datelive

Holy cow this game is amazing! I had heard some people saying it wasn't quite as good as previous Contra games, mostly due to an unbalanced difficulty and there being simply too much stuff on the screen. Well, I wholeheartedly disagree! This is in my opinion the best classic contra game I have ever played!

It's like the developers deconstructed Contra 3: The Alien Wars, took out what didn't work like the overhead mode 7 stages (yes, I know the Genesis wasn't technically capable of doing those anyway), kept what DID to add everything else they could think of! 

You can now choose between four characters, but these aren't just skins, each character has a different arsenal, you'll also run across branching paths, these will change the levels you play, the ending and even the final boss with a total of six endings! That's just a ton of content for a 16 bit Contra game, hell, it's a ton of content for any Contra game but the craziness doesn't stop there, there's a secret area on level 3 where you get to fight a robotic alien version of Simon Belmont from Castlevania and if you beat him along with two extra bosses you're propelled into pre-historic times and become the king of the apes with your very own ape queen! I swear I did not make this up. Hell if you do this as Sheena she STILL marries a female ape (could she be the first lesbian character in gaming?). 

You also get a storyline as told by either briefings before each mission or a short cutscene at the beginning/end of each mission. I understand these were needed for the branching paths feature, but I wish they gave you an option to skip the dialog.

I've talked so much about the game already but I haven't even gotten into the gameplay itself, which is in a word: a-freaking-mazing! It's like Contra 3 on steroids, no matter where you are there's always a ton of enemies trying to kill you, but luckily they all die with one hit, when you do get stronger foes the game is kind enough to keep them at a manageable amount. 

Much like Contra 3, you can switch between your weapons at any time, but instead of two weapon slots you now get 4. This time however, you can't jump and use two of them at the same time like you could in its SNES counterpart, you do however get a slide move, which makes you invulnerable for the second or two it takes to finish the move. Lastly, the title is chalk full with bosses and mini bosses so it's generally a good idea to stockpile as many weapons and bombs as you can for these.

Whereas Contra 3 went for a more realistic art-style, Harcorps adopts a more cartoony (or should I say anime?) style. Everything is very colorful and exaggerated, the enemies are often very goofy looking, in this regard it doesn't actually feel like a Contra game. Despite that the art-style works very well. I especially love the explosions, they just keep going, in other games, when you kill a big baddy you see random ball of fire popping up, here it's like they dance around the enemy circling it, stretching and compressing, it's crazy. 

You're also treated to some very impressive 3D effects, my favorite being the bike boss fight where you're running down a quasi-3D road. The only issue I had with the graphics were the relatively small character sprites with very little detail on them. Heck, Sheena doesn't even have a face!

The music will likely be hit or miss for most, it's all very techno with a few "silly" tunes thrown in. At first I didn't much care for these but eventually they grew on me and now the first level song always gets me pumped. I loved the techno remix of the classic Castlevania theme, that was a nice touch. 

Sound effects are also a bit hit and miss, the explosions sound loud and distorted but it works really well, the gun effects however sound kind of weak, though the absolute worst are the voice overs, all of them are scratch, distorted and sound sped up, it's just weird to listen to.

Overall Contra: Hardcorps is an amazing game, it's fast, furious, full of content and replay value, it's Contra on steroids and it's the best run and gun game on the Genesis.

Trivia: Did you know the PAL version of Contra: Hardcorps is simply called Probotector and replaces all of the characters with robots? It also removes at least one of the endings. Now you know why I imported this version.

For the most part I like the boxart here, you see one of the characters firing an exaggerated gun at giant robot, the colors and detail on the characters and backgrounds are quite nice but what is going on with his legs? They're bent in an impossible position, how is he even standing? It's like he's made of a soft rubber.

The manual is definitely above average by Genesis standards, it tells you a bit of the backstory, teaches you how to play the game and even has a few character profiles. All of this is supplemented with either screenshots or character art, unfortunately they're all in black and white. I also have to wonder how Sheena's design got past the censors, I've seen bikinis that cover more than what she's wearing.

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

I was never that big of a Tiny Toons fan, I remember I'd just rather watch the old classic cartoons, though I did love Animaniacs though, as well as the Pinky and the Brain spin-off. Now with that said, is this 16 bit interpretation of the cartoon any good? In a word: meh.

The game has you control Buster (and only Buster) who looks like a younger blue haired Bugs Bunny, he controls like a mix of Mario and Sonic, basically, his jumps and enemy types are similar to Nintendo's plumber, but his speed and momentum work very similarly to Sega's Mascot.

