Game 41: Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden are NES and Xbox games with the exact same name. Ninja Gaiden for the NES came out in 1989 and Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox came out in 2004. I'm not sure why Tecmo and lead designer Itagaki didn't give the Xbox Ninja Gaiden game a subtitle, but it's too late to wonder, because there are officially two games under the name of Ninja Gaiden, just released 15 years apart. In first hour tradition, I will be only playing Ninja Gaiden for one hour, but because they are named exactly the same, I will first play half an hour of Ninja Gaiden for the NES, and then half an hour on the Xbox. This will complicate the review a bit, but I'll try to always make is clear what game I'm talking about.

This is an exciting time for the Ninja Gaiden series, as Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword was released last month for the DS and Ninja Gaiden II will be out in a few weeks for the Xbox 360. Remember, this is a new Ninja Gaiden II, not Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos which was released on the NES in 1990. Yeah, Tecmo does it again. I plan on playing Dragon Sword (not Dark Sword) someday as it sounds pretty cool, but this review is all about the first hour of the two Ninja Gaidens. So let's get right down to it. To start, the first thirty minutes of Ninja Gaiden for the NES.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - Begin Ninja Gaiden NES. I was about to press Start to begin the game, when a story cutscene began! Two ninjas are facing each other in a green field with a giant moon overhead. They begin running at each other with the game just showing their legs moving at high speed.
01 - They jump and meet in the air in front of the moon! Their swords clash and they both land on their feet. In classic movie fashion though, the ninja wearing pink then stumbles to the ground. Some text appears wondering why he fought and died, must be the main character, Ryu, speaking.

02 - A young man is on screen now, he looks young but he's got huge, muscular arms. He's reading a letter from his father. He tells Ryu to take the family's Dragon sword and go to America to meet an archaeologist named Walter Smith. "Ryu, be always brave..." "I will get my revenge!" Pretty epic!

03 - I press Start and the real gameplay of Ninja Gaiden begins. Act one. The game starts right off with Ryu in the streets. A is jump and B is sword slash.
04 - Enemies explode in one slash of my sword! There's some kind of ninja dog running around being annoying. Lame pup. Ryu can't double jump. Isn't it ninja law that all ninjas must learn how to double jump before anything else?

05 - There's an enemy above me and I have no idea how to get to him. Oh sweet I just jumped and attached myself to a street sign! Wow cool you can jump off of walls, this has to be one of the first games to ever allow that.

06 - I picked up some sort of power-up that when I jump I do a cool ninja swirl with my sword that protects myself.
07 - I have reached the first boss. I was fooling around so much in the first stage that my time almost ran out! It was actually really fun to hop around and jump off of buildings.

08 - Well, that guy really wasn't that hard. He was pretty tall though so I had to jump off the wall Chun-Li style to get over his head. He was really slow though so I just slashed him in the back a lot.

09 - A cutscene, our ninja thinks these thugs are following him. How could street bums be following a ninja?

10 - A "girl" appears behind him. She has a gun! She shot Ryu! And thus Act 2 begins.
11 - More cutscenes, Ryu is in jail now but the woman appears and gives him a statue and lets him escape. Odd. Ryu asks, "didn't you try to kill me?" Good question.

12 - I regain control and I'm now in some underground cave. Probably some evil overlord's lair.

13 - Ugh, the platforming is getting tougher now with small little areas to land on and anti-ninja bats flying all over. I fall in a pit. The level restarts.

14 - Man, there's like unlimited of these annoying ninja dogs. What the heck? I had to wall jump up a ladder to get to the next area above me, but then I wall jumped off and fell to where I should have been before and died. Lame!
15 - OH. You can climb the ladder like a normal video game character. Nice. The game was kind enough to let me off where I died just now.

16 - Sweet, you can throw shurikens by pressing up and B at the same time after you collect some.

17 - Oh no I died again! Game Over! Back to the beginning of Stage 2. Dang, a ninja dog just knocked me into a pit.

18 - Ryu just attached himself to a wall that I had no choice but to jump into the abyss. Game Over again.
19 - You can pick up a flaming shuriken that makes enemies explode. That's pretty cool.

20 - Woah, I finally made it outside the cave lair. Backgrounds look pretty good honestly. What the heck... there's like ghosts and dragonflies out here trying to kill me. Well, the dragonflies are for collecting stuff but there's bad men with machine guns!

21 - I made it to the end of the level and it looked like there was no where to go, so I went the only place I thought I could. Down. Died.
22 - Oh, you're supposed to climb a ladder down, not just jump. I got a sweet power-up though that put a ring of fire around me, so I was jumping from small pillar to small pillar killing guys instantly. But the invincibility ran out the moment I hit a guy with a sword and he knocked me into a pit, killing me.

24 - Game over but the game started me outside again, not bad. I got my vengeance on the sword wielding edge hogger with my awesome ring of fire.

27 - Man, this is such a hardcore platformer. There's this small little pillar I have to jump to and a guy is standing on it! Get off!

28 - Well, I finally got past him and got killed by the next guy. What's the point of 15 life points when you always die from falling off?
29 - This game wouldn't be nearly as hard if you didn't always jump fall back three feet after being hit.

30 - Begin Ninja Gaiden Xbox. Okay, that's enough of the original Ninja Gaiden! I admit, I suck at it! Now onto the new Xbox version! I select New Game and the game starts telling me about the "evil Dark Dragon Blade" and a really ugly full of jaggies sword appears. What the... this is nasty looking. The guy keeps talking to me in Japanese as I try to keep up with the subtitles. Whoever uses the sword will become evil.

31 - Oh, now the Dragon Sword appears, as opposed to the Dragon Blade I guess? This sword too is also made up of graphical jaggies. The Dragon Sword is owned by the Hayabusa family. A ninja appears in the background, it's Ryu!
32 - A wall of text appears, it is the Book of Fiends. This serves as the loading screen but the reading is pretty boring. Ancient tribes have struggled for thousands of generations. You know how long thousands of generations is? That's like a minimum of 20,000 years. That's a really long time. Still loading.

33 - More text appears, wait, it's the same stuff from before. Oh, the loading is finally done. Chapter 1 - The Way of the Ninja. Ryu jumps from the top of a waterfall and slices a brown-clad ninja in half. Sweet.

