Game 21: Jet Force Gemini

Jet Force Gemini is a Nintendo 64 third-person shooter game released by Rare in 1999. Looking back, it seems like such an odd game: twins Juno and Vela fly around in a space ship and save furry creatures from the evil empire. But when I think about it more closely, Jet Force Gemini really seems like the ultimate Rare amalgamation of their other Nintendo 64 games - Goldeneye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Conker's Bad Fur Day specifically. That collection of animal fur and blood and guts really comes together on this cartridge.

The game also has some interesting history during development. I used to read IGN very closely and I remember the day when some new character art was released and the twins went from being bland to sexy. Now it seems like they did this just so they could give Vela boobs, but I suppose breast sells and that's their right. Anyways, now you know all of Jet Force Gemini's exciting history (there wasn't much to cover), so let's get right into the review.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I enter my name for a new game and then start the opening cutscene. We're looking at a glowing planet with an asteroid belt around it, a ship flies by. Some epic space music starts and the camera pans to give us a peek on the inside of the ship. A teenage boy and girl are running the ship, along with their dog.
01 - An alarm goes off, "Alert!" The boy throws down his coffee and runs to the console. We cut to a scene on a planet, a bunch of furry teddy bears are getting shot down by a squad of blue ants. Somehow our heroes are watching this too.

02 - A giant mothership is passing over our hero's ship. They run down the hallway, but a swarm of blue ants burst in! The girl and their dog head into tubes and land on.... treadmills? They then take off in their own personal transport ships. The boy continues to fight off the ants, and then runs into a tube himself.
03 - He lands on his own treadmill, his name is Juno, and he's ready for action. I hit A a few times and he gets teleported into his own orange ship which takes off for the planet.

04 - It's a green planet with plenty of water. Juno lands his ship on what looks like a landing pad made just for him. I take control of the blue-clad hero.

05 - I encounter Yoda, well, maybe not Yoda, but it sure looks like a dark green version of him. Yoda is a Tribal, the furry creatures on this planet, and he tells me he saw Vela and Lupus run through a moment ago, must be my sister and dog. Guess he knows who we are.
06 - Yoda tells me that green doors mean forward and red doors mean back. That's probably an indication of poor level design and that it is easy to get lost. I check out my controls, Z shoots, and the C-buttons (remember this is on the Nintendo 64) control various jumping and rolling maneuvers. R brings the camera directly behind Juno's back to aim.

07 - I proceed forward. The next area is very wide open, but the large textures are truly awful.

08 - I enter a hut and talk with a Tribal. He asks me to rescue as many of the furry creatures as I can.
10 - Another Tribal tells me I'll have to destroy all Mizar troops to proceed from stage to stage. Figures.

11 - While using the R-button to aim you use the left joystick to aim your gun and the C-buttons (aka right joystick) to shoot. This is the opposite of basically every first person shooter I've played since Halo and I'm going to have a hard time getting used to this in the next hour.

12 - Goldwood Forest - My first liberation zone. The game pans around the area, telling me what to shoot and what not to. Kinda obvious. Oh snap, Sniper Drones!

13 - Blah blah, let's get going. Kill ants, free Tribals.
14 - Finally, A hostile area! I take out my first Sniper Ant with some well placed shots.

15 - After that I rescue my first Tribal, cute little furball.

17 - Phew, just cleared my first large area. The switched joysticks are disorienting me in combat, not sure how I ever played games like this! I dig around in the options looking for a change. Hmm... nothing.

18 - Two different doors to enter, I enter the right one.

20 - It's a long tunnel with ants lined up all the way. There's really no point in aiming it seems, just run and gun. I take on a ton of ant soldiers and then rescue a few Tribals at the end of the tunnel. Only one left to rescue in this level.
22 - I manuever my way through a line of ticking land mines while dodging ant bullets. The imprecise controls are making this difficult, Juno takes wide turns.

25 - I accidentally fall down a waterfall hole then crawl underwater through a small crevice. I'm out in the open again. I wish there was some kind of map, I feel really lost. Oh, area cleared! And I rescued all the Tribals (I did?), not bad!

26 - Next area has what looks like to be a collection of exploding barrels.

27 - The music here is really upbeat, lots of drums. A Tribal gives me a Red Key, used for opening doors with Red Locks. Thanks! There's also a door behind him that I can't enter. He says its a Mizar door, why they would have a door on this planet I don't know.
29 - I have to shoot a target to proceed... How annoying! I'm wasting all my ammo. Try as I might, I can't get it open. I head through another door.

30 - Okay, there's a giant bug boss in here. Am I ready for this guy? I save my game.

31 - I'm fighting him pretty good, but then I fall in the pit. Wonky controls. I fall again trying to get some red gems.

32 - All right, he went down real easy once I bothered to try. I got a machine gun as a reward! This sucker is high power and should open that frustrating target easy.
33 - The door goes down in a flurry of bullets.

36 - I'm picking up ant heads as I run around, wonder what they do?