Now, I have no problem with a game "ripping off" another title, but Tiny Toons doesn't seem to understand WHY certain features are fun or how they're supposed to be implemented. Yes, you can run like Sonic, but placing instant death spikes as soon as you reach top speeds or placing hard to see cans on the ground that make you trip and lose momentum are not good level design, they grind the game's pacing to a halt. Buster can jump like Mario, but there are no power ups, making the platforming sections rather basic, our rabbit can however wall-jump, but this rarely comes into play.

Another idea brought over from Nintendo was the overworld, which serves as a flashy elaborate level select screen, but once again, Konami seemed to have missed the point on WHY this feature worked so well for Mario. For starters, there are no secret levels (at least not to my knowledge), also, you can't pause the game to quit a level and go back to the level select screen, so I tried to kill myself but that only brought me back to last checkpoint I crossed, meaning if you want to return to world map, you have to completely waste all of your lives/reset the game and then punch in a password (there's no save feature).

Oh and speaking of passwords, if you want to view it, you'll also have to waste all of your lives, at one point I had to kill myself 7 times just so I could save my progress, what kind of bull*censored* is that?

Graphically the game has some nice spots here and there, I like the cartoony animation and some backgrounds look really good, I especially loved the sonic-inspired stages with the nice, lush forests and lakes, but then you have certain levels which feature boring, static backgrounds.

The game's soundtrack is quite nice if a bit repetitive, I liked its rendition of the Tiny Toons theme and while the other tunes aren't quite as memorable they are good enough.

Overall, Tiny Toons: Buster's Hidden Treasure isn't a bad game, but it's also not what I'd call good, I picked it up for cheap having no expectations for it and what I got was an "average" game, it can be fun in short bursts but any  more than that and it becomes too derivative for its own good. It tried to mix and match several gameplay aspects from both Sonic and Mario but it seemed to have missed the point of what made them fun. Oh Well, it's a decent game, but I wouldn't pay too much for it.

Developer: Epic Games/People Can Fly

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Gears of War was without a doubt the Xbox 360's first killer app so it makes sense Microsoft would want to publish its finest console game onto the PC as a means to promote the unpopular service Games for Windows Live, so with that said, is the PC version any good? Yes it is... but I honestly think someone intentionally sabotaged this release, why do I say that? Oh where do I begin.

After installing the game I was faced with a DRM issue that prevented me from playing it even though I have a legitimate copy, turns out I had to set the Windows clock to June 2008 to get it to run (wut?) after that, I discovered that the game would stop responding at random intervals, sometimes it would play for hours without issue while other times I couldn't even play it for five minutes, I tried several methods to fix it, but none worked. But enough about technical issues, how is the game itself?

Well, the game doesn't have much of a story to tell you other than you're on some planet or other with a very 1950's art-deco style and it's being overrun by a horde of underground creatures known as the Locust, who for the most part look like pale skinned hulking lumbering masses of muscles, teeth and bone and now it's up to you and Delta Squad to deliver a latch ditch blow to your enemies.

Yeah the story is pretty lame and the characters are for the most part uninteresting, though I did like Baird, the guy is snarky as hell and he seems to be the only character in the game who's good at something other than shooting.

Speaking of shooting, how is the gunplay? In a word: Awesome! All of the weapons feel worn and rusted out while still packing quite a punch, which is a good thing considering how much your average locust can bleed without being killed, my favorite weapon has to be the chainsaw Bayonet, it gives you the option to either shoot your enemies or slice them to pieces, you also have other awesome weapons like explosive crossbows and a laser satellite homing beacon.

Gears of War does give you a good enemy variety, though you wouldn't have guessed it from the first two chapters where it seems like you're fighting the same guys over and over again, luckily the rest of the game REALLY picks up, made even better by the fact the PC port has some extra levels not found in the Xbox 360 version so overall the campaign will likely last you 8 hours, depending on your play style.

On the multiplayer side of things, you'd expect the fact that the online is free would mean you'd find at least someone to play with, but alas, no such luck, whether it's co-op or competitive online play, the servers are all empty, the PC port also doesn't have split-screen co-op so if you want to play locally you'll need to set up a lan connection...lame.

Graphically the game is pretty good by 2007 standards, the characters models still look pretty by 2013 standards, but the animations and environments definitely look dated, I also noticed the game introduced too much blur and field depth for my taste, but there was no way to turn it off in the options, instead I had to hunt down the game's .ini file and turn it off from there, again... lame.

Overall, the PC version SHOULD have been the definitive version, but honestly between DRM issues, crashes and the lack of a proper graphical setting option I have to say I was somewhat disappointed, especially because at its core the game is a very fun romp, a slow starting romp, but a fun one.

