Insert Coin Reviews: Flintstones The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy (NES)
Posted on: January 26, 2012 by joelcouture.
I had no intention of picking up The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy to play for this week's review, but then I stumbled over it while looking through old games. As a kid, it had seemed vibrant, colorful, and fun, and watching my cousins play it made me desperately want to give it a shot too. When I did, I was terrible at it, but still thought it seemed pretty cool. I thought so again when I played it a few years later and beat it. I thought it would be a fun diversion to talk to you guys about, one of those hidden gems that I never hear much about. Turns out that I used to have a much higher patience for dull graphics, bad hit detection, painful music, and lame design.
If you've seen screenshots of the game, you might be having your doubts about what I'm saying. It does look really bright and colorful, with big, vibrant sprites shown throughout. Those screens, however, showcase the small handful of things that were drawn well in this game. There are some nice screens in this game, but there are an equal amount of shoddy, lifeless ones to balance them out. The swimming level is probably the worst, given that there is no background at all. The only reason you might know that you're swimming is the fact that every enemy kind of looks fish-like, and that a white circle that could be a bubble comes out of your mouth every once in a while. The entire background is just a wash of baby blue, covering ground and water alike. It is lazy, lazy, lazy.
Sure, some dinosaurs and enemies look good. The only ones that do are a few gigantic dinosaurs from the early levels, though, as you almost never see any kind of large creature ever again. Those that are normal size, like Fred's sprite, are usually done up in one color with almost no detail. You might get some stray dots for scales, but that's the most that any one enemy is going to stand out. Bosses aren't much better, as beyond the first boss, they're all decked out in few colors, all of which kind of blend together. Everything looks like it was colored in as fast as possible, with many of the designs just being ugly. Sure, many of them are in keeping with The Flintstones' visual vibe, but a little bit of work could have gone into making them look better.
The music will take your mind off the tolerable graphics pretty fast, though. There is only one word that describes the music in this game perfectly, and that is 'shrill.' Almost every single effect and tune in this game is high-pitched in some way. Every effect just grates on the ear, with almost every sound recreated with some shrieking effect. Instead of having some sort of dull thump when things get hit, they decided to focus on the enemy's cry, which is just as piercing and loud as Fred when he gets hit. The music goes down the same route, with every song being only a few seconds long, but repeated to death through the levels. They sound just as awful as the screams, too, given that each song sounds like a series of beeps whose pitch has been altered. Many of these musical loops are the definition of short, too, meaning every sound you hate is going to be back, and probably in a few seconds. The boss loop alone lasts somewhere under ten seconds, leaving you constantly leaping straight at the boss, praying that your death will at least make the music stop.
Good luck on attacking the bosses too, given how large your hit box is. More often than not, when you try to move up on something and hit it, you're going to take some damage. Against some of the most basic creatures you'll see, you'll still find that you're walking into hits that shouldn't be counting. You might think you're just playing lazily, as I did, but if you really watch yourself during a fight, you'll start to pick up on it.
The place I noticed it the most was against the last boss' second form, where he turns into some useless jumping machine. Now, I knew that it was jumping higher than my head, so I planned to duck under the thing and attack it from behind. It wasn't strategy gold, especially given how terrible crouching is (Fred's head disappears into his shirt. That's ducking, apparently.), but it should have been more than enough to avoid damage. Well, it would have had it not been for my giant hit window. Well, I'm not sure if it was me or the boss, but I got hit many, many times when there wasn't a single part of my character making contact with him. I literally should have walked right under the body unharmed, but it didn't matter. I took damage just by virtue of the boss standing nearby, and that was it.
It is very hard to tell when you're going to take a hit in this game, so it encourages you to hang back and pick your shots when you know they'll work. Time your attacks right, though, as it takes a second for your club to swing from your shoulders to the ground. I'm not sure if they wanted to be realistic or what, but it takes a split-second for your club to meet its target, something that manages to be far more annoying than any whip delay from Castlevania. It might have been something that worked better with a smaller hit detection box, but as it stands now, it's practically impossible to use. Unless you're fighting something that has no idea what it is doing and just stands there, then you're going to take damage well before you finish your swing.