37 - I take out a few more snipers, cool physics as their guns bounce around after they're dead.

38 - I get taken out by one of those giant bug's laser beams. Ouch. Direct hit.

39 - I get right back on my feet (after miraculously coming back to life a few hundred feet away) and take the bugger out.

40 - The game thinks it's funny to place a sniper right above a door entrance. Lame. I'm also starting to notice how hard it is to get the camera to swing around to where you want it.

42 - Woah, I turn the corner and there's a ton of floating gunners! I take a minute to pick them off one by one, luckily they're horrible shots.
43 - I fall off an invisible cliff and die. No continues left now... gotta be careful.

44 - Sweet, I just shot an enemy grenade out of the air! But then I die again, continues gone. Lame.

46 - This time I take out the horde of gunners with my machine gun. Much faster this time.

49 - Wow, the game really likes overwhelming odds. Right now I'm fighting off a large group of much more accurate gunners. Not fun.
50 - I take out the final gunner as he kills me, at least they won't be back now.

51 - Moving on finally, I'm able to rescue a bunch of Tribals, but in the next room a swarm of green flying gunners awaits me. I grab an invincibility power-up on the ground and blast through them. Level complete. But I missed four Tribals. Whoops.

53 - I make it back to my ship, no sign of my sister of dog. I take off to the heavens.
54 - There's a long sequence as my orange ship docks in the main ship. Juno just ran through a solid wall after he got off his ship. Odd.

55 - Somehow one of the Tribals got on my ship. He starts a cutscene, looks like the ants are on MY ship? Maybe I'm not on my ship but the alien mothership? It's not clear. Vela is doing some reconnaissance. Well, until she starts blasting everyone!
56 - She takes off after some ants but then gets captured by a giant purple bug. Now I gotta rescue her I suppose. How did this Yoda know all this information anyway?

57 - I'm back in control and take off into the unknown.

58 - This is a cool indoor area, I like it better than the forest. I rescue some Tribals from the giant purple bug.
59 - I'm clearing out another room of bugs and gunners. This game could be a lot more fun if it helped you aim at the flying guys too.

60 - In my final minute I manage to rescue another Tribal and spatter some ants. Nothing too exciting.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 2
Jet Force Gemini's story in the first hour is extremely lacking. It basically entails to a pair of twins and their dog are chilling out in orbit around a planet when the furry inhabitants of that planet are suddenly attacked by some evil ants. That's it. There is no explanation why Juno and Vela were by that planet, there is no explanation on who the Tribals are and why they would get attacked, and there is no explanation on who is attacking them except that they're Mizar. Considering it takes 15 minutes to actually get rolling, you would have expected a lot more.
Graphics and Sound: 6
The characters are probably the best looking things in this game, they're relatively detailed and Juno and Vela specifically look really good. After that, everything kind of goes downhill. The 3D areas seem pretty large, but Jet Force Gemini employs some really awful looking textures all over which spoil the expansiveness. There was a decent variety of environments in the first hour; though I spent the most time in the forest, the last few minutes placed me in a large spaceship cargo deck. I actually enjoyed the music so that helps out this category's score. The sound effects were typical but the soundtrack seemed above average. But Rare has always had pretty good music in their games. Oh, one note, Jet Force Gemini runs in widescreen mode (as you can see by the screenshots in this review), this is a great method of future-proofing by Rare.
Gameplay: 4
Besides the polygonal graphics, many Nintendo 64 games suffered from crappy gameplay. My theory behind this is that the controller simply wasn't ready for both 3D movement and dynamic camera control. Throw in some simultaneous aiming and moving/strafing with only one joystick and all of a sudden you have a 10 button controller that is simply inadequate for the games developers want to make. Jet Force Gemini suffers from this and thus the player suffers too. Is it good gameplay when an experienced gamer has to constantly think about what buttons to press? No. Does it make sense that the game forces you to use an inaccurate joystick (or is it just a bad aiming system?) to pick off sniper ants that just span a few pixels? No. I could go on but the first hour of Jet Force Gemini's gameplay is simply a disappointment.
Fun Factor: 5
Gameplay and Fun Factor categories are usually directly related, if the gameplay sucks, you're probably not going to have much fun. This would be the case for Jet Force Gemini if it didn't have that unique sense of style that's a trademark of Rare games. It's so satisfying splattering the ant drones' green blood all over nearby rocks or "accidentally" shooting a Tribal here or there. The characters have a certain roguish appeal, but they're way too underdeveloped in the first hour, unfortunately. This score would be higher if it weren't for the frustrating moments where you're just getting picked off in the distance by gunner drones and your crappy aim can't hit anything. Too bad.
Minutes to Action: 14
Overall: 5
This is a disappointing score for me, Rare had such a great track record on the Nintendo 64 and doing a quick recap in my mind, Jet Force Gemini probably had the worst first hour out of all their releases on the system. I also really can't see how the game could recover from this considering so much of the fault lies on the below-average gameplay. The story may become a classic and the soundtrack might keep kicking along, but if the gameplay sucks, well, you can't really do much. Here's to the alien blood splattering run-and-gun action adventure that was not to be.

