The Original Playstation

The most forgotten of all forgotten games this. There was, of cause, Ace Combat 1 and 2 that everyone remembers, but these were arcade games. I mean proper arcade games. From the arcade and everything. You remember those places right? Ace Combat 3 on the other hand is an arcade flight combat game i.e. real physics will not be found here but it never saw the inside of a dark and dingy arcade, it's cabinet was never stained with cigarette tar.

So, nobody remembers AC3. Why? The Euro and US versions of this game arrived in the West mutilated. For whatever reason, read 'laziness', Namco stripped the Japanese version of Ace Combat from 50 missions to 30 missions and then removed all the Anime story line and then released it in Europe, America and Australasia. Thanks to this spoilage, most reviewers at the time bemoaned AC3 Electrosphere and condemned it to the land of forgotten games. Which is frankly no more than Namco deserve for this sloppy treatment of a great game.

And it is a great game, it really is. The first thing that strikes you about Ace Combat 3 is just how utterly amazing it looks. It is quite fiercely one of the crowning graphical achievements of the Playstation 1. As you sweep over cities and mountains and islands, and as you dog fight enemy craft, you'll see a lot of the features that were in Ac4 already in AC3 on the PS1. You have replays, which look pretty cool, external views that you can examine your aircraft and a missile-cam. The sense of speed is impressive as you fly along and the detail of the 3D models, from the aircraft, to the sky scrapers, to the tunnel walls is all very impressive. The cut sequences, which in some cases are generated using the games 3D engine, also look pretty good too. Graphically, AC3 stands out from the crowd.

Despite the story being all but stripped, this is the gist of it: General Resource Ltd and Neuwork Inc are the two massive corporations locked in a dispute that is threatening all-out global war. Your job in the game as part of a New United Nations is to stop that. Naturally, peace can only be achieved by shooting and killing and a good deal of insane aircraft piloting.

So, it's the usual Ace Combat affair; blow up some ships, shoot down some planes, bomb some radar installations, fly down a valley and of cause fly down some underground tunnels. Ace Combat wouldn't be Ace Combat without some ludicrous underground section. AC3 doesn't disappoint either, there is fairly large chunk of underground flying, and has a large underground city too. Hey, Electrosphere is set in the future! The only minor gripe is the weedy mega-ship. As most fans of the series know, there is usually a giant flying aircraft to pound the hell out of in AC games, and AC3 has them too, but in AC3 are kind of weedy. However, there is a mission in space which no AC had ever done before, or indeed ever done again, which sort of makes up for that.

So who should play this? Retro Graphics Whores certainly. Anyone who was a fan of 1990's Japanese Cyberpunk. I'm huge fan of Bubblegum Crisis, Genocyber and Oedo 808 and this game, also based in the Artificial Intelligent future is clearly influenced by these, and anyone rooting round looking for something retro Playstation to play.

Ignoring the fact there is no story, AC3 remains a very playable shooter. The difficulty is balanced, the game fun and the journey, if not detailed in the narrative sense, is in the visual sense very enjoyable. I can also recommend the soundtrack, that while owing a nod to the Ridge Racer school of soundtracks, is a touch more soulful than it's road based stable mate, and does embrace the cyberfuture megalopolis theme of AC3 well.

It ain't rare and you should be able to pick up a copy for a few quid.

3DOKid.

Where do you start with Gran Turismo? It's sold almost 11million copies. There are 178 cars in the game. There are 11 tracks and bunch of sequels.

That do?

No – okay.

It's been 10 years since GT was first released, so it's probably been around 9 years since I last played it and things have changed. The cars look dated.

The RX7 looks old. DB7 looks old. There are cars with pop-up headlamps. It feels like upper-class banger racing. It's weird. These cars were once, for the most part, desirable. Now they have all been superseded.

The game still looks amazing mind you. If you squint, and make your eye's go all blurry, GT does look almost real.

I remember playing this the first time, and what is obvious, is that the 3DOKid of 10 years ago, wasn't blessed with same patience of 3DOKid of today. For starters, the mandatory license scheme didn't bore me to tears. In fact, this time round it actually felt like part of the game, not some needless chore. And, I passed them much quicker than previously. Perhaps that is because this time around I have an actual driving license, or because I have played other driving games, and I've learnt a few cornering tricks from them. Whatever, 30 Minutes in I had a B license and an A license.

So to pick a car. As I recall, the first time around a picked a Mazda MX-5. A good choice, but for all the wrong reasons. I think ten years ago I believed all cabriolets were faster than other cars. And the idea of balance, weight, performance and upgradeability never crossed my mind.

This time, for god knows what reason, I picked a Toyota 70Supra. Powerful? Yes. Handling? Upgradeable? Light? No – no it isn't. I should have picked the Mazda RX7 FC or Toyota MR2 but then, I'm an idiot and emotion and wild car fantasies got the better of me.