Good luck with that chargeable swing you can do, too. You can hold the button down to build up a more powerful swing, but almost nothing in the game beyond bosses takes more than one hit. The few enemies that do need a few hits are all more likely to hit you with while you're slowed down by charging the attack, making it a waste anyway. Like his club, Fred's jump seems to need a split-second to pull off too, something that constantly ruined my ability to dodge. Tied together, these result in endless fun as you charge a swing, get hit while trying to use it, and then get hit again while trying to get the timing down for jumping away. Weaving around boss projectiles, as well as the bosses themselves, is all but impossible.
Don't expect to run the other way, either. Fred builds up momentum as he runs, which means you can't come to a dead stop when you need to, something that is just fantastic when you can't jump with any kind of reliable timing. Even more annoying is the fact that building up speed from a dead stop takes a few steps, which makes it really hard when you need to move out of a new enemy's way, or just want to change directions to avoid something. Even more awful is the ice level, where your momentum never actually runs out, leaving you hopping into positions for the entire level, as any unchecked step will leave you sliding until you fall off something.
Platforming had a neat little idea in the form of clinging to the sides of things. If something seems out of reach, send Fred toward it and hold the jump button. He'll then hold onto the ledge...and just stay hanging there. I have beaten the game, and I'm not sure what combination of buttons makes him climb the ledge. No matter what I hit, he always just sort of hangs there for a second before he decides he's been there long enough and pulls himself up. I've tried up, B, and A, and tried tapping, mashing, and holding them in. Nothing affects how fast he climbs, so I hope you're never in a hurry to get up.
Which seems fine until you hit the vampire's castle level. It's the only spot in the whole game that has a timed vertical area, and if you aren't pixel perfect with your jumps and climbing, you won't be seeing anything past this area. It took me the better part of an hour to get through, each attempt leaving me feeling that I couldn't have been doing it right. Even so, if Fred would have just reliably climbed up, I could have gotten through the area without a hitch.
As it turned out, there was a way out that was easier. When you pause the game almost anywhere throughout, Gazoo shows up and asks what you'd like him to do. Given that you are only ever given the option to unpause the game before that, I don't think many people considered checking the pause screen for new options once they got to this spot. Given that most people are trying to speed on through, I'm not sure pausing the game was something many people thought to do. I know when I'm in a hurry, I just can't pause. It breaks the flow of what I'm doing, and usually results in restarting.
But if you'd played the lousy basketball minigame, and knew to check out your pause menu, you'd have found out that you had the option to fly through the area. Now, given that the basketball game is completely optional, that it cryptically tells you you've won 'something' by beating it, and that you can skip the game and therefore not have the necessary power to get through it, it's quite likely that this would make people just give up on the game. If I hadn't been positive that I'd done it before, I never would have passed it. It's infuriating to find out that I had to play a terrible minigame just to progress, but the fact that the game just let me move on without it was almost point-and-click adventure level cruelty.
The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy is a clunky, ugly, unappealing mess of a game that a handful of power-ups and neat ideas were powerless to save. Fred's inability to do just about anything in a hurry means that you're constantly just a little bit too late on dodging and moving, making every single level a chore to play through. Coupling that with a hit window that extends well beyond Fred and you have a perfect concoction to make people despise this game. I've gotten mad at games before, but getting hit by something that hasn't even touched me brings out a special kind of rage normally reserved for people who've murdered everyone I know and love.
Joel's Unflushables
Contra Force (NES) – Take everything you know and love about a great franchise, throw it out the window, add in useless garbage, and you have this game. It's not as bad as some of the later Contras in that this game is playable, but it's still a complete bore to play. Why is flipping the best ability in the game? Why is jumping around an attack at all?
The Simpsons: Bartman Meets Radioactive Man (NES) – Managing to be the worst NES Simpsons game is quite a feat, given the games you are going up against. Arguably, a complete masochist could at least play the other games for some period of time, which puts them head and shoulders above this game. I thought the only way a Simpsons game could get worse was if it gave you AIDS when you booted it up, but apparently I was wrong.
