much is what I got.

The pixelated trucks bounce around like toys on soupy, murky tracks with no discernable path. Atari 2600-caliber pixels of "dirt" get kicked up from the road and excessive fog obscures the road ahead. The audio is a cacophony of droning engines, whining guitars, and a pitiful announcer who chimes in once per lap with "Whoa, hardcore!"

But it's the erratic frame-rate that makes the game impossible to stomach. When several trucks crowd the screen, the action turns into a herky-jerky mess and the controls go right out the window. A slight nudge suddenly becomes enough to turn your truck completely around! Imagine my disgust when I went from first to last in the final stretch, all due to these pathetic controls.

Adding insult to injury, the game displays "You came last" (nice grammar) as the commentator calls you a "LOOO-SER!!". The lack of multiplayer is less disappointing once it sinks in that TNN Hardcore can't even properly support one player. I tried my steering wheel controller, but it was a futile gesture. The best thing I can say about TNN Hardcore is that the load screen looks good. After that, it's all downhill. © Copyright 2013 The Video Game Critic.

I have a thing for side-scrolling brawlers in the style of Final Fight (SNES, 1991), but some of these titles never made it to the States. Set in ancient China, Tenchi wo Kurau II (aka "Warriors of Fate") features horseback combat and exotic weapons like maces and glaives. The game sports that crisp arcade look I just can't resist.

After selecting from one of five burly male warriors, you enter the screen on horseback. The characters are realistically proportioned and the horses are beautifully animated. Orchestrated music and epic cut-scenes give the game a cinematic quality. Although the story is conveyed via Japanese text, most menus and screen indicators are in English.

The controls are limited to attack, jump, and "extra-joy", but there are plenty of combinations including a charge attack. I love the ability to skewer an enemy on a pole from your horse and effortlessly toss him over your shoulder. Eventually you'll get knocked off of your mount and be forced to fight on foot.

The combat is well-tuned. Enemies don't require an inordinate amount of hits to defeat and sometimes you can slice them clean in half at the waist. You'll battle spear-toting guards, knife-throwing thieves, back-flipping ninja girls, obese bombers, and tall marauding goons.

This game regularly throws six or more foes at you at once, and it feels good to take a slice off several life meters at a time! The frame-rate is consistently smooth despite all the activity. Enemies tend to drop items like treasure, food, or books. You just walk over them to pick them up. Bonus stages include a weird food-eating contest.

The scenic locations include a rolling countryside, river raft, burning ship, and an underground tunnel. The backgrounds are attractive but lacking in memorable detail. The bosses don't seem to require much strategy. Their life bars are long but most can be defeated using brute force.

Tenchi wo Kurau II feels like an advanced version of Knights of the Round (SNES, 1994). You earn a free life every 200K points, and if you use all nine continues you just might finish the game. At least you can change characters between continues. The game can be a little dry at times, but if you own an arcade-style controller with tappable buttons, this will give it one heck of a workout. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

A funny cartoon introduces this game in which three dwarves are magically transported from medieval times into a post-apocalyptic future. I love side-scrolling brawlers and Three Dirty Dwarves really looks good - on paper. This 2D title features oversized characters armed with unconventional weapons. It's satisfying to hit a baseball at a monster from point-blank range or knock over mutants with a bowling ball. The third dwarf is armed with a shotgun, which is less imaginative but no less effective. T

he game supports three-player simultaneous action, and when a fellow dwarf goes down you can revive him - a pretty novel concept for 1996! The audio incorporates a lot of goofy grunts and groans, and the music sounds suspiciously like the Macarena. The war-torn urban scenery is unspectacular save for a few nifty scaling effects (like a wrecking ball). You'd think having large characters would be awesome, but it's really a detriment. The action is limited to the lower portion of the screen, leaving not much room to maneuver.

The screen gets really cluttered during battles and frankly I had no idea what the [expletive] was going on half the time. Further subtracting from the fun are cheap hits in the form of falling meteors and trash cans with grabbing hands. There are too many annoying small creatures that latch onto you - including hopping bombs! The stages are long and there are no checkpoints. There's no score but you get unlimited continues. Three Dirty Dwarves has a few innovative ideas but its gameplay is more chaotic than fun. © Copyright 2013 The Video Game Critic.