Tiger Chainsaw

LEGO The Lord of the Rings Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

J.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world of Lord of the Rings couldn’t go better hand-in-hand with LEGOs. In 2012, Traveller’s Tales and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment teamed up and released LEGO The Lord of The Rings for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii. Is this the one LEGO game to rule them all? There’s one LEGO game to rule them all in this LEGO Lord of the Rings review!

LEGO Lord of the Rings Plot:

You certainly shouldn’t rely on my crappy reviews to explain in detail the fantasy world of Lord of the Rings. I’m a huge proponent of reading books especially when books become movies. Movies NEVER do the book(s) justice just look at the Harry Potter movies for example. Unfortunately for me, I’m a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to The Lord of the Rings. I have the trilogy in books and I’ve tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring on multiple occasions but it’s hard! J.R. Tolkien’s writing is no easy essay to skim through as his writing isn’t for the impatient. Perhaps I’ll try again, but until then, I’ve just watched the movies so shame on me.

SHAME ON YOU though if you don’t know the story of Lord of The Rings! Shame on you so much that I won’t even bother putting in a quick summary of it. Go watch the movies or if you’re a better person than me, go read the books.

LEGO Lord of the Rings Gameplay:

My wife and I were coming off the heels of playing LEGO Harry Potter so I thought for the most part that LEGO Lord of the Rings would be similar. In many ways it is but there are some slight differences in the gameplay. The biggest difference is the voice acting. There are no voices in the Harry Potter games, just mimicking strange noises like characters from The Sims make. In LEGO Lord of the Rings, Traveller’s Tale must have acquired the rights to voices from the Lord of the Rings movies because when a cut scene occurs the voices of Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen, and other favorites are included in the game. They didn’t rerecord the voices, but they are ripped straight from the movies. I’m not sure how I feel about the voices being included. In LEGO Harry Potter, they portrayed the characters so well without speaking that it was believable that I was watching Harry, Ron, and Hermoine. In LEGO LOTR, there’s less room for humor as the characters speak the lines from the movies.

Another difference I found was the difficulty. Sure, Harry Potter is more geared toward kids and LOTR has more of a widened age in the fanbase. Maybe it’s because LOTR has older fans, but the LEGO version is a bit more difficult than LEGO Harry Potter. We found ourselves dying more often and in some instances on numerous occasions during fights. Instead of shooting foes with spells, we used swords, axes, arrows, and frying pans! You have to get up close and personal with your enemies in LEGO LOTR so maybe that led to us dying a few more times. It also probably didn’t help that you can hurt your friends if you are playing co-op. If you swing your sword too close to your partner, you better believe they lose a heart too.

All the famous battles and scenes from the movies are included in the games and that means you’ll be outnumbered in almost every battle as tons and tons of orcs come to splat your brains. You can upgrade your weapons and armor by finding hidden mithril blocks throughout Middle Earth or performing tasks for citizens in need. LEGO LOTR is an open-world game that lets you explore Middle Earth as you make your way to Mordor. We’d go through towns and speak to everyone in need or explore forests and rivers for hidden treasures. I was so impressed with the number of secrets and activities you can do in this game. You’ll play the games as the main characters but that doesn’t mean you’ll have to stick to them. You can replay any level as other characters like orcs, secondary characters, and even Golem! You’ll need to replay levels if you want to complete the game 100 percent as some areas are only unlockable on multiple playthroughs. Each character plays differently and comes with their own set of skills and strengths for you to discover. It’s almost overwhelming the amount of replayability that this game presents and I wish I had time to play through the game as every character.

Just like in LEGO Harry Potter, we found some very annoying glitches. In one instance, we needed to enter a building to start a cut scene but it wouldn’t trigger no matter how many times we entered the building or left the area and came back. At first, we thought we were doing something wrong or was missing something but that wasn’t the case. We had to restart the PS3 and replay a portion of the game before reaching the building again. Thankfully the cutscene happened but it was very annoying that we had to redo all that work. There were other times that we’d slide LEGOs together to make a mithril block only for it not to form. If we restarted the game, the blocks would work but it makes me wonder how many bugs this game has.

Boss fights are very fun and unlike LEGO Harry Potter, these fights aren’t always easy or obvious on how to win. My wife and I got pretty heated a few times when we didn’t know how to advance on a boss or if they continued to kill us. Each boss felt unique on how to kill them and every massive battle felt refreshing. It never got old killing orcs, or climbing monster elephants to wreak havoc. You’ll be doing plenty of killing in LEGO LOTR, you’ll probably die too.

Memories:
I purchased the LEGO Harry Potter video game collection when it was on sale at the PlayStation store because I thought my wife might like it. She loved it and so did I so for her birthday, one of the gifts I bought her was LEGO The Lord of the Rings on the PlayStation 3. We had so much fun exploring Middle Earth and all it had to offer. I came away impressed again by the ability of Traveller’s Tale to put together a fun game not only for kids but for adults too who love the fantasy worlds that are being played in.

Just like in the LEGO Harry Potter games if you collected enough LEGO coins you’d be granted the title of “True Adventurer” (True Wizard in Harry Potter) but my wife liked yelling it out so much whenever we achieved this title that to this day she still annoyingly blurts it out randomly.

LEGO Lord of the Rings Review Score:

LEGO LOTR is a bit more mature than the LEGO Harry Potter Collection. It’s more difficult with the combat and boss fights but it’s still plenty of fun. There are a few bugs in the game that can ruin hours of gameplay if you aren’t careful but the overall open-world exploration of Middle Earth is so much fun especially if you have someone to share it with.

LEGO The Lord of the Rings scores an 8 out of 10.

What would you write in your LEGO Lord of the Rings review? Do you remember when LEGO LOTR first came out? What was your favorite character to play as? What was your favorite game in the trilogy? Was there a boss fight that kicked your butt? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Wolfenstein II The New Colossus Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

After the successful reboot of Wolfenstein with the release of Wolfenstein: The New Order in 2014, developer MachineGames and publisher Bethesda Softworks teamed up and released the sequel “Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus in 2017 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. B.J. Blazkowicz is back and surrounded by an…interesting cast of comrades. Would the second installment find success again? Get ready for Wolfenstein “PC” in this Wolfenstein II The New Colossus Review.

Wolfenstein II The New Colossus Plot:

SPOILERS

Wolfenstein II falls short in putting together a believable and likable cast of characters to help our hero B.J. along the way. Once again, B.J. is in a coma, this time for five months instead of 16 years like he was in the first game. Anya, his naughty nurse from the first game is now pregnant with twins and is about to pop. After recovering from his near-death encounter with Doctor Deathshead from the final fight of the previous game, B.J. and his crew is laying low in the ocean on a U-Boat. The Nazis find the U-Boat and B.J. decides to purposely get captured and is sent to an airship that is holding his crew hostage. It works and B.J. confronts Nazi Commander Frau Engel with the help of Caroline who was a paraplegic whose body was restored with futuristic hidden armor in an underground water cache. Yes, it sounds ridiculous, but are you still following?

