Incline Revisiting Old Games (Again)

[Falksi]

The Adventures of Batman & Robin - Megadrive

How does Batman's mam call him in when it's time to eat?....."Dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, BATMAN!". Folk had a big hard on for this cartoon series back in t'day, I never caught it but did always liked the look of it, so will be watching it before I play the SNES version. Loads of folk seem to love Batman for his intelligence & dark vibe, but I think he's daft for not spending his billions to be knee deep in parties & slags 24/7. First time playing this for me.

Now, I like my games fast paced, but there's fast paced and then there's trash paced, and this is the latter. The whole experience is dronesome, and it's a game which really requires you to take several ecstasy tablets to enjoy. Trash mobs constantly swarm the screen, and wave upon waves of the same enemies continuously attack over & over none-stop. It's both utterly boring and frustrating at the same time. It feels as if you're swimming through a sea of congealed menstrual blood. Don't get me wrong there's plenty of carnage, but because it's all so one dimensional it falls flat much like some modern CGI action flicks, as you have no time to breath or appreciate anything what's happening.

And one of the reasons that the action is so frustrating is the terrible design choice they've made to make your power attacks time-dependent as opposed to ammo, pick-up, or health-dependent etc. Sometimes charging up a big powerful projectile is exactly the course of action required, but because you've so little space to breath you revert to relying on your weaker missile attacks and you essentially get faced with lose-lose situation. Wait for a charge? it takes too long, you get hit. Revert to weaker attacks? Too weak to kill the enemies before you're swarmed with them, so you get hit. Repeat ad infinitum.

So this all ultimately means the best way to progress is to usually employ the safest, dullest tactics which you can, such as standing in the middle of the screen shooting away and accepting hits just to ensure that you clear the mobs asasp, and that's just no fun. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't married up with bland as fuck repetitive stage design, but it is. Once you've seen the first section of the stage there's very rarely anything else to see later down the line, as it's usually a copy-paste battle through the same waves of the same opponents against the same back drops etc. which you've already seen a thousand times.

The music deserves mention though, simply because it's so unusually different for a game. It's definitely marmite. Some love it, some hate it, I'm in the latter category and think it sounds like a really poor attempt at some of the dance/rave tunes from that era, but there's no denying it has a certain individuality which deserves respect. Again, another aspect of the game which benefits from taking ecstasy tablets. You've a full on SHMUP level in there too, which at least breaks things up.

And a lot of folk seem to think it looks great, but I genuinely don't. It looks polished & the animation is stunning, but the overall look is very warped and off in my opinion. Not bad by any means, just....weird. It is also a very responsive game with a generally nice feel to it too. There's certainly no denying that the controls feel fluid. Throw in some quite interesting bosses which have clearly had some time & effort put into them, and it becomes even more disappointing that the experience on the whole is actually so turd-like overall.

TAOBAR takes a few decent aspects, and buries them beneath a plethora of awful design choices. I cannot fathom for the life of me how anyone would play this for any serious length of time without getting incredibly bored. Pure fucking white noise.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Alien Soldier - Megadrive

Hailed by many as an underrated, under appreciated 16-bit gem I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Had a few blasts at it before, but never really tried to put any real effort or time into it, so lets give it another go.

Firstly, fuckinghell, what an absolute bollocks intro. You're ears are bombarded with awful music, and the biggest, nonsensical blurb to scroll up a screen since the Phantom Menace's opening crawl. Not a good start.

Then it comes to playing it. It doesn't get any better. In fact it embodies the start of decline as we know it. See it's all flashy & loud & explosive, which is great, but it plays like fucking shit. The introduction of ammunition for a game of this ilk is a bad choice alone, but the controls to switch between weapons is stupidly over-fiddly. You have to stand there and cycle through your choices until you get the one you want. Not only does this feel counter-intuitive, but it roots you to the spot defenseless whilst enemies still attack.

There's rarely room to maneuver, so you constantly rely on a move which zips you across screen. Again, great to look at, but saps a lot of fun out the game because it's no longer about you avoiding enemies, instead it's about just spamming this move. And the game is structured so that it's a constant wave of boss fights, which may appeal to some, but to me it totally devalued them as the game felt saturated with them.

No idea what the fuss is about, probably one of the worst shooters I've played on the system. Total bag of wank. Gets a point for the graphics and meaty sound effects.

I just played this for first time and as someone who also had trouble with the inventory: fuck you faggot

also fuck you again for hating sonic 1, the greatest, most atmospheric drowning simulator of all time

 

[Falksi]

Alien Soldier - Megadrive

Hailed by many as an underrated, under appreciated 16-bit gem I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Had a few blasts at it before, but never really tried to put any real effort or time into it, so lets give it another go.

