Mike’s Gameboy Game of the Week: Dexter’s Lab: Robot Rampage

If your reading this there is a high chance you have probably heard of the show Dexter’s Laboratory it ran four seasons from 1995 to late 2003 before being moved to Boomerang where it can still be viewed today (among other shows). Dexter’s Lab Robot Rampage is far from an original game, despite featuring many characters from the show itself it in actuality is the North American localized version Elevator Action EX. Depending on your age you may remember a game called Elevator Action as it was originally an arcade game made in 1983. Both Elevator Action EX and Robot Rampage play exactly alike, barring sprite differences the games are practically identical. Does this mean that Robot Rampage, and by osmosis Elevator Action, are bad games? Well I’ll tell you.

That friends is how you make an original game.

The point of the game is to complete four stages each with four parts in the form of four buildings with differing interiors. You complete each stage by collecting all of the documents which are hidden behind special doors which you can open. Once all the documents have been acquired your objective is to either climb to the top of the building or to head to the bottom where you will be taken to the next stage. As the games name implies you will be assaulted by robots who will follow you and try to kill you by either coming into contact with you or shooting you, you can destroy them by using your weapon on them. You start with a regular pistol but can acquire  several other weapons ranging from a machine gun to bombs which can make dealing with the plethora of constantly respawning robots much easier. Oh did I forget to mention that they constantly respawn? Well they do, so if you want to farm extra lives it’s pretty easy to do.

I’m serious.

The graphics for the game are fairly impressive for a Gameboy Color game, but that may be due to the limited amount of stuff you can actually interact with allowing for that kind of space. The soundtrack for the game isn’t all that memorable but isn’t grating enough that it makes you want to claw out your ears. The sheer simplicity of these games may be why they have been received so well over the years, you climb take some elevators up, shoot some robots, grab some documents, and get out. No matter where you look this game is very inexpensive but due to the overall simplicity of the game it’s so easy to jump in and out of it that it’s hard not to want to come back to it every once in a while. The only possible downside I could think of is that the game can be beaten in a around an hour or so, maybe less if you are really good. If you want a cheap quick game that can give you a grand old time I’d highly recommend Dexter’s Robot Rampage, and if you have access to a European Gameboy I’d also recommend Elevator Action EX.

Only if there will be a ridiculous amount of elevators.

Why is there an apartment full of Robots anyway?

Mike’s Gameboy Game of the Week: Digimon Battle Spirits

Oh was my post late this week? Well normally this would be the result of communists attempting to destroy the gaming industry, but unfortunately it was something far worse. Ponies. Ponies invaded my computer.

They’re plotting something, I can just feel it.

The levels of cute were so overwhelming I had to take a break and do some manly stuff like wrestling Bears and extreme beard growing.

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Way back in the far off years of 1998-1999 two shows popped up that essentially defined a majority of nerdy children in the United States, these shows were Pokémon and Digimon despite a great deal of differences between both shows many children (some even today) claimed that Digimon was a copy of Pokémon. In all actuality the Digimon series has much deeper established roots then the Pokémon series. Akiyoshi Hongo is credited as the creator of virtual pets most notably the Tamgotchi line and as the man who created Digimon. Digimon itself started as a line of virtual pets these virtual pets were created in 1997 as a series aimed at young boys. Whereas Pokémon was a result of Satoshi Tajiri’s fondness for catching small bugs and tadpoles Digimon is a result of the virtual pet craze. So children formed their respective camps and many to this day prefer one group over the other, or in some cases like a third group that popped up in the midst of this craze. However today we are not closely analyzing the the intricacies of sisters and whether or not they are similar or dissimilar, we are looking at Digimon Battle Spirit a fighting game for the Gameboy Advance.

Seems legit.

I didn’t particularly notice a story to this game, to my knowledge the extent of the story is:

The Big Bad Millenniummon wants to destroy the Digital World. It is your job to defeat him, fight all his minions until you reach him and defeat him to save the Digital World.

