Al Unser Jr.’s Road to the Top for the Super Nintendo
I must admit that I’m a fan of Al Unser Jr.’s Turbo Racing on the NES. I can’t remember where I first acquired it, but I remember it being a part of my NES collection for quite some time now. I always wondered what a sequel would have been like, but I assumed that was it, as I had never heard of a sequel. That was until a week ago when I found out there was, kind of, a sequel titled Al Unser Jr.’s Road to the Top for the Super Nintendo. Knowing this meant I just had to try it and see how it compared to the Turbo Racing memories of my childhood.
Growing up in Indiana May was a big deal, as the Indy 500 was an event that lasted the whole month. There was testing and qualifying and wrecks and deaths and all the things the come with a month-long racing event. Needless to say I was very familiar with the Unser family, as they were almost always on the local news throughout the month of May, throughout my entire childhood. I’m not sure whether this had anything to do with my acquiring Turbo Racing in the first place, but it certainly wouldn’t dissuade me either.
Al Unser Jr.’s Road to the Top takes a bit of Turbo Racing, which really just slapped Al Unser Jr.’s name onto the NES cartridge when it was translated from the Famicom version, and expands on it a bit by trying to simulate the road from beginning a racing career to becoming a champion driver. You’ll start your journey in go-karts, then graduate to snowmobiles, then compete in the IROC series, and finally you’ll race in the Indy Racing League. Each series only has three courses available and after you’ve beaten them you’ll have a final one off race, such as Pike’s Peak, to cap off the series. Before you start the main game mode you can test almost every course, with the exception of the one off courses after each series.
In each series you are given the choice of three vehicles, each with their own unique color schemes and handling characteristics. Between each race the disembodied head of Al Unser Jr. will appear to give you advice or simply to inform you that he too raced a go-kart once. Once you have beaten all three courses for any given series, as well as the championship race, you’re given a password to save your progress.
The graphics are pretty much par for what the game is, the colors are pretty nice, but the sound can sometimes be a bit too much as your go-kart buzzes continually throughout the track. I do love how they used the Mode 7 scaling to add banking and other characteristics to the tracks. This game feels like it took bits of Super Mario Kart and F Zero and then mixed in a liberal amount of “that’ll do”. I tested the game on easy difficulty, just to get through it quicker, and easy difficulty is way too easy. Even so, I don’t feel the need, nor desire, to go back and try it on any of the more difficult levels as it really is the same thing over and over again, just potentially harder.
Don’t get me wrong, had I rented this game for the weekend as a kid I probably would have had an amazing time and created the same fond memories I did with Turbo Racing. I do really like what they did with the Mode 7 scaling, and I can’t say it’s terrible by any means, I just feel it’s repetitive. I also feel things might be a bit shoehorned in as I’m not sure snowmobiling is typically part of the learning curve to becoming a champion race driver, but maybe it is. However, I do know IROC stands for International Race of Champions, meaning you have to already be a champion of some kind, and I’m not sure go-karts and snowmobiling qualifying someone to compete in IROC. Regardless of my perceived discrepancies, the game actually isn’t horrible. I mean it’s not great, but it’s not horrible.
Home Alone for the SNES
Home Alone was a great movie, but for some reason someone somewhere thought it would also make a great video game. We video game fans are always wary of games licensed from feature films, and Home Alone isn’t going to help change anyone’s mind on that. Many years ago I acquired a copy of this game for the Game Boy and wasn’t fond of it by any means. Usually any video game that has been ported to the Game Boy is much better on a home console, right? The answer is no, with a but. They are essentially identical, with the understanding of obvious hardware limitations, but for some reason the Super Nintendo version of this game makes me want to continue playing and do a little better each time.
