Various Formats - Mortal Kombat

Various Formats

Mortal Kombat

Oh, come on. It had to happen eventually. I had to cover one of the most controversial, bloodthirsty games of all time, the game that infuriated a whole generation of clueless parents. The game that pretty much invented the "Death Move", brought blood and guts to be standard fare in video games, and really kicked off what was just the beginning of increasingly violent digitised beat 'em-ups across all available formats.

But no-one, except Midway, made decent ones. Pretenders all were the likes of Survival Arts, Street Fighter: The Movie, Time Killers (OK, not digitised, but riding on the crest of the violence wave), Kasumi Ninja, Way of the Warrior and Vicious Circle. Mortal Kombat and its sequels seemed to be the only games of this type that really WORKED, that didn't come across as a gimmicky load of old tripe.

Right, enough of this, let's dive in.

The arcade version came along first; 7 characters, a fairly standard moveset for each (except for the specials, of course), and a back story that spawned a million (approx) fan stories and ran deeper than Advanced Lawnmower Simulator. Let's touch on that quickly (it gets more and more complicated as the series expanded), basically there is the Earthrealm and the Outworld or some such place, where there exists a fighting tournament, which some guy called Shang Tsung has corrupted. Thanks to his meddling, there now exists a rule where 10 victories in a row for Outworld would result in the Earthrealm being overrun by Shao Khan's Outworld forces. How marvellous!

Naturally, of course, it falls to the fighters of Earthrealm to stop this, especially since last year was victory number 9...

So, the characters first of all: they're a varied bunch, a couple of Ninjas, the token Bruce Lee-alike, a God of Lightning, a film star, a mercenary and a woman. Each of them has the standard moveset, which is high and low punches and kicks as standard, the leg sweep, the big uppercut, the overhead throw and a roundhouse kick. Without special moves, each character would actually handle identically.

But there ARE special moves, although usually only 2 or 3 per character. Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, Kano, Rayden and Sonya all have a "Fireball" move (ok, it might be lightning or a knife, but the effect is the same), whilst Scorpion and Sub-Zero have slightly different moves... Scorpion has a harpoon, which, on successful impact, he uses to drag the enemy in close, briefly dazed, for either a throw or an uppercut for best results. Sub-Zero uses an iceball, freezing the opponent on the spot, again with chance to get in close for a throw or an uppercut. Be careful, though, attempting to freeze an already frozen opponent will result in a "Double Ice Backfire". Oooh, nasty.

Other special moves tend to be something like a "teleport" punch or kick variant, or Johnny Cage has the "Package Check" punch, which is good for a laugh. But the big part of the game was without doubt the fatalities. That's right, upon winning your second round, you were commanded to finish your opponent, a swift joystick combination from the correct place on the screen would result in some kind of bloodthirsty finishing move, which caused outrage in some anti-video game circles, but then again, so did most games, so maybe we can't pay too much attention to that.

Your game would consist of beating each opponent in turn, then a "Mirror Match" against yourself, followed by 3 "Endurance" matches where you must beat 2 opponents. Then comes the big guy, Goro, a huge 4-armed half-human half-dragon who is not at all easy to beat, and then the final boss, the fireball-spamming Shang Tsung himself. Occasionally you'll be asked to "Test Your Might" against a variety of substances, starting with wood and going up to diamond, this little sub-game was a button-bashing frenzy to build up the power and strike. A nice little diversion, there.

You know, I'm going to be brutally honest here... Without the death moves, Mortal Kombat would probably have never "made it", there wouldn't have been a sequel, there wouldn't have been a film, and there certainly wouldn't have been so much fuss about what is mostly a fairly "average" beat 'em-up.

Hold on though, there is more... Y'see, Mortal Kombat was a sneaky and deceptive game, in that there were a few little tid-bits to deliberately keep surprises coming. First of all, on occasion a Green version of Scorpion and Sub-Zero would drop down before a match, give you a little bit of information, then jump away again... This was Reptile, and he was a hard-to-reach secret character. Once you got the clues, you then needed a little luck to find and face him anyway. You needed to fight on the Pit stage, with shadows going across the moon (I seem to remember this was a 1-in-64 chance every time you reach the Pit level), win with 2 flawless victories, no blocking, and do your fatality. Until you find that Reptile is a faster enemy combining Scorpion AND Sub-Zero's special moves, which makes him very hard to beat. But still, word of mouth spread news of his existence.

