Saturn Reviews A-E

When it comes to light gun games, they just don't make 'em like this anymore! Area 51 was a mainstay in the arcades and it's easy to see why. It used photo-realistic scenery, live actors, and claymation-style aliens. You are a soldier trying to bring order to the Area 51 base after detained aliens have run amuck. The action is "on rails" meaning you have no control over your movement. That's fine, because you'll want to focus on your sharpshooting. You'll clear out warehouses, hangars, and offices as aliens and zombified soldiers pour out of the woodwork. It's very satisfying to see barrels explode and splatter nearby aliens. My favorite part of the game is when you're being driven around an airfield in a jeep, blasting barrels and causing mayhem at high speeds. The shooting might seem shallow on the surface, but there are special weapons and secret rooms you can unlock by hitting strategic targets (like windows). As much as I loved the Playstation version, the Saturn rules when it comes to light gun accuracy, which puts this edition a cut above. Area 51 packs a few surprises, but even if it didn't, there's plenty of fun to be had. As icing on the cake, you can even team up with a friend. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

I was expecting Astal to be a dull, generic side-scroller, and the corny, overwrought intro didn't help matters. But once I started playing, I was captivated. The scenery is a pastel-colored fantasy world, and the hand-drawn graphics are wonderfully artistic. Beautiful, tranquil background music compliments the visuals perfectly. The characters are large and colorful, most ranging from fantastic and bizarre. Just wait until you see the bosses - these 3D monstrosities are simply amazing. Of course, the fancy presentation wouldn't mean squat if the gameplay wasn't any good, but it is. The side scrolling action is slow and deliberate, but there are some innovative attacks that spice things up. You can smash the ground, toss enemies, throw things down from the air, and use a devastating breath attack. Best of all, you have a bird companion that can perform special attacks, gather items, and occasionally save your life. It's possible for a second player to take control of the bird, which is a nice touch. Astal provides a few continues, but unfortunately there's no password feature. It takes a while to master the controls, but it's worth the effort. Astal is an attractive, underrated side-scroller. © Copyright 2002 The Video Game Critic.

This has got to be the weirdest [expletive] baseball game I've ever played. I'm still not sure what to make of it. In a feeble attempt to convey a 3D look, Jaleco rendered the players on the pitcher/batter screen in a style that calls to mind Pinocchio or those hidous nutcracker soldiers. With perfectly round heads and visible joints, these guys look positively freaky! Once the ball is put into play however, Bases Loaded '96 takes on a completely different look, with flat fielders that are pixelated beyond belief! Blocky graphics of this magnitude might be appropriate for an Atari 2600 game, but on the Saturn it's just embarrassing! There's no way to slide into bases, and dives are useless because they get no distance at all (your fielder just stretches out on the ground). And why is there an umpire where the second baseman should be? Also odd is how the game goes awkwardly silent between innings as a huge black and white picture of the leadoff batter is displayed. All of the major league teams are included, but there are only eight stadiums, and frankly they look awful. It sounds like a mess, but believe it or not, Bases Loaded '96 is not a bad baseball game at its core. The contests are nicely paced, the controls are responsive, and the CPU plays an intelligent game. If you could play this with your eyes closed, you'd probably enjoy it. It's just a shame the players had to look like animated dolls spawned from the bowels of hell. Equally likely to send chills up your spine is the game's shrill, otherworldly organ music. Bases Loaded '96 is the evil clown marionette of baseball games. © Copyright 2007 The Video Game Critic.

When you turn on this game you're greeted with impressive views of the sleek Batmobile as dramatic music booms in the background. The character selection screen renders Batman and Robin with rotating 3D models that look simply amazing. There's no reason to suspect you're about to play one of the worst video games in history, but you are. Batman Forever is meant to be a side-scrolling brawler along the lines of Streets of Rage, but it's an unmitigated disaster. The graphics are dark and muddled, and the characters are severely pixelated when they scale out. The poor frame-rate, coupled with flashing point values, raining icons, and flying bodies make it hard to tell what the [expletive] is going on. Sometimes you can't even find Batman in the midst of the chaos! The stages offer sharp digitized backdrops, but there's minimal interaction with the scenery. Can someone tell me why wrecking balls keep falling from the sky? The characters slide around as if they were on ice-skates. The control scheme crams a half-dozen functions into three buttons, leaving most of the buttons unused! You can only hold one power-up at a time, and since it's triggered with the punch button, it's hard to use them strategically. Batman has an annoying habit of latching onto anything in the vicinity, so while trying to reach a power-up you'll keep grabbing nearby goons. Ugh! When you do snag an icon, a deep, guttural voice utters something unintelligible. Some power-ups make you invincible and others inexplicably shrink you! According to the manual certain icons are meant to have "random" effects. Really? The back of the box boasts how the "unique combo system allows up to 400 hits". Apparently Acclaim was trying to see how many bad ideas they could cram into a single game. Batman Forever seems easy at first, but once a baddie gets his dirty mitts on you he'll drain your entire life meter. Adding insult to injury, the action is plagued by rampant slow-down - incomprehensible for a 2D game on the Saturn. A two-player mode lets Batman and Robin fight together, but that just doubles the confusion. If you're still not convinced that the game's designer was clueless, consider that the high score screen lets you enter four letters. The sweeping orchestrated musical score is lifted from the film but it's completely wasted. This game is even more shameful when you consider all of the excellent Batman titles that appeared on the 16-bit systems. My friend Eric got Batman Forever for Christmas in 1996 and afterward he vowed to never buy another game by Acclaim. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