The game varies slightly from the movie as this time Harry and Marv have brought additional burglars, who look more like mobsters, into the McCallister’s home. Kevin must run around collecting a certain number of items from around the house, ranging from valuable jewelry and bags of money to robot toys and RC cars, and drop them down the laundry chute into the basement. Sometimes these items are hidden from plain view and Kevin must uncover them, which really just means the item jumps out from where it was hidden and lands on the floor. If any of the intruders in Kevin’s house see the item on the floor there is a chance they will grab it and run off before Kevin can collect it himself. Once Kevin touches an item it will be automatically put in his collecting bag, which only holds so many items before needing to be unloaded down the laundry chute.
Once the required amount of items are safe and sound in the basement, you know after they were carelessly tossed down a laundry chute two floors, a key will appear outside of the basement door allowing Kevin to enter the most frustrating level in the game. The first basement level is frustrating because you must navigate the basement, which seems larger than the hallways of the actually house above, and avoid being hit by bats and rats. In the second basement level you need to avoid spiders, or perhaps more accurate tarantulas, and finish up with a giant tarantula boss at the end. If, and I do mean if, you manage to make it past all the creatures in the basement you will see the pile of items in front of a comically oversized vault. Perhaps if these items were so valuable they should have already been inside the basement vault, but what do I know?
To help Kevin defeat the burglars, for a short period of time, he can be armed with a water pistol, a slingshot, baseball and the famous BB rifle. There are also booby traps to unleash upon the burglars, as well as toys and thumbtacks strewn about the floor in the hallways. None of these weapons are really anything substantial as it only stuns the burglars for a short period of time and watching Marv shoot off screen after stepping on thumbtacks only lasts until you walk away and back to that section of the hall, where he will magically reappear. It should also be noted that Kevin will have the water pistol in the basement stage, but I can’t get it to work at all, meaning it seems weapons do not work on the basement stages.
Now let’s talk about health. Kevin is given a total of three hits before losing a life, of which he also has three. When you lose a life the image of Kevin using aftershave, that famous movie scene, appears and a very good quality clip of his famous scream plays. To counterbalance this Kevin can collect hidden slices of cheese pizza from around the house. Once he has collected eight slices of his beloved cheese pizza he will earn an extra life. Kevin can also find cookies to replenish one hit and aftershave to give him temporary invulnerability.
I honestly tried to give this game a fair shake on the Game Boy and I simply couldn’t, but for some reason playing the SNES version feels different. The game felt more like a collectathon and made me want to keep trying to get everything down the laundry chute. Once you know exactly where everything is located it’s very easy to navigate and get to the basement, but that’s where the real frustration starts. It can be done, but more often than not I’ll end up with Kevin screaming at me as I lose life after life. Is this game fun? Not really, but there is just a weird addiction to collect the items and try to do better each time. From what I’ve played each level seems to just be a slightly more difficult version of the first, with the exception of the basement levels. So far I’ve only managed to get to the second basement level, maybe after this post is put up I will have progressed further in the game. Maybe.
Illusion of Gaia
Illusion of Gaia is a game I’ve attempted to start playing a few times but never really could get myself to play very far into it. This game was developed by Quintet as the second part of the Soul Blazer series which includes Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma. I’ve heard a lot of great things about Quintet’s games, including ActRaiser, but I’ve never given any of them a proper play through until now. So the question remains of why I couldn’t get stuck into this game and give it a proper play through.
Illusion of Gaia follows the main character, Will, and his friends as they travel the world and collect ancient artifacts known as Mystic Statues. While Will’s friends are almost always present as they skip from town to town, they really don’t do much other than exist. Where in a traditional RPG friends will be brought along to aid the main character, Will’s friends aid him very little, if at all. I’m not sure why they’re even a part of this game, beyond pushing the narrative forward in some ways.
This game has a lot of the hallmarks found in other good SNES RPGs, but it’s still missing things that would normally draw me in. The graphics are good, the colors are bright and everything about this game seems right, but the game feels a bit unorthodox to me. Perhaps a lot of aspects some people would call tedious I find desirable, when it comes to an RPG. Things such as weapons and armor are gone. Traveling from town to town and even backtracking to towns over and over again to unlock something it gone. Spells, leveling up and epic boss battles are all gone.