Another rumour was that of more hidden characters, such as Ermac, this was in fact just the name of a counter for "Error Macros". But still, it led to false counters being introduced in subsequent Mortal Kombat games in the future.

But it was the death moves, the fatalities, that everyone wanted to see. Still my personal favourite was Sub-Zero's Head-and-Spinal-Cord-Removal, though Kano's Heart-Rip was also good. Liu Kang's was crap, though, basically a somersault kick and an uppercut, leaving no clue that the opponent was actually dead, except for the big "Fatality" bonus, that is.

Uppercutting your opponent on the pit stage would cause them to fall onto a bed of spikes, ironically Reptile's lair, which was always nice.

So, the arcade game was superb, how were the conversions handled?

The SNES version was heavily censored, and removed blood (instead replaced with "Sweat") and changed several of the death moves to less "gruesome" moves. However, it still played really well, which is always a good thing. The Megadrive version started out with no blood, but had two codes to activate it again, which of course, everyone did. Despite some slight compromising on the graphics, it retained the speed and action of the arcade game, enough to compete with the SNES, so simply for the fact of the added gore, the Megadrive version just about trumps the SNES here, although you NEEDED a 6 button pad for complete control.

The Amiga version was absolutely superb. It SHOULDN'T have worked, especially with only one fire button (I can't remember how it was done myself, but I promise you it worked perfectly), but the game was outstandingly good, and probably the most graphically impressive of all the 16-bit versions, but with disk loading times, and obviously getting used to the 1-button system, the Megadrive version would still win out, just about.

However, the PC version was ARCADE PERFECT, except for the music which was probably better. Of course, you can just play it in MAME now, but without doubt, if you're going to find a home version, the PC is the one to go for. Although with it being DOS based, you might have a few problems here and there.

The MK series got better, though, and even progressed into 3D, but the original game will always hold a special place in my heart. It's just a shame my heart is in Kano's hand and I'm on the floor. D'oh.

Sony Playstation - Bishi Bashi Special

Sony Playstation

Bishi Bashi Special

Some games are just plain insane. Take Warioware, for instance. Complete and utter insanity. Yet a hell of a lot of fun.

Well, years before Warioware first touched our already corrupted brains, Konami had already had considerable success in the "Microgame" market with Super Bishi Bashi and Hyper Bishi Bashi in arcades... and of course, the Playstation version in Bishi Bashi Special.

And yes, it was a collection of mini/microgames, many of which had a distinctly "insane" feel about them. But if I had a choice of WarioWare or Bishi Bashi Special as the only game I can take with me to a Desert Island... I'd choose Bishi Bashi in a heartbeat.

The name of the game is a big clue, many of the minigames require quick reactions or quick bashing to win. Others require a good rhythm. But the emphasis is on the bash of the buttons. That and good clean fun, of course.

So you fire the game up, and first of all you're offered a choice between "Super Bishi Bashi" and "Hyper Bishi Bashi". The real difference between these two is the choice of minigames you'll have when you actually play. Both have their share of gems among the games, but if my life depended upon choosing one over the other, I'd play the Hyper mode.

Whichever you choose, you can either play all the games involved in that particular mode in a Marathon Endurance Challenge, or choose one game at a time.

Each round is fairly straightforward. With a typical Japlish cry of "ATTENTION!", you're given a very brief instruction of what you're about to have to do... and then you're off. Each game can last from between 20 seconds and about a minute, if you're successful you carry on, if you're not, you lose a life. Which is almost exactly how Warioware works, but in 5 second bursts.

And that's it. You get two lives, but seemingly infinite continues, but obviously for big scores you don't want to be using them. All that's left is to describe the games themselves, then...

There's a lot of variation, some games are rhythm based, where you have to copy a rhythm, which is graphically represented by your growing afro (and yes, it can fill the screen), others are reaction based, where you have to hit the right button or sequence of buttons to eat a cake, or beat up some gangsters, or eat beans, or make burgers, or... erm... a whole host of other things.