As one of my favorite Saturn shooters, Batsugun delivers high-powered vertical action with arcade appeal. The screen is only slightly cropped, and the bright, crisp graphics look like something you'd see in a Neo Geo game. The first stage is peculiar in that it's hard to tell if it takes place underwater or in outer space. The bubbles ultimately give it away, but those roving tanks look very much out of place patrolling the sea floor. Subsequent stages feature sparkling shorelines and scenic waterfalls, and I like how they are layered to convey a sense of depth. The shooting action is pretty standard as you can toggle between two gun configurations and unleash "bombs" to deal widespread damage. There's a lot of stuff happening on the screen, but the framerate keeps up with the action nicely. Destroyed enemies leave golden "checkmarks" in their wake to collect, and I like how point values sometimes appear on the screen. The electronic soundtrack is exceptionally good, and the music in the opening stage sounds like something you might hear in Thunder Force 3 (Genesis, 1991). As much as I like Batsugun, I'll be the first to admit the game suffers from "diarrhea of the firepower". By the third stage, you're spraying missiles like a freakin' fountain outside of a Vegas hotel! When your missles literally consume the screen, lesser enemies are instantly disintegrated before they can even make an entrance! As you can imagine, the two-player coop mode is just too much. Also problematic is how your ship can drift partially off the bottom of the screen, making it fair game to unseen missiles. Batsugun's over-the-top gameplay isn't unique for the Saturn, but it's undeniably fun, and its slick visuals give it a leg up over the competition. © Copyright 2009 The Video Game Critic.

This 3D fighter originally made its debut on the Playstation in 1995, where it impressed the heck out of video game players who weren't accustomed to such advanced 3D graphics in a fighting game. This "remixed" version for the Saturn is not only a minor disaster, but also a major embarrassment for a system that had an inferiority complex to begin with. I took the time to compare this game side-to-side with its Playstation counterpart, and the difference is night and day. The characters models in this Saturn version look downright ugly, and the textures are pitiful compared to the smooth, polished Playstation graphics. Blonde bombshell Sophia looks like a linebacker with those huge shoulders, and the backgrounds are plain and boring. Even the gameplay feels slow and laborious, and the control is far from responsive. Toshinden Remix offers neither the depth of a Virtua Fighter 2 nor the style of Fighting Vipers, and the computer AI is atrocious. Using Sophia, I was able to strike my opponent with the same attack about 25 times in a row to win a match. If this is the remixed version, I'm glad I missed out on the original. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.

This import will set you back a few bucks, but rest assured it is outstanding. Battle Garegga is a hyper-kinetic vertical shooter where you blast tanks, planes, boats, and cannons while weaving through their torrent of missiles. I have a lot of games like this for the Saturn, and let's face it: they're all pretty much the same. Still, I can't seem to get enough of this game. One of the first things I noticed was the publisher: Electronic Arts. Why in the hell didn't they release this in the US? Aren't Americans allowed to have fun too? Garegga lets you choose between four planes, and each manages to be effective without resorting to gimmicks like bubbles or waves. Orange "exclamation point" power-ups augment your firepower, and green icons add shooting satellites that can be repositioned on-the-fly around your ship. There are some huge objects in this game - including your plane. In fact, Battle Garegga probably pushes the limits of what you can get away with in terms of sprite sizes. The stage locations include desert valleys, forest encampments, and industrial plants. Elements like bat-winged airships and trains on elevated tracks give certain stages a retro-futuristic flavor. The stages are relatively short and the bosses never overstay their welcome. Only the final "cloud" stage, which reprises all of the previous bosses, feels uninteresting and repetitive. Battle Garegga is action-packed - sometimes to the point of being overwhelming. The explosions come in many varieties, including bright flames that flare out across the screen. Your special attacks also pack some surprises. One plane unleashes a devastating flamethrower, and another deploys heat-seeking missiles from the back, effectively delaying the ensuing destruction by a second or two. One problem with Battle Garegga is the pencil-shaped enemy missiles that can be hard to spot. Also, there tends to be a lot of flying debris that can clutter the screen. Even so, Battle Garegga is an exhilirating game, delivering top-notch arcade shooting action. © Copyright 2009 The Video Game Critic.

Mortal Kombat spawned dozens of shameless copycats, and Battle Monsters is particularly cringe-worthy. This one-on-one fighter falters on every level. How long did it take Acclaim to come up with that title? The fighters are an unlikeably weird collection of digitized human freaks and computer-generated beasts. La Pa is a ballerina who continuously shouts "hi!" while relentlessly beating you down. Skythe is decked out in a goofy bird outfit, Deathman is a dead-ringer for Frankenstein, and Headless Harn carries his head in one hand as he fights. Naga is meant to resemble Medusa, but her motion-capture actor lacks female proportions. She's a man baby yeah! Chili and Pepper are a pair of hideous laughing clowns with white skin and wild red hair. Clowns are creepy in general, but this duo is especially disturbing. The gameplay is a mess. The choppy animation makes it hard to track the fighters as they frantically hop around, and constant scaling results in rampant pixelation. The AI is a complete joke, with CPU opponents dealing as much damage to themselves as they do to you. When they're not falling flat on their backs after jumping off a platform, they're pulling statues down on top of themselves. The stage designs are horrible. In the one with floating islands, the illusion of depth is so poor that it looks like you're going to hit your head on those things! The multi-level temple stage is a nightmare to navigate, and the generic cave stage looks like something from an NES title. Two huge sets of flickering candles serve as most unsightly health meters ever seen in a video game. I sometimes use the adage "so bad it's good", but Battle Monsters is so bad that it goes overshoots good and goes all the way back around to bad again, where it lands with a resounding thud. © Copyright 2010 The Video Game Critic.