Insert Coin Reviews: Gears of War 3
Posted on: January 19, 2012 by joelcouture.
Gears of War is the game that sold me on the Xbox 360, a system that I never once in my life expected to buy. With fun co-op and a terrifying need to avoid being shot, it was something that grabbed me harder than I thought was possible. After playing it for a weekend with a friend, I had to have it for my own. The second one was also great, adding lots of new creatures and weapons, doing all of the stuff I expected from a decent sequel. Gears of War 3 is a satisfying end to the series, but seems to lack some of the strengths of the previous games.
Right off, one of those things is the difficulty. I might have been terrible at the game before, but I really don't think I've improved so much at the games that I should be barely dying on hardcore difficulty. My controller is probably quite thankful that the game never got me furiously angry at it, but there is something to be said about a hard mode that isn't hard at all. I could understand this level of ease on the lower difficulties, but I expected there to be some kind of challenge on hardcore mode.
I'm seriously doubting its because of skill, that's for sure. My main reason for believing that is due to how much time I spend outside of cover. In the first game, even on lower difficulties, taking a few hits meant you were in pretty big trouble, and you wouldn't dream of aimlessly sticking your head out if a mounted gun was shooting at you. Taking the time to snipe its user would get you killed each and every time. In this game, I can poke around and take my time aiming as much as I want, given the absurd amount of health I have. You can take a huge amount of punishment, even on hardcore, and still bounce back. It gets to the point that most of the time, I don't bother with cover unless I'm about to die.
Compounding that trouble is the three AI characters that follow you around for the whole game. They change characters constantly, but that still never takes away from the fact that you have three computers backing you up at all times. If you go down, there is almost always someone within arm's reach who will pick you back up again. If you get sidetracked and go in the wrong direction away from the enemies, they will start killing them for you. There were a few times in the game when I got turned around trying to figure out where to go, only to find that the computers had beaten all of the enemies in the area. Now, this never happened during an interesting fight, but it still annoyed me that the computer had essentially played itself for a few minutes.
I'm sure they're trying to steer the game away from its heavy emphasis on cover to keep it more interesting for complainers, but this game pretty much invented sticking to cover. It's basis is in terrifying gun combat, with each shot you take being an actual threat. You might have regenerating health, but it didn't take long to drain it all away. By trying to give people more of an ability to run and gun, it's taking away a bit of the spirit of the game. It loses a lot of its careful tactics and clever cover movement to try to appease people who didn't like the series to begin with, and in doing so sacrifices challenge. I might like to be able to run around a bit more, but to be fair, the series used wretches and tickers to accomplish this stuff before. The run-and-gun points were already in place. The shooting parts didn't need to be dumbed down to appeal to people who wanted more running around and less strategy.
Despite that, the game is still a lot of fun to play, and being at the end of the trilogy, it is going for broke. One thing I always wanted to see was an actual fight with many of those huge, dangerous creatures I saw throughout the first couple of games. I wanted actual one-on-one combat with Berserkers, Corpsers, and Brumaks. These were all things I'd seen in the previous games, but hadn't really been allowed to fight. Sure, you could kill them with the Hammer of Dawn, but that never gave me any sense of satisfaction. I wanted to actually mix it up with these creatures, something Epic Games must have realized, because every single big monster from the series is a boss. Nothing is spared, and I was extremely happy to get to finally fight these beasts. The low difficulty put a damper on each battle, but I was still glad to fight them all the same.
Well, not every battle. If you take the time to play this with multiple people, you will find that the difficulty does rise quite a bit in places, especially against the aforementioned giant bosses. While the single player campaign skews toward being a little too easy no matter what the difficulty is, having more than one person to worry about increases the dangers. When you play with another person, you get to see more of the game the way its developers intended it to be. Playing with four people in the campaign is a real treat to do, often leaving you literally gasping once you've gotten through some of the tough spots. If you're worried about losing some of the experience of playing it, bring a few buddies along to get the real deal. It doesn't make me happy to have to play multiplayer for the game to challenge me properly, but at least it's co-operative. Playing with a friend makes any game sweeter. Well, maybe not the last boss on hardcore, though.