34 - Some woman is looking down on my from the cliffs, and then I get control. The gameplay is really smooth, feels like Assassin's Creed. Woah, the right thumbstick does not control the camera, just zooms me into Ryu's view. That's going to be annoying.
35 - Something got thrown against the cliff wall... it's a in-game hint! Must be from that girl ninja. The hint is about climbing walls, seems to work just like Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia.

36 - Ryu doesn't open chests with his hands, he kicks them open with his big, black boot. I receive an Elixir of Spiritual Life. Some vines are blocking my apparent path but Ryu's ultra-sharp katana can't cut them down. Lame.

37 - Not sure where to go...

38 - I find a locked door, no dice though.
39 - Oh, I have to climb a fallen tree that's laying over the vines I mentioned before.

40 - My first kills! I kick one brown ninja off the cliff and impale another with my dragon sword. Game is kind of bloody, but the blood doesn't stick around.

41 - I wall jump into a cave and then more brown ninjas appear. I kill them easily.

42 - I have just wall jumped into a building complex. It is the Ninja Fortress! Oh neat, I can throw shurikens, just like in the original.
43 - I get a map of the fortress and check it out, seems confusing. Don't think I'll bother with this much. Why is it angled? That's just annoying.

45 - I just fought about ten brown ninjas in a small, locked room. Is there a block button in this game?

46 - Apparently block is the L button. I discover a suit of samurai armor in a corner, but it is missing its mask. I probably need to find that.

47 - A ton more browns appear, when a ninja dies, its soul is transformed into a small yellow ball. What a ripoff of Onimusha!
49 - Ooh, white ninjas! These guys jump around like little hamsters. I wall jump myself and finish them off with a well timed slice of my blade. I think my biggest enemy is the camera though, this thing is obnoxious.

50 - Whoops, just fell into a trapdoor. I'm now underground and the anti-ninja bats are back (see minute 13). Some things never change.

51 - I find the Fangs of the Samurai in a chest down there and start to look for a way out, guess I was supposed to fall down here. Just noticed that Ryu does this sweet little flip when he throws shurikens while running.

53 - I'm out of the caves now and back to the Ninja Fortress.
54 - Just racked up a 17 hit combo on some bad ninjas and it restored my health. Nice. You can also jump on the heads of ninjas and it sort of leaves this shadow behind, pretty cool animation. Oh, a save point. Must be a boss up ahead...

56 - I insert the Fangs of the Samurai into the armor and get the Key of Courage. This room I have to keep running through spews new white ninjas every time. Get out of my way, I'm running out of time!

57 - Ryu reaches the Inner Sanctum and I get a hint on how to roll from my purple-clad female friend. I use the Key of Courage on the door.

58 - Oh snaps I just decapitated a white ninja! Awesome! Then another! You can hold Y to charge up a super attack that triggers a hands-off super combo.
59 - A man with long gray hair is sitting on the floor of a large room, he's wielding nunchucks. He stands up and shows off his nunchuck skills by twirling them all over, I'm not impressed. We begin to fight.

60 - Okay, this guy is a bastard. I have to use all of my healing potions to beat him but I eventually do by jumping off the walls onto his head. He was blocking everything else and breaking my block with his nasty combos. After the fight, we bow and then sit down on the floor and chill out! All that work for some tea! A moment later though my ninja friend runs in, it is Ayane from Dead or Alive! Ryu's village is on fire! Too bad the hour is up for Ninja Gaiden.

Time for some scores out of 10.
Story: NES - 7 and Xbox - 3
Definitely more story than I was expecting from a half hour of an old NES game! Ninja Gaiden (NES) sets up as a revenge story that really reminds me of Shenmue. Except Ryu Hayabusa became a ninja and Ryo Hazuki just asks for sailors. Becoming a ninja is awesome. Let's take a quick look at the opening scene with the ninjas in the grassy field. This was directed incredibly well for what is basically a 20 year old game. Nice backdrop with the moon and impressive close ups of our two opposing ninjas.

And definitely less story than I was expecting from a half hour of a modern Xbox game! The game starts off with a bunch of cryptic descriptions on Dragon Blades and Dragon Swords and then tosses a giant wall of text at me about Ancient Tribes. None of it seems to fit together. After that, there's not a drop of story until the very end of the half hour when Ayane runs in and announces the village I've never seen is on fire (what, is this an RPG?).

Graphics and Sound: NES - 6 and Xbox - 9
After the impressive opening cutscene, Ninja Gaiden on the NES quickly reminded me I was playing an 8-bit game. The graphics were sharp but the colors just seemed washed out. It looked great at the time but I can't hold it up against its peers infinitely. I believe the most impressive thing about the game's graphics were the backgrounds. They were well detailed and propped the game up a bit graphically. Ninja Gaiden's sound was pretty basic and there wasn't much outside the music.

The Xbox Ninja Gaiden looks really awesome, the graphics are gorgeous and the framerate is nice and slick. Definitely no major complaints, but that obviously means I have a minor one. I feel like the game is almost too sharp, I think it could have used some filters to soften some things up. Oh, and the blood and bad guys shouldn't disappear so fast! I want to see the marvels of my awesome swordplay!

Gameplay: NES - 6 and Xbox - 8
Ninja Gaiden (NES) has precise, but difficult gameplay. This is a tough platformer and I was really surprised that after I got Game Overs, I was restarted pretty close to where I had lost my final life. This is a great bonus as it encouraged me to keep trying without getting too frustrated. Many games these days aren't as kind! The controls are obviously simple on the NES, but we get the nice little bonus of throwing shurikens. If only you could throw them at an angle.

Well, you can throw shurikens at an angle in Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox, and it's pretty cool too! Actually, the fighting is pretty great in the 3D action-adventure game, the hardest part is dealing with the camera. It just never did what I wanted it to do and I had a hard time keeping track of more than one or two enemies. Either way, cameras are never an easy thing to develop properly, especially when you have such a fast-paced game. Leaping around is very smooth and decapitating ninjas never grows old.

Fun Factor: NES - 7 and Xbox - 8
Though Ninja Gaiden for the NES is tough, it was actually pretty fun. The story was actually decently interesting even if it was pretty derivative. I really thought I was going to get owned left or right while playing but the first half hour must be tame compared to the rest of the game. The game had a few headache inducing moments but hard games can really be fun if they're still rewarding and not totally unfair.

