Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/19/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCE

Genre(s): Open-World, Beat 'em Up

Platforms: PS4, PS5

Release Date: November 12, 2020

“Another character named Miles Morales is also playable in sections that mirror MJ’s, but I’ll discuss him at a later date…”

And with the release of the spinoff from Sony’s acclaimed Spider-Man vehicle, it’s now time to delve into the significance of one of the initial game’s playable supporting characters. His tangential role in Marvel’s Spider-Man barely served any impactful purpose to Peter’s story of young adulthood, even if his chronic bouts of interactivity throughout the game connoted that he was placed higher on the pedestal of prominence than his screen presence would suggest. To understand why this lad ate up a significant portion of the first game’s screen time despite how trivial his position was, one must be aware of the worldly context that exists outside of the realm of any Spider-Man material he’s appeared in.

For the past decade or so, the greater media landscape has been acutely conscious of inclusivity, increasing the representation of racial and LGBT+ minorities and portraying them as positive, upstanding citizens. The whole process is to make amends for over a century of minstrel shows, tokenism, one-note comical stereotypes, or completely omitting minorities altogether. Given that Marvel was the brand that dominated the entertainment zeitgeist during the era when this cultural revolution was occurring, it’s natural that the comic conglomerate would shuffle their properties to accommodate the neglected demographics. It’s admirable to see the once-obscure Black Panther rocket to the echelons of Marvel’s most reputable franchises thanks to this social trend. On the other hand, however, altering the ethnic and sexual propensities of an established character is always a disrespectful and cheap method of appeasement. Considering that Marvel’s webslinger is their golden boy, he’s the least immune to executives adulterating his identity and capitalizing on the modern audience’s keen interest in diversity. However, one clever comic writer devised a loophole that kept the legacy of Spider-Man intact by proposing the idea that the man behind the mask and his superhero persona were interchangeable. Peter Parker is and could never be black, but he doesn’t necessarily have to be the sole bearer of the Spider-Man moniker. Oscorp evidently has a colony of mutated spiders still skittering around their laboratories, so there could potentially be dozens of Spider-Men swinging around NYC. For the sake of inclusion, an Afro-Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn named Miles Morales was “blessed” with the spider’s bite and transformed into a hero for the deferred masses to latch onto. Insomniac evidently had the idea of propping up Miles into a solo adventure when they detailed his transformation in the background of the first game, and the fact that Into the Spider-Verse became the most acclaimed piece of Spider-Man media since the game’s release was pure serendipity. Still, despite the popularity and prevalence of Miles, Insomniac’s game with him at the helm connotes that he’s ultimately still secondary to Peter.

In many ways, Miles Morales rekindles the familiar Spider-Man dynamic that was lost when Peter became old enough to legally drink alcohol and grow a full beard. A year has passed since the turbulent events of the previous Spider-Man game, and Miles is still the dorky, excitable, and naive high schooler that Peter was when he initially donned his creepy-crawly superhero persona. The game is set during his Christmas break, with snow and festive wreaths as prominent foreground elements to signify the scene, so his game won’t have to become a daily back and forth between school and saving the world like it’s American Persona. Still, there is the classic element of hiding his alter ego from a looming parental guardian who expresses concern about his whereabouts. In this case, Miles lies to poor Rio (his mom) that he’s simply taking a detour to the convenience store to fetch some groceries when he’s actually on the town with Peter, attempting to halt Rhino’s rampage through the mall. Their efforts to subdue the roided-out Ruskie are successful, but Miles is worried about the results of future crime-fighting endeavors because Peter is embarking on a trip to Symkaria with MJ. Up until now, Miles has been under Peter’s guidance, but I suppose the most effective way to teach a baby bird to fly is to push it out of the nest. Peter fully trusts that Miles will fill the role of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man splendidly, flying solo until his return. It’s not as if Peter was given the privilege of tutelage or assistance when he was coming up, even though this fact is suspicious considering the Avengers Tower is located in the same borough (but I digress).

Peter’s confidence in his protege is proven by his aptitude in emulating his superhero persona. All of Peter’s superhuman abilities transfer to Miles smoothly, with combat offense executed by speedy fisticuffs and defense coordinated by the white flash of spider senses equally as sharp as the OG’s. The game is still a sequel after all, and returning players would’ve felt cheated playing as a Spider-Man with handicapped abilities, even for the sake of the narrative. Still, Miles' skill as Spider-Man somewhat bothers me in the instances where it incidentally surpasses that of Peter’s. At what seems like random occurrences throughout the story, Miles will gain a superhuman ability that is a new advancement in Spider-Man’s history, despite his inexperience compared to Peter. First, a concentrated punch from Miles will literally become electrifying. This augmented attack, plus a bevy of other skills involving this glowing offensive addition, is dubbed the “venom moves,” equating the additional sting these maneuvers inflict on enemies to the paralyzing poison of a spider bite. The chance to commence these super effective attacks on enemies coincides with a meter that fills when Miles executes any regular combat maneuver similar to that of a finishing move, and you better believe that I took every opportunity to smite an enemy with this pulsating perk to Miles’ regular attacks. The ability to harness electricity also obliges Miles to fix any electrical issues found throughout the city’s grid. Soon after, Miles will discover that he can render himself invisible for a brief period, an instance which the game dubs as his “camouflage.” Naturally, the ability to shroud oneself from the onlookings of the naked eye makes Miles more proficient in stealth than Peter, dropping unsuspecting enemies with less discretion needed and easily course correcting any compromises to his silent position when he’s spotted. I understand that the developers needed to implement new combat features to entice returning players like any sequel should, but this might be the first instance where I’m calling ludonarrative dissonance into play without a trace of irony. If the developers are suggesting that Miles is innately a more proficient Spider-Man than Peter with these abilities as evidence to this claim, then I laugh at their pitiful attempts to placate a certain percentage of their audience. Even when I notice that the web slinging is smoother and more responsive than before, I can’t help but be deterred because of what it might imply.

The place where the player can attest to Miles’ suspiciously superior web slinging is on the bustling streets of Manhattan, the same borough where the first game was set. Miles states that they’ve moved to Harlem from Brooklyn to leave behind the traces of his deceased father as a coping mechanism. Really, the reality of the situation is that the developers wanted to make his home base the borough that has already been painstakingly rendered. It’s not as if digitalizing Brooklyn would be an unprecedented feat in gaming–it’s that Insomniac felt that Miles’ game didn’t warrant taking the time to flesh out another area of NYC. Not even the white precipitation of winter can disguise the fact that Miles is zipping around the same replica of Manhattan where Peter once patrolled. All the same, the various activities scattered around the borough will distract the player from letting the numbness of repetition sink in. Peter may have temporarily passed his mantle onto Miles by leaving him on his lonesome, but the training courses that mirror the Taskmaster challenges suggest that he could still afford to touch up on his Spider-Man skills. Miles might perfect the art of stealth, combat, and web slinging, but he’ll never seem to match the acerbic wit of Peter’s patented zingers. Collectibles are again strewn across the borough to occupy the player outside of the main missions. Miles’ time capsules (that, granted, are only from about three years prior) are a rehash of collecting the contents in Peter’s various backpacks, and the postcard scavenger hunt essentially involves the same process with riddles attached. Matching the audio samples of the city’s urban soundscape to recreate a long-lost mixtape that Miles’ dad and estranged uncle composed when they were young is interesting, mainly because it evokes a modest time in hip hop’s early history when this was the process of retrieving the components of the music. Bases of the two feuding gangs need to be neutralized the same as when Peter was taking down the Demon and Fisk strongholds, and domestic crime that’s still perpetrated by the fat mob bosses’ henchmen can be detected more efficiently with the “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man App.” The ability to swipe to a menu on the touch pad was devised by Ganke Lee, Miles’ friend and trusted confidant of the knowledge of his sticky alter ego. Apparently, it’s now a requisite for any and all Spider-Men to have a chubby, technically gifted Asian friend who's got their backs, if the MCU films are any indication. While I’m ultimately not seriously disappointed that Manhattan is still the stomping grounds for the alternative Spider-Man, reusing the same portion of the city does stipulate some convenient shortcuts on the part of the developers. Add the fact that much of the side content is an obvious regurgitation of what was available in the first title, and Miles’ game feels much less inspired.

Even though Ganke has been entrusted with keeping Miles’ superhero identity a secret, he barely misses the privilege of being Miles’ BEST friend. No, the person who holds that prestigious distinction is Phin Mason, a girl who shares Miles’ fascination for science, who caught him at a more impressionable time in his life. They’ve drifted apart since their glorious, time-capsule-worthy middle school days due to attending two separate high schools, but imagine how deeply their relationship atrophies when they’re on opposing sides of the ethical coin. Devout, avid fans of the Spider-Man comics might recognize Phin’s name as a reworking of the footnote Spider-Man villain, The Tinkerer. When reports tell of a menace who goes by the same name running the Underground resistance group, it should come as no surprise that Miles’ dear pal is behind the digitally automated mask commanding the operation. Phin’s goals with her ragtag group of revolutionists is to dethrone the CEO of Roxxon, the gladhand douchebag Simon Krieger, and prevent his noxious energy source of Nuform from its public release. Not only is she acting to stop the corrupt corporation’s deeds, dismantling Krieger is also an act of personal revenge, as her brother and only guardian, Rick, died horrifically attempting to halt Krieger’s insidious plans in the past.

