All right kids gather 'round, it's time for another review from your favorite reviewer Zeon! What's that you say? You like the angry video game nerd better? Ok then, give me a second to drive to New Jersey. Ok back, now who's your favorite game reviewer? What did I do you ask? Let's not worry about the details shall we? Today's review has to do with a often overlooked, quirky little game for our beloved Turbo Grafx that goes by the name Somer Assault. Now I know what you are thinking. What the heck is a somer, and what has incited its wrath for it to go on a rampaging assault? Well at least I know those were my first questions when I heard of this game's name. Well fear not for you shall wonder no more! For I, Zeon shall explain to you all the mysteries of this world! What is it now? What do all the mysteries of the world have to do with assaulting somers? How do I know the answers to all of life's questions? Am I crazy? Kids these days, I swear, always filled with their crazy little questions. Of course I know all about life's little mysteries, er well at least the mysteries that surround this little know entity known as somer.
You see there was this sinister little corporation called Somer Dental Laboratories that did dastardly things like teach dentists around the globe how to do their job and provide them with the equipment to do dental work. Now nobody likes going to the dentist, but there was one entity that absolutely despised the Somer Dental Laboratories and all of it's evil deeds: the slinky. Yes, the slinky! You see, kid's love playing with slinky and the slinky loved being played with. It was a great and peaceful time, until the Somer Dental Laboratories was founded and started operations. Now the slinky's playmates were stolen away and subjected to great anxiety, expired magazines, smelly breath, and great deals of pain. When the slinky heard of this, it became enraged. Trust me you don't want to get on the bad side of an irate slinky, oh boy you don't. So the slinky grew the ability to shoot lasers and went forth on it's quest to destroy the Somer Dental Laboratories' 12 leaders and ultimately the evil corporation itself. It wasn't easy with the twisted mazes that held each leader, but the slinky prevailed. The valiant efforts of the slinky were recorded onto the history books as the Somer Assault.
What now? You say that never happened and that slinkys aren't sentient? Boy you kids, fine I'll tell you what didn't happen and maybe you'll believe the lies I'm about to make up. Alright enough of the old man skit, it's getting tiresome already. Now I know why old people are always so cranky!
Ok so when you first turn on Somer Assault, first thing you will notice after the Altus logo is the music. Now let me start by saying everything about this game is unique and the music is no exception. You are treated by this colorful music, that I really can't describe except maybe having a mid-eastern influence. The music is quite catchy and I am actually listening it to it right now as I type this review. It may not be for everyone, but that's probably because they can't handle it's uniqueness.
Alright so you are past the title screen now what? Well first you get to choose between stereo and mono audio and then you enter your birth date, of which I have no idea what exactly it does. Then you get to see the back story of our hero's epic quest! You see there's this evil fortune teller witch lady that summons 12 creatures based upon the 12 creatures of the zodiac to go forth and bring the world under her control. Who's going to stand in her way and stop her sinister plot? The Mario Brothers? Batman? Paperboy? Tony Danza!?!? Nope none of the above need apply, because no sooner was the witch gloating that nobody could stand in her way did a lone, very irate, slinky appear before her to let her know he ain't havin' none of that! He's gonna destroy all of her beasts and put a stop to her ambitions for world domination thus ruining her! You thought I was joking earlier with the slinkies, didn't you?
Ok so now the shock of figuring out how the bizarre hero of the story is has passed, it's time to get down to the game play. You as the slinky must go around the maze, in slinky like fashion of course, and along the way things such as flames or rotating horse heads obstruct your path, slowly floating towards you. What can you do against such dastardly foes? Why shoot them of course! For not only can you slink around the maze, you have the ability to shoot at things too. Oh and sometimes after destroying your foes, they will leave behind power ups, such as extra time, a triple shot upgrade, and extra life gauge amongst many other things! What will they think of next? Why the ability to jump of course! That's right, you can jump too. What purpose might this serve you ask? Well if you are in a narrow corridor, which is quite often, you can jump and your slinky will attach itself to the other wall. This is sometimes crucial to making your way to the boss in time, as there are often shorter paths to be found by changing walls.
The object of each maze is to find your way to the boss which is one of the zodiac beasts that witch summoned. As you may have gathered by now, you are timed which can be frustrating. It is especially so if you go down a long convoluted path only to reach a dead end and not have enough to turn around and make it to the boss in time, but this adds to the challenge. It's really nerve racking when the timer comes from out of the corner to the center of the screen and plays a quite startling sound effect to signify that you are running out of time though. It keeps you on your toes.
The premise of going through a maze with enemies that don't even shoot at you until you reach the boss may sound a bit mundane, however it's not. The enemies really just serve to provide you with useful power ups to help you beat each stage's boss, however as you get later into the game quite a few things are done to spice things up. For one thing there are special tiles that when you "slink" over them they do something, well, special. From making a path appear, to warping you somewhere else in the maze, to even dealing damage to you! Furthermore there are power ups with a question mark on them, these can be good, but sometimes they do bad things like reverse your controls! Also, as you progress the mazes get longer and more convoluted with many dead ends and enemies coming at you from both sides. Therefore it's going to take a lot of tries on later stages to find the boss in time. Once you finally make it to the boss you are sealed in the room with the beast and you must keep shooting and avoiding its attacks until either you or it goes down. The bosses have a fairly predictable pattern, but there is a little randomness to keep you from just staying in one spot and killing the boss with no effort. After you defeat the boss, you are treated to a scene where you slinky triumphantly slinks across the screen with a giant zodiac calendar above it noting your progress.