Firstly, fuckinghell, what an absolute bollocks intro. You're ears are bombarded with awful music, and the biggest, nonsensical blurb to scroll up a screen since the Phantom Menace's opening crawl. Not a good start.

Then it comes to playing it. It doesn't get any better. In fact it embodies the start of decline as we know it. See it's all flashy & loud & explosive, which is great, but it plays like fucking shit. The introduction of ammunition for a game of this ilk is a bad choice alone, but the controls to switch between weapons is stupidly over-fiddly. You have to stand there and cycle through your choices until you get the one you want. Not only does this feel counter-intuitive, but it roots you to the spot defenseless whilst enemies still attack.

There's rarely room to maneuver, so you constantly rely on a move which zips you across screen. Again, great to look at, but saps a lot of fun out the game because it's no longer about you avoiding enemies, instead it's about just spamming this move. And the game is structured so that it's a constant wave of boss fights, which may appeal to some, but to me it totally devalued them as the game felt saturated with them.

No idea what the fuss is about, probably one of the worst shooters I've played on the system. Total bag of wank. Gets a point for the graphics and meaty sound effects.

I just played this for first time and as someone who also had trouble with the inventory: fuck you faggot

also fuck you again for hating sonic 1, the greatest, most atmospheric drowning simulator of all time

Uggggh. Alien Soldier.

I forced my way to the end of that twice just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and it's fucking awful. You can beat the first 12 stages worth of bosses with virtually the exact same tactics. 20 min worth of playing before you even have to change up tactics. Shocking.

A truly woeful game.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Alien Soldier - Megadrive

Hailed by many as an underrated, under appreciated 16-bit gem I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Had a few blasts at it before, but never really tried to put any real effort or time into it, so lets give it another go.

Firstly, fuckinghell, what an absolute bollocks intro. You're ears are bombarded with awful music, and the biggest, nonsensical blurb to scroll up a screen since the Phantom Menace's opening crawl. Not a good start.

Then it comes to playing it. It doesn't get any better. In fact it embodies the start of decline as we know it. See it's all flashy & loud & explosive, which is great, but it plays like fucking shit. The introduction of ammunition for a game of this ilk is a bad choice alone, but the controls to switch between weapons is stupidly over-fiddly. You have to stand there and cycle through your choices until you get the one you want. Not only does this feel counter-intuitive, but it roots you to the spot defenseless whilst enemies still attack.

There's rarely room to maneuver, so you constantly rely on a move which zips you across screen. Again, great to look at, but saps a lot of fun out the game because it's no longer about you avoiding enemies, instead it's about just spamming this move. And the game is structured so that it's a constant wave of boss fights, which may appeal to some, but to me it totally devalued them as the game felt saturated with them.

No idea what the fuss is about, probably one of the worst shooters I've played on the system. Total bag of wank. Gets a point for the graphics and meaty sound effects.

I just played this for first time and as someone who also had trouble with the inventory: fuck you faggot

also fuck you again for hating sonic 1, the greatest, most atmospheric drowning simulator of all time

Uggggh. Alien Soldier.

I forced my way to the end of that twice just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and it's fucking awful. You can beat the first 12 stages worth of bosses with virtually the exact same tactics. 20 min worth of playing before you even have to change up tactics. Shocking.

A truly woeful game.

I hate people who shit all over games for no reason just because they want to seem cool on the internet. You're so smart. So smart that you played a game you absolutely hate twice for some reason.

Also I unironically like Labyrinth Zone.

 

[Machocruz]

I kept hearing about Alien Soldier for years (where for most of those years I got it confused with Alien Storm). Finally tried it out last year. It was greasy nutsack. Another game where the praise is a meme. Gunstar Super Heroes on GBA, while not top tier Treasure, is a better actioner imo, but no one talks about it.

 

[Morenatsu.]

I kept hearing about Alien Soldier for years (where for most of those years I got it confused with Alien Storm). Finally tried it out last year. It was greasy nutsack. Another game where the praise is a meme. Gunstar Super Heroes on GBA, while not top tier Treasure, is a better actioner imo, but no one talks about it.

you know what else is a meme? hating sonic 1 because it's not fast. do you want to be agreeing with a sonic 1 hater?

The only flaw in Alien Soldier is that it wasn't made with more than three buttons.

 

[Machocruz]

you know what else is a meme? hating sonic 1 because it's not fast. do you want to be agreeing with a sonic 1 hater?

The only flaw in Alien Soldier is that it wasn't made with more than three buttons.

