Quo Vadis (1984)

Name:Quo Vadis
Number:225
Year:1984
Publisher:The Edge
Developer:Steven T. Chapman
Genre:Side-Scroller
Difficulty:5/5
Time:1 hour 30 minutes
Won:No (96W/71L)

Skipping over my previous choice of game, Lonesome Tank, which despite being competent was uninteresting to talk about, we have Quo Vadis. Almost every comment was complaining that the game was awful, and when I check a few other games that looked like they were of interest, the sentiment was the same. "The Edge is an awful publisher" is a direct quote. Let's see if it's any better than his musical efforts.

The story, told in slightly overwrought fashion, is that the Dark Lord has won over the forces of good, but he is not without mercy. Mankind is allowed one final hope, the player. There is an underground cave network containing the Sceptre of Hope, which you need to find, as well as the Words of Power. Then you can fight the Dark Lord. Or you could turn tail and run away.

The game controls oddly. To quote the manual, "You find yourself equipped with a glowing sword possessing such energy that it pulses in your grip. This sword, like no other you have ever seen, emits a continuous stream of pulses of pure white fire, destroying all evil in its path." AKA you fire in the same direction you move. Jump is done by moving the joystick up. Josytick down, outside of shooting, only goes down.

To start the game off, we get not one, but two ways to die before you've even done anything. Going up causes a game over, you coward. But if you fall off the rope, because your air control consists of nothing, you are going to die in the lava below. Your air movement is awful too. You go forward about three/four body lengths, then go straight down. This is actually oddly unmerciful of the game, once you get past it it takes a while for you to die. No lives.

As you explore, shooting in the direction you're going in, enemies spawn in. Four enemies spawn whenever you enter the room they're in. Each guarding passage or a treasure chest. Treasure chests restore health, so they aren't just points. As you kill them, they eventually drop down to one that seems to not stop spawning. Some shoot, some don't. They're this false variety you get in some games, many different graphics, but they seem to be all the same.

So, how do you win? You don't, at least not anymore, because this is a contest game. What you're supposed to do is find all the riddles and the location of the scepter, then write down those locations and mail them to the developer for the chance to win the scepter worth $10,000. Why USD and not pound? I don't know, but I suspect nobody actually won the prize. Because this game is way too merciful for the time in general, let alone for a prize.

From the topmost right entrance, is a big room with a passage down and a passage right. The passage right is very tricky, being a series of jumps over lava. Precise jumps. It's here I learn that you don't get any control over your jump, period. Not even shorter height depending on how quickly you let go of the jump. So you have to walk back slightly on each pillar, taking care not to walk off, then jump over.

I don't remember how I got here, just that it was past the aforementioned series of jumps. This place is confusingly laid out. My first riddle. Tour d'force using only a knife to eat an A1 solution. A1 is a type of sauce put on steaks by barbarians. At least that's what I think of. So the answer is "steak"? Probably not. There's something to be said about a game with overwrought intro text only to have a very modern riddle.

Starting over again because I was in too bad a shape to continue, I go one down from the start, this time to the left. I go through the area methodically, not finding much more than treasure in these rooms full of convoluted platforms. It's not even logical for me to be grabbing treasure, I'm fighting for humanity, not personal profit. But because it heals, I guess I have to.

It's over here, beginning a long and tedious descent down that I discover that maybe the game wasn't so generous with health after all. You really, really need to get those chests in order to have any chance of surviving down here, which, given that it's an endurance test, means you need them. Aiming your weapon is really difficult, especially if you don't want to die. One shot on-screen. I'm also pretty sure that the enemies have smaller hitboxes than their sprites, which really fits what the contest game vibe, because that usually only happens with player sprites, and even that's not a guarantee.

The enemies have some nice-looking sprites, about all that is nice-looking here. This game is really believable as the evil lord's underground cave network, because it is depressing, even outside the endlessly respawning hordes of enemies. The game plays some classical piece in the background because there is no other sound, which just constantly plays, it doesn't even stop when you die. Constantly looping. If it were sinister, it might work, but it just becomes meaningless background noise. So, working as an evil lair, but not in a fun way.

I figure out the trick to the game eventually. Never fight an enemy if you can help it, which means don't stop to fight. This goes further, don't stop to have to navigate. That means that those awkward platforms all around? They're preventing you from getting away from the hordes of enemies. Every time you jump is time you aren't running away. Every time you aren't running away is time you're losing health.