Game 20: SimCity Societies

SimCity Societies is the newest entry in the long and respected SimCity series. However, as you may or may not have heard, Societies is a radical departure from the traditional SimCity game. Gone is most of the micro-management you dealt with as being mayor and gone is zoning to lay the groundwork for your city. Now you are more of the city's grand architect and visionary. You decide what kind of city you want to run, whether it's a prosperous metropolis, a spiritual mecca, or an oppressed dystopia, it is all up to you. To dictate your direction, you lay down each building individually, from houses to ice cream stands to city hall, everything is under your control.

Now not everyone likes the new direction SimCity is heading, and of course this game is definitely not for everyone. Before I played the game, the entire premise reminded me more of City Life than SimCity 4, not necessarily a bad thing, just totally different than the games I grew up to know and love. I think as fans of the series we have to acknowledge that we will probably never play a new "classic" SimCity game, which is fine with me. The series peaked with SimCity 2000 and I still play that from time to time. But let's see if SimCity Societies renews the franchise or leaves me with a sour taste, let the first hour begin.

It should be noted again that my computer is not that great and doesn't even meet the minimum system requirements laid out by Electronic Arts (it requires at least an Athlon 2100 and I have an 1800, everything else meets or exceeds). I am still able to run the game okay with all the settings at medium or below though.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I decide to start with the tutorial, the hour starts as I click the button. Loading screen comes up, says the tutorial might be worth playing more than once. Must be fun... Game shows up, in this tutorial I'll be making a Fun City!

01 - First things first, power. The game instructs me to build three Wind Farms. Wind? That's not powerful at all.

02 - Next I have to build houses, I filter out the available houses and only look at Fun City Houses. This is the first thing that's much different than the original SimCity franchise: instead of laying down Residential-zoned land, you pick out what houses/apartments you want and lay them down directly. This almost reminds me more of Sim Town than SimCity.
03 - I plant four cottages. Fun cottages. Now I'm told to add Decorations, which can add Creativity to my city which will sprout growth or something.

04 - I plant four murals, and now I have 24 total Creativity in my city, with 20 available. Each house sucks one creativity point away. I guess it's kind of like a balancing act.

05 - Time to build some places to work. I filter only Creative buildings and get... a Tulip Nursery. How inspiring!

06 - Next up are two Creepy Barns, which I guess is a place to work? What kind of morbid town is this?

07 - Time to build the all important roads, the life blood of any SimCity city. Laying roads is just like in the other SimCity games, but the camera is so close, laying long roads is a difficult task. I can't zoom out any further either.
08 - A couple of roads pop in, now for an Ice Cream Parlor! Sims start flocking to it immediately! I click on one of them... Mario Lowery is his name. Apologies to any Mario Lowery's out there who were avoiding ever having their name show up on Google.

10 - The news ticker says that they welcome their insect overlords, what is this Slashdot? Awesome.

11 - Next up is a movie theater. After I plant it I'm told to click on the theater and do its special action, which is to host a premier. Kind of cool.
12 - The game is starting to let me do my own stuff... but nothing too wild.

14 - My wind generators are already hitting their power max, where's my super polluting coal plants? I add a few more and now I need to reach 50 Creativity. I build a variety of things like Merry Go Rounds and Jumping Fountains... and more lame murals which have a +8 Creativity bonus.

17 - I have a worker capacity of 8 right now, and I need to reach 15, more homes it is!

19 - More workplaces now too, but the game only lets me build Tulip Nurseries and Barns. Lame.

20 - I check out my City Info page, Budget is poor, no Crime, and hardly any Pollution. I guess that's good...
21 - I add a few more ice cream shops and a couple florists, and now I have to build my ultimate venue: The Clown School! Okay, can't do that just yet, need at least 61 Creativity points to make this creepy hangout.

22 - The game instructs me to check out the Achievements screen, there's 10 trophies to earn.

23 - Without ever building a Clown School the game tells me Congratulations! I won the tutorial.

25 - I'm not so easily defeated though... I decide to build the Clown School and inflict Mimeageddon on the town! A horde of mimes run out and destroy, I mean, hilarify the city.
26 - Okay, that's enough of this town, I want to build something truly Orwellian. But first I click the Meteor Shower button... umm... I don't see any meteors. I don't even see any damage done. Oh snaps now I see some. Awesome. Took out my movie theater in dramatic fashion.

29 - Now to trigger the Killer Storm! There's some wind sounds and lightning strikes but this isn't that exciting. I head back to the main menu.

31 - When configuring a new city, you can choose a variety of options, one of them is Unlimited Simoleons (Sim money). That's pretty nice, don't have to cheat or anything just to mess around. I click the Start City button and the loading screen comes up.
32 - Okay, no more creativity. I'm thinking oppression is a better angle. The game calls this Authority. Good thing I've read Nineteen Eighty-Four (first two-thirds are awesome) and Brave New World (meh).