So – to race.

GT takes no time once you start racing to reveal it's true colours. It sort of punishes you in one respect, and rewards you in others. Cornering in GT is tough. Hell, braking in GT is tough. Thinking about it, hitting the curb in GT is tough. This game isn't easy. Every car is different. Properly different. Every minor tweak or modified part has a tangible effect. And learning and re-learning how to drive each car? Well, is that a chore or part of the game? The answer, is that's part of the game. To play and enjoy GT, you have to face that. GT is not about streaking past the chequered-flag two-miles ahead of your opponents. Which is where most people get stuck.

You see GT is not Need for Speed. It's not Ridge Racer. What it is, is a car fanatics wet-dream. For normal people, and I'm borderline, GT must appear to be quirky at best, perhaps anal, at worst simply boring.

You can see the people that didn't step-back with GT and have a think. Where is the damage model they ask? Why doesn't the weather change? Why doesn't it get dark.

In reality see, GT is more like an RPG-come-Collect 'em up than a competitor for Ridge Racer.

That said, if you pick the right race, with the right car, with the right settings then GT is perfect. It's almost magical. The sense of being in a race is epic. It's a genuine real thrill.

Pick the wrong race, with wrong either the wrong settings or the wrong car and you enter GT hell. But then, for car fanatics, GT Hell is actually GT heaven. The game is about properly modifying cars, trying to not create the car with the biggest BHP (Break Horse Power) but about making a balanced racing car. At the time, and even today, that's unusual. I'll say it again, the best car in GT is the one that wins races. Not the fastest, not the most expensive and certainly not the prettiest.

You start with 10,000 credits. Blow it on the wrong car or the wrong upgrade, and GT is the most frustrating game in the world. And the only way out? RPG-like 'grind'.

Grind in GT is racing the same easy race over-and-over-and-over-and-over again, to earn enough cash, to simply stick on the right stabilisers, tyres and suspension, that you wish you had bought when you were blowing all your money on a Stage 4 turbo that just makes the car bounce off of the rev limiter, makes it go too quick, so it can't stop, and when you catch it just wrong, every corner has you pirouetting off the circuit like drug addict at a ballet school.

If game-grind gets you down, collecting every car will slay you. Like Pokemon, you gotta catch 'em all. From the boring Nissans to the exotic Astons, one of each must be in your garage.

If you don't like that. Then don't play.

GT is engrossing if you approach it with right frame of mind. Forget about winning races, and think about cars. Then think about making your car the best. Then you can enjoy it.

This game is truly ground breaking. One of the most important games ever made but it is a game. And the question is, is it fun? The truth is, not for everyone.

3DOKid.

Hold on to your bladders. It's going to be a triple-shocker! That's right, first-off, it's not another bloody SHUMP, which in it's self is staggering. Not least of all because I have a copy of Raiden DX on constant play on my PSP, and it's awesome. Shock number two, is that it's an NFS game. That's right: Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed. And thirdly, it's awesome too. Yep. Need for Speed – Porsche Unleashed is brilliant.

Now, you know me, and maybe you don't, but I like emotion in my games. I'm a big graphics whore, I make no secret of that, and I like driving games. I also pick-no-bones over the fact, that by and large the best driving games are the most modern. The best car related game I have played ever was Grid by Codemasters. I liked Grid because it simply is that good. Before that, I felt PGR4 was the best. On something called an Xbox 360 – whatever that is. PGR4 was placed in the ranks of 3DOkid love because it wasn't perfect, but it dripped emotion. The people who made PGR loved cars. In the same way Raystorms creators loved SHUMPS.

Not perfect, but epic. There is something about it, that makes you smile.

To say I love NFS Porsche Unleashed, today, in 2008, means it's pretty special.

So what's to love?

Firstly, Porsches. I do love Porsches. All Porsches. The 356, the 924, the 928, the 911, Turbos, RS', all of them. They are all awesome. You can keep your unreliable Italian trash, and your bloated half wooden anglo-battleships. Porsches are the greatest cars ever made. Ever. And I won't hear another word on the issue.

Next thing I love is the graphics. I picked one of the modes, don't ask me which one, go and read one of those reviews based on the game manual if you want to know that. Anyway, I picked a mode, picked a car; a handsome golden 356B cabriolet, with a green roof, and I started the pre-race qualification. In the snow. In Germany. To say I nearly wept for sheer joy, was, perhaps, something of understatement. Porsches? Snow? Germany? No combination of gaming goodness has brought me so close to a platonic love with a black disk, crammed with ones and zeros, than ever before.

If I wasn't so afraid of the wife catching me, I would have taken that disk on a two-hour knee trembler. Oh-how-I-love-this-game.

Is that clear?

Listen, the snow was falling! On my 356. In the snow. In Germany. Dare you imagine?

