Usually Alex will send me some crappy and beaten up games to review for this column. Other times, rarely, the games are only one or the other. It’s why I’ve tried selling a few of the junky titles (they’re complete, and maybe someone out there WANTS to be the manager of a Japanese “boy” band made up of thirty-somethings), and it’s also why I have some pretty cool games in my collection that aren’t in a condition I’d normally accept them in if I were buying them. Today we’re going to do something different here at Head Off. Instead of reviewing junk in the poor-game-design sense, we’ll be looking at some junk in the beaten-up-and-missing-parts sense. All the games talked about today will be good ones.

Vampire Savior (The Lord of Vampire - yes the cover says this like it’s the subtitle) - Sega Saturn - Darkstalkers, as Capcom saw fit to rename this series in the West, is one of my favorite fighting games. In fact, I only really like two fighting game series: Darkstalkers and Tekken. That’s mostly because I suck at fighting games. While Darkstalkers isn’t the button-masher that Tekken is, I still find it much easier to pull off (and stumble across) combos and special moves. The thing that really endears me to the series, though, is the cast of characters. In what other game can you play as a homicidal, machine-gun-toting LIttle Red Riding Hood? Or an ancient Egyptian mummy complete with sarcophagus? Or a bee girl that shoots… bees… out of her… beehive? Okay that one is just plain weird. But that’s really the charm of the game. You have no idea what you’re going to experience. The backgrounds, art direction, character design… pretty much every gameplay element contributes to making this amazing fighting game come to life. The level and attention to detail that Capcom invested in this game is pretty staggering (they tend to be known for that, particularly with their fighters, but this is the only one I’ve ever been able to get into). So why did Alex give this one away? The copy he sent me was disc and manual only. This wouldn’t be too bad except that Vampire Savior requires a RAM cart. I actually had to trade for another game just to be able to play this one. (I traded for X-Men vs Street Fighter, another Capcom fighting game, and one which I played for all of ten minutes before turning off in frustration and boredom. See? I’m just not a fan of fighting games.)

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I’ve used this space in the past to lament the lack of quirky Japanese titles that have seen localization in the States, at least pre-Playstation. Many of the weirder games never made it over here simply for being deemed too “Japanese” as if us Westerners just wouldn’t get it (which seems to be true for the most part given how so many of the early attempts were commercial failures). Switch for the Mega CD was one early attempt at selling the American public a quirky, truly bizarre and completely Japanese-influenced game. It’s U.S. release, retitled Panic!, was met with poor sales and mostly negative reviews. I have to admit, I’d never even heard of the game and, at first, assumed Switch was a Japan-only release. The good folks here at Rising Stuff were kind enough to supply me with this wonderfully weird game to review and, after playing it for twenty hours or so, I feel obligated to track down the American release. Better late than never, I suppose. (Read the rest of the review by clicking the “more” link!)

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Welcome to another installment of Head Off, where we look at games so bad, bizarre or beaten up, you just might flip your lid! These are all titles that Alex has graciously provided me with in order to tortu in order for me to review them. And I have to say, I really did flip my lid over this batch, since not only were there some incredibly bad and incredibly weird games, but he even included a few decent titles whose only problem was incompleteness. There were so many extra games, though, that we won’t have time to look at them all at once. One game, Switch for the Mega CD, I’d like to devote a full review and walkthrough to (but it won’t be a Head Off article since the reviews featured in here are really just first impressions… because I can’t stand to play most of these games long enough for a full review). Likewise, I’ll be holding off on reviewing the decent titles for now. This time around, I’d like to focus on the good old crap! So what are we waiting for? Let’s dig in!

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Well, Alex and I did some filming for an upcoming episode of Famicom Dojo and as we were putting stuff away we noticed that there was still some battery power left on the camera.. and well… this video happened. Enjoy?