Some games require you to identify an object as it glides past, possibly obscured, others require you to drive cars or tanks. But there's two games in particular that stand out, and could not be anymore Japlish if they tried.

From Super Bishi Bashi, there's "The Not Too Great Escape". It's kind of like Blind Man's Bluff, there's a guard armed with an assault rifle with his back turned to you, and you must tap the buttons to scuttle across open ground behind him. Numbers flash across the screen as he counts to 10, when he reaches 10, he turns round, and if you're not hiding in your trash can or whatever, you get shot in a hail of gunfire, and must try again. Pure brilliance.

From Hyper Bishi Bashi, there's the "Hyper Pie Throw". It's basically the same as a javelin event in any Track and Field based game ever, bash the buttons to gather speed, then hit the middle button to set the angle, and hope for a good distance. The big difference is... it's set at a wedding. The bride hurls the pie with the groom running along behind, holding her dress up. And the vicar giving it his best "Ready, Go!" that he possibly can. I don't care if it's insane, it's bloody hilarious.

So, it's a rave review, right?

Yes. BUT.

I'm sorry, I love this game, it's great fun, whether on your own or playing with others, but there's just one problem right now. If you download this game from PSN for your PS3, DON'T BOTHER playing the rhythm based games. I don't know what it is, but SOMETHING is amiss in the timing with the joypads. I've tried them wireless, wired, tried adjusting the delay settings, and no, there is no getting away from it. Unless someone else has any bright ideas?

The Best in Copy Protection

The Best in Copy Protection

Y'know, I remember the good old days. When games were nice and cheap and no-one really copied them. Well, they did, of course, but not in the same way they are now. Y'see, one of the most valid arguments pro-piracy (and believe me, I'm NOT pro-piracy, I just agree with this particular train of thought that games are too expensive, and that encourages piracy) is that each copied game is not REALLY a lost sale, it's a sale the developer was never going to have, and instead they get free word-of-mouth advertising if their game is really good. It's a weak argument, sure, but it's one that makes me think, "The Pirates have a point".

Anyway, my point of view is that if a product is worth buying, and I can afford it, I'll support it. I've done it with Shareware, and had no complaints about doing it. So, if a developer comes up with something novel or interesting to frustrate pirates, then I'm all for it.

Back in the day, the simplest forms of Copy Protection were a case of "Look up the first word on line x of page y". It wasn't much, but it was enough. Obviously the photocopier helped to circumvent that particular form of protection, although in those days a photocopier wasn't quite so easy for Joe Public to find. Things developed over the years... Who can forget Lenslok? Then Code Wheels were introduced (games like Zool and Monkey Island probably most famously), and code books printed on paper designed to be impossible to photocopy (e.g. Worms)

But as things progress, things get more sophisticated. Games became able to detect themselves whether they had been been pirated, or even at risk of being pirated, and refused to run... or perhaps even stranger effects.

Let's also not forget that anti-piracy methods also introduced us to the first PC Virus, the Pakistani Brain virus. Designed to protect a heart-monitoring program from piracy, (or rather track it) it soon spread to the UK and US. It didn't actually do any damage, thankfully, but still people rang the programmers asking for their computers to be "vaccinated" in their thousands.

So here are my favourite anti-piracy or copy protection schemes, and some of them I'd actually really like to see in action.

Code Sheet - Jet Set Willy (Spectrum), Worms (Amiga)
The code sheet was nothing more than a list of numbers (or in JSW's case, Colours), an entry from which would be required on loading the game. Simple, quick and downright straightforward to circumvent by copying the code sheet. Worms made life harder by printing it black-on-black so that you couldn't very well photocopy it, but a dab hand at Excel could copy it within an hour or so.

It's pretty obvious how this works... The game requests the code from Column A, Row X, you look it up and type it in. JSW provides you with a key to the colours and what numbers they represent, which is nice.

Not much more can be said about this. It's as basic as it gets.


Code Wheels - e.g. Zool, Monkey Island (Amiga)
Designed to be overly complicated to copy, Code Wheels were actually a pretty simple concept. The game will show you a picture or something, made of two distinct halves. Take your code wheel, turn it to make that picture. Then read the code from the indicated window. Tap it in, and joy! Your game runs. Get it wrong, and you'll probably get another chance. Get it wrong again and the game will probably reset itself. Annoying, huh? And since the windows are all over the place, it's not so straightforward to calculate their positions. Genius! Oh, did I mention the black-on-black writing used for Zool? Impossible to read! Wahey! At least it was impossible to photocopy.

