This popped up in my feed today and I had totally forgotten about it! Looks like it’s going to be a great documentary, and given my love of horror games I thought I’d better post the news of it’s release here too!
This popped up in my feed today and I had totally forgotten about it! Looks like it’s going to be a great documentary, and given my love of horror games I thought I’d better post the news of it’s release here too!
Weird Dreams (Amiga, Atari ST, C64, PC) :
Properly freaky stuff! This game came with a rather large back story told in a 64 page novella which came with it ...to cut it short, you fancy this girl who turns out to be possessed by a demon who is a bit fed up and trapped in her body, only you don't know that and the aforementioned demonic chappy decides to faff about with your mind for some giggles. You start having crazy dreams after it gives you some pills to help "cure" you , and eventually end up in hospital where you start having another, and possibly your last, weird dream!
You have to try to work through various puzzles and defeat the various nasties which are living in your head thanks to that old demonic numpty inhabiting you lady friend...but this is a very tricky game, or at least I found it to be...
It is filled with freaky graphics and bizarre gameplay, and definitely deserves a go or two, but I just kept getting killed and watched a video of someone else playing it on Youtube instead...so here's the video, which obviously contains spoilers, so if you do fancy giving the game a bash without knowing anything, don't watch it!
Another way in which you might have come across this game back in the day, was if you ever watched British Saturday Morning TV, as a modified version of the game was used on ITV's MotorMouth program as part of their quiz game for kids...as can be seen in the video below!
But yeah, the final verdict is that it's just too damn tricky with not a lot to see, and you're better off watching someone else play it instead!
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Escape From Monster Manor (Panasonic 3DO) :
When I got my Xbox Series S a couple of Christmasses ago, I had no idea that it would open the floodgates to thousands of games that I had been waiting to play for ages...but a few months after buying it I happened upon a video that told me about the Xbox's Dev Mode, and the emulation possiblities that it offered. One purchase of a portable HDD and much transferring of game files later, and I was finally able to emulate lots of machines that were beforehand unavailable to me....including the Panasonic 3DO!
I had experienced the wonders of the 3DO many years before when visiting a friend of a friend, and for years I wanted to play Need for Speed, Road Rash and whathever the hell that Golf game was that I had played on it....but then I discovered a few horror title gems that had also been hidden away on it. Including this one!
Escape from Monster Manor is a first-person shooter / adventure, that sees you enter the aforementioned mansion trying to find pieces of an ancient talisman that the owner of the manor had brought back to its halls in order to try and harness the great power within.
Unfortunately, he kicked the bucket and his descendants scarpered after discovering that lots of evil nasties had filled the manor, looking to find the pieces of the talisman and use it for their own nefarious deeds!
And so now it's up to us to try and piece the talisman back together before the bad guys can get to it. Armed with some sort of weird electro-doohicky zapper gun, we enter the manor and try to navigate its many corridors and corners, making sure to stay topped up with ammo, health, keys and some random coins and gems that can add to your points or give you extra lives.
Playing the game nowadays, it definitely lacks a bit of sparkle. The manor itself is a bit sparse, with no roof or floor textures and only random pieces of furniture sprinkled around every now and then to give a very poor impression of it being a house. The ghosts and ghouls all have a decidely 2D sprite feel to them, but somehow this does add to their spookyness! But the game has definitely taken inspiration from Wolfenstein 3D, which I guess is no bad thing.
Despite it looking a bit bare, the sound of the game really helps with the atmosphere. Unearthly voices, groans and screams fill the air, and spooky tunes play throughout. Random ghosts will pop up in front of your face every now and then too, which also adds to the feel of things.
And so in the end, traipsing through the manor is actually a lot of fun, and that early nineties experience you can only get from early CD titles seems to work in it's favour for adding that extra spark of spooky goodness. Go play it and discover it for yourselves!
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King of the Monsters (Arcade, Neo Geo, SNES, Megadrive/Genesis) :
There's always room for some Kaiju-battling, and this fighting game from SNK gives you plenty of apartment-block sized baddies to bash! Originally released in the arcades in 1991, there's not really a whole lot to say about the gameplay of this title...it's exactly what you would expect! You fight either the computer or another player after choosing your character from the selection available, and battle it out until the other one's energy has dropped enough for you to finish them off!
I guess the way you have to pin them for three seconds, wrestling style, is a bit different from the usual Streetfighter-style of ending a match...and being able to pick up planes, cars, etc. that are passing by and fling them at your enemies is a little different, at least from most other beat-em-ups, but it's all pretty much par for the course with regards to other Kaiju battlers!
The arcade version is definitely the one with the most stuff to look at and interact with, and has an excitable guy who pipes up every now and again at the start of a match to shout about the giant beasties, but I found the Megadrive/Genesis game to be a bit speedier and slightly more fun as a brawler.
The Super NES version is probably the worst of the bunch, as it seems slower and clunkier. It's still okay, but you'd definitely be better off with one of the other versions if you're able to choose.
The Final verdict then, is that King of the Monsters is fine. But it's just fine. It's nothing special, but there's just enough fun involved for it to be worth a go if you fancy some beat-em-up action. Oh, and yes, when I was recording the video, I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to press to pin my opponent, but worked it out eventually! Hehe....
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