Faceball review and FPS questions

[vestcoat]

In my search for first person shooters on the Turbo, i got Faceball in the mail today (thanks westexit!).
Not that bad a game.  it reminds me more of Mariokart than Doom.
I remember reading somewhere that it is only a 2 player game, that is not true.  you can have 4 players although there is some slowdown.
It's funny that Faceball on the PCE has 4 players and my copy of Doom for the N64 can only have one, so at least the programmers weren't lazy.
The music is good and i found myself tapping my foot to the bouncy little tunes.  Your opponents say a few words in squeaky little voices when you shoot them.
The graphics are plain and the gameplay is sluggish, but it does have real 3D scrolling.
There don't seem to be any power ups and there is only one form of attack with button 1.  because there is no radar, button 2 activates an X-ray view that allows you to see your opponents through the walls so you can go track them down.  you can't shoot while using the x-ray view.
i wish there were strafe buttons.
There are a lot of little mazes to choose from and you can add a number of weak ghost creatures (sims) to the area if you want to make things more challenging.  There's a main Battle mode and also a Race mode that i haven't tried too much yet.  In the race mode you seem to run around and rescue  little creatures that follow you around.  you can also steal followers from your opponent.  whoever has the most followers when the time runs out wins.
each player's view is set in a little window and the frame takes up a fair amount of space.  so if you have more than 2 players or computer opponents your view gets pretty small.
overall, it's a good game for it's time.  my friends aren't into retro gaming and i can never get them to play anything but Perfect Dark when they come over.  but if you have a group that digs Bomberman and Dungeon Explore, you'll probably get some multiplayer action out of Faceball.
I've never played the SNES version.

as far as other FPS games go, i still haven't tried Silent Debuggers.  is it real scrolling or is it blocky like Double Dungeons?

also, i saw a picture of It Came From The Desert with a FPS scene of a hand holding a gun and shooting at some bug.  what is that like?

[esteban]

dude, thanks for the scoop on Faceball. I've seen this game often and I've never been courageous (or foolhardy) to actually spend the $$$. It sounds much, much better than I anticipated.

The "Race" mode sounds pretty neat, actually.

As for Silent Debuggers -- navigating the corridors is the same as Double Dungeons... but when you encounter an enemy, it's like Cabal (cross-hairs on screen, target enemy, press to shoot). Unlike Cabal, however, you only fight one (2-3 at most) enemies simultaneously. They can surround you and outflank you, so you have to push right / left to rotate in 90 degree increments to turn around and get all of them.  

I like Silent Debuggers, but I can see most folks being bored by it (jaded by more sophisticated games). I'm a sucker for the Aliens-esque scenario (exploring a huge complex, obtaining new equipment and access cards, etc.).

It's a dungeon-crawler in a high-tech setting.

The mood and atmosphere of the game is nice -- but it works best in a darkened room and without other distractions.

I really wish that there were a greater variety of enemies, and that these enemies required different tactics to kill (i.e. enemies with shields / dodge / parry, enemies that double-team you, environmental interaction / puzzles, etc.).

I also wish that the enemy confrontations had been expanded upon: they could have (should have) offered some "shooting gallery" scenes (akin to Cabal)... and defintitely some clever BOSSES are needed.

I've talked this game up... but don't get your hopes too high . Seriously.

If this game had been tweaked further, it could have been TG-16's Metroid Prime. OK, not that great...

---------------------------
Keranu can probably help you with ICFTD. He turned me around and helped me appreciate it, since I used to slag it. He's right, this is a neat game, despite all of its flaws and shortcomings. Or maybe it's just the desire to see all the FMV clips!

The hand - holding - gun .... that was definitely in the Amiga version, but I've never seen it in the TG-CD version (just keep in mind that I haven't gotten too far in this game).

There is a kool scene, similar to the one you're curious about (sans hand+gun), in which a huge ant breaks through the ground and gets up in your face... but I died(?) Something like that. Pretty kool, though.

[vestcoat]

dude, thanks for the scoop on Faceball. I've seen this game often and I've never been courageous (or foolhardy) to actually spend the $$$. It sounds much, much better than I anticipated.

well, i'd say it's better than i expected, but not "much, much better."
the main thing that kills it is the sluggish gameplay, the lack of power-ups and the fact that there isn't a "scenario mode" or good one-player setting.  it gets boring fighting endless battle modes against computer opponents.  i think a 4-player game would be okay if you have something bigger than my 19" TV.