Well I have spoke of game play and the music what about the graphics? Well they are nothing too special, I'll admit, but they do a wonderful job of conveying the wackiness of the game. When your slinky gets hit by something, he jumps and his previously non-existent eyeballs pop out as if to say, "Ouch, that hurt!" The graphics are nice and colorful, but don't be expecting it to rock your socks off. Besides it's the game play where the game really shines as I have already explained. One more thing I will mention before I wrap this review up is the sound effect your slinky as he moves. It can only be justly described in one word: Epic! I swear if actual slinkies made the noise that the one in this game makes, I would set up 20 of the on a staircase and set them all off one after the other just to hear the audio orgy of awesomeness that was sure to ensue. I'm also certain that my parents would get mad because I would be doing it at about 2:00 in the morning!
In any case, this is quite the game to behold. From start to finish, there is a ton of fun to be had if only for the noise that slinky makes! Seriously though the only downside to this game that I can see is that it's not your type of game, and the fact that you are timed. Other than that, this is a must have game for any TG-16 owner hands down. I mean where else are can you command an irate slinky on a quest to save the world? So what are you waiting for? Get this game now! The slinky commands you, don't make it mad now!
Atta Boy Ceti for winning the Victory Run Challenge! Just send me an Email let me know which game you want. Dragon Knight II complete or Rabio Lepus Special. I will still take any photos for a second place Prize and offer the game that Ceti doesn't choose! The contest will run about 2 more weeks then we start another one. So the contest is still running for those of you who would love to give it a shot! Great Job Ceti congrats and I hope you enjoy your Prize!
Here's the Challenge. Beat the game. Send me a Pic of the winning screen using a camera even if you are using an emulator. I send you a copy of Dragon Knight II Complete or Rabio Lepus Special Loose. As far as I know, there are no Cheats available for this game. But if you use an emulator to try and beat this game Please if cheats are available don't use them. I have been trying to beat this game for years! It is one tough cookie!
Firstly the parts on your car go south in a hurry. Also there are a ton of things to dodge along the stages. Somekind of trash blocks your way and wrecks your tires and shocks! Then if that's not bad enough! You need to slow down on the hills or your car catches air and your shocks get wrecked again. Downshifting to much will result in Trashing your gears. Then there are the stages themselves.
First stage is fairly easy and you may even get good enough to add time to your limit. What the hell is windancer talking about? Ahh, then there is nightime driving and you can barely see the trash that some sick programmer has layed out along the track to screw up your tires and shocks! I don't even want to mention what the desert stage does to your car, but I will try LOL. The desert stage is the beast that makes or breaks your Victory run. Firstly you notice that you need to shift from 1st to 2nd rather quickly or your tires will just spin at the start. Then, That sick programmer layed out more trash for you to dodge along with dodging traffic. Then there is this little diddy........shifting from 3rd to 4rth gear doesn't work the same as street stage! Your car is slower in 4rth gear what the hell!
Think back to 1991 if you will, now suppose that you love video games. (You must to be bothered with reading this review in the first place!) Anyways, lets just say the Turbo Grafx-16 won you over and you decided that it would be the system you brought home that day. Well of course you're going to need some awesome games to play on your system right? Do you go for surefire hits like Bonks Adventure or Bonks Revenge? Maybe R-type sounds more up your alley with it's hectic, near arcade perfect quality action? Perhaps you were impressed by the game play footage of Legendary Axe you saw back in 1989 that kind of influenced your purchase decision in the first place. Whatever the case may be you probably wouldn't have given the game Tricky Kick more than a second glance would you? Admittingly the confusing cover art isn't helping its case much, nor does the name doesn't make it sound particularly stellar or even remotely interesting. However what we have here is a gem in the rough. I mean sure it has it's problems, but what game doesn't? (Don't you dare try and be a smart alec say Metal Gear Solid 4!) Too many people are too hard on this game, sometimes going as far as lumping it with titles such as Gunboat, Drop-Off, and Falcon which are considered some of the TG-16's worst!
PLAY THIS GAME!!! LONG LIVE ATLUS!!!
-PCEngineFan
If Neo Geo is the REAL DEAL, this is the REAL DEAL FX! In fact Zenki on the FX is everything a game should have been on the Neo Geo CD console: fast load times, utterly insane animation quality (just try rapidly pausing and unpausing when you kill some of the enemies sometime), quality effects like FMV elements as part of the background. Like in the scene where the jet airplane explodes or during some of the more psychadelic parts of Zenki. To make things even sweeter, there are animated portraits for each character
Like most games, Zenki begins with fairly easy, lets call them bosses. However, just because they are easier to fight does not mean that they have any less detail put into the animation, and many of the bosses take up half of the screen's height. Some like the possessed frog are massive taking up 3/4Th's of the height and easily 1/3rd the width of the screen, all the while dishing out frantic flurries of moves. In the later stages, the bosses of Zenki will make you feel like a swat team trying to kill a raging person on PCP. No matter how many times you hit them, they keep rushing at you, their hands blurring with fierce alacrity.
The enemies you face in the action part of the levels are for the most part too easy to kill, but they give you a break in between each boss fight and offer a chance to earn more continues. Continues in Zenki are precious on the hard difficulty so I am grateful the programmers decided to add them in. Occasionally you get cheap'd during a boss battle and loose 75% or more of your life before you can respond, the harder the difficulty, the more this is magnified. However I never feel like the computer is cheating like I have with