Don't try to trick me, former Alien Soldier dev. I loved Sonic 1. I'm more of a Sonic 2 hater. Inferior music and the levels were ugly, Tails was pointless and pure furry bait. After Sonic and Knuckles came out, the 'best of series' praise the game continues to get is one of the biggest memes of all time. Like people saying "Oh I always thought Metroid Fusion/Wind Waker/Final Fantasy 8 was the best".

 

[Morenatsu.]

ALIEN SOLDIER IS MY BABY AND I LOVE HER

 

[Falksi]

Alien Soldier - Megadrive

Hailed by many as an underrated, under appreciated 16-bit gem I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Had a few blasts at it before, but never really tried to put any real effort or time into it, so lets give it another go.

Firstly, fuckinghell, what an absolute bollocks intro. You're ears are bombarded with awful music, and the biggest, nonsensical blurb to scroll up a screen since the Phantom Menace's opening crawl. Not a good start.

Then it comes to playing it. It doesn't get any better. In fact it embodies the start of decline as we know it. See it's all flashy & loud & explosive, which is great, but it plays like fucking shit. The introduction of ammunition for a game of this ilk is a bad choice alone, but the controls to switch between weapons is stupidly over-fiddly. You have to stand there and cycle through your choices until you get the one you want. Not only does this feel counter-intuitive, but it roots you to the spot defenseless whilst enemies still attack.

There's rarely room to maneuver, so you constantly rely on a move which zips you across screen. Again, great to look at, but saps a lot of fun out the game because it's no longer about you avoiding enemies, instead it's about just spamming this move. And the game is structured so that it's a constant wave of boss fights, which may appeal to some, but to me it totally devalued them as the game felt saturated with them.

No idea what the fuss is about, probably one of the worst shooters I've played on the system. Total bag of wank. Gets a point for the graphics and meaty sound effects.

I just played this for first time and as someone who also had trouble with the inventory: fuck you faggot

also fuck you again for hating sonic 1, the greatest, most atmospheric drowning simulator of all time

Uggggh. Alien Soldier.

I forced my way to the end of that twice just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and it's fucking awful. You can beat the first 12 stages worth of bosses with virtually the exact same tactics. 20 min worth of playing before you even have to change up tactics. Shocking.

A truly woeful game.

I hate people who shit all over games for no reason just because they want to seem cool on the internet. You're so smart. So smart that you played a game you absolutely hate twice for some reason.

Also I unironically like Labyrinth Zone.

It's just a terrible game. All show, no dough.

See, I'm really not a fan of boss rush games, their repetitive nature usually bores me to tears, and a handful of mid-bosses with an end of level boss is usually more than enough for any game IMHO. I find a lot of joy in the action games comes from the constant variety which different enemies & challenges throw at you. Your slide-attack serves as the game's "win-all" for the first half of it, and you've got to be fucking retarded to play around half a game of this ilk for 20 odd minutes before they change the tactics up required to progress.

For the first 10 or so stages you can waltz through the game employing these simple set of tactics:

1. Choose homing shot
2. Stand one side of a boss and shoot away until he gets near you
3. Use the charged "slide" move to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
4. Stand on that other side of the boss and shoot away, this time deflecting shots to regain health and to charge your re-slide-attack
5. When he gets near you again, use "slide" move again to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
6. Repeat steps 2 through until completed, or comatose with boredom first. If the boss doesn't have an attack which allows you to regain health, simply rely on your shot more than your slide instead. Sometimes you may have to equip a laser shot instead of homing.

Attack, slide, block. Attack, slide, block. You're very rarely required to actually react to anything different, and it's all about positioning yourself correctly with the right weapon and employing the slide at the right time, rather than adapting to differnt scenarios & patterns.

I don't get it. All they've done is take one really easy boss fight, and recycled it over and over and over again to create half a "game". Alien soldier doesn't get even remotely challenging or interesting until you're around 20 or so minutes into it. Which is crackers when you consider it's a shooter, not an RPG. I want games like this to grab me from the off, some of my most favourite games can be completed in the time it takes Alien Soldier to change up it's first set of tactics.

Reason I played it through twice was to see if either difficulty setting made any positive difference. And they didn't.

As for Sonic that's not as bad a game, as I said on my review I hate it because it got hyped up as super-fast, and on delivery it wasn't. Playing it now I still can't not hate it for that. I acknowledged that in my appriasal of it, and stated it was the one game where I can't judge it objectively.

