This is the system that put the gaming industry back on its feet after the crash of 1984.  You could also call it the best system ever made, and with so many great games released for it, such a statement is hard to dispute.  It's the...   NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

Nintendo's next home console was a worthy successor to the NES, with an equally large selection of games but vastly improved 16-bit graphics and sound.  A slow clock speed was the only thing holding back the...   SUPER NES

	GAMES YOU'LL WANT FINAL FANTASY II: Double the pleasure, double the fun... this RPG's twice as good as the first one.  It's got a stronger storyline and a marvelous soundtrack. MORTAL KOMBAT II: Even if you're not a Mortal Kombat fan, you'll still find something to like about this perfect translation of the best game in the series. ROCKMAN & BASS (JPN): Mega Man 7 was a bit of a letdown, but this Japanese exclusive, loaded with great artwork and animation, more than makes up for it. SECRET OF MANA: If you liked Zelda but wish you could play it with a friend, Squaresoft's charming action- adventure game will be like manna from the heavens.  SMASH TV: The home version of Midway's steroid-drenched shooter loses some of the graphic luster of the arcade game, but absolutely none of the intensity. SPACE MEGAFORCE: The Super NES extension of the always fantastic Aleste series is more sterile than other versions, but its level designs and weapons are superb. SUPER MARIO WORLD: Mario's 16-bit adventure is both faithful to the first three games and very impressive, proving that the Super NES deserved its title. SUPER MARIO WORLD 2: It's quite a departure from your typical Super Mario Bros. game, but the changes are welcome and refreshing.  It's just soooo cute, too! SUPER METROID: The third Metroid game offers all the exploration of the first two and ups the ante with improved graphics and a haunting soundtrack. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: TOURNAMENT FIGHTERS: This arcade quality fighting game was a dream come true for fans of the heroes in a half shell. GAMES YOU WON'T BILL LAIMBEER'S COMBAT BASKETBALL: Back in the early 90's, the Pistons reserved their sucking for video games rather than the basketball court. BRANDISH:  Falcom took a boring adventure game and made it even worse by shifting the screen every time your character turns.  Mmm... disorienting. CALIFORNIA GAMES 2: I wish they all could be... a lot better than this.  This alleged sequel to the Epyx sports sim should be put behind bars for mode seven abuse. HOME ALONE: This was T*HQ's first game on the Super NES... and the reason they earned a lousy reputation with gamers, which haunts them to this day. PIT FIGHTER: Hey, this is kind of impressive for an NES game!  Oh wait, this is a Super NES game.  Forget I said anything. RISE OF THE ROBOTS: You won't get a rise out of this impotent fighting game.  Sure, the rendered graphics are pretty, but the gameplay is pretty damned awful. SPACE ACE: People didn't think it was possible, but they crammed all the frustration of the arcade game into a Super NES cart.  Oh, and some of the video, too. STREET COMBAT: People mistakenly believe this fighter was better when it was called Ranma 1/2.  The sad fact is, it sucks with or without the anime license. TOM AND JERRY: Perhaps the worst thing to happen to Tom and Jerry since those weird Czechoslovakian episodes.  It's a very dull, very ugly platformer. VIRTUAL BART: This contains everything you'd expect from an Acclaim game... a popular license, trendy buzzwords, and above all, abysmal gameplay. REVIEWS  BIKER MICE FROM MARS KONAMI RACING   As humiliating as it is to say so, I have to admit that I like this game.  Back in the early 1990's, Konami had a habit of buying the rights to the most ridiculous cartoons and turning them into surprisingly good games.  I'm not sure if they do it for the challenge, or because their marketing division is as clueless as their programmers are talented.  Whatever's the case, I'll have to live with the shame of openly enjoying a game based on one of the most shameless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rip-offs ever made.  Thanks, guys. Anyway, Biker Mice From Mars is a racing game, very similar to Super Mario Kart but with an isometric perspective that's more reminescent of Interplay's Rock 'n Roll Racing.  