Actually, not everyone had the foresight to use black-on-black, Lucasarts' code wheels for the Monkey Island games, for instance. 15 Photocopies is all you need. Not something that would put off the serious pirate.

Again, though, this wasn't going to STOP piracy, just discourage it slightly. Anyone with patience could actually copy the numbers in a spreadsheet, if they were that determined to copy a game.



Lenslok - OCP Art Studio (Spectrum)
Ah, one of those things that always gets the little "TM" after its name. I might change my name to Fishsta(TM). Ahem.

Anyway, I remember my mum deciding it would be a good idea to get me a mouse and Art Program for the Spectrum. And you know what, it wasn't bad. But it introduced me to what was probably the best copy protection system I'd ever seen. No, really.

You ask any Retro-head about Lenslok, and they'll tell you what a stupid, crap, unreliable system it was. I personally never had a problem with it, and I found it GENIUS. Take a look in this box here, and you'll notice the red thing. That's the Lenslok "lens".

So, you load your game/art software up, and then you are presented with the first stage of the protection... measuring your lenslok. No, really. You hold the thing up to the screen (fully unfolded) against a large letter "H", and using a couple of keys on the keyboard, adjust the width of it until it matches the length of your Lenslok. Press Enter to move onto the next stage, the "dry run test" stage.

Now you fold the Lenslok so that it resembles a map-reading magnifier. Hold it against the screen, centered on the middle of the "H". The plastic bit in the middle acts like a prism, distorting your view of that portion of the screen. If you look at the screen without the Lenslok, you'll just see a garbled mess, the distorted view through the Lenslok actually makes sense of it, and you should be able to read 2 letters, at this point they should be "O" and "K". Once you're happy with that, keep the Lenslok in place and press enter. Two new letters appear, type them in, and off you go.

So, what were the problems? Well, the idea of measuring your lenslok on the screen was so that the size of your TV or monitor wasn't a problem, but with the limited resolution of home computers, sometimes it was. And, of course, constantly bending plastic back and forth will eventually break it, even if that's what it was designed to do.

It sounds as though I was lucky, really.


Modern day In-Built Copy/Crack detection - Having fun with the Pirates!
Now for my FAVOURITE part. You've done what you can to stop piracy, and it still happens. It always will. It's never going to stop. So make it a game itself, then. Mess with the pirates heads, annoy them, frustrate them, do whatever you can to delay "Day Zero" hacked versions appearing.

It's been going on for a while. Just ask anyone who knows their stuff about Spyro or Earthbound. These used multi-layered protection which worked so that the game would detect unauthorised copies at several points, and cause undesirable operation throughout the game. The game lets you know right away that it knows it's copied (Spyro actually tells you outright, "I'm sorry, Spyro, but you seem to be playing a hacked version of this game..." it really couldn't be any clearer) but crackers persisted and EVENTUALLY beat all the layers, which would include surprises like more and tougher enemies, settings changes and even the famous "crash and delete your savegames" trick.

I could go into great detail about all these, but they've been written about elsewhere and a quick search on Google will find you plenty of in-depth information. But I take great delight in those measures that leave pirates confused as to whether it's a problem with the game or deliberate protection by the developers. Very quickly, here are some of my favourites that I've recently heard about:

Michael Jackson: The Experience (DS)
What could be worse than a generic dancing game cashing in on Michael Jackson's awesome music and dancing skills? How about getting into a game to be treated to the sound of the Vuvuzela over the soundtrack? Yeah, that'll put the pirates off, more than replacing all songs with DJ Otis' "Hey Baby!"

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC)
But... but... I am BATMAN. I cannot have my abilities taken away, surely? If you're a pirate, yes, you'll lose the ability to Bat Glide. Since there's parts of the game where you HAVE to glide to survive, you'll only get so far before you hit a brick wall. And the best bit? Someone posted on a forum about the problem they were having, only to be told outright, "It's not a bug in the program code, it's a bug in YOUR moral code". Awesome.