Even with this, I'm still dying in the same places, so I look up a map. I had heard the game was a thousand screens big, but I don't think I quite realized the scope of that until I took a look at a map. The good news and the bad news is that I am about halfway down...the bad news is that's about as far as I can go...this map didn't really help. If I did go all the way down, it really would have, because the scepter is at a corner piece, down-right, next to a riddle you can see if you zoom in.

Despite this, I find that this is where I'm ending it. This game is so unbelievably tedious and uninteresting. The size of the game might have been impressive, but it might as well have been something like Hall of the Things where everything is randomly generated, but interesting for a few gos. It's just big, and in an era where I can play something considerably larger, this doesn't really appeal. All I'm left with is something that just drains my energy playing it. Kind of fitting considering the subject.

Weapons:
Simple projectile weapon. 1/10

Enemies:
A neverending horde of various things which chase after you. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
It's big, but without much substance inside of it. 1/10

Player Agency:
Awkward jumping, awkward aiming, but I guess movement is responsive. 2/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
So boring. 0/10

Graphics:
I am so sick of staring at this ugly game. 1/10

Story:
Awkward purple prose as a backstory, with nary an element of it to be seen inside the game. 0/10

Sound/Music:
I don't know what classical piece they used, but the next time I hear it, I'll hate it. 0/10

That's 6, the lowest...since Arctic Adventure, not too long ago.

So, what about the challenge? Online we can find the rest of the messages:

• Tour d'force using only a knife to eat an A1 solution.
• A thousand added to everything loses fifty.
• Losing the Dutch one, royalty appears before me.
• Binary Indecisions between silent beginnings and quiet terminations.
• Be sweet and be quick to go backward.
• At last you think you are there.

The answers to these somehow spell out "Honi soit qui mal y pense", which is the motto of the Order of the Garter. In English, I see it translated as "shame on anyone who thinks anything evil of it". I have no idea how these are the actual answers or if they aren't. No one ever won it, at least, no one has ever claimed so publicly.

That said, I discovered an interesting aspect about the publisher I didn't notice until I searched for a map that publisher The Edge would become Edge Games, the infamous company known less for making any games and more for sitting on the trademark of Edge in video games. Knowing this, I start to suspect that there never was a sceptre. I'm not really shocked that there was a shady contest going on in the '80s, I'm more shocked that the company responsible is still going today.

Next up, I think I'm going to try to finish up the unplayed 1992 FPS I have left, so, look forward to a Apple IIGS game, an Acorn Archimedes game, an arcade FPS, and finally another Mike Singleton game.

Rejection: Won

 

Mariko doesn't really have anything new to say, so it's time to find out how to advance on my own. I travel to the Keep Off Area first, by virtue of it being where I headed to first. Rather embarassingly, I find out that the ammo box near the tank is in fact, unlimited. I wonder if this is true of all boxes? Alas, this journey proves to be fruitless, there's nothing new in this area. Next bet, the war college.

There's nothing new here. There's nothing new elsewhere. I'm basically just spinning my wheels hoping I get lucky right now. I'm getting experience, but I don't know if I really need it. Okay, before I go through the entire game again, I double check that there's no walkthrough, there isn't. But someone twelve years ago also blogged about this and made maps. There's a hidden door next to the computer I met the minister on.

Ah, damn it, how did I miss that? Well, this has to be it. What wonders lie inside?

Robots. They fall easily to the MG 34, which is surprising. I've come all this way to just slaughter the new enemies? Surely I can't be overleveled? No, they're just armored, the machine guns take care of them, the FAMAS and Minigun don't. The green guys do block my shots with their shield, but otherwise they die in one machine gun burst. They don't drop anything, at least at first, which is worrying.

There's a third guy, he does more damage, but despite looking impressive he's the same as the others. Its the green guys that are the most trouble, since they don't die in one burst. While at first the level here is a literal hallway, it eventually turns into a level. Which turns into worrying about ammo and health supplies. The former is quickly remedied, I find out that one green guy drops both the M60 and the MG 34. He's not even the only one that does it. That's ammo, but now I need to worry about health. Well, eventually. I got 57 ampules, but you never know. It takes one stroke of bad luck to wipe that out.

After a long, long hallway, I find my way to here. The Secretary of Defense. I'm getting the distinct feeling that this is the endgame. It's built like the war college or the submarine, long hallways with various rooms.

We've got a new group of soldiers. They're tough and I hope that some of them drop ampules. Some definitely drop ammo, at least. Ampules are somewhat rare, but unfortunately it's a long trip to grind them out against regular soldiers again. The really annoying enemies are the red robots, they never drop anything. The other soldier guys, they do drop something.