I can forgive Final Fantasy II’s (the real FF2, not the US version) leveling system, but in Illusion of Gaia it feels too linear. The game seems to hold your hand and say here you go, this is what you wanted because I say so. I guess since the game centers around kids the weapons and armor aspect might feel odd. Maybe. Spells could have been useful though, but not even a hint is made about them here. The one thing that really kind of ruins this game for me is the lack of a leveling system. There are a finite amount of things to kill in each given section and once they are all dead you earn a small upgrade in health, defense or offense. This is the only way you can grow stronger in this game, and it just feels like the game is holding too tightly to the player’s hand. I like to grind out levels and make sure I can take down the upcoming boss.
Speaking of bosses, none of them really posed much of a problem. I guess if you make the bosses easy to kill you don’t really need much of a leveling system, but I’ve found it’s more of a think and rethink my strategy type situation rather than brute force. Believe me, thinking and rethinking is a heavily used aspect in this game. It seems a lot of the traditional RPG challenges have been removed, the upgrading your stats system is doled out by the game at its discretion and everything boils down to figuring out a puzzle. Now, I don’t mind puzzles in RPGs, as a matter of fact I think it can be a great aspect of a game if used the right way, but to me Illusion of Gaia seems to strip away everything that makes an RPG an RPG and replaces it with puzzles.
Ok, if I allow myself to free my mind of the frustration brought on by everything that makes this game feel so linear I can say that this game is pretty ok. Like I said the graphics are nice, the controls are responsive and there are some pretty good puzzles, and upgraded attacks too. With as much as I dislike some of the elements of this game I still don’t think it’s as rough around the edges as poor old Lagoon. After a while of playing Illusion of Gaia I kind of accepted it for what it was and got into it. Did I love it? NOPE! Did I enjoy my time playing through it? Kind of. Am I glad I gave it a proper play through? Yes, so I can say I did and I will most likely never play it again. Although, nothing is definite.
This post is lovingly dedicated to the memory of Hamlet and his selfless act of giving his bacon for peace. Oink oink little Hamlet, Oink oink!
Super Mario World: Return To Dinosaur Land
Super Mario World: Return To Dinosaur Land is a ROM hack I was aware of, but never got around to trying. That all changed when I found out it was included on the SNES multicart I bought earlier this year. I assume whoever was in charge of putting games on this cartridge mistook it for being the actual Super Mario World. Since I’ve been having a lot of fun playing, or more accurately replaying, through Super Mario World, and now that I can play this ROM hack on my SNES, I figured now was as good a time as any to sit down and give it a proper go.
Much of Super Mario World’s core gameplay elements, enemies and power ups remain intact, but the world map and level designs are where this ROM hack grows into its own. There always seems to be a secret somewhere in these levels. Many levels are straight forward, making this feel more like a sequel to Super Mario World, but some levels will require a little more thought and awareness. One level requires the player to go all the way to the end of the level and return to beginning to find the exit. Another requires the player to traverse the level at the very top of the screen while using what’s on the screen as a map. Some levels can be frustrating, but not much more frustrating than levels from Super Mario World itself.
Remember the secret level in Super Mario World with power ups and a Yoshi? I haven’t found one here, and power ups seems to be a bit more sparse in Return to Dinosaur Land. To circumvent this I use the old start and select trick. Once I’ve finished a level with the power up I need I go back to that level, obtain it and use start and select to leave the level early. Saving the game however seems to be in no short supply. In Super Mario World saves are reserved for after you beat a boss or mini boss, but in Return to Dinosaur Land saves seem to pop up at random and often, which is a nice addition.