The game handles this in the best possible way, you fight everything. There are seven stages in which you have to defeat a target Digimon while avoiding or defeating some random spawning enemies who will drop random items which you can throw at your opponent. The stages are generally large and as you move around the camera scrolls with you so that you cannot see the entire stage at any point in time, some may find this annoying as it limits visibility and makes it harder to catch a computer who is on the run.

They better run before I Nova Flame all up in here.

In battle you aren’t trying to defeat your opponent in the rudimentary way of hitting them until they are out of HP, you are instead hitting them and trying to collect more orbs then them, at the end of the battle your orbs are counted up and whoever snagged the most wins. The fighting mechanics in Digimon Battle Spirits I almost overly simplistic with the A and B buttons controlling jumping and attacking with the triggers allowing you to vary your attacks by holding them in. There are five starting Digimon to choose from with several you can unlock later on by beating the game. Each Digimon has a unique move set and certain attributes that set them apart from the other Digimon. A good example of this is that Guilmon has weak physical attacks but moves quickly, this makes him a good comparison for Wormmon who attacks quickly but moves very slow. A random element to each stage is the appearance of the Digimon Calumon who can instantly digivolve your character to mega level for a brief period of time greatly increasing your strength and making you invincible.

Let’s be honest the Afro already hooked you on the game right? Just forget the rest of the review and go buy it already.

Digimon Battle Spirits should mostly appeal to fighting game enthusiasts looking for something different to try and even to regular fans of the Series as the game is simple enough to grasp and fairly easy enough to play that anyone can really do it. For those very reason I mentioned the game lacks much for the person looking for an intense deep fighting game like Soul Calibur or Super Street Fighter IX Hyper Turbo Limited Arcade Edition VII. The game can feel shallow at times as battles sometimes boil down to hit and run tactics and the final battle itself can for the unprepared be overwhelming. The game has some neat unlockable characters but aside from those few all they bring to the table is some new moves. The game is fairly inexpensive at most places and can provide a fun ride for a couple of playthrough and is more then worth a couple of bucks.

If I’ve learned anything from the Power Rangers jump kicks are the most efficient way of dispatching enemies.

Mike’s Gameboy Game of the Week: Guardian Heroes Advance

I have some fond memories of the original Guardian Heroes as I played it way back in late 90’s over a friends house, recently with the rerelease of Guardian Heroes for the Xbox 360 I have been able to relive those great memories of a fantastic Beatem’ up’ RPG with many endings and so many paths that it would take many play-throughs to truly enjoy the game. For comparisons sake the closest game to Guardian Heroes is Golden Axe, but the similarities are entirely superficial as unlike Golden Axe Guardian Heroes has a riveting story that changes based on your actions (I’d say both are great in the fighting aspect though.) Seeing is believing I supposed so here’s some gameplay footage of the first stage:

Unlike Golden Axe or any other beatem’ up you may have noticed that the characters don’t move around a three dimensional plane with enemies coming at them from all directions, instead the characters jump through three zones (one in the foreground, one in the middle, and one in the back) this feature while at first seeming ridiculous makes perfect sense from a design standpoint as in Guardian Heroes there are stages where lots of enemies will come at you all at once and being able to quickly jump to another zone out of their range giving a moment to collect yourself before the enemies all hop over. This feature is even more helpful due to the sheer difficulty of the game as mastering hopping from one zone to the other can mean life or death at points.

 

Look at those generic soldiers, think their tough shit jumpin’ out of the way of my lightning.

It would be impossible for me to fully explain to you the sheer depth of the story of this game with it’s many plot twists, undead, demons, gods, murder, and vampire clowns, however I can tell you this, you can play as any character you defeat in versus mode (in the Xbox 360 version you can play online as well).

Oh yes, even bosses.

Now that you have some grasp of the basic premise of Guardian Heroes lets talk about its sequel Guardian Heroes Advance.

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Guardian Heroes Advance takes things a little differently, it does away with the whole zone nonsense and allows you to move about a three dimensional plane, it also added a homing jump (a jump that automatically takes you to whatever the nearest platform is) and platforming elements to mix things up. It also did away the path choosing element of the previous game where you instead move along a linear path towards the ending of the game, luckily though there are two endings so it guarantee’s you at least two playthroughs. Not one of the things that makes up for it is how much depth they added to the combat system with the addition of a counter that can nullify damage and larger move pools for all characters.