After a levelup to 21, I decide to advance further. The room going further in is not that far from the entrance. Same principle as before, except the room to advance is just before the edge of the hallway. I think I changed my mind, the red robots don't drop anything, but they also usually die easily. The other blue guys are hard to hit and don't drop anything. The worst possible combination.

There's a marked door in the aforementioned room, leading to the guy in charge, Colonel Osaki. He's very happy to meet K-Ko. K-Ko refers to him as the one who replaced her father. Oh, I get it now, he probably killed Colonel Kirihara. Now she's going to kill him in revenge. This guy is really trying to be sinister, not even acknowleding that and instead apologizing for not introducing himself. (This is where he mentions his name) He's the planner of the Tokyo Resurrection Project. Which surprises K-Ko. She goes after him for all the murder and medical experimentation he's been conducting on the survivors.

Osaki goes on about how the meteor has given them the opportunity to change the world. Japan has been a symbol of corruption. The masses pretending to flourish even though they're sick. Government, corporations, government officals, mass media, all relying on each other, like Babylon. Then, one night in Tokyo, demolished. This is the will of heaven! This time, with the meteor, it does not begin again. Kusomoanfitamin will bring the meteor to the world. When it comes to the Earth, everything else will be in the past.

K-Ko interjects about how insane he is again, before he continues. Kusoanfitamin increases the strength of living things, but outside genes are taken and give power of their own. The development in mammals causes unexpected side effects. All become a new, stronger lifeform. This fate cannot be avoided. This causes K-Ko to say he's lying, that she doesn't believe him. He merely states that since the meteor, the early form of these changes have been happening, and soon these will spread to the world. They'll be able to control these new lifeforms. He will become the supreme ruler of the world.

He then asks K-Ko to join him. They can rule together. K-Ko refuses, considering it a joke, as she expected from someone with a face like that. She tells him he's gone mad, lists all of his crimes, and then talks about how much she's going to enjoy his pain as she sends him to hell. He merely finds that regrettable, .then goes into how she can't stop him. And then they basically start screaming that they'll kill each other

That's the end of the dialog. It's a lot, but I had 22 screenshots of it!  Time to fight. He's easier than the guys it took to get here by virtue of not having armor. He's fast, but the weird design of this place prevents that from being an advantage. So I can mostly just blast away at him, while taking a few hits. This is too easy, I think as I shoot him. Way too easy. But before long he dies...and then he starts talking. He's basically just talking about how he's going to going to change and become more powerful.

Surprise, surprise, he's turned into a demon.

And now we fight again. In space, somehow. He moves around, you can just turn. You'd think that would be a problem, but it's actually nice. The game won't make me chase after him too much. This means he's always on-screen, meaning I can always shoot him. He's also nicer than other enemies, in that he isn't attacking me except when he gets up close. That doesn't mean this is easy, because he either requires you to hit limbs, or he has so much health that it doesn't register on my targeting crosshair.

I lose the first time around, well, quit actually. I could have knifed him to death, but that would have taken too long and I needed to start dinner. And I should be taking a video of the end of this, since there isn't one online. I also need more ammo, even if I get that by just rushing to the end. I need to figure out my exact plan of attack. Finally, there's still a little space, which I'm mostly just hoping contains ammo and not another locked door.

It has another Minigun, in 7.62mm. Which at first I assumed was just some variant the game made up to give me before the final boss, but checking, it's the actual Minigun, the 5.56mm one is a variant the game technically made up, because very few actually exist. Huh. It has better armor penetration than the weaker Minigun, but doesn't do as well as the LMGs. I just need to get full ammo and then I can fight Osaki again.

The first time I take a video of the boss, I run out of ammo and ampules. I probably burned through too much ammo and didn't try to hit as precisely as I should have. That said, I check the other guy again. Just knife him to death, nothing special. Considering this guy's regenerating, better advice would be appreciated. Guess I'll just switch between shooting at him when he's far away then knifing him up close.

My third attempt finally worked. I think that by using the Minigun against Osaki's first form, I lost a bit of ammo, when I should have used the LMGs. I kept getting tricked by his attack where he goes over you, and I don't think that you can avoid the massive damage he deals there. I also figured out here, which probably saved me from having a fourth attempt, that you get more out of ampules using them individually.

With Osaki dead, we get a shot of the ruins of where we presumably were, then back to camp talking to Mariko. K-Ko informs her that everything is going to be all right now, she can walk around now. They can explore together.

Then there's a black screen text crawl. "In the two years since the meteor fell, further people have safely returned alive. After this, the fear of Kusomoanifitamin is in the past, many moves to the Kansai region, and the government measures this movement. Now the blockade is lifted and nobody goes in."