Anyway, Caroline is killed by Commander Engel but B.J. and the others escape in the U-Boat. They make their way to Manhattan which is in ruins from an atomic bomb. They meet the leader of the small resistance army, named Grace Walker, and her cuck boyfriend Norman. This is where I started to get turned off by the characters. Grace is super aggressive and ALWAYS angry. She doesn’t listen and demands total control. Meanwhile, Norman is your apologetic white liberal friend who wishes he was black. The resistance army that Grace runs joins up with B.J. and his crew but Grace is the commander of EVERYTHING. I highly disagreed with this decision. You’re telling me that Grace who was a normal citizen before the war is a better commander than B.J. who has killed thousands of Nazis, has expert knowledge of war tactics, and has executed countless suicidal missions throughout the years against the toughest of Nazis? Grace is not a likable character at all. It’s her way or the highway but fortunately for her, she has B.J. who agrees to carry out her missions.

They decide to blow up a Nazi base in Roswell, New Mexico, and are successful. B.J. then takes a trip to his hometown of Mesquite, Texas. This trip reveals memories and flashbacks to B.J.’s childhood. This entire sequence is cringe-worthy as it depicts B.J. as a little boy befriending an African-American girl. You can only guess what happens next as B.J.’s abusive drunk father forbids them to be friends in a racist rant. I don’t know what this added to the story, we can all agree that racism is bad and we get a clear picture of that from Grace. Further going down the PC rabbit hole in this game was not needed and it was so cringy at times. B.J. finds his deadbeat dad still in their abandoned home and blasts him as the Nazis storm the house because his father sold B.J. out to them.

B.J. doesn’t escape the Nazis and is captured. He is brought to Washington D.C. and is set to be beheaded in front of millions on television by Commander Engel. Here is a ridiculous plot twist that is so unbelievable it actually turns out to be hilarious. Commander Engel indeed cuts B.J.’s head off! His head falls off the balcony and drops hundreds of feet BUT is caught by a flying robot that is piloted by the resistance! They quickly stick his head in a jar and their scientists use technology to keep his brain alive while he is in the jar. They plant his head onto another body and BOOM! B.J. is reborn again! Haha, only in video games!

Oh, I forgot about Commander Engel’s daughter Sigrun who is a super fat girl and is always chastised by her mother to lose weight. She betrays her mother and at some point joins the resistance denouncing racism. To me, it just seems like Bethesda tried to think of all minorities and types of people who get made fun of and stuck them together to create an army where they kill Nazis. Don’t get me wrong, killing Nazis is always fun as they were/are the single most evil humans on Earth, but Bethesda certainly didn’t hide their political agenda in this game as far as inclusion and PC characters go.

Anyway, B.J. then travels to Venus, yes the planet to audition for a role in a propaganda movie for Hitler. I really can’t make this up. But, this was my favorite part of the game where you see and interact with Hitler. He is nothing but a puking, piss-pants, who is so sick he can barely stand up. He’s insane as he shoots and kills whoever he wants whether they are a Nazi or not. It’s clear the war has gotten to him, but it was fun to watch him up close and piss himself. The real reason B.J. is on Venus is because the Nazis keep their defense codes there to protect Earth so he needs to steal them. B.J. returns to Earth and kills Commander Engel during a press conference and declares that America is to be liberated soon.

Wolfenstein II The New Colossus Gameplay:

While the characters and story suck, the gameplay for Wolfenstein II is just as good as the first game in the rebooted series. You’ll have tons of weapons at your disposal to burn, shoot, and massacre the Nazi army. I’ve always appreciated the health and armor function in Wolfenstein as you can pick up bits of armor from dead soldiers to restore yours. This is a huge concept to use as you will be destroyed as soon as your armor is gone.

I tried not to let the characters ruin the missions for me during my Wolfenstein II The New Colossus review as the environments were well-detailed with tons of secrets to discover. The difficulty of the second game ramps up from the first and I remember having quite a difficult time near the end in the press conference room. I probably died close to 20 times before being able to beat that section of the level but thankfully the gameplay is fair enough that if you die, you don’t feel cheated. You’ll just have to practice and memorize where the Nazis are coming from and what weapons are most effective against them.

Like the first game, my favorite part of my Wolfenstein II The New Colossus review was finding the Nazi commanders and stealth killing them. They have the ability to call for back up so you need to take them out first or else you’ll be fighting tons and tons of Nazis. The game plays and feels very similar to Wolfenstein The New Order, so it’s more or less the same with all the combat.

Memories:

I remember playing this game and rolling my eyes through most of it. There are only so many times you can pound one idea into a game. I like to play video games to escape from the terrible things that are happening in the world including racism, pandemics, and everyday struggles. Unfortunately, Wolfenstein II wanted to remind the player of the things that suck in the world at every corner.

Wolfenstein II The New Colossus Review

Bethesda certainly didn’t hide what they were trying to do with this game. Most of their marketing was geared toward making a “resistance” right in the heat of President Trump’s presidency. With terms like “Make America Nazi Free Again” and “Not My America” in their marketing, it’s clear what they wanted to stir up. I would prefer in Bethesda made a Nazi killing game instead of a political commentary game next time. There’s already enough of that in all of our lives. The gameplay is terrific, but the cast of characters are so unlikable and cringy that it brings down Wolfenstein II quite a bit. It’s too bad because they’ve done a great job of creating two villains you love to kill in Doctor Deathshead and Commander Engel.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus scores a 6.5 out of 10.

What would you write in your Wolfenstein II The New Colossus review? Do you remember when Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus first came out? Did you like the cast of characters? What was your favorite mission? What did you think of the ridiculous mission of sending B.J. to Venus to audition for a role? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

Murder, fabricated evidence, betrayal, and super spikey hair. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney has it all. Originally released for the Game Boy Advance, it wasn’t ported to North America until 2005 when the international version was released for the Nintendo DS. The crime-solving, lawyer simulation game was developed and released by Capcom. Would Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney manage to sway the opinion of the court to positive reviews? Hope there is no OBJECTION to this Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney review!

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Plot:

SPOILERS:

You take control of Phoenix Wright, a newbie defense attorney who has been hired at the “Fey & Co.” law firm. Throughout the game, you will investigate and represent five defendants through five cases.

The first case has you representing your childhood friend Harry, (whoops) I mean Larry Butz. Anyway, your friend Larry isn’t the brightest bulb, but he has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend with an eyewitness claiming they saw him leaving the scene of the crime. It turns out that the real murderer is the eyewitness. This case acts as a tutorial and shows you how to present evidence, when to object, and how to cross-examine witnesses.

This is where one of the more shocking deaths in video games occurs. Your boss who is super cute and acts as your mentor throughout the first case is MURDERED! I was shocked during my Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney review and thought she was going to be a main character throughout the entire series! Instead, you’re stuck defending her sister who is charged with the murder after an eyewitness sees her standing over the body of your boss shortly after she is killed.

Your rival Miles Edgeworth is the prosecutor who is currently undefeated and acts like a hotshot. You are representing Maya, the younger sister of your boss who is also cute. She’s caught in a bad trap as the real killer had a fake eyewitness account at the hotel across the street. The killer was a professional blackmailer who was using the system to his advantage until Phoenix Wright serves up a dish of justice! Once you get Maya off (whoa there, she’s only 17!) she joins you as your assistant and helps you through the other cases.