So, I took my 356 and started flinging it around corners. The first thing I noticed was it was true Sim-arcade. And god bless Electtronic Arts for that. The little car realistically performed a turn the Anthill Mob would have been proud of. This is not a bad thing. All the fun of real cars doing things that are simply impossible in the real world.

The other nice thing was damage. Well, to be fair it was and it wasn't. It was encouraging to see the PS1 pulling off such great things as car damage. Scratch the front wing, and behold, the front wing of the car is scratched. Very good. Still, it kind of ruined the replays. Especially for a Porsche-Graphics whore.

Now we come to an iffy part of this write up. Deep breath. Pause. I actually own one of the cars in the game. A black 911 Carrera.

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

Now you finished ushering profanities, declaring this 'the worst I've got a Porsche' blog entry ever and waving your finger about guessing the size, incorrectly, of my manhood. You have one question right?

Is the game anything like the real thing?

No. Not at all.

The game is better.

Like I said; Cartoon handling, and exaggerated performance. For example, achieving 147Mph (237Kmh) is possible, of cause it is, it's just not that likely on a rough looking single track country road. Plus the acceleration of the game version of my 911, is much better than the real thing. You will also find, that if you press-the-hammer and accelerate away from the Police in excess of 120Mph, in any car really, the Police don't give up after a while. They really, really get the arse.

But that, in my opinion, is the beauty of the game. Gaming is fantasy. And this game lives up to that fantasy.

I am of the opinion however, that whoever wrote this game, was either under the kosh to produce an utterly loveable and completely stunning car game, one would assume Porsches legal koshes, or the good folk at EA loved Porsches too.

Now, there is one mistake. And all car games make the same one. The best car in this game is not the 911 (996) Turbo or the GT3. No. These cars lack charm, and they go too quick. And no, it's not my car. All games make the same mistake of believing the super-car is the best car, but true to every car game I've ever played, the most fun is to be had with one of the earlier cars. Namely in this case the 2.7 911 RS. It's fast enough. It looks great. It handles great. And the graphics are moulded to fit the cars era. It's perfect.

Finally, aside from my doubts over which car should be consider the best, this game is actually very good. In fact, it's better than good. It's brilliant. Fun, fast and emotive. Of the truly overlooked classics of the original Playstation, this game, is quite possibly, the best arcade-sim driving game on the PS1.

Yes – better than GT.

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleased. There is no substitute.

3DOKid.

There is on the Internet, a sort of cult, and while the Freemasons apparently make Steve Guttenburg a star, this gaming-cult makes mediocre games stars. Endless retro-gaming lunatics banging on about good-honest-no-frills game play, when clearly they haven't played the game in 10 years. Because if they had, they would notice very few games can hold their own today, least of all these so called cult classics.

I'm not a member of this cult, obviously, I run a 3DO Blog and to make matters worse, a Playstation Blog, so I'm a pariah. But there is a cult, I promise you. Now, the power this cult has is astounding. It's members, which I reckon rank in the tens of thousands, actually think that Halo was some sort of seminal game, they believe that Zelda was more than just some hippy rubbish, and that Nights into Dreams was the exact opposite of confusing-tedium.

Madness, yes I know.

And woe-betide the fool that crosses them. I can cross them, obviously, they'll come on to my blog spew their bile and I'll just delete them, but you go onto a public forum and say them things. It's scary.

Well, another game that gets more than it's fair share of disproportionate love is R-Type.

Now R-Type was okay. I shoved a few ten-pence pieces into myself, but then I shoved ten-pence's into a lot of things. Pitfighter, I thought that that, at the time, was okay. Ironman Stewarts Super Off Road Racing was pretty good too I felt, and I bunged more money than was sensible into Namco's Winning Lap, which I was positively addicted too. Would I fight you to the death if you disagreed with me? Possibly, but for the sake of argument let's pretend I'm reasonable, so no. No I wouldn't.

Today's game poses a heart-yanking conundrum for the cult. You see, it's an updated version of R-Type. So according to the cult it's a sublime messenger of most excellent beauty gaming, but it's also a Playstation exclusive too, which means by the cults own belief system it's also Satan's rectal deposits on toast. It's like a Christian being informed that Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdalene were the same person. On one side over-love for R-Type and on the other deep irrational hatred of Playstation.

So then, R-Type Delta.

Hmmm.

Where to begin eh?

Difficult to know where to start really.

How about:

It's not as good as Einhander.

There I've said it, and I can't take it back. It's the truth.

Let me qualify that. The graphics are good in R-Type Delta, but not as good as Einhanders. Einhander has a lot more clarity. The organic-mecha feel of R-Type's environments are translated well to 3D, but lack the style of Einhander. Einhanders graphics are more refined, more engaging. They're just better.