The Xbox Ninja Gaiden is not as frustrating as the NES game, but it is still really challenging. I suppose in this game you get health potions instead of nicely placed checkpoints, but you get ganged up quite quickly and must fend off multiple enemies. This is totally different than a platformer and you must have your finger ready on the block button if you want to be successful. The boss just seemed unfair though, he was whooping on me and my health bar like there was no tomorrow, and I only beat him because I was being cheap. I feel dirty.

Minutes to Action: NES - 3 and Xbox - 5

Overall: NES - 7 and Xbox - 8
Yes, I am awarding nearly identical scores to the first half hour of both Ninja Gaiden games. Some of you may be thinking, how could you possibly award a 15 year old game only one point less than its modern day counterpart? Well, that's a good question and I will answer it: the games were obviously released in totally different video game eras. And they're each good, above average games when compared against their peers. Remember, this is just the first half hour of each game, which is even less than what I normally play! Both games are fun though, but surprisingly the NES version has a better story! The Xbox Ninja Gaiden just throws a block of text at you that really doesn't seem applicable to what I was then playing. Though it does seem kind of weird that the NES game's story hinges on finding some random American. Graphically, the Xbox version is near the top of its game. Both games get good scores, and I would recommend trying them both out! If only to get owned in both 2D and 3D.

Ninja Gaiden galore! I think that's enough of Ryu Hayabusa for a while. And ninjas, geez, I just realized I did Pocky & Rocky last week which featured a female ninja.

Wow.

Game 35: Homeworld

Homeworld is a 3D real-time strategy game released in 1999 on the PC, Mac, and Linux. It managed to garner a few Game of the Year awards in a pretty tough year of gaming which included Unreal Tournament, Alpha Centauri, Final Fantasy VIII, and the release of the Dreamcast, which of course means Soul Calibur. It wasn't an extremely strong year for the console world, so PC games did very well and Homeworld arrived at just the right time. The game is renowned for its engrossing storyline and cinematic graphical style. Not to mention a great implementation of real-time strategy in 3D space.

I usually take screenshots with Fraps for PC games but for whatever reason it didn't work for Homeworld. ZScreen to the rescue! This is my first time using the open source program and honestly it did a great job grabbing screens of this beautiful space game. Took me a while to find a working solution but ZScreen did the job just fine and worked for me immediately. Now let's get to the first hour review of Homeworld.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - Being entirely new to the 3D real-time strategy, I decide to try out the training first, and thus the first hour of Homeworld begins. A computerized female voice starts talking and introduces me to the controls. I'm looking at a funny looking orange spaceship. The right mouse button moves the camera. I swing it around for a bit.
01 - The game looks good but now that I know how to zoom in, Homeworld shows off an ugly side of blocky textures and polygons. Ah well. This ain't Sins of a Solar Empire.

02 - First up is building ships. Moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen reveals a hidden popup menu with some buttons to check out.

03 - Resources are measured in RU. Resource units I guess. Makes more sense than Gold.
05 - Following the game's instructions I build a resource ship, a research ship, and ten scouts. As I leave the build screen I can see my first scouts heading out from the mothership.

07 - The game has me zooming in and out on my various ships. Dragging multiple units in 3D is currently as easy as doing it in 2D. But of course, nothing hectic has happened yet.

08 - I instruct my resource collector to go Harvest, and the ship heads off with the camera following it to a nearby asteroid. Things are nice and smooth.
10 - I learn how to research next by using my research ship. This is all pretty typical RTS stuff, just done in space, and with spaceships.

12 - Movement is another story though. Now that I have three planes of space to work with, I have to use the Shift key to direct my ships along the vertical axis. It seems relatively intuitive though.

14 - Next up I bring up the Sensor Manager with the spacebar. The Sensor Manager is essentially a super zoomed out view of my current area. I can see my ships, and a red blinking dot signifying the enemy. Brown dots are harvesting points for resources.
17 - Wow, this is pretty cool stuff. I learn how to put my scouts into different formations. Watching them zoom around in 3D and real-time is pretty awesome. I send my scouts off to the enemy using the Sensor Manager. I bring the camera behind their Claw Formation.

20 - Nice, my first combat experience! My ships approach the stationary enemy and with a few clicks, start bombarding them with their little missiles!

22 - I give my scouts the order to dock back at the mothership, but the computer says that if I stick around, I might get some more combat. Why not?
29 - Well, seven minutes later and I'm still fighting my first battle! I don't know if this goes on forever so I think I'll get into the main game. Honestly, this has been pretty tough. It's hard to keep all the scouts grouped together and they don't make for very good fighters. The frigate I built was tough though and was able to take and deal a lot of damage. It is hard to keep everything on screen though when you have so much control.

30 - Now that training is done, I select Single Player and the game begins. Immediately it asks me to pick my fleet, either Kushan or Taiidan. I have no idea what these mean but both of them sound Japanese. Anyways, I select the default Kushan. I can customize the colors of the ships but that's a lot of work and not something I have time for. Clicking Start! sends me to a loading screen, and then the opening cutscene.

31 - Sweet, I really like this art style. It's almost exactly like Hotel Dusk, a point and click adventure for the Nintendo DS. All the objects are hand drawn with pencils and the animations aren't smooth but that's the point and they just look great. Almost like I'm looking over the artist's shoulder as he sketches out the scenes for the first time.
32 - A man's voice is describing the current situation. Humans have discovered an ancient starship on a nearby planet and on the ship was a galactic map etched on a stone. The map points the clans across the inner rim to another planet, which the broken clans can only determine to be their origin, home, Hiigara.

33 - The voice continues saying the battling clans have united together and found a common goal of returning to their home planet. They begin engineering a space fleet and their greatest mind directly into the ships. Man, I love this art style, it's really detailed, a lot more detailed than Hotel Dusk which I mentioned.

34 - The fleet leaves their current home planet and we switch graphical styles to Homeworld's in-game engine and we get a great look at a what must be its mothership. It's a tall command ship and there are a few other smaller ships buzzing around it. A computerized female voice starts reporting diagnostics.
35 - This scene is directed beautifully. We follow a small ship swing around the mothership and dock. There are closeups of the thrusters and antennas, great stuff. This is one of those games though that could really use some bump and normal mapping to make the textures jump out a bit more. Everything looks a bit polygonal and flat.