33 - I start with a Coal Power Plant. 20 times more productive than some stupid wind farms, and only five times as much.

34 - I have more options on the transit menu, including dirt country roads and a bus stop.
35 - Authority living units include Row Houses, Sleeping Tubes, and Slate Housing Block. All complete with Telescreens.

37 - I need some Authority points to fill up my new Row Houses so I build a Police Box, Public Clock, and a Large Statue.

40 - My people need nice places to work, I add a Bureaucracy Office and Department of Public Works. Nothing too insidious. For kicks I add a Dive Bar and Corner Deli.
43 - The game is not running that smoothly. Even though I have almost all the settings way down, I guess my computer just isn't good enough. Anyways, I add a Sleeping Tube building and then a Military School. Seems like an obvious decision!

45 - I begin an Efficiency Drive at my Bureaucracy Office. Time to whip these guys into shape.

46 - Next I add a Bank and Town Hall, not enough workers so another Sleeping Tube too. It's fun just to see all the Authoritarian options there are for places to work.

49 - I get a message that there's a lot of crime in my city. I could either build a Police Station or a Neighborhood Watch. How about both.
52 - Woah, fire! I can't tell where though. I also don't have a fire department. I have no idea what to do.

53 - Finally I manage to build a fire station, but then the fire went out on it's own. I think it was arson.

54 - I start placing more police boxes, I have to lay down the law and take out these criminals before they sprout up.

56 - I head down to the street level to check things out up close. People are looking desperate and sad. This makes a leader like me happy.
57 - I build a Dungeon simply for the reason that it sounds awesome. I quickly initiate the Prisoner Acquisition action. Dungeons are pointless if they're not full, right?

58 - Right next door I place the new Propaganda Ministry. Send out the Ministry of Truth!

59 - People are less happy. Well, why should they enjoy life, they're here to work.

60 - As my hour ends, I watch my policemen and thought police beat down the disobedient citizens. Then I smile.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 7
Well, there's no story to SimCity games, so I decided to create my own when starting my own city. I was an authoritarian dictator in Small Town U.S.A. and the game encouraged me to play that. It was really great fun to check out all the insidious buildings I could lay down to execute my Master Plan. Plus zooming into street level to watch my brutal police officers take down thought crime criminals was very enjoyable. I won't weigh this category heavy, just thought I'd like to point out I have an imagination.
Graphics and Sound: 8
Okay, my computer sucks. The game actually froze my computer no less than three times in just one hour, something that hasn't happened in a while so who knows where the fault lies anymore. Anyways, this game looks nice, the art direction is really amazing, I could tell that just from the small taste of the game I got. As oppression closed around my town, I could zoom in close and see just how depressed my people looked. Oddly enough, the game didn't seem to run any worse than Sim City 4, which was a hog too on my computer and that game is almost five years old. My biggest complaint about the graphics is that I could not zoom out very far. My view area was extremely limited. I guess they want you to zoom in and visit your Sims but sometimes it's nice to just pan out. Sound was fine, didn't really notice anything special except I could hear my Sims brawling on the street and getting arrested, which was cool.
Gameplay: 5
Gameplay wise... the game starts to falter. I don't really want to knock Societies for trying something new, but I don't really think it pulls off what it is trying to do. It seems that this game is designed for city builders who know in advance exactly what kind of city they want to build and how it's laid out, instead of the old SimCity player where things really evolved along the way. I enjoyed building an authoritarian city, but the experience seemed way too structured, as in you build this house and then this city building and then this workplace, over and over. Anyways, you have to worry a lot more in this SimCity than just money, which can make things complex. Every time you place a building, you have to check to see if you have enough money, creativity points, authoritarian points, etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just not completely newbie friendly.
Fun Factor: 6
Tutorials are never that much fun, and it is debatable if they're even necessary in any game. I learned a lot from Societies' tutorial but I wish it had been integrated more in the city I wanted to create, instead of the city the game wanted to create. The tutorial took over half an hour, but after that I had a lot of fun. Honestly though, I don't know how the game will really keep its appeal for long periods of time, but that's for someone else to decide. I think I've made it pretty clear throughout my review that I had a great time being a dictator mayor, so there's not much else to say about this.
Minutes to Action: 1
Overall: 6
SimCity Societies is quite enjoyable, but it doesn't feel anything like the originals, where you could just dive into the game and be lost for hours at a time. The game moves at a slow, deliberate pace. Gone is the micro-management of city budgets and taxes, here is the micro-management of Sims and cultural movements. I really wish I had a better machine so I could take this game to the max and move the camera around and just make a giant Orwellian metropolis without slowdown or stuttering, as I think it could be quite a beautiful sight. This isn't the game's fault of course, but one hour of any simulation game doesn't really give it the justice it deserves. The first hour of SimCity Societies shows some promise, but it also reveals plenty of weaknesses in repetitiveness and too much structure for a Sim game. I was really hoping for a brilliant game, but what we get is just a mediocre city building experience with a new twist. This game is probably worth checking out for fans of the genre, but you'll still be returning to SimCity 2000 to get your real fix. Oh yeah, Spore couldn't come any sooner.

