Cover Art Face-Off #2

Oh hey, what's going down? If you've visited this ridiculous page recently you might recall a post I made featuring the various famous Sega IPs that, for one odd reason or another, appeared on their own console's rival, the NES. They were mostly of reasonable quality, though of course inferior to the versions found on the mighty Master System, but it was interesting to take a look at them. While on the subject, however, I also looked into the cover artwork for the NES releases since they were unlikely to be using the MS's white grid covers, and indeed they were not. So I figured I might as well make a follow-up post about those too! Therefore, behold:

After Burner (1987/89)

This was one of the first ever games I had in my possession and therefore one of the first game covers to dwell on my shelf so it holds some nostalgic value for me, but let's face it - it looks like something a low-level factory worker doodled in his/her lunch break! The NES offering was for the US market and features a much more impressive-looking F-14 fighter front and centre. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about US military hardware to know how accurate it is, but it sure looks cool here, especially surrounded by tracer fire and explosions. It even has the title in its correct font! Though it pains me slightly to say it, there can only be one winner here...

TV Shows #30 - Part 1

Reacher Season One (2022)
Developed By: Nick Santora
Starring: Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, Chris Webster, Bruce McGill, Maria Sten, Currie Graham, Kristin Kreuk, Harvey Guillén

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 42-54 Minutes per Episode, 8 Episodes

Usually I find it somewhat irritating when people complain about a book adaptation straying from the source material. After all, if the screen version is different enough, it just means you potentially have two things to enjoy rather than two different forms of the same thing! One recent(ish) example I remember was Jack Reacher, released just over ten years ago starring Tom Cruise as the titular character. I personally didn't even know there were Jack Reacher books at the time but it turned out there were many, they were very successful, and their many fans were incensed at the casting choice to play their beloved hero. Moviegoers seem to have a bit of a love/hate view of Cruise at the best of times but here he was playing a character who, in the books at least, is 6ft5 and 250lbs. I've always been a fan of Cruise, at least as far as his movies are concerned, but for all his talents and abilities, being 6ft5 and 250lbs is not among them! The film did okay but most Reacher fans stayed away.

NES Shmups #5

Burai Fighter (1990)
By: KID / Taxan Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 121,120
Also Available For: Game Boy

There are an absolute ton of NES games that I've heard of but know bugger all about. This is due to a combination of buying multi-format games mags back in the day such as Mean Machines, and not having an NES and therefore paying little attention to reviews of said games. One of them, you may be shocked to hear, is Burai Fighter. I've known of the name for over 30 years but I wasn't even sure what genre it was until my interest in it was recently piqued by its soundtrack - its most derided aspect, I've subsequently discovered (not sure why though). It turned out to be a (mostly) horizontal shooter in the same vein of Side Arms and Forgotten Worlds, and that's no bad thing since both are at least decent games. It's also a game that, much like the recently-reviewed Dragon Ninja, is named after its bad guys rather than the hero. Indeed, the Burai are apparently a 'race of super-brains' who, for thousands of years, have used their intellectual gifts to conquer the universe. Can't accuse them of lacking ambition, I guess!

Top Five MegaDrive Overhead Racers

As mighty as the MegaDrive is, it's not a system I would associate with overhead (or 'top down' if you prefer) racing games - I suppose there aren't any systems that one might specifically associate with them now that I think about it - but Sega's legendary machine does play host to a surprising number of them. I actually had the idea for this post a good few years ago and did some preliminary 'research' accordingly, only to find my enthusiasm dampened by the general quality of the titles available. I recall not really finding one that I really liked, never mind five! That opinion was mostly confirmed when I returned to this post recently - most examples are interesting and have good points, but also some apect that ruined my enjoyment somewhat too. Since I haven't been too prolific with the Top Fives lately, however, I figured I'd go ahead with the post anyway. So, feast your eyes on what could be more accurately described as the Five Least Annoying MegaDrive Overhead Racers...

5. Combat Cars

I don't remember seeing anything about this one in its day but it got a European release as well as a US one. Oh well, wherever it was back then, I 've spent a fair bit of time playing it for this post and... well, it's a good example of what I was talking about above. I kind of get the impression it's set in a post-apocalyptic world but it's hard to be sure since there doesn't seem to be a backstory. Nonetheless, you can choose from eight characters, each of whom has their own car with it's own special ability (speed boost, weapon, smoke, etc), and it initially looked as though it could be a contender for the top spot here. The slidy-but-grippy car handling is superb and there are a decent number of courses (24) over which to race against the other characters, and there are of course multi-player modes too (just two players but better than nothing), with team or head-to-head options on offer. The graphics aren't bad either and the music is great. The thing that ruins it a bit for me is that it just gets too hard too quickly - you basically have to race nearly perfectly within two or three races or you won't have a chance. I was getting lapped! It's a good game for skilled and/or dedicated players but I'm not sure I'd ever get through it.