36 - A small group of ships breaks away from the mothership and starts leading the way. The game seamlessly switches to give me control.

37 - Already this is quite different than training. The game gives me some objectives but obviously no tips. I begin building a research ship, begin harvesting, and need to take out some drones.
39 - I'm told to begin researching a fighter chassis so I give my research ship the instructions. The game keeps going widescreen to give me objectives and show me things. It's a cool, cinematic effect that typically works on me. The voiceovers are a little monotone but that's the military for you.

41 - Next up I give the order for my scouts to use aggressive tactics and take out some more drones.

42 - My next objective is to build a Salvage Corvette and capture a drone. Interesting.
43 - Fighter chassis research is done so now I can build Interceptors.

45 - Ha, cool! The salvage corvette I just built just cruises up to some space junk and magnetically grabs it.

47 - The camera follows the corvette dragging the junk back to the mothership, and then the game tells me it is ready to go into hyperspace! I can launch whenever I'm ready... but I don't know how to go!
49 - I instruct all my ships to dock with the mothership, maybe they all have to be in the house before we pack up and move?

50 - Oh, I was right, you do have to dock all your ships but you also have to enter the Session Manager and click the Hyperspace button. Obvious. The ships begin auto-docking.

51 - WOAH! Hyperspace is cool! Instead of zooming ahead a 2D blue plane begins crossing across the ships slicing them in half almost. They've jumped!
52 - A short, hand drawn cutscene telling me that my mothership has jumped to meet with Khar-Selim, another ship that has been going at normal, sub-light speeds for the last 10 years! This all seems very Ender's Game like. All we need is an ansible.

53 - All my ships undock and I get a message that the Quantum Wave Effect has dissipated! Phew! Not all good news though, we have mis-jumped and have to locate the Khar-Selim.

55 - I send a scout to the location of the beacon. Hopefully we get lucky.
56 - Oh snaps! A cutscene begins as we approach the beacon. The camera pans over what's left of the Khar-Selim. Not good.

57 - Also not good is a fleet of ships heading towards the mothership! The female computer (the super plugged-in engineer mind) seems surprised that they're attacking! I get control right back. Time to fight back!

59 - The enemy fighters are going down pretty easily, but they also have some larger ships that are attacking my mothership and salvage corvette. I try to concentrate on one ship at a time though.
60 - Nice! My seven fighters were able to take out the attacking force while suffering four casualties. But who were these guys? I guess I'll never know since the first hour of Homeworld is up.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 6
Well, I am kind of into the background of Homeworld, but there just seems to be things missing. The story begins with a civilization finding out where their origins lie, so they build a fleet to cross the galaxy and return home. But what's the motivation behind doing this? Was it an excuse to stop the clans from fighting and unite together? Is there an important reason to find home besides just going there? Think Battlestar Galactica where the surviving fleet has to find Earth, but they're being chased and hunted by the Cylons. I can see why they would want to find their Eden but I think they could have used a little more motivation. Plus when I get attacked during the second mission, I have no idea why it's happening. I'm sure I eventually find out, but that's the problem of only playing the first hour.

Graphics and Sound: 9
There have been quite a few technological leaps since Homeworld was released, probably the most notable is bump mapping, something that would have really enhanced the look of the textures on the ships. Without it, the ships appear very flat and fake. But of course, this wasn't readily available at the time on home PCs and the game still looks really good. It helps when you don't have to render detailed environments and can instead focus on the spaceships, and Homeworld takes huge advantage of this. The ships are textured well and you can zoom in really close, something Sins of a Solar Empire, a recently released 3D space real-time strategy, heavily advertised.

The sound that I heard from Homeworld was a little weaker than I expected. The voice acting felt flat but the writing behind it was good. There was some decent chatter between ships that helped clue me in on things. The music had a great ambient sound to it that didn't try to stand out and the sound effects went against all rules of space. But I prefer lasers making sound and small sounding explosions as opposed to nothing. It can really enhance the gameplay.

Gameplay: 8
Well, the training in Homeworld was totally necessary and I'm very glad I did it. The controls are kind of complex as you have keyboard commands, right click menus, and the bottom pop-up menu. Plus you need to have good command over the control, shift, and alt combos. It's the game's biggest hurdle but nothing experienced PC gamers will have problems with. The 3D space adds a new dimension (pun) to real-time strategy games and I think it works well. It's a little tough to manage all your ships at once and I wish there was a way to highlight them better against the blackness of space. It almost seems like things would work better by turning off all the background stars so you can just focus on the battle, but that would take away from the game's graphical appeal. Anyways, this game definitely has a long learning curve and the first hour of Homeworld does a great job starting you off on it.

Fun Factor: 8
Best part of playing Homeworld was watching your ships fly around in formation and attack other ships. It's truly an excellent cinematic experience that you have total control over. The game's pacing is really good which is impressive for a space-based game. The universe is large but it doesn't take too long to get from point A to point B. Once I got to the main game and was being assigned objectives I was really having some fun. There seems to be a great story driving the levels, I just wish I had more time to experience it. But the training is pretty much necessary for new players to the game so there's only about half an hour to get into it.

Minutes to Action: 20

Overall: 8
Don't take the 20 minutes to action too out of context, that was my first combat experience in the game but there was still plenty of things going on before that. Anyways, Homeworld's first hour is really good. I was impressed by its graphical engine and its flexible camera that simply works out of the box. I wish the story had gone a little deeper in the first hour, but the groundwork is there for a good one. As far as the gameplay goes, there's a tough learning curve but I believe there are great rewards hiding within that too. Homeworld is a great evolution from a game like Star Control II, though this game is much more story-driven. I love space operas, and I've added this one to my long list of games to play.

Art by Colin Clark - used with permission.

Game 34: The Haunting Starring Polterguy

The Haunting Starring Polterguy is a 1993 Sega Genesis game all about scaring a rich family out of their snazzy home any way possible. This is a pretty obscure game and the only way I know anything about it is from my deep past where I used to read any video game magazine I could get my hands on. One of them was Game Players, and in one of those issues lies a review for The Haunting. I have no idea what score it got but it stuck in my mind as "this game sounds cool and someday I would like to play it." Well, that someday has finally arrived 15 years later, and it's pretty much as cool as I vaguely remembered wanting it to be.