The next case revolved around a famous children’s tv show very similar to Power Rangers. The superhero from the show is charged with murder as his co-star and evil villain are slain in real life! There’s a lot going on in this case but the murder was committed by the producer.

The fourth case has you defending your arch-rival, Miles Edgeworth! He’s been charged with the murder of attorney Robert Hammond. At this point, the cases are almost so bizarre and there’s so much involved with each plot point that I won’t go into details other than the fact that you defend Miles and he is set free from the murder.

The final case in the game finds Phoenix Wright defending a girl named Lana who has already confessed to the murder of a detective who was found in the truck of Miles’ car! This case will take a few days to crack but it’s well worth it as the finale of the game. In the end, Phoenix Wright is undefeated as an attorney and has gained a respected reputation in the law career.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Gameplay:

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney is unlike any other game before it. Every case is presented in a 2D view as characters are investigated, cross-examined, and interrogated. There’s no character movement, instead, you can select where you want to go to investigate for clues or talk to witnesses. A magnifying glass will pop up on the screen and you use it to look for clues or to gain information on an item.

Every single character and case is extremely well-written, clever, and full of puns or jokes. I loved watching the characters during my Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney review break down during the trial as their reactions, facial expressions, and body posture changes the more you press them or point out the lies in their testimonies. There’s nothing like screaming “Objection!” as you put the final nail in the coffin of the prosecutor’s case.

This is no walk in the park, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney was a challenge to my wife. She had to use all her critical thinking skills during the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney review when defending the clients. It’s important to know when to object instead of pressing every single testimony because eventually the judge will get tired of your act and deduct points away from you. Get deducted too much and you lose the case. The cases continue to grow longer the more you progress throughout the game. In the first case, my wife beat within an hour or two but the last case took a few days to beat as the evidence kept changing or a new witness was found. Each case becomes more advanced with the final case having my wife dust for fingerprints, watch security tape, sprayed for blood, and cracked a safe full of evidence.

If you have ADHD this game probably isn’t for you. You need to pay attention to all the dialogue or risk missing a key testimony or piece of evidence to present in court. If you love putting together a case, solving crimes, and defending the innocent, you won’t find a better game.

Memories:
My wife played this game after I bought the game for Christmas for her on the Nintendo Switch. She liked the rivalry with Miles Edgeworth as he is a tough opponent but she ended up defending him. Once she took him on as a client she started to like him.

The inclusion of dusting for prints and spraying for blood added another layer of gameplay to break up the long dialogue scenes that happened often. The evidence has to be presented in a certain way during a specific time or else it will be thrown out. There were a few times my wife knew what the conclusion was but didn’t know when to present the evidence and was deducted points. I know that riled her up during the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney review! She enjoyed the challenge of the cases, and this certainly isn’t for kids. You need to use critical thinking skills and piece together the case.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Review Score:

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney presents a new case for gamers to play through. It’s a unique genre filled with crazy characters, well-written dialogue, funny jokes, and witty banter. Follow the clues and trust no one and you’ll be well on your way to having your own law firm!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney scores an 8.6 out of 10.

What would you write in your Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney review? Do you remember when Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney first came out? What was your favorite case to defend? Who was your favorite character during the trials? Did you have any cases that stumped you? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Harvest Moon Light of Hope Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

In 2018, Natsume released “Harvest Moon: Light of Hope” for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. The Harvest Moon series has seen many entries, some of them filled with great gameplay and updates, others more on the boring side. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope brought the popular farming simulator on the Switch which is the version I’ll be reviewing today. Do the crops see the light of day in this Harvest Moon Light of Hope review?

Harvest Moon Light of Hope Plot:

Here’s the official description of the plot to Harvest Moon Light of Hope:

“Looking for a fresh start and some new surroundings, you set off on a voyage to begin your new life! Unfortunately, the weather has different plans, as your ship is hit by a monsoon, and goes down! You drift into a small harbor town, now in a shambles from the storm, where a young doctor named Jeanne saves your life. The town has essentially been deserted, but you’re never one to back down from a challenge! It will be up to you to help rebuild the town and save the lighthouse…but it won’t be easy! Nevertheless, with some hard work growing crops, tending livestock, and gathering materials for repairs, you will be able to make new friends, start a family, revive the lighthouse, and save the town, your new home!”

Harvest Moon Light of Hope Review

Wow, Harvest Moon sure has ramped up what you can do in the game! My wife has beat Harvest Moon: SNES, Harvest Moon GBC 1, 2, and 3. She hasn’t played any of the other Harvest Moon games but I bought her this game for Christmas and I could tell right from the start she was in love.

Like other Harvest Moon games the goal is to grow crops, make a profit, and complete various tasks given to you by characters throughout the town. Let’s take a look at the crops my wife grew in this Harvest Moon Light of Hope review. It’s a long list!

Cabbage
Red Cabbage
Huge Cabbage
Green Cabbage
Dome Cabbage
Celery
White Celery
Mystic Herb
Royal Herb
Onion
Scallion
Petite Onion
Red Onion
Pearl Onion
Strawberry
Tomato
San Marzano
Corn
Fodder Corn
Sweet Corn
Green Pepper
Orange Pepper
Wheat
Durum Wheat
Hot Pepper
Habanero
Potato
Giant Potato
Carrot
Baby Carrot
Brown Carrot
Pumpkin
Zucchini
Squash
Spinach
Savoy Spinach
Broccoli
Broccolini
Blueberry
Watermelon
Asparagus
Grapefruit
Peach
Apple
Orange
Marguerite
Tulip
White Tulip
Yellow Tulip
Pink Rose
Sunflower
Pink Dahlia
White Dahlia
Yellow Dahlia
Red Rose
Cosmos
Sunny Red
Carnation
Pink Carnation
White Rose
Pink Pansy
Yellow Pansy
Purple Pansy
Viola
Blue Rose

WOW, that’s a ton of crops and plants that you can grow! That doesn’t even include the mutation list which happens when you plant seeds in various terrains under certain circumstances.

You’ll be able to make money with animals too including cows, sheep, chickens, donkeys, horses, and your pet which my wife always picks the dog and names it Tiko.

Compared to the other Harvest Moon games, Light of Hope is very realistic with what you need to farm. My wife even made fertilizer to help grow her crops during the Harvest Moon Light of Hope review!

If you aren’t hoeing around on the farm (my wife is great at hoeing) then you are probably filling orders for civilians on the island. These orders range from giving certain ingredients, catching a type of fish, materials like wool or ore, and recipes for food. These requests are almost never-ending as they keep coming each day. You’ll see how many you’ve filled with the stat menu but my wife probably filled over 500 requests and she was only around 65 percent done with the requests during the Harvest Moon Light of Hope review. There are fun mini-games like dog races, fishing contests, and cooking competitions.

This isn’t required but like almost every Harvest Moon game you have the option to get married. My wife always chooses to be a boy when she plays so let’s take a look at the eligible bachelorettes in the game.

