|
Post by Rastanfarian on Oct 10, 2015 5:52:48 GMT
As promised the first of my thoughts on the Mean Machines reviews... I'm sure you guys are dying to hear my two cents.
LIGHT PHASER GAMES Rambo III 89% Operation Wolf 88% Rescue Mission 82% Laser Ghost 76% Missile Defense 3-D 76% Assault City: Light Phaser Version 70% Wanted 70% Shooting Gallery 70% Gangster Town 48% Space Gun 16% Marksman Shooting / Trap Shooting / Safari Hunt - NR%
Not too much out of order. I will say it has been quite some time since I've played any Phaser games. Although I own them all except Space Gun, I need to admit I have never played several of them. So I will only comment on those games I have experience playing. Rescue Mission by far is the best phaser game. IMO Rambo 3 and Operation Wolf are pretty much the same game so the similar score makes sense. However I would switch them in ranking based on Operation Wolf's use of the second controller for grenades. Missile Defense deserves to be above Laser Ghost if only for the fact that it's the only 3D light phaser game. Gangster Town should be higher just for the fact its the only two player light phaser game. The only game on the entire list of Mean Machine reviews to receive under 20% is Space Gun. I guess it's pretty bad.
|
|
|
Post by ShadowAngel on Oct 10, 2015 15:34:15 GMT
I have the Mean Machines issues as PDF as well as other british magazines and looking through them gives me constant "WTF"-Moments. It begins with the insane LSD-style layouts, the insane love for football games and movie licensed games and them putting out some of the craziest ratings ever. The ratings for Super Kick Off, World Soccer, G-Loc, Fire & Forget II, American Pro Football and Golden Axe Warrior alone proof that you can't take this magazine serious at all. And why the disdain for Golden Axe Warrior? I just copy what the 2 reviewers said about the game: Matt: "Urrr! Golden Axe was a brilliant Sega cart, but the idea to turn the concept into a role-playing game is simply a bad idea. I can imagine many people buying this game with the idea that they're getting a sequel to the best beat 'em up on the Sega. They're not. What they are getting is one of the most boring games I've played on the Sega lately. The adventuring aspect is tedious and progress is hampered by the absurd combat section - it's simply too hard and stabbing at a number of malformed sprites isn't my idea of fun by a long chalk. With its mind-numbing sound and tedious gameplay, I find it hard to recommend this to any self-respecting Sega owner." Julian: "Don't be misled by the "Golden Axe" in the title of this game, because this has got absolutely nothing in common with Golden axe, the brilliant beat 'em up conversion. Golden Axe Warrior is a tedious role playing game with very little action. It starts out with promise, but unfortunately the rather unexciting gameplay - there are long periods where you have little to do - coupled with the awkward combat sequences make for a game that doesn't take long before it gets very dull. Some role playing fans might find some fun in there, but there are plenty of better games of this type - try Y's or Lord of the Sword instead. Arcade fans should steer well clear." Oh and they gave Legend of Zelda a rating of 90%, same staff members i think even. It makes no sense at all.
|
|
|
Post by Transatlantic Foe on Oct 10, 2015 16:29:58 GMT
Space Gun isn't that bad, it's just unexciting most of the time and a pale imitation of the arcade game. It's far from unplayable and picks up the pace a bit later on.
Magazine reviews are a bit all over the place. There are some fantastic shoot 'em up reviews that knock points off simply because they're tired of reviewing shoot 'em ups.