ARMA2 (PC)
This one I'd really like to see. Apparently, a new technology called "FADE" was introduced, which basically SLOWLY broke the game. It started messing with the camera, and lowering your weapon's accuracy and power, until eventually they were as useless as pea-shooters. And finally, you get a message, "Original Discs don't FADE". It sounds pretty cool.

Serious Sam 3: BFE (PC)
I have to take my hat off to this one, this is brilliance. And again, this is one I want to EXPERIENCE. The game plays as normal... for about 30 seconds. Just after you collect your first gun, you run into what is now known as the "DRM Scorpion".

This guy looks mean, and is armed with tough claws and twin machine guns. He's fast, too, about 5 times as fast as you. Basically, there's no escape from him, so maybe you should face him head on and kill him before he kills you...

Nope, that doesn't seem to work. Maybe a game of cat and mouse, in and out of cover, get as many hits in as you can?

Maybe you should stop wasting your time, pirate. The DRM Scorpion is immortal. He will persist in chasing you until he kills you. Although apparently you can get through the first couple of levels, the difficulty curve isn't just steep, it's vertical.

Don't worry, though. Even the best gameplayers will get stuck when the second protection system kicks in... all of a sudden you'll look up to the sky and start spinning on the spot. Meanwhile, any bad guys in the area will take this oppurtunity to kill you.

Is that the last of the protection systems? Maybe... maybe not. But the Scorpion alone sounds too awesome to miss. The regrettable thing is that it's tempting for even a non-pirate to pirate the game just to see it. This must be one of the rare occasions where the pirates get more content than the people who hand their money over for a legitimate copy. Maybe not such a wise move?

Sega Saturn - International Victory Goal

Sega Saturn
International Victory Goal

I NOTORIOUSLY HATE FOOTBALL.

I also dislike Football Games as a general rule.

The problem I have with football is pretty simple. It's so BORING. Seriously, 90 minutes, and no goals? In pretty much any other sport, if a game was held to a nil-all draw for its length it would be exciting end-to-end stuff exercising superb defence, and would be quite exhilarating to watch. In football, these namby-pamby ham-actors are quite content to continually kick the ball in the air and not really get anywhere.

So... Football. Yawn. Booor-ring.

However, over the years, there has actually been some games that transform football into an attractive prospect. One of the main reasons for this is the much shorter game time that is usually imposed. 3 minutes is about the perfect length for a half of football, and as such would cause the players to put in 100% effort for its entire length.

Whilst I never "got" the fuss behind Sensible Soccer (except of course the Bulldog Blighty version with a hand grenade for a ball), I did enjoy Striker and Goal on the Amiga... and International Victory Goal on the Saturn most of all.

There's one very good reason why this game stands out above all other football games EVER. Y'see, at the time this came out (around the same time as Daytona / Sega Rally / Virtua Cop and so on) Sega were in the flow of producing amazing musical soundtracks to accompany their games. International Victory Goal delivered this with so much conviction; it has to be one of the single greatest musical scores ever committed to a game.

Alright, back to the game a second... the graphics themselves aren't the greatest ever seen, but they control so well and handle so realistically, it's like the physics from Virtua Tennis have already been conceived. Sliding or shoulder charging in the wrong direction stymies your progress up or down the field, and when you're chasing a breakaway player on the attack, you find yourself desperately trying to will your player along in the chase, hoping when you finally make that tackle you don't get sent off for it. A shot from close enough to the goal is rarely saved, so time is always of the essence in these situations.

With the tactical choices you can make before each match, you have a level of control not often seen in football games at that time. And you can cycle your priorities towards defence or attack at the press of a button.

I’ve played football games before and football games since, just to see if anything can ever deliver the fun and excitement this title managed to achieve. I can safely say... nothing has come close. Ever.

Whether you like Football or not, take away the boring nature of the sport and think of it as an action game. It becomes exciting in its own way. If you have a Saturn and want a decent sports game, this, Athlete Kings and World Series Baseball are the picks of choice.

Even if you don’t play the game, at least go over to the Galbaldia Hotel and download the soundtrack. Because it’s awesome.