Game 19: Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters

Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is a fifteen year old DOS game that has overtime gained a large following due to a variety of reasons. One of them is that the game is good, well according to the numerous accolades it has received at least. The second reason is that the source code of the 3DO port was released under the GPL license, allowing anyone to dive into the game's innards. A group of dedicated fans have taken advantage of this, and have Windows, Mac, and Linux ports simply known as Ur-Quan Masters. This open source game has had stable releases and I am going to play the first hour of version 0.6.2 of Ur-Quan Masters.

Describing Star Control II is difficult, but basically you control a spaceship on a 2D representation of space and visit planets and fight off evil aliens. The game reminds me the most of Pirates, a swashbuckling adventure where you roam a 2D representation of the high seas and visit towns and fight off evil pirates. Anyways, let's see if my first hour review of Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters can get a good idea of what the rest of the game will be like.

With Mass Effect coming out in about a week, I think we might see some comparisons pop up between Star Control II and Mass Effect. It will be interesting if Bioware was inspired by Ur-Quan Masters at all.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select New Game and the hour long timer starts. Some information on the open source release flashes by, and then the game begins. It's the story of what happened years before the game (not sure if this is Star Control 1's story or if they're in separate universes), there was a war between the Alliance of Free Stars (obviously the good guys) and the "evil Ur-Quan" (obviously the bad guys).

01 - But instead of learning more about the war, we cut to a team of nerdy scientists who are on an ancient planet where the Precursors once lived. Because of the war and the Ur-Quan's dominance, they were cut off from the rest of mankind and left to their own.
02 - The surviving scientists have turned to colonizing the planet they were stranded on, and started building starships! The plan is for me to travel through hyperspace and return to Earth.

03 - Once I get there, if Earth is still fighting the Ur-Quan, I must help defend our home planet. A screen appears of what looks like our solar system.

04 - A ship is heading towards the center of our galaxy, Sol.
05 - Whoops! I was actually supposed to be controlling that starship, I figured this out as it cruised past Earth and seemed to be on a collision course with the sun! Time to head towards Earth I guess. Woah, space control is realistic, if you thrust in a certain direction, you will continue to head in that direction unless you provide counter-thrust against it. I've been intercepted by the Ur-Quan, I am trespassing in their space.

06 - The creepy alien tells me I am not allowed to approach Earth. I'm supposed to wait here for the Ur-Quan... yeah right.

07 - I decide to head towards our Moon. It appears on my main screen, just rotating. I find out I can scan it for some information. Actually I'm able to do a bunch of different scans: Mineral, Energy, and Biological.
08 - I tell my ship to land and I'm able to cruise around Luna's surface picking up basic minerals. There's some little robots cruising around by they don't seem to affect me.

09 - I have come across an alien base on the surface. It's abandoned, but I salvage what I can out of it.

10 - I pull up a detailed star map of the galaxy. Wow, there is a lot to explore! Literally hundreds of planets and solar systems. I am overwhelmed.
11 - Leaving the moon now I head towards an orbiting space station. When I arrive there I receive a transmission. They tell me they are of the slave planet Earth and ask me if I'm the resupply vessel for their starbase. I get a list of replies like a typical adventure game and tell them I'm not the resupply ship but I'm here to help.

13 - The station hasn't been resupplied in 8 years, and they need materials to sustain life support. Maybe the Ur-Quan aren't around anymore? There's important radioactive elements on Mercury. Guess that's my destination.

15 - I arrive at Mercury, time to find some radioactive materials with my Mineral scan. It's empty of Energy and Biological readings.
17 - I get some annoying beeps when hovering over materials... dang it, I think my cargo is full.

18 - I dump some stuff in my cargo menu and head back down. This time I'm able to pick up some Uranium. I have 32 pieces of it. Hopefully that's enough.

19 - I think some of my crew may have died on Mercury due to the extreme hot zones and earthquakes, I went in having 50 members, now I'm down to 43. Ouch.

20 - I'm back at the orbiting station and send them the radioactives. Power is back on right away. Oh by the way, there is voice acting when talking to this guy, not just text. This actor is decent enough that it seems realistic.
21 - He asks me who I am, and I tell him. He doesn't believe me though. I can see Earth behind him, it's blood red. Looks like the last 20 years have not been good.

22 - He tells me that it's actually a slave shield stopping anyone from going in and out, so maybe Earth is normal underneath it. As normal as life can be without satellites and having a red sky.

23 - If I can eliminate the alien base on the moon, he will help me fight the Ur-Quan... but I already found the base abandoned!