Its blandly colored, repetitive scenery isn't as impressive as the more realistic visuals of Super Mario Kart, but Biker Mice does offer the advantage of a wider range of vision, allowing you to better anticipate road hazards as well as the racers behind you.  There's no way you're going to get clipped by an unseen turtle shell in this game... if someone's about to attack you, you'll be able to see them line up the shot before firing.  This gives you the chance to, as they might say in biker circles, get out of the way if you want to lead and not follow. Generally speaking, Biker Mice is very logically designed, with great ideas that haven't even been implemented in the most recent Super Mario Kart games.  Each character has their own special attack which replenishes every time they finish a lap... you're given just enough of them to keep the game from being frustrating but not so many that you're given an unfair advantage or are tempted to waste shots.  Players also get a random prize as a reward for completing a lap... if you're ahead, you'll generally get a sack of money for your efforts, but if you desperately need to catch up with the other racers, the computer will usually give you a nitro boost or even a star that makes you deadly to the touch.  Simply put, Biker Mice rewards you for top performance but gives lagging players a chance to get back into the game, keeping each race very close and very intense. After every race, you'll get the chance to spend your prize money on accessories for your bike... or floating orb, or insect mech, or whatever you happen to have.  Each item noticably improves your ride, unlike a lot of these games where upgrades are negligable at best.  For instance, buying armor gives your vehicle another hit point (extremely important in the battle mode) and picking up missiles increases your stock of special attacks.  You can also improve your engine and tires, and as usual, it's a good idea to keep your traction and top speed well balanced... this isn't Drag Racing Mice From Mars, after all. The graphics aren't exceptional, but they're faithful to the cartoon, and as usual, Konami put in a lot of little details that help add variety to the repetitive tracks.  Fireworks will go off at the last lap of any track sponsored by the game's shop Last Chance, and little crabs will fall out of any trees you bump into while racing in the tropics.  The special attacks are well animated, too... Grease Pit's mines reduce you to a melted pile of sludge on contact, and Karbunkle's mutant ray is pretty amusing... it's fun to watch one of the racers transform into a three eyed dwarf and desperately try to catch up with everyone else, with a pair of tentacles trailing behind him as he runs.  The best looking scene in the game is when a set of five races has concluded and the mice are literally seperated from the men.  All six racers are set on a long, straight track and all kinds of nasty things happen to the losers.  The best players manage to survive every catastrophe, and even outrace the track itself as it crumbles, reaching the winner's circle a split second before tumbling into the wreckage. The artwork's only occasionally impressive, but the soundtrack is, like most Konami games of the time, exceptional.  It's got the same infusion of intense rock and familiar cartoon riffs that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games had, and although I could have done without the Biker Mice theme, everything else sounds great.  If you liked the cartoon, then everything will sound great to you, even cornball catchphrases like "Let's Rock... and Ride." Yes, I'm willing to admit that I like this game.  I'm even willing to recommend it to everyone else.  But please, PLEASE, Konami, watch your licensing department a little more closely from now on.  I don't want to have to put my seal of approval on a Mega Babies game...  KRUSTY'S SUPER FUN HOUSE ACCLAIM (FOX WILLIAMS) ACTION/PUZZLE   The Simpsons have been one of the hottest licenses back in the day and still possess amazing staying power after all this time.  However, their games have definitely been hit or miss.  