I am not a fan of the cover, the color balance is fine and quite attractive, but how come Marcus is squatting out in the open with his back turned to the action? Is he trying to get himself killed? Even if we ignore his team mates on the background who are facing the opposite direction and clearly hiding behind walls, what is the point in showing us a close-up of a character who is just not the least bit interesting?

Inside you'll find two cards one is an ad for Microsoft Sidewinder gear and the other is a free month of GFWL (hahaha!) silliness aside, I do feel the color balance works even better in these small cards, but again, why is Marcus staring at us?

The game's manual is... surprisingly good it gives you some backstory, weapon descriptions, concept art for said weapons and they go into great detail on how to play the game and its multiplayer modes, supporting the text with either screenshots or more concept art. Kudos to the developers for crafting a good manual in this day and age.

Thunder Blade was a helicopter SHMUP originally launched for the arcades, it boasted some very impressive sprite scaling effects giving it a pseudo 3D effect, I have no idea whose idea was it to port the game for the Master System, but at least you can clearly tell the developers did their best.

The game is separated into two segments, the first being a typical 2D shmup with all of the previously mentioned pseudo 3D effects removed. This mode is fairly standard for the genre, boasting some near perfect collision detection though I'd argue the player's hit box is a bit too big, it does add a twist though, you can only shoot ground units with missile, whereas air units are only hit by bullets, so you're constantly shifting between the controller's buttons, these sort of levels are extremely hard as enemies keep coming at you from all directions, made even by worse by the fact that there are no power ups, so yeah, you're going to be using the same weapons throughout the entire game.

As you reach the halfway point of each level, the game shifts perspective to a Pseudo 3D style (as seen in the image), here you see some very impressive graphical effects considering this is running on a Master System. Unfortunately the background seems to move at very low framerate, oh and remember how I complained about the 2D segments being difficult? Here the difficulty is cranked up to 11! You're literally being bombarded from every altitude and the games does a poor job at conveying depth perception so you'll be crashing into objects and bullets that you thought you'd be able to easily to dodge.

Graphically the 2D style is pretty standard stuff for the console the real eye candy being reserved for the 3D segments, some people might feel these haven't aged well, but personally, I'm just amazed they pulled it off at all! The sound department is pretty weak, with the same two or three songs looping every on every level and the explosions, missiles and bullets quite simply lacking in the "oomph!" department (especially the latter).

Overall you can tell that the developers gave it their best shot, but this is a case of the Master System simply biting off more than it could chew, yes the 3D looks impressive but it's not very playable whereas the 2D sections look drab and boring without the Arcade's scaling effects. I suppose they could have added power ups, but then there would hardly be any similarities with the original Thunder Blade.

Trivia: Did you know this game is compatible with the Master System FM-Synthesizer? Of course, in order to take advantage of it, you need either a Japanese Master System or to install a sound chip mod on your western console.

 (Excuse the glue residue folks)

I have to say, the boxart looks awesome, it's the sort of cover that you'd expect from some 80's action flick while browsing a videostore, definitely eye catching.

Unfortunately though, I don't own the manual so I can't compile a full packaging review.

Universe at War has a bit of a misleading title, when I first heard about the game, I thought you'd pick from several alien factions and then duke it out throughout the Universe. Well I got the first part right, but you only get to fight on Planet Earth despite the Humans not even being a playable faction (huh?).

The campaign progresses in a linear fashion as you take control of the stealthy but underpowered Novus, the amazingly awesome and devastating Hierarchy, whose production facilities also double as giant walking mechs of death and the Masari, who are the more traditional RTS faction, I definitely enjoyed playing as the last two, but I got the feeling Novus' stealth abilities don't really make up for how weak their units really are.

I was also not a fan of the campaign, didn't care for most of the plot or the characters with the exception of Orlok, a battle weary Hierarchy General, the missions themselves weren't too interesting either, with the exception of the final stage for each faction, I always felt like the skirmishes were too small in scale.

Universe at War features cross-platform multiplayer, meaning you can play the PC version against  Xbox 360 players, I'd love to see how well implemented this is, but unfortunately the servers are completely empty, so no luck there. At least you have the usual single player Skirmish options as well as Scenario mode, which places you in a map similar to "Risk" as each player takes turn in taking over territories for bonuses, that mode was pretty fun.

Overall, I have to say, there's no real point in getting this game, the campaign is pretty dull and the online servers are empty and while the Hierarchy is pretty fun to play, it alone can't save the rest of game's shortcomings.

