Atari Lynx #2: Gordo 106

Developer: Tenth Planet

Publisher: Atari

Release: August 1993

(Wait there's a giant mutated gorilla in this game? Maybe I should give it another chance)

Okay I’ll go ahead and get it out of the way. “ Why don’t you review Gordos 1-105 first?” There I said it. Gordo 106 is a game that’s just about as clunky as its name. It’s almost the exact opposite of Scrapyard Dog. The humor is more strained, the levels are much more mundane, and the difficulty is based on unfairness. I hate rating games without actually finishing them, but even with save states I have hit a wall and can’t get any further. The worst part is that I don’t even have the desire to power through it. Maybe someday I will get that weird urge to play through a stinker, but for now I will set it aside and evaluate it as well as I can.

Gordo 106 is a rad lab monkey trying escape the scientists that mutated him into an intelligent primate. You can tell he’s rad because he has a red hat. He doesn’t have sunglasses, but he’s so rad that I can picture him wearing some. He’s going to escape the same way every video game character did in the early 90s, by running from left to right and jumping a whole lot. There is not that much I can say about the basic setup that you don’t already know. Let’s get to the problems already.

 

First of all the controls are not good. Even on modern hardware it is unresponsive and strange. There are hanging fixtures everywhere that Gordo is supposed to swing across, and I am still not sure how it is supposed to work. Sometimes I jump up and he instantly connects. Sometimes he holds on for a split second and then lets go. I am not sure if pushing a button makes it work or not because sometimes it seems to help and sometimes it doesn’t. Considering how much time is spent swinging you would think they would make it intuitive. It should work every time. This leads right back into the other problem which is all the holes. I have no idea why a research laboratory is so full of hard to see holes. It doesn’t make any sense aesthetically and it makes the game a nightmare t play. With so much time spent in the air it’s usually not until it’s too late that you notice that giant hole under you. The game also has a ceiling that makes it impossible to jump if you are on a high ledge, so sometimes the holes are simply unavoidable. The most strange thing, however, is that holes don’t kill you but instead sends you to a fiery hellscape. I haven’t been able to escape them very often, but the one I did escape from sent me back to the beginning of the level which was no fun at all. It’s sort of like the parallel worlds in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On the top side is a goofy mutated monkey game, on the bottom is an entirely different game full of lava and terror. Sadly they are both bad.

Okay so maybe hellscape is a little strong, but it's still not a fun situation to be in

There is some interesting trivia with this game. Tenth Planet only developed this game and then never did anything else. Half of the credited people never worked on another game. The other half, however, went on to make the first two Diablo games. It’s comforting to know that the people who worked on Gordo 106 either quickly learned their lesson and got better or got out of the industry so they couldn’t make the same mistakes again. Hey at least this game taught some people what not to do.

 

Lynx quality percentage: 1/2 or 50%

 

1. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Arc the Lad

16. Clu Clu Land

17. Tails’ Adventures

18. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

19. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

20. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

21. Metro-Cross

22. Double Dragon

23. Panic Restaurant

24. Felix the Cat

25. Ice Climber

26. Gaplus

27. Dragon Spirit

28. Pinball (NES)

29. Ninja Golf

30. Super Soccer

31. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

32. Red Sea Crossing

33. Baraduke

34. Demon’s Crest

35. Evoland

36. Tennis

37. Renegade

38. Hogan’s Alley

39. Gamma-Attack

40. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

41. Galaxian

42. Dragon Crystal

43. Cosmic Commuter

44. Hot Pixel

45. PocketBike Racer

46. Wild Gunman

47. Defunct

48. Gyruss (2600)

49. Looney Tunes Racing

50. Squidlit

51. Gordo 106

52. Baseball

53. Birthday Mania

54. Bad Street Brawler

55. Burly Men at Sea

56. WeakWood Throne

57. X-Men (HyperScan)

58. My Name is Mayo

59. Marvel Heroes

60. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

61. Ben 10

screenshots from mobygames.com

Atari Lynx #1: Scrapyard Dog

Developer: BlueSky Software

Publisher: Atari

Release Date: Sometime in 1991

I am always excited to write about a new console, and Atari Lynx is a very interesting one. It has a small library of games, so it shouldn’t take too long to get a good impression of the overall quality. NES with its 800 game library is going to be hard to pin down, but with the 76 Lynx games it shouldn’t be long until we know if it’s worth playing or not. I can tell you from experience that good or not the games are very interesting. There was no handheld like the Lynx, and it’s a shame that nobody played it. My actual console broke a couple years back, so I was excited when I heard that there were two compilations coming out for Evercade. It’s not the complete library, but it’s a good start. Let’s kick things off with Atari’s answer to Mario, Scrapyard Dog.

There is a lot about Scrapyard Dog that impresses me. They were obviously going for Mario with the side-scrolling action and everyman protagonist. Instead of the usual sassy animal we have a big nosed junkyard man named Louie trying to find his stolen dog. The other dogs in the game wear fedoras and smoke cigars, so it’s a little odd that there is one regular dog. Maybe that’s why they covet him so much. Despite being derivative on the surface, however, Scrapyard Dog is large and ambitious. Most handheld platform games of the time were very short and played like shrunken versions of console games. Sure Super Mario Land was popular, but it has tiny sprites and is over in fifteen minutes. That’s perfect for a short car ride sure, but beyond that it doesn’t impress much. Scrapyard Dog is large almost to its own detriment. It has long difficult levels filled with vibrant colors and almost constant secrets. Any door could contain a hidden shop or bonus level. It would be almost impossible to find them all. It’s one of those bizarre video game worlds where shops are in the most random places. I can understand ghost towns and maybe junk yards, but why have a store that only sells shields hidden in a dark cave or on the side of a cliff? There is nothing better than 8-bit era surrealism. It’s like the cake shop hidden in that confusing dungeon in Phantasy Star or the cave doors that lead to cities in The Battle of Olympus. It’s a world all onto itself and that’s something that was hard to replicate on Game Boy or Game Gear.

The high difficulty is a knock against it though. I always had fun playing it on my Lynx, but I could never get very far. The lives are limited and continues nonexistent so game overs are frequent. One thing I hate about retro gaming is putting an hour or more into a game and then being struck down by permadeath. At least it is full of powerups. Louie’s basic attack is throwing cans which is very effective, but there are all manner of weapons, shields, and stat boosters to find. They are limited to how much money you can find, however, so you have to be careful. If you are looking to play it today and actually want to see it through to the end it’s definitely best to play it on Evercade where you can use save states. You can even play it through a full-size tv if you want to burn your retinas and experience the ultimate blocky graphics. It’s the perfect showcase on an excellent compilation.

 

Scrapyard Dog really is Atari Lynx at its quirky best. I have never played the 7800 version, but another strange quality Lynx had was outdoing its console counterpart. Games that were unplayable on Jaguar were good on Lynx, and the earlier 7800 games typically had tighter gameplay and better graphics. Nothing about Lynx makes much sense, and that’s probably one of the reasons I like it so much. Scrapyard Dog is definitely good enough to go into my top 20. It’s coming in at number 17 right below the also excellent Tails Adventures. Lynx is full of hidden gems, so be ready to read about some good games that you have never heard of in the coming months. I’ll probably get four views for each of them, but at least I get so play some fun games. I’ll call that a victory.

 

1. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Arc the Lad

16. Clu Clu Land

17. Tails’ Adventures

18. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

19. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

20. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

21. Metro-Cross

22. Double Dragon

23. Panic Restaurant

24. Felix the Cat

25. Ice Climber

26. Gaplus

27. Dragon Spirit

28. Pinball (NES)

29. Ninja Golf

30. Super Soccer

31. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

32. Red Sea Crossing

33. Baraduke

34. Demon’s Crest

35. Evoland

36. Tennis

37. Renegade

38. Hogan’s Alley

39. Gamma-Attack

40. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

41. Galaxian

42. Dragon Crystal

43. Cosmic Commuter

44. Hot Pixel

45. PocketBike Racer

46. Wild Gunman

47. Defunct

48. Gyruss (2600)

49. Looney Tunes Racing

50. Squidlit

51. Baseball

52. Birthday Mania

53. Bad Street Brawler

54. Burly Men at Sea

55. WeakWood Throne

56. X-Men (HyperScan)

57. My Name is Mayo

58. Marvel Heroes

59. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

60. Ben 10

NES #17: Felix the Cat

Developer: Shimada Kikau

Publisher: Hudson Soft

Release Date: October 1992

 