Bug is a likeable little platform game, but unlike Clockwork Knight, this really is a 3D game. Your bug walks on a series of elevated platforms that twist and turn on all axis, and fortunately he can't fall off the edges. Bug's main attack is to jump on other creatures, but with the help of power-ups, he can also "zap" and "spit". There are also coins for Bug to collect. Complimenting the zany background music are some funny sound effects, including several funny one-liners from Bug. Although Bug is enjoyable for the most part, its slow, deliberate pace might turn off gamers who cut their teeth on Sonic the Hedgehog. If you try to whip through this game in a hurry, you won't last long. On the downside, there's a severe shortage of checkpoints, and even worse, there's no password or save feature. That's a shame, because this is a pretty lengthy game. Other than these issues, Bug is a very solid platform game. © Copyright 2001 The Video Game Critic.

As the last Saturn title developed by the Sonic Team, Burning Rangers is often mentioned in the same breath as great Saturn exclusives like Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, and Sega Rally. Having mentally prepared myself for the video game experience of a lifetime, I was initially somewhat disappointed. Although the box boasts about "brilliant 3D graphics", in fact the visuals are excessively pixelated, with visible seams in the scenery and clipping problems galore. Burning Rangers does boast some original gameplay however, which ultimately won me over. You control a futuristic, jetpack-equipped, fire-fighting soldier who extinguishes flames with blasts of a laser weapon. As you traverse the floors of a power planet, marine research laboratory, and space station, you'll extinguish flames, rescue whiny victims, and battle the obligatory bosses. Blasting fires is fun and satisfying, especially when you first hold down the fire button to charge your shot. Explosions occur randomly in your path, but these are preceded by a whistling sound, so you have time to pull down immediately in order to leap back. The game's packaging mentions something about "8 levels", but in fact there are only three, and skilled gamers will probably whiz through this game in about an hour. Burning Rangers makes a big deal out of its "voice-directed navigation system", but all that means is a woman's voice tells you where to go. You'll be glad she's there, because the metallic hallways and generic rooms all look pretty much the same. The underwater stage is especially confusing to navigate with all of its identical-looking tunnels. By far the most helpful thing the woman tells you is "you're going the wrong way". Other voices are less helpful, like the guy who urges you to "hurry up - but don't rush!" Rescuing civilians should be satisfying, but you may opt to leave them for dead when you hear how pathetic and whiney they are. Cowering woman: "Why is this happening to me?" Ranger: "I'm here to rescue you, you ungrateful [expletive]!" Okay, I added the expletive myself, but it was well deserved. Burning Ranger may not have lived up to the hype but it still provides more entertainment value than most Saturn titles. © Copyright 2006 The Video Game Critic.

Intended as a promotional disk for Nights Into Dreams (Sega 1996), this highly sought-after novelty CD is fascinating to play, especially during the holidays. Not only does it feature a playable demo of the game's first stage (and boss), but the visuals change based on the time of the year as determined via the system's calendar! Once December arrives, the lush green landscapes transform into a festive Christmas motif. It's hard to resist the holiday spirit with all of the blinking lights, trees, candles, wreaths, ornaments, and elves. Lively renditions of Joy to the World and Jingle Bells play in the background, and there's even a clock on the title screen that counts down to the big day. Upon completing the two stages, you win "presents" in the form of karaoke songs, concept art, and even extra game modes. Christmas Nights Into Dreams must have been very special back in 1996, and it's still a treat today. Reeking of Christmas through and through, this is a terrific addition to any Saturn collection. © Copyright 2007 The Video Game Critic.

Clockwork Knight is not a bad platform game, but as a launch title I can see how this might fail to inspire confidence in a new system. It begins with a jazzy Babes-in-Toyland musical number. Apparently Sega was trying to tap into that coveted 50-70 year old demographic. If you're a fan of Bette Midler or Nathan Lane I'm sure you'll be tickled pink. The game itself is a 2D side-scroller embellished with modest 3D effects. You play a lanky toy soldier with a big mustache, long nose, and rosy cheeks. He's not particularly endearing and somewhat ugly. The relatively short stages take place in several rooms of a typical house including kid's rooms stocked with toys. You'll encounter clowns, robots, toy helicopters, and a lot of weird objects I really couldn't make heads or tails out of. You'll jump between Lego platforms, knock over books to form bridges, and ride toy trains. You can attack foes with a key and toss items like footballs. Some of the bosses are creepy (like that freaky blue baby doll), but the Transformers robot that turns into a jet is pretty neat. As a launch title Clockwork Knight may have been ill-advised from a marketing point of view, but the game itself isn't half bad. The graphics aren't spectacular but there's some clever use of 3D and each stage has secret areas that add to the challenge. A roulette bonus round lets you bet coins you collect, but it's a losing proposition. Clockwork Knight is a little hokey, but 2D platformers generally age better than their 3D counterparts, and this one plays very well. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

The first Clockwork Knight wasn't exactly a run-away hit but apparently it sold well enough to merit a sequel. Clockwork Knight 2 looks and plays just like the original but offers a new set of stages. Once again they take place in the rooms of a typical house, including a kid's play room, a study, and a bathroom. Playing the role of a little toy soldier you'll attack toys with a key, leap between platforms, and hit switches to open new areas. Some stages use cannons to propel our hero between multiple planes, not unlike Donkey Kong Country. In one of the more exciting stages you ride a horse-carriage over elevated tracks, bumping off other toys in your path. It's great fun and boasts the game's best graphics and animation. Also notable is the bathroom stage with water that rises and falls as you hop between rubber duckies. Clockwork Knight 2 might have been a strong title if not for the frustration factor. The game has a lot of deadly drop-offs, and some of the boss battles are ridiculously hard. The one where you face the paper animals is next to impossible, no matter how many lives you have in reserve. The game has a happy-go-lucky soundtrack not unlike Super Mario Bros., and the song that plays over the title screen ("Well well... let me tell you what it's like...") is terrific. Clockwork Knight 2 has its moments, but it will probably only be of interest to those who enjoyed the original. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