Arcade / Sega Saturn / Dreamcast - Daytona USA

Arcade & Sega Saturn & Dreamcast

Daytona USA

Doo do-doo doo doo doo doo doo dooooo doooooooooooooo…. DAYTONAAAAAAAAA!

If you visited arcades in the late 90s or early 2000s, you couldn’t help but notice the enormous quantities of racing games arriving, mainly “front of house”. You couldn’t go by without coming across a Manx TT, Sega Rally or a Daytona USA, and many arcades involved themselves in a “willy-waving” contest by trying to have the biggest Daytona USA setup they could.

Yep, this was a racing game with the potential to daisy chain together several units, as well as other optional extras. I recall visiting Newquay and the excellent Carousel amusements on 3 consecutive years to find they’d added another 2 Daytona seats each time… However the top prize had to go to Mr B’s in Blackpool, with a 4-player setup with the addition of cameras pointing into each players’ face and a big screen over the top showing the race along with the faces of the competitors.

At a standard rate of £1 a race (and often a race consisted of 8 laps of less than 20 seconds each), this game was unsurprisingly the highest grossing arcade machine of all time. People rarely ventured from the Easy level (777 Speedway, basically a big oval with long sweeping curves), as the other tracks were far more difficult, and not suited to multiplayer so much.

The big puller was the graphics, they did look amazingly realistic, but most arcades had the volume turned up too. This was a bonus as the music really was superb, from the theme tune (see the start of this review) to the familiar war cry of “ROLLING STAAAAAAAART!”, the music is so good I have the soundtrack in the car for long distance driving.

As far as longevity goes, this game really doesn’t have any. There’s only 3 tracks, and whilst there’s plenty multiplayer fun to be had, Single player gameplay is decidedly limited.

So, was bringing the game to the home console market a good idea? Well, the Saturn versions (yes, there was two of them) didn’t quite cut it visually, plagued with clipping, pop-up and a lower frame rate. Gameplay wise, they weren’t so bad, the action was still fast and handled very much like the Arcade Original. But was one player racing any good?

Not really, especially with a title like Sega Rally around (which was REALLY good). Even in Endurance mode, trying to squeeze playability out of the game without getting repetitive was an impossible task.

During this era, driving games suddenly improved, but got much smaller and shorter. Prior to this, driving games at home boasted huge numbers of tracks, or at least that was the primary selling point. For example, Network Q RAC Rally came out with around 30 tracks available. All of a sudden racing games were cut to 3 or 4 tracks but vastly improved physics and graphics. Fine for the arcades and the quick, sharp burst of fun, but not so good for a game you’re expected to pay £30 or more for at home where most play is by yourself. Until the advent of online gaming, this kind of racer signified to me both the high point of arcade racing experiences, and the low point of the home racing experience.

Daytona’s success will guarantee its deserved place in the annals of history, tarnished only by comparatively poor home versions. What I do hope will live forever is the awesome music.

Blue, blue skies I see...

Sega Saturn - Virtua Cop

Sega Saturn
Virtua Cop &
Virtua Cop 2

When I bought my Sega Saturn, I came up with a list of games and accessories I absolutely HAD to get with it. The Virtua Cop games and the Virtua Gun made the list, pretty damn easily, in fact. And with damn good reason… To this day, I don’t think any light gun has matched the Saturn’s Virtua Gun for being the right feel, so accurate and downright reliable!

Sega decided that the conversion of their arcade hit should retain the feel, and as such the Virtua Gun was essentially identical to the ones found chained to arcade cabinets around the country. A swift crack at the Gun Calibration screen in the options menu ensured the gun worked from wherever you sat / stood / crouched, and that was it, you were off into the Virtua underworld to shoot first, ask questions later. Well, let’s be honest, it’s a case of shoot or be shot.

The bad guys pop up at a quite alarming rate, but you are helpfully informed just how long you have until they open fire thanks to your high-tech coloured homing sights (imagine the targeting system in Robocop!), and the screen helpfully zooms in allowing you to make your shot count. Bonus points are awarded for having the skill to shoot the gun from the enemy grunts’ hands, or indeed if you can hit them with three bullets…


Of course, a game like this would be boring if it didn’t have power-ups…

Actually, no, it wouldn’t. It’s so much damn fun I wouldn’t care if there weren’t any extra weapons, but nevertheless there is, for a limited period you can have the 15-shot clip of the Automatic, the power of a 3-shot burst Rifle, the Magnum that shoots through barrels and walls, the shotgun with a nice spread or the full automatic of the Machine Gun. All you have to do is find the weapons (dead baddie, shoot a crate) and shoot it, and mysteriously it’s yours. No, I’ve never really liked that system, but in the case of on-the-rails shooters, what else can you do?

