Including and especially the bad ones
This game gets a 2.0 because it is bad, but it isn’t necessarily broken or unplayable.
Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Racing – Chase
There are things that a racing game can do to make itself stand out in an otherwise vanilla genre. Some incorporate powerups, items or weapons. Some allow you to improve on your vehicle. Some employ novel control schemes. Some just show the game from a different perspective. Mach Rider takes a novel approach to the problem of keeping you interested in what otherwise amounts to bland gameplay: it arbitrarily kicks your ass.
Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Sports – Golf
I have never actually played the sport of golf. I’d like to try sometime – I understand that playing golf is a prerequisite for a career requiring any degree of PR – but I just haven’t ever had the opportunity. I once hit a golf ball with a golf club and, in an impressive feat of pure beginners luck, hit the post I was told to aim for.
But I’m skeptical of video games that try to take an already relaxing and generally unathletic* activity and turn it into a relaxing and generally unathletic game experience.
I suppose that not every game can have – or even needs – a clever title. After all, Contra is one of the most well-known and beloved games of all time, and “contra” just refers to resistance fighters in general. In some cases, however, a clever title – or even just a bit of elaboration on a fairly obvious title – seems to be in order.
While I have to cut it some slack for being the very first baseball game released on the NES, I don’t have a lot of love for the game. Maybe it was because by the time I got to play it, I was already spoiled by all the significantly more advanced baseball games released subsequently. It’s possible, though, that the name just killed the interest for me. Either way, I might have to dig pretty hard to find good things to say about this game.
The controls are, to put it lightly, unpleasant to deal with. On top of being poorly mapped in general (just try to make a runner steal a base or continue running on a wild ball), the game doesn’t do a good job of actually indicating when you’re in control and when you’re not. After my runners unsuccessfully chased grounders well into the outfield a few times, I finally realized that it wasn’t my fault they weren’t getting them – I didn’t control that part. I wasn’t responsible for their actions until they actually put their hands on the ball.
The game also seems to ignore the infield fly rule. Yes, it came up.
In the Wikipedia article, a reference is made to the variety of pitches that can be thrown through clever manipulation of the controller. Frankly, the difference between a fast ball and a slow ball is insufficient to affect even the lamest player’s reactions, and therefore moot. But, thanks, Wikipedia, for telling me that my slow pitching pitcher will eventually pitch even slower by wearing himself out.
All in all, it’s not the worst game out there – most likely, not even the worst baseball game – but I wouldn’t particularly recommend it.
John’s Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0, because I don’t have much good to say about it, but didn’t thoroughly hate the experience.
Dark Jco’s Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0 – I could probably give a better review if I liked the sport of baseball, but I don’t, so I just find this game boring.
Lord Nightmare: 1.0 out of 5.0. As far as I can tell, they captured all the boring and kind of dull aspects of baseball when they