Corpse Killer is one of those full motion video (FMV) games (I can hear the groans) that takes place on a zombie-infested island. You play a lieutenant out to rescue three fellow soldiers held captive by a mad scientist named Helman, nicely played by Vincent Schiavelli. Other characters include a Rastafarian named Winston who transports you from place to place in his jeep. He's also a decent actor, but then there's the blonde reporter named Julie who's cute but far less convincing. It doesn't help that she has cringe-worthy lines like "Cool toy - I bet you know how to... turn it on. I bet you know how to do a lot of things". Wow, is it getting warm in here or is it just me? Corpse Killer is basically a collection of short video clips interspersed with lame shooting sequences, requiring you to aim by moving a cursor with the joypad (sorry - no light gun support). You can hold down a button to shoot rapidly, and the splattering blood makes mowing down scores of pixilated zombies at least somewhat satisfying. Actually, many of the digitized "zombies" look like poorly dressed programmer geeks, and I suspect many were developers wanting to make an appearance in what they thought would be a runaway hit of a game. The action isn't totally mindless, as you can shoot certain icons to gain life and ammo, and certain enemies require different kinds of bullets to take down. The video quality is grainy, but at least it's full screen. Filmed on location, the scenery looks terrific. You'll battle in a graveyard, fort, shipwreck, swamp, and an abandoned village. One thing that's sure to annoy players in the poor instruction manual which fails to mention key pieces of information, such as how aborting your mission takes you to the game save screen. I was grateful that the right button lets you skip the video sequences. Corpse Killer isn't all that bad thanks to its unintentionally funny video clips, and even the shallow shooting action grew on me after a while. But it's still hard to say this is a good game while keeping a straight face. © Copyright 2003 The Video Game Critic.

This poorly-named title caught me off-guard. Despite its law enforcement connotations, Crime Wave is really a Twisted Metal-style car combat game. Given an isometric view of a city, your goal is to locate, chase, and destroy one "target" vehicle after the next. It's actually a lot of fun. The cars resemble toys and the detailed scenery is fun to explore. A red arrow on the edge of the screen indicates your next target, but navigating the traffic-filled streets is not easy. You can only see a small section of town at a time, and the overhead map isn't very useful. Once your opponent is in sight, your car can unleash some serious firepower via the trigger buttons. Your opponents are also armed but not very aggressive. Cars begin to smoke as they take damage, and finishing them off results in a satisfying explosion. Crime Wave has a nice arcade sensibility to it, and the music really kicks ass. Unfortunately, the Saturn hardware seems to really struggle with the game. The framerate stutters pretty badly in the single-player mode, and it's practically unbearable in the two-player split screen mode. Had the camera been pulled out slightly and the frame-rate smoothed-out, this game would have been awesome. As it is, Crime Wave is flawed but still entertaining in its own unique way. © Copyright 2006 The Video Game Critic.

On paper, Criticom probably looked promising, but this 3D fighter turned out to be a major flop. Set in deep space, the background story involves a relic that has drawn several mysterious life forms together to engage in hand-to-hand combat. The dramatic cut scenes and eerie music convey a bleak, desolate world. The interesting assortment of characters includes space pirates, killer robots, and aliens that wouldn't look out of place in the Star Wars cantina. I especially like the creepy demonic woman and her supernatural body movements. The fighter images on the character selection screen are quite intimidating, but once a match begins, you're stuck with stiff, blocky character models. Unresponsive controls and choppy animation make it hard to tell what's going on, and sometimes your fighter even ends up facing the wrong direction! There's no blocking, but you do have an evasive roll maneuver. Certain characters seem to have the unfair ability to grab and throw at will. The battle platforms are elevated, so it's possible to fall off the edges. Most of the backgrounds are uninspired, barren planet surfaces. When all is said and done, Criticom's lackluster gameplay doesn't live up to its compelling theme. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.

This shallow light gun escapade lets you blast oncoming skeletons, zombies, and mummies in temples, caves, and swamps. I enjoyed Crypt Killer on my Playstation despite its less-than-optimal controls, and I hoped the Saturn version might address that shortcoming. Guess what? I was right! The targeting in this version is very good and you don't even need to adjust the brightness of your TV or calibrate the gun. What I did not anticipate however is the degraded graphic quality. The Playstation version was never much to look at in the first place, and this Saturn version seems to run at half the resolution! Yikes! The trees in the forest stage look absolutely horrendous with their blocky trunks and chunky leaves. When a skeleton pops up close to the camera, the excessive pixelation reaches Atari 2600 proportions. I'll be the first to tell you that graphics aren't everything, but they are something, and Crypt Killer is hard on the eyes. The gameplay is still moderately enjoyable, especially if you want to give your brain a rest. You can sit back and fire away as you're automatically guided through mummy-infested ruins, caves haunted by pirates, and canals well-stocked with green lizard men. Crypt Killer is fun but repetitive. In the winding staircase scene, you continuously shoot at the same place as mummies pour out from the edge of the screen. The difficulty is reasonable until you reach a boss. Assuming the forms of mythical creatures like a six-headed hydra, these things can take a lot of punishment. Crypt Killer won't win any awards, but its simple arcade charm makes it worthy of a quick romp. The Playstation version lacks good controls and the Saturn lacks decent graphics, so light gun fans will have to pick their poison. © Copyright 2010 The Video Game Critic.