R-Types sound track is also good, but lacks the punch of Einhanders. Einhanders tunes are edgy and have more personality than R-types. R-Types are good, better than Raystorms, but not as good Einhanders.

Graphics and sounds then. So?

Well, it is however how the game plays, that makes Einhander the better game. If you're going to put one game into one camp, and the other in another, then Einhander is challenging, R-Type Delta is frustrating. Very frequently while playing I got very angry with R-Types game designers. I have to push the craft against the wall, against the ceiling, it was the only way to survive, where is the skill in that? It feels ugly. By all means make a puzzle, make me think about where I positioning the craft, but don't make it feel claustrophobic. Certain situations you feel let-off rather than beating the challenge. The game carelessly kills you. In some ways, you feel you are fighting the level designer, rather than the game. R-Type delta feels like it's trying to prove a point to SHMUP fans, of which in Japan there are many, rather than make a great game.

That said, R-Type Delta is a great game. It is bloody good, please, don't get me wrong but it's not as good as Einhander.

There is sequence right at the start of the game where you feel like punching the air. This-is-great. You're flying along, figuring out how all the weapons look like their 2D counter parts in the original R-Types, only they are all in exciting 3D, and they look better and brighter, and suddenly a big green robot comes from no where. So you twat him with super-mega-laser blast and it immediately explodes. On the reward-o-player-o-meter this ranks pretty high. It feels better than great. Tint little space ship, great big laser, completely mushed big stompy robot.The next couple of bosses and levels are really rewarding too but then it starts to descend into picky and slightly irritating.

The ship, and I don't want to hark on about it, isn't as direct Einhanders. The weapons are R-type, but less rewarding than Einhanders, the bosses are R-Type but less inventive than Einhanders, the 3D, which is merely there for show-boating, is better in Einhander.

It's a close second, but very much second.

Still, I prefer I Raystorm personally, but there you go. Einhander was built by a crack team of assembled experts. R-Type Delta was built by hardened long serving professionals but Raystorm was built with heart and captures a feel for the time and era better than the others. Raystorm is1990s Japanese SHMUP, Einhander and R-Type Delta are extremely good SHMUPS. See?

If you own a Playstation, a 1, a 2 or a 3, or indeed a PSP, you owe to yourself to track down a copy of R-Type Delta, just make sure you get a copy of Einhander at the same time.

3DOKid.

Raystorm, bless its little cotton socks, followed a pretty well trodden path when it came to a scenery line. You start off flying over the Earth, attacking an invasion force, and eventually making your way into space to give the Mothership what-for.

This isn't exactly the most unique flow of scenery. Gekioh shooting king follows it, Rayforce followed it, all shooters seem to follow it. But who cares in honesty? It's not the scenery that's important, it's the shooting. Isn't it? Well, clearly, Taito seemed to think it was important.

Raycrisis is the last game in the Raystorm / Rayforce series, and it is the prequel to Rayforce. What is clear is that Taito wanted the series to go out with a bang. They clearly wanted Raycrisis to be the most unique SHMUP ever created. So, the question Taito asked, was clearly, how do we make Raycrisis a unique shooter?

The answer to this seemed to be to over-engineer everything. It some places it works. The plot is busy, the graphics are excellent but then the game mechanics are all over the place. And it just smacks of over industrious and a bit confused.

Take the plot: The Neuro-Computer Con-Human super computer gains sentience and rebels against it's human creators. Well, okay, so-far-so-Terminator. It, Con-human that is, rebels because a mad scientist tried to bond a human clone to the Supercomputer. Reason in itself rebel? I don't know. I never been there. The plot witters on, suffice to say, the only solution is for you piloting a Wave Rider, that's the name of your space ship, to go into this world and shoot stuff. That's a lot of theoretical science just so we can tap away at an X button.

This leads me to a general gripe about Japanese games. They plonk us in these highly convoluted worlds, taking part in highly convoluted stories, and our only contribution is shooting-shit. That's not a big problem, but I'd like a giant Raycrisis story book please. Plus a Raycrisis Anime and a Raycrisis model kit, because the hugely colourful Raycrisis universe looks great, and I'm interested in it, but all there is, is three SHMUPS – I want more. Well, my bank balance doesn't, but I do.

The only link we have to the Raycrisis Universe is the graphics. And in places they are awesome. Raycrisis graphics are best described as sci-fi book covers. Any geek worth his salt, and therefore on this blog, has spent many hours looking at the front covers of science-fiction literary works. Raycrisis looks like a bit of Asimov (Foundation series) combined with a bit of Ian M Banks. Obviously with a bit of Japanese sparkly flying about bits all over the shop. They're good, but a bit weird in places.

From the plot and graphics, this game does have some promise, but then it starts to descend into why-oh-why did they do that territory. In the quest for unique, like so many before them, Taito decided to toss "linear" in the bin. I mean if they had made it linear, like Raystorm was linear, no complaint right? But they didn't and the player can choose what level to play in which order. Sigh.