I really don't know anything else about this game, except that it is probably the goriest 16-bit game I have ever played. There are severed heads, tons of blood, and lots of other crazy stuff that kept surprising me. Just check out the screenshots below and you'll see what I'm talking about. On that note, let's get right into the review.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I press the Start button and the first hour begins. A cutscene begins showing off a family moving into their "snazzy new home." Whoever is narrating (text at top) has a surprise for them!
01 - Now we're looking inside their house from a Sims-style isometric view. The wall of the house if cutout to show the inside. Polterguy introduces himself as the "green dude hangin' on the left." The woman in the room with me is Flo Sardini. I guess she can't she the green zombie guy in the room.

02 - Haha, Polterguy looks like he's on rollerskates the way he's moving his legs while just standing there, and he just did a few laps around Flo to boot. Polterguy moves around the room and shows me "fright 'ems" which he uses the scare the family. Fright 'ems show up as glowing orbs on nearly every object he approaches. For the record, this is still the intro, I'm not controlling anything.

04 - Pressing the A button makes Polterguy dive into a fright 'em and A again has him jump out, this triggers the object. Haha, the demo has him jumping in and out of objects making them quiver, Flo walks over and gets scared as they transform into something crazy!
05 - These character animations are really good, well detailed and they seem quite varied. Flo runs out of the room screaming and some green goop appears on the floor. Polterguy has to collect that for whatever reason.

06 - Now it's a scene of the Sardini family eating, the kids are throwing food at each other. Awesome! The chandelier just fell from the ceiling freaking everyone out!

07 - I now have control over Polterguy, sweet. I'm in the family room and my first target is the father. I jump in and out of the dartboard. As he approaches it, the board turns into a blood dripping eyeball! Nasty! Next the armchair starts licking him. Vito Sardini's fear level begins to rise.
09 - Wow, this game is pretty creative. I turn Polterguy into a small rocking chair and start chasing Vito around the room! His fear level is so high he just runs right out of there!

10 - There's a green bar that is continually depleted, I guess I have to scare the family and collect the ecto goo balls to keep it up. The ecto is only released after the family member runs from the room. Pressing the Start button brings up a map of the house and shows where the family members are.

12 - Next up I find the son, Tony and begin freaking him out. He has a Ninja poster on his wall and that's my first object of manipulation. Oh man, this kid screams like a little girl! He also has quite a few things to take over in this room such as a model plane and a skull in his drawer. They certainly freak him out good. Though the plane crashed and I think Polterguy lost a bit of health.
14 - Tony runs out of his bedroom in horror and I collect the ecto. On the map it looks like I'll be harassing the daughter, Mimi next.

15 - Well, after a minute of torturing her with oversized ballerina dolls and moving teddy bears, Polterguy's health runs out and I'm in a brand new place. It's somewhere underground, poltergeist hell maybe? Guess it is called the Dungeon. Anyways, I have to collect ecto drops to continue. They're just dripping from the ceiling.

17 - Geez, I have to collect every drop in linear order or else an arrow will tell me to go back, and there are a lot of drops and a lot of things that want to kill me down here. Hairy arms trying to grab me from the walls, bursts of steam from the ground, and bats that escape from coffins. Nothing too horrifying, not like in the house...
19 - After collecting all the drops, Polterguy starts breakdancing. Hilarious. I'm back in Mimi's room now with a full health bar. Well, she just ran out. I'm not really sure what my end goal is? To scare everyone in the house at the same time? Not really sure. Time for some Flo action.

20 - I find the mom in the kitchen, should have some fun in here... Well, I just chased her out of there in record time. Polterguy jumped in the freezer and for whatever reason turned into a black cat and chased her from the room. I follow her into the lounge.

22 - Woah! Mama Flo got so scared her dress fell down revealing her 16-bit black panties. That was a frightening moment for me! There seem to be three colors of orbs that designate different types of objects. Blue orbs attract the person over and scare them when they approach, orange orbs don't attract the person so you have to time it when they're nearby, and green orbs are flying objects that you can chase them around the room with.
24 - Flo ran out and checking the map, Vito looks seriously not scared right now, time for some more action with him.

25 - Just scared Vito with some orange orb swamp monster, good timing by the Polterguy! Vito runs out of the room in supreme horror. Tony is nearby and looking calm...

27 - After frightening Tony kind of lamely, he runs out of the front door and has disappeared from the map! Is he really gone?
28 - I scare Mimi in the living room and have barely half of my life left. I think I'll keep chasing Mimi and maybe end up banishing her from the house?

31 - Awesome, after chasing Mimi around through a bunch of rooms, I have kicked her out of the house! But now I'm getting chased by a floating green head, and it hurts me when it touches me (that didn't sound that good...).

32 - Mama Flor was back in the lounge and it was time to banish her for good! A few timely orange orbs has me sending her out the back door in a jiffy. Only Vito is left, but my green ecto bar is nearly out.
34 - Vito is in the kitchen and there was a pretty gruesome scene where I inhabited a chopping block and a severed head appeared dripping with blood! This caused Vito to literally jump out of his clothing.

35 - Oh man, I think I scared Vito enough to get him out of the room, but I ran out of life and am back in the dungeon. Now I'm getting a bunch of skulls chucked at me! But a moment later I'm break dancing with the best of them.

37 - Back in action with full life and Vito the only one left in the house. Crap, the loser just ran back into the kitchen where he was before. I also forgot to grab the ecto balls in the room I scared him in, whoops.
39 - Ah, there goes Vito out the back door and Polterguy does one last break dance for the heck of it. Polterguy taunts the family as they run out saying "I'm right behind your sorry butts!"

40 - Some rock riffs start playing and we see some art of Polterguy proclaiming his victory over those slimeballs. Haha, he just said that they dissed him. That's classic.

41 - Nice, another cutscene plays showing the family moving into their new home! Awesome! But I'm back in the underground world to collect ecto, not so awesome.
43 - The Dungeon is a lot harder this time, I get beat up quite a bit, but I don't die. Never! Well, now that that's over with, looks like I'm in the Sardini's brand new house now. The layout looks different but it's still all the same concept. Ah, Mimi is in the same room as me! Haha! She just wet herself!