Fortunately, Krusty's Super Fun House is one of the better titles based on the exploits of America's favorite animated family. In an odd yet refreshing twist, you are cast as one of the supporting characters, Krusty the Klown, who must rid his latest attraction of the mice (possibly rats… I don’t have the instruction booklet!) that have infested every room. For reasons that don’t really matter, Krusty eschews calling the pest exterminators and takes it upon himself to get the job done. Not only are there rats to contend with, but certain items must be collected before each area can be cleared, including but were not limited to flyers announcing the Fun House’s opening. All of this is basically an excuse to use elements from Tetris, Lemmings, Gussun Oyoyo, and other classic puzzlers in a Simpsons game, and the result is more or less positive. Krusty traverses each room and must use blocks or other moveable objects to manipulate the rats into traps operated by other Simpsons characters. There are enemies including aliens and snakes which must be dispatched using pies or bouncing balls. Only one object may be carried at a time, and each block must be precisely placed at the right time to achieve your objective. The mice climb one square at a time, and will turn and walk away if more than one block is on top of each other and directly in their path. Fortunately, blocks may be turned into makeshift staircases, and there are a variety of other helpful items... tubes and elbow joint pipes may be interconnected, creating a pathway which leads the rats to their doom, and wind blowers force the rodents into otherwise impossible to reach places. The game's level design is well done and creative. KSFH start out simplistic and straightforward, but once the beginning levels get the player accustomed to its play mechanics, a daunting challenge awaits. Sometimes crossing the fine line between challenging and frustrating, this game is very rewarding once you finally do figure out just how the hell to get those damn mice to their sadistic, well-deserved demise. Like Lode Runner, this is one game that needs a suicide button, as sometimes you will inevitably make mistakes that leave you with no means of escape or victory. If this weren’t aggravating enough, sometimes you will successfully rid a long, pain-in-the-ass level of all the mice only to be required to go back again because you didn’t pick up the prizes or flyer or whatever the hell needs to be done before the door will be secured with a padlock. Your reward for all this hard work is a trip to an even more difficult funhouse. In this type of puzzler, audiovisuals are not as important as gameplay. Here, the graphics and sounds are adequate but not outstanding. One nice touch is that the circusy music can be turned on or off during gameplay. The soundtrack is actually cute and appropriate, but I do find myself electing to play without a background score as this game requires a large investment of time and carnival tunes played ad nauseum will sooner or later drive me as mad as the title character. Posters and inside jokes are visible in just about every room, and instead of a health bar, Krusty’s energy level is depicted by a charicature which grows more tired whenever the clown is injured. Krusty’s Super Fun House is one of those neat little games that slips through the cracks. Maybe Acclaim should stick to puzzle/strategy games, as this is one of the few winners in their lineup. Recommended. MEGA MAN 7 CAPCOM SIDE-SCROLLING PLATFORMER/SHOOTER Here we go again... Capcom knows damned well that there's no need for another one of these games, and yet slapped together Mega Man 7 in a rather obvious attempt to pander to the few but obnoxiously loud fans of the all too familiar series. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the first few games: in fact, I still consider the first Mega Man to be a revolution in NES game design, but that was nearly ten years ago. It's 1996 now (er, well, it was...), and Mega Man 7 shows no improvement over the NES games which spawned it. The graphics for instance are incredibly ugly, with gaudy purple backgrounds and milky fore- ground pastels which don't even scratch the surface of the SNES' extensive color palatte. Music? It's a cross between the jaunty NES tunes and the new, anime' inspired themes in Mega Man X (and Mega Man X2, and Mega Man X3, and... uh, you get the point...), so there's nothing new here either. And finally, we have the control. It's pretty good, but that means nothing when the game itself so unforgivably retread... some rounds are nearly identical to those in the second NES game, and surprise, surprise, you're forced to deal with the infamous chamber 'o bosses in Dr. Wiley's castle as well. It's like paying for a second copy of a game you already own! If you own any, and I mean ANY, other Mega Man game, you've already seen all there is to see in this one, so pass it by.