Honestly what more could you want?

Of all the characters though the main three Enn, Ray, and who cares because they are all identical and their stats are the only major differences between them, have the largest move pools with different possible attack combos based on directional movements and how long you hold down the attack button. I personally like the addition of a ground pound attack that does area damage. Magic which in the previous game could only be executed by certain button combos (like a haduken) was a tad hard to pull off when a bunch of enemies were punching you in the face Advance fixes this problem by making it so that magic is charges and selected using the shoulder buttons making it a lot easier to pop-off magic spells when you need them.

The change was pretty shocking.

Now Guardian Heroes Advance follows the adventure of the Undead hero from the first game as he is revived by taking over the body of whichever generic main character you chose to start with. You are immediately tasked with saving the world from the Sky Kingdom as they hope to take over the world and create the “Ultimate Warrior”.

I honestly don’t know why though…

So you battle through stages fighting many enemies and eventually you wind up fighting the cast from the previous series who are apparently being controlled by the Sky Kingdom. You beat them and depending on certain conditions you get one of two endings after fighting the final boss. Now the real fun of this game comes after you have beaten it. Remember how earlier I said that in Guardian Heroes you could play as any character in versus mode? Well in Guardian Heroes Advance you can play as ANY character in both versus mode and story mode. So long after you’ve seen the ending of the games you can go back and decide to play as the best mage in the game and just spam uber-spells murdering all of the things.

The didn’t know what hit them.

I haven’t really touched on what versus mode is yet have I? Well in both games it is a feature in which up to twelve characters (be they human or CPU) can all duke it out. This means that you can either have twelve of the baddest bosses pounding on each other of just one tackling a whole bunch of the weakest enemies and utterly destroying them (or losing somehow [it happens oddly enough]). In versus mode you get to assign stats to each character based on the level cap you have chosen and they can either be preset stat distributions or you can set them however you want, this can amount to hours of amusement.

Dance my puppets, DANCE!

I found that Guardian Heroes Advance doesn’t easily appeal to many people due to the fact that a majority of the mythos of the game is lost upon a person who hasn’t played the first game. Guardian Heroes Advance is a must have for anyone who liked the first game and for anyone who is a diehard fan of Beatem’ Ups. The game has memorable characters and a decent soundtrack, the graphics are alright for a Gameboy Advance game, the controls are amazing, and you can play as any character in the game after you’ve killed them. Seriously, what isn’t there to love? To add even more incentive the game is fairly inexpensive. So why not pick a copy now? You can also grab a copy of the original game off the Xbox Live Arcade for 800 MS points if you don’t have a Sega Saturn.

Mike’s Gameboy Game of the Week: Monster Rancher Explorer

So while I was out with my friends this weekend past we were having a discussion on the Monster Rancher series and a friend of mine pointed out that there was a number of moderately unsuccessful Gameboy games. Naturally upon being told this I made it my immediate mission to play all of these games in order based upon how badly they were reviewed, so I hit up some of my local used game stores and found Monster Rancher Explorer for $3. Upon first glance the game seemed oddly familiar as if I had played it before, then while looking into the game I found that it is palette swapped port of another game called Solomon's Key (which apparently is one of the most copied games games if this fan site is to be believed.) Solomon's Key and Monster Rancher Explorer have differing stories and plots but both are the exact same gameplay-wise, they each contain around 60 levels with an addition 6 or so additional bonus levels and you place and remove blocks to reach keys which you use to open doors.

Seems Legit.

So powering the game up I am greeted with a decently animated opening telling me that this game takes place before the Monster Rancher games, it also tells me that the main character has decided to climb a monster infested tower just to write his college thesis.

I found the story to be a tad convoluted as apparently all of the worlds Monsters originated from a giant tower which you are exploring and climbing in order to find the legendary Phoenix which you apparently want to raise. Every 10 stages you are treated to a boss fight preceded by a short cut scene of a nameless elf dude who states that his favorite kind of fun is the fun that involves murder. Strewn throughout several stages are bonus stages/items which can help you though they aren’t apparent as you have to place a block in a specific spot and then remove it to reveal it. Honestly my first go through I knew nothing about these bonus stages and it wasn’t until I looked into the game that I found out about them.