And that's Rejection. Or possibly Denno Senshi: Rejection, in-game it favors one side, but the cover art I caught a glimpse of and the title favor the other. It was fun and definitely a worthwhile experience. One final thing I learned from that blog is that this is based off a movie and maybe a manga. Maybe, there's a name mentioned as being original work on one site, but I can't find anything connected to the name. I couldn't find anything on a manga just yet, I'll see the movie before the summary. The game is very clearly based off the movie, since both characters are named Keiko Kirihara, there are zombies and a power suit. Mobygames doesn't mention this, probably because game doesn't mention anyone who worked on the movie and the movie is called Battle Girl: Tokyo Crisis Wars, which is such a better name I wonder why they chose what we got. (Even discounting that there's a Macintosh game of the same name which I *might* be able to play one day) It's so bizarre.

This Session: 3 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 29 hours 30 minutes

Arctic Adventure (1991)

Is that the shadow of a soyjak?

Name:Arctic Adventure
Number:224
Year:1991
Publisher:Apogee
Developer:Apogee
Genre:Side-Scroller
Difficulty:4/5
Time:6 hours 20 minutes
Won:Yes (95W/70L)

It's time to continue the adventures of Indiana Jones's sucker of an assistant...I mean Nevada Smith...or was it Arizona? (This name is so unimportant that it isn't mentioned in the opening text) Checking the instructions and story, there's not much change, except we're taking the treasure of some Vikings, which logically should be the treasure they stole from the British Isles, France and Germany. Oh, and now I have unlimited lives. That feels like an acknowledgement that they didn't really matter last time.

As this is a sequel to Pharaoh's Tomb, if you missed it, you should read about it first. The gist for the lazy is I'm here to play a single screen platformer and have fun, and I'm all out of fun.

There are four episodes, and the first one, like usual, was shareware. This is what draws people in. There's an overmap screen this time where you enter each level. I remember something like this in Secret Agent and Crystal Caves. In those though, they allowed you to pick a level in any order in a way that felt neat. This though, this works differently to the main game. I assumed that upon playing this that it wasn't what I was looking for the first time. Because this feels like an overhead "avoid the enemy" style of game rather than what it is. I doubt I would have missed anything, but still I'll play it. Even if I know it's going to be one of those weeks. Time to fire up some Type O Negative and game. Huzzah.

Huzzah.

Oh, huzzah.

Okay, one more new thing, ice picks and ice blocks, basically the same format as the doors and keys from last time. On this stage it's especially annoying since you're expected to do a risky jump on the left to get a pickaxe. It's somehow uglier, dithering doesn't work when you have four very incompatable colors. At least the dart guns are easy to spot this game.

Returning to the overmap, I have a key. I guess this is the objective, find keys and items to advance.

Another new thing are these spikes that shoot out of ceilings and floors. Not that new, but I don't remember them. The tablets have been changed with buttons. It's not that much trouble.

Which direction you go in with the ice blocks seems to be an indicator of which direction they throw you in.

Oh, it has become trouble. So much trouble. Ice blocks, trouble in a game with good controls and collision. This isn't that game. But worse still, while that's manageable, some of the blocks function like conveyor belts, and these sometimes prevent you from jumping in the direction they're going against. Oh, and some ice blocks can be destroyed with your head, and traps that are actually invisible until you hit a tile that triggers them.

There are bonus stages now. I don't mind them, but what this style of game was missing wasn't more points items. Mind you, what this game didn't need was for every level to be an ice stage and the sort of design that makes you go over the whole length of it. These levels aren't just frustrating, they're tedious. Not hard, not challenging. Just tasks you sometimes fail for what feels like no reason of your own.

And that's when it isn't just asking you to do the impossible. Look at where the key is; There's no secret I haven't shown you that places a block under it, you have to jump down from there. It's not technically impossible, but it's asking you to do the absolute limit of what you can do in this engine. Later, I found out that you don't need every key, which strikes me as a cruel trick on the uninformed.

I get the one navigation item this first episode has about halfway through. A boat, which allows me to cross the suspiciously lava-looking liquid, but when you have white, pink and cyan, your options are limited. This is the level I get. Like last time, poles don't kill you, but you also don't get a full block of space between a half block and a pole, so you can only jump up or down while above the pole.

After 19 levels I get a message telling me that the last level, which was blocked off from me being able to walk into it, is open. It looks different, but in practice it isn't. Instead of one long crawl across the screen, it's going over little halls that effectively mean the same thing.