[esteban]

dude, thanks for the scoop on Faceball. I've seen this game often and I've never been courageous (or foolhardy) to actually spend the $$$. It sounds much, much better than I anticipated.

well, i'd say it's better than i expected, but not "much, much better."
the main thing that kills it is the sluggish gameplay, the lack of power-ups and the fact that there isn't a "scenario mode" or good one-player setting.  it gets boring fighting endless battle modes against computer opponents.  i think a 4-player game would be okay if you have something bigger than my 19" TV.

my expectations for this game were SOOOOOOO LOW that it really is much, much better than I anticipated

Seriously, this was one of the few games I put in my "absolutely will never buy, even if it is a $3" category. Now, however, I might consider picking it up for $3!

[Keranu]

Man, thanks for the review! I never see ANY reviews for the PCE version! I have played some Flash version online before on Shockwave.com back in the day and had a fun time, so the PCE version interested me even though I haven't played it. The four player option you mentioned sounds really interesting and I would love to see that part alone!

By the way, I'm not sure how you thought Double Dungeons was "blocky"... I thought it scrolled very smoothly myself. A game like Lady Sword is more blocky looking since it doesn't exactly scroll as Double Dungeons or Outlive (which I should mention is a pretty cool futuristic first person RPG as well), though the graphics itself are quite loaded with color and detail. On another note for people have played Outlive, but doesn't the song when you first start a game sound very familar? It's the part where it has shows text in Japanese on a white screen... sounds a lot like Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom for NES.

And yes as Steve has said, I love It Came From the Desert for TGCD, it really is underrated! Though I'm not sure what it has to do with first person shooters, it's a great game if you can handle cheesiness (which I can and love). The story is fun because it's based like an old 50's Sci-Fi thriller and it's untold with FMV, so it actually is like a 50's Sci-Fi film in a way. You might think the gameplay only contains choice selections like most digital comics, but it doesn't. It offers three different types of gameplay that I can think of: a platform style one where you can use all sorts of different types of weapons to fight off creepy giant ants in spooky caves, an overhead view perspective one that has the same concept as the platform one, and a cool shooting one where you see a victim that's laying on the ground with ants EATING the victim's skin off and you must shoot so many ants off or else the person dies! So you get quite a bit of variety in terms of gameplay AND a movie; what a deal!

This game is honestly pretty scary, and it's a main reason why I love it because I haven't seen a video game like it because honestly, it even scared me at times with this terrifying queen ant face devilishly speaking to you with a LSD background or when it comes to the time where you have to shoot ants off of a person's body because the ants really do eat the skin off the people and you can actually see some really gruesome blood and bones while the person screams really loud with amazing terror! It's the scariest and most gruesome game I have ever played actually!

I can't guarentee that you or anyone else will like it even if my little review here intrigued you into playing it because some people might not be able to get over the fact it has full-sized FMV (and we know this looks just sexy on an older console) placed on real or drawn still backgrounds and the gameplay isn't exactly strong, even though it offers a little variety.

[vestcoat]

By the way, I'm not sure how you thought Double Dungeons was "blocky"... I thought it scrolled very smoothly myself. A game like Lady Sword is more blocky looking since it doesn't exactly scroll as Double Dungeons or Outlive (which I should mention is a pretty cool futuristic first person RPG as well), though the graphics itself are quite loaded with color and detail. On another note for people have played Outlive, but doesn't the song when you first start a game sound very familar? It's the part where it has shows text in Japanese on a white screen... sounds a lot like Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom for NES.

And yes as Steve has said, I love It Came From the Desert for TGCD, it really is underrated! Though I'm not sure what it has to do with first person shooters,

by "blocky" i meant that your movement is confined to a grid....you can count your steps down a hallway, for example.  Don't get me wrong, Double Dungeons handles the movement very smoothly and almost creates the illusion of a real 3D environment.  much better than the dungeons in the old Ultima games and Phantasy Star for the SMS or first-person RPGS like Dungeon Magic, Might and Magic 3.

I am now wracking my mind to remember where i saw that picture of ICFTD.  it was a picture of what looked like your hand holding the pistol in Doom at the bottom of the screen in a desert setting with some gaint ant or locust crawling around that you had to shoot.  it totally looked like a FPS!
oh well...

[esteban]

I am now wracking my mind to remember where i saw that picture of ICFTD.  it was a picture of what looked like your hand holding the pistol in Doom at the bottom of the screen in a desert setting with some gaint ant or locust crawling around that you had to shoot.  it totally looked like a FPS!
oh well...

