Reviews - Captain Quazar and Battlesport

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Vance
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Reviews - Captain Quazar and Battlesport

Post by Vance » Thu May 29, 2008 2:00 am

(NOTE: I'm ripping these from a post I made on forums I frequent, in a thread where I'm reviewing the games less heard of. Original thread is here: http://boards.pyoko.org/index.php/topic,5929.0.html )

A couple of 3DO gems today. Note that 3DO "gems" means "it won't try to kill you in your sleep via shame at having played the game"

But just barely, in some cases.

First up, Captain Quazar. Let's watch an informative video.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NqOaRtDMc2E (Can we get that Youtube button back, please? I can never remember the size part of the BBC code)

Captain Quazar played like a single-player Gauntlet, though I guess the SNES/GEnesis era "Strike" games would be a bit more accurate. You go around huge maps blowing up structures, getting power-ups, and murdering hordes of evil Keebler Elves in an attempt to save the galaxy. It's never really clear how demolishing everything in sight is accomplishing this, but hey, explosions.

It's fun, but not orgasmic fun. A few things keep it from going to that level, like the camera being too close in to the action (surprisingly this is a common problem, obviously we want to see detail but we'd also like to see the AI enemies before they're capable of lining up like GLAAD's firing squad and shooting the crap out of us. Return Fire did a great job of fixing this, more games should have followed suit.) The game is hard, with a steep learning curve, but it is beatable. Finally, the controls are a bit loose, but not as much as you'd expect from 3DO.

But hey, it's pretty funny. Too bad getting it to work these days would probably be like trying to drag a city bus with your groin.


BATTLESPORT FUCK YEAH.

You dorks have played Battle Tanx, no doubt. Here's where it came from. And ingenious little game that combined basketball, football, and mankind's desire to shove missiles up each others' asses by force. This game defies all logic of 3DO programming by being good. At least, the 3DO version was. The PS1 port lost a bit in translation, and I never played the PC or Saturn versions.

Here's the idea; It's one-on-one, you're both in fast-moving hovertanks, there's a ball shooting willy-nilly all over the arena, you have to get it and shoot it into the one goal. There are two three-minute halves to the game. You can try to block the goal and intercept the ball when your opponent fires, or you can cause a fumble by pelting them with missiles. And of course, you can blow each other up the entire time. Victims are out of the game for two or three seconds, with increasing time penalties the more you get blown up.

Arenas are small, but are incredibly varied. Columns, ramps, and elevations can stymie your shot at the goal. The goal itself will eventually be raised above the ground, necessitating a jump to shoot into it. Then it will become one-sided. Then it will move around the arena. Then it will spin. You'll need to stay on top of and improve your game to keep up. It's fun, and it's quite frantic and occasionally maddening. I haven't played many multiplayer games since then that result in both players standing on their tippity-toes and squealing as they attempt to outdo each other in the seconds leading up to the final horn. Speaking of which, obviously multiplayer is the way to go here, but the computer AI is actually pretty nifty. Starts off cradling you a bit and works its way up to giving you a royal pounding, but the difficulty curve is nice and smooth.

A next gen, four-player Battlesport was supposed to arrive on the N64, but the team changed it to Battle Tanx. Decent enough game, but my heart will always be with its ancestor. If there is a god, somebody will eventually crack the code and create Battlesport League, a game that would give me a six foot erection. Teams, team play, huge arenas, madness times eight. Thousand.

I love this game. Can you tell?

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Post by 3DOKid » Sat May 31, 2008 8:47 pm

I liked this game too. Massively under rated. I know it has no bearing on the games playability but the pre-rendered intro is also awesome.

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Re: Reviews - Captain Quazar and Battlesport

Post by jesus 666 » Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:38 pm

Vance wrote:Captain Quazar played like a single-player Gauntlet
Captain Quazar is 2-player
Juffo-Wup is the hot light in the darkness

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