45 - What the... looks like a dog just walked through the room. Dogs usually detect ghosts, don't they? Well, he made it through harmlessly.

47 - I'm going to continue hounding Mimi, her snide looks annoy me. I create a Grim Reaper apparition in the doorway, that freaks her out to the max, but then the dog wanders in and her fear goes back down to high. Stupid mutt. Okay, she keeps running between the same rooms, so I'm going to target Vito now.
49 - Well, this game is getting kind of monotonous now. Scaring people over and over is interesting, but the animations are certainly repeating themselves. Though Vito did just lose his pants, good stuff.

50 - Speaking of monotony, I just lost all of my ecto bar and I'm back in the Dungeon.

52 - Geez, I have basically no health left down here. If I end up down here again I'm going to die for sure.

53 - That green head and the dog are chasing me now. But I'm chasing Vito... Ooh, he's in the bathroom now, I've never scared anyone in here.
55 - Now Vito is just running between the same rooms over and over. Lame.

57 - Tony gets so frightened he does the classic Exorcist head spin and careens out of his bedroom. Tony has left the building!

59 - Oh crap, my health bar is gone and I'm sent down under...

60 - It doesn't take long for me to lose what's left of my life. Polterguy wonders why the dungeon was trying to kill me when he was just trying to get some ecto, but that's that and the credits start to roll. The Haunting's first hour is complete. My high score was 32,271.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 2
Okay, what bothers me about The Haunting is that we have Polterguy, a poltergeist who is for whatever reason ticked off at this family and wants to cause them as much trouble as possible. The Sardini family may be rich but there doesn't appear to be any motive behind Polterguy's antics. Once again, maybe this is the case of the mysterious instruction manual story similar to Turok, but maybe a short flashback showing the family somehow causing the death of Polterguy would have helped. Also, what is the Dungeon and why does Polterguy get sent there? And what are these floating green heads doing chasing me? Man, there sure are a lot of questions!

Graphics and Sound: 8
I saw a few screenshots for this game and wasn't really impressed, but I was super impressed by this game after seeing it in action. The isometric view works perfectly for the gameplay and the sprite animations were simply great. There are only five characters but there is a lot of variety in terms of movement, reactions, and responses. All the objects morph smoothly into their evil counterpart and I was constantly smiling at all the surprises this game had for me. There is so much original content in The Haunting, great stuff. As for the sound, none of the music stood out but the sound effects were pretty good. The family's screams were quite memorable and the objects sounded real. I feel like the game could have used some voice acting though, plenty of Super Nintendo games did at the time but I'm not familiar enough with Genesis games to know if it was really possible for them.

Gameplay: 7
What The Haunting has going for it is some great original gameplay that I've really never seen anywhere else. Jumping into objects to make them come alive and scare people is simply awesome. I'm trying to think of games that have ever even come close to what The Haunting does and the only one that comes to mind is Mister Mosquito, a game where you play as a mosquito terrorizing a family in their house by sucking their blood. Anyways, like I mentioned near the beginning, Polterguy controls like he's on rollerskates and that just doesn't feel right. Picking up ecto goo is inconsistent and the whole Dungeon sequence just plain sucks. It totally removes you from the real fun and I'm not sure what the point of that was.

Fun Factor: 8
The Haunting is simply a fun game for the one hour I played it, though I honestly don't think the fun would last much longer. This is a problem for these arcadey games, the first hour is typically pretty fun but sessions that last longer than that can grow to be really repetitive. I was starting to feel that repetitiveness kick in at around the 50 minute mark and was ready for the hour to end. But what I played was original and very fun. There are a ton of objects to mess around with in the game and the family's reactions are classic. Great stuff.

Minutes to Action: 7

Overall: 8
This game really surprised me, I was thinking going in that this would be another bomb like the last few weeks, but The Haunting's first hour gave me a solid game. There's a short tutorial at the beginning that pretty much told me everything I needed to know, though an explanation on the orb colors would have been helpful. The Dungeon sequence was pretty bad and seemingly unnecessary, and pretty much the only blemish on this game. This is a unique and quirky experience that I would recommend checking out, even if it's just for an hour.

Polterguy is green but his nose is quite Caucasian.

Game 29: Tecmo Super Bowl

Tecmo Super Bowl is a classic football game for the NES. With the real Super Bowl airing tomorrow night, I've decided to post my first hour review of Tecmo Super Bowl a few days early. This won't be a typical review though, as I've played the game to death, I'm going to perform some Super Bowl predictions with the 17 year old game and pit the New England Patriots against the New York Giants. This is tomorrow's Super Bowl matchup but obviously these teams are very different than what they were when this game came out, so don't place any bets off the outcome!

Post-game results: Tecmo Super Bowl predicted the winner! Not even Madden picked them right!

A little about the game before we get started, Tecmo Super Bowl was the sequel to... Tecmo Bowl, and though that game was very good, Super builds and improves on the original in nearly every way. We now have 30 man rosters instead of 20 and Tecmo Super Bowl also featured 11 men on each side of the ball for every play, where Tecmo Bowl only had 9. It also was one of the first games to use real players and real teams, quite the feat back then as they were breaking new ground (actually, quite the feat now too since EA has a crappy monopoly on the NFL and the NFLPA). Anyways, Tecmo Super Bowl is a great game and I have some wonderful childhood memories of it.

Doing a little research, I've found something interesting: there are only a few players in the game that are still active (five to be exact), and two of them are playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday! Junior Seau played for the San Diego Chargers in Tecmo Super Bowl and now plays for the New England Patriots; and Jeff Feagles played for the Philadelphia Eagles and now is the punter for the New York Football Giants! That's pretty amazing the longevity these guys have (and the great timing of their careers).

Let's get to the game now, here's the first hour of Tecmo Super Bowl and a pre-enactment of Super Bowl XLII. By the way, I am well aware I can download updated ROMs with current rosters but I'm trying to review the original game just like it was meant to be played. In my commentary though I'll replace the old timers with their current counterparts, just to make things... interesting.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I hit start and the hour begins. I guess I have to go Preseason to get the matchup I want... I'll play as the Giants against the computer playing as the Patriots.
01 - Ha, I win the toss! I'll take the ball! I manage to return the opening kickoff to about my 40 yard line. Time to show the Patriots who owns Arizona!