It's easy to see why Cyber Speedway never made a name for itself. Compared to Wipeout (Playstation, 1995), this futuristic racer looks pretty hokey. Despite the smooth, shiny vehicles depicted on the box cover, you actually control some very ugly, boxy-looking hovercrafts. Twelve tracks are spread across six planets, including all of the obligatory climates: glacial, volcanic, tropical, desert, etc. The courses aren't particularly pleasing to the eye due to considerable pixelation, unsightly seams, and rampant pop-up. At least the tracks are wide enough, and each planet offers its own distinct color scheme and terrain. The planet Evoflammas boasts deep lava trenches, Terra has tracks that dip into the water, and Vastitas features giant flying red centipede. The controls are responsive enough, but I could never quite comprehend the needlessly complicated boost controls. You can fire weapons at opponents, but they're so weak that it's not even worth the trouble. Even direct hits do little more than briefly slow down your target. Another issue is the easy difficulty level, which allowed me to breeze through the game without breaking a sweat. Cyber Speedway's soundtrack consists of a bunch of acoustic guitar numbers, and while there's nothing wrong with them, they seem awfully inappropriate for a futuristic racer. The game's "story mode" attempts to add depth, but it just forces you to sit through a bunch of still graphics and endless dialogue. Cyber Speedway may not be the worst racing game for the Saturn, but it's close. © Copyright 2006 The Video Game Critic.

D is a bone-chilling, spine-tingling first-person adventure where you control a woman wandering around a huge mansion attempting to discover what happened to her father. This game is unique because it's played in real time, and it ends exactly after two hours after you start playing, unless you finish it, of course. You can't even pause or save your place, so make sure you have two hours free before you undertake this intense adventure. The plodding pace made me impatient at first, but I soon got caught up in the creepy atmosphere. D is effectively frightening and has some genuinely intense moments. Chilling sound effects and ominous music are used effectively, and the first person graphics, although somewhat grainy, are good enough to immerse you in this dark world. Movement is smooth but also very SLOW - slow enough to make retracing your steps feel tedious. Fortunately the puzzles tend to be straight forward, so you won't get stuck in any room for too long. Your character automatically moves toward vital objects, and there are no red herrings to be found. Unfortunately, by the time you get to disk 2, the slow movement and endless puzzles start to get tiresome. The replay value is gravely wounded by the fact that you can never skip the cinematics, which are often lengthy and annoying. But overall D is a spooky and worthwhile trip, at least the first time through. © Copyright 2000 The Video Game Critic.

It's cool to see an old-school, side-scrolling shooter on the Saturn, especially when you consider how many great shooters were made for the Genesis. If you've played G-Darius on the Playstation, this version is very similar, but I actually prefer this one because the screen is less cluttered. For you Genesis veterans, this gameplay takes a page from Thunder Force. There are loads of weapons and power-ups to help you dispatch of your enemies, which tend to be fish-inspired. The bosses are large and fully rendered in 3D. The backgrounds aren't very impressive but there are some eye-catching explosions. And even when there's a lot of action on screen, it's not too difficult to tell what's going on (a problem with many other modern shooters). Two people can play at the same time, which is always a nice feature. After completing a stage, you can choose your next stage, which provides some decent replay value. If Darius Gaiden has a weakness, it might be the music. These opera-style tunes just don't get my adrenaline pumping. But overall this is a solid shooter. © Copyright 2000 The Video Game Critic.

Here's an interesting PC title that somehow migrated to the Saturn - in Japan! Fortunately this import is highly playable thanks to its simple controls and English voiceovers. Dark Seed is a point-and-click adventure - something you never see anymore. You control a digitized guy named Mike living in a mysterious old mansion who finds himself experiencing dreams both supernatural and extraterrestrial in nature. The nightmares are rendered in gory detail via some rather unsettling cut-scenes. In one, his head is split open by aliens and a substance is injected into his brain! Mike scales nicely as moves around his house and over to a nearby town and graveyard. I find it amusing how Mike is always speaking out loud when no one's around, stating the obvious like "this road seems strangely empty, andÉ unoccupied." Be sure to have Mike shower and take his medicine each morning, or else he'll complain non-stop about his splitting headaches ("My head feels like it's about to explode!") You make Mike walk by clicking an arrow, and you can toggle the cursor into a question mark (to investigate) or hand (to search). Moving it to the top of the screen displays your inventory, along with a floppy disk "save" icon. For the benefit of non-Japanese gamers, the buttons down the left side of the save screen are load, save, return to game, and exit. Sorry, I can't help you with the various text clues conveyed via books, notes, and newspaper clippings. You'll figure it out - especially if you have an FAQ on hand (wink wink). The best part of Dark Seed is its brooding storyline, which conveys a tale of an alternate dimension clearly inspired by the movie Aliens. The atmosphere becomes pretty intense thanks to the nicely-illustrated scenery, digitalized sounds, and surreal organ music. Sadly, some pretty big design flaws rain on the parade. Many critical objects, like a hair pin or glass shard are really hard to see. You sometimes need to examine an object multiple times to expose a critical clue. There are actions you need to take early in the game (like hide items) which make no sense (until later). Even when using a walk-through, Dark Seed is difficult to finish, so I can only recommend it to determined gamers with a lot of patience. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