The music is as amazing as its always been, considering it is still quite rare that I notice the music in today's big budget games at all. Gears of War 3 has many of its own themes and approaches to the music, making it a real treat for the ears. I highly recommend going through the options and turning the sound up, especially during the final chapters of the game. The music really clicks with the game's content, and does wonders for sweeping you up along with what's going on in-game. The sound quality is great as well, with each shot making a sound that is bone-crushing. All of the effects lend power and weight to what you're doing, each crunching blow and explosive shot seeming to ripple through your ears. You can feel the power from every gunshot, making pulling the trigger a real event.
The environments are all quite nice, as well. There is still a lot of brown, as the game takes you through worn-down cities and through cliffs into the desert, but there are some really colorful spots near the end of the game. Fighting in a mostly-intact, vibrant city during daytime is a pretty nice change of pace for most realistic shooters, and the attention to detail really makes it come alive. Seeing statues, fountains, and carved stone on almost every surface takes away some of the attention you might be paying to the lack of color. It's brighter and more colorful than past games, but still not all that much more.
The series has always looked and sounded good, though. Is it still fun? Well, of course it is. If you enjoyed one of these games in the past, you'll still get a big kick out of it now. There aren't a lot more new guns to give you more ways to beat back the locust, but you probably won't care. It still has an extremely robust amount of weapons in the game, and if you like frantic shootouts, this game will have you covered. There is a lot of creativity in environmental design, almost always giving you and the enemy many different hiding spots and approaches to use. If you ever find yourself at a bottleneck thinking things will be easy, more dangerous enemies will often be coming through with weapons to counter it. Each fight was carefully put together to keep it interesting throughout, with clever and strong monsters always keeping you on your toes. Even if this game does fall into a spot where you're trapped behind cover for a long time, it will throw something your way to keep you moving.
As for the plot, it's not as impressive as some reviewers were making it out to be. I was a little disappointed in it, given how much hype had been going into how good the story was supposed to be, but it does tie up a lot of loose ends. I was surprised at a lot of the plot twists, but to be honest, that was only because I thought they would go for something extremely interesting, but didn't. I really thought that what went on in those tubes the locust placed humans into would be dealt with and explained, as I couldn't see why a certain character would kill himself after getting stuck in one in the second game. As it turned out, I would never know. I also thought that some of the connections between the humans and the locust would turn out to mean something different than what they did, but I was also disappointed there. They did manage to finish the story and I commend them for it, but I really did feel like they always just about to touch on something really interesting, but never did.
All the same, I enjoyed this game. The lack of difficulty in single player took a lot away from what it could have been, but that will probably broaden its appeal to some people. Even so, I got to fight all of the monsters that I wanted to, basically fulfilling my wish for the last game in the series. Its story may not have been what I expected, but it was still interesting and brought the whole cast back together. It could have been a little bit better with a few tweaks, but it is an otherwise solid game and a good ending to one of my favorite series'.
Until the prequels start, which they already have.
Joel's Fast & Dirty Recommendations
Contra 4 (DS) – Vicious and heartless like its younger siblings, the men without shirts are back. This is multiplayer shooting at its 2D finest, giving you a gunplay experience that is extremely difficult while still giving a huge sense of accomplishment with every inch gained. Watching someone lose all of their continues in the first level after you've beaten the game will show you just how far you've come.
Gears of War (360/PC) – In what I can only call shooter/horror, this game will have you genuinely afraid to get hit. There is an extreme emphasis on placement and cover, something I'd never seen before in a game. Also, the enemies take a lot of hits instead of weaving around all the time and only needing a few to be killed, so you actually get to hit things most of the time. Every checkpoint is satisfying, if only to get away from certain unskippable sections of dialogue.
Like what you read? Visit www.joelcouture.com or follow Joel_Couture on Twitter for more video game ranting, as well as free monthly fantasy short stories!