Publisher:   Activision

As a casual Star Trek fan I was somewhat intrigued by the idea of a fighter-pilot space combat shooter based on Gene Roddenberry's fictional setting, mostly because the space battles in Star Trek are usually all about strategy, tactics, diplomacy, manipulation, misdirection and freaking giant spaceships being blown up by the Enterprise.

Well after playing Invasion I can now safely claim none of that is in the game, no, not even the Enterprise or any form of giant ship, the few capital ships you get to see are medium-sized at best (think Colony Wars: Red Sun) and the game itself is a by the numbers space shooter, which isn't a bad thing, but it's bogged down by a slew of issues.

The first problem you might notice is how overly sensitive the controls are, if you turn your fighter for more than two seconds then chances are you already did a 180º turn and completely missed whatever target you were going for, after a few play sessions I did eventually get used to this, but I was never too comfortable with it, especially when dogfighting the Borg (yes, apparently the Borg use fighters now). This just makes the game so unnecessarily difficult, made even worse by the fact that the game's objectives are really strict without the control issues. How strict you ask? Well I actually got a game over TWICE while playing the tutorial missions, now that's harsh!

Control and difficulty issues aside, the missions themselves are... okay, when compared to games like Colony Wars or Freespace there's just nothing about them that really stands out, most of them involve you shooting other fighters until the numbers deplete with the occasional extra objective thrown in, but more often not these are done in a very aggravating manner, like how you're sent alone to a nebula and are expected to tractor beam an escape pod to safety, the problem is that your enemies are constantly spawning and you're a sitting duck while towing the pod away, eventually I got through the mission but I couldn't find a definitive strategy for it, it was all blind luck.

With that said, you do have a two player mode, something very rare for this sort of game, in fact, I'm sure this was a first on consoles, you can play either in Deathmatch, which hasn't aged all that well to be honest or a set of co-op missions which are actually pretty fun, it's just a shame you can't take on the singleplayer campaign with a friend.

Graphically the ships look stunning for the PS1 and the shield effects looks pretty damn cool, but the environments are a bit stale and lifeless, especially when compared to the aforementioned Colony Wars series, the soundtrack is pretty forgetful but the voice acting isn't, mostly because you have Patrick Stewart (Picard) and Michael Dorn (Worf) reprising their roles, as well as a few other minor actors reprising their roles unfortunately, their great performances often clash with that of other minor characters.

As for the story itself, I think I forgot what's it even about, it starts out with a Borg Invasion, but you spend most of the game fighting a new, unknown alien race that is not nearly as dangerous or interesting as the Borg, Klingons, or the Romulans, in fact, between the new species and the fact that this is a fast paced dog-fighting space shooter it hardly even feels like a Star Trek game.

Trivia: Did you know originally the game was going to let you order your squad mates and call for reinforcements? It was even mentioned in the official PlayStation demo. A shame it never made the cut, it could have been a great feature.

I'm not a fan of the boxart at all, it looks lifeless and generic, yes, it's a space battle but I'm just not drawn to the image, maybe it's the overuse of yellow in the background, but the worst part is that it doesn't even look like a Star Trek game at all, I mean look at it! Do you recognize any of the ship designs in there? 

None of them really resemble the typical federation vessel, even the torpedoes don't look like they're from Star Trek, they never left a blue trail in 'The Next Generation'.

As for the manual itself it's pretty decent, featuring one tiny paragraph of backstory while the game's instructions feel a bit cramped, but at least they it tells you what each weapon does, something which the game never bothered to (Seriously, how else are you supposed to know the difference between a Type 9 phaser and a Type 10 phaser?).

I remember there being a fair amount of hype for this game, there was even a publication that called it a 'Halo killer', I also remember how the game seemed to have fallen off everyone's radar after it released and now that I had a chance to play it, I can see why. Halo has absolutely nothing to fear from Haze.

Haze is bad, it's really bad, not in the sense 'so bad it's good', but instead 'so bad it's painfully boring'. 

You play as Shane Carpenter, an annoying hipster kid who joined Mantel, a futuristic private security/mercenary force because he felt 'it was the right thing to do', said corporation keeps its forces in line by constantly pumping them up with a performance enhancing drug named 'nectar' which makes you faster, more resistant, makes it easier to spot enemies and turns your douchey squadmates into super-douchey squadmates. 

Seriously, these guys are completely unlikable they don't even feel like characters as much as they feel like parodies of high-school bullies, I get that the game is trying to portray them as the bad guys so that Shane eventually joins the rebels, but the way the writing handled it was embarrassing and when you do join the rebels it's complete opposite: The rebels have no personality at all, outside of their leader whom you don't really know that much about you never talk to anyone, you just assume they're the good guys.