Raycrisis has better soundtrack than Raystorm. (Raystorm always seems to have elevator music.) but Raycrisis just doesn't feel joined up.

Add to that the disjointed feeling the ever joyous bullet-hell brings. Oh what great fun that is. Not. That's when the screen is full of bullets and the only thing you can do is die. It never really materialised in Raystorm, but Raycrisis is full of it. I don't know. Some people, namely the SHMUP hardcore, seem to thrive on it, but I hate it. The game doesn't have to kill me, incompetence, lack of dexterity and momentary lapses of concentration will do that, but it kills me anyway. And so that makes Raycrisis somewhat frustrating.

So it's hard, thanks to bullet hell, it's confused thanks to player choice, and the worst thing is the canon-fire and the ray-fire now must be on separate buttons. Madness.

The final nail in the coffin for Raycrisis, is what also slammed the lid tight on Metal Gear Solid 2 for me. Namely, a final level that was inspired by the drug 'Acid'. There is, and you will have to excuse the profanity again, only one way to describe the final level of Raycrisis, it goes like this: What the f**k?

Better graphics, worse level-order, better sound track, worse end level? Arrrrg! No.

I want to love Raycrisis, so much of it is right, but I can't and I know in my heart Raycrisis doesn't love me.

3DOKid.

I'm being sucked into another SHMUP.

I've always been a firm believer that part of the arcade experience that was left in the arcade, this was when the smoke-stained dimly glowing dinosaurs made the long march into the home thanks to the likes of Playstation, that the absence of ten-pence or indeed one-pound riding on a game, meant the game lost something.

That hook of one-more-go was gone. You tried, in my opinion, a little bit harder when death meant 33% of your weekly income went with it. It was also in the arcade makers vested interest to kill you as quickly as possible. The last thing Taito, or indeed any arcade maker wanted, was some show-off finishing the game on a single credit. That was bad for business.

You wanted to save money, while playing the game, the arcade vendor wanted you to spend money, while playing the game. So it all hinged on the game. Too hard and the customer was being robbed, too easy and the vendor lost revenue. So the first thing, the critical thing, was game-play.

That's all well and good, but what makes you put your money in the first place? Well, the spectacle of the machine. Easy during the days of Space invaders in the 1970s, relatively of cause, the machine itself was the marvel in those days, as the number of machine increased, and they pushed harder to grab your attention, it became more difficult. Eventually, the graphics had to have that WOW factor. Fewer people were going to shove fifty-pence into a dog-ugly game.

Finally, there is the experience. You can have great game play, you can have wow graphics and that will give you a great game, but if you can tie-in an epic experience, and then blend that with a particular cultural feel of the time, then your arcade game will conquer the world. It will be a legend.

That was until Playstation. A console where all the mighty power of the arcade, met with people who had never shoved more money than was sensible into a machine, while standing for hours in a smoke filled dingy-den. They didn't like dying in games. They measured value in terms of length of completion, which is marked against their initial capital expenditure and the spectacle became the all important.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different thing. After all, this model gave us games like Gears of War, Shadow of Colossus and Tomb Raider. Eventually however, today, it became the all conquering model.

So it's good that we can go back. Back to the likes of Raystorm. A game that reminds you of those feelings you had in the arcade.

Raystorm is a classic arcade machine. It's money stealing heritage is only a feint reminder of what perhaps the original arcade was capable of. It's hand-cuffed so to speak but it still plays the credit-game to extent by limiting the number of credits, that while isn't quite the same, it does force you to keep one-eye on the credit count.

The graphics are amazing. It's all in 3D, the engine throws the player around, they are luxurious and a pleasure to watch. It's like watching a a truly beautiful woman walk past, you simply have to look. I'm not being sexist - i'm just being truthful. Whatever it is, that feeling you get from looking at a Supercar or Supermodel or Supergraphics, that feeling of looking at something truly wonderful that gently lifts your heart - Raystorm has it.

Then there is the experience. There was a question raised recently 'Where are all the Japanese games?' I don't want to bash or slate American and European games, they have a look and feel, that when done well is second to none, but my heart will always belong to Japanese style 3D graphics. And this game is very-very 1990s Japanese. It's like Macross, meets Gundam, meets Anime, meets every beautiful cliche in video game that country has ever given us. From plunging across mechanised cities, down through valleys, across oceans and into deep space.

It's one hell of an experience. It's one hell of game. It's one hell of a time thief.

I really like this game. It's not as good as Einhander or R-Type Delta in many respects, but in the sense of it capturing the feel and look of the mid-nineties arcade in the home, it's actually a lot better.

I'm in just in awe of it.

3DOkid.