24 - A ship is incoming! Looks like the Ur-Quan are still around, and still ugly. He almost looks like Fu-Manchu.
26 - After babbling on a bit, looks like I have to pick a ship to fight with, I take the only large ship I have, The Vindicator.

27 - Ouch, no idea how to shoot! Okay, I was defeated very quickly, wtf. Guess I should have saved.

28 - Time to get back to where I was before, I should be able to do it a lot faster this time, if I can figure out how to skip dialogue.

31 - Okay, saving this time before I give them radioactive materials.
34 - Lost again. I suck at this or something.

35 - And again.

36 - YES! Finally, it only took like five shots... Seems like the orbiting ship wants to help me now, sweet. I'm down to 25 crew members though, they really need to stop standing next to exploding computer stations!

38 - I get to name our new alliance, and it will be The Empire of Zelnick! That's my name - in the game, not real life.
39 - Time to question the starbase commander on the area. Seems like they're also able to upgrade my ship with tons of different upgrades. Wow, seems complex.

43 - The commander is still talking to me, there's so much to learn. This is like a combination of so many genres into one game (but not as obvious as Spore).

45 - After an exhausting chat, I'm shown a new screen of the starbase with options to outfit my ship. Time to check that out.

46 - Advancing my ship seems complex too, there's tons of different modules I can enhance. The commander gave me a few suggestions such as thrusters and weaponry, so I'm going to try and figure out how to "purchase" those.
48 - Currency is measured in Resource Units, I start with about 2000. I spend 1500 of those on two thrusters and one turning jet. Expensive stuff.

50 - I'm able to buy additional Earthling Cruisers for 1100, not bad. But probably barebones with no modules.

52 - Back to actually controlling my ship now! I head to Lunia to scavenge for my first materials.

54 - My cargo bays sure are small, I fill up without even finishing off the moon.

55 - I approach Earth but I'm not able to scan it, too bad.

56 - My next stop is Venus, a very green planet in this game. A quick scan shows very few minerals and nothing else. Well, that sucked. I was on the planet for approximately three seconds before my lander blew up! Lightning struck it from all over and before I could even give the message to get out of there, I was a goner. 12 crew members and a 500 RU lander gone without warning. Hardcore.
58 - With only 533 RU available to me, I purchase another lander. This is gonna be tight.

59 - Mars should be safe, right?
60 - Well, I don't die immediately and I'm able to fill up on raw materials. I return to the starbase for the final time this hour and offload onto the commander. He tells me it's a small load. I have a feeling this game is in it for the long haul and the first hour is just scratching the surface of an incredibly deep game.

Now for some scores out of 10.

Story: 8
When I first started playing, the story reminded me of Battlestar Galactica a lot. I think it was how the scientists were stranded and needed to find Earth again. Well, it turns out they know exactly where Earth was so that didn't matter much. Either way, I've read quite a bit of science fiction and this story seems pretty original, at least to me. I like the idea of flying around the galaxy and potentially meeting new alien species and discovering new worlds, sounds very intriguing but I wonder if there is a solid story or if it'll just be mission after mission.
Graphics and Sound: 7
This is such a difficult category to rate. The game really doesn't look that great nowadays, even the art style isn't that unique or interesting. But, we have to keep in mind that the game is 15 years old so I would like to consider it as so. I think the best looking aspects of the game are the planets and the few aliens I saw. Each of them have a lot of potential to give the game a lot of variety and maybe add some humor. But what I saw was mostly mediocre, not to mention the graphics everywhere else. Everything is very simple but I have to admit it gets the job done. There's absolutely zero extra fluff. The HUD is laid out in a way that I was able to recognize all the important stuff instantly. The sound design is pretty simplistic but the voice acting was very good, especially the alien voices.
Gameplay: 7
Gameplay in Ur-Quan Masters can be a mixed bag. Menu navigation is easy enough and the simple graphics lend to that. The spaceship controls just like a real spaceship probably would - objects in motion stay in motion. This can be difficult to handle as I overshot planets a lot, undoubtedly wasting precious fuel in the process. So thus cruising around on the planets in my land rover is disorienting because it controls with zero momentum. And finally we come to the ship-to-ship battles, which feature an insane combination of always facing the wrong direction and slow turning. I never felt like I had enough fingers to do everything I needed to do, which is probably why I forgot to shoot those first couple of attempts.
Fun Factor: 8
Overall I had a lot of fun, the only time I didn't was during my short space battles. I really enjoyed the adventure elements and learning about what happened to Earth since the scientists had left. However, within the first hour, Star Control II exhibits a lot of complexity that you don't normally see so early on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but working on your ship is an intimidating process. Compare this game to something like Civilization 2, which by the end of the game can be quite complicated, but early on the challenge is limited to things on a much smaller scope. I am a littler worried that the later stages of Star Control II may get out of hand!
Minutes to Action: 5
Overall: 8
Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is one of the few games I have reviewed where I had zero prior experience with the game. This puts me directly in the position of someone else who may be interesting in checking out what this open-source game has to offer. I honestly found the game very enjoyable with tons of potential, if not a little rough around the edges. I understand the developers are trying to replicate the original experience on a number of platforms, but some additional things would be nice: mouse support, save hotkeys, and maybe some updated art to name a few. Either way, this is a classic DOS experience that is still greatly accessible today. I reviewed this game on the suggestion of a few people, so here's my thanks to them for recommending Star Control II. If you enjoyed this review, I would highly recommend you check out the totally free and legal download of Ur-Quan Masters at SourceForge, you won't regret it.