On the gameplay aspect, things don't fare much better, there is zero enemy variety, they all look the same (especially when fighting Mantel), they all act the same and the vast majority of them use the same weapons, made even worse by how laughably bad the A.I. we're talking early-to-mid PS2 gen levels of A.I. here.

The game also tries to add some gameplay variety by giving you vehicle sections, but most of these are handled very poorly, for starters, you only get to one vehicle per faction, moreover I found that these stages consist of little more than one long corridor and the levels where you have to drive these through a minefield are just unbearable.

Graphically the game is extremely inconsistent, the Mantel land carrier looks great and crisp, whereas the jungle, explosions or the surrounding environments look sub-par, or at times, downright lazy, the worst offender being an on rails assault on the Mantel carrier, where you'll be shooting it's weakpoints on one side and once you're done, it magically teleports you the other side without so much as a cutscene.

Finally, if you thought the multiplayer might be its one saving grace, you're out of luck as Haze's servers have been shut down, meaning no competitive play and no multiplayer co-op.

Haze is just one big mess after another, at times you get to see what they were going for but it was just so poorly handled and at times it feels so rushed that it ultimately makes for a very boring game.

Though the boxart borders on the generic side, I can't deny how eye catching it is, the broken helmet with the soldier staring at the viewer really draws me in.

Inside you'll find the disc and a 28 page manual and an inner box artwork.

The game's manual is actually pretty good, going into more depth on how to play the game then you'd expect from a shooter in this day and age, it also features character background information and some artwork stills I also liked the ad for the first Assassin's Creed game on the back of the manual.

Overall, it's a pretty good packaging, the manual makes for an interesting read, the boxart is certainly catchy and if  it doesn't appeal to you there's always the alternate inner boxart.

 Game: Jack in the Dark

The game is part Halloween and Part Christmas themed, regardless, the ending itself makes for a great Christmas Banner.

Developer: Mechadeus

Publisher:  Virgin Interactive

Often named as one of the best (and I use that term loosely) FMV games, the Daedalus Encounter had the rare distinction of actually being granted a decent budget for the time and for better or worse, it kind of shows.

For starters, they seemed to have hired B-list Hollywood actress Tia Carrere, though honestly I had no idea who she was, it wasn't until I checked her IMDB page that I learned she played Cassandra from Wayne's World and while I mean no disrespect to Ms. Carrere, the truth is anyone could've played her role, it's not like there's much to work with in the first place, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

You play as Casey, a poor sod who right at the end of an intergalactic war is nearly killed and has his brain placed inside a ship, serving as a sort of A.I. it sounds cool in theory, but the reality is you never actually do anything, you see your two shipmates interact and occasionally you have to solve a puzzle or two, most of the time your pay-off is that you got to open a door for your squad mates...yippee.

Honestly... there's really not much to the 'gameplay', most of the game is just you watching a low budget movie, I'll give credit where credit is due, both actors are actually trying, Zack does get some funny line and the overall cheesiness is pretty fun at first, I especially loved how the ship's cockpit uses office chairs that creek every now and again or when you see Zack drinking from a water container with his bare hands but they actually never get wet.

With that said, the cheese value does wear out its welcome, I reached a point where seeing two actors acting on a green screen filled with bad 90's CGI just stopped being entertaining (crazy I know) and it probably didn't help that the puzzles got way too hard for me later on.

Honestly, I wouldn't really recommend this game to anyone, you might as well just watch a playthrough a YouTube, at least then the puzzles won't frustrate you.

The first time I saw the boxart I thought this was a budget re-release of the game, after all, why else would it have that ugly dark green border? But nope, this is a first print edition of the PAL release.

As for the cover itself it's... okay, it's pretty much what you'd expect from an FMV game, real people wearing a costume or an outfit, posing in front of a green screen, what I don't quite get is why do our characters have a white outline? I'm guessing Photoshop hadn't been invented yet.

Inside you'll find a one page hint book, a 17 page manual and 3 CDs, the hint book is very bare bones giving you information that applies to just about every FMV and adventure game out there, the manual fares a bit better though, it tells you a little of the game's backstory and it's just as cheesy as you might expect, you'll also find some basic information on how to use the controls and that's a good thing because the game's tutorial leaves a bit to be desired.

Developer: Tri-Ace

Publisher:  Square-Enix

Released exclusively and with little fanfare at the time for the Xbox 360, Infinite Undiscovery seems to have acquired a bit of a cult following and though I don't think the game is as good as some of the fans have said, I do understand why it has its fanbase.

