This marks my first review, with many more to come. I intend for this to be a weekly thing, so stay tuned for more. What the fuck am I doing? Well, I hated most NES games growing up, because everything made by anybody other than Nintendo completely sucked ass. Since nobody reviews these shit games anymore (cept for the great AVGN), and the internet didn't exist back when people were, I figure I gotta do it myself. So hopefully we find some good games you can play on your modded DS or PSP, and if not, I'll try and at least make it funny. How will I choose the games to review? Ultimately its just random, or perhaps I like the title enough.

My rating system goes like this:


There are four categories:

-Originality (lots of clones of popular games out there)

-Challenge (because NES games vary so much in difficulty, this is an important aspect of the review)

-Fun (no explanation unless you're a retard)

-Visual Style (because comparing 2d art can't be done any other way)

Then I will give a total score out of 5, as a number to describe the overall quality and worth of the game. If its 1 or 2, you should probably not even bother downloading this piece of crap. If I give it a five, you should probably try to get this bitch off ebay to add to your collection (which, if you do collect NES games, well... find a better hobby)

Here we go!




Review #1: Action In New York



Introduction and Synopsis:

The story can pretty much be summed up by this introductory splash page:

Great. It doesn't even tell you what the fuck you're 'destroying'. This is ALL you get.

Well, the first thing anybody notices about a game is its title. This one , "Action in New York" couldn't be any more uninteresting. Action implies... well, action. That's pretty much just hugely fucking vague. At least you know the game will include movement, possibly some combat, and you might even have to press a few buttons! I'm PUMPED ALREADY! They also chose the most generic and overused city in all of videogames for its location. Luckily, I think its supposed to take place in the future, judging by the PEW PEW PEW lasers and wierd-ass robots flying all over the place, and the fact that you're a flying man with two balls of destruction rotating around you.



Originality



Oh did I just describe the main difference between this game and all other Lifeforce clones? You see, as you start out this game, it plays almost exactly like every other Lifeforce clone out there, until you press the A button. Which, once you do, activates these little balls around your floating man-person that can move from a position in front of you to a position behind you. Out of these balls come little PEW PEW laser-balls that damage your enemies. If you've played Lifeforce, which you should have, think of it as that powerup you get that adds a floating sphere around you that shoots an additional laser. However, the interesting aspect of this is that because you have control over the direction of these ball's shooting trajectory, the developers of the game decided that they can make the rest of the game much, MUCH harder than any other Lifeforce clone out there. Basically, you have more firepower, but there's 3x as many enemies flying around, to balance out your extra firepower. And like other Lifeforce clones, you get powerups which change the type of attack. Nothing new to see here.



Challenge



So basically, this game is fucking hard. I mean DAMN, it makes Contra look like a walk in the park. If you can get past all the shit flying around and make it to the boss, your'e still fucked because the bosses have 5 times as much health as they should have. It took me like 5 minutes to kill the bosses. For an NES game, where each boss is about as dynamic as my left ass-cheeck, that is a LONG fight.



Fun



Well, if you like Contra, and you like Lifeforce, you'll probably enjoy this game. The two floating/rotating balls feature actually does add a lot to the game, an innovation that you learn to appreciate a lot as you progress through the game. However, playing through it after you've already played the classic Lifeforce, you can't help but feel like you've played parts of it before, or fought these bosses before, only it looked and sounded different.


Visual Style




This game is not pretty. No cool transparency effects to be found, which, considering they're cloning Lifeforce, you'd think they would have thought to add this. Everything looks incredibly metallic and boring, and what the fuck is up with your 'character'. It's just a floating man with two balls floating around him, firing off huge laser beams.


Final Score (out of 5): 2

It's fun, especially if you liked Lifeforce or Abadox or other Lifeforce clones, but its just not a very good game. The boss fights take too long, the visuals are incredibly bland, and goddamn... ITS A CLONE. The two balls, while perhaps implying something perverse about the developer, are actually a welcomed innovation, but really stand as the only difference between this Lifeforce clone and other sidescrolling space-shooters.

DOWNLOAD ROM HERE