02 - Whoops, I throw a pass out of bounds when I have a man wide open down the sideline. I think I forgot how to play!

03 - Oh man, these guys do not have any kind of secondary, expecting me to rush on 3rd and 10? I throw a long bomb for an easy touchdown... Hmm... 7-0.
04 - My kickoff goes deep and the ball's at the 20 for the Patriots. Oh, an interception and the Giants have the ball back! Tom Brady's ankle must really be affecting him.

05 - Five minutes in and the score is 14-0. A run up the middle by Brandon Jacobs.

06 - My kickoff pins them at their own 10 yard line. Brady throws one out of bounds as I bring the pass rush. Then he way overthrows the next one.

07 - Ouch, a quarterback sack nails them to their own one. Geez, the Giants are really good!
09 - The first quarter ends with me making a mad dash up the middle and then getting tackled. 14-0, Giants.

10 - Oh man, Eli Manning gets intercepted on the Patriots' 1 yard line! Bad Eli, bad!

11 - Well, things just aren't going Bill Belichick's way as Lawrence Maroney fumbles it and I run it in for an easy touchdown. 21-0. I pin them down again within their 20 yard line with the kickoff.

12 - Brady tries to take it himself but gets crushed at the line of scrimmage. An incomplete pass and a weak run from Maroney leads to another punt.
13 - Too bad the game doesn't let you try to block punts, that would be awesome.

14 - First down on the Patriots' six already. Touchdown! 28-0

15 - Brady calls a timeout as he gets sacked again within his five yard line. Oh man, as the first half runs out of time, Maroney gets away down the sideline but I'm able to chase him down! Phew!

16 - Oh crap! Awesome half-time show with some white underwear showing on the cheerleader! Nice! Hope this isn't the Janet Jackson incident all over again!
17 - It's 28-0 as the half begins and I'm kicking off.

18 - Dang, Tom Brady breaks loose and scrambles for a first down. Then a pass incomplete to Randy Moss with some tight coverage from R.W. McQuarters.

19 - Brady runs for another first down. The Golden Boy has got to go down! Ah, but Maroney fumbles again and the Giants recover.
20 - Eli! Stop overthrowing! Ahmad Bradshaw runs for a first down.

21 - Oh man, the Patriots' defensive line finally shows up and blitzes me hard! Eli goes down like a sack of potatoes. Eli overthrows another man wide open. 3rd and 22 to go.

22 - I try the unexpected on third and long and go for a run. I get stopped a few yards short though and have to kick a field goal. 31-0.
23 - Aw crap, I biff the kick and the Patriots have awesome field position on the Giants' 35 yard line. Maybe they'll actually score. Brady literally bounces off his own offensive line a few times and then gets sacked. Whoops.

24 - Holy crap! The Golden Boy fumbles and I pick it up and start hauling with it. I'm literally throwing Patriots off of me quite violently until I finally get taken down on their 30. Nice.

25 - Well, I take quick advantage of the turnover and as the third quarter ends, I rush in for the touchdown with Jacos. 38-0 Giants.
26 - Well, I pooch the kick on accident again but this time I recover, just as if I was doing an onside kick. Belichick must be furious right now (and Tom Coughlin stunned).

27 - Brandon Jacobs is running down the sideline like a runaway truck!! But he gets taken down... too bad. On the next play, Manning is able to escape the blitz but ends up throwing it at two Patriots players deep! Good thing they can't catch.

28 - Eli and his receivers are completely inept and can't catch anything. I have to kick a field goal, 41-0 (if only...).
29 - Moss dramatically dives for the ball... but misses. Too bad sucker.

30 - Haha, Brady throws it wildly in the stands and the receiver runs over the people to try and get it. They're now going for it on 4th and 6 with just over two minutes to go. And they're stuffed.

31 - Now should I just sit on the ball and let the clock run out...? Nah, not against the team that ran up the score all year. Ah, Plaxico Burress with the touchdown. 48-0.
32 - With just 30 seconds left, they manage to get a first down. Then Brady has all the time in the world to throw it and just tosses it away. A sack places them at third and long for the last play of the game.

33 - Well, that's all she wrote! The Giants have won Super Bowl XLII 48-0 in a complete domination over the Patriots.
34 - Well, since i have 26 minutes left, I think I have enough to play a little role reversal. This time, I'll be playing Tom Brady and leading the charge for my 4th Super Bowl ring. I win the coin toss again and elect to receive.

35 - Maroney runs for a first down. At least he didn't fumble. Oh man, Moss drops a pass that would have resulted in a touchdown!

36 - And Brady gets intercepted in the endzone. Wow.

37 - The Patriots' defense seems all right though as I force Eli to a three and out. What the... that was seriously like a 70 yard punt from Jeff Feagles, I'm down within my own 10!
38 - The Giants blitz relentlessly and force Brady to throw another interception. Eli's got it on our 20.

40 - As the first quarter ends the Giants score... I'm sad. 7-0 Giants.

41 - I get intercepted again when being blitzed. That's three in the first half!

42 - Hey, a break! I force the Giants to kick a field goal and they miss! It was a long one though, more than 50 yards.
43 - Okay, seriously. Did Brady vacation in Los Cabos or something because I just tried throwing to a wide open Randy Moss and he threw it way off to the left and was easily intercepted. I'm angry.

44 - I don't know why I'm picking pass defense plays as I keep getting ripped for long runs.

45 - I force them to kick another field goal but this time they're successful. 10-0 Giants.

46 - Ugh, time runs out in the half as I'm finally making my way down field. Too bad. The half-time show was even more awesome this time though. Lots more babes instead of just fat guys doing the wave. Got to see the panties again too! And one girl in a sports bra blew me a kiss. Nice.
48 - Frak, another long run from Brandon Jacobs gives the Giants their second touchdown. 17-0, but I did almost block their kick!

49 - Nice run from the kickoff! I'm down to their 30 yard line.

50 - Oh my... I reach their 10 yard line and then Maroney fumbles. Giants recover.
52 - It's nice that the defense can run faster than any running back, or they would have just scored another touchdown. The third quarter ends at 17-0.

53 - Two blitzes from me puts them at 4th and 26 (ugh...) and I force them to kick a field goal, and they miss again! Yay. This time it bounced off the left upright!