The conflict between Phin and Miles stems from the fact that her methods are more extreme than the oath-bound morality of the way the Spider-Men operate. One can see how her willingness to bomb Roxxon’s tower in Harlem and slay Krieger’s armored security goons conflicts with the non-lethal tactics that Miles must abide by. I couldn’t stomach Phin as a character because she’s been propped up as a marvelous person by Miles beforehand, even though it might just be the rose-tinted perception Miles has from nostalgia. Her precociousness is more eye-rollingly implausible than Miles ’, and I thought that I would be yelling at him for idiotically trying to justify her brand of terrorism that was obviously indefensible. Because he put his foot down and chastised her actions, the game still maintains its rational moral center and keeps Miles from looking like a hypocrite. Phin might not live up to all that she’s cracked up to be, but at least her motivations derive sympathy from the player. Not only was highlighting the rationale of a villain’s actions an effective part of character writing in the first Spider-Man game, but a fraction of their effectiveness as antagonists was how their positive relationships with Peter beforehand caused emotional conflict. Many of the villains in Miles Morales’ solo adventure also share the same dynamic, but the grief of having to combat people of whom he shares a profound bond to like his best friend and uncle, who is the thieving Prowler, makes for a more palpable understanding of Miles’ internal struggle than when Peter was faced with a similar situation. Between the two redemption arcs that result from both antagonists clashing with Miles, his uncle finking on Krieger was the more admirable and less overwrought form of sacrifice as opposed to Phin’s resolution to save Harlem from what she caused.

As one can plainly see, I’m a little reluctant to refer to Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales as a genuine sequel to Insomniac’s initial Spider-Man title. Repainting the properties of the previous game is a marginal way to spruce up the familiarity of what was already established. Still, no one would call a paint job an honest refurbishment. Everything from the setting to the tasks within it is the same with Miles on the job, and even the thematic plot points are too similar to those of the first game. In addition to this, they all seem downscaled from the scope and span of the first game, which is why I argue that Insomniac depicts Miles as the less important Spider-Man despite the quality-of-life enhancements he bestows in his Spider-Man abilities. Miles' game is fine, but the lack of stark innovations and the brief length make it seem like glorified DLC, if anything. As the black/Hispanic and LGBT residents of the downtrodden neighborhood of Harlem state, he’s “their” Spider-Man, and maybe I’m just too white and straight to understand his impact. With the morsel of content involving him in the spotlight, can you blame me?

Mavel's Spider-Man Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/16/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Marvel's Spider-Man

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCEI

Genre(s): Beat em' Up, Open-World

Platforms: PS4

Release Date: September 7, 2018

Spider-Man can do whatever a spider can; so by the logic of this tagline, a spider cannot capture lightning in a bottle twice as far as its video game adaptations are concerned. The loose video game tie-in with the second film in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy was another exemplary licensed game that fractured the stigma behind this notably panned type of title with a recognizable property attached. Thanks to the burgeoning open-world format that Grand Theft Auto benevolently gave the gaming world, other properties could relish in the potential of a non-linear, freeform playground and sink dozens of hours in exploring before any story progress was made. Spider-Man 2 used the open-world format to expertly hone in on what makes Marvel’s most popular superhero, and really, every other effective interactive rendering of a masked vigilante so exhilarating: the feel of controlling the iconic character fulfills every fan’s wishful expectations. The player could gracefully swing through the streets of Marvel’s canon depiction of New York City in its spacious environment without any immediate objectives impeding their merriment, and it’s truly all that any Spider-Man fan could ask for. Why is it then that every successive Spider-Man game has failed miserably in recreating the same harmonious, kinetic relationship between Spider-Man and the player (with the benefit of the doubt that they made a concerted effort in the first place)? Well, mediocrity with any of Marvel’s properties was no longer tolerated by the time that Sony positioned acclaimed developer Insomniac to craft a Spider-Man title exclusively for the PS4. While the game was unaffiliated with any recent Spider-Man film, a video game of shoddy quality would still reflect poorly on Marvel’s absolutely monolithic reign over the blockbuster film circuit and the greater scope of pop culture during the 2010s decade. With the pressure of lofty standards at play, Marvel’s Spider-Man even managed to ascend over the series of films that spurred the necessity to create the game in the first place. Not only that, but it made the previous Spider-Man benchmark of the second movie game a faint, distant memory.

Given that Marvel’s Spider-Man isn’t attached to any specific source material, the developers are given moderate liberties as to where they plant their story on the greater Spider-Man timeline. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a post-college, 23-year-old Peter Parker is the oldest incarnation we’ve seen of this character. We’ve seen Peter depicted as a bright-eyed teenager yet to graduate high school so often that the rare instances where he’s an adult who is seasoned in his superhero duties seem odd and disorienting. Don’t be alarmed, skeptical Marvel fans; this drinking-aged Spider-Man who may have developed a wrinkle or two is still as spry and energetically quippy as his usual adolescent timeframe, shooting spiderwebs as gooey and viscous as he did when he was sixteen *ahem.* Honing his extraordinary abilities that come with his mutant spider DNA is no longer at its awkward and amateur coming-of-age stage. Peter’s new problems he faces are commonplace for anyone situated smack dab in their twenties. He struggles to pay his rent punctually, and an exclamation point is added by his landlord per notice via a series of sticky notes. Mary Jane Watson is no longer the source of inspiration when he shoots the sticky white webs from his wrists– (okay, I’ll stop now…) she’s a product of a bygone romance that soured with time. Peter’s pining for her is much more forlorn now than the wistful eagerness once felt back when she was out of his league. Besides saving the good people of New York as his heroic alter ego, Peter’s main prerogative as his public persona is a paid internship at the laboratory of Otto Octavius developing cybernetic prosthetic body parts for those whose limbs have been unfortunately severed. If you recognize the name of Peter’s boss and mentor as the legal name of the arch-villain Doctor Octopus, his mild-mannered role is indicative of the extent in which the game scrambles the timeline for Spider-Man’s secondary characters as well. NYC mayor Norman Osborn has yet to find pleasure in pelting Peter with pumpkin bombs, and who knew Aunt May was dedicated to philanthropy working at the F.E.A.S.T. shelter? For some reason, multiple film adaptations of Spider-Man feel the need to portray the origin story of Spider-Man and Uncle Ben’s tragic demise revolving around it ad nauseam, and Marvel’s Spider-Man made the wise decision not to gamify it. Then again, shifting away from stringent conventions regarding a narrative is what video game adaptations do best, and getting a glimpse of Peter at a slightly advanced stage in his life is refreshing.

Despite all of the foibles of young adulthood that define Peter’s present life, he’s still obligated to find time to entrap the various criminals of NYC in his weapons-grade gossamers, halting their nefarious deeds. The introduction immediately catapults Spidey into the action of infiltrating the base of Wilson Fisk, who is also notably referred to by “Kingpin.” The opposition of the armed goons on staff for this decorated, fatcat mob boss acts as perfect tutorial fodder for the player to become acquainted with Spider-Man’s combat. In all honesty, a sizable margin of players should already be familiar with Spider-Man’s combat, for the game takes more than a generous helping of inspiration from Batman’s Arkham series in this regard. The Caped Crusader’s popular interactive trilogy is perceived as the quintessential gold standard for superhero video games, so the fact that its influence crossed over to the rival comic conglomerate to keep Spider-Man from fumbling again isn’t the least bit surprising. While I realize that pointing out the similarities sounds like I’m dishing out disparagement to Spider-Man, I’ll make a case that Batman’s signature combat style translates logically over to the red web-slinger. Unlike their peers who defeat vengeful, eldritch gods and diabolical forces of great destruction, the enemies of both Batman and Spider-Man tend to dial down the scale to domestic thuggery. Even the supervillains that verge on the supernatural spectrum still tend to use their extraordinary evilness to siphon stacks of Benjamins from their local bank vault. Both Batman and Spider-Man commonly beat down low-brow criminals, and they have a habit of working in numbers. In Spider-Man’s case, simultaneously attacking and defending in the mosh pit of gang members is far more manageable. While executing a barrage of punching and kicking, another scumbag’s cheap hit from behind is signaled by a white spark over Spidey’s head so he can dodge accordingly. This flash during combat is the tingling sensation of “spidey senses,” a canonical ability of Spider-Man’s utilized cleverly in combat. The same trigger will also activate whenever Spidey is about to be shot by a firearm. For executing Spider-Man’s swiftness properly, the player’s skill will always be rewarded by automatically spurting webs in the eyes of the would-be assailant, making them extremely susceptible to Spider-Man’s torrent of knockout jabs. If one isn’t patient enough to wait for an oncoming blow, Spider-Man can still utilize his sticky white stuff in combat at his own volition. A rapid-fire webbing will tie enemies in a full body harness, the “web impact” will ensnare an enemy with one shot and glue them to walls with its impact, the web bomb is used for crowd control, and the electric web will trap those in its crossfire in a shocking bind like a taser net. Essentially, Spidey’s assortment of webs is equivalent to Batman’s gadgets, secondary tools to compensate for range and or the overwhelming swarm of enemies. While Spider-Man lays out Arkham’s choreographed combat a little too thick, I prefer the inspired imitation here. Spider-Man is inherently more physically adroit than DC’s brooding bat, so the flexibility adds a layer of fluidity to each combat situation. Add a few quality-of-life enhancements to the combat that Insomniac surely thought could’ve been improved on from the Arkham games and the countless instances where Spider-Man has to bust up a dozen skulls at once are consistently smoother than any instance where Arkham’s droogs ambushed Batman.

