GAME EIGHT: SHOOTING GALLERY (1987)

INFORMATION:
Publisher/Developer:  Sega
Format: Cartridge
Game Size: 128K
Rarity:  3
Game Type: First Person Light Gun Moving Target
Region: USA
Other Ways to Play: Good question...
Power Base Convertor Playable?: Yes if you have the Phaser.

PERSONAL DATA:
Price I Paid: 9.90
Price I Would Pay: 5 Dollars
Condition: Game, Case, Manual
Game Rating: OK
My History:  Bought for this collection project.


 Well here we go, finishing out this month with another not terrible but not really content laden light gun title.  In Shooting Gallery you have 4 primary shooting screen types with varying targets and waves that require you to shoot X number of said targets to move on.  Like Safari Hunt, REPEAT UNTIL BORED.  Except at least in this game's case you have a lot of different styles of targets and patterns they move in, and missed shots leave a lovely hole in the scenery, like you are shooting some big tarp with moving objects in front of it.

  Accurate hits allow you to fire your next shot faster and missed ones require a second or two before you can shoot again.  With four stages (ducks, balloons/blimps, balls through pipes, and spaceships) you have to play each differently.  Apparently there are also secret targets you can reach but I am not honestly interested enough to try to find them.  (See one of my captions below.  Maybe with a 25" screen I can be more accurate and move further on than trying to play on a wee 13" monitor.  I would hate to try to play PS1 Guncon games on this thing!)

Game Contents

Next four pictures are from the Master System through a Commodore 1084 composite monitor.  Except my Pause button isn't working well so shots are in motion.

 Like Duck Hunt without the annoying dog.  Kind of.

 Shooting Luft Balloons.  (Listen while playing:  http://youtu.be/P-NYwWqpG70 )

Shoot the ships when they don't have their shields up.

Next three shots are from a Genesis with Power Base Convertor going through the same CRT as above.

 No improved Genesis output clarity does not make Detective Title Screen Guy look any less stupid.

 Red Balloons and rocket powered yellow blimps.  Huh.

My absolute least favorite of the four stage types.  The ball pipe level.  The damn level with two different layouts (of pipes) is my least favorite.

Next three shots are from the Kega Fusion emulator.

 DO YOU WANT A BALLOON GEORGIE?  THEY ALL FLOAT DOWN HERE.

THEY.

ALL.

FALOOAT.

 A shame trying to play this game with a mouse sucks so bad.  The sprites do look so much nicer in full quality.  A reason to get a big PVM CRT?  Maybe?  Or at least drag a 25" console S Video TV set up a flight of stairs and find space for/hope the thing still works at least.  Get my Zillion Phaser on eh?

Need to be accurate and get a lot of dakka to proceed and make the big scores!

Master System Play:  Outside of the usual SMS color bleed it is just as fine as on the Genesis.

Rating:  Sigh.  Just like Safari Hunt its just.. OK.  It doesn't have much to it, but it doesn't really do anything WRONG either.  Accuracy seems good enough given the screen I am playing on, the music and graphics are decent enough.  It just isn't a ton of game.  In fact I have seen versions of this game packed with other SMS light gun games on one cartridge because it is just such a sparse thing.  You could probably combine most of Sega's SMS gun games onto one cartridge and get a Good.  The problem is there just isn't enough per cartridge in these releases.  It is another title mostly for completists or to get as part of a lot.

Next Time:  I will continue to be a slacker covering games I don't have to spend a lot of time playing.  Except given the arcade versions being put on the 3DS with nifty 3d effects it seems like a good a time as any to have a SCALER CONVERSION MONTH.  Join me in February for After Burner and Thunder Blade!

GAME SEVEN: SAFARI HUNT (1986)

INFORMATION:
Publisher/Developer:  Sega
Format: Cartridge
Game Size: 128K (2 games)
Rarity:  2
Game Type: First Person Light Gun Moving Target
Region: USA
Other Ways to Play: Good question...
Power Base Convertor Playable?: Yes if you have the Phaser.

PERSONAL DATA:
Price I Paid: Don't remember.  Came with my Master System I got second hand.  In like 1991 or so.
Price I Would Pay: 5 Dollars
Condition: Game, Case, Manual
Game Rating: OK (Counting both games on the cart.)
My History:  It is one half of the original Master System pack in.  DUH!  Played it a bit but.. yeah.


  Ahh the other half of the main Master System pack in.  A three screen bog standard light gun shooter.  Hooray?  No, not really.  Yet it has a little bit more content than the NES' Duck Hunt though less variety if that makes any sense.

  See me after the pictures below.

Game contents

Next set of images are from Kega Fusion Emulator

1986 Sega needs some sensitivity training.

The round score info.

Fishie tells us the score we got for him.  A duckie is flying, another one I shot so it is cartoonishly dead.

Bears and birds and armadillos.  Not sure where bears hang out with tropical birds and said dillos of arma-ing.

I shocked the monkey but the panther and the bat are still around.

(Next two shots are from a Genesis with Power Base Convertor.)

 Sometimes you can even hit things with the tree fruit.  Sometimes.

Already qualified.  But out of ammo.  

 Stage 2 SMS in motion.

Stage 1 SMS in motion.