Game 18: Kirby Super Star

Kirby Super Star is kind of like the old-school equivalent of The Orange Box. You put down your $50 and you get a whole collection of great games. All of these games are basically running the same engine and feature the same graphics and generally the same gameplay, but yet are distinct and can individually be recognized and enjoyed. This is Kirby Super Star, easily the best Kirby game in its long and colorful career (well, until Canvas Curse came along).

Anyways, as you can see by the cover of the game, Kirby Super Star features eight games. Now two of these are just simple minigames but the other six are more or less Kirby games we all know and love but done in different styles. A few of these games could actually stand on their own too but as a collection it really feels like you're getting your money's worth (so much so I actually own two copies of this game, long story).

I'm not going to have time to play all eight games in one hour, but I'll try to get to as many as I can. So let's start the review.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I start a new game and I'm immediately offered a colorful menu with many options of games! There's Spring Breeze, Gourmet Race, Dyna Blade, The Great Cave Offensive, Megaton Punch, and Samurai Kirby. Milkyway Wishes and Revenge of the Meta Knight are also there but they're grayed out and unavailable at this time. I decide to go with Spring Breeze, the easiest one.
01 - This is the Kirby I know and love! Kirby can suck up enemies and steal their powers. This game feels very familiar to the original Kirby's on the Game Boy and NES.

02 - A new cool thing though! I can actually spawn a partner by pressing A when I have a power. I lose my power, but I get a new friend. How cute, and hopefully helpful.

04 - I just whooped on the original tree boss from the first game, but instead of chucking apples at his nose, me and my bomb friend roasted him quickly with our deadly array of weapons. Easy stuff!
05 - Stage 2: Float Islands. Don't know how long I'll play this game, seems to easy and too much like... plain old Kirby!

08 - Okay, this game is too easy. I'm going to try one of the other ones. Stage 2 only took me three minutes.

09 - Think I'll try the Gourmet Race. Seems simple enough.

10 - Gourmet Race is very basic, but it's fun. I'm just racing King Dedede along a track trying to grab food before him and reach the finish line. You can double tap to run...
11 - ...which makes racing pretty easy too. I'm beating the King handily, come on fat man! Now I have a sweet jet pack and I'm cruising around.

12 - Yeah, that was a beat down of epic proportions. 119 pieces of food to King Dedede's 54. Why is it always about food with these people? Especially candy, Kirby loves candy. My time was 2 minutes, 15 seconds for three races, so I guess I could improve on that greatly, but what's the point?

14 - Time for Dyna Blade! This is a three star difficulty so hopefully it poses a challenge. Dyna Blade seems to be a mini version of Super Mario World, where we have an overworld and can wander to different levels. Seems very linear though.
16 - This is very typical Kirby, no surprises. I did have some weird slowdown with only seven sprites on the screen though...

18 - Looks like I just finished the first level, and I get to shoot myself out of a cannon! Wow, I went seven whole meters. I suck. I was never very good at kicking off in Tecmo Super Bowl.

20 - You can share food with your helper in a very cute animation where it looks like Kirby ate the food and is spitting it in your helper's mouth, much like how a bird feeds its babies!
21 - Coconuts are falling off the ceiling trying to kill me! I should mention they're exploding coconuts. Very dangerous. How did we get coconuts in this temperate zone anyway?

23 - Yay, beat the second level! Turns out the cannon didn't shoot me seven meters, it was a countdown starting at seven! This time I made it to one and of course, got a 1UP!

24 - Whoops, just died, gotta be more careful. It was more carelessness on my part than the difficulty of the game.
26 - The music is all very typical Kirby, which I like. Man, it's so hard to explain the tunes if you've never played a Kirby game. Just imagine light and upbeat little ditties.

28 - Just maxed out my cannon shot for level three and got three 1UPs! Nice! Dyna Blade is pretty easy and I seem like I'm flying though it. I think I'll try and finish it off.

32 - Just sucked in a totally sweet power from a microphone bad guy! I was able to kill everyone on the screen with one push of a button, but I only had three uses. Each time I used it Kirby would take on another persona, the third time he was a punk rocker with green hair and yelled something like "gystahl!" I'm not sure how else to explain it but it was awesome!
35 - Finished off level four of Dyna Blade with a sequence of easy boss fights. Wish this game would throw something really tough at me, but it is a Kirby game. And it's time for the final level of Dyna Blade.

36 - Ominous music is playing and I get to choose which form I'd like to take, I choose Cutter, the one who throws swords.