I suppose Spider-Man’s proficient agility and endurance can be attributed to his regular exertion roaming around NYC protecting its loud and brash denizens. The Marvel universe seems to be contained to Stan Lee’s home city and the real-life headquarters of his comic empire, specifically the borough of Manhattan. NYC’s ritziest and most tourist-friendly borough has been rendered as a world map countless times since the parameters of the open-world genre became feasible, and Marvel’s Spiderman is yet another loyal recreation. Peter’s bachelor pad and the F.E.A.S.T. shelter are located in Chinatown, and Peter is often fashionably late to his appointments at Octavius’ modest working space on the rooftop of a building in Greenwich Village. The rectangular, arboreal space of Central Park is as whimsical as ever, and the northern district of Harlem exudes that rough charm that makes it a haven of artistry. The immersiveness of Manhattan’s interactive model here may be soiled a bit when they see the Avenger’s Tower casting a shadow even over the Empire State Building, but I see it as the salient stamp that marks this NYC as a hyper-fictionalized version that abides by the ethics of comic books (and perhaps it's also a monument to Stan Lee’s ego). Manhattan under the Marvel sun is a busy and vibrant place filled with an optimism that a reality where superheroes don’t exist doesn't have. Most importantly, how does it feel swinging through the city that never sleeps like an arachnid Tarzan? I’m happy to report that it’s absolutely splendid. Insomniac nailed the flow and precarious inertia that should come with perching oneself at the eye level of urban architecture and maintaining that height by hanging by literal threads. Casting a web isn’t automatic as it depends on the altitude, but executing it at the right moment and keeping that rhythm is an aspect of this mechanic that adds to the kinetic feel of being Spider-Man. Even if a mission was located near the remains of the World Trade Center and I was currently in Harlem, I never felt the need to mitigate the time of the trip by fast traveling via the NYC metro system. However, I suppose taking the subway would be pleasant from Peter’s perspective. Waltzing around for too long atop all the skyscrapers will trigger J. Jonah Jameson’s new radio show where Peter’s old blowhard boss channels Rush Limbaugh, scapegoating Spider-Man for every conceivable societal shortcoming from the prices of gas to receding hairlines. You never change, do you, Jonah?

The trek between the main missions will always be interrupted by something if the player beckons to their call. While the cavalcade of Spider-Man supervillains is as quirky as they are notorious, the common crime occurrences are perpetrated by either their insignificant underlings or desperate hoodlums. At what seems like every five seconds, an orange caution sign appears on the radar that signifies a crime is taking place at that exact spot. Gangs will either be robbing a jewelry store, antagonizing the cops with heavy gunfire, or simply stinking up the streets with their noxious intimidation. Kingpin’s goons befoul certain spaces with their presence to the extent where they are designated as gang strongholds, and the process of ridding the site of them is coordinated like a horde mode. All of the nonviolent additional activities to do in NYC essentially boil all of the extra content down to a collectathon. Peter must’ve taken some serious Adderall to study for his trigonometry exams in high school, for the combination of prescription speed and his superhuman abilities has resulted in over fifty different backpacks being suspended from the walls and ceilings all over Manhattan, each holding a Spider-Man-related easter egg. Only under the influence of drugs would inspire such an eccentric endeavor. Peter gets a chance to engage in his photography passion again after quitting his job at the Daily Bugle, collecting the pictures of various Manhattan landmarks he takes with his camera. Black Cat, an original character totally dissimilar from another anti-hero vixen, teases Spider-Man with a series of cat dolls that subtly signify the location of her next robbery. The enigmatic Taskmaster takes a break from toying with The Avengers to test Spidey’s heroic reflexes with several hectic tasks ranging from deactivating bombs to following drones. His impersonal communication methods combined with what he asks of Spider-Man exude an uncannily sinister aura to Jigsaw. Peter’s best friend, Harry Osbourn, will also assign jobs to him from afar, but they involve using environmental science to solve the city’s rampant air pollution instead of sick and twisted riddles and games. Peter can also practice biology and electrical engineering in his workspace, connecting the flow of circuit arrays and matching the genome material to a sample respectively. These might be the most inert activities in the game, but I was consistently engaged with each of them nevertheless. Leave it to the team who created Ratchet & Clank to conjure up some compelling minigames. While not every subsidiary activity throughout the city explicitly involves collecting, completing any of these always rewards the player with tokens. Maybe these won’t be a perfect incentive for every player to humor all of the side content the game offers, but unlocking alternate spider suits and upgrading the gadgets was enough motivation for me.

But how monotonous would Spider-Man’s daily routine be if it was the focal point of the game? Where there’s a superhero, there’s always a supervillain foil to match his extraordinary might. As far as the selection on hand, only the supervillains from Batman rival the overall breadth and infamy of the big baddies associated with Spider-Man. Since The Green Goblin is an elected official and Doctor Octopus has yet to sprout his mechanical arms, which iconic Spider-Man supervillain is the one at the helm of chaos and disorder? Surprisingly enough, the primary antagonist is someone that Insomniac dug through the catacombs of Spider-Man villains to scrounge up, an obscurity that I had to research whether or not he was an original creation from Insomniac. The impetus for highlighting a generally unknown bad guy as opposed to one of Spider-Man’s classic nemeses is to pull the wool over the player’s eyes. Unlike Otto and Norman whose screen presence evokes tense anticipation wondering when they’re going to wear their outfits and shift over to the dark side, Martin Li is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Who would ever expect the kind and altruistic spearheader of the F.E.A.S.T. homeless shelter to harbor psychotic tendencies? He’s practically the epitome of the rule of thumb that it’s always the person you’d least expect, especially in an environment where the deplorables of the world aren’t afraid to show their true colors and make a spectacle of it. I suppose his pale-faced reaction to Peter presenting him with an arcane Asian demon mask worn by the Chinese terrorist group that attempted to ransack Kingpin’s museum exhibit is clear foreshadowing. Once the Demons enact the town hall bombing that begins the second act of the narrative, Mr. Li reveals his villainous persona Mr. Negative to the public and Peter is shocked beyond belief. Under the special cooperation of police chief Yuri Watanabe, Spider-Man spends a hefty chunk of the game tracking down a biological weapon referred to as “devil’s breath,” something that could lead to disastrous consequences for the city if Li ever got his hands on it. All the while, Spider-Man simultaneously attempts to find a clear motive that would lead this admirable humanitarian to forsake the city he provides for. In my perspective, the unclear duality of the character is what makes him an interesting antagonist.

Naturally, Spider-Man’s pursuit of Mister Negative is what drives the narrative. Per usual for an open-world title, the difficulty across the main missions in Marvel’s Spider-Man fluctuates like the stock market. Some are lengthy quests involving perilous chases with The Demons that leave a square of Manhattan in dire wreckage by its resolution. Others essentially boil down to watching a series of cutscenes that automatically further the story, and I’d fervently chastise the game for letting cinematics perform the gameplay’s job if this was a more prevalent instance. Most of the time, Spider-Man will be kicking the absolute shit out of Demons as he would whenever they decide to disturb the peace on the streets, only with story context supporting the action as opposed to the case-by-case instances outside of the missions. Complaints are regularly issued about the repetitive mission content in Marvel’s Spiderman, and I have to admit that the buoyant and responsive combat overstays its welcome. However, Insomniac foresaw these grievances and added some diversity to the gameplay, but it seems like their efforts denote spite instead of accommodation.

While Mary Jane is no longer Spidey’s main squeeze, she’s still an active presence in his life regardless if their romantic bond has been severed. MJ’s life after college has landed her into a lucrative career as an investigative journalist working for Peter’s former place of employment. While the job requires her to proactively get her hands dirty and procure vital information, she thinks that she’s Nancy fucking Drew. Mary Jane is constantly on the prowl in the vicinity of criminals so dangerous that they would ideally be dealt with by the CIA in a world without superheroes. This is why Spider-Man and MJ have a coincidental rendezvous at the museum where we first meet The Demons. Putting herself in peril to take a few measly snapshots is a chronic calamity that must cause Peter’s spidey senses to flair up with the intensity of a nervous breakdown, but she’s equally just as sharp a thorn in the player’s side because every act of “journalistic bravery” is an interactive mission. The player will control Mary Jane snooping around the active space of either The Demons or another criminal faction, occasionally manipulating the environment to divert their gaze lest she suffers fatal consequences. These stealth sections are handled adequately, but their integration with Spider-Man’s gameplay is incredibly dissonant. Playing as a regular human inherently feels quite encumbered in a superhero video game, but that’s the whole point of why Mary Jane puts herself at risk. Apparently, dating Spider-Man has made her delusional, as his extraordinary status and abilities have diminished her confidence. I’ve heard of penis envy, but jealousy towards your boyfriend for their web-slinging is something Dr. Freud couldn't wrap his head around. My diagnosis is that these sections suck, and Mary Jane sucks for stubbornly enacting these charades in the spirit of her insecurities. Another character named Miles Morales is also playable in sections that mirror MJ’s, but I’ll discuss him at a later date.

I would’ve applauded Marvel’s Spider-Man for separating itself from other Spider-Man media with a fresh and underutilized main villain at the wheel, but the final third of the game swerves into total fan service. Once Octavius straps the functional robotic claws onto his backside, you know he’s bound to break bad like Walter White at any moment. Peter is obviously not his Jesse, so the help that Doc Oc needs to dismantle Norman Osbourn’s regime with his newfound appendages is a variation of the classic Sinister Six lineup. Doc Oc storms the maximum security containment center on Ryker’s Island and releases Electro, Rhino, Vulture, Scorpion, and the newest detainee of Mister Negative to wreak havoc to an extent NYC has never experienced before. All of the nameless thugs in orange jumpsuits also take advantage of their prison walls crumbling, so they set up blockades around the city and replace The Demons as the primary common enemy type. Maybe I shouldn’t evaluate this hodgepodge of classic Spider-Man villains with my usual air of cynicism, even if the story should’ve ended with Li’s arrest or Doc Oc taking his mantle alone so the story could maintain its integrity. I’ll gladly eat this exorbitant meal as a Spider-Man fan, and the double duels between them are the most thrilling parts of the game. However, the hallucination sequence caused by Scorpion’s venom is the most blatant borrowing of Arkham’s properties in the game, so I’ll have to dock a point or two from this end section anyway. I suppose it's rather jarring seeing Doc Oc steal Li’s thunder by the end. Not only does he inherently steal the show with his notoriety, but inadvertently killing Aunt May by unleashing the Devil’s Breath tops anything Li ever committed on the scum and villainy scale. Yes, the game ends on a tragic note with sweet Aunt May succumbing to the effects of the contagion and dying with Peter by her bedside. That’s cold, Insomniac.