This gets me a piece of an ancient map. Huh, are there five episodes, or are we just going to get the map? (There are only 4, so the latter) I don't know if I can stomach that many. We get an outro text saying that we think we're being watched. That's nice. This sounds like something that will only happen in the text crawl and we'll never see it in gameplay. Seriously, the actual combat in this game is basically just not landing on an enemy and shooting them, I've had more than enough ammo for everyone.

Episode 2, which I would never be bored enough usually to ever play, continues the theme that developed on the last level of Episode 1. Is there a word for art that's both more technically accomplished but actually worse? The game's back to pulling gotchas on me. Those invisible traps are starting to be used in ways you have no way of foreseeing.

There's this one. Look at the pickaxes. Go down, then back up. Only oops, a block appeared beneath the middle pickaxe and the only way to get it is to jump under it. The game is now weaponizing carefulness. It's still not really hard, just busywork. Which is the problem with this game and its predecessor. The levels would be a fun challenge in a more well-crafted game, but with this engine everything feels frustrating and tedious.

Like this one, I like the idea of it. Spikes pop out of the lower level, and then the middle has boulders pop in. But you're relying on precision in action and timing in a game that doesn't offer that. I keep harping because, well, it's the most overwhelming thing about the game.

And then there's this one which is just awful. Move too far with the block on the bottom and you've just made the level unwinnable. You can only destroy those solid cyan blocks by jumping from below, so in a lot of places those are just blocks. So you have to go around the level not once, but effectively three times in order to get out. That gun on the bottom makes the whole thing much worse, you know, because you have to do things carefully lest you block yourself in. The amount of times I barely made it past the first floor without screwing myself over to die because of a failed jump is too many.

Speaking of tedium, here's a level where you're just supposed to let all these falling blocks fall, in order, slowly. I suppose I could see if I have enough time to rush past them all, but those middle ones didn't look that way.

This level is really annoying because you have one bit of trouble at the start. Dart gun shooting at you while you walk on the moving blocks. In case you forgot, moving between them is tricky, so you're moving between four while not getting shot. I'll give some credit, its memorable, considering that we're already hitting levels which seem mundane compared to the rest and ones that reuse old tricks. Oh, make no mistake, there's a gun in the middle floor, but that's small potatoes.

I keep forgetting, but sometimes levels require you to end by going in a pipe. I don't even understand why this is being done outside of it being a Mario reference. It makes zero sense in context. This level in particular is intriguing, since you have to jump on the slowly falling platforms to create a space to get up from below. You can't advance otherwise.

This level full of moving platforms is deceptively difficult. In a normal game this would either be difficult because blocks knock you off, or easy because they move away. Here, they're supposed to move away, but if you aren't moving on a block, they knock you off. If you miscalculate your jump, well, it's a long way down.

The final level is much like last time, complete the others, get a text pop up, then enter the newly revealed room. Outside of having to thread the needle in the upper left, it's perfectly fine. I mean as a normal level. If the game was compromised of these it'd be fine. A bit easy, but a series of challenges as opposed to what feels like constant busywork. We get another end text much like the one from the last episode. Onto Episode 3!

Hey, what gives, this level actually seems like a decent introduction! It's like a level that introduces each element individually so you can get used to it. Almost like something that should have been in Episode 1. Nah...

In general this episode feels a lot more merciful, but not completely untouched by the game's cruelty. You'll get a mostly mundane level, then a few hidden boulder traps or something. Or a brutal start, but then mostly calm afterwards. It's always been this informal trilogy of Apogee that does this, hard start, and then by the end of it its easy. None of Apogee's other games, to my memory, do this. I think the closest of those I've played the full version of was Mystic Towers, but that was an intentional drop in some parts difficulty while raising other parts of the difficulty. (We'll see about Duke Nukem though)

Episode 3 ends much like the others, with level hidden until you get the other level. One that is a rather underwhelming level. In this case moreso, because there was an unnecessary pickaxe in an earlier level, meaning I didn't need to fight the two enemies in the upper right. Even the dart gun is pointless, you're only ever in its line of fire once, and that's when you're jumping towards the map piece. The ending text continues the same storyline, I guess the figure is probably Dr. Jones. Oh, and my guy is Nevada.

Episode 4, and the first level I reach is this. I'm pretty sure I already beat this exact level before. Why am I not surprised that this game is running out of steam? It all feels like stuff I've already done and didn't really enjoy before. It doesn't even really feel like a Lemmings kind of design where they made versions of various levels, some harder and some easier, its just the same challenge done slightly differently.