This is part one in an ongoing series of reviews looking at freebie games from the good folks at Rising Stuff. Alex, being a kind and gentle soul, decided to send me some free games with my last purchase, games which were given to me with the directive that I had to review them for the blog. Hearing this, I knew I was truly blessed, for Alex was my friend and comrade; whatever he had in store for me had to be something worthy of review, but not just that, it had to be a wonderful, marvelous creation, so good it had to be shared amongst friends. Or, you know, it could just be some junk that Alex knew he’d never be able to sell in the store. It could always be that. When the package arrived, I tore it open, eager to see what untold treasures awaited me. I was, for a brief moment, no longer the cynical, jaded pessimist that adulthood had turned me into. I was transported back to a wondrous time of my childhood where everything was fresh and new and exciting. I was a kid at Christmas, unwrapping a delightful present. Then reality sunk in, and I became the jaded pessimist once more. This present from Alex was worse than Grandma’s package of socks! In fact, the only present I could think of that was on par with this was the one our dog Koy liked to leave in the yard! However, a promise was a promise, and I’m determined to review these so-called games. So hit the jump if you’re the kinda person to watch Hostel with one hand on the pause button and one in the pants, ’cause these games are the worst kind of torture imaginable.

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I’m proposing a series of possible articles by throwing one right on this page.

Obviously I have planned out in my head quite a multiple more. This set of articles will generally be about accessories - controllers, gimmicky add-ons and what-have-you - that are compatible with Import gaming systems. Note that since I said “compatible”, this means that I let myself some room for checking out non-import items. Reasons for that may range from a particular item just being that unique, to just being that good in quality, or to being the non-import variant of an import item because I was too cheap to actually import it.

In this first episode I got bored and thought “Ok, the Super Nintendo has tons of neat arcade sticks. Where’s a half-decent one for Genesis?” - then I realized I referred to them by their American titles. Then I just shrugged and went “Whatever.”

Click the “More” button if you want to actually read the thing.(… wait, it’s not a button. It’s a URL. And it says “Read the rest of this post”. No wait. “entry”. Way to go, Kiddo.)

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I recently finished Snatcher for the Sega CD and thought I’d write up a review for it. Eventually, the second part of this review will focus on the PC Engine CD version, which is uncensored and has a revised third act. I can’t say when that review will be posted, however, since I don’t own the PCE version at this time. (Meaning: Don’t hold your breath, but it’ll be up at some point within the year at least.)

Snatcher, at first glance, seemed like the kind of game that I’d hate. It’s an adventure title without even point-and-click interactivity (almost all interface is handled through menus) married to a first-person shooter game. I don’t like to think too hard when playing games, nor do I have any reflexes to speak of. Worst of all, it was written, directed and produced by Hideo Kojima. The one point that has most gamers salivating over the title is the one that turned me off of it the most. My problem with Kojima is that his games tend to be chock full of verbiage, with long stretches of expository dialogue and cutscenes. He has also stated in at least one interview that he wants to make games as real as possible, to the point of wishing he could design a game that self-destructed when the player died. Knowing this, it’s no wonder I find most of his games in the Metal Gear Solid series to be incredibly tedious. Video games are not real life, and when they try to emulate real life, I get bored and frustrated very quickly. Read more after the jump!

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TRHOnline.com and Rising Stuff present yet another episode of 3DO To Go. In this entry into the ongoing depths of the strange world of gaming that is the 3DO, I look at Paddock Note ‘95, a Horse Racing Simulation. It was released in 1995 by Fuji Television and was a Japanese only release. Because of that though, the entire game is in Japanese… a language I neither speak nor read.

TRHOnline.com and Rising Stuff present yet another episode of 3DO To Go! In this installment I pull out FIFA International Soccer which was released by Electronic Arts in 1994. It’s the first game in their long running FIFA series of video games. Really, this is a game for people who want to play a game… about soccer.

TRHOnline.com and Rising Stuff present yet another episode of 3DO To Go! In this episode I review Pyramid Intruder, a 1995 Japanese only release by Taito. Pyramid Intruder is a partial remake/adaptation of Sega’s LaserActive title Pyramid Patrol from 1993. A simple shoot-em-up, Pyramid Intruder is a flawed but fun import game.