Elise is the girl my wife choose to wife up.

Elise, Harvest Goddess, Jeanne, Melanie, Michelle, Nova, Soleil, Tabitha.

My wife ended up marrying Elise during the Harvest Moon Light of Hope review who worked at a restaurant but she never cooked my wife dinner or helped on the farm! Once Elise gave birth to the child (my wife named him Harper) Elise slept in a lot and let Harper crawl around the house unsupervised!

There were a lot of positives from our Harvest Moon Light of Hope review. My wife really enjoyed building the town up again and reopening the businesses for the owners. She couldn’t grow anything until she repaired the shops. The daily requests broke up the monotony of the daily grind of growing crops and rewarded her with bonuses like crops she didn’t have or new recipes to use when she cooked. The competitions were monthly and she liked that the events were more often instead of annual like in other Harvest Moon games. Recipes were new to my wife and she liked cooking food at night to restore her stamina. Other small bonuses included chocolate milk from brown cows and cotton candy from pink sheep.

One thing she didn’t care for during the Harvest Moon Light of Hope review was that she felt getting married was pointless. It was fun to get girls to fall in love but the wife doesn’t do anything once marriage happens (Hey that sounds like my wife in real life! Just kidding, cutie). She doesn’t help out on the farm or with the kids, she just stands there. Toward the end of the game, my wife discovered that some of the requests were repeats which simmered her enthusiasm for filling them.

Memories:

My wife put 140 hours into her Harvest Moon Light of Hope review. She fondly remembers the mines which were in a sense another bonus game of reaching lower levels of the mine to pick up ores and turn them into gems. It was a quick way to make money. She loved discovering the mutations of crops and didn’t always believe me when I said you could grow cannonballs!

Harvest Moon Light of Hope Review

I’ve never seen my wife play a video game as much as she did Harvest Moon Light of Hope. She was simply addicted and told me she thought about it while at work. The massive list of crops to grow, daily requests, friendly characters, and better plot points make Harvest Moon Light of Hope the king of Harvest Moon games.

Harvest Moon: Light of Hope scores a 9.3 out of 10.

What would you write in your Harvest Moon Light of Hope review? Do you remember when Harvest Moon: Light of Hope first came out? Did you play as a boy or girl and who did you marry? What crops were your favorite to grow? What did you think of the request system and the mines? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Aerostar Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

In 1991, Vic Tokai developed and published “Aerostar” for the Game Boy. The vertical shoot ’em up changed the formula of shooters by incorporating a power meter for your ship based on how long it can stay in the air. The player would need to take that into consideration when making jumps from road to road. Would Aerostar jump into glory or would it fall into a pit of mediocrity? We’re jumping around in this Aerostar review!

Aerostar Plot:

In the manual, there is a prologue and it goes like this:

“The year was 2807. World War VI had just ended, rendering the Earth uninhabitable for any of the scattered survivors. The only hope then was to vacate the planet completely…

Years later, the Intergalactic Council of New Life sends an expedition back to Earth to check on its condition. After months of study and testing, they return with great news; Earth has stabilized and may once again be populated. All those wishing to do so may return at once!

However, with this new world full of beauty and mystique also comes an entirely new breed of evil. Undetected by the expedition, these mutant forces now lie in wait to prey on the thousands of innocent “pioneers”. Within months of their homecoming, life on Earth is again unbearable, and things continue to grow worse, out of control…

Fearing the total extermination of Earth, the Intergalactic Council wastes no time in deploying Aerostar, the most powerful fighter ever known. This state-of-the-art nuclear-generated vehicle of destruction is fully equipped to do the job but is useless without the right pilot…

Aerostar Gameplay:

Aerostar at its heart is a vertical shooter where the player must avoid enemies, hazards, and of course bullets. Incorporated into the game is a new gimmick that I believe separated Aerostar from shooters at the time. At the top of the screen is a power meter that shows your ability to jump and hoover. The entire game is based on keeping your ship on narrow roads but the roads are filled with enemies, potholes, and craters. You’ll need to hoover to fly over the gaps in the road but you need to be careful because if the power meter runs out, your ship will come crashing back down. You better hope that the road is cleared or that there is a road at all! There were times when I’d blindly jump off the ledge during my Aerostar review and pray that I find another road on the side of the black gap.

During your fight to take Earth back, you’ll have your choice of different weapons. There are about five or six other weapons you can pick up but I only tried out the V and S type weapons during my Aerostar review. The V does a spread shot and the S adds to side bullets to the V which was plenty enough for me. With the S you wreck shit, and so I stuck with it throughout the entire game. The game is somewhat challenging with the narrow roads you must stay on but thankfully there is a difficulty option in the menu if you need to switch down.

Each level is unique to the environment you fly through. In the first two stages, the roads were easy to stay on, you just had to make sure enemies were defeated before you rolled forward but in stage three things start to get complicated. Big craters are now on the roads and you’ll be forced to jump around to stay safe. The jumping mechanic increases the further you get into the game and by the end of the game, you’ll be jumping through half the level. The roads don’t just go vertical either, later on, they are diagonally making it extremely difficult to jump safely on, or in other instances, enemies make the roads. If you kill an enemy before they create the road, good luck finding a way across the screen. The last stage during my Aerostar review was filled with narrow roads where one inch to the left or right would destroy your ship. You’ll have to stay on the roads while avoiding two types of bullets. There are huge bullets that go over your head, so if you jump up you’ll be destroyed. Some bullets are on the ground making it necessary to jump up. You’ll have to practice and recognize what bullets can hit you and what ones are safe. It may look like your ship is in danger but some bullets will float above or below you. Know your bullet types!

Boss fights are fun but mostly easy. They are different which I appreciated during my Aerostar review but I’d say my favorite boss was the last one. He had different attacks that included both sky and ground bullets and a large flamethrower that followed you on the screen. Another boss I liked was the strange ball that was protected by a cage. The ball would leave the cage and shoot lasers at your ship that followed you for a few seconds. Other bosses were pretty easy and they usually had a sweet spot that you could find on the screen that kept you from danger.

If you die, you’ll restart right away from where you died with the basic weapon that you start the game with. There are no speed upgrades so you don’t need to worry about enemies zooming around you. If you beat the level you’ll gain an extra life which makes the game a bit easier to beat. It’s not super challenging but it’s a fun shoot ’em up for the Game Boy.

Memories:
I never played this game or heard of it until I chose to review it. I wonder if I’d like these games as a kid?

Aerostar Review Score:

Aerostar enhances the challenge with the power-jump meter that you need properly utilize to safely transverse the levels. The game does a nice job of introducing it to you before increasing the difficulty. For a Game Boy shooter, it’s a fun entry that will keep you entertained for a car trip.

Aerostar scores a 7.6 out of 10.

What would you write in your Aerostar review? Do you remember when Aerostar first came out? What did you think of the jumping mechanic? What was your favorite boss or the one that challenged you the most? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Arrow Flash Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

In 1990, developer ITL Co. and publisher Sega released “Arrow Flash” for the Sega Genesis. The side-scrolling shoot ’em up featured two different forms, one as a spaceship and the other as a mech suit. Zana Keene stars as the female pilot as she tries to save Earth from the Viking Terrorists. Would her mission be a success or would Arrow Flash crumble under the pressure? Jump into the mech, we’re starting this Arrow Flash review!