Toy Box Reviews: Adam Warlock VS. Thanos Two-Pack (Hasbro)
Posted on: January 16, 2012 by admin.
Last month the newest wave of Marvel Universe 2-packs was released by Hasbro and included 3 sets. This week in The Toy Box Review we're taking a look at the most Cosmic of those sets: Thanos and Adam Warlock.
First Impressions
During my Thor of Two Worlds review I gave Secret Wars the distinction of being Marvels first large-scale crossover. While I still hold that to be true, 6 years later Marvel out- did themselves and introduced another mega-story arc that not only featured all its most recognizable characters, but also ran through almost every comic that was being released at that point. This was the Infinity Gauntlet.
Thanos mounts the six Infinity Gems on his left glove to form the titular Infinity Gauntlet. Each Gem grants its bearer complete mastery over one aspect of the universe: Time, Space, Mind, Soul, Reality, and Power. Now all-powerful and desperate to win the affections of Death, Thanos decides to offer the entity a gift of love by completing a task she had given him, erasing half the sentient life in the universe.
The Packaging
Hasbro keeps hitting it out of the park with their packaging. From past reviews, my enthusiasm for the singles has been pretty obvious, but it's in these doubles where the Marvel Universe toys really shine!
Since this is a versus 2-pack, we get a nice presentation of both Thanos and Warlock standing front and center in fairly static poses. Some might think this is a boring way to display the toys - especially with companies like Mattel going the extra mile and putting their product into poses in the package. I, however, am not one of those people and appreciate the simplicity of how they're presented - if for no other reason than that the joints won't have any undue stress put on them (ideally... More on that later).
Even if you’re not a fan of the poses, the packaging still has enough pizzazz to convince children and collectors alike to buy it. Some of the highlights include:
- Flashy art of the characters on the bottom left of the package - with Thanos almost dwarfing Adam in size.
- A reprint of Infinity Gauntlet # 5 where Thanos takes on the embodiments of the universe.
- Photos of the other two sets available on the back of the card.
The Sculpting
What they look like. Are they faithful to their Comic Counter-Parts?
Just looking at him there in the package you can appreciate how well he's done. This Thanos is actually a re-use of the original that was released in wave 11 of the Marvel Universe singles. Don't think you're re-buying the same toy, though; there's enough to make him worth picking up.
- A great head sculpt with one of THE creepiest smiles ever. Once you him close up, you'll understand why Thanos is called The Mad God of Titan!
- A great looking "costume" that accurately depicts his comic counterpart. There are a lot of re-borrowed parts from other toys (Hulks Torso, juggernauts legs and boots, and the skirt from the other Thanos), but all are impossible to notice unless you're looking.
- The paint scheme has been darken slightly from the MU single, but it works and, if anything, makes him look even more sinister.
- He's HUGE in comparison to most other MUs, and looks great pitted against them!
Someone at Marvel must love this guy, because back in the 90s there was a huge push to make him one of the heavy hitters in the Marvel Universe. Introduced as Him back in Fantastic Four #67, Adam was originally a genetic experiment to create the perfect human being. After hatching from his cocoon (seriously), and realizing his creators were kind of nuts, Him fought against them and went on a journey of self discovery to find his purpose in the universe (in his own series no less!). Eventually Adam returned, and was called upon to fight against Thanos and reclaim the Infinity Gauntlet from him.
- Adam uses the medium frame body that's common to so many of the MU toys. I've expressed my problems with it before, so I won't go into detail here but suffice to say I'm not a fan of it.
- The costume is dead- on and looks great, however, like Thanos, almost everything aside from the head and hands is borrowed from other places. Most notably the cape is a re-tweaked Dr.Strange Cloak of Levitation - the only difference is the eye of Agamotto has been replaced by a regular clasp. Again, don’t be nervous about any of the reusing: it's hidden cleverly enough to make you think the toy is an original.
- Paint scheme is good as well, and like Thanos is done in subdued tones for a more realistic look. My one annoyance with the paint was a large black patch in the right side of his head. It's very conspicuous, and looks like Adam hit his head on something.
Articulation
Play or Display?