You play as Capell, a very annoying, whiny and unlikable character whose only noteworthy feature is that he resembles Lord Sigmund, the hero of the people, fighting his crusade against the Order of Chains who seek to tether the moon with giant chains because of... reasons I guess, yeah, the story is pretty iffy.

In fact, I found the game's writing to be lackluster on just about every level, non-sensical plot, boring characters, a bland world, even the voice acting is inconsistent, though to its credit, halfway through the game tries to throw you a curve ball, but it's really not very hard to see it coming.

On the gameplay side of things I absolutely loved the real time combat in this game, it's fast, flashy, you have plenty of skills to learn and you're required to keep some form of control over your team and by the end of it, you'll have over a dozen party members to choose from and for the most part the battles looks great with tons of flashy visual effects thrown in for good measure, unfortunately you are likely to run into some framerate issues.

There are plenty of towns to visit, but they along with the NPCs feel a bit too sterile for me, you'll often run into some sidequests, but the game doesn't give you a quest log, you also have the ability to craft your own gear, there are dozens of items used for crafting and hundreds maybe even thousands of weapons and gear to craft, but I found the whole process pretty tedious and underdeveloped.

Graphically, the game looks great during battles, but the towns and cities tend to look a bit boring, as for the sound, there are quite a few memorable songs, but the battle themes will quickly start to grate on you, though not as much as some of the voice actors, especially the very annoying pair of underage twins, seriously they're not even 12 years old and their mother just sends them off into war without a second thought, what's up with that?

Overall, I can see why the game has its fans, the game's combat is just so damn fun and even after you finish the 30+ hour campaign you'll still unlock a new multi-level dungeon that should take you quite some time to beat it, unfortunately, I feel the game fails on almost every other level.

Trivia: Did you know that originally the game was meant to have situational choice/consequence scenarios that would drastically change the main plotline? Originally, the game had some very ambitious design ideas in which the story would progress even while the console was turned off, a shame that none of this made it to the final cut.

Developer: Sonic Team

Publisher:  Sega

Released as a free demo with the purchase of Saturn exclusives back in '96, Christmas Nights into Dreams is one of those rare cases where the demo is just as sought after and nearly as expensive as the game itself.

The 'game' opens up with a motion comic style intro narrated by a woman who sounds extremely bored as she reads her text, telling you that it's Christmas, but people seem to be missing the Holiday's spirit because the Christmas tree's star is missing and that it's up you two underage kids to find it.

The demo consists of two levels, the latter being a boss fight, though what set the demo apart was its clock setting, on December 25th, the game's theme shifts radically to a Christmas setting, the once green mountains are now fully covered in snow, decorated with Christmas trees, stars and other Holiday decorations, even the soundtrack changes to a beautiful instrumental rendition of Jingle Bells, with that said, I felt that the boss fight as easy as it was, could've used more Christmas cheer, sure, the backgrounds and graphics were changed and decorated with presents but the background music clashed with the rest of the demo.

Once you're done with the two short levels you'll find an assortment of unlockables, but really, I didn't find them all that interesting, you get some karaoke songs where you can change the pitch of the singers and some poorly aged mid 90's CGI rendition of our characters, but that's about it, with that said, props to Sega for actually giving you a proper ending for completing the demo, it's just a shame that it's narrated by the same person and she still sounds bored out of her skull.

Overall, Christmas Nights into Dreams is impossible to rate because it's just a short 10 minute demo, but when you're in a Christmas cheer you'll be hard pressed to find a better 'game'

Trivia: Did you know that despite its name, Christmas Nights into Dreams also changes on other occasions? During the New Year, you get a 'Happy New Year' message, on Valentine's Day you get a Valentine's Hearts and on April 1st you play as the series' main antagonist.

Developer: Sonic Team

Publisher:  Sega

Released as a free demo with the purchase of Saturn exclusives back in '96, Christmas Nights into Dreams is one of those rare cases where the demo is just as sought after and nearly as expensive as the game itself.

The 'game' opens up with a motion comic style intro narrated by a woman who sounds extremely bored as she reads her text, telling you that it's Christmas, but people seem to be missing the Holiday's spirit because the Christmas tree's star is missing and that it's up you two underage kids to find it.

The demo consists of two levels, the latter being a boss fight, though what set the demo apart was its clock setting, on December 25th, the game's theme shifts radically to a Christmas setting, the once green mountains are now fully covered in snow, decorated with Christmas trees, stars and other Holiday decorations, even the soundtrack changes to a beautiful instrumental rendition of Jingle Bells, with that said, I felt that the boss fight as easy as it was, could've used more Christmas cheer, sure, the backgrounds and graphics were changed and decorated with presents but the background music clashed with the rest of the demo.