37 - And Dyna Blade the giant bird has swooped in! It looks tough, and my lame helper is completely worthless as a Rock in this situation (he's literally a rock, just jumping up and falling down). Stupid A.I. I guess that's why Rock form wasn't an option before this boss fight...
38 - Ugh! I am killed! I'm choosing a better helper this time, we're both going in as the beamies (not to be confused with Beamy from Cheap Seats).

40 - Massive slowdown but also a massive beat down. Ouch. Dyna Blade dies and the world is saved. Well, actually it appears I killed the mom of three baby chicks, which Kirby then pushes towards the giant, angry tree. Kirby is a bastard. Well, now he's feeding them giant apples. I'm torn.

41 - Beating Dyna Blade has opened up Revenge of the Meta Knight. Which sounds awesome. But first I want to try Megaton Punch!

43 - Megaton Punch is a sweet minigame where you try to do little timing exercises so you can PUNCH THROUGH A STAR! This is the manliest thing Kirby has ever done!
44 - This is a short and sweet minigame but I up the difficulty and try it again. Fun stuff.

45 - Next up is Samurai Kirby, which is another timing minigame. But the point of this one is to press any button before your opponent, but only after it says to. So you concentrate really hard on the screen, and when you see "!" you press a button as fast as you can!

47 - I just got frying panned by Cook Kawasaki! Man, this is fun stuff but I don't think my timing is as good as it used to be. Well, I should probably get back to the main games...
50 - After three more minutes of Samurai Kirby, it's time for the Great Cave Offensive!

51 - The Great Cave Offensive is undoubtedly one of the coolest games in Kirby Super Star, as you play as a treasure hunter. Now I think treasure hunters are awesome and so this game takes the cake. There are 60 treasures to find in this world, and some of them are pretty challenging! My first treasure is a Gold Medal, worth 10,000G!

54 - After collecting three treasures I end up dying, and I start back at the beginning. Wow, this could be time consuming if I keep dying. I get to keep my treasures though.

57 - There's puzzles involved with getting some treasures, but it is worth it! I just collected a crystal ball worth 200,000G! Not that money means anything...
58 - Since treasure hunters always travel alone, I don't bring out my partner. Then I'd have to share the wealth!

60 - Well, my first hour is up and I finish the Great Cave Offensive with the first nine treasures in my back pocket! A gold medal, a gold coin, a whip, crystal ball, lucky cat, Seiryu Sword, the Screw Ball (from Metroid), echigo candy, and a zebra mask. Not a bad haul, too bad there's no time left! Oh yeah, 726,300G in booty!

Now for some scores out of 10.

Story: 2
Kirby games have never been known for much of a story (man, it feels like I make this excuse for a lot of games) and Super Star is no different. It seems the designers were going to for a pick up and play which works pretty good for a one hour review. I won't weigh this heavily in the end.
Graphics and Sound: 6
The game looks and sounds pretty good, but there's a few odd things. One, there was some noticeable slowdown with just a few sprites on the screen, some very out of place for an action/adventure game. Secondly, the HUD takes up about a quarter of the screen and really cuts down on screen real-estate. I know they're trying to make everything look pretty and space things out properly, but it really detracts from the experience when you lose so much of the screen to something you know could have been shrunk down to half its size. The sound and music are good, very Kirby like, doesn't really explore much in the way of new and interesting things but it does the job.
Gameplay: 8
Kirby Super Star offers a lot of variety within its first hour, it's almost more like a party game than a Kirby game with so many options available. Each of the games play well but none of them try anything really that new over the next one (Milky Way Wishes does, but hey, that's not in the first hour, is it?). Stealing powers and creating a helper is a great idea and really lends itself to the single player experience, but sometimes the A.I. is downright stupid.
Fun Factor: 7
I had a lot of fun playing, but there were some dull moments. An experienced player having to play through Spring Green will be ten minutes of slow torture, and Dyna Blade is not that much harder. I'm willing to bet that the experience really picks up after the first hour, but it's out of my jurisdiction to judge that. I also think I'd have even more fun if I was playing with a friend, something you can do in most of the games.
Minutes to Action: 1
Overall: 7
Kirby Super Star is quick to a wide variety of action, something that's perfect for my first hour review. The game has its faults though but it's easy to overlook them because it's a simple concept and it executes all the necessities just right. I think this is a good score for this game because there really is so much variety and a lot of up and down moments. The Great Cave Offensive was the highlight of my Super Star journey and should definitely be expanded into its own game. There's a great sense of depth within the Cave and treasure hunting is awesome. Nintendo is planning to re-release Kirby Super Star on the Nintendo DS sometime (right now titled Kirby Ultra Super Deluxe) and is supposed to offer even more minigames (awesome) and cutscenes (why?). So if you can't find Kirby Super Star anywhere for the Super Nintendo, definitely watch out for this release on the DS, should be awesome portable fun.

Art by Daniel Absolom - used with permission.