I kept hearing about Alien Soldier for years (where for most of those years I got it confused with Alien Storm). Finally tried it out last year. It was greasy nutsack. Another game where the praise is a meme. Gunstar Super Heroes on GBA, while not top tier Treasure, is a better actioner imo, but no one talks about it.

It amazes me how much Alien Soldier gets compared to Gunstar Heroes. Yeah there are similarities, but Gunstar Heroes has some excellently crafted stages. Alien Soldier doesn't even give you any realy stage challenges until around halfway through the game.

It's fucking dire. A real mong puller. Gunstar Heroes is far better.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Alien Soldier - Megadrive

Hailed by many as an underrated, under appreciated 16-bit gem I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Had a few blasts at it before, but never really tried to put any real effort or time into it, so lets give it another go.

Firstly, fuckinghell, what an absolute bollocks intro. You're ears are bombarded with awful music, and the biggest, nonsensical blurb to scroll up a screen since the Phantom Menace's opening crawl. Not a good start.

Then it comes to playing it. It doesn't get any better. In fact it embodies the start of decline as we know it. See it's all flashy & loud & explosive, which is great, but it plays like fucking shit. The introduction of ammunition for a game of this ilk is a bad choice alone, but the controls to switch between weapons is stupidly over-fiddly. You have to stand there and cycle through your choices until you get the one you want. Not only does this feel counter-intuitive, but it roots you to the spot defenseless whilst enemies still attack.

There's rarely room to maneuver, so you constantly rely on a move which zips you across screen. Again, great to look at, but saps a lot of fun out the game because it's no longer about you avoiding enemies, instead it's about just spamming this move. And the game is structured so that it's a constant wave of boss fights, which may appeal to some, but to me it totally devalued them as the game felt saturated with them.

No idea what the fuss is about, probably one of the worst shooters I've played on the system. Total bag of wank. Gets a point for the graphics and meaty sound effects.

I just played this for first time and as someone who also had trouble with the inventory: fuck you faggot

also fuck you again for hating sonic 1, the greatest, most atmospheric drowning simulator of all time

Uggggh. Alien Soldier.

I forced my way to the end of that twice just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and it's fucking awful. You can beat the first 12 stages worth of bosses with virtually the exact same tactics. 20 min worth of playing before you even have to change up tactics. Shocking.

A truly woeful game.

I hate people who shit all over games for no reason just because they want to seem cool on the internet. You're so smart. So smart that you played a game you absolutely hate twice for some reason.

Also I unironically like Labyrinth Zone.

It's just a terrible game. All show, no dough.

See, I'm really not a fan of boss rush games, their repetitive nature usually bores me to tears, and a handful of mid-bosses with an end of level boss is usually more than enough for any game IMHO. I find a lot of joy in the action games comes from the constant variety which different enemies & challenges throw at you. Your slide-attack serves as the game's "win-all" for the first half of it, and you've got to be fucking retarded to play around half a game of this ilk for 20 odd minutes before they change the tactics up required to progress.

For the first 10 or so stages you can waltz through the game employing these simple set of tactics:

1. Choose homing shot
2. Stand one side of a boss and shoot away until he gets near you
3. Use the charged "slide" move to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
4. Stand on that other side of the boss and shoot away, this time deflecting shots to regain health to charge your slide-attack
5. When he gets near you again, use "slide" move to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
6. Repeat steps 2 through until completed, or comatose with boredom first. If the boss doesn't have an attack which allows you to regain health, simply rely on your shot more than your slide instead. Sometimes you may have to equip a laser shot instead of homing.

Attack, slide, block. Attack, slide, block. You're very rarely required to actually react to anything different, and it's all about positioning yourself correctly with the right weapon and employing the slide at the right time, rather than adapting to differnt scenarios & patterns.

I don't get it. All they've done is take one really easy boss fight, and recycled it over and over and over again to create half a "game". Alien soldier doesn't get even remotely challenging or interesting until you're around 20 or so minutes into it. Which is crackers when you consider it's a shooter, not an RPG. I want games like this to grab me from the off, some of my most favourite games can be completed in the time it takes Alien Soldier to change up it's first set of tactics.

Reason I played it through twice was to see if either difficulty setting made any positive difference. And they didn't.

As for Sonic that's not as bad a game, as I said on my review I hate it because it got hyped up as super-fast, and on delivery it wasn't. Playing it now I still can't not hate it for that. I acknowledged that in my appriasal of it, and stated it was the one game where I can't judge it objectively.

I kept hearing about Alien Soldier for years (where for most of those years I got it confused with Alien Storm). Finally tried it out last year. It was greasy nutsack. Another game where the praise is a meme. Gunstar Super Heroes on GBA, while not top tier Treasure, is a better actioner imo, but no one talks about it.