Once you're done with the two short levels you'll find an assortment of unlockables, but really, I didn't find them all that interesting, you get some karaoke songs where you can change the pitch of the singers and some poorly aged mid 90's CGI rendition of our characters, but that's about it, with that said, props to Sega for actually giving you a proper ending for completing the demo, it's just a shame that it's narrated by the same person and she still sounds bored out of her skull.

Overall, Christmas Nights into Dreams is impossible to rate because it's just a short 10 minute demo, but when you're in a Christmas cheer you'll be hard pressed to find a better 'game'

Trivia: Did you know that despite its name, Christmas Nights into Dreams also changes on other occasions? During the New Year, you get a 'Happy New Year' message, on Valentine's Day you get a Valentine's Hearts and on April 1st you play as the series' main antagonist.

Honestly this is probably the most Christmas-y game I've played yet, not just for the beautiful music and the change in backgrounds, but because I love that the game's objective isn't to recover presents, save Santa or any other materialist/commercial aspect of the Holiday, instead, you're trying to find a magic star that will give people back their cheer, you can tell that bad narrator aside, there's a lot of heart in this game. Five snowmen out of Five.

Developer: Infogrames

Publisher:  Infogrames/Interplay

Played on: Alone in the Dark: The Trilogy

Jack in the dark was a short promotional game/teaser for Alone in the Dark 2, its theme is a strange mix of Halloween and Christmas, in which you play as Grace Saunders, a young girl who was out trick or treating and enters a toy store that is apparently haunted, as all of the toys come to life, kidnap Santa Claus and want to kill you (Am I the only one getting a Nightmare Before Christmas vibe?).

The game plays as a survival horror, in fact, being a teaser for Alone in the Dark 2, it was probably to second game in the genre to have ever been created (that is, if you only count the standard formula for the genre). 

Unlike the first Alone in the Dark, here there is no combat, the game focuses entirely on puzzle solving which is an odd thing considering Alone in The Dark 2 was almost exclusively focused on combat, but the problem here is that even though this is just a short 5-15 minute game, a lot of the puzzles require quite a bit lot of lateral thinking, seriously, how I was supposed to know you have to feed candy to the jack in the box and THEN show him his reflection?

If you've played the old Resident Evil games you're probably familiar with the concept of 'tank controls' which is the perfect way to describe how it feels like when controlling Grace, she's a slow walker, slow turner, it's a pain to get her to sprint, even the act of investigating nearby items requires you to enter a menu, choose your option and then leave said menu.

Graphically the game doesn't look too hot, every character is made out of a few flat shaded 3D polygons whereas the backgrounds are 2D animations, possibly pre-rendered, if you're going to play this on Dos-box, I recommend you fiddle with the options and add some Anti-Aliasing.

There's only one song in the game and it's constantly repeating, though it's pretty Christmas-y in the mood it sets, however, I always found it interesting that if you turn the music off, it suddenly feels like you went from a Christmas themed game, to a scary Halloween themed one.

Overall Jack in the Dark is an interesting 'game' it's not a demo of Alone in the Dark 2 but neither is it really a game, it's part Christmas and part Halloween so if nothing else I can say it's an interesting title, a shame for its obtuse puzzles and controls.

Packaging Review: This game was played using the 'Alone in the Dark: The Trilogy' compilation

Developer: Infogrames

Publisher:  Infogrames/Interplay

Played on: Alone in the Dark: The Trilogy

Jack in the dark was a short promotional game/teaser for Alone in the Dark 2, its theme is a strange mix of Halloween and Christmas, in which you play as Grace Saunders, a young girl who was out trick or treating and enters a toy store that is apparently haunted, as all of the toys come to life, kidnap Santa Claus and want to kill you (Am I the only one getting a Nightmare Before Christmas vibe?).

The game plays as a survival horror, in fact, being a teaser for Alone in the Dark 2, it was probably to second game in the genre to have ever been created (that is, if you only count the standard formula for the genre). 

Unlike the first Alone in the Dark, here there is no combat, the game focuses entirely on puzzle solving which is an odd thing considering Alone in The Dark 2 was almost exclusively focused on combat, but the problem here is that even though this is just a short 5-15 minute game, a lot of the puzzles require quite a bit lot of lateral thinking, seriously, how I was supposed to know you have to feed candy to the jack in the box and THEN show him his reflection?