Virtua Cop itself is a fine game, but the superior sequel was superior for only two reasons: The improved graphics and a higher difficulty curve. That’s not to say Virtua Cop was too easy, although once you’ve played it, as with most games of this type, you start to learn where the bad guys are hiding and in what order they attack you. And of course there’s always the unlockable Mirror Mode to mix things up for you the next time you play…


One thing Virtua Cop offered that Virtua Cop 2 is sadly missing is the extra “Training” mode. This was a stroke of genius on the part of Sega, this mode essentially thrusts you into a shooting range on which you can hone your shooting skills. Either compete against some of the game’s characters in a shooting contest, or take on the series of goals to progress through the various ranges and target formations. Performing well in this event is rewarded by a rating in the form of Virtua Cop Badges.

So, with very little to actually complain about with these games, and with Sega getting almost EVERYTHING right, then this is a moment not to miss out on, right?

Hold on just a second. Unlike some other consoles and computer hardware of the past, which aren’t going to have any problems, the light gun, or at least most of its incarnations, are going to become useless. As people upgrade from their Cathode Ray Tube TVs to the LCD and Plasma panels, retro collectors will notice their light guns will no longer work. Indeed, the instructions for light guns claim that they will ONLY work with bevelled (curved) 50Hz TVs, and not 100Hz TVs, pure flat tubes, projection TVs or any kind of modern flat panel. So although these games come with the official Fishsta seal of recommendation, they do also come with a warning… make sure you’ve got the right equipment before investing in them. Otherwise, you’ll end up very disappointed.

Sega Saturn - Athlete Kings

Sega Saturn
Athlete Kings

Back in the old days of Arcade action, there was a hugely popular title by the name of “Track and Field”. A simple enough concept, re-enact the energetic exertion of Olympic-standard athletics by means of mashing buttons as fast as you can, attempting to qualify to move on through a sequence of “popular” events.

Simple graphics, simple concept, simple fun. Simple, eh?



Fast forward a decade and a bit, and the concept receives a new lease of life… a coin-op by the name of “Decathlete”, and the Saturn conversion by the name of “Athlete Kings”.

Introducing a selection of athletes to choose from for starters, they all have their own strengths to draw on in the different events. American Rick Blade and Japanese Joe Kudou fill in as “All rounders”, the Brit, Jef Jansens (hilariously named “Robin Banks” in the arcade version) and Russian Aleksi Rigel as the throwing specialists, Karl Vain, the German jumping specialist, and then the women, Ellen Reggiani, Femi Kadiena and the chinese teenager who is amazing at running but has the most forgettable name in the world.



Anyway, the events are all as you would expect in a game like this, and they take on the form of the traditional Olympic Decathlon. The 100m sprint and the 110m Hurdles are short but intense button-bashing races, the hurdles being interjected with occasional presses of the action button to jump said wooden barriers. The 400m and 1500m races are a little more leisurely, simply because you have to watch your stamina. The Long Jump, High Jump, Pole Vault and Javelin are all about button bashing to power up, and then good timing with the action button to set angles, extend legs and plant poles. The Shot Putt is all about timing alone, unless you use the “spinning” method, whereby you can increase the power using a circular motion on the joypad, the same method you must employ for the Discus event.





Whether alone or against friends, the game provides ample challenge, with tight qualification targets in arcade mode, and the honest, simple multiplayer fun, this is one of the best of the genre.

The simple truth is, this game has been one of the prides of my collection, so this doesn’t just get a recommendation, it’s a “Game to Play Before You Die”.

No, really.




Incidentally, I’d be interested to know what sort of records other people have attained on this game. Here’s the ones of mine that I can remember…


100m – 9.52seconds

Long Jump – 9.98m

Javelin – 99.04m

High Jump – 2m 56cm

Pole Vault – 6m 34cm