Clock Tower or rather Clock Tower 2 as it was called in Japan, but since Clock Tower was never released outside of Japan, it's okay to call Clock Tower 2, Clock Tower, but only in the West obviously. Just to clear that up.

The first question people always ask is what is it? It be a point-and-click survival horror based on a 2.5D graphics engine. The object being to have your character survive by not being chopped to bits by a giant scissors wielding maniac. Which is accomplished by running away, using various items to twat him with or climbing into closet or toilet or something. Think Leisure Suit Larry meets Resident Evil.

And you know what? It sort of half works. The developer, Human, managed to give the game a very John Carpenter Halloween feel, right down to the tinkle-tinkle piano music, composed with sole intention of scaring the bile out of me.

Also like the film Halloween, the game is set in absolute normality. A normal professor, a normal research assistant placed in normal settings. It has a normal hotel, a normal house, a normal office. Plus, the whole game is set in normal Norway. The only thing being that your characters are stalked by a blood drench hunch-back loony with a four feet-long piece of razor sharp stationary equipment. This works. The game has a very chilling edge to it but with just one caveat “Only in places...”.

You see, it only half works.

Firstly, it can be cripplingly boring. It takes forever for dialogue to finish. You can find yourself trapped in a room, unable to leave because some minor trigger hasn't been triggered. You must have had every conversation and have looked at every object before the game lets you leave. It's really irritating. Especially during the prologue. At points I longed for the Scissorman to release me from the purgatory of trying to figure out what I hadn't heard or indeed seen. Also, the characters never seem to really display any meaningful sense of urgency. There are two modes of walking. There is walk slowly to a point by pressing X and if you double tap the X button your character runs a bit quicker. What was needed, in my humble opinion, was perhaps a a triple tap of the X button to indicate I'm being chased by a psychopath. Because honestly, if I was chased by madman, I'd run a bit harder than if I urgently needed to look at a blackboard.

The in-game tension comes and goes too. For instance, when Scissorman is on your tail, when the slice-slice sound of his imminent arrival is announced, the game is indeed chilling. As the frequency of the slicing sound increases, fumbling with the game-pad can be nerve racking at best, especially while you are trying to figure where you can hide. As an aside, what you must not do is corner yourself, or have no escape route. If you do manage to corner yourself, and Scissorman is near, you will crap yourself. However, once I was cornered by Scissorman, so I sprayed him with mace that happened to be at hand, and he did nothing more than bugger-off for fifteen minutes, and I was left wandering the location, completely clueless as to what I am actually supposed to be trying to accomplish.

In fact the whole “great game”, “crap game” theme is carried on through out. It's like half the development team cared and the other half really didn't. A good example is stumbling across a dead body with a spike rammed through it. Your character sees it then buckles to the floor and vomits, it's not terribly graphic, it doesn't need to be, but it's done really well. A few moments later I walked my avatar into the security guards room, and I can see someone sat at a chair. Now it was the first person I had met since the action had really started, so double-clicked on him and lo-and-behold his head falls off, to which my character responds with what was tantamount to an 'Oh!'

It ruins the flow and kills the tension. Clock Tower was a brilliant idea, it's just the execution was a little lacking. What it needed was for someone to sit down with the game just after it was made and make a few minor suggestions, the whole thing could have tightened up with almost no effort, and this game could have been an all time classic. Sadly, it's not.

3DOKid.

So at some point, someone, is going to realise I'm not a terribly diligent game reviewer. And why should I be? I pay £3.00 for a game and it's rubbish. So what? Either you're a collector, at which point you don't care what I have to say or you're a muppet, and you waste money willy-nilly on games you're not interested in and your looking on the web to see if your fear are going to be confirmed. The other option is obviously is that you were a developer for this game, and you just Googled for it and up came this modernish review: in which case “Sorry”. Either way, there is not a lot I can do to help, and whether I play a game for thirty minutes or three days won't make any difference

So, how did I invest my thirty minutes with this game: Heart of Darkness?

Ten minutes were immediately wasted watching the fully rendered introduction sequence. And to be fair, now looking back on those ten minutes, it was the best the ten minutes of the entire thirty minutes I spent. If you like Flight of the Navigator, if you enjoyed films like E.T., and Wargames from the 1980s you going to like the introduction to Heart of Darkness. Sure, it drags on, but it captures the spirit of these 1980s kids adventures quite nicely, and I say lap-it-up because it's as good as gets from this game.

The next ten minutes was screaming and yawping and swearing at the TV. Why? Heart Darkness, during it's development cycle, re-animated the nefarious instant-death goblin that gaming hadn't seen since the last copy of Super Mario World on the NES was played. And god, how I hate that goblin.