Felix the Cat is one of those cartoon characters that everyone has heard of but nobody is really sure where he came from. He’s not a Looney Tune or a Disney character, but people still remember seeing him in similar cartoon compilations. Felix actually predates both Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons by almost a decade. Felix was the first significantly popular cartoon star making his debut way back in 1919. That’s older than cel animation itself. This makes Felix one of the older IPs to be turned into an NES game. I suppose Tom Sawyer is older, and there are some based on the Bible and early folktales, but it’s still impressive that he has such staying power. This game is based on the late 80s movie which was one of his dozens of comeback attempts and was an infamous failure. You can’t necessarily judge a game by its source material however. So how it the game itself?

 

Felix the Cat is almost everything you would expect for a late era NES platform game. The graphics are stylish and colorful, the levels are well designed, and of course there is a bottom panel displaying at least a little important information. Also by the time 1992 rolled around cutscenes were much more the norm so this one has a few very pointless ones between a few of the levels. They basically have the bad guy calling Felix in a series of angrier phone calls. It’s a very appealing presentation which definitely makes the game fun to play. I love a game based on a cartoon that actually looks like a cartoon, and this one is full of fun little cartoony details. I wish there were clouds in the sky that look like me and also have my name beside them like in Felix the Cat. Video games really let us live out our fantasies.

 

There is, however, a glaring flaw in this game that knocks it down a few places. The power ups are almost universally bad. They check all the boxes of annoying NES weapons. You have your very short range magic wand, your car that makes an annoying beeping sound every time you use it, and the tank that arcs over everything. There are similar problem with the powerups in the air and water levels too. It almost makes me want to skip them altogether except that they also work as Felix’s health. Each time he gets hit he gets knocked back down to the weaker item in the chain. This can make boss fights difficult for all the wrong reasons because they can be almost impossible without projectile attacks which will be lost after a couple of hits. Luckily there are extra lives to be found just about everywhere so it never gets too hard, but I do which they would’ve refined the gameplay to make better attacks and a more fair difficult level.  

 

So it’s a bit of a borderline case, but I am still going to put it on the good side. It is a game saved by its great design, and the flaws don’t ruin it. I didn’t have much trouble beating the game because of the lousy weapons. It is going right behind Panic Restaurant which is a similar game with even better design and decent weapons. Still, it’s hard to go wrong with a well made platform game on NES. I can certainly see myself playing it again in the future on some dreary Saturday when I am feeling down.

 

NES Quality Percentage: 10/17 or 58.82%

 

1. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Arc the Lad

16. Clu Clu Land

17. Tails’ Adventures

18. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

19. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

20. Metro-Cross

21. Double Dragon

22. Panic Restaurant

23. Felix the Cat

24. Ice Climber

25. Gaplus

26. Dragon Spirit

27. Pinball (NES)

28. Ninja Golf

29. Super Soccer

30. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

31. Red Sea Crossing

32. Baraduke

33. Demon’s Crest

34. Evoland

35. Tennis

36. Renegade

37. Hogan’s Alley

38. Gamma-Attack

39. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

40. Galaxian

41. Dragon Crystal

42. Cosmic Commuter

43. Hot Pixel

44. PocketBike Racer

45. Wild Gunman

46. Defunct

47. Gyruss (2600)

48. Looney Tunes Racing

49. Squidlit

50. Baseball

51. Birthday Mania

52. Bad Street Brawler

53. Burly Men at Sea

54. WeakWood Throne

55. X-Men (HyperScan)

56. My Name is Mayo

57. Marvel Heroes

58. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

59. Ben 10