Arrow Flash Plot:

This comes straight from the manual:

“In the latter half of the 30th century, a frightening rumor reached the planet Earth. A group of Viking terrorists, led by a vicious tyrant known as the Great Hilagi, had been plundering and destroying planets throughout the Galaxy. They moved in ominous warships capable of entering and traveling in Nether Space. Yet the people of planet Earth never suspected that all of the planets in the Galaxy, Earth was to be Hilagi’s next target.

In fact, there had already been a small assault on the laboratory of the renowned scientist Doctor Zerrek Keene who, in a state near death, sent an urgent message calling his granddaughter and only living heir, Zana Keene, to his side.

“Zana Keene, listen to me,” he said. “I have caused a terrible tragedy. While experimenting with Nether Space transmission I caused a huge magnetic field to be formed around our planet, and now, it has attracted the attention of the barbaric Viking Terrorists.”

The old man fell back against the floor. Zana reached for his hand. At that moment Dr. Keene pressed a keycard into his granddaughter’s palm, and with his last breath, he whispered, “Zana Keene, use this…save Earth.”

Zana Keene, who had trained as a test pilot at the United Government Military Academy, knew what it was her grandfather had placed in her hands…access to the space fighter “Chameleon”; the battle weapon ERX-75, a space fighter capable of combat in Nether Space; capable of transforming itself into a robot; the strongest weapon ever developed by the United Earth Army – code name, Valdor. Chameleon was the only existing prototype. Its production plant has been sabotaged and destroyed. Zana Keene knew what she must do. “Use this…save Earth.”

Okay, that story is fine but does the grandpa have to constantly refer to his granddaughter as Zana Keene? Imagine your grandparents using both your first and last names whenever they talked to you?

Arrow Flash Gameplay:

Arrow Flash gave me an “anime” vibe right away from the small intro video that plays during the menu if you don’t push any buttons. The style of the characters reminded me a lot of “Zillion” which I reviewed both games previously. Arrow Flash has a nice options menu that includes the ability to turn the difficulty up or down, how many lives you start with, and whether your weapon fires semi-automatic or fully automatic. You bet I turned that puppy to fully automatic for my Arrow Flash review which made blasting enemies way easier by just holding down the button.

Once you pop into your pilot seat and set off to crush the Viking Terrorists, you realize that your ship is pretty darn slow. You’ll be able to pick up power-ups throughout the levels that include speed but I just felt that no matter how much speed I picked up during my Arrow Flash review my ship never controlled smoothly or as fast as I had hoped. The other power-ups you can pick up are attack power, new weapons, clone ships, and shields that come in handy. Power-ups come in the form of a red-ringed floating object but make sure to shoot them first before flying into them or else they damage you. The clone ships helped a lot and once I had both of them, the entire screen was filled with bullets coming out of my ships. Very few enemy ships were able to get close enough to me to do any damage after I was powered up.

Arrow Flash is a bit of a short game with only five levels in the entire game. The levels look nice with the first stage having a scrolling background as you zoom through the clouds. Some levels have brief cut scenes that add to the story or mission. Reaching the halfway point of stage one shows a giant satellite falling from space and sinking into the ocean. It was cool to see this during my Arrow Flash review and it was a nice brief break before returning to the action. Level three was terrible however with the bizarre background that the programmers chose. Behind your ship are hot pink and neon blue wave lines that look like you are in another dimension or are experiencing a bad trip. It really hurt my eyes and I didn’t understand why it was necessary to include this eyesore in the game. The waves covered the enemies up and I couldn’t tell where some of them were coming from. It was tough when not only the enemies come at you but behind, above, and below.

The final boss was a giant dragon, that was inside a dragon-shaped ship, that was protected by other tiny dragons flying around inside. I’m not sure if Great Hilagi was a dragon but he was certainly fond of them regardless. I was nervous about facing the last boss during my Arrow Flash review but he was super easy. I found the sweet spot on the screen where he can’t touch you and blasted away at him with my zillions of missiles and lasers. He went down in twenty seconds.

I never changed into the mech machine throughout the entire game and just kept the ship the way it was. I’m not sure if it made a difference or not but I just preferred the ship during my Arrow Flash review as I think the suit is slower. At some point, you have the Arrow Flash power that you build up throughout the game. I never used it despite having the meter full since level three. I should have tried it out but I wanted to save it for the final boss but he was so easy I didn’t need it. Whoops.

Memories:
I have never heard of Arrow Flash until I decided to review it! But… I’ve heard this was the sequel to TransBot, a Sega Master System that I reviewed recently. TransBot was terrible, but Arrow Flash was pretty good!

Arrow Flash Review Score:

Arrow Flash is your run-of-the-mill shoot ’em up. It’s not overly difficult and you’ll beat the game in 20 minutes if you know what you’re doing. It’s a fun game but the bizarre choice to include the background on level three leaves a bad mark on it. If you like typical space-shooters, try it out. If not, you aren’t going to miss anything special.

Arrow Flash scores a 7.2 out of 10.

What would you write in your Arrow Flash review? Do you remember when Arrow Flash first came out? Where does it compare to other space shooters? Did you use the mech suit or the space ship? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Parasite Eve II Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

In 2000, Square released Parasite Eve II for the PlayStation. Aya Brea is back in the lead role as an FBI agent who has left New York behind and resides in Los Angeles. More mitochondria have been evolving into dangerous creatures and now the government may have a role in it. Would the sequel be as good as the first or did the series evolve too fast? I sure hope there’s a shower scene in this Parasite Eve II review!

Parasite Eve II Plot:

If you recall from the first Parasite Eve, our protagonist, Aya Brea, was in the NYPD when an opera singer named Melissa turned into a mitochondria monster and ignited her audience on fire. Aya chased the being now called “Eve” and discovered that Aya had mitochondria powers herself which made her body resistant to Eve’s powers. They battle throughout Manhatten and after some intense encounters, Aya comes away victorious defeating Eve and her ultimate evolution child.

Fast-forward three years to this Parasite Eve II review, and Aya has quit the force. She lives in Los Angeles working for the FBI and the M.I.S.T. squad. (Mitochondrial Investigation and Suppression Team) One night the Akropolis Tower is attacked by NMCs (Neo-Mitochondrial Creatures) and Aya gets a hot lead that these new NMCs are coming from the Mojave Desert.

She travels to a desert town called Dryfield that is abandoned except for a few NMCs and a man named Mr. Douglas who runs the local scrapyard. Soon, Aya meets a private investigator named Kyle who is also investigating the NMC sightings. They decide to work together and travel down the road to an abandoned mine where most of the NMCs are coming from. They become separated as Aya discovers that the mine is a top-secret scientific facility run by government officials who are genetically creating and encouraging evolution.