I guess it's not entirely true, but man, these levels aren't helping how fatigued I feel about this game. Even at this point if I can figure out what a level is at a glance, it's just going to be the same old, same old, even if its new. Its not like Tomb Raider where figuring out where you have to go, then doing it is a fun experience. You're just hoping that this time, you'll get lucky enough to get it right.

Nothing encapsulates this experience more than this level. Grab the pickaxes, then get out. Just a couple of dartguns and some spikes, no problem, right? Firstly, these platforms are noticeably slow, which is a problem when you have to go up and down to get a pickaxe. Secondly, the jump to the final pickaxe is the most precise in the entire game. You have a very small margin of error to getting past it, and you have to be going up while that one is going down.

I'm grateful it's over.

Episode 4 ends more or less like the other three episodes, earthquake reveals secret cave, this is the final level with the map piece. Oh, and a statement which in context feels like mocking, even if Georgie intended this to be...uh...a genuine question.

The ending text has Nevada in a death trap room, having carelessly tripped a switch that locks the room. Trapped in the dark for half a hour, the walls suddenly start rumbling close, but then Dr. Jones appears, opening the way out. Laughs are had by all, then Nevada asks if Dr. Jones has ever heard of the lost diamond mines of Africa. Which would have presumably been Nevada's next adventure, assuming someone didn't wisely put this series on ice like it deserved.

Oh, yeah, the shooting part. Nearly pointless. Half the time you can just jump over enemies, the other half you have 10 bullets. Sometimes I use the bullets just to make my life easier. The less I have to jump over enemies the better. There is rarely any reason not to shoot something.

Weapons:
Your typical basic gun. One shot on-screen. 1/10

Enemies:
Basically non-entities that go back and forth, with various traps functioning as the real trouble. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Incredibly tedious and frustrating, with only a few redeeming levels in Episode 3. 1/10

Player Agency:
Incredibly fiddly. The jump button doesn't work half the time. You have to quit to the map and then reenter if you reach a point where you can't die to reset the level. I guess the actual left and right movement is responsive, and you have good air control. But that feels like reaching for a compliment. 2/10

Interactivity:
You can occasionally jump into the ceiling to get a bonus...which isn't really that interactive. 0/10

Atmosphere:
This game was supposed to be about Vikings, northern Europe, that sort of thing. What I got is penguins. Penguins are on the opposite side of the planet. 0/10

Graphics:
Well, if ever you needed an example to prove that more detail in art is not necessarily better, here's your counter. Every time is details, but because of the crappy color palette, it looks awful. Animation is nice, but when everything else looks awful, does it really matter? 1/10

Story:
Purely there to pump up the running time slightly. Outside of the first episode's start and the last's end, the beginning and end of each episode is basically the same. 0/10

Sound/Music:
Basic PC Speaker beeps, not objectionable, but not interesting. 1/10

That's 7. It's been a while since I gave a game under 10 points. But then, its been a while since I truly hated a game here.

I'm very hard on this, but for good reason. George Broussard was attached to most of my favorite Apogee titles over the next two years. Possibly even some of my favorite side-scrollers of all time. So I know what he can contribute to. And while many sequels are weaker than their predecessors, usually the predecessor has something redeeming about it. This is noticeably worse in all respects, and Pharaoh's Tomb was only ever good for the time and place.

It isn't like I find this concept awful, I liked Monuments of Mars, which was about as cruel. I might even go as far as to say Jetpack would make my top 100 games. But in those, failure feels more like your own fault than the game's. Here it still ultimately is the player's. You have decent control of Smith, you just have a horrendous hitbox and the game seems like it just isn't aware of that.

Next week, I hope to have something new on Rejection, failing that, we'll see something from 1984.

Rejection: There and Back Again

It's weird getting back into a game after leaving it since last entry. Oh, yeah, I have four weapons I wouldn't logically think would be together. I really feel like I'm min-maxing despite that not technically being true. It doesn't help that now enemies leading to Nagano and the Keep Off Area mostly don't hurt me.

Reaching the war college first, since that's simpler and that had a locked door, it's a straight shot to the door. Which has nothing inside, no enemies...and it turns out it was simply just the boss fight against the dude who had clones of himself. So I wasted my time. To the east. I've looked in here before and I've been dreading it.

Because it's a sewer section. Technically this isn't as bad as a regular FPS sewer section, because mapping something yourself helps you remember it, but psychologically it feels worse. I have to map the sewer myself? YEUGH. We got eels, or...inters? What does that mean? They're odd, because they're far easier than previous enemies, probably due to my advanced level, but their hitbox is the shadow on the ground.