Before I go any further, Heart of Darkness is a platformer, a platformer spread on two CDs. Yes, two. Now, don't get me wrong, I like a platformer game, and I'm not so Playstation blinded that I won't play a nice 2D platformer. In fact, the 32bit games consoles and above, have created some truly fantastic looking 2D platformers, so I was pretty keen on a platformer that was spread across one-thousand-two-hundred mega-bytes. That's a staggering amount of storage space for a 2D platfomer. So, honestly, I was, on the quiet, pretty excited.

My excitement was heightened by the fact that Eric Chahi of Another World (Out of this World to Americans) fame was involved in the development. I rate Another World as one of the most beautiful games ever, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So, to recap, we have Eric, two CD's and an orchestral score. This is likely to be awesome. Isn't it? It is? Right?

However, pausing now, as I do, to reflect on that, I should have seen what was coming next, but blinded by wide-eyed hope, I did not.

What did I not see? I didn't see the two CD's being crammed with pre-rendered full motion video. Perhaps I should have done. Perhaps, after years of studying the 3DO, I should have suspected that the one and only way to justify two CDs for a platform-game is the most liberal use of full-motion-video ever. And of cause an orchestral music score uses up a few bytes.

What I should have perhaps also seen is the Insta-death.(tm) By the end of the first few screens of Heart of Darkness I had been eaten, crushed and plunged to my death. And I was mad. Through no fault of my own. Through no mistake of not reading the signs. You know what? I'm a gamer, this is my world. If something twinkles, do I not pick it up? If something rumbles, do I not step back should it collapse? If an enemy shadow goblin comes running at me, do I not whack away at the X-button to try and kill it. I do. I'm a gamer. It's instinctive.

Yet Heart of Darkness does not play by these rules. It plays by it's own rules. Invisable and unseen.

Rule 1 of H-of-D: This is quite a short game, so delay the player by killing them very very frequently, they will think it's longer and therefore better value.

Rule 2 of H-of-D: Buy stock and shares in joystick manufacturers as “Rule 1” is likely to drive all gamers insane.

So what do I know? I know that the shadow-creature things can come at three levels: Low, medium and high. I know the big and the extra big monsters can eat me. I know that every so often the game will just kill me because, so it seems, it hates me. And I know there is no way to cross that narrow bridge without plunging to my death. And that's where I gave up.

Now, the thing is, if I had bought this ten years ago for around forty pounds, there is every chance I would have stuck at it, but I only paid a few pounds and therefore I don't care. So, that said, ten minutes into actually playing the game. I finally got the arse, and gave up, but not entirely. What I did then was set the game to 'Easy' and played it for another ten minutes. Sadly, it didn't help.

If you have the patience of the Biblical Job, then hey, you're going to enjoy this. If you enjoy Full Motion Video, and you enjoy the idea of Eric Chahi ever-so slightly rehashing the story line from Another World, then knock-yourself-out, I on the other hand, have my sock draw to re-organise!

3DOKid.

Okay, so, this blog is beginning to read like something Sony would write. I appreciate your concern, I really do, the problem is that all the games I have covered so far have been pretty good. I also appreciate I sound like a sad middle-aged twat fanboy trying to convince the world Playstation is okay.

Maybe I am?

Nahhh.

The other thing is I cannot abide the pretentious tossers who endlessly bang on about SHMUPS. Ironically, that's exactly what I have done too...

So, I better cover some crappy games, to cover my back.

A good place to start: Deathtrap Dungeon. What they should have done, if they had been honest, is call it Cash-Trap dungeon. Why? Because a few things didn't add up from the get-go.

Ian Livingston? Check!
Deathtrap Dungeon? Check!
Ian Livingston of Fighting Fantasy fame? Check!

Enter brain-left a flurry of memories of quite possibly the greatest books ever written ever. Fighting Fantasy books. You read a bit, threw a dice and then went to another section or page of the book, read it bit more and so on it went.

It was, for a dyed in the wool geek like me, the best thing to come out of the eighties. Except for Kim Wilde – obviously.

Now, the first clue that Deathtrap dungeon on the Playstation was going to be a memory abuse case of catholic church proportions, was the cover art. As I recalled things, the cover art to the book Deathtrap dungeon was so hideous, I, as a nice, pleasant, well brought up fourteen year old, could barely bring myself to look at it. It was a picture of evil itself. Just a look, a mere glance at the cover of Deathtrap Dungeon, I was convinced, was a glimpse at a beast of hell itself. It was that good.

Go on. Google it. Google for “Deathrap Dungeon” and then look at images. If you can see a demonic blob of festering beast matter straight from the anus of hell, you found it, if you're looking at a pathetic black box with Deathtrap Dungeon written on it, in yellow whiplash font, then you're looking at the blasphemous PS1 box art.

So, okay, I flip the box over. There is a woman, dressed in leather attire, with enormous thingies, you know, women thingies, and she is wearing thigh-high leather boots and carrying a massive sword.