Exploring the facility deeper reveals a giant underground zoo filled with NMCs. Aya finds a girl named “Eve” that is used to control the hostile NMCs with her mitochondria powers and that Eve was cloned from Aya’s DNA. Eve is kidnapped and it’s up to Aya to rescue her again. The final battle is Eve being manipulated into an NMC that Aya has to destroy to free Eve from her form. With the military locking the facility down, Aya is free to take Eve and form a “normal” life with the young girl.

Parasite Eve II Gameplay:

I enjoyed the recap of the previous events that led up to Parasite Eve II and what Aya has been up to since the first game. When starting my Parasite Eve II review I noticed two things right away, the first is that you can press conversations quite a bit. Most characters will have three or four things to say before they eventually tell you to get lost. The other thing that stood out was the new combat system that I wasn’t expecting. I loved the combat of the original game and was disappointed to see that the combat was severely changed. Instead of a more traditional RPG with wait times on attacking, Parasite Eve II changes the formula for a more action-oriented system that relies heavily on offensive attacks from Aya’s guns. No longer will you constantly swap out guns or change ammo types. Instead, the weapons are much more realistic to what an FBI agent would have in the field.

In the first Parasite Eve, Aya has her choice of where she wants to investigate or travel with the police car around Manhatten. Parasite Eve II is very linear and feels smaller than the first. Manhatten felt huge with multiple areas to explore. Parasite Eve II only offers three areas of exploration, the tower in LA, Dryfield which is essentially a hotel and a junkyard, and the research facility. These areas are filled with fantastic descriptions but it just wasn’t enough for me to explore during my Parasite Eve II review. When I did explore, I found it odd that Coca-Cola must have sponsored the game as there were Coke magnets, signs, and even bottles that restored your health and magic points.

I’ll say the puzzles were tough in this game and sometimes I didn’t understand what I was doing during my Parasite Eve II review or how to proceed without help from a guide. The puzzles in the Neo-Ark section I just looked up but there were problems with clever solutions like using the magnet to pull the key up from the vent. If you weren’t solving puzzles, you were likely killing NMCs. I think the monsters were more frightening in Parasite Eve II than in the first game. You’ll kill camel-like creatures with human faces and dinosaurs that resemble humanoid creatures.

Boss battles were tougher but I enjoyed the challenge during my Parasite Eve II review. The garbage monster took a few tries and Eve took like ten times to beat. It was frustrating because the process to beat her is about 25 minutes long and many times I’d get into the last section before dying. Thankfully this time you can skip cut scenes if you’ve watched them before because there are a good ten minutes of dialogue before the final battle. One of the toughest areas of the game was the Neo-Ark but yet there’s no save point in the entire section! I hated that because if you died down there you were out of luck. If you wanted to save you’d have to go five minutes out of your way and travel back up the facility to find a phone. I felt very alone in this game. Aya takes on the majority of her mission by herself instead of with help as she did in the first game. I liked working with others but I didn’t have that luxury in this game.

There was some weird dialogue near the end of the game with Kyle making sex jokes with Aya right before she fights Eve. It felt out of place and unexpected with nothing leading up to that. I’m all in for a good sex joke but it caught me off guard.

Memories:
I remember seeing the cover of Parasite Eve II in my childhood many times but never playing it. I’m glad I downloaded it from the PlayStation store. I loved the first game and the second one was a decent follow-up.

Parasite Eve II Review Score:

A drastic change to the combat system and a government plot makes Parasite Eve II not my first choice in the series but it’s still a quality game that will give you hours of action as you explore a new case with Aya.

Parasite Eve II scores an 8.5 out of 10.

What would you write in your Parasite Eve II review? Do you remember when Parasite Eve II first came out? Did you like the first or second game better? Did you like the combat change? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Monster Jam Maximum Destruction Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

A recipe for maximum destruction includes taking the Twister Metal formula of picking up weapons and pitting monster trucks against each other in death arenas and that’s exactly what Inland Productions and Ubi Soft did when they teamed up and released Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY IT’S TIME FOR THE MONSTER JAM MAXIMUM DESTRUCTION REVIEW!

Monster Jam Maximum Destruction Plot:

No story here, just pick your favorite monster truck and select the game mode you want to participate in.

Monster Jam Maximum Destruction Gameplay:

Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction offers 37 different trucks to choose from. The following are the trucks that you will be able to drive right from the start.

Airborne Ranger
American Guardian
Avenger
Blacksmith
Blue Thunder
Bulldozer
Bustin’ Loose
The Destroyer
El Toro Loco
Eradicator
Goldberg
Grave Digger
Gunslinger
King Krunch
Madusa
Mountaineer
Predator
Prowler
Reptoid
Spider-Man
Sting
Sudden Impact
Survivor
Thrasher
Wild Thang
Wolverine

You can unlock the following trucks through various ways which I did during my Monster Jam Maximum Destruction review:

The Incredible Hulk
Inland Productions
1983 Grave Digger
20th Anniversary Grave Digger
Armored Force
Paddy Wagon
Hooch Wagon
Big Yellow
Rayman
Bulldog
Dog Pound

While that’s a huge selection, I was bummed during my Monster Jam Maximum Destruction review that my all-time favorite truck “Big Foot” was not playable or my second favorite “Bear Foot”. I picked to play as Goldberg as I liked the sleek design of the truck.

When the game starts up, there’s no intro video which would have been a nice touch, especially to kids who loved seeing monster trucks run over cars before the YouTube era. Anyway, the menu is very simple. With game mode, difficulty, and options. Let’s go over the six mini-games that Monster Jam offers.

Stadium Freestyle – It’s not fun. The camera has a terrible angle and the lack of instructions makes this mini-game an instant fail. I think you are supposed to pull of tricks but it ends up being boring.

Stadium Race – Wow, steering is super touchy in racing when I played this during my Monster Jame Maximum Destruction review. Your truck can spin out in midair making this race in a very small arena almost impossible to win.

Lava Island – This was my favorite mini-game during my Monster Jam Maximum Destruction review. You and five other trucks are on top of a volcano with the object to knock each other off or damage each other until the truck is destroyed. The game goes quickly lasting anywhere between 30 seconds and a minute.

Canyon Race – It’s nothing special as the trucks race through a canyon with shortcuts. You’ll get bored of it after two or three races and once again the steering is so sensitive.

Stadium Challenge – It’s a deathmatch in a stadium but the arena is too small for fun. It’s best to avoid everyone else as they destroy each other.

Arena Challenge – Looks like a deathmatch in the Roman Coliseum. More or less the same as Stadium Challenge.

Aside from the mini-games, there are three main modes as you compete in a “season” against other trucks. The only one worth your time is the death match season. The other two are similar but you play to collect money or destroy objects, both are very boring.