Smash TV always gets a raw deal on the SMS but the system limitations mean it's probably the only version with balanced difficulty! Where it's intentional or not, I find it more enjoyable than the arcade version or 16-bit ports.
|
|
|
Post by Centrale on Oct 10, 2015 19:26:05 GMT
Gangster Town should be higher just for the fact its the only two player light phaser game. Or, alternately... the only single-player dual-wielding Light Phaser game.
|
|
|
Post by Centrale on Oct 10, 2015 19:38:45 GMT
And why the disdain for Golden Axe Warrior? I just copy what the 2 reviewers said about the game: I guess it's just another case of reviewers rating a game based on what the reviewer expects the game to be/thinks the game should be, rather than appreciating what the game actually is. Unfortunately a problem that persists fully even today.
|
|
|
Post by korax on Oct 10, 2015 20:43:32 GMT
Matt & Julian are all kinds of wrong, got to admit this line cracked me up though: "Don't be misled by the "Golden Axe" in the title of this game, because this has got absolutely nothing in common with Golden axe, the brilliant beat 'em up conversion"
|
|
|
Post by Maxim on Oct 12, 2015 10:13:30 GMT
I think it's safe to say that magazine reviews in those days were quite unreliable and biased. Maybe these days there is more of a consensus of opinion because of the greater amount of shared information via the internet. It's still hard to see why we would accept low scores of games because the reviewers were tired of the genre, or even of the system (Sega Power seemed to down-rate Master System games near the end just because they were Master system games, even if they were good ones).
At the same time, it can be hard to view the reviews in the context of not knowing the games that were going to be released later, or the games on other systems at the same time.
On a semi-related note, is there a decent archive of Sega Power and Sega Pro scans out there?
|
|
|
Post by happyguy1984 on Oct 12, 2015 12:56:14 GMT
Sadly Sega Power and Sega Pro scans are much harder to come across! I would like a full scan database up on the web someday as all the Mean Machines and Mean Machines Sega scans are easy to come by. I'll see if I can get their databases up here some day! I do find it interesting what reviewers thought of games back in the day and how some scores are so different to each other in various mags. I agree! from memory some of Sega Power's late Master System reviews did get quite harsh
|
|
|
Post by Maxim on Oct 12, 2015 16:19:38 GMT
All of the Sega 8-bit reviews from Sega Force are on SMS Power!, OCRed by me a few years ago. Likewise for several other multi-format magazines (e.g. ACE and C&VG). I thought I'd finished Mean Machines but clearly I didn't. I also filtered the multi-format magazines down to just the relevant pages, which is a bit harsh but then we aren't trying to archive all the magazines.
Google does seem to attempt to OCR the PDFs it finds on the internet but magazines are hard to read generically, I had to manually tell the OCR software where each column was and do a lot of fixing up.
My goal is to collect all the magazine reviews (not just UK) for all Sega 8-bit games, in full text form and listed per game, with links to images of the pages in question. Even better would be to index all mentions of every game to help bring together all the bits of information out there.
|
|
|
Post by flatapex on Oct 12, 2015 18:39:09 GMT
which magazines are still needed? just incase anyone has anything around
|
|
|
Post by Maxim on Oct 12, 2015 18:54:55 GMT
Sega Retro seems to have quite a lot of them, I need to spend some time stealing them If anyone wants to contribute time OCRing reviews for SMS Power! - or even just entering the overall score so we can build the list up - then that would be welcome too.
|
|
|
Post by flatapex on Oct 12, 2015 19:43:24 GMT
I've got every c and vg and also every c and vg sega, zero, possibly every ace and other odds and ends. I have one random copy of sega pro.
Everything except the sega pro is on a flashdrive, scanned and ready if needed
|
|
|
Post by ian on Oct 14, 2015 22:50:03 GMT
Nice work compiling and organising that information happyguy1984 and Rastanfarian. It makes for interesting reading. Generally I'd say it's a pretty accurate list but of course, there's bound to be some inexplicable ratings. Super Kick Off 96%? Aztec Adventure 38%? Not sure what people were thinking there! I've never been a fan of the percentage scoring system. I mean, how do you calculate a game to be 42%? Why not 41 or 43?
|
|
|
Post by bkk on Oct 15, 2015 6:51:47 GMT
|
|
|
Post by flatapex on Oct 15, 2015 7:17:55 GMT
There were rumours that some reviews were erm.....influenced, and some people were politely persuaded to say nice things about games when the game maybe didnt deserve it, this may also have extended to saying not so nice things about games that would have been direct competition.
|
|