Nintendo hoped they could once again dominate the video game market with this console.  Unfortunately, the system that burned brightly when it first debuted burned itself out after a few short years.  That's the sad story of the...   NINTENDO 64

	GAMES YOU'LL WANT FIGHTER'S DESTINY: The innovative point system adds authenticity to this game's tournament setting.  It's probably the best fighter you'll find on the N64. MARIO KART 64: It's tough to choose between this and Diddy Kong Racing, but ultimately, Mario Kart 64 takes the winner's circle with less frustrating gameplay. PAPER MARIO: Super Mario RPG on the Super NES was good... but this is better.  It's bright, colorful, and chock full of personality. SIN AND PUNISHMENT (JPN): After the somewhat lackluster Mischief Makers, it was a relief to see Treasure get back to making stylish shooters. SUPER MARIO 64: Mario was the first mascot brave enough to set foot in the third dimension, blazing a trail many others would follow. GAMES YOU WON'T CLAY FIGHTER 63 1/3: Instead of bashing this fighting game, which would be really easy to do, I'll just recommend that you buy Konami's Rakugakids instead. POWERPUFF GIRLS: CHEMICAL X-TRACTION: You'll extract this from your N64 as quickly as you put it in.  Imagine Power Stone without the frantic fun. SOUTH PARK: CHEF'S LUV SHACK: Here's a game only a mother could love, and I don't mean a bad mother like Chef.  The trivia and minigames are mighty lame. SUPERMAN: It ain't super, man.  It's like what would happen if the man of steel accidentally flew into a copy of Pilotwings that someone threw into the toilet. XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS: Suck the soul out of Soul Calibur and this would be the unfortunate result.  It's a shame, because Xena deserved better than this. REVIEWS KIRBY 64: THE CRYSTAL SHARDS NINTENDO (HAL LABS) SIDE-SCROLLING ACTION/PLATFORM I can't help but think that I'm starting to outgrow the Kirby series.  I was pretty fond of Kirby's Adventure on the NES, and this sequel on the Nintendo 64 has much of what made that game great, plus colorful and attractive polygonal graphics.  For some reason, though, it just didn't keep me entertained the way the NES game did.  Rather than getting me excited about every new round like Kirby's Adventure, The Crystal Shards made me want to finish stages so I wouldn't have to bother with them again. Perhaps the reason for this is that Kirby 64 is a more straightforward game than Kirby's Adventure.  That game was packed with museums, bonus rounds, arenas, an enormous amount of power-ups.  By contrast, Crystal Shards gives you a lot of platforming levels, some bosses, a few cartoon intermissions, and that's about it.  You get a chance to score extra items after every round, but hopping onto a picnic blanket to grab them is a pretty lame excuse for a bonus round.  Speaking of lame extras, there are a few mini games you can play with your friends, but they've got about as much meat to them as the games in Mario Party, and they're poorly integrated, too... you don't even have to earn them in the story mode to play them! Kirby 64 still plays fairly well, but HAL Labs made some changes to the gameplay, hoping to improve it.  Some of the tweaks make a lot of sense... for instance, Kirby can still fly but only for a short period of time, making the game more challenging than previous Kirby titles.  You'll have to get through some areas with well-timed jumps rather than just floating over every obstacle, and this is definitely a good idea.  However, some of the other changes to the gameplay don't work so well.  Kirby's gigantic selection of weapons has been trimmed down to six, but you can combine abilities a'la Gunstar Heroes by throwing one bad guy at another or eating them together.  I guess I should appreciate the extra depth this adds to the traditionally simple Kirby gameplay, but I can't help but think that the new weapons are kind of weak.  Earth, fire, ice, needle, bomb, and boomerang are just as dull as they sound on their own, and when you combine them, you're left with weapons that are disturbing (I'm sorry, but Kirby would never, ever stick exploding shuriken between the eyes of his enemies...) and sometimes horribly unbalanced.  To give you a good example, dynamite can harm both you and your opponents, but the refrigerator lets Kirby spit out an infinite amount of food that heals the player but damages the bad guys.  When you've got a weapon like this, why bother with anything else? Another serious problem with the gameplay is that The Crystal Shards seems a whole lot slower than the other Kirby games... you can make Kirby run by double tapping on the controller, but even then he just isn't fast enough.  Things get even worse underwater, where you're even slower and you CAN'T double tap to run.  Of course, since The Crystal Shards is your typical side-scrolling platformer and the game's designers are your typical sadistic bastards, there's an entire world covered with water, and it just... never... seems... to... end.  By the time you finish it you'll consider ripping the cartridge out of your N64 and throwing it in the nearest lake. Now that I think about it, maybe I haven't outgrown the Kirby series... perhaps HAL Labs just didn't do a good job designing this particular Kirby game.  