I’m sure they just want to play some baseball or something.

Like I stated earlier the game involves the placement of blocks in order to reach a key to open a door. This isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds as each stage is typically filled with monsters that can destroy your blocks by touching them, the only way to deal with them is to shoot them with fireworks (which you have to actually find before using) or make them fall by placing a block beneath them and quickly removing it. A lot of the stages require a good deal of creativity when it comes to dealing with the monsters and reaching the key, but overall nothing is to difficult and the trial and error approach works just as well as even if you lose all your lives on a stage you are allowed to continue from the stage you left off on.

Ayup, I died on the first level. That is just how hardcore of a gamer I am.

Aside from just climbing the tower and completing the main story there is a stage editor which you can use to make your own levels that you can either play by yourself or have your friend play through a link cable connection. I couldn’t test this feature out first hand as I only had one copy of the game. The game also has a save feature so it isn’t a really long gauntlet where you have to beat it in one play through. Monster Rancher Explorer is a decent little puzzle game which can easily be picked up and dropped at a moments notice as there aren’t any advanced mechanics you have to learn to play the game and you can start back at whatever floor you last died on. For those who love plat forming puzzle games or are die hard fans of the Monster Rancher series I would highly recommend Monster Rancher Explorer as it is both inexpensive and can provide a great deal of enjoyment.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Mike’s Gameboy Game of the Week: Tailspin

Let it be known throughout all of the internet that I was a child of the late 90’s and I watched many an awful cartoon show, one of which was Disneys “Tailspin” which is a show in which Baloo from The Jungle Book is an airplane pilot where he clearly isn’t paid enough for the trouble he routinely deals with. Some other recurring characters were Shere Khan who is a big business dude and Louie who is… the owner of a bar? This show apparently garnered enough popularity to merit several games two of which are by Capcom for the Gameboy and NES and the others are by both Sega and NEC for the Genesis, GameGear and Turbografx-16 respectively.

This is the greatest marketing decision by Disney ever.

So my first impression of this game when I picked it up at my local gamestore for a dollar was that it would most likely be an awful game due to it being based off a television show and it being on the Gameboy which was notorious for it’s massive amount of mediocre and bad games. I spied on the cart that it was developed by Capcom which honestly gave me mixed feelings as Capcom did produce Darkwing Duck, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, and Ducktales games that were all amazing. Upon getting home I popped the game into my Super Gameboy and started it up and much to my surprise it was a port of the NES Tailspin game.

Even on the Gameboy people don’t know how to use inside voices.

Playing the game was a different story, the controls weren’t as responsive as they were on the NES but once I adjusted to them (took about 20 minutes at most) I didn’t have much of a problem. If you have not played the NES version of this game then let me explain what the point of it is:

You are Baloo the cargo pilot for “Higher for Hire” and you are being sent to deliver cargo to nondescript destinations.

Pretty simple right? Well for a game with only six levels you can bet your boots that it works just fine for the game as a premise. The game plays like a space shooter where you pilot the “Sea Duck” which can only fire one round at a time and cannot fire again until the shot either leaves the screen or connects with something (you can increase the amount of shots with upgrades later on). Shot direction is also determined by up and down movement as the plane tilts in each direction respectively when you are moving. Firing shots can be awkward at first and in my opinion is incredibly annoying but you can get used to it after a while. Aside from just shooting things you can grab up cargo crates which according to the intro are remnants of other cargo planes which have been shot down, also you can flip the plane upside down and head backwards same rules apply with all movement and shooting.

Seems legit. :/

Something unique to the game is the addition of bonus stages hidden in each level where you switch from playing as Baloo to playing as Kit Cloudkicker his spunky sidekick where you pop balloons while surfing on clouds. The balloons give out a decent amount of points and generally can give you the push you need for an extra life.

COOLEST. THING. EVER.