I still have a ways to go with Return to Dinosaur Land, but I’m finding it to be incredibly fun. Admittedly I’m not familiar with many Super Mario World ROM hacks, but if most of them are anything like Return to Dinosaur Land I would gladly give them a try. I feel this ROM hack is a perfect example of creativity within the community, taking a well loved classic and giving it extended life by rearranging levels and adding new challenges. I truly think Super Mario World itself is a classic and has tremendous replayability already, but with the ROM hacking community continuously adding and updating the game it helps breath new life into a game so many cherished from over 30 years ago.
Peripheral Vision: EMiO Turbo Controller for the SNES Classic
From time to time Scott (You know, the guy who pays for the domain and webspace here) will bring a gaming related item to my attention that instantly becomes a must have. Even though I don’t currently own a Super Nintendo Classic Edition, I instantly wanted EMiO’s The Edge Super Gamepad. Having a bit of an engineer’s mind made me wonder if there was any way to convert this to use on the original Super Nintendo. If not I figured worst case I could use the controller for SNES emulation on my modded Wii. The Edge Super Gamepad also included a Wii to USB adapter, which is extremely useful, and a fairly cursory cheat book. Even though the cheat book isn’t very good and doesn’t offer anything new it was still a pretty neat little bonus.
The EMiO Super Gamepad looks like something straight out of the 90s with all the individual flick switches to enable or disable turbo to all the action buttons as well as the shoulder buttons. It also includes the colorful action buttons, which is always a nice touch. In fact, it really does resemble the Super Famicom controller in almost every way, with the exception of the font used.
When it comes to functionality the Super Gamepad worked just fine out of the box. Notice how I used past tense there? Yeah, because it worked for maybe an hour before the D-pad started displaying the infamous third-party D-pad issue I’ve always had. Sometimes I find that pressing right will activate right and up, or right and down. Sometimes pressing right will activate strictly up or down, without including right at all. Not only that but the B button became slightly more difficult to use within that hour as well. But the Wii to USB adapter is AWESOME! I spent that hour playing SNES emulators on my laptop. It’s plug and play, ready to go and even works with the Wii Classic and Classic Pro controllers, so if the EMiO Super Gamepad takes a dirt nap, at least you can still use the adapter. Until it dies too, which I’m sure it will eventually.
Maybe the carbon pad set needs to be changed out for something more reliable, and I might just do that if the problems I mentioned previously persist or get worse. I really do like the controller, especially while it was functioning perfectly. It feels like an original SNES controller, it offers customizable turbo and the flip of a switch and it can be used on an SNES Classic Edition, a soft-modded Wii with emulators or even on a PC with emulators. The possibilities are endless, as long as the controller holds up. Even if the controller craps out and the Wii to USB adapter holds up, I think that alone is worth the price. Worst case scenario the controller gets on my nerves to the point I don’t feel guilty hacking it up to see if I can convert it to real SNES hardware without tearing apart one I enjoy using.
Simple Way to Play Super Famicom Games on the SNES? Maybe.
Recently I’ve been looking for a more reliable way to play Super Famicom games on my NTSC Super Nintendo without modifying the console or my Game Genie. Sure, removing the tabs is fairly simple, but I feel there has to be a better way to get the job done without mutilating the console, or my Game Genie. I could use my Super 8, or buy a converter, but I think I may have hit on a fairly reasonable, and cheap method to get the job done.
What I had been doing was swapping Super Famicom PCBs into an SNES cartridge and playing the game that way. This led me to search online for reproduction cartridges, so that I didn’t need to evict a game from its home, rather I would simply be rehousing the Super Famicom PCB into an empty cartridge. During this research I found Super Famicom shaped cartridges with proper cutouts on the back allowing it to fit into the NTSC Super Nintendo. Not only do these reproduction cartridges have the cutouts, they’re also snap together, making the swapping process much quicker and easier. Even though these cartridges are snap together they do have screw holes, if you would prefer a more permanent situation, but for myself I would rather be able to swap the game PCB out as often as I would need.