It amazes me how much Alien Soldier gets compared to Gunstar Heroes. Yeah there are similarities, but Gunstar Heroes has some excellently crafted stages. Alien Soldier doesn't even give you any realy stage challenges until around halfway through the game.

It's fucking dire. A real mong puller. Gunstar Heroes is far better.

being good at video games sounds like it fuckin sucks lmao

are you also going to start telling me ikaruga is shit because ign liked it or something?

 

[JDR13]

Man... you guys spend a lot of time playing and talking about some shitty games.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Man... you guys spend a lot of time playing and talking about some shitty games.

Yeah bro I know all about you and your retarded tastes

 

[Falksi]

Alien Soldier - Megadrive

Hailed by many as an underrated, under appreciated 16-bit gem I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Had a few blasts at it before, but never really tried to put any real effort or time into it, so lets give it another go.

Firstly, fuckinghell, what an absolute bollocks intro. You're ears are bombarded with awful music, and the biggest, nonsensical blurb to scroll up a screen since the Phantom Menace's opening crawl. Not a good start.

Then it comes to playing it. It doesn't get any better. In fact it embodies the start of decline as we know it. See it's all flashy & loud & explosive, which is great, but it plays like fucking shit. The introduction of ammunition for a game of this ilk is a bad choice alone, but the controls to switch between weapons is stupidly over-fiddly. You have to stand there and cycle through your choices until you get the one you want. Not only does this feel counter-intuitive, but it roots you to the spot defenseless whilst enemies still attack.

There's rarely room to maneuver, so you constantly rely on a move which zips you across screen. Again, great to look at, but saps a lot of fun out the game because it's no longer about you avoiding enemies, instead it's about just spamming this move. And the game is structured so that it's a constant wave of boss fights, which may appeal to some, but to me it totally devalued them as the game felt saturated with them.

No idea what the fuss is about, probably one of the worst shooters I've played on the system. Total bag of wank. Gets a point for the graphics and meaty sound effects.

I just played this for first time and as someone who also had trouble with the inventory: fuck you faggot

also fuck you again for hating sonic 1, the greatest, most atmospheric drowning simulator of all time

Uggggh. Alien Soldier.

I forced my way to the end of that twice just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and it's fucking awful. You can beat the first 12 stages worth of bosses with virtually the exact same tactics. 20 min worth of playing before you even have to change up tactics. Shocking.

A truly woeful game.

I hate people who shit all over games for no reason just because they want to seem cool on the internet. You're so smart. So smart that you played a game you absolutely hate twice for some reason.

Also I unironically like Labyrinth Zone.

It's just a terrible game. All show, no dough.

See, I'm really not a fan of boss rush games, their repetitive nature usually bores me to tears, and a handful of mid-bosses with an end of level boss is usually more than enough for any game IMHO. I find a lot of joy in the action games comes from the constant variety which different enemies & challenges throw at you. Your slide-attack serves as the game's "win-all" for the first half of it, and you've got to be fucking retarded to play around half a game of this ilk for 20 odd minutes before they change the tactics up required to progress.

For the first 10 or so stages you can waltz through the game employing these simple set of tactics:

1. Choose homing shot
2. Stand one side of a boss and shoot away until he gets near you
3. Use the charged "slide" move to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
4. Stand on that other side of the boss and shoot away, this time deflecting shots to regain health to charge your slide-attack
5. When he gets near you again, use "slide" move to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
6. Repeat steps 2 through until completed, or comatose with boredom first. If the boss doesn't have an attack which allows you to regain health, simply rely on your shot more than your slide instead. Sometimes you may have to equip a laser shot instead of homing.

Attack, slide, block. Attack, slide, block. You're very rarely required to actually react to anything different, and it's all about positioning yourself correctly with the right weapon and employing the slide at the right time, rather than adapting to differnt scenarios & patterns.

I don't get it. All they've done is take one really easy boss fight, and recycled it over and over and over again to create half a "game". Alien soldier doesn't get even remotely challenging or interesting until you're around 20 or so minutes into it. Which is crackers when you consider it's a shooter, not an RPG. I want games like this to grab me from the off, some of my most favourite games can be completed in the time it takes Alien Soldier to change up it's first set of tactics.

Reason I played it through twice was to see if either difficulty setting made any positive difference. And they didn't.

As for Sonic that's not as bad a game, as I said on my review I hate it because it got hyped up as super-fast, and on delivery it wasn't. Playing it now I still can't not hate it for that. I acknowledged that in my appriasal of it, and stated it was the one game where I can't judge it objectively.