At the end of each stage is a boss fight, the boss fights weren’t exactly challenging but were interesting. The designs for each boss are neat and if the battles didn’t shoot by so quickly I would have liked to have seen them do more then their two or three standard attacks. Once you’ve beaten the boss you get a brief reprieve where you can buy power-ups for the plane with the money you earned by collecting cargo strewn throughout the level, this I didn’t know my first time through as I avoided many pieces of cargo and lost some easy money.

I swear this had best be the best engine I’ve ever invested my blood money in.

In my opinion this game is worth a look if you can’t get ahold of the NES version the animations are not nearly as nice as they are on the NES, the only reason I would recommend this game is if you want a portable version of the game or if you want to give the bonus stages a try. Tailspin for the Gameboy isn’t spectacular but for the price I paid I’d say it was more then worth it, if you can get this game for a couple of bucks I’d recommend you get it.

You can’t argue with a tagline like that.

Duel Masters: Kaijudo Showdown (GBA) – A brief look.

It also comes with a large bottle of industrial strength hair gel.

Disclaimer: This video game is based on a card game, so if you have no interest in card games then you may want to just skip this post. If you don’t care for any background info on the game or the series skip ahead two paragraphs.

For the uninitiated who person who had never heard of the show or read the manga (like myself) that it is based on it may seem like a generic slapped together half-assed attempt at pulling in children who are into Yugioh or the Pokémon Trading Card Game, I can assure you this is not the case. Surprisingly enough this card game has been around in Japan for over a decade but only reached stateside in late 2004 and was quickly discontinued in early 2006 after airing only two seasons and releasing only thirteen different card packs. Despite being discontinued a sizable number of people follow the Japanese card game and even banded together to make a forum which to this very day is still active.

I’m certain this would be their reaction to the TCG making a comeback.

Duel Master’s can essentially be considered a simpler version of the card game Magic the Gathering, you have six different “Civilizations” (i.e. elements, or whatever) which are, Nature, Water, Fire, Darkness, Light, and Rainbow unlike Magic there are no Mana cards and instead at the start of every turn you can add any card in your hand to the Mana pool. You can then tap the aforementioned Mana to summon a monster or cast a spell. The game doesn’t have a life point system but instead has you use “Shields” to defend yourself once all five of your shields are destroyed by your opponent and they attack you directly you lose the game. To defend yourself the cards are broken up into groups and subgroups:

Monsters

• Regular Monsters – you tap the mana and toss em; in the battle zone to attack your opponent
• Blocker Monsters – They can be used to defend against opponents attacks
• Evolution Monsters – Stronger monsters that must be put onto a weaker one of a specific type similar to evolving in Pokémon

I like how the abilities are explain in such detail.

Spells

• Regular Spells: They have effects and can be used to aid yourself or destroy an opponents card(s)
• Trigger spells: Spell cards that when placed as a shield and destroyed by an opponents attack immediately activate

For a more in depth explanation of gameplay the Duel Masters wiki has an in-depth How-to guide on playing the game.

Because we all know that no one listens to the tutorial.

Duel Masters: Kaijudo Showdown has a very simple premise, you play as the game’s protagonist named “TOM” by default which from what I’ve gleaned through “extensive” wiki reading I can safely say is not from the show/manga’s canon. The game has a unique story in which you use a card game to save the world while attempting to win all of the tournaments to gain sponsorships and whatnot, all normal stuff thus far. Kaijudo Showdown sports the entire cast from the first season of the show/manga (which you can duel) and boasts a hefty 300 unique cards in the game. Premise-wise the game focuses mainly on the building of decks and just out and out dueling everyone as the reward for winning any duel is a pack of cards. Multiplayer is encouraged through the use of a link battle/trade system which is neat and adds replay value as constantly trying to outdo your friends decks is always fun.

The ultimate appeal of this game lies in the fact that the Card game is similar to that of Magic the Gathering meaning that anyone who has a passing knowledge of Magic can pick the game up with little trouble. Duel Maters Kaijudo Showdown has very little appeal to anyone who isn’t into card games, the sub-par graphic’s and soundtrack don’t help it out very much. I would advise fans of the show, or fans of card games in general to give this game or it’s sequels a look as they are fairly inexpensive and can provide loads of fun if you can get a couple of your friends together to play it with you.