After almost a month of waiting the single cartridge I ordered finally arrived. As I stated previously my idea is to use the one cartridge multiple times and as my desired Super Famicom game changes, I will swap out the PCB from this and back to their original homes. I hope this is a viable option because the plastic feels slightly cheaper than the original cartridge, but as long as the reproduction is carefully pried open it seems this should suit my needs just fine. This reproduction cartridge fits into the Super Nintendo console, albeit a bit snug. And everything seems to work just fine. The overall casting of this is fairly nice, until you see the bottom, which is completely and totally messy, but it holds game PCBs just fine, with no wiggles or rattles.
I paid about $3 for this reproduction cartridge and waited almost a month for it to arrive and it seems to suit my needs just fine, for now. If you’re looking for a more permanent solution to replacing a cracked cartridge I would say these would be a good option. There is a spot for a label and everything, to make it look official. The one problem you might have is these are cast in a darker color than genuine Super Famicom cartridges, and they might not match the rest of your collection perfectly. The reproduction halves are not compatible with genuine cartridge halves either. Say you just want to replace the back of your beloved Super Famicom cartridge, this is not your salvation.
For my needs, which are simply swapping out PCBs from their original homes into a cartridge that holds them safely and allows them to be played in my NTSC Super Nintendo, I’m happy. Will the snap tabs on the inside of the cartridge hold up to all the use they may potentially see? That’s something only time can tell. Again, I am fully aware I could purchase a converter, use my Super 8 or even modify my console or Game Genie to get the same results, but for my needs a few bucks for this reproduction cartridge and a little time putting the PCB into it is all I need.
Is Best of the Best Really the Best?
Best of the Best Championship Karate has a bit of an interesting history. Reportedly starting life as André Panza Kick Boxing for the PC Engine, as well as various computing consoles in Europe, it was later rebranded Best of the Best Championship Karate, or Super Kick Boxing: Best of the Best and was further plastered all over the gaming world. How effective was the rebranding scheme to extend the life of this game? Well, if you call your game Best of the Best you better be able to back it up, so it really should have been called Pretty Abysmal Karate Tournament.
Without the manual, I have to admit, I was completely confused from the start. The game tries to present itself as if it was Caesar’s Palace and you’re the next kickboxing champ. There is so much information thrown at you as soon as you start the game it might take a bit to sort through it all. You can customize your character’s face by choosing from a few pre-rendered faces. You can change your opponent and see what their stats are. The real meat and potatoes of this game, I thought, was going to be the ability to train and be stronger, but even so it still never seemed to do any good.
My view toward this game is largely apathetic because of the controls. Instead of using all the buttons available on the SNES controller they chose the use a button and D-pad combo to get things done motto. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. Supposedly the Sega Genesis version offers support for the Sega Activator, which I would imagine is far better than the controls on the SNES. I have played a lot of games with bad control layouts and Best of the Best isn’t the worse offender, but it is pretty bad. Maybe it’s me being a grumpy old man, or maybe this game just really is a horrible waste of silicon, but either way it just never sparked any interest in me whatsoever to give it more time than I already had.
For anyone who wanted to read this.
I hate giving up on games, but sometimes that’s what happens. When a game doesn’t reward you for the challenge and keep you engaged but instead requires more from you for the privilege of being challenged it’s just not worth your time. No, it’s never going to be thought of as a hidden gem, but what it did was kind of unique. This is one of those games that felt overly ambitious but could have actually been a decent game. Had it just been better thought out and executed this probably could have been a memorable game, but it just didn’t work out that way.
Best of the Best is a game I picked up many years ago solely as an oddity because it was cheap and it came in a rental case with nearly all of its original rental paraphernalia. It’s not worth much, even CIB, but it does conjure up nostalgia of being in a small, hometown rental store and taking this pile of trash home on a Friday night but only playing it once and promptly regretting it for the rest of the weekend. If nothing else that’s where its value is, a trinket that stirs nostalgia of a bygone are, because I sure as heck don’t plan to play it ever again.