  In this game you are tasked with shooting a number of cartoonish critters worth various points with limited amounts of ammo under an invisible time limit to prevent players from only waiting until the random spawns turn out the ones that are worth the most.  If you hit the ever increasing score requirement you move on.  Miss the par and game over.  Three screens with different creatures in different sorts of places to get your Ted (I only like shooting things that can't shoot back.) Nugent on in.

  That's pretty much it.  Score gets harder to hit even if you got a big buffer from earlier rounds (your score carries over so you can sometimes have an edge if you have a bad round or your cat gets in the way..) and eventually the faster and faster moving animals will ensure you have a game over before you get entirely bored with it all.  So about 20 minutes one way or the other.

  Yet...  I cannot hate it.  Let me explain a little.

  See, the game is kind of cute.  Instead of animals going into screams or buckets of blood they do cartoony things.  Bandages.  A hurt look and holding up a score sign.  Turning into a cooked bird.  Losing their fur.  It's amusing!  The sounds let you know if you hit or miss as some animals require multiple shots to take out and the cartoony style isn't going to show bullet wounds.  This also provides some strategy as towards the end of a stage you have to decide if it is even worth the risk or do you use your last bullets on one shot targets or go for the big guys and hope you don't hit the trees they are running behind.

Master System Play: Basically plays and looks about the same as it does on the Genesis.  The Phaser works fine on both.

Rating: Well there just isn't much to the game!  3 stages with no real variation other than getting harder and harder.  It is merely OK.   It seems to control ok and everything but it doesn't have what you need to play it for more than 10-15 minutes every now and then.  But alongside Hang On it is honestly an OK title.

Next Time:  Light Gun Month continues with another barely there game:  Shooting Gallery!  Is there a reason a couple of these games got combined into one single cartridge in some regions?  Hmmm.  On the upside it gives me a game I can quickly play and review in two weeks.  I have more Borderlands 2 to play!

GAME SIX: HANG ON (1985)

INFORMATION:
Publisher/Developer:  Sega
Format: Cartridge
Game Size: 128K (2 games)
Rarity:  2
Game Type: Third Person Behind Vehicle Racing
Region: USA
Other Ways to Play: Wii Virtual Console (SMS) (Tons of microcomputer ports of the actual arcade game.  Arcade original as a bonus in Dreamcast Shenmue.)
Power Base Convertor Playable?: Yes, 6 Button Pad Capable.

PERSONAL DATA:
Price I Paid: Don't remember.  Came with my Master System I got second hand.  In like 1991 or so.
Price I Would Pay: 5 Dollars
Condition: Game, Case, Manual
Game Rating: OK
My History:  It is one half of the original Master System pack in.  DUH!  Played it a bit but.. yeah.

NOTE: Due to the holidays and Picasa currently being a right wanker the full review and pictures may not be up or at least won't be properly formatted until next week as most of the editing was done on my Ipad with the Blogger app. I mean my upload speeds seem to be completely borked.  Which means we might have a double week review to catch up.

  Ahh Hang On.  The pack in title with the original US Master System.  A port of the arcade title which was one of Sega's big scaling title gimmick games.  Many of these had amazing near amusement park type cabinets that your control in the game was felt physically.  Of course like many arcade titles of the mid 80s onwards they were high on technical prowess and gimmicks but very low gameplay when divorced from an expensive arcade cabinet.

  And Hang On is no different.  In our home version they do add a simple 3 speed transmission to add a tiny bit of gameplay to your standard checkpoint racer.

  This is the problem with this game.  It's an ok looking checkpoint arcade racer.  You have a course to race and idiot AI opponents who kill you if you touch them.  Finish the course and keep playing it until you get bored out of your mind, probably within a half hour.

(First four pictures are from Kega Fusion emulator.)

 Game select screen.  I ah.. think they need some sensitivity training...

 Hang On title screen.  Not remotely as fancy as the arcade.

 A little skidding at top gear.

Oh happy day!  We hit a checkpoint!

Images above and below from Arcade Hang On in the Dreamcast Shenmue title.  (32" HDTV in normal box aspect ratio using a SVideo cable.)

So... play SMS launch Hang On or get Shenmue with two direct arcade titles on it, plus tons of minigames, and that actual Shenmue game thingie?

Images from Sega Genesis

 Hanging on.. GET IT HANG ON?

Not the most impressive of crash systems and animations.

Image from Master System

Not exactly Super Mario Brothers is it?

Game Contents
(Once I figure my upload problems out.)

Master System Play:  The game plays fine on both the SMS and Genesis, and controlled solid with every controller I tried.  Obviously the SMS has more of the usual color bleed.

Rating:  The game gets an OK from me.  It isn't awful it's just not a lot of game.  As a pack in game it is basically a joke, especially when compared to the NES and Super Mario Brothers.  Because it shares half a small cartridge with another game it suffers.  There isn't enough tracks or scenery or things to do other than an endurance test to see how far you can go doing the exact same thing on the exact same course. Even Pole Position on my Atari 800 has more content and gameplay modes using the same basic checkpoint arcade racer home port scheme.  And the Atari 7800 had the follow up as a pack in!

Next Time:  Urg.  I don't know if it's my PC, Picasa, my router, or my ISP but uploading images was glacially slow for this review.  But because it's still holiday Hell and I need to catch up next month is Light Gun Month!  Since I covered Hang On why don't I just finish this cart off with Safari Hunt?  That shouldn't be too hard right?