Marvel’s Spider-Man gets away with two supervillains sharing the spotlight because neither of them are intended to be the primary villain. Despite their toxic rancor, I’ll have to agree with both Li and Octavius when they state that Norman Osbourn is the root of evil in NYC. Sure, he doesn’t actively cause chaos, but he’s a powerful figure who’s letting his city down nonetheless. My last comparison to Batman I’m going to address is that both superhero IPs share the same conflict of a class divide. This is why several of both series’ common bad guys are downtrodden thugs instead of decorated supervillains held up in mountainous fortresses. Comics always focus on the criminal deeds of petty theft or grand larceny and seldom contemplate why they commit them in the first place. Why do you think F.E.A.S.T. is it overcrowded with throngs of impoverished people in its two separate locations? Norman Osbourn doesn’t have to don a green mask and take up skysurfing to negatively affect his city–neglecting its destitute denizens while in a position to potentially help them is doing enough harm as is. That, and he conducted the experiment on Li that murdered his parents and he’s been undermining Otto for his entire career, so that’s more fuel to their respective fires. Despite their biases, there’s a legitimate argument that both maniacs are justified in eradicating Osbourn, so that’s a firm and logical debate regarding acting on the greater good. All the while, Osbourn has his own issues, namely enhancing the devil’s breath prototype to cure diseases instead of causing them for the sake of his sick son. I don’t inherently subscribe to the prevailing notion in modern fiction that all villains have to be somewhat sympathetic to be effective, but the pathos of every antagonist on display here works wonders as examples for nuanced character writing.

Spider-Man 2 who? This was the foggy question that Sony resolutely wanted gamers to ask after they sought to dismantle that dried-up Spider-Man released two gaming generations prior. With so much progress passed in the medium, it seems obvious that Marvel’s Spider-Man would triumph over Spider-Man 2 on presentation alone, and the high-definition graphical gloss and stellar voice acting certainly affirm this assumption. Still, all the immediate successors to Spider-Man 2 fumbled despite their enhanced visual sheen. Marvel’s Spider-Man is a Spider-Man title that understood the acute physics, combat, and world traversal that preserved Spider-Man 2 as the ultimate game with the web-slinger for years. Its prestigious presentation isn't the only trump card Marvel's Spider-Man places on the table. Its emotional story and impeccable characters outclass even the films. Marvel’s Spider-Man is more than worthy of being the interactive exemplar during the MCU’s peak of popularity. The correspondence is ultimately irrelevant, but anything to vindicate this game further.

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 7/10/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

Developer: Radical Entertainment

Publisher: Sierra Entertainment

Genre(s): Open-World

Platforms: PS2, GCN, Xbox

Release Date: August 23, 2005

The Incredible Hulk has always been a dubious superhero. Sure, his normal self, Bruce Banner, is an ethical character who strives to advance society with his ingenious scientific achievements. However, he’s far from the focal point of his respective Marvel IP. In fact, he makes the mild-mannered Clark Kent fascinating by comparison. We, the viewers, are only interested in the green, muscle-bound goliath he transforms into when he gets a bit miffed at the world, wreaking rage-fueled havoc that is harder to halt than an oncoming hurricane. Still, fans of comic book heroes can’t be so blind as not to question if The Hulk’s unmitigated actions are ones of virtue and justice. If the argument of superheroes causing more destruction than they prevent ever comes into contention, The Hulk is the only claim this point needs to levy the conversation in their favor. The Incredible Hulk is a beacon of heroic dissonance in the comic world, which makes him a perfect contender for a video game adaptation. In the realm of gaming, the line between the actions of a moral protagonist and their intentions is a bit blurrier due to the medium gamifying the events of the narrative. Gaming’s interactivity allows us to experience Marvel’s most turbulent “superhero” without the concern that arises while viewing him from a distant, impersonal perspective. Controlling this mutated madman in an interactive medium is as thrilling as one would naturally expect, and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction knows exactly how to maximize this prospect to its fullest potential.

While the titular green giant is the central focus of Ultimate Destruction, its narrative is still centered around the trials and tribulations of the man behind the mask, or behind the mammoth-sized pituitary gland in this case. As enticing as it is to get a vicarious glimpse of how this freak of nature operates via the gaming medium, one can surely sympathize with poor Bruce and his involuntary transformations that paint him as public enemy #1. Because Bruce isn’t content with his unceremonious circumstances, he’s using the divided time in his standard status as a lucid, rational genius to devise a cure for his affliction. Or, at least something that will grant him more cognitive control over his tempestuous double persona that won’t result in a hazy, blank comedown like a bad hangover whenever he reverts back. With the aid of his psycho-analytical specialist companion, Leonard Samson, Bruce almost finishes a device that would’ve helped him achieve that desired mental stability. However, military commander Emil Blonsky puts the kibosh on Banner’s balancing act when he destroys the forested space he was using to construct the machine. Hulk and his friend take the remains of the device in the refuge of a remote church as they scour the surrounding urban and rural areas finding the missing pieces. Meanwhile, Blonsky begins to learn what happens when you fuck with The Hulk in ways that he never anticipated.

Other than hearing his voice during the mission preparations and seeing him during a few cutscenes, Ultimate Destruction relegates Bruce Banner to the background in favor of placing his angry alter ego front and center in the action. Solely playing as the superhero is a point of common sense that most if not all video game adaptations of these comic book characters abide by, but that’s not inherently what makes them so alluring. It's not as if Superman 64 bombed as badly as it did because the game was nothing but scenes of Clark Kent sitting idly in his Daily Planet cubicle mentally undressing Lois Lane out of sheer boredom. The key to immersion in any effective video game adaptation of a superhero property is honing the connection between the hero’s positive qualities and the player’s kinetic control over their particular traits that make them extraordinary. Figuring out what The Hulk offers as a distinctive superhero should’ve been an easy consensus in the Radical Entertainment studios, for he's the comic book hero arguably the most synonymous with brute, titanic strength to the extent where his might verges into the absurd. The Hulk can lift an SUV with one hand and spiral it like a football, tear a twenty-story building off the ground from underneath its bearings as if he were lifting the trunk of a car open, and bust through solid concrete as if the usually impenetrable material were made of tissue paper. He’s the epitome of the strength superpower associated with the common tropes of the superhero genre of fiction, even among so many others who possess this ability.

The Hulk’s distinctive explosive demeanor is also comparable to a bull running amok in a china shop, so his aerobic prowess and agility equally match his herculean physicality. Ultimate Destruction expertly taps into the ravaging potential of this big green beast by making it seem like no obstacle is too obstructive enough to hinder his unbounded rage. The Hulk can simply scale a skyscraper no matter the height by jogging vertically up its sides and leaping to meet an attacking military chopper at eye level to swat it out of the skies. The same adrenalized velocity that allows him to perform these amazing feats of athleticism also grants him a seemingly inexhaustible rate of endurance and endlessly sprinting around the field will leave a trail of wreckage like a tornado. “Smash points” are a currency in Ultimate Destruction earned by…well, smashing things like tanks, helicopters, and whatever else will attempt to resolutely subdue The Hulk. They can be used to purchase upgrades and unlock new abilities, turning an already formidable force of nature into an invincible A-bomb made flesh. Perusing through this scrolling laundry list of additional maneuvers will give The Hulk the potential to conduct illegal wrestling stunts on the cyborg enemies, swing light poles and tree trunks like golf clubs, and perform a combination of punches, uppercuts, and punt kicks in thunderous succession. A personal highlight from this move menu mostly used purely for merriment is riding around the field in a vehicle that The Hulk has crushed and fashioned like a skateboard, even though I question how the apparatus is accelerating. Is The Hulk peddling it with his feet like a car from The Flintstones? Anyways, regardless if The Hulk needs the added physical acuity or if the move is strictly for pleasure, every augmentation to The Hulk’s innate superhuman skill set is both thrillingly entertaining and greatly cathartic.

What better way to foster the extensive dexterity of The Hulk than crafting his game in the open-world genre? Game developers had recently discovered with the (loose) video game adaptation of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 that the non-linear, playground schematics associated with the genre’s core design philosophy worked wonders with letting a superhero flourish in an interactive medium. The player is given free rein to eagerly test the extent of each hero’s distinctive abilities like they’ve always pretended to do in the confined reality of their living spaces. Ultimate Destruction’s maps facilitate the same exciting prospect as Treyarch did for Marvel’s most popular superhero, but you’ll notice how the plural form I used alludes to how the game slightly differentiates in its direction. Between the tranquil, outlying hub of the church somehow situated on a quaint little islet are two fully-fledged areas that deviate dramatically in setting. In fact, the bustling, nightscape of the “city” and the unoccupied, arid canyon of the “badlands” presents such a dramatic and clear-cut contrast that I’d use them as examples in teaching grade school students the difference between urban and rural areas. Also, I’d like to point out that neither of these areas has distinct names attached, as they are referred to by their general topographical makeup. The city is congested with vehicles and offers wall-to-wall man-made architecture, and The Hulk can grab a large, inflatable corporate mascot in the shape of a silly-looking blue gorilla wearing swim trunks and use it as a parachute to glide from rooftop to rooftop. The badlands are conversely an organic foreground formed from years of erosion and tectonic activity, with a heavily guarded military base on one side of the canyon with a podunk, desert town alongside an array of oil refineries on the other. Fun fact: the cows that surround the marginally populated part of the badlands do not die regardless of how vigorously The Hulk throws them or uses them as a punching bag. While I can’t deny how generic both areas are, offering two open playgrounds with completely different terrains ensures that if the player grows bored of thrashing throughout one of them, jumping to the other from the church should reinvigorate them once again.