I kept hearing about Alien Soldier for years (where for most of those years I got it confused with Alien Storm). Finally tried it out last year. It was greasy nutsack. Another game where the praise is a meme. Gunstar Super Heroes on GBA, while not top tier Treasure, is a better actioner imo, but no one talks about it.

It amazes me how much Alien Soldier gets compared to Gunstar Heroes. Yeah there are similarities, but Gunstar Heroes has some excellently crafted stages. Alien Soldier doesn't even give you any realy stage challenges until around halfway through the game.

It's fucking dire. A real mong puller. Gunstar Heroes is far better.

being good at video games sounds like it fuckin sucks lmao

are you also going to start telling me ikaruga is shit because ign liked it or something?

You don't have to be good at games to be good at Alien Soldier. You just have to recognize that it's 1 simple pattern to win half the game, then mild variations on that to win the other half.

Never played Ikaruga, but looks good. I don't really care what you, IGN, or anyone else thinks of any game, my opinion is of my own experience of it, and the reason I enjoy exploring that is because it allows me to recognize what I enjoy, and therefore should look for, in games.

Using Alien Soldier as an example, it's one of the games which contributed to me recognizing that I'm not really into boss-rush games. There are exceptions, but in general I prefer a constant stream of varied stimulation, as opposed to being locked in the same patterns for prolonged periods.

 

[JDR13]

Yeah bro I know all about you and your retarded tastes

Shit... I forgot that your mom talks in her sleep.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Alien Soldier - Megadrive

Hailed by many as an underrated, under appreciated 16-bit gem I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Had a few blasts at it before, but never really tried to put any real effort or time into it, so lets give it another go.

Firstly, fuckinghell, what an absolute bollocks intro. You're ears are bombarded with awful music, and the biggest, nonsensical blurb to scroll up a screen since the Phantom Menace's opening crawl. Not a good start.

Then it comes to playing it. It doesn't get any better. In fact it embodies the start of decline as we know it. See it's all flashy & loud & explosive, which is great, but it plays like fucking shit. The introduction of ammunition for a game of this ilk is a bad choice alone, but the controls to switch between weapons is stupidly over-fiddly. You have to stand there and cycle through your choices until you get the one you want. Not only does this feel counter-intuitive, but it roots you to the spot defenseless whilst enemies still attack.

There's rarely room to maneuver, so you constantly rely on a move which zips you across screen. Again, great to look at, but saps a lot of fun out the game because it's no longer about you avoiding enemies, instead it's about just spamming this move. And the game is structured so that it's a constant wave of boss fights, which may appeal to some, but to me it totally devalued them as the game felt saturated with them.

No idea what the fuss is about, probably one of the worst shooters I've played on the system. Total bag of wank. Gets a point for the graphics and meaty sound effects.

I just played this for first time and as someone who also had trouble with the inventory: fuck you faggot

also fuck you again for hating sonic 1, the greatest, most atmospheric drowning simulator of all time

Uggggh. Alien Soldier.

I forced my way to the end of that twice just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and it's fucking awful. You can beat the first 12 stages worth of bosses with virtually the exact same tactics. 20 min worth of playing before you even have to change up tactics. Shocking.

A truly woeful game.

I hate people who shit all over games for no reason just because they want to seem cool on the internet. You're so smart. So smart that you played a game you absolutely hate twice for some reason.

Also I unironically like Labyrinth Zone.

It's just a terrible game. All show, no dough.

See, I'm really not a fan of boss rush games, their repetitive nature usually bores me to tears, and a handful of mid-bosses with an end of level boss is usually more than enough for any game IMHO. I find a lot of joy in the action games comes from the constant variety which different enemies & challenges throw at you. Your slide-attack serves as the game's "win-all" for the first half of it, and you've got to be fucking retarded to play around half a game of this ilk for 20 odd minutes before they change the tactics up required to progress.

For the first 10 or so stages you can waltz through the game employing these simple set of tactics:

1. Choose homing shot
2. Stand one side of a boss and shoot away until he gets near you
3. Use the charged "slide" move to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
4. Stand on that other side of the boss and shoot away, this time deflecting shots to regain health to charge your slide-attack
5. When he gets near you again, use "slide" move to fly across to the other side of the screen and damage him in the process
6. Repeat steps 2 through until completed, or comatose with boredom first. If the boss doesn't have an attack which allows you to regain health, simply rely on your shot more than your slide instead. Sometimes you may have to equip a laser shot instead of homing.