If you've played the old Resident Evil games you're probably familiar with the concept of 'tank controls' which is the perfect way to describe how it feels like when controlling Grace, she's a slow walker, slow turner, it's a pain to get her to sprint, even the act of investigating nearby items requires you to enter a menu, choose your option and then leave said menu.

Graphically the game doesn't look too hot, every character is made out of a few flat shaded 3D polygons whereas the backgrounds are 2D animations, possibly pre-rendered, if you're going to play this on Dos-box, I recommend you fiddle with the options and add some Anti-Aliasing.

There's only one song in the game and it's constantly repeating, though it's pretty Christmas-y in the mood it sets, however, I always found it interesting that if you turn the music off, it suddenly feels like you went from a Christmas themed game, to a scary Halloween themed one.

Overall Jack in the Dark is an interesting 'game' it's not a demo of Alone in the Dark 2 but neither is it really a game, it's part Christmas and part Halloween so if nothing else I can say it's an interesting title, a shame for its obtuse puzzles and controls.

Packaging Review: This game was played using the 'Alone in the Dark: The Trilogy' compilation 

The game's Christmas theme feels a bit slapped on, remove the cheerful music, Santa and the Christmas tree outside the toy shop and instead you get a Halloween game, though the ending does feel like something you'd expect from a Christmas game, but everything else is just skin deep. Two and a half snowmen out of five.

Developer: Psygnosis

Publisher:  Psygnosis

The final entry in the Colony Wars series is quite a departure from its predecessors. Gone are the multiple mission paths, the series' extreme difficulty, heck, even the war between the League of Free worlds and the Colonial Navy takes a backseat to a new story arch in this game.

You play as Valdemar, a miner turned mercenary thanks to a ghostly figure known only as the 'General', apparently your character is humanity's last hope though the game never bothers to explain why your character was picked, in fact, it doesn't bother to explain much of anything really, this time around there are dozens of factions, the police, crime gangs, ruthless and corrupt companies and a slew of alien species who's relations with the League and the Navy are never really made clear, while I appreciate the fact that the developers tried to expand the lore in Colony wars: Red Sun, I felt that it only made it more confusing while downgrading the importance and scale of the series' main factions.

The game's plot is basically non-existent, you have interesting characters, but there's nothing for them to actually do, this sparks a pretty big contrast with its predecessor, Colony Wars: Vengeance, which had a great story, but no real characters.

The gameplay changed quite a bit as well, the ships handle a lot better and the enemy capital vessels no longer feature their cheap rays of death that never miss the target, instead featuring several guns and cannons that can be destroyed individually, you're also able to buy your own weapons and ships, unfortunately, for each step forward you'll find in this game, there's a step back to counterbalance it, for starters, there's a lot less mission variety, most of the missions consist of either guarding something or destroying something, you accept missions by signing contracts with different factions, but there's no repercussions with any of missions you accept, you can accept a mission by the space mafia followed by one offered by the space police and neither faction will care, you'd think at least one of them would refuse to hire you if you pissed them off.

I also found the game to be too easy, so easy in fact that I got bored fairly quickly after I started playing this and by the time I reached the game's midway point my ship was practically a flying behemoth of death. I think I only died once, during the last mission, but even then you can just restart it without any repercussions, which again, makes the game too easy and boring.

Graphically Colony Wars: Red Sun looks absolutely stunning, the textures, the ships, the effects all look great for a PS1 game, the only flaws I found were the capital ships who were quite a bit smaller in this game and the short draw distance during the ground missions. The orchestral soundtrack is pretty awesome as well, fitting the game's mood pretty well, though the songs repeated a bit too often for me.

Overall, Red Sun should have been the grand finale, the best of the series and in many ways it surpasses its predecessors, but these improvements are mostly cosmetic, the poor mission variety, the 'so easy it's boring' gameplay and the underdeveloped freedom and plot makes this game a disappointing ending to the series.

Trivia: Did you know that Colony Wars: Red Sun was created by a different studio than the first two games?

The cover looks pretty good, you see the Red Sun ship in the distance with a looming figure of Valdemar in the background, sure the image itself is just one big cliché, but it's a cliché that works.

As for the 30 page manual, it's... okay, it starts with a bit of cryptic and pseudo-deep dialog that sounds important but is really just pointless padding, it does however go into great detail on how to play the game, though I'd say too much detail a lot of the information there just isn't needed at all, with that said, I do like how it goes to the trouble of describing every weapon in the game, that's actually pretty useful, it also tells what you need to do to rank up in the game something which the game itself never really made it very clear.

Overall, it's a pretty good packaging, good artwork and a pretty decent manual, though I'd have liked if the manual gave you some backstory or if at least tried to fill some of the holes in the new expanded lore