Quality Control – Metal Storm

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Well, I’m going to go back to the text reviews for the time being, as the audio reviews don’t carry over well to Facebook (as my reviews are also syndicated there. Plus, frankly, I’m just not getting a lot of listeners for them. If you do want the audio reviews back, please let me know, and I’ll start doing them again in the future.

Anyway, my game for review this week is the mecha action game Metal Storm for the NES, from Irem (the people who brought you R-Type). Let’s see how it turns out.

The Premise: An alien intelligence has taken over the research station on Titan. You, in the M-308 Gunner Mobile Suit must infiltrate the facility, get through its defenses, and destroy the base before it can destroy Earth!

Where I Read – Nintendo Power #22

Alright, this week’s issue of Nintendo Power is issue #22 for March of 1991. Our cover story is the mecha action game Metal Storm (which was the poster game last issue), and a lot of the art on the cover is very similar to last issue’s poster (but that’s okay).

Letters: We have a letter from a kid who managed to be a Nintendo Game Counselor for a day thanks to a letter he wrote to the Mickey Mouse Club. So, I guess something good came out of the Mickey Mouse Club (instead of just Brittney Spears and Justin Timberlake). We also have the Nintendo Rap… which I’m just going to tip toe on by.

Metal Storm Guide: We get some notes off the bat about the “reverse gravity” system and some of the weapons and power-ups in the game. We then get some maps of the first 6 levels. On the bright side, the game has a password system (which, frankly, a lot of games on here don’t have). Apparently stage 2, by the way, there have unlimited vertical scrolling on the levels (with the maps wrapping). That could make it easy to get lost in the levels without the map. Anyway, the general visual theme of the levels is pretty industrial, with not a lot of visual variation to it, at least in the the levels we get pictures of. Ratings: Graphics & Sound 3.8, Play Control 3.7, Challenge and Lasting Interest 3.7, Theme & Fun 3.7.

Where I Read – Electronic Gaming Monthly #52

Another week, another hole I’ve discovered I can fill in my EGM Archive. In this case, it’s issue #52 for November of 1993. This issue is quite epic in its length – 324 pages long, and our cover story is Sonic CD. Oh, and there’s a Super Street Fighter II Strategy Guide that will probably pad this issue out a little.

Editorial: Christmas 1993 is coming up. So, there are so many consoles out, how do you decide? Basically they do a run-down of all the consoles on the market, and pick them all apart except for the SNES and Genesis. Not much else other than this.

Letters: Well, we get people not happy with Major Mike being off to the side for his reviews. We also get more letters about Project Reality (which the EGM staff dismisses as vaporware), Nintendo has a new top-loading version of the NES, which they also poo-poo. Personally, I like the Top Loading chassis, as that way I don’t have to worry about the pins getting bent as much. We also get a letter from a producer at Sunsoft covering issues with the World Heroes games, with the original letter being 3 pages long, and they had to shorten. I wonder what happened to the original letter. If Ed Semrad or Steve Harris reads this (as he was still the EGM publisher at the time), and they know what happened to the original letter, and want to do a full rebuttal to all the points in the letter that aren’t in their response here, please let me know. In the course of their response, they do take a moment to slip a shot in at GamePro and their frequency of Perfect Scores (across the board 5s), which I can’t argue with in the slightest (nor the lack of criticism in their critical reviews). As far as their criticism that the scores were two low, they refer them to Famicom Tsushin’s score, which is an overall 24 (7, 5, 6, 6), which is lower then their score.

DVD Review – WWE Presents The World’s Greatest Wrestling Managers

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So, I’m trying to watch some more wrestling stuff, and I’ve gotten a few wrestling DVDs in, which I’ll be reviewing over the next couple weeks. First up is more of a documentary focused DVD, based around various managers in the WWE’s history… as if you couldn’t tell in the title.

The Premise: Hosted by Todd Grisham, we take a walk back memory lane and discuss some of the greatest managers in the WWE’s history, and what made them great, as heels, or as faces. We have interviews with the managers in question, as well as with various WWE Superstars talking about those particular managers, and what makes a good manager in general. The individual mangers who get profiled include Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, Captain Lou Albano, Paul Bearer, Jim Cornette, Paul Heyman, Sunny, “Classy” Freddie Blassie, “The Sensational” Sherrie Martel, and “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart, The Grand Wizard Of Wrestling, and The Lovely Miss Elizabeth, as well as a general profile of female managers/valets in wrestling (with particular mention given to Debra, Chyna, Trish Stratus and Rena Mero).

Where I Read – GamePro #44

Our GamePro recaps continue with our coverage of issue #44 for March 1993. Our cover story is the best games of 1992. Well, normally this would come out in the first issue of 1993 but it works. Our cover art is, I presume, of Shinobi, featuring a ninja of ambiguous gender. The isue’s 193 pages long, but they’ve also got a Sonic The Hedgehog 2 strategy guide in there, so that will probably pad it out some. Oh, and like usual, the Editorial column re-states the table of contents. *Sigh*

Mail: We get questions on Pro Action Replay in Street Fighter II Turbo, and why Turbo Technologies is being so slow in releasing titles for the Duo. They get into this on the Retronauts episode on the TurboGrafx, but basically, the problem is that TTI US has to go through a lengthly negotiation process with NEC and Hudson in Japan before localizing it, making it difficult to port games over. This kind of explains why the TurboGrafx and later the Turbo Duo basically were the Shump and WorkingDesigns RPG system, with the addition of LaserActive games like Mad Dog McCree once they got a CD-ROM drive in the system. Yeah, there’s Bonk too – but it bears mentioning that the TurboGrafx systems just didn’t have the same degree of 3rd party support (at least in the US than the Genesis and SNES had. We also get complaints about games costing $50 to $60 bucks in the US, and more in the UK. Get used to it. It’s going to cost that much until at least the present. Cartridge games are, frankly, expensive to manufacture, and the cost of making disk games hasn’t gone down much either (plus the hardware itself is expensive to make). Plus, in the UK, you’ve also got the VAT.