The player ideally shouldn’t tire of either area because they’ll consistently have a story mission to complete, hopping from the strikingly different settings depending on where the plot is being furthered. It’s only a matter of time before the malevolent branch of Banner’s infected cognition seduces him further to the darkness of mindless, disastrous destruction, a concept of mental deterioration that he personifies as “devil hulk.” Time is of the essence in gathering the remaining components needed for Bruce to literally face his demons, so many of the missions involve retrieving a piece of industrial equipment and carrying it back to the church through the initial launch point. As abundant as this type of mission is due to its relevance to Ultimate Destruction’s plot, they are not a favorable recurring task. The Hulk cannot attack the onslaught of enemies that chase him down like a swarm of pissed-off hornets when one of the machine’s parts is strapped under his right arm, so his vulnerability increases the likelihood of him collapsing. A logical solution would be to place the piece in a spot when the opposition becomes too overwhelming, but the CPU AI is astutely aware that the part is vital to successfully completing the mission and will attack it instead. The more combat-oriented missions should be vastly more pleasurable, but they expose the fact that Ultimate Destruction is tough as nails. Because The Hulk seems like the most insurmountable opponent on the planet, Ross and Blonsky’s military forces fire at will as if they are blindly expending all of their ammunition to quash the snarling titan. Their overly aggressive efforts seem to be effective, however, as The Hulk’s life force will deplete at an exceeding rate if he humors clapping back at his bushwhackers. Ultimate Destruction offers a few implementations that stave off The Hulk’s demise if the player actively engages with them in dire circumstances. For one, Hulk’s health bar features insurance whenever he collects more health than his initial gauge would allow, and the energy from this extra safeguard can be channeled into a screen-clearing sonic boom attack that impacts all enemies in the vicinity. On the other end of the spectrum, an infinitesimal sliver of Hulk’s health appears whenever his health bar has been exhausted by enemy fire, giving the player some opportunity to increase their health while The Hulk is still hanging on by a thread. When the player gets into the habit of smashing up shit to revitalize The Hulk as Jason Statham did in Crank, the combat-oriented missions become more manageable. However, the player will have to say a prayer to succeed in any mission involving defending a structure from the military. The event when The Hulk must perform this task for three-and-a-half minutes is the hardest mission in the game, and it's only the third one.

While the game’s missions were either vexing or failed to leave a lasting impression, I was far more impressed by the boss battles that Ultimate Destruction displayed. After completing a number of missions, a branching jump position will appear at the church hub that will transport The Hulk to the boss arena. Whether it be their layered health bars, gargantuan mass, or devastating damage output, every single boss that serves as the game’s pinnacle progress points are all immensely enervating foes. The cybernetic Hulkbuster Destroyer can only be damaged by hurling boulders at its dome, and this method of dispatching Ross’ classified, government-grade technology is escalated when he mans the Hulkbuster Titan and only the swinging of tanks in its direction is the only means of denting this colossus. Blonsky’s bodyguard and fellow gamma ray victim Mercy attempts to divert from the savagery of brute force with her teleportation-like agility, and Banner’s psychological descent into his own cognition where he fights the nightmare fuel that is “Devil Hulk” has the triumphant feeling of whenever an Elm Street protagonist prepares to fight Freddy Krueger by the end. The recurring boss that appears thrice throughout the game is The Abomination, aka Emil Blonsky’s mutant form that is Hulk-like only scalier and more intelligible. The main antagonist doesn’t really provide a challenge until he decides to bust open the dam as the climactic final act of the game, which will cast a flood of biblical proportions over the unnamed city if left unchecked by his mortal nemesis. I suppose The Abomination, or at least his unchanged human form, compensates for his fairly lackluster boss encounters by how prevalent he is throughout the entire story to the point where it seems to instead revolve around his journey into madness. More context to his grudge against Banner and all of his mutant ilk even leads him to be a sympathetic antagonist after all. However, the smack talk he dishes out during his fights is so lame that I want to beat him into submission regardless.

For being the unstable wildcard in the Avengers roster, The Incredible Hulk towers far above the higher esteem of all his peers at Marvel with this exemplary superhero video game alone. Ultimate Destruction’s handling of a few open-world aspects is admittedly middling, as its environments exist only for the purpose of giving The Hulk somewhere to run through and cause chaos and its missions are in one ear and out the other, provided the player is capable enough to complete them in the first place. Despite these discrepancies, it's rare to see a video game so enriched with pure, ID-driven destruction that the player can commit much less than in a licensed superhero game. Freely decimating all that stands before The Hulk is so satisfying that one has to experience it to really understand why it pumps my blood to the extent that it does. “Ultimate Destruction” couldn’t have been a more apt subtitle. It’s clobberin' time, bitches, and if The Thing wants to reclaim his catchphrase from his Marvel colleague, then he and his rubber-wearing quartet should make a Marvel game of this marvelous calibur. I doubt they ever will, though.

Batman: The Video Game Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/21/2024)

[Image from igdb.com]

Batman: The Video Game

Developer: Sunsoft

Publisher: Sunsoft

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: NES

Release Date: December 22, 1989

If the long-running tenure of James Rolfe’s AVGN internet series is any indication, the NES era was rank with movie tie-in pollution. For some odd reason, video game tie-ins coinciding with the release of a blockbuster Hollywood movie were always utter disasters. Actually, the reason is fairly clear-cut: the developers knew that their games would still sell regardless of their quality, so they barely attempted to grasp the source material or render interesting or engaging gameplay elements to justify the movie’s transition to the medium of video games. The primary culprit to the scourge of cheap cash grabs is LJN, a company that spat out shoddy film adaptations onto the NES console as frequently as a female rabbit gives birth to a litter. The nerd character vindictively referred to the developer’s full name as “laughin’ jokin’ numbnuts,” but the representative L in the acronym should stand for lazy. But as I’ve stated before countless times, licensed video games do not inherently have a crippling handicap that dooms them to disgracing the video game medium or their source material. Perhaps the industry could produce a licensed tie-in game of higher quality under a competent developer, say, Sunsoft? The creators of the acclaimed 2D tank shooter Blaster Master were tasked with adapting Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman smash hit film. Because the gothic and moody Jack Nicholson Joker vehicle was the starting point of taking the caped crusader seriously once again, we couldn't let LJN fuck this up. The reputable Sunsoft was more likely to guarantee that the video game tie-in for Batman’s cinematic comeback wouldn’t impress poorly on it by association, and their choice of developer resulted in something relatively more substantial.

Primitive pixelation prevents the Batman video game from capturing the full cinematic splendor of the movie, so I’d hesitate to call it a loyal adaptation by the fault of the NES’s inhibitions. Still, the game does its damnedest to render the properties of the film with 8-bit graphics, and the still cutscenes of Jack in Joker makeup and the revving Batmobile are actually quite impressive all things considered. When the player is launched into the action of controlling Batman, the graphics are far less refined than that of the rolling clips. Still, Sunsoft understood the crippling limitations that came with 8-bit hardware and wisely chose a direction of effective artistic minimalism. The darkened hues present throughout the levels dim the pixels enough to convey the intended atmosphere without obscuring all of the necessary foreground visuals. Gotham City is still ominous, and the city's various machinations such as the Axis Chemical Factory and Underground Conduit exude enough dangerous industrial sterility. Some may wonder why Batman’s body is entirely blue, considering that brooding Batman is shrouded in black and this is the lighter shade that signifies the campy TV Adam West Batman from the 1960s. If I had to guess, blue Batman better complemented the color scheme of the background as Belmont's tangerine glow did for Castlevania. The NES obviously couldn’t have recreated the film it's adapting, but the few feasible technical elements like lighting and color come pretty damn close to matching its aura.

But we all know the grand appeal of a licensed Batman game is controlling the bat via the potential of the gaming medium, one vicarious leap of immersion beyond putting on his Batsuit and playing pretend out in the yard like the poor saps from generations prior. As it is, Batman already lends himself as an exemplary superhero to be rendered into a 2D platformer game. His spry acrobatics essentially define his superhero aptness in lieu of not possessing any supernatural powers like the rest of his Justice League comrades. They translate fairly well here, especially regarding the wall jump maneuver where Batman’s adhesiveness to parallel surfaces feels less gluey than that of Ryu from Ninja Gaiden. What particularly injects me into the caped crusader’s shoes even more than his innate physical dexterity is the ability to use his array of bat gadgets. The game provides three of Batman’s trusty tools activated by pressing the pause button: the iconic Batarang, the triple-disked dirk, and his spear gun modeled as a blunt rocket launcher instead of an apparatus to aid in scaling tall buildings. Using any of these gadgets will cost the player an arbitrary amount of weapon points, so it’s still wise to keep conservation in mind even though they can be easily replenished on the field. I recommended the Batarang because it allows doubling the damage on reentry for a measly single-number cost. Still, having four different attack options on hand at all times allows the player to diversify Batman’s combative efforts to a great extent.

The player must become well acquainted with Batman’s stacked arsenal to survive the onslaught of Gotham City crooks and diabolical criminals. As par for the course, Batman manages to uphold that blistering NES difficulty we tend to associate with this gaming era. The game is composed of only five levels, so being forced to approach each moment with caution and plan accordingly is the developer’s tactic to ensure that the player gets their money’s worth. Gotham’s collective underbelly has evidently been eating their Wheaties, as Batman struggles to apprehend these seedy bastards more than ever before. Mutant thugs the size of gorillas roaming the watery sewage system pounce on the Bat with animalistic aggression, and the higher ground achieved by the Joker’s soldiers with jetpacks naturally gives them an irritating advantage. Machines are especially ferocious here, with sensory landmines crawling up towards Batman sometimes unknowingly and bulky tanks that I swear have dead-on accurate aiming. Ammunition for the gadgets is precious, so there will be tight moments of melee combat that will more often than not damage the Bat unless the player is as swift as a ninja. Instances of painstaking precision also seep into the platforming, with perilous pits directly below the trajectory and wall jumping sections with hazards on the sides that punish the player severely for simply grazing them with the pointy ears of the Batsuit. I’m thoroughly convinced that the player cannot avoid taking damage while trying to ascend up the cathedral, with its rotating gears crunching Batman’s life bar away at the slightest impact.