Superficially, Kirby 64 looks like it's got everything that made the previous games in the series wonderful, but there's more to Kirby's world than cute characters and memorable scenery.  I hope the designers of this game realize this when they start work on the next one.  PAPER MARIO NINTENDO ROLE-PLAYING GAME I recently found a review of Paper Mario on the web that began, "Boy, this game sure went down the toilet the moment Square left the project."  This, of course, proves that it's never too hard to find morons on the Internet. Yes, Paper Mario, the sequel to Super Mario RPG on the Super NES, doesn't have Square's support behind it.  Of course, this also means that it doesn't have cheesy computer rendered graphics, dark, confusing playfields, generic battles, or hours of full motion video starring characters that don't matter to you, either.  Intelligent Systems knew better than this, giving this game three things Super Mario Bros. fans really want: addictive gameplay, familiar characters, and a whole lot of personality. RPGs are a prickly genre for me... it takes me a while to warm up to most of them, if it ever happens at all.  However, this wasn't a problem with Paper Mario... I loved it right from the start.  The storyline, slightly altered from Super Mario RPG's, was no big surprise, but I really enjoyed the dialogue... and just like Super Mario RPG, it had that same delightfully silly flavor throughout the entire game.  Unlike most role-playing games, you'll enter each town looking forward to all the conversations... you may even start looking for townspeople just to talk to them.  Better yet, they've got names, stories, and relationships of their own, so they're not just the walking signs you've come to expect from other adventure titles. The graphics are impressive, too... Intelligent Systems left the computer rendering of Super Mario RPG behind and tried a gimmick of their own, one that let them capture Mario's world much more faithfully.  As the title suggests, Mario (and every other character in the game) is a paper cutout, and they're all drawn perfectly... Shigeru Miyamoto himself couldn't have done better.  And although there aren't as many sight gags about the flat characters as there were in Parappa the Rapper, the designers do occasionally have fun with Mario's missing dimension, spinning him around in battles and swirling him down pipes. An added bonus to drawing Mario as a flat object is that all those extra polygons can be devoted to the backgrounds... and man, are they great.  The towns are colorful and full of scenery, and some of the locations have breathtaking details like drifting snow and paths made of glittering stardust.  Some of the playfields are nicer than others, but I guess that's the point... you'd expect the green hills and cool waters of Yoshi's Island to be more vibrant than the appropriately named Dry Dry Desert.  No matter where you happen to be, jumping into a battle changes the scenery into a stage with hanging props... something I haven't seen in a video game since the release of Dynamite Headdy for the Genesis.  You may or may not like it, but one thing's for sure... you can't call it an overused cliche'. Oh yeah... that reminds me of the battles.  The fights in most role-playing games can get boring, especially since most of them are exactly alike.  However, Paper Mario has a lot of features that help make them more entertaining, or let you avoid them entirely.  As was the case with Super Mario RPG, enemies don't just pop out of nowhere... they run around the playfields with you, and if they spot you they'll try to start a conflict.  However, you can defend yourself... if you stomp or hammer an enemy, or sic one of your partners on them, you'll damage them before the battle even starts.  Sneaking around or running from enemies is also an option, although some of the bad guys are pretty intent on starting a fight.  Fortunately, since they're based on classic Super Mario Bros. characters, they have all of their weaknesses.  Remember, a Spiny isn't so dangerous when it's on its back, and Bob-Ombs won't get the chance to hurt you if you can make them detonate before they attack. As you can tell, Paper Mario is a lot of fun if you're a fan of the Super Mario Bros. series, but none of those games were perfect, and neither is this one.  First of all, the battles can be fun, but they're limited as well... none of your partners are treated as full-fledged party members, and you can only use one of them at a time.  If you took the rather flammable Lady Bow into a battle with fire-based enemies and need to select a more suitable character, you can switch to that character in the middle of the fight, but it will cost your partner their turn, and sometimes, you just can't afford to lose that extra firepower.  Also, you're not allowed to damage just any enemy with any attack... if, for instance, there's a particularly obnoxious Magikoopa behind a row of Clubbas or Dry Bones, you won't be able to reach him with the hammer or another close range attack.  