The articulation is standard for both toys and includes 21 points of movement.
While the bevy of movement is good, sometimes too much of a thing isn’t necessarily great. What this means is that both toys are difficult to stand on their own, and frequently fell over as I tried to pose them. In Thanos the problem isn't as bad; his bulk adds some counterweight to keep him standing. However Warlock is an absolute nightmare to keep standing - to the point where once you've got him up, you're loathe to touch him again. Thankfully, Adam's cloak is sculpted in a way that reinforces his right leg (the weaker of the two).
While lots of articulation is a great thing, in the end it pointless if you can't pose the thing on its own.
Accessories
What Are They? Are They Good Value?
Aside from the comic, the set comes with two accessories, both belonging to Adam Warlock: Adam’s Staff and a clip-on Infinity Gauntlet.
- The staff was created from the power of the Soul Gem, and could fire bursts of energy. It's made of a soft plastic, and is almost the height of Adam. The paint is great, and is a textured brown that does a nice job of resembling wood. Sculpting is ok; from a distance it looks good, but up close it’s kind of dull.
- The gauntlet is a simple half piece that clips on Adams right hand. It's made of yellow plastic, with five dots of blue, green, red, orange, and yellow to represent the Infinity Gems. Like the staff, it's good from afar but suffers when looked at closely.
The interchangeable gauntlet that came with the Thanos single isn’t included in the set, which is a shame, not only because Thanos has nothing, but also because it was a great piece.
Final Thoughts
Given how big an event the Infinity Gauntlet was when it was released, a two pack of characters was only natural in a line that calls itself Marvel Universe. At around $25, the Thanos vs. Adam Warlock set is slightly pricey for 3"5 pieces of plastic, but is still worth getting. Both are very true to their comic counter parts, and come with enough extras to make the steep price tag worth while.
I heard about this flash game a few months ago and that was pretty much it…then it came out this week and, well...let’s just say I’ve been busy. Abobo’s Big Adventure follows the titular brute from Double Dragon as he fights his way across a Nintendo World in search of his son (aw!). For any fans of the original Nintendo system, or even anyone who ever thought a concept like Captain N would be an awesome game, then this is definitely one to try. It’s free too! You can find the game, and all it’s Nintendawesomeness at the link above.
DC Cancels 6 of the New 52 Comics, Plans to Release 6 More
Well the first sales quarter is over, and DC is going to be drop a few of their books. On the chopping block are Black Hawks, Mister Terrific, OMAC, Static Shock, Hawk and Dove, and Men of War – none of which I’ve personally read, but from what I understand, have been getting the worst reviews from fans and critics alike. All isn’t lost though, as new titles step in to take their place! Personally I’m most excited for Dial H, one of my favorite character concepts from the old Brave and the Bold days, but really they all look interesting.
Check out Nerd Bastards for more!
Wizards of the Coast Plans to Release Dungeons and Dragons 5
WOTC is re-releasing Dungeons and Dragons yet again, and this time they’re asking for fan help (I thought that’s what play-testers were for?). Over the next year, Wizards is apparently asking for gamer's help in creating some kind of Universal Rule system that can help to make the game more accessible to people (isn’t what was 2, 3, 3.5, and 4 were supposed to do?). Personally, I’m a little exasperated with D&D trying to reinvent itself every 4-5 years – it seems like JUST when players get used to one new system, Wizards creates another to muck it up. Not to mention the fact that you have re-buy the damn books EVERY TIME (D&D is the nerd Beatles Anthology).
Incidentally, I did pick up the 4th edition books last year, and I can understand why they might be wanting to change things – The mechanics are akin to astrophysics and NO BODY can afford all those miniatures. Hopefully fifth time’s the charm, and the rules will actually stick for a change. As for me, I’ll stick with my THAC0 and 2nd Edition until then.
Sometimes those YouTube recommendations really pay off! I came across this ditty last week, and boy! Is it hilarious! From Funny or Die, this short finds the Planeteers trying to stop some lumberjacks from cutting down a forest. If Don Cheadle as the Captain himself can’t convince you to take a watch, then I don’t know what will.