As a Saturn launch title, this did not compare favorably with the Playstation's Ridge Racer. With its chunky scenery, rampant draw-in, wacky physics, and cheesy soundtrack, Daytona USA may be the most hilarious racing game of all time. I don't think that's what Sega intended. Even so, the bright arcade graphics and simple controls are hard to resist. You select between four stock cars and three tracks (not including mirrored versions), and compete with up to 40 other cars! Weaving through traffic is fun, so why am I not moving up the ranks? Are you telling me I've already lapped these guys? No, something's not quite right here. Equally suspicious is how CPU cars erratically dart between lanes. Your steering is not particularly responsive, and the brake sends you into tail slides you'll rarely recover from. I picked up Sega's official driving wheel to use with this game, and while it didn't improve my score, it did make the experience slightly more realistic. Your car actually models damage which affects its performance - a pretty advanced feature for the time. Pitstops are available, but unless you're undertaking the 80-lap endurance mode (and you won't), they are useless. Daytona USA is not much to look at. The pop-up/draw-in effect is so severe that you can't see things in the distance - things like the road for example! It's especially bad when you drive over a bridge and watch it being constructed before your very eyes. It leaves you with the impression that either the Saturn can't process 3D graphics very well or this game was rushed for launch. There's plenty of interesting sights including a Space Shuttle on a launch pad, but most of it doesn't appear until you're halfway past it. The cloud "reflections" whizzing over your back window look fake, and they keep moving even when your car is at rest. If you pay close attention you'll notice subtle details in the scenery like flying birds and galloping horses, but why does that statue have "Jeffrey" engraved on it? There's a lot of weirdness in this game, like how "GOAL!" is displayed as you cross the finish line. What is this, soccer? The option menu even has a setting for "enemy level". Since when did these cars become my enemies?! But the most bizarre aspect of Daytona USA by far has to be the music, which sounds like a Japanese lounge single belting out cheesy-Latin pop tunes with incomprehensible lyrics. These songs are so unintentionally funny you can't help but ask yourself, "What was Sega thinking?!" The song "Sky High" is the most hilarious of the bunch, and to this day I can sometimes be heard singing "I'm gonna fly-y-y sky high!" in the shower. Oddly enough, it's the quirks and flaws of the game that give Daytona USA an endearing charm. On a technical level it may be a mess, but it has a "so bad it's good" quality that keeps me coming back. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

This "Championship Edition" feels a lot like an apology from Sega for the original Daytona USA, which was a complete mess by the way. You can tell this is a more polished effort simply by looking at that sharp menu screen. You now have eights cars to select from as well as five bright tracks that are a joy to race. Granted, three of the tracks are actually "remixed" versions of those in the original game, but they look better and suffer from less pop-up. The two new tracks are especially good. One is a highway that runs alongside an amusement park with a working rollercoaster. Yes, I actually pulled over and onto the shoulder to watch that thing go around. The other new track takes you through a desert with running trains and hot air balloons. Daytona's arcade mode provides a formidable challenge, as it's really hard to reach the next checkpoint without the timer running out. The steering is more responsive than the first game, but the braking controls are still a mystery. It seems like banging into walls and barriers is the way to go. Like the first game, using a pit stop is the worst mistake you can make, and it will pretty much guarantee your defeat. The new split-screen mode is a welcome feature, but the pop-up is pretty dreadful. I find it hilarious how the trailing player gets "LOSER" plastered across his screen - how humiliating is that? I like the music in this game, despite the fact that the opening tune sounds like a parody of every hair band of the 80's. Some songs from the first game have been brought back minus the vocals of that Japanese lounge singer. I never thought I'd say this, but I really miss that guy. Daytona Championship Edition isn't as memorable as the first game, but it's a far more competent arcade racer. This is probably what the original Daytona should have been. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

Despite a title screen that depicts a woman engulfed in flames, Decathlete really isn't painful to play. Like so many other Olympic-style games, it is fast-paced, easy-to-learn, and unintentionally hilarious. But why in the world is Decathlete limited to just two players? At the very least, some kind of multi-tap should have been supported (if not included). Each event is introduced with a quick tutorial, although this feature is inexplicably omitted for the first event, the 100-meter dash. The contests are fun but uneven in terms of difficulty. The shot-put requires only a single, well-timed button press, but the pole vaulting is so complicated I couldn't figure it out. The controls in the javelin event are erratic, causing you to become "stuck" in mid-throw. The character models look awful, with angular bodies that do absolutely no justice to the curves of the female athletes. The guys appear to be wearing thongs, and that's never a pretty sight. The stadiums aren't much to look at, but the soaring skyscrapers and desert mesas looming in the background look great. Although Sega Sport's slogan in 1995 was "We Sweat the Details", you'd never know from all the rough edges, including laughable text ("Let's Go Next Game!") and irritating audio glitches (especially during the 1500 meter dash). I do like how it automatically saves world records and high scores though, and it's pretty easy to get "on the board". Despite its faults, Decathlete is still amusing to play against a friend. Sega would release a much improved sequel for the Dreamcast called Virtua Athlete. © Copyright 2007 The Video Game Critic.

I didn't have high hopes for Detana Twinbee ("Here Comes Twinbee"), but the more I played it the more I enjoyed this light, whimsical shooter. Twinbee hails from the Parodius Team which has a reputation for making wacked-out shooters. You'll soar over colorful Candy Land worlds while shooting floating pigs, rubber duckies, rainbow-colored cats, kamikaze silverware, dancing flowers, and other random targets. As in Xevious you can shoot foes in the air while bombing targets on the land below. There's a wealth of special weapons including 4-way shots, homing missiles, a flamethrower, and a big red boxing glove. The graphical style is anime to-the-max, with melodramatic cut-scenes and vibrant stages alive with activity. This is one of the prettiest shooters I've seen, but it can be hard to discern targets from other animated objects. Shooting clouds release falling bells, and shooting these bells changes their colors while pushing them up the screen. Grabbing the bells gives you power-ups and bonus points, but they're such a pain in the ass! You're always inadvertently shooting them when you want to snatch them up! Bombing enemies on the ground reveals fruit you can collect, giving the game an old-school charm. The two-button controls are simple (shoot and bomb) although sometimes the bomb button doesn't seem to work for some reason. Slowdown does rear its ugly head at times, even in the single-player mode. Twinbee's audio features a wonderfully catchy theme song that I would almost certainly sing along to if I knew Japanese. The level of challenge is relatively low, which is good since I can't read the instruction manual. I do appreciate how the message "Thank you for playing this game" appears at the end. How thoughtful! Twinbee is lightweight, quirky, and mildly annoying, but it's so damn cheerful that it's almost impossible to dislike. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