Dude! You're not crazy! All the early TG-16 flyers must have used screenshots from the Amiga version of the game -- and yes, you see a hand holding a huge gun, from a first-person POV, and maybe a giant ant in the distance (like 40 yards if it were real life?) ...

I'll find something for you...

EDIT:

http://www.cinemaware.com/clsgame_itcame.asp?sel=screen


this one was used in the TG-16 brochures:
http://www.cinemaware.com/images/screenshot_itcame_5.gif

but I think they also used a image that swapped out the mineshaft environment and swapped in a desert scene -- but the ant was the same.

[GUTS]

I'd have to disagree, Phantasy Star on the master system has by far the smoothest scrolling dungeon out of any pre-3D games.  Go back and compare it through emulation, the way the lines are drawn flow so smoothly together that there's no jerkiness whatsoever.  It was the first 3D dungeon game I played when I was young and up until Ultima Underworld I was always WAY disappointed by every 3D dungeon game's scrolling since none could match Phantasy Star.

[vestcoat]

I'd have to disagree, Phantasy Star on the master system has by far the smoothest scrolling dungeon out of any pre-3D games.  Go back and compare it through emulation, the way the lines are drawn flow so smoothly together that there's no jerkiness whatsoever.  It was the first 3D dungeon game I played when I was young and up until Ultima Underworld I was always WAY disappointed by every 3D dungeon game's scrolling since none could match Phantasy Star.

OK, that was bold claim about PS.  so i just sat down with PS in my SMSll and Double Dungeons in my turbo duo and toggled the input switch on my TV while playing both dungeons.
I declare them...EQUALLY SMOOTH!    
PS seems a little bit smoother because you putz along and walk so slow.
DD only seems jerky if you tap the pad and take one step at a time.  if you hold it down DD lets you zip around the dungeon and it seems very smooth indeed.
In both games if something like a door is to your side and you turn toward it, it doesn't appear until you've finished turning and "snap" into place.

Anyway, it's a sad day when first person RPGs are the closest games your system has to first person shooters.

edit:  thanks for the pics Steve!  not the one i saw, but the hand looks right

[td741]

also, i saw a picture of It Came From The Desert with a FPS scene of a hand holding a gun and shooting at some bug.  what is that like?

Never saw that in the Turbo version.  I did see it in the Amiga and PC versions.  It's not an FPS in the sense of doom, etc.  If I remember corectly you control the hand that's holding the gun and you aim to shoot the ants antennae off.  Many cinemaware games had similar levels.  Umm, I think "Defender of the Crown" had the catapult, and "Sinbad" had a stage where you had to poke a cyclops eye (don't remember if it was a sling-shot or bow and arrow.)

[esteban]

also, i saw a picture of It Came From The Desert with a FPS scene of a hand holding a gun and shooting at some bug.  what is that like?

Never saw that in the Turbo version.  I did see it in the Amiga and PC versions.  It's not an FPS in the sense of doom, etc.  If I remember corectly you control the hand that's holding the gun and you aim to shoot the ants antennae off.  Many cinemaware games had similar levels.  Umm, I think "Defender of the Crown" had the catapult, and "Sinbad" had a stage where you had to poke a cyclops eye (don't remember if it was a sling-shot or bow and arrow.)

Yup, and Lords of the Rising Sun had  sword slashing sequences -- just swap out the hand holding gun and insert a sword-wielding hand

I have to play the TG-CD version of Lords of the Rising Sun... does it have this sword slashing?

[GUTS]

Oh and Phantasy Star had some awesomely animated enemies too, that was something else I hadn't seen until years later.  I think Phantasy Star is so impressive because they managed to get all that out of the old Master System with only 4 megs, f*cking insane!

[Keranu]

Phantasy Star looked amazing for it's time.

[ParanoiaDragon]

You shoot shuriken in Rising Sun, & they used pictures of the Amiga version for the Turbo version, when the game was still being worked on.  I still wonder about Lords of the Rising Sun on CDI, has anyone played it?  I never got a CDI, but that one game tempted me.

[esteban]

You shoot shuriken in Rising Sun, & they used pictures of the Amiga version for the Turbo version, when the game was still being worked on.  I still wonder about Lords of the Rising Sun on CDI, has anyone played it?  I never got a CDI, but that one game tempted me.

OK, so in the TG-CD LotRS, you shoot shuriken? Like in Shinobi?

I haven't picked up a CDi yet, but I've wanted to play the infamous Zelda games... I don't know much about the catalog CDi games. I didn't even know LotRS was on CDi!

One of these years...