Insert Coin Reviews: The Uninvited (NES)
Posted on: January 12, 2012 by joelcouture.
Point and click games have a limited history with me. Not having a computer growing up meant that I only really experienced them by watching one of my friends play them. I used to go over to his house and just look at the stuff he was playing, spending hours watching someone else having fun. It sounds a little lame, but when you're working on a point and click game with a friend, it can be a breath of fresh air. Given the often obscure and obtuse answers to the riddles of those games, you needed any help you could get. Just the same, I loved them, and there were a few that I actually could play on the systems I owned.
One that I really loved was The Uninvited on the NES. It had a really great, oppressive atmosphere that, while not as good as Shadowgate, managed to provide a feeling of dread that lasted for the entire time I was playing it. With good, creepy music and many ways for you to meet your end, the game felt like you were just inches away from death at any point. The thing is, for a game of this type, The Uninvited rarely deigns to kill you, instead telling you that you can't do this or that. It's something that makes the game more player friendly, but robs it of some of the atmosphere that made Shadowgate so amazing (Despite the fact that I can finish Shadowgate in fifteen minutes).
The Uninvited starts off like any of the three NES Kemco Adventure games, where you're sitting somewhere with absolutely no indication of where to go. You have options, that's sure, but the game starts you right off with a lesson in how its logic works. It might give you a hint to get you started, like telling you that your car is on fire and that you should get out, but that's it. Fortunately, a quick look around will tell you all that you need to know about your abilities. You can Move, Examine, Take, Use, Open, Close, Hit, Leave, and Speak, all of which have varying usefulness. There's also the Self option for when you feel like killing yourself, since that's that tab's only practical application, as well as Save and Memo. There, plenty to do.
Having that many options is a hallmark of these NES games, so you might as well get used to it, no matter how useless many of the commands are. It's more a gripe about the way these type of games play than a legitimate complaint about the game, though, so I don't find it bothers me much. The only drag is that this gives you a great deal of ways to manipulate the objects in your inventory and environment, which only serves to hide the solution to what you want to do even more. When you can do all of these things to every object in every room, you have a lot of ways to keep yourself away from the solution you need. Trust me when I say that having more ways of making things difficult is something you don't need from The Uninvited.
Compared to the other two games, The Uninvited feels very small. I don't know if this game is actually smaller than the others, but this game just felt like its rooms were repetitive. It's really kind of dull to have to rifle through the four bedrooms in this game, plus all of the other simple rooms that don't add much to it. Many times, I found myself marching through extra rooms that served no purpose at all besides making my walk longer, holding nothing useful. The few that are useful feel a bit like watered-down versions of rooms from Shadowgate, or just don't have a lot of life to them.
What a lot of these rooms lack is conflict. To be brutally honest, there aren't a lot of ways to die in this game, which is something that makes a trip through a haunted house kind of dull. Monsters are few and far between, and there just aren't all that many traps. You rarely feel like you're in any kind of danger. On top of that, this game also warns you multiple times when you're about to do something stupid. I was given no less than three warnings about going down a dangerous hole during the game, something that was reminiscent of a similar scene from Shadowgate. Shadowgate just let you jump down and kill yourself, though, where The Uninvited turned it into a joke, teasing you about your poor decision-making skills. It was funny to do it, but once again, it drained a lot of tension from the atmosphere that they seemed to want to create with this game.
Just the same, don't expect to have an easier time getting though the game. Figuring out what to do is still the same uphill battle it always was, leaving you guessing what items could possibly be important out of the pile of towels and hat boxes you've picked up. These games reward you for poking around and taking everything that isn't nailed down, given that there's no way of knowing what the game might need you to use. I mean, to get a cookie, I had to find a card, a scroll, an axe, a knife, a bouquet, a jewel, a caged hawk, four spells, and an incredible amount of other things that all lead up to it. All of them made sense in where they needed to be placed, to the game's credit, but only in that they made sense after I completed the puzzle. You can see their logic when you're done, but good luck guessing what they want you to do in the meantime.