I wonder what happened here.

There's also body. Which doesn't attack you and just has a lot of health. These two are the first real encounter, with a ton of eels in a big area. I think they have a high spawn rate, its like cutting through a jungle and shooting them is wasteful, since I don't know when I'm getting back. But it might be IF I'm getting back. This forces me into an awkward position where I force myself through, but end up with the eels behind me and a mouse in front of me.

This leads a small room full of enemies from the first sewers. Not stronger ones, just the same ones. This goes on for a very long hallway, until I finally drop my guard expecting nothing new.

Floats, ranged water enemies. They don't seem to hit too bad though. But the problem with these water areas is that it's easy to get bogged down in an unending number of enemies. Doubly so here, because they do respawn too fast for me to kill them, and they're just strong enough to be trouble. The minigun continues to be useless as it can't damage anything. But the door I'm looking for is just here, so I can rush in.

Inside, we have another suspiciously empty area. Outside of the spider thing that doesn't attack me but moves. Like the last few special places, this area is straightforward. Go through until you find a door to a small room, and then the enemies show up.

The enemies in this area are SWAT in black ops clothing and various space marines. Feels really unimpressive after the last section, nothing about them seems special. The Minigun can even hurt them, though it runs through bullets far too rapidly for my taste.

I get another option soon, the FAMAS, the weird French assault rifle, which uses a 25 round magazine and only 3 shot burst fire. Well, originally, anyway. It's a curious choice that I assume only came about because of the French being the French. There's nothing special about it here. It seems basically useless because every enemy takes no damage from it. It also just fires automatically. The game drops two of them, so they really want you to have it and ammo for it.

Deep inside the area is a path leading to a desk. It's a video call with a government official, asking for a Major Takagi, and he's surprised when K-Ko answers. He wants to hear the status report on the operation to purify Tokyo. K-Ko says that isn't true, he's the person who ordered the slaughter of refugees and the medical tests involving Kusomoanfitamin, the zombie virus. He then figures out that K-Ko isn't a member of the purification squad. K-Ko goes on a rant calling this guy a horrible person...

...And he doesn't know what she's talking about. This is a genuine shock to him, because he thought they were making a cure. K-Ko doesn't believe him because people like him sell out his own country and love war. He's genuinely confused. He thanks her for clearing up what the military have been doing. K-Ko then says that it was awful that they deceived him, and for that she'll kill them. Glad to see K-Ko is being her usual self. The conversation ends here.

I go out the way I came...and there's this guy, dubbed monster. The second thing he says is an insult, so we're off to a good start. He recognizes K-Ko as Kirihara and refers to himself as Major Takagi and gives the usual badguy speech. (This puts some holes in the official's story) K-Ko calls him an idiot robot. He just laughs it off and mocks her old battle suit, saying he's more powerful.

I believe him. This guy is a pain, he hits hard, but the problem is that he's just so fast. I can't hit him with the grenade launcher and everything else isn't cutting down his massive amount of health. This presents a considerable problem. Because I don't really have a good way of grinding in this area. If I grind here, it's going to be insanely risky. I can grind elsewhere, but that's going to take hours. So, I decide to just tough it out.

Trying again, the grenade launcher does zero damage. Yippee. Guns, all deal single digit damage; Knife, same deal. Well, there's one last solution. What if I try to lose this fight? No, normal death, I.E., the game crashes. As I've said before, I dislike the practice of forcing you to fight your own level by making enemies slightly higher than you basically invulnerable, but a boss is slightly more tolerable than a regular enemy. So I need to figure out how to grind effectively here. I'm going to gamble that the MG-42 respawns, and just hope I don't have to rush out to get more ammo from the camp. Enemies drop ampules, which should be enough.

This does present an interesting problem. Are the FAMAS and the MG42 what I think they are, or is it a level issue? I can't see any reason why I would get rid of any of my other weapons for it right now. Making the matter more interesting is that enemies sometimes, as in, not a guaranteed drop, the M60 in here. I'm wondering if this is the developers rewarding a careful player or if there's more to it than I think. Since I don't have anything better to do, I'll compare them.

The MG42 is an improvement, since it takes out regular enemies here in 2-3 bursts...and on the other hand, the M60 also takes out regular enemies in 1-3 bursts. It's kind of an outlier, but not that much of one. There's not really a noticeable difference. Which means you only carry around two at the same time because the developers understand that you need the additional firepower. This is the sort of thing I think about when I have to get two levels. Better than talking about the effort they had to have put in to make these pixel art grey walls.