Trial and error is the ethos behind Batman’s design philosophy as it is for several other NES games. Fortunately, the game grants the player plenty of opportunity to learn the layout of each level. Batman is given three lives per continue but once he exhausts all of them, which is very likely, the game does not hastily rewind the player all the way back to the beginning. Batman’s levels are spliced into chapters like fellow tough-as-nails 2D platformer Ninja Gaiden. On top of treating these small milestones of progression as checkpoints, Batman adds another layer of accessibility by sending the player back to one of these mile markers upon continuing. I truly haven’t seen an NES game act so accommodating towards the player. It’s practically uncharacteristic of the era. Then again, we’re reminded why the developers were so charitable whenever we play any of the levels and suddenly, Batman doesn’t seem so breezy.

However, upon depleting all of Batman’s lives after facing a boss, the game decides to warp the player back to the level that precedes it. Batman’s bosses are the apex challenge that caps off a level, so the developers figured that their merciful methods would compromise the impact of their encounters. I’d argue what lessens the scope of fighting these bosses is how unremarkable a good number of them are. Batman has been around since the tail end of the Great Depression, so the DC IP has accumulated a smattering of Batman baddies in the half of a century before this game was released. We’re guaranteed that his iconic arch-nemesis The Joker will be featured because he’s the primary antagonist of the 1989 Batman film, but his appearance is obviously going to be reserved as the final boss. What about the supplementary foes on the climb up to The Joker? Naturally, no one will top the mad clown, but the other bosses in Batman hardly even make the C-list of Batman villains. Out of the legitimate villains exhibited here, Killer Moth is the only one of note, and he’s not exactly a VIP contender in the Batman universe. I’m sure some uber-nerd is going to chastise me for not recognizing The Electrocutioner or Firebug, but it’s not as if they’ve ever headlined any Batman media I’ve seen beforehand. Two other bosses involve the dismantling of the Joker’s armed security systems, a robotic series of machines with no personality whatsoever. How exciting for every Batman fan, indeed. I’m not even sure if including The Joker at the end is really a reward because quite a few players won’t reach the game’s climactic peak due to its difficulty. Considering the movie source material is as loose as pocket change, the developers definitely could’ve thrown every Batman fan a bone and included The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, etc. just to satisfy the wish of seeing the notable Batman villains rendered in a video game.

Batman on the NES is further proof that LJN simply never bothered to care. With Sunsoft’s superior developing efforts, they crafted a licensed game that came as close to the quality of the film it was using as inspiration. The fidelity to the source material could’ve only stacked up so far considering the primitive gaming hardware they were working with, but captured both the moody atmosphere and basic story premise using the pixels nonetheless. The game is certainly a challenge, but the game is aware of its steep learning curve and shows more mercy than any other NES game would allow. The objective of the film was to make Batman cool again, and the game accomplishes the same mission. It supports more reasons to hang up a Batman poster in your college dorm room rather than one of those neon beer signs or that photo of John Belushi from Animal House.

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (Game) Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/25/2023)

[Image from igdb.com]

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (Game)

Developer:  Heavy Iron Studios

Publisher: THQ

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: GCN, PS2, Xbox

Release Date: October 27, 2004

The Spongebob Squarepants film released in 2004, to most fans of the Nickelodeon animated series, was the first vital benchmark for the beloved cartoon sponge. For me and most likely a fair chunk of other children who grew up during the dorky, yellow phylum Porifera’s prime in the early 2000s, his motion picture debut was the sponge’s Swan Song. Even when I was the innocent age of nine, I noticed that Spongebob’s return to the airwaves in 2005 after the movie wasn’t quite the same as it once was. The animation had creased its sharpness to look more puerile, the dialogue timing between the characters was rushed, and the plot premises of the episodes became utterly ridiculous. I seem to recall tapping out on Spongebob upon seeing an episode in the fourth season where he ugly cries and wails like an infant over fracturing his spatula, and the writers treated the melodramatic scenario without a trace of irony. Now Spongebob knows how Joan of Arc felt. Anyways, according to the online cartoon community, Spongebob has become appallingly bad since then and shows zero signs of returning to the timeless quality of its early days. Steven Hillenberg departed from the process of maintaining his cartoon creation after the movie and some corporate shills were hired on to maintain Spongebob indefinitely so Nickelodeon’s hottest property wouldn’t sink the television corporation like the Titanic once Hillenberg resigned. With three full seasons of the show beforehand with Hillenberg at the helm, The Spongebob Movie served as a marvelously compact way of sending off to the only era of the show whose existence I acknowledge. The tie-in video game released for all major platforms of the time is not as significant as its source material, but I recall it being an adequate accompaniment to the film. After brushing off the dust of nostalgia, I now realize that assessment holds only a kernel of truth.

For those of you who weren’t children in the early 2000s and somehow skipped over this event, the summary of The Spongebob Movie is as follows: Mr. Krabs is about to be executed by a shamefully bald King Neptune for swiping his regal crown from its resting place, except that the situation is a set up by Plankton in the first of many objectives in his “Plan Z” scheme to take over Bikini Bottom. To clear Mr. Krabs of the outlandish charges, Spongebob and Patrick must travel far to the enigmatic and dangerous Shell City where Plankton has sold the king’s crown off. Besides the alarming stakes of series staple character Mr. Krabs wrongfully being sent to the proverbial guillotine, Spongebob and Patrick’s (but mostly Spongebob’s) journey is heightened by the underlying theme of maturity and masculinity, proving himself worthy of the status of a man after losing the promotion to manager position of the next door Krusty Krab restaurant to the older Squidward. It’s a story of exceeding one’s potential and impressing those who underestimate you, with overt themes of masculinity and maturity that Spongebob and, to a lesser extent, Patrick are striving to exude. Or, the film is a lesson that one can earn admiration and respect from their peers and garner special attention from the ladies if they pick up the electric guitar, regardless of how weak and scrawny they are like Spongebob is.

Video games aren’t restricted by the run time of a film, so a number of select scenes from The Spongebob Movie are stretched out as video game levels. Such notable segments include the Goofy Goober bar where Patrick and Spongebob get drunk on ice cream to down Spongebob’s sorrows, the rough and tough biker bar where Spongebob and Patrick must retrieve the key to the Patty Wagon, and any swathe of driving implied by the film has been rendered as a chance to use the sandwich automobile. The abominable, monster-infested trench between the fractured road to Shell City is now fully traversable, sans the “Now That We’re Men” musical number to accompany it. While the levels do a fine job of somewhat fleshing out every conceivable scene in the movie, whether it was necessary or not, the cutscenes that glue them together to retell the movie are atrociously half-assed. Instead of playing clips from the film, that Jacques Costeau narrator provides exposition through mere screencaps from the film. For specific shots that are not found in the footage, the developers photoshopped basic Spongebob clipart that anyone can Google to dig up. I can’t help but laugh at how abysmal the presentation looks.

Immediately as the player starts controlling Spongebob through his grandeur-filled dream sequence that introduces the movie, anyone who played Battle for Bikini Bottom will notice that The Spongebob Movie plays exactly like the Spongebob game that precedes it. Yes, both games were made by the same development team, but the comparisons are downright uncanny. Spongebob and Patrick control the same, they have the same talking and collectible animations, and the hand still jumps in to keep them from dying whenever they fall off a cliff. All the developers did to mask the lack of discernibility was change the visuals a bit. Spongebob’s bubble Viking helmet has been shifted into a boxing glove, while the bubble rod base attack is now his red foam karate gloves. Spongebob can also launch a bowling ball and launch a guided missile with an ill guitar lick. You’re not fooling me, Heavy Iron Studio. I can tell that these are the same moves from your previous output with a new coat of paint! The mechanics of Patrick’s moves were at least tweaked considerably. The stupid, but lovable starfish flails his arm instead of humping as his base attack, he slams the ground with his @$$ (sorry, the game censors the name of this move with a dolphin noise) and he can cartwheel endlessly. Patrick can now also attach his tongue to a floating series of ice blocks due to Sandy no longer being featured as a playable character because her role in the movie is practically non-existent. The new mechanic revolving around these combat moves is the ability to upgrade them in a pausable menu. Once Spongebob and Patrick gather enough of the dumbbell/weight currency of differing colors, they can purchase a new upgrade to either these moves or towards another unit of health. All this mechanic did was foster forced grinding for currency because many of the upgrades, while optional, are incredibly useful to progression. Collecting currency for these upgrades becomes rather tedious, especially since the game screws the player over by diminishing the dumbbells by a value of one when revisiting levels.

Speaking of revisiting levels, the player will have to rewind to previous scenes from the movie game in order to collect more “goofy goober tokens,” the golden spatula equivalents of this game. Similarly to Battle for Bikini Bottom, the player will earn one of the main collectibles by traveling to the end of a level along a linear path. Still, the route to the primary goal in Battle for Bikini Bottom wasn’t entirely obvious, unlike the trajectory of every level in the movie game where the walls surrounding the path to victory are so enclosed that it’s more comparable to Crash Bandicoot than Banjo-Kazooie, minus that series emphasis on precision. Any deviation from this path is the additional tasks that vary in objectives. Two common ones are the rickety sponge ball and quasi-psychedelic block platforming challenges which are fairly engaging. The tighter control of the sponge ball is the closest the game comes to an honest-to-god quality-of-life enhancement. Spongebob also fights waves of enemies in a horde mode, and these are rather dull. Other challenges are locked behind a certain move like the throwing challenges for Patrick and the guitar wave challenges for Spongebob. Any level involving the Patty Wagon or slide has to be revisited from the get-go after the first challenge, and the extra activities boil down to time and ring challenges. Are all of these tacked-on extracurricular feats necessary? Unfortunately, yes, as Mindy, King Neptune’s daughter, will restrict Spongebob and Patrick from entering future levels if they fail to meet a goofy goober token requisite, which becomes fairly hefty as the game progresses. She stalled her father from executing Mr. Krabs at the last moments of the duo’s time constraint in the film but here, she’s impeding us almost as if she wants the crustaceous cheapskate’s head buttered up on a platter. Besides the extra content offering nothing of real substance, the developers should’ve stuck with a strictly linear level design rather than attempting to copy Battle for Bikini Bottom’s open format. The levels exist to prolong the exposition of the film, and revisiting past events to gather collectibles totally ruins the immersion.