Finally, although the sound effects are great (Bombette's explosion really packs a punch!), the music is not. Oh well... if I have to sit through some overblown, repetitive tunes to play a terrific game like this, I'll definitely do it.  I don't play many RPGs, and I won't finish many of the ones I do play... so when I find a game like Paper Mario that keeps me entertained to the end and leaves me wanting more after it's finished, you know it's worth buying. SHADOWMAN ACCLAIM ACTION/ADVENTURE   I was absolutely sure I'd end up hating this one.  The normally docile mainstream video game press ripped Shadowman to shreds, and I was ready to do the same thing when I watched my friend Matt play through part of the first stage.  Whoohoo, Tomb Raider in hell.  Isn't just playing Tomb Raider hellish enough?  I was about to write Shadowman off as another overhyped Acclaim flop, but then, something happened.  When Matt fired up a saved game with Shadowman lost deep within the cavernous world of Deadside, I started to notice how incredibly well designed this world was.  Every level was an intricate puzzle, filled with branching paths which often lead to rooms with important items left just out of your reach.  I urged him to open every door... flip on every switch... swim through every sea of blood to find the next dark soul.  Then I took over, and that urge to discover every hidden path and item became an insatiable need.  The repetitive wall textures, the monotonous backtracking, and the awkward control were instantly forgotten.  All that mattered was finding out what was around the next corner... and the next... and the next.  Sometimes it would be a door just begging to be unlocked, and other times it would be a freakishly dressed zombie with a gun pointed right between my eyes.  The bastard could kill me a dozen times and I'd come right back for more, all because there's another dark soul in the level, calling my name like the ghost of a long lost love. Damn it, I MUST HAVE THAT SOUL!!! Er, um, sorry.  As I mentioned earlier, Shadowman is a lot like Tomb Raider in that you're armed with a gun but do as much exploring as enemy blasting.  It shares quite a bit in common with Legacy of Kain:  Soul Reaver, too, because your character walks a thin line between life and death and can visit either plane of existence at will.  However, thre are some subtle differences... Shadowman can't die from falling long distances like his big breasted counterpart (because as my friend put it, he's already dead!), and his gun fires these strange beams of light which can be powered up by holding down the appropriate button.  Like Soul Reaver's Raziel, he can be defeated by enemies, but instead of being transported to an alternate dimension to regain his strength, Shadowman is simply returned to the beginning of the current stage. The graphics and sound won't raise the dead, or anything else, for that matter... the walls have some pretty good textures but they're a bit overused, and this coupled with the very long rounds and lack of reference points makes it very easy to get lost.  And confused.  And frustrated.  The game as a whole is pretty dark and dingy, so don't expect any spectacular lighting effects... however, some of the enemies and the strangely clear pools of blood aren't too shabby.  The music fits the mood, and in one instance, the plot... you'll be tormented by the carefree laughter of a small child cut off by the whine of a circular saw in one stage.  This disturbing sound bite gives you a taste of the trauma Shadowman experienced when he watched his little brother die, but after hearing it a dozen times, you'll hit the mute button on your remote to keep the voices in his head out of yours.  The control is a bit goofy (Nintendo found some pretty weird places for buttons on that controller of theirs!), but it's still better than Tomb Raider's, and the gun battles are more natural than the rather clumsy fights in Soul Reaver. Is Shadowman better than the games that inspired it?  No, not really.  The game as a whole is a little contrived and doesn't feel as solid as, say, Soul Reaver... and Shadowman's big bad voodoo daddy doesn't hold a black candle to the much more threatening Raziel.  Still, those of you who spent dozens of hours exploring every last cavern in Metroid will be quite happy with Shadowman's endless convoluted tunnels, and the enormous amount of items hidden within them. SIN AND PUNISHMENT NINTENDO (TREASURE) SHOOT EVERYTHING THAT MOVES (and some things that don't) Treasure.  A game company that brings drool to the lips of thousands of even the most jaded fanboys.  With the insane difficulty, complex simplicity, and ultra-articulated bosses of their games, the company has gotten quite the following.  The ex-Konami developers have their quirks--their "no sequels" policy, for example--but they've won the hearts of many gamers. One of their sublimely simple efforts is Sin and Punishment for the N64.  One of the last games to come out for the "Fun Machine," this game challenges the gamer with two simple rules: 1) If it moves, shoot it. 2) If it doesn't move, shoot it anyway. The plot of the game is actually quite interesting.  