I can’t wait for the HD remake.

Wendy Every Witch Way (GBC)

Wendy Every Witch Way is a slightly obscure gem by Wayforward Technology which along with another slightly less obscure game called Xtreme Sports both pushed the limits of the Gameboy Color with vibrant visuals and for the most part decent soundtracks. These two games took the regular conventions of a typical Gameboy Game (a basic sports game, or shooter) and polished those themes till they no longer looked anything like their predecessors. Now here is a link to some gameplay footage, you may be thinking, “Well that looks like any other skating game for the handheld!” You would be right in saying that instance made the game look like it was just a run of the mill Tony Hawk impersonator, but let me tell you this friend. Xtreme Sports had story. Yes dear reader you read that correctly the game had a viable story complete with cutscenes and an over world that could be explored.

I’d compare Xtreme Sports to Mario Tennis, only more anime styled.

Whereas Extreme Sports was a unique sports game, Wendy Every Witch Way is part Space Shooter and part Plaformer. The game stars Wendy the Good Witch a character from a comic series of the same name owned by Harvey Comics. Contemporary Gamers may know her better from her guest appearance in the second Casper movie, Casper Meets Wendy. It is worth noting that both intellectual properties belong to Harvey Entertainment. Wendy Every Witch Way is essentially about Wendy finding an odd chest in her home, and being of the curious sorts she opens it releasing many large green orbs (which are moonstones if the manual is to be believed) which cause a Castle floating above her home to collapse due to these gems reversing gravity. Wendy possesses a standard attack from her wand which can be upgraded by collecting the numerous stars strewn about each level, she also has the capacity to reverse gravity as she pleases moving from the floor to the ceiling with ease. Gravity can be a cruel mistress as changing gravity will also have an impact on the environment as certain enemies and hazards will move with the change of gravity.

They are jealous of your mad Fred Astaire skills!

The game itself is broken up into 4 levels with 3 stages each, there are also 3 bonus space shooter mini-levels in between where you shoot enemies and collect stars. If you happen to beat the game with enough stars you are able to play through an additional series of stages through a rather crazy space stage. Each level of the game introduces a new concept you will have to overcome, the first level has you learning how to jump from the ceiling to the floor by altering gravity, the second has you dealing with stage hazards, and the third has you dealing with hazards and enemies that switch from the ceiling and floor, etc. You are eased into these over the course of the three stages so difficulty is never much of a problem even if you choose to be extra ballsy and selected hard mode at the start screen.

I’m not enough of a badass to even consider doing hard mode.

Control-wise Wendy Every Witch Way is a pinnacle for what any platformer should be as everything is responsive, the gravity altering is incredibly responsive as if you are quick enough you can continuously alter gravity in mid-air over and over keeping Wendy perpetually in one spot. The Attack is quick and can be upgraded by grabbing stars (Stars are also representative of your life as when you have stars you lose one of them instead of dying if hit). The space shooter mini-stages are interesting and control just like Gradius where you can move all over the screen and shoot forward. Just like in the regular stages grabbing stars upgrade your attack and you can’t alter gravity but you can flip Wendy over which makes moving up or down slightly faster depending on whether you are right-side up or upside down.

And she’s so damn happy about it!

The game’s graphics are very nice and the stages all have a great deal of detail, especially for a Gameboy Color game. If you have a minute (as I’m sure you do if you are reading this) then give this video a look. Did you watch it? Did you notice the detail put into the moving background, how about the little explosions when enemies are destroyed, or just Wendy’s movement? Don’t just take that little gameplay video as an example…

That’s a Screen from the transition screen before the first stage, just like Extreme Sports Wendy Every Witch Way pushes the limits of the Gameboy Color with it’s colorful and vibrant visuals. The sound for the game is also very nice with moderately catchy level tunes and even a simplistic voice for Wendy limited mostly to yelps from being hit and what not. Wendy Every Witch Way is a great game for the Gameboy Color and is a simplistic platformer that is insanely fun and has a good deal of replay value I highly recommend this game or any game by Wayforward Technology.