Living up to its name, this 3D brawler offers pure arcade fun. Unfortunately Fox couldn't afford to license the likeness of Bruce Willis for the box cover, so they slapped on a picture of some sweaty alcoholic in a wife-beater instead. You play the role of John McClane out to rescue a group of hostages held by terrorists in a tall office building. One of the hostages happens to be the president's daughter, and she has giant, freaky-looking hands. Die Hard Arcade has chunky polygon graphics, but its gameplay is actually 2D in nature, since you can only engage foes lined up on the same horizontal plane (a la Streets of Rage). The Virtua Cop-style visuals are clean and nicely animated with literally dozens of attack combinations. Some enemies beg for mercy after they've been beaten down, and I love how McClane throws his gun after running out of ammo. He'll also perform devastating head butts when pinned to the ground, and act appropriately when kicked between the legs. There are always plenty of weapons lying around, including hatchets, pipes, pepper spray, and rocket launchers. Unlike most games of this style, Die Hard Arcade does not throw an endless barrage of bad guys at you. No, once you clear out a handful of enemies, you're quickly whisked off to the next room. The game has an oddball sense of humor, most evident in the hilarious bathroom stage. There's a guy doing his business in a urinal, dudes running around in jockey shorts, and everybody is slipping on loose rolls of toilet paper. The game also lets you fight alongside a friend, with player two assuming the role of a blonde chick. Die Hard's pacing is brisk, but you're constantly sitting through load screens. Don't let your guard down during the cut-scenes however, because you're often prompted to jump or throw a well-timed punch. There's a "violence" option on the option menu, but that just causes cheesy chunks of "blood" to fly around during combat. My main issue with Die Hard Arcade is its lack of scoring. Obviously your goal is to complete the game, but that's not easy, and a score would have been a nice way to gauge your progress. Oddly enough, a retro bonus game called Deep Scan included. It's probably the slowest arcade game ever made, yet still somewhat fun. The lack of scoring is a problem, but otherwise Die Hard Arcade is a top-notch Saturn title. © Copyright 2007 The Video Game Critic.

This game's predecessor, Donpachi (Atlus, 1996), walked a fine line with its vertical scrolling mayhem. Dodonpachi, on the other hand, gleefully hurls itself over the edge, plummeting into the abyss of shooter insanity. Too much is too much, and this series has passed the point of diminishing returns. Dodonpachi is one of those "manic" shooters where everything on the screen has way too much pent-up hostility! The destruction quotient is astounding, and destroyed objects leave gold stars in their wake - which I happen to find irresistible! Your ship wields a beam of destruction that cleanly wipes away waves of tanks, aircraft, and cannons. You'll soar over rocky gorges and high-tech landscapes, but there's not a whole lot to see. Like its predecessor, the well-designed controls are comfortable and leave some room for strategy. You get plenty of bombs, so don't hesitate to use them as a defensive measure. Enemies tend to bombard you with waves of missiles, but if you hang back, you can usually find a seam to slip through. The forgiving collision detection helps too. The action is nicely paced, but the visuals are a little rough. The screen is vertically cropped, although your bomb supply fills some of that black space. The scenery tends to be bland and indistinct, and the explosions are very pixelated. The voice samples are clear enough, and are provided by a female speaking English. You have the option to play alongside a friend, but with firepower this overwhelming, the two-player mode is unmanageable. Dodonpachi doesn't seem fair, but it's not the player who's overmatched - it's your enemies! Once you build up to maximum firepower, your fury practically consumes the entire display, making it impossible for most of your foes to even enter the screen! And is it really any fun when you're just mindlessly annihilating everything in sight while collecting stars that fall into your lap? Well yeah, it is, kind of. © Copyright 2009 The Video Game Critic.

This vertical shooter pushes the limits in terms of firepower and on-screen activity. But while Donpachi teeters on the edge of sensory madness, it never crosses the line. The action gets pretty intense, but you never feel overwhelmed. You select from three fighter ships with slightly different weapon characteristics. The background scenery offers traditional locations like a forest-entrenched base and a naval port. The snow stage provides a nice change of pace, and in certain areas you can see tiny people scampering along the ground. You enemies generally consist of jets, boats, and helicopters of all shapes and sizes. Bosses are huge mechanical beasts with multiple armaments that can be destroyed one by one. Donpachi's explosions are exceptional. In addition to the typical "clouds of fire", some bosses feature flames that shoot out from their sides. Your firepower is devastating, but you'll want to crank up the difficulty (to normal at the very least) if you want a legitimate challenge. In the easier difficulties, power-ups are far too abundant and the "MP" icon (maximum power) is just plain cheap. Holding the A button unleashes a steady, concentrated beam, but your ship moves slowly. The C button sprays missiles, but your ship is more agile. It's a neat trade-off that provides a layer of strategy. You also have a load of bombs which come in handy for neutralizing a barrage of incoming missiles. Larger enemies expel projectiles by the dozens, but the missiles are well defined and tend to move slowly. Donpachi suffers from some slow-down (especially with two players), but if anything, you'll welcome it! One thing I found very interesting is how despite being a Japanese import, the voice synthesis is entirely in English! "Enemy port dead ahead. Fire at will kid!" The quality of the voice samples is pretty awful though. Accompanied by unpleasant static, they sound like something you'd hear in a Genesis game. In addition to the arcade mode (with unlimited continues), there's a nice "score attack mode" that lets you play individual stages for high score. Donpachi is one of those rare shooters that strikes a fine balance between reason and chaos, and I like that. © Copyright 2009 The Video Game Critic.