The problem is I'm examining this on a small sample size since in the heat of getting somewhere I only vaguely care. It's when I first get one that my curiosity gets going. I know that the M11 was stronger than previous rapid-fire weapons because it was so bizarre. More importantly, do more enemies with guns drop guns, and I've only noticed now because my previous grinding attempts were against other targets? As annoying as the mechanic is, I understand why from a balancing position. You can't just give players defacto unlimited ammo if you intended it to be limited. But...respawning guns in places like these are clearly intended as a way to avoid annoying the player with constant back and forth trips.

Two more level ups, is it enough? Not, I'm just sort of where I was. Maybe a little better. Man, how many levels was I supposed to get last time and this time? In theory, I could grab a rocket launcher from the war college, but that would take as long as going for another level. I'm going to try once more, this time, with the FAMAS. I don't really have a better choice, since the Minigun isn't really working out, even if the FAMAS has already proven itself to be ineffective. Nah, not even hiding it, it does nothing against the blue guy.

The game was rigged from the start.

So I backtrack, I need to pick back up the Minigun, since it's better than the FAMAS and they serve the same role anyway. Then, get a rocket launcher. The grenade launcher helped me, sure, but maybe it, like the Deringer, is supposed to be against that one boss. All the way back to both previous areas, then back here. There's a lot to complain about in the Far Cry series, for instance, there'd never even be a situation where you'd need to consider your loadout this much, but I sure could use that game's quick weapon change at base. Heck, I'd be happy just to get a single sniper rifle.

This gives me a good opportunity to see if the FAMAS is as bad as I really think. Well, yes and no. Yes, because it does have less shots that deal less damage than the LMGs. No, in that it moves around faster, which because I'm used to the heavy weapons means I struggle to hit things as accurately. But, because there's little advantage to this, fast or slow, turning around to shoot something is a pain, I might as well replace it with the Minigun again. Which is actually better than the LMGs, in certain situations, namely, clearing out weak enemies. If the only thing you need to do is spray bullets, more is better.

Now, level 17, 1 rocket and 4200 bullets. The rocket doesn't hurt him, and the Minigun does nothing. It's down to the LMGs. I run out of ammo, but I track my average damage against his total health. He has over 900, and I do an average of 7 damage per 12 bullet burst. I have 1200 LMG bullets, so I'll be out when he has 200 health. Assuming I hit every time. Right, another level-up to 18 seems to be 6000 or so XP, two guys drop over 200, so 30 more times before I get to 18. I suppose it's my own fault for rushing through the sub and here. I do learn something interesting which will help me though.

Where you hit matters. Headshots work really well against general soldiers, but not against the boss. So, how do I take him out? Answer, his left shoulder, the one with all the weapons. Like a Tyrant. This is the edge I need to take him out. The rocket still doesn't do anything. I take all my ammo and knife him for the last 40 points, but I do it. I take him out.

Now, how does the plot advance? Why, I get another ID card. I...wasn't expecting that, because I was expecting to say that the game teleports me somewhere. Also, a suit upgrade, this increases my damage, which will be useful for knifing the enemies I need to kill to get out of here. Wait, data disk? I better check the computer again.

This allows me to check the Major's e-mail. It's from the department of defense, or presumably whatever the Japanese one is called.  The Kusomoanfitamin experiment is going smoothly. The Osaka provisional government is opposed to their work, without success or disguise. The Minister of Home Affairs announced their purification campaign. They should quickly go to the next stage and eliminate any traces that could be reached. However, their rescue operation is working, albeit lukewarmly. A special division of the air force is being sent, the commander is Colonel Kirihara. The big factor is apparently the leaking of official secrets. They'll crush every obstacle in their way. That's the end of it, K-Ko then says that the mastermind has been exposed, but where is the division?

Before I end this, I head back to camp. Knowing last time, I'm worried. I get another level on the way there, and as luck would have it, they survived. I get a full refill. K-Ko explains the events that happened in the base. There's nothing really interesting there, just "my father isn't a hindrance" and "protect and show". Nothing about where I should be going at this point.

This is where I'm going to stop off for now. I nearly ended up not advancing past the Major this week. I'm not actually any better off now than I was before, since while I know I have to do something, I don't know where. It could be anywhere, from somewhere on that base I missed, to the war college, to the submarine to a long trip back to the place I first encountered the soldiers. Where ever I go, I don't know what I'm doing. You'd think they would offer a little more direction than this...

This Session: 7 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 26 hours 00 minutes