54 - And to top all that off, Brady throws his fifth interception. At least I can late hit Eli without repercussion. Oops, another touchdown from their RB, Ahmad Bradshaw. 24-0, Giants.

55 - YES! Tom Brady and Randy Moss finally connect for a touchdown that puts the Patriots on the board!
56 - Time for an onside kick attempt... It fails and all the Giants have to do now is run out the clock.

57 - But instead they decide to rub it in and throw for a touchdown. Eli to Plaxico. My own touchdown is quietly erased. 31-7, Giants.

59 - Not one to give up, Brady throws a long bomb as the final seconds tick away though, it's knocked incomplete though in the endzone, and the game ends. The Giants have once again defeated the Patriots, this time with a final score of 31-7. The Giants knocked me around for 205 rushing yards while Brady threw for just 148.

60 - It's pretty obvious the New York Giants are one of the dominant teams in Tecmo Super Bowl, as the teams' stats are based off their 1990 season... the year the Giants last won the Super Bowl (the game actually ended on a missed field goal by the Bills' Scott Norwood - Wide Right). And if you're wondering, the New England Patriots went 1-15, by far the worst team in the league and almost virtually opposite of their perfect 16-0 season this year. By the way the Giants whooped the Patriots in both simulated games, I think Tecmo did a pretty good job on those stats. Well, that's it for the first hour of Tecmo Super Bowl and my pre-enactment of Super Bowl XLII!

Time for some scores out of 10.
Story: 0
If Tecmo Super Bowl was more like real life, we'd be treated to hours and hours of hype and speculation before the Big Game, where talking heads try to create stories around nothing. Thank God Tecmo Super Bowl is not like real life. This score of zero is probably the best score this game can get, because once you start injecting sports games with stories, well, the results are not pretty. The interesting thing is, sports stories work in just about every other medium (film, books, comics, TV, etc.), but not games. Some things are better left alone.

Graphics and Sound: 7
The thing that surprises me the most about Tecmo Super Bowl is the number of sprites on the field. We have 11 players on each team, so that's 22 sprites, and then we've got the football, the goalposts, cheerleaders, and first down markers. That's a lot of characters drawn on the screen, the problem is, only eight sprites can be updated at a time on the NES, so you get quite a bit of flicker when there's a lot of action going on. This is disappointing as it can be quite distracting when trying to navigate your running back through a defensive line. The game does feature some cool cutscenes though when an important play is happening, and there are at least two different half-time shows that are animated nicely. The sound in Tecmo Super Bowl is classic: the "hut hut hut hut hut hut hut" before each play is something I will never forget. The sound effects are not necessarily realistic, but they fit the arcade style of play.

Gameplay: 8
It was interesting being able to play as both a really good team (Giants), and a really bad team (Patriots) as I experienced a wide range of success and failures. This is what makes Tecmo Super Bowl such a great game, the developers spent a lot of time working on balance and letting the stats influence the game in just the right way (even if they did get out of hand at times). The Patriots' quarterback was downright horrendous and constantly overthrew the ball or missed his target widely. This may be an over the top caricature of their QB at the time, but when you have an arcade-like setting and the seconds ticking by super fast, some things just have to be worked into the game. The Giants' running game on the other hand was stellar and was able to break blocks and tackles with ease.

Controlling Tecmo Super Bowl is a breeze, one of the unique things about it is the play selection screen. Both the offense and defense are looking at the same set of eight plays, four pass and four rush. If the defense picks the same play as the offense, they get a mad blitz on the quarterback that usually results in a sack. However, if the offense picks pass and the defense picks rush, the wide receiver will probably net a lot of yards. This makes for a great cat and mouse game between you and your opponent, even if I did rely on the rush a lot as the Giants and the pass as the Patriots (had to make up those points quick!).

Fun Factor: 9
This game is so much fun, it just plays tremendously well for being a 17 year old football game. There have been how many Maddens since then? And how many of those would I rather play than this game? The answers to those are "a lot" and "zero". Sure, Tecmo Super Bowl doesn't have quarterback vision or career mode as the punter, but it is easy to pick up and play while being deep at the same time. The games are fast and fun too, I was into my first game within one minute and managed to finish two complete games in an hour (while writing commentary to boot).

Minutes to Action: 1

Overall: 8
You may say I'm looking back at this game with rose-colored glasses but it's honestly such a fun game to play. It also has solid gameplay and decent graphics for its time. Modern football games look and play so much different than Tecmo Super Bowl, but if you ask me, this is the genre defining game. Great fun to play for twenty minutes or much longer and it will probably be more entertaining than the Super Bowl itself. This is the best football game I have ever played, the only other that comes close is NFL Blitz. Give it a try and play for an hour, you'll love it.

Game 27: Gears of War

Gears of War is a third-person shooter for the Xbox 360 that came out in late 2006. The game was one of the first to use the Unreal Engine 3 (seen recently in Mass Effect), a game engine created in-house at Epic. Gears of War's combat system differs greatly from the typical shooter, focusing more on using cover effectively to engage the enemy. Hiding behind cover is built into the game and you either learn it quickly, or die trying. People were obviously looking for something a little different because the game sold quite well and it was just recently released on the PC.

Gears takes place in the future after an alien race has attacked humans living on the planet Sera, a world used to harvest fuel. All the men in the future seem abnormally large, as basically everyone in this game could play American football and dominate the game. I kind of like that style though as it serves the bombed-out, nuclear winter setting well. So I already like the atmosphere, let's see how the rest of the first hour of Gears of War turns out.

For my review on the whole game, please see my Gears of War review at Beyond the First Hour.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select New Campaign and the first hour begins. There are three difficulties to choose from, since I've only played Gears of War intermittently here and there, I select the easiest difficulty and the game loads the opening cutscene. Ashes, 14 years after "E-Day. " I'm looking at some creepy, drooling aliens. A very large man opens a door, he's breaking another man out of prison.
01 - I get control already! My objective is to escape the prison, but it doesn't look like they typical guards are on duty. I have the choice of going to either combat or training, I'm going combat, baby!!

02 - My guy is ready for some action, but the game still takes a few opportunities to teach me things. I can look at my squadmates by holding Y. Guess I'll find some use for that.

03 - A chopper flies over shooting at us, whoops, friendly fire. I kick a door open and some corpses wave in front of me.

05 - My firs