video game capsule review

[egypturnash]

So I idly browsed the comments on this Slashdot article about shareware coming back. Saw that there was now a Mac version of PomPom Games' second game, Mutant Storm.

I'm a sucker for games that involve two joysticks instead of a joystick and some buttons. I don't know why. Battlezone was cool because of this. So was Assault. And Robotron was ultra-cool, because not only does it use two joysticks, but it also involves blowing lots of little sprites up and dancing through a rain of bullets. Which I'm always amused by.

Since shifting over to OSX, I haven't been able to play Robotron. MAME barely knows how to talk to my controller under OSX, and refuses to let me assign the two analog sticks to the proper controls. So I had to grab this demo and check it out.

Unfortunately it doesn't quite all come together. Cute effects, it does talk to my controller, it gets a decent framerate... but there's no character to it at all. You're this little yellow spaceship that flips around in whatever direction you're firing. Most of your enemies are little geometric non-representational whatsits. And the sound effects have absolutely no punch to them. If it had character and decent sound, I just might be willing to give these guys twenty bucks...

I think the wimpy, low-volume sound effects hurt it the most.

Comments

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

The sounds seem low bitrate to me, presumably to reduce the download size. I agree with your assessment, though.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Low-res is fine. I can deal with grindy low-res sounds. But they were so quiet! I put it in windowed mode and started the mp3 player back up, and it completely drowned out the noises!

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

I had to dial up the sound a little, but I'm used to having to do that with MAME.

[zrath.livejournal.com]

Twin joystick games are the bee's knees!
I keep my old Atari XEGS around because I can plug two sticks in it and play
Robotron 2084 and Space Dungeon (ancient Taito coin-op).
I have joysticks for just this purpose: a pair of tiny Amiga sticks (before
they made computers) that I can operate one-handed. The controller's case
fits in the palm of each hand, and the stick can be operated with the thumb.

I bought Namco Museum #4 for my PlayStation for pretty much one reason only:
it has "Assault" on it! I love that game!
But Namco 4 is too old to be compatible with the Dual Shock controller.
So no twin-joystick goodness, unless I can track down the original Sony Twin Stick,
a large controller with two joysticks: a flight stick and a throttle stick.
I could probably play Assault in twin-stick mode with that.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

You sound like the ideal candidate for MAME and an X-Arcade (or, if you really have money to burn, a SlikStik). I would get one of those myself if I knew where to put it. :)

Back on topic: I had to work a bit to get my AxisPad working properly, but Mutant Storm was fairly fun once I did. Still, it suffers from a certain hollowness that Space Tripper also had; "I knew Robotron, and you, sir, are no Robotron."