Doom is a classic first-person shooter that originated on the PC but later appeared on many consoles in the mid-90's. This Saturn edition is seriously weak, especially compared to its Playstation cousin. The graphics look washed out and the sound effects lack punch. Why in the heck does it sound like I'm taking damage when I walk down steps? What really hurts the game however is the lousy frame-rate. After a few levels the slow, jerky visuals can give you a massive headache. And when the frame-rate slows, the controls become sluggish and inexact. Even opening a door looks choppy. The back of the box claims the game is "deathmatch-ready with two-player link capabilities" but as far as I can tell that is completely false. As is often the case, Saturn owners got the short end of the stick. © Copyright 2012 The Video Game Critic.

I see this all the time - a game with crazy potential ruined by an outrageous difficulty level. A digitized 2D side-scroller, Dragon Heart features sharp digitized sprites, decent control, and well-designed stages with gorgeous scenery. The gameplay is old school at heart, consisting of jumping action interspersed with a series of one-on-one battles. The game's production values are beyond reproach, with fantastic backdrops and characters decked out in convincing medieval gear. The well-rendered scenery includes a mysterious forest, a rocky mountainside, a well-fortified castle, and a courtyard filled with impaled bodies. There's no shortage of gore as most enemies burst into fountains of blood when defeated. As the title implies, you'll face several dragons on your quest. Defeating a dragon earns you its respect, allowing you to summon it when you need a hand. Calling on a dragon (using the L button) initiates an impressive sequence where it flies in from the distance and proceeds to incinerate all enemies on the screen. Some stages let you "ride" dragons from a first-person perspective, but these FMV (full motion video) sequences feature minimal control and are mainly just eye candy. Dragon Heart's stages are relatively short and you can purchase supplies between them. Unfortunately, the difficulty level is far beyond what most gamers are willing to tolerate. Each enemy requires an inordinate number of hits to defeat, and your "endurance meter" drains with each swing of your sword. Trust me, nothing ruins a game like an endurance meter. To retain your stamina, you must play extremely conservatively, slashing only occasionally and blocking constantly. As an unfortunate side effect, the battles tend to go on forever and are often reduced to both warriors hunched down, slashing at each other's ankles. It's unintentionally comical. When you die, you're forced to exit to the main menu and reload, which is aggravating. After failing to make substantial progress the old-fashioned way, I resorted to my Gameshark cheat cartridge, which I used to equip my character with maximum armor and sword strength. This allowed me to play the game more like a traditional hack-and-slash, and it was far more fun, and allowing me to reach stages I would have never seen otherwise. Dragon Heart really does have a lot to offer, but most gamers will never know. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.

In the mid-90's I would drool over screenshots of Dungeons and Dragons Tower of Doom in the preview section of my favorite video game magazine. Unfortunately, that game never made it to the USA, and over the years I completely forgot about it. Then recently I discovered that the game was available as a Japanese import under the name of Dungeons and Dragons Collection. D&D Collection is a two-disk set that includes both Tower of Doom and its sequel, Shadow Over Mystaria. It doesn't come cheap though, costing up to $100 (or more) on Ebay. It's important to note that these games will not play on an American Saturn console without a special device. A Saturn Game Shark is all that's required to play Tower of Doom, but the second game requires a 4MB memory extension, which I found in the Action Replay 4M Plus cartridge. Is D&D Collection worth the investment? It's hard to say. Tower of Doom's sprite graphics are stunning, with huge monsters pulled straight from the D&D Monster Manual, including kobolds, troglodytes, ghouls, scorpions, ogres, and hell hounds. And just wait until you see that huge dragon! You can be a fighter, cleric, elf, or dwarf, and each has his/her own unique style of play. Lavishly illustrated scenery ranges from forests to caves to ghost ships. Best of all, the stages branch, providing more replay value than your typical side-scroller. An elegant orchestrated soundtrack compliments the fine visuals. The action itself is basically hack-n-slash, but depending on your character class you may also have projectile attacks or spells. Responsive controls let you defend, jump, slide, crouch, and dash. The battles are fine, but the animation is a somewhat rough, and it can be hard to tell what's going on at times. It's fun to encounter new monsters, but when they start making return appearances later in the game, the action starts to wear a little thin. I enjoyed some of the fine graphical details, like how arrows break in half when they are blocked, or how a troll will dance around if you set it on fire. Tower of Doom's sequel, Shadow of Mystaria, further develops the same basic formula with extra characters (including a magic user and thief), a streamlined magic selection system, additional moves, and the ability to change characters when you continue. While most critics consider Mystaria to be much better, I found it to be somewhat boss-heavy. Some of the creatures have outrageous life bars and take forever to defeat. There's quite a bit of Japanese dialogue in these games, so much that it inspired me to want to learn Japanese. On the downside, both games feature an excessive number of load screens, and the unlimited continues remove most of the drama and suspense. D&D Collection is one of those odd games where its sum is less than its parts. I'm happy to have it in my game library, but to be honest it's not as fun to play as it looks. Still, if you're into 2D medieval combat games like Golden Axe (Genesis), you'll appreciate D&D Collection for what it is. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.