Jon :hearts: Gynoug.

Well I've just lost everything I typed and linked to due a Firefox crash on our supposedly fixed treacly turd of a laptop.  The gist of it was, Eric was getting two 16-bit games this month, regardless of whether he'd played them before (bear with me), and he'd have to select a winnar from his chosen Sega/Nintendo head to head.

I'd got as far as typing out:

Robocop Vs Terminator
Alien 3
Pirates of Dark Water
Aladdin
Sparkster   
Shadowrun
TNMT Tournament Fighters
Jurassic Park

...but I'm sulking now so I'll add to it later.  If you're up for the theme, of course.

Moot, I think I get you...

Pick a game that had different versions of the same game on the MD and SNES, play both and compare and contrast?

I'm up for that. Am I picking from all of those games or just the final three?

No thats good, I like the idea. Temped by Batman and Robin but also may do TMNT Tournament Fighter as a side as I won't have to put as much time into them, I'll see what emulates well and confirm.

I've played two levels of Wild 9, at last.  At first I thought it was 'of its time', in that whilst clearly decent looking for the era, it was still a tad clunky and if anything, hampered in retrospect by the 2D plane/3D visuals thing.  However, on closer inspection it has plenty of neat ideas and the controls are quite tight.  It's not Earthworm Jim in terms of variety thus far, but it's early days and the whip bash/whip swing mechanics work well.  The puzzles (I think it's fair to call them that) add variety too, and the Tallarico soundtrack is quite banging as it goes.  It shits on Pandemonium for sure, and plays like a mish mash of that, the Bruce Willis Apocalypse thing (hardly a corker, yet underrated) and [insert something whippy swingy I can't think of off the top of my head].  Would've been all over this if it were a Saturn game circa '97, but by late '98 I was too eager to ignore things while I waited for a Dreamcast.  My only real complaint, other than the oversized levels that go with the territory, is that the rig/whip is a bit random as it flicks out, which makes me wonder if I should be playing this with the analogue setting on.

My recommendations got lost at the end of the last page.

I haven't had any from Davy yet, but probably wouldn't have had a chance to play anyway.

Im on with this Moot after a bit of a delay getting my Jxd fully loaded and coming back off my hols. Ive had a few quick goes of all of the games bit think Im going to do the two Alladin games. Ill probably pass comment on the others I've dabbled with too.

Done a couple more levels of Ranger-X, as I said before the graphics are absolutely superb, great detailed sprites and some snazzy 3D rotation effects put to great use.

I'm still massively struggling with the in air controls, they're just not clicking. It's also quite annoying having to get on your bike(?) to change special weapons.

I'm on a level in which I'm ascending a skyscraper and on my last life, not sure how much further I'll get tbh. Howmuch have I got left @Eric ?

Just completed it.

Great.

I've played Solomon's Key quite a bit, although many years ago. Think I had it in my brief Atari ST period.

I'll probably take a look at Solar Jetman.

My recommendations for you are on the previous page BTW.

Ranger-X (MD)

So like I said, finally finished this so here's a quick write up. Apologies in advance for poor terminology, I'm sure it's not simply called a bike for example.

Simple premise to this game, you basically have to clear an area of a set number of turrets/enemies, there's a counter at the top of the screen which indicates how many are left in the area, and a radar ala Defender shows you the direction to head in. After that's done you are then presented with the end of level boss. 

The controls are initially confusing and twitchy. Confusing because unlike most games of its day simply turning direction from left to right doesn't change your direction of fire. Instead the A button fires left and the C button fires right, however once you put in a little time this becomes second nature.

The 'twitchy' I refer to posed a much bigger problem, for me anyway. Basically you can fly by pressing up on the directional pad (whilst having to keep an eye out on the temperature meter so you don't overheat and drop out the sky like a dead duck) but maintaining a steady elevation felt a lot tougher than it needed to be. No matter how 'tappy tappy' I was with the D-Pad I found myself feeling at the mercy of the twitch mechanics instead of having tighter controls which I felt the game needed. 

There's a part in the last level where you have to dodge moving bombs whilst being shot from the background, it was literally impossible to do without getting hit, I felt like I would have stood a better chance as Barry from Jetpac Joyride. It's not bad controls as in Dark Castle, for one I did actually improve as I played but it unfortunately hindered my enjoyment of the game somewhat. 

Special weapons are used with the B button, I'm not sure how many there are in total but the ones I found and used were a flame thrower, a ice(?) gun which shoots at the ground and travels along the floor. A double lazer, which seemed to have some heat seeking ability and a huge cannon of sorts which takes up about 3/4 of the screen and destroys pretty much anything in its path. The latter I don't think I would have completed the last boss without. 

One annoying thing about these special weapons is having to mount your mech bike/airship to change them, this is quite a hectic shooter and the last thing you need in the middle of a boss fight is having to twitch, sorry fly your way to your bike push down then cycle through the weapons. Its another one of those games where the Mega Drives 3 buttons don't feel enough.

Speaking of the bike/airship, it basically follows you around with support fire or can be mounted and operated as one, this can be a good tactic as it has is own independent energy bar.

On the plus side it's another beauty of a 16 Bit game. Nice detailed sprites with a perfect colour palette giving it a nice gritty feel. Plenty of parallax scrolling, superb sprite rotation make it not only one of the more impressive looking Mega Drive titles, but of the whole generation. The music... was OK I guess, none of it stuck with me but at the same time it didn't grate at all whilst playing.

In terms or length it was a bit on the short side which unfortunately has been a bit of a common complaint with the Mega Drive games I've discovered from this thread, there was however harder difficulties to try which I'm sure my 12 year old self would have been only to happy to use as an excuse to play again.

Overall its a fantastic looking good game. Not the best but solid fun, glad I played it.

3/5

Excellently done Retro, I'm glad you got something out of it, the controls are a little fiddly but they are made easier with the extra mapping on the six buttoner.

I need to get my game on, although I have just completed Super Mario World for the first time tonight! How someone completed that in 17 minutes blindfolded is beyond me, it took me about 4hrs!

*Readying "oh-ho, you broke your cheerry!" gif*

Obviously after my Aladdin fest