Watch out for the Ruby in the guest bedroom, though. Just as a heads up to all of the other kleptomaniacs who steal everything they can in these games, the Ruby will kill you in a set amount of moves. It gives no indication that it will do so when you grab it, and it is a devious trap for this kind of game. It's also pretty cruel, as it only exists to punish people who pick up everything just in case they need it later. Also, these games thrive on using gems for stuff, so a Ruby would be something you'd definitely want to pick up. It's a nice idea to keep players on their toes, but at least drop a hint that it was the Ruby that got them screwed. I can't even imagine how people managed to narrow down what had been killing them without the internet or Nintendo Power.
The music goes a long way toward salvaging this game from its annoyances. There is an eerie loneliness to each of the tracks that reminds you that you're alone against your enemies. Given that most of your time is spent going through bedrooms and kitchens, it helps a lot to keep you feeling uneasy. There is one track that, while pretty simple, has an unsettling effect that will often have you feeling like you're in more danger than you actually are. It plays in Dracan's bedroom for the first time, and the whole time I was there, I was worried that spending too long in it would bring some sort of instant-death creature down on me. That never occurs, and on subsequent playthroughs I knew that for a fact, but it still didn't stop my fear. I wondered if I'd just never stayed long enough before, and that this would be the one time something bad happened. Managing all of that with just the music was quite a feat. That beings said, the music is still very plain, and isn't likely to be something you'll find yourself listening to once the game is over.
While I might have griped about the similarities in the rooms, the monsters in the game do a good job of stealing the show. Top dog has to be the zombie in the maze, someone who is worth starting trouble with just once to see what a nice job they did of his face. He doesn't look like much from a distance, but once you see that half-rotten head up close, you might actually get the chills. This game took me by surprise more than once with a quick musical change and a monster close-up, startling me more than I'd like to admit. It may be a little plain in places, but this game looks really good when it counts.
The same good flavor text is here as well. The game goes into a surprising amount of detail whenever violence gets committed, especially on your fragile body. For a game of its time, it's got some pretty rough things being described to you. That viciousness, though, is tempered again by the fact that there just aren't a lot of ways to die. You'll be glued to the screen every time you do meet your end, though, shaking your head at the words you'd never believe you'd see on an NES game.
My complaints about the game mostly stem from the way the genre plays, though. Yes, the puzzles are hard and require bizarre lines of thought, but that's just how these games are. Yes, there are a lot of useless options in the menus that you don't need. Yes, sometimes the games want me to jump through pointless hoops just to justify its many commands. On its own, though, The Uninvited provides some pretty good chills for the system it was built for, combining creepy music with genuinely frightening creatures to make for a fun horror experience. That is dulled by the fact that its sister game, Shadowgate, manages to do all that and more. The Uninvited is still very good if you like this style of game, but if you're only going to play one of them, this one may not be for you.
Joel's Fast & Dirty Recommendations
Tombs & Treasures (NES) – Just can't recommend this game enough if you like point-and-click games. With a huge area to explore combined with bosses and an RPG strength-building system, there is just a lot of stuff here to do. It's also cool to look at Chichen Itza and other Mayan ruins, given how little such places have been used in video games, before or after.
Maniac Mansion (NES) – I know it's been censored to death, but this game still has a lot of fun charm to it. With its sense of humor out in the open instead of toyed with, the game has some really bizarre and silly moments that help break up the difficulty of figuring out what to do. The different playable characters also mean that you'll rarely beat this game in the same way twice, adding the variety that the Kemco games were sorely lacking.
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During my Thor of Two Worlds review I gave Secret Wars the distinction of being Marvels first large-scale crossover. While I still hold that to be true, 6 years later Marvel out- did themselves and introduced another mega-story arc that not only featured all its most recognizable characters, but also ran through almost every comic that was being released at that point. This was the Infinity Gauntlet.
Hasbro keeps hitting it out of the park with their packaging. From past reviews, my enthusiasm for the singles has been pretty obvious, but it's in these doubles where the Marvel Universe toys really shine!
The articulation is standard for both toys and includes 21 points of movement.