Attack, slide, block. Attack, slide, block. You're very rarely required to actually react to anything different, and it's all about positioning yourself correctly with the right weapon and employing the slide at the right time, rather than adapting to differnt scenarios & patterns.

I don't get it. All they've done is take one really easy boss fight, and recycled it over and over and over again to create half a "game". Alien soldier doesn't get even remotely challenging or interesting until you're around 20 or so minutes into it. Which is crackers when you consider it's a shooter, not an RPG. I want games like this to grab me from the off, some of my most favourite games can be completed in the time it takes Alien Soldier to change up it's first set of tactics.

Reason I played it through twice was to see if either difficulty setting made any positive difference. And they didn't.

As for Sonic that's not as bad a game, as I said on my review I hate it because it got hyped up as super-fast, and on delivery it wasn't. Playing it now I still can't not hate it for that. I acknowledged that in my appriasal of it, and stated it was the one game where I can't judge it objectively.

I kept hearing about Alien Soldier for years (where for most of those years I got it confused with Alien Storm). Finally tried it out last year. It was greasy nutsack. Another game where the praise is a meme. Gunstar Super Heroes on GBA, while not top tier Treasure, is a better actioner imo, but no one talks about it.

It amazes me how much Alien Soldier gets compared to Gunstar Heroes. Yeah there are similarities, but Gunstar Heroes has some excellently crafted stages. Alien Soldier doesn't even give you any realy stage challenges until around halfway through the game.

It's fucking dire. A real mong puller. Gunstar Heroes is far better.

being good at video games sounds like it fuckin sucks lmao

are you also going to start telling me ikaruga is shit because ign liked it or something?

You don't have to be good at games to be good at Alien Soldier. You just have to recognize that it's 1 simple pattern to win half the game, then mild variations on that to win the other half.

Never played Ikaruga, but looks good. I don't really care what you, IGN, or anyone else thinks of any game, my opinion is of my own experience of it, and the reason I enjoy exploring that is because it allows me to recognize what I enjoy, and therefore should look for, in games.

Using Alien Soldier as an example, it's one of the games which contributed to me recognizing that I'm not really into boss-rush games. There are exceptions, but in general I prefer a constant stream of varied stimulation, as opposed to being locked in the same patterns for prolonged periods.

I recognized that and liked it anyway. cuz im not a fag liek u, gaemz r fun

w00t epic quotewall!!

 

[Falksi]

Something which I forgot to mention with Alien Soldier, is how bad some of the collision detection is too.

This attack from the boss did not touch me.........

I mean, that's fucking shocking. That looks like a powerful attack, but it just passes straight through you as if you're not there. It's halfway into your sprite FFS

I recognized that and liked it anyway. cuz im not a fag liek u, gaemz r fun

w00t epic quotewall!!

Dude we're all gonna like different things coz we're all wired differently.

You just need to be aware that if you enjoy Alien Soldier then you haven't sussed out - either mentally or instinctively - that you've been duped, by having a boss-rush game recycle one boss "fight" for half the game/20 minutes. And even then the 2nd half doesn't stray from that format massively either.

I think most switched on people would find that boring, but if you're oblivious to it then you can probably enjoy a lot of bollocks which I can't like Donkey Kong Country or The Force Awakens etc. So fair play to you for getting more out of less, and continuing to embrace your retardation as opposed to fighting it.

 

[Morenatsu.]

I recognized that and liked it anyway. cuz im not a fag liek u, gaemz r fun

w00t epic quotewall!!

Dude we're all gonna like different things coz we're all wired differently.

You just need to be aware that if you enjoy Alien Soldier then you haven't sussed out - either mentally or instinctively - that you've been duped, by having a boss-rush game recycle one boss "fight" for half the game/20 minutes. And even then the 2nd half doesn't stray from that format massively either.

I think most switched on people would find that boring, but if you're oblivious to it then you can probably enjoy a lot of bollocks which I can't like Donkey Kong Country or The Force Awakens etc. So fair play to you for getting more out of less, and continuing to embrace your retardation as opposed to fighting it.

I haven't been duped, I just downloaded a rom and played the game for fun with no expectations. Liked it, had fun, don't care that the game was half-finished or that you can nuke the bosses in five seconds if you know what you're doing.

You're acting like I just admitted to liking Skyrim or something. No, I hate TFA and while I probably would think DKC is fine, I don't feel compelled to play it. But yes, I'm retarded, totally unlike the guy who opened his thread by saying Fallout 2 is shit and Fallout 3 is better.

 

[Falksi]

But yes, I'm retarded.