Even without the challenges off to the side, The Spongebob Movie game is consistently harder than Battle For Bikini Bottom. I should be commending this game for besting the developer’s former glory in the one regard that it lacked, but the higher difficulty stems from artificial means. For one, the slide level, while never matching the mighty curves of the Kelp Vines, are egregiously long (as well as physically improbable considering that they often involve sliding upward. That’s not a slide!) endurance tests. The six or seven enemy types, who all somewhat resemble the robots from Battle for Bikini Bottom, of course, will attack Spongebob and Patrick with a barrage of enemy fire from all angles. The later levels of Battle for Bikini Bottom also compile every accumulated robot enemy, but their forces in this game are so overwhelming at times that it's almost unfair. This bombardment doesn’t become an issue until the level in which Spongebob and Patrick return to Bikini Bottom to find that it’s been transformed into a dystopian hellhole at the hands of Plankton. I lucidly recall having great trouble with this level as a kid and now as an adult, I can state with utter certainty that this level spikes up the difficulty harder than Ms. Puff at a surprise party. The same can be said for the final boss of the game, which is a brainwashed King Neptune wearing one of Plankton’s bucket helmets. Sure, it’s the final boss, but every boss up until this point (the cat lady monster creature and two encounters with Dennis) were repetitive cakewalks that did not prepare me for this in the slightest. The penultimate fight against the king of the sea is just as frantic as the previous level’s enemy squadrons, so I thank the developers for at least providing checkpoints for this duel.

I have a theory as to why The Spongebob Movie game emits sensations of being rushed as well as feeling all too familiar to Battle for Bikini Bottom. Some network executives at Nickelodeon saw the masterful work that Heavy Iron Studios put into Battle for Bikini Bottom and desperately wanted them to develop the game for the upcoming movie. The problem stemmed from the strained development time of a mere year to coincide with the timely release of the film, and that the developers couldn’t be passionate about a source material that hadn’t even been released yet during the process unlike the cartoon series that had been airing for years before Battle for Bikini Bottom was a thought. A mix of stress and lack of artistic motivation caused Heavy Iron Studios to cut corners, which explains why they simply laid out the foundation they already erected. The Battle for Bikini Bottom mold that The Spongebob Movie game was sculpted from is also the reason why this game got a pass from me back in the day because it inherently benefits from copying the previous game’s formula, and I love that game to pieces. Nowadays, the apparent laziness offends me, so The Spongebob Movie game is skating by on its inheritance no longer.

DuckTales Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/2/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

DuckTales

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: NES

Release Date: September 14, 1989

Licensed games aren’t inherently bad in theory, but a certain context to these stigmatized titles gives them their heinous reputation in the gaming landscape. They already have the perk of familiarity, and the brands that the companies tend to pick from are ones recognized by children, their most impressionable demographic. This exploitative measure by the titans of industry is always seemingly a sure-fire recipe for success in their eyes. They think that recognizability will boost the base profits compared to a new, original IP and that children will be so enveloped in the comfort of interacting with their favorite media brand through gaming that they’ll neither notice nor care that they compromised on overall quality. These greedy bastards fail to consider that a child’s intelligence, especially concerning something they spend a fair margin of mental energy towards, is of higher critical capacity than the consumer zombies the industry perceives them as being. Because the gaming industry insists on faltering with licensed games to this day, churning them out half-baked has resulted in dire consequences. To highlight the serious effects of a poorly prepared licensed game, E.T. on the Atari 2600 was so atrocious that it's notorious for (allegedly) causing the video game crash of 1983. If Nintendo hadn’t resurrected the interest in gaming two years later, gaming would be deader than the dinosaurs and also just as antiquated. You’d think the industry would’ve learned a valuable lesson from the E.T. meteor whose impact almost rendered gaming extinct but like a junkie, they dip back into the drug that almost killed them on a daily basis and continue to flirt with disaster. As I previously stated, licensed games are not chained to the realm of mediocrity, despite how many rotten examples one could list to disprove my statement. If they’re given the same love and care as any one of gaming’s homegrown games with respect for the original source material, a licensed game can resonate with any gamer past the surface point of familiarity. Arguably, the first licensed game to shed a few pounds off of the negative weight of the licensed game breed is DuckTales for the NES.

I understand that DuckTales was a revered cartoon series in its day, an adaptation of a long-running comic book of the same name. I claim to only recognize this from a distant standpoint because the cartoon predates my existence by almost a decade and I’m not willing to immerse myself in the entirety of the cartoon’s three-season duration for the sake of research. Apparently, DuckTales revolves around pioneering Disney bigwig Donald Duck’s extended family but does not include the staple peer of Mickey Mouse in any capacity whatsoever. Instead, the focal character for this Donald Duck offshoot is his uncle Scrooge, the Scottish, anthropomorphized parallel to Ebeneezer Scrooge from the Disney adaptation of A Christmas Carol. He’s also accompanied by the colored duck triplets of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, as he’s taken legal guardianship of them. I do not know what the young girl duck’s relation is to Donald Duck or why she is helping Scrooge on his quest to travel the world and amass an abundance of treasure, but she will randomly appear as often as any of the boys in the levels. According to those who are older than me and who were fans of the cartoon series during its initial broadcast, the cast of characters along with the premise of Scrooge pillaging the world of its shiniest valuables in competition with his equally rapacious mallard rival, Flintheart Glomgold, proves that the developers certainly did their homework with the source material. I’m just going to have to trust them on that.

To assure that DuckTales wouldn’t sink into the cesspit with the rest of its maligned licensed game contemporaries, the development job was given to Capcom, one of the most well-regarded third-party video game developers of the NES era and even today. Half-assing a licensed game with Capcom at the helm was out of the question, for a lackluster release with their name printed on it would be detrimental to their stellar reputation. Even though I’m sure adapting a Western cartoon in the interactive medium was an alien prospect for the Japanese company, Capcom evidently made the wise choice to stick with what they excelled at. The following screen after selecting a difficulty option in the main menu that sees Scrooge sitting at a comically-sized computer will signal the first clear indication that Capcom crafted this game. Popularized by their iconic Mega Man series, the levels in DuckTales can be completed in a non-linear fashion (except for the African Mines which need to be unlocked with a key obtained from the Transylvania level listed above). The levels are an eclectic mix of fun, kooky themes as the ones from any Mega Man title, loosely inspired by the varied climates of real-world locations. The Amazon is a humid jungle where Scrooge channels his inner Pitfall Harry swinging on green vines, Transylvania is the interior of a gothic Eastern European palace akin to Castlevania, the African Mines are rich with healthy, brown soil, and the lofty elevation of the Himalayas makes for an appropriate snow level. Lastly (or so if the player chooses), the celestial outskirts of The Moon are pure, 8-bit bliss in every sense. What seems to meld these levels together in some sort of thematic cohesion is the fact that these areas are infamous for allegedly housing unspeakable fortunes in their deep catacombs, and most of the intrepid excavators have perished in their attempts to find it. Scrooge is obviously too foolishly covetous to heed the warning.

Besides the excellent presentation and diverse level themes, the true magic of the levels in DuckTales is how surprisingly rich their designs are. Upon selecting The Amazon as the first level to at least attempt, entering a cavern and ascending back to the surface after evading some hanging spiders eventually came around full circle back to the underground entrance. I was genuinely confused, for most 2D platformers of the pixelated eras tend to trek the player down linear pathways with the primary caveat of surviving the enemies placed as deadly obstacles along the way. Any alternate routes provided to the player ultimately lead to the same destination. The levels in DuckTales are far too small to justify offering a map, but their intricacies still interest me in seeing it charted out with some semblance of gaming cartography. Transylvania plays with the surreal sublimeness of mirrors as a means of teleportation around the castle, while Scrooge must retreat back from the straight path on the Moon and return with a gadget that blows away a rather obtrusive piece of the orbital rock to kingdom come. The game will also reward the player charitably for discovering hidden passageways with additional diamonds and health items. As for my awkward scrape in the Amazon, climbing up one of the vines instead of swinging on them as my gaming experience trained me to do brought me back on track. The extent of labyrinthian level design here in DuckTales wasn’t even a pervasive trend with gaming’s original 2D platformer properties.

Another reason why providing a map in DuckTales would be unnecessary is that the player will ideally become familiar with the layout of the levels organically through repeated visitations. Still, I wouldn’t classify DuckTales as an example of the typically onerous “NES hard” label. If games like Ninja Gaiden and Contra are diamonds, DuckTales is a firm Zircon. It would probably alarm many to learn that DuckTales provides zero continues after the player exhausts all three of their lives, a rather steep disciplinary tactic for the game to implement. However, I’m not clamoring for a password system because DuckTales balances the austerity of a typical NES game with plenty of perks to avert one’s untimely fate. Ice Cream and cake literally rain down from the sky to heal Scrooge, a diabetic’s nightmare coming to life that relieves the Scottish duck of his wounds he cannot afford not to subside. Because health items are constantly generated by what is practically divine intervention, DuckTales is perfectly accommodating to stave off the strict penalties of failure.