In death match, you face off against several other trucks. The number depends on the difficulty you select. I was able to make it to arena three in “normal” mode during my Monster Jam Maximum Destruction review before quitting after failing to beat it a few times. In normal mode, there are five trucks aside from you, and in easy mode, there are three. It may look like a free-for-all but in reality, it’s you vs all other trucks as they team up against you. This is where Monster Jam suffers. If all the trucks were facing each other the game would be much more fun instead, they all target you. The arenas are explorable and you’ll find hidden passages and rooms to power up. You would think that if you left a room full of monster trucks they’d attack each other and beat each other up. Nope, that’s not the case. You come back to the room and they are just circling around like it’s a Sunday drive. If you play on normal mode there is a “boss truck” that has spiked wheels. They are tougher than the rest and can deal more damage. Oh, did I mention the other trucks cheat? As I said, there are hidden passages and secret rooms to access but to get to them you need to smash through walls. There were numerous times that I’d smash through a wall and enter a room with no other exits and see another truck in there already and making its way toward a valued weapon. Speaking of weapons, they are how you’ll deal the most damage to other trucks. They can be cool with lasers, machine guns, missiles, and other things to blow your opponents up. I didn’t expect this type of gameplay when I got the game and was confused to see weapons attached to monster trucks during my Monster Jam Maximum Destruction review.

Damage is shown on the trucks with the body of the truck being smashed, dented, or completely removed. They did a good job of making the truck damage realistic but they did next to nothing for the cars you run over. As a kid, all I could dream about was running over cars and watching their windows break or metal crush beneath my tires. In Monster Jam, the cars just flatten. It’s very disappointing.

After you beat the level, you’ll be taken to a “shop” screen where you can use the money and points you earned to upgrade your monster truck’s engine, driveshaft, shocks, transmission, tires, and supercharger. It’s pretty cool but I didn’t notice a difference in the way my truck handles or drives when I bought the high-end equipment. It’s necessary though as your truck wears down over time.

There are seven different arenas that you’ll play through in season mode. Some of the arenas are awesome, like the hockey one, others are weird like the movie studios. The trucks look good but aside from them, you could tell me the rest of the graphics and environment was made from a PS1 game and I’d believe you.

Once you win a season, the truck you drove with will be unlocked with a checkered flag hanging out the back and some added stats. Yippy. That’s literally it. No cut scene, no highlight reel of that truck in real life, just an unlocked version of that truck with a flag.

Memories:

Okay, so let me make a confession. When I was a young child I was obsessed with monster trucks. I had a VHS tape that had some 80s monster truck racing and I probably watched it a million times. My parents would pop it in and I’d watch it for the next few hours. I still remember most of the trucks. Big Foot was my favorite and he ended up winning the competition but there was also Awesome Kong, Frankenstein, The Michigan Ice Monster, Rolling Thunder, and a few others. Man, I loved that VHS.

Anyway, my love for monster trucks continued as my dad took me to two different monster trucks rallies and I loved watching them in person just as much as I loved that VHS. I was so stoked that a Monster Truck video game was coming out that I begged and begged my dad to buy it for me. I had my friend Justin over for the weekend and my dad left to go to the store saying he was going to buy the game for me. I vividly remember playing Ape Escape on the PS1 as we waited and about an hour later he came back acting all sad saying that the store was out. I was bummed but then five minutes later he pulled it out of his jacket and gave it to us. We went wild running around the room and instantly popped the game into my PS2.

Monster Jam Maximum Destruction Review Score:

Poor controls, hit-or-miss arenas, and cheating A.I. makes Monster Jam Maximum Destruction a disappointing first entry in the monster truck series. It’s too bad because there is a lot of potential and things that Ubi Soft could have done with this game but chose to do none of it.

Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction scores a 5.2 out of 10.

What would you write in your Monster Jam Maximum Destruction review? Do you remember when Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction first came out? What was your favorite truck to play as? Did you beat the game on normal mode? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Submarine Attack Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

Well, I finally did it. I have reviewed a game that never came to North American shores and I did it without even realizing it. In 1990, Sega developed and released “Submarine Attack” for the Sega Master System releasing the side-scrolling shooter in Europe and Brazil but not in Japan or North America. Would Sega dive deep and find success at the bottom of the ocean or would a sea monster crush their dream? We DIVE DEEP in this Submarine Attack review! (haha)

Submarine Attack Plot

So… since Submarine Attack wasn’t released in North America, I can’t find an English translation of the manual or back of the box. I don’t want to make up the story for Sega but from the gameplay, I’m sure the story is a simple one.

My guess is that the submarine you pilot has some type of secret information on it. The sub needs to be navigated through six levels of various environments filled with both human enemies and sea creatures. At the end of the game, the sub emerges from the water under the Aurora Borealis with the secret information in tack and the sub in safe waters. Hooray, that’s my version of what happens in Submarine Attack!

Submarine Attack Gameplay:

Sega Master System games always amaze me with the beautiful and bright colors that the system can produce. There is an opening scene of the submarine submerging underwater and it was filled with various hues of blue. Speaking of things looking great, Master System games are notorious for having TERRIBLE box art, at least in North America. The amount of effort that is shown on these boxes looks like it’s next to nil. Unlike the rest of the Sega Master library, Submarine Attack’s box art is tremendous. I simply could not believe that this type of art finally graced a Master System box. If I was a kid, it would have been one of the first games I picked out to play simply based on the artwork. Not that I would have been able to since I live in America but you get my drift.

As for the gameplay, I piloted my sub through six different levels during my Submarine Attack review. The length of the levels is generous. These aren’t short quick levels, but ones that will take over two minutes to beat. With games being so short in the 80s and early 90s, it was nice to see Submarine Attack have a bit of fat to the game per se. Each level has tons of detail filled with bright colors. Expect to see colored reefs, helicopters, subs, boats, bubbles, underwater mines, and much more when navigating a level. The first boss was simplistic. It was just a structure with three guns attached to the base. I was able to dispose of it easily and move on to level two.

Once you beat the first level you’ll notice that the speed ramps up. Enemies, bullets, and other objects will swim by you at quicker speeds but luckily for you, you can collect power-ups including speed, attack power, and health. This isn’t a one-hit kill game and your sub can take a few hits before sinking but as health comes by you’ll still need to snag it to ensure victory like I did in my Submarine Attack review.

While your sub is piloting underwater, there will be plenty happening on the surface. There will be boats and helicopters above that will be dropping bombs or shooting at you. Your sub will have two different attacks, one shoots missiles in front of you and one shoots missiles above the water to take down annoying surface foes. It’s not just the enemies above the surface, there’s plenty to see in the environment. Level two had an awesome volcanic eruption sending lava rocks into the ocean that I had to dodge during my Submarine Attack review.

Boss fights become increasingly difficult as the game progresses, as they should. Stage two had a battle fortress with five different guns and a weak point. The next level my trusty sub went deeper into the ocean and navigated through an underwater cave. Instead of man-made enemies, the foes became sea creatures that looked like fossils adding to the belief that I was traveling deeper into the ocean. Continuing the theme of mystical enemies, stage four takes place at night against a skeleton mermaid civilization. It reminded me of a lot of Atlantis or a city like that. At the end of the level, you face a King Mermaid that knocks rocks down into the water. The only way of defeating him is to shoot his mouth when it opens. It’s easier said than done as his mouth only opens when the rocks are falling.