In the year 2007, much of Japan has been overrun by genetically-engineered monsters called "Ruffians."  An American military organization called the "Armed Volunteers" has come to Japan ostensibly to help repel the invaders.  However, this being a futuristic setting, and a paramilitary force being what it is, the Volunteers have gotten a bit heavy-handed, forcing rebellion to the minds of three teenagers: Saki (15, male), Airan (16, female) and Achi (13, female).  The three eventually cross paths with the lieutenants of the leader of the Volunteers, a young man by the name of Brad who seems to have prior experiences with Achi.  She apparently gave him some of her blood, which gave him some of her power; mainly, he can speak to his subordinates from afar (with a pretty cool "floating eyes" shot) and attack those who would harm his soldiers with the power of his mind.  And he's a demon with a sabergun. The "sabergun," as I call it, is the solitary weapon you get in this game.  The weapon has four functions: aimed fire (has to be precisely aimed, but does decent damage), lock-on fire (can lock on, but does less damage), sword (close-range, does great damage), and deflection (deflects certain missile-like projectiles at the targeted monster or scenery).  There aren't really any power-ups for the weapon, but the game is set up so that you don't really need them (apparently, Treasure learned from their mistake in Silhouette Mirage of adding in weapons that served little to no real purpose). The controls are simple--in most stages, you're on rails moving forward, with one or two side-scrolling levels.  You mainly move to the left or the right (in most cases, this means strafe) using the D-pad or the C-buttons.  The shoulder triggers make your character jump, A toggles lock-on and aimed fire, B can disengage a lock in lock-on mode, and Z is the attack button (performs all attack functions).  There's also a 2-player mode that has one player move the character, and the other shoots. The graphics aren't too impressive--don't get me wrong, they're anti-aliased, and they don't glitch.  However, they're still fairly low-resolution.  This can be forgiven, however, because of the massive flow of humanity (and inhumanity) that you must engage.  The characters are pretty well-designed--including Saki later in the game, where he looks like he's wearing M.C. Hammer pants (the result of a partially-reversed physical mutation); or Radan, an early boss.  The sound is actually quite excellent for the much-maligned cartridge format. There is a diverse array of music, as well as an excellent array of voice acting.  The strangest thing about the game is that the dialogue is spoken in English, and pretty good English, at that.  In the tradition of Resident Evil, the producers, perhaps with a US/Europe release in mind (which never developed), had English-speaking voice actors do the lines.  NOT in the tradition of Resident Evil, the dialogue is actually pretty intelligent, without the horrors of the language barrier.  There are Japanese subtitles, incidentally (if you just HAD to know), but they can be turned off by beating the game on Normal difficulty. The gameplay is simple enough to hook you, but there's enough to the game to keep you interested--no mean feat for what would seem to be a warmed-over Space Harrier clone at first blush.  You can get enemies as you pass them with your blade, and you actually have options as to how you want to rid the screen of foes.  For instance, if there are three enemies on a platform, you can either pick them off one at a time or shoot out the platform.  However, you only get credited for direct kills--an important point, since you get an extra continue for every 100 kills--so you have to make that decision depending on your circumstances.  There are even real races against time, including the "railgun firebomb" sequence, in which you have to destroy a railgun shell before it hits a mutated Saki.  Of course, Saki is firing at you (he's mutated and thus delirious), so you can actually position yourself so that the shell is in the path of the blasts.  The part before the railgun shell sequence involves a Death Star-meets-Battletoads sequence in which you have to dodge electrical bolts to slash a railgun chamber.  Also, the final boss may remind you of Missile Command gone mad. The characters are actually pretty compelling--Airan, who becomes the midpoint main heroine after Saki is "lost," is actually a pretty good "strong female lead" for the game, and Brad actually cares about his lieutenants to the point of giving them blood transfusions and protecting them in battle.  And, I'm sure he gives them full dental coverage, as well.  ;)  Achi plays the "mysterious ally" part pretty well, seeming to be on your side, only to double-cross you at the least opportune moment. The game is fairly short, but not too easy.  For the 45 minutes to an hour of each play-through, enemies are thrown at you from every conceivable angle.  It's nothing that you can't eventually learn to handle, and this is the kind of game you play to top your personal best.  Try to find it on Ebay; most places are sold out of it, and even if they had it, you'd probably pay a heinous price for it anyway. Stay tuned for