Even with health items stocked aplenty, this aspect of the game design in DuckTales does not guarantee that the player will easily skate through the game. One finicky facet of DuckTales is the controls. Despite his advanced age, Scrooge manages to compete with all the other platforming characters competently in terms of mobility. In fact, Scrooge’s pogo technique where he hops on enemies from above with his cane was such a distinctive ability for a platformer character that Scrooge could patent the maneuver and reap royalties from all future games that would ape it. Knowing Scrooge, he’d do it in a heartbeat. What a character that is obviously spry and nimble needs a walking cane in the first place is a mystery to me, but I digress. While pogoing off of enemies is a unique thrill, the issue is that it is Scrooge’s only means of offense. Scrooge cannot bat his fine piece of woodworking anyway but downward in the air. Boulders and other debris can be swung upward like Scrooge is swinging a golf club to hit enemies from afar, but these are only in convenient circumstances when the game provides such supplementary objects. Being restricted to the pogo move in most scenarios makes for awkward encounters with a good handful of enemies, getting damaged unfairly when all Scrooge needs is the ability to swipe his cane like a sword.

Fortunately, all of the bosses in DuckTales are accommodating to Scrooge’s offensive restrictions. At the end of each level, fighting a boss will earn Scrooge the primary treasure. Because each of the bosses, ranging from the yeti to the giant rabid rat, leave themselves vulnerable by halting momentum after hopping around, they should be dispatched easily. Unfortunately, the consistent ease of boss battles extends to the final one against Duckula and Glomgold. My dissatisfaction stems from the second portion where Glumgold reveals himself and Scrooge has to race him to the “ultimate treasure” on top of a towering column because all Scrooge has to do is touch it and the game is complete. While we’re on the subject, the entire final section after completing all of the levels in DuckTales is quite underwhelming. A message from Glomgold states that if Scrooge wants the treasures back, he’ll have to return to Transylvania, catapulting Scrooge back to the Gothic manor. I assumed that the final boss and level were a completionist bonus and that I overlooked some sort of hidden artifact that unlocks the route to the game’s true ending. Instead, the last section is sincerely just traveling through Transylvania once again without any alterations whatsoever. Referencing Mega Man again, Capcom is the king of crafting fittingly epic final levels in their games, but DuckTales managed to falter nonetheless. A stressed development time could be the culprit, perhaps.

DuckTales isn’t merely a rare example of a licensed game that succeeded. DuckTales is one of the shining examples of a 2D platformer game that cements the legacy of Nintendo’s first foray into the console market. Does it still exhibit some unflattering jaggedness associated with this early pixelated era of gaming? It certainly does but to its credit, all of the highly regarded original IPs of the time are just as guilty. While on equal par with the other NES classics on its negative aspects, what makes DuckTales stand out above its peers with more gaming credibility is its exquisite level design and its tasteful approach to the difficulty that numerous NES games struggle with. A plethora of fresh mechanics that DuckTales helped popularize changed the course of gaming for the duration of the sidescroller generations, and the fact that these innovations came from a licensed game is truly a marvel to behold.

Bucky O'Hare Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 12/15/2022)

[Image by igdb.com]

Bucky O'Hare

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: NES

Release Date: January 31, 1992

Bucky O’Hare was a short-lived cartoon series that lived and died in the early 1990s. Three animals, plus a robot and some human kid with glasses, would scour the galaxy disposing of the toad menace that threatens peace and prosperity. At least, this is what I understand is the premise of the cartoon series, for it was released before my time. Bucky O’Hare is a lost relic of an entertainment landscape that is decades old at this point, and surprisingly, I am aware of it because of its video game adaptation on the NES. Normally, a licensed game produced during this era of gaming would’ve been abysmal, perfect fodder for the AVGN to decimate decades onward and imprint its legacy with a shit-colored stamp. However, the guys at Cinemassacre were the ones who recommended Bucky O’Hare as a hidden gem on the gilded NES console with several spectacular games in its library. Out of curiosity on the grounds of their glowing praise, I decided to unearth this gem and see for myself. After all, an obscure treasure from yesteryears that happens to also be a licensed game checks off a good number of my boxes.

Bucky O’Hare is a space cadet and the captain of the S.P.A.C.E. fleet waging war against the oppressive Toad armada reigning terror over the galaxy. On a mission to give the toads what for, the slimy bastards ambush Bucky and his crew. Bucky awakens from the turmoil with his four teammates landing on four separate planets. The air sergeant of the Toad army radios in to inform Bucky that if he doesn’t save his team members in time, they will become his brainwashed servants, licking the warty bootstraps of the imperialistic amphibians. Time really isn’t really of the essence for Bucky, for he gets to choose which planet he ventures to first on the menu. The level selection here will conjure up Mega Man in everyone’s minds, and it’s not surprising to see why. Besides the ability to select any level from the start, the game is a fast-paced 2D platformer and Bucky’s main offensive is a pea shooter gun. The game has met some stern criticism with liberally borrowing from Capcom’s flagship series, but plenty of other games from this era used Mega Man as an influence. Bucky O’Hare discerns itself from its inspiration enough to avoid any serious accusations. That being said, that one section of the Red Planet level is unashamedly copied from Quick Man’s stage in Mega Man 2.

While the appeal of playing as a furry, anthropomorphic animal with an Irish surname in space is exciting (just ask Nintendo), the allure of Bucky O’Hare’s game is extending the roster beyond just Bucky. Instead of acquiring new abilities after completing a level, one member of Bucky’s crew is available as a playable character. Games with multiple playable characters always suckered me in as a kid, explaining some of my nostalgic favorites. Given Castlevania III as an example, I fully understood that featuring a varied character roster was still in a primitive form and might not have been implemented very smoothly compared to the 3D games I grew up playing. Konami, the developers of both Castlevania III and Bucky O’ Hare, learned that transitioning between characters needed to be swift and effortless. That’s why the shift between Bucky and his team is a simple press of the select button, which cycles the characters in milliseconds. I wish the order of changing the characters was more organized and that I didn’t have to scroll through them like flipping through papers, but perhaps I’m asking too much from a game released on the NES. As it is, I’m satisfied that the game offers five total playable characters with unique attributes. Bucky is a relatively balanced character whose special ability is a high leap after holding down the attack button. Bucky is also the only character who can shoot straight up or down. Blinky, the one-eyed robot, shoots at a downward angle, and his pint-sized build allows him to jump through tight spaces easily. He can also propel himself upward with a jetpack and slightly control the trajectory for a short time. Deadeye Duck has a gun similar to the spread from Contra and can climb along surfaces like Grant from Castlevania. Jenny shoots lasers from her forehead and can summon an energy ball that the player only has slight control over. Lastly (or at least the last one that I unlocked), the dorky Willy DuWitt’s blaster does the most damage, especially when charged up like the ability from Mega Man. Having access to an entire posse of characters is one thing, but the fact that all of them have individual assets that contribute to getting through each level is astounding for an NES title. One grievance I have is that the ability to play the four levels in any order is an illusion because of the individualistic attributes of the characters. Blinky is the only character that can break/melt the ice blocks on the Blue Planet, so the player is screwed without him.

Unlike many of its NES and even its 16-bit contemporaries, Bucky O’ Hare does not possess too many primitive, unfair features that mar the pixelated era of gaming and make it inaccessible to a modern audience. The password system is certainly dated, but I’m still giddy at the game giving the player unlimited continues because so many other games didn’t. Bucky O’Hare also divides its levels by acts; if the player loses all of their lives, they get to continue from the start of that act. You know when the game stops and the screen shifts in Mega Man? Imagine those transitions as checkpoints, except with much longer swathes of time in between switching the screen to not make the game too facile. All the while, upgrades are plastered over every act in the shape of floating tokens. Besides the one solidly shaded token that I’m not certain provides anything of value, the others will extend every character’s maximum health until they continue, add extra lives, and upgrade the capacity for a character’s special move. The last one listed only lengthens the special meter for the one character that touches it, but it remains enhanced permanently for the remainder of the game. The developers gave the players a suitable number of potential support items to tackle this game, and it’s a total blessing.

Thank the lord that Bucky O’Hare doesn’t punish the player too severely because if the game adopted an arcade-like disciplinary method, the game would be practically unplayable. My biggest surprise playing Bucky O’ Hare is that the game is practically a precision platformer, a challenging subgenre of the 2D platformer made popular two decades after Bucky O’ Hare was released. Bucky and his gang of mercenaries have the physical constitution of a hemophiliac, as most obstacles in each level will kill them in one hit. Whether it be spikes, pistons, or globs of energy, most collisions will spell imminent death for Bucky and his friends. Each character also jumps at the base height of a white basketball player, so be prepared to tumble into the abyss countless times as well. Seeing the plethora of one-up tokens scattered about is laughable, considering all the players’ lives will burn through each act faster than butane on a bogroll. The player will hear that death jingle so often that it becomes maddening. Taking minimal damage from enemy fire or lasers is comparatively refreshing. The only time the player must concern themselves with the slow degradation of their health instead of collapsing in one hit is the boss battles, who tend to have collision detection pratfalls anyways. I can’t credit Konami as visionaries, even though Bucky O’ Hare predates any other precision platformer by a substantial margin of time. I think it’s just a factor of offering unlimited continues in a platformer that requires extreme attention to accuracy. The player will hanker for more punishment if the game doesn’t strip away their chances by giving them a strict game over. Checkpoints may come with every screen, but getting to those screens is a challenge in itself.

I have not seen the Bucky O’Hare cartoon series, nor have I read the source material of the character that is the comic. However, his only venture into the gaming medium kicks a lot of ass. Bucky O’ Hare is an energetic 2D platformer who borrows a tasteful amount from other games from the same genre without plagiarizing like other licensed games. The character roster is notably diverse, and the player can access plenty of perks to aid them like no other NES game before it. However, Bucky O’ Hare's leniency only sounds appealing on paper. In execution, it’s one of the strictest games I’ve ever played regarding how much rigor it demands from the player. Bucky O’Hare doesn’t deviate from NES difficulty; it changes the definition of it. If constant failure doesn’t sound too disheartening, Bucky O’Hare is a shining example of a 2D platformer on the NES.