So, enter brain right afore mentioned woman. I don't remember her from the book. I was fourteen, I could amuse myself eight times a day when I was fourteen, so why don't I remember this woman? She's just the sort of woman... Oh yes. That's it. SHE WASN'T IN THE BOOK.

Atlus and Eidos between them have changed the art, which wasn't necessary, and changed the characters. That somehow, despite the allure of the new character, also wasn't necessary.

But, I'm getting worked up over mere trifles. Mere cosmetic differences. Surely, with Ian Livingstons name so brashly brandished across the cover how bad could it be?

Hmmm. How bad could it be, seems to have the standard by which they made the game. I am, honestly, the most forgiving gamer on earth. I played Driver 3, to conclusion, and I enjoyed it. I like and still enjoy playing Starblade. I own a 3DO. I found 50 games to be considered the top 50 games for that system. When I say I'm forgiving, I make Jesus look uptight and rash when it comes to forgiving people. Well, games. Well, Jesus never reviewed games. Obviously. But if he had done, I could teach him a thing or two about forgiving bad games.

So the point of that is: Deathtrap Dungeon is bad. It's awful. It's dreadful. When people whine on about draw distance, poor camera angles, bad graphics. They have no room to speak, unless they are talking about Deathtrap Dungeon. The controls, the sound effects, it's just bad-bad-bad.

The other thing, despite the Deathtrap, despite the dungeon, despite the half naked woman, it's boring. Really boring.

So there you go.

3DOKid.

Another SHMUP. That's a Shoot'em up. I'll say it again, because no-one reads this blog anyway; a Shoot 'em up is what the original space invaders was. A little triangle shaped thing moving left to right at the bottom of the screen, and some slobbering fool stood in front of the arcade machine, mashing away at a single red button like his life depended on it. That was circa 1978, since that time not a lot has changed. A few more colours, the little triangle thing moves top to bottom, and indeed left-to-right but ultimately it's not all that different.

I mean, if it was my mum I was explaining things too, I doubt she would see any difference what so ever. She would probably moan about the music in Einhänder mind you. The music is good.

Einhander, which means one handed in German, is nothing less than awesome. I admit, I have a habit of over selling, but with this one, you have to trust me: It's brilliant.

As is normally the case I had a good look around the web to make sure everyone disagrees with me and I was sorely disappointed, most people think this is pretty good too.

Shoot 'em ups are merely memory tests and reflex tests, does it really need a plot? Maybe a setting? Maybe? Reservations about the need for a plot aside, I did kind of like it. Earth verses Moon, end-of-the-world, blah, blah, blah. It is, in fairness, an epic cheesey-ness plot but it fits the game, it fits the mood, and it fits the graphics, so who cares?

The best thing about Einhander is that it comes with a "buzz". You blast your way through each level, pulverizing the Playstations X and O key, then just when you can't pulverize any more, the end-level boss appears demanding almost god like pulverizing. It's good stuff. It's engrossing and it doesn't cheat, far from it actually, it's hard, but it let's you think you can win.

It's one of those games where you are sort of faced with an end-of-level boss, and initially it's hardest thing in the world. It almost seems impossible to get past it. Then something clicks in your mind, and eventually you get past it, and for whatever reason, the next time you play you breeze past it again, with almost no effort. I like this. I don't know whether it's intentional or merely the way the human brain works, or just me, however, it's very rewarding. Each time you play Einhander you progress a little further, and that, in my book (or blog) is good.

The sense of exploration and the desire to see the next bit is driven not only by the game play, which I hope you understand is very addictive, but also by the beautiful graphics. A few of the bosses are really impressive, as are the 2.5D maneuvers the the graphics make from time-to-time, sweeping to a different aspects as your craft enters or leaves an area but the real gob-smackers are the levels themselves. Whether it's flying through a city, or chasing a train, or zooming just off of the surface of an underground lake, Square Soft have really gone to town on the imagery. It is awesome.

Some idiot magazine believed you could finish this game in an hour. Yeah. Right? No. No you can't. Not a hope in hell but then, obviously, they, the game mags, usually hand the responsibility of reviewing SHMUPS to the resident SHMUP expert, who no doubt spends considerable time in SHMUP world flopping his 'joystick' about, professing to all in sundry he can 1CC everything. I, being a mortal, have yet to finish Einhander after several hours of deliberate play.

Someone will bitch if I don't mention the mechanics. There are lots of guns. Lots of gun layouts. Each gun has a pro and con depending on whether it was install over or underhand on your spaceship. Yeah - guns.

The only thing letting Einhander down is it's second hand value which comparative to a lot of Playstation games is bloomin' expensive, and is only available in US and Japanese flavours. Fortunately, Sony, bless 'em, have put Einhander on PSN. In America. Ironic, when much of the games spoken word is in German. Which for those of you living in the US and Japan, is in Europe. You remember Europe? The place where the good quality cheese comes from!

3DOKid