Now you're getting it

 

[ValeVelKal]

Freespace... runned with the Freespace 2 engine.

https://fsport.hard-light.net/website/

 

[Nutmeg]

Alien Soldier is awesome. It's an assault course racing game though so the fun once you got the basics down is how efficiently / stylishly you can race through the levels. It's fun cause your dude controls more like a mech or vehicle due to all the modality.

Now, the fact that your sprite is so big does mean they built the bosses around clever use of dash, so micro positioning is less important than setting up an initial positional advantage, but idk I still like it.

Here's a cool run of it:



Very much a game people either love or hate though.

 

[Falksi]

Captain Commando was great, there was nothing mediocre about it. I agree with everything Blobert said.

On the SNES I found it slow as fuck. Really cumbersome & lacklustre. Which version did you play?

Arcade and PS1. I didn't play many beatemups on my old ps1 but I used to like this one so much I've replayed it quite a few times.

I have been playing the Arcade version the past few months, and it's definitely significantly better than the SNES one. The SNES version loses a LOT in the translation to console.

Speed is the thing which is biggest hit. The SNES version feels slow & sluggish compared to the arcade. And they also miss out the controllable vehicles and firearms too, which again is a big miss. The SNES version is probably still a bit better than I originally gave it credit for, but the Arcade is actually good fun, whereas the SNES version just mediocre.

 

[BLOBERT]

Captain Commando was great, there was nothing mediocre about it. I agree with everything Blobert said.

On the SNES I found it slow as fuck. Really cumbersome & lacklustre. Which version did you play?

Arcade and PS1. I didn't play many beatemups on my old ps1 but I used to like this one so much I've replayed it quite a few times.

I have been playing the Arcade version the past few months, and it's definitely significantly better than the SNES one. The SNES version loses a LOT in the translation to console.

Speed is the thing which is biggest hit. The SNES version feels slow & sluggish compared to the arcade. And they also miss out the controllable vehicles and firearms too, which again is a big miss. The SNES version is probably still a bit better than I originally gave it credit for, but the Arcade is actually good fun, whereas the SNES version just mediocre.

BRO GOOD WE ALL LEARN FRIM EACH ITHER

IM OFF FOR CAMPING MIGHT DO A REVIEW CAUSE ILL PLAY TONS OF SHIT OF MY PSP

 

[Falksi]

Alien Soldier is awesome. It's an assault course racing game though so the fun once you got the basics down is how efficiently / stylishly you can race through the levels. It's fun cause your dude controls more like a mech or vehicle due to all the modality.

Now, the fact that your sprite is so big does mean they built the bosses around clever use of dash, so micro positioning is less important than setting up an initial positional advantage, but idk I still like it.

Here's a cool run of it:



Very much a game people either love or hate though.

Dude, just watch that vid. All most fights are, certainly for the first half of the game, is dashing from left to right. It's absolutely dull as hell.

I get it looks flashy, but to me it's like having a beautiful woman let you shag her missionary......and that's it. Maybe after half hour pumping away she adds some "variety" by riding you. Fuck that, I want that bitch doggy, face slapped, arse raped, piss drowned and fisting herself whilst I bum her sister.

Sorry, got carried away there.

Playing AS felt like eating Cornflakes for a starter, a bigger bowl of Cornflakes for the main course, and Rice Crispies with a biscuit for desert. The same banal shit over & over which I walked away from thanking God I'd never have to touch again.

But that's just my opinion. If repetition doesn't bother you I can see why folk will like the arcadeyness of it.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Alien Soldier is awesome. It's an assault course racing game though so the fun once you got the basics down is how efficiently / stylishly you can race through the levels. It's fun cause your dude controls more like a mech or vehicle due to all the modality.

Now, the fact that your sprite is so big does mean they built the bosses around clever use of dash, so micro positioning is less important than setting up an initial positional advantage, but idk I still like it.

Here's a cool run of it:



Very much a game people either love or hate though.

Dude, just watch that vid. All most fights are, certainly for the first half of the game, is dashing from left to right. It's absolutely dull as hell.

I get it looks flashy, but to me it's like having a beautiful woman let you shag her missionary......and that's it. Maybe after half hour pumping away she adds some "variety" by riding you. Fuck that, I want that bitch doggy, face slapped, arse raped, piss drowned and fisting herself whilst I bum her sister.

Sorry, got carried away there.

Playing AS felt like eating Cornflakes for a starter, a bigger bowl of Cornflakes for the main course, and Rice Crispies with a biscuit for desert. The same banal shit over & over which I walked away from thanking God I'd never have to touch again.

But that's my opinion.

so what you're saying is you're retarded

 

[Machocruz]

What's up with this thread? I need my nostalgia hit, ya coont