After fighting a mermaid race, you’re thrust into a futuristic underwater cavern. The boss at this stage was not messing around and was the toughest to defeat in my Submarine Attack review. He had tons of guns and turrets that you had to avoid in a small space while finding the weak point. At the final level, my sub randomly started to shoot lasers. Perhaps I had powered it up so much that my missiles turned into a long laser or maybe it happens automatically when you reach the final stage, I don’t know. The final boss during my Submarine Attack review was perhaps the easiest! He was a sea monster that looked like an octopus with his tentacles. A few pops from my laser had him sleeping with the fishes…although he probably already did that. Be careful not to die during the game or else you’ll be stripped of your weapons and speed making it almost impossible to finish out the level unless you are extremely skilled.

Memories:
I had seen on a few occasions that Submarine Attack was on a couple of lists for top Master System games but I never knew it never came out in North America. After downloading the ROM, I still didn’t suspect it was foreign. It wasn’t until I started writing this review that I discovered that fun little fact. I went to Ireland in 2021, and made sure to pick up a copy of Submarine Attack for my Master System so now I can proudly display it or play it here!

Submarine Attack Review Score:

Unique atmospheres, fair gameplay, and challenging bosses made Submarine Attack a surprise hit in my book for the Sega Master System. The gorgeous graphics match the incredible cover art.

Submarine Attack scores an 8.4 out of 10.

What would you write in your Submarine Attack review? Do you remember when Submarine Attack first came out? Have you ever played it or heard of it? What was your favorite level? How about your favorite boss? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Wolfenstein The New Order Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

Wolfenstein is one of the oldest video game series still going on today. The first game was titled “Castle Wolfenstein” and was released in 1981 for the computer. After numerous releases, the series was rebooted in 2014 when developer MachineGames and publisher Bethesda Softworks released Wolfenstein: The New Order on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Would the series return to glory in this Wolfenstein The New Order review?

Wolfenstein The New Order Plot:

Like most Wolfenstein games, William “B.J.” Blazkowicz stars as the Nazi killing machine. I was happy to see him included as I have tons of memories of playing as him in Wolfenstein 3D. The Nazis have superior advanced technology that turned the war in their favor. In 1946, B.J. and his pals in the U.S. Special Forces take part in an air raid against a fortress that is controlled by top Nazi, General Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strasse.

After being shot down, B.J. and three other men are captured and brought before Deathshead who forces B.J. to choose between two of his comrades. (I picked Wyatt to live during my Wolfenstein The New Order review) Whoever you choose to spare, will later join you and have different perks than the other one would have. B.J. and whoever you choose to spare, escape the lab but B.J. suffers a massive head injury that sends him into a coma for 14 years. YES, 14 YEARS B.J. IS IN A COMA!

It’s now 1960 and the Nazis have won the war and taken control of America. During B.J.’s 14 years in a coma, he was cared for by a nurse named Anya and her family that runs an asylum. The Nazis storm the facility and start executing patients ordering the doctors to give up the patients. Anya and her parents refuse which results in her parents being executed as Anya runs for safety. All the fuss wakes up BJ from his 14-year-long nap and sends B.J. into a rage where he kills the exterminating team and rescues Anya from being killed.

Anya and B.J. start to work together and convince her grandparents to smuggle them past a checkpoint in Berlin to save members of the Nazi resistance. After rallying the resistance and some of its members, they attack a Nazi research facility in London. They find tons of technology being used by the Nazis that was created by a Jewish scientist who is now in a prisoner camp. B.J. goes undercover and busts out Dr. Set Roth who created the tech. With Set’s help, they find more advanced technology caches that are hidden within the world.

After a few missions including one that sends B.J. to the moon, the Resistance has been captured and members of it have been sent to Deathshead’s facility. B.J. busts in and discovers the person he picked to kill 14 years ago is now controlling a killer robot with their brain as the operating system. After destroying the machine B.J. battles Deathshead in an extra bloody battle resulting in Deathshead being blown up by one of his grenades. B.J. isn’t so lucky as his body is torn to shreds and he is left dying as the credits roll.

Wolfenstein The New Order Gameplay:

I was quite pleased to see how the combat evolved since playing Wolfenstein 3D. It would have been great to have a little face at the bottom that showed your health like the 3D version, but that’s just a nostalgic wish. Gun controls and aiming are smooth, and I found no issue with aiming or pumping Nazis full of lead during my Wolfenstein The Order review.

When your health diminishes you’ll need to find armor to replenish your stock. Most levels have proper layouts where if you need armor, you can find some by looting a closet or corner. Just make sure to take an extra look around if you’re hurting. Wolfenstein The New Order offers tons of action. It’s not like Doom where you are running around nonstop as you take down enemies, but don’t be surprised if you constantly are fighting 2-3 enemies at once as they run around and hunt you. You need to be smart when you go on the offense because if you just run around without a plan you’re bound to get popped. I always felt like a badass during my Wolfenstein The New Order review when I was double-wielding guns. One of my favorite things to do was finding the commanders of each level to kill. Each one of them is equipped with an alarm that they can raise to bring in more guards, but if you take them out using a signal tracker to home on them, then the rest of the guards are left without backup. It’s a fun mini-game to play within the level.

Wolfenstein 3D was plenty bloody, but don’t worry the developers took that to heart and continued with the gore. You’ll be splattering blood all over the walls, watching Nazis die in grizzle ways, and seeing their bodies shatter. Cut scenes work well and fit into the story. They don’t linger on too long and I always enjoyed watching them during my Wolfenstein The New Order review.

Dr. Deathshead was a great villain. You loved to hate him and his act of making you choose who lives and who dies was clever, especially when both characters come back into the plot. The game isn’t all action, as you’ll have a few missions that require undercover work like when you board the Nazi train or head into the prisoner camp. I remember vividly entering the camp and feeling like I wouldn’t be walking out of there alive during my Wolfenstein The New Order review. They did a great job creating that atmosphere of hopelessness.

The Resistance characters are hit or miss. I like Anya, and Wyatt but others come off as annoying. The cast of characters continues to get worse in the second one, but I’ll speak on that when I review the second game. Dr. Deathshead is a wrinkly old bag, but his character is great. They nailed him, but I wish they would have worked a little bit more on the characters around you. The whole idea of the Nazis finding advanced weapon caches was a bit stupid, but whatever.

Memories:
I have so many memories of playing Wolfenstein 3D so I was excited to see New Order come out. My wife bought it for me and I was pleased to see all the gore and fast-paced action return. The battle against Dr. Deathshead was fun and challenging. I didn’t mind dying because I knew there was a way to beat him. (Take out the flying blimp that charges his shield before taking him on)

Wolfenstein The New Order brought hope that the franchise could come back, but unfortunately, it was followed up by Wolfenstein: The Colossus which came with a terrible cast of characters. I hope if they make a third game, they keep the spirit of the first game instead of the second.

Wolfenstein The New Order Review Score

If you love alternate timelines for World War II, advanced Nazis, gore, fast-paced action, and villains you just can’t wait to kill, then Wolfenstein The New Order is for you. The reboot works well, and it was a great first step in making the franchise relevant again.

Wolfenstein: The New Order scores an 8.6 out of 10.

What would you write in your Wolfenstein The New Order review? Do you remember when Wolfenstein: The New Order first came out? What did you think of the reboot? Did you like the cast around B.J.? Who did you choose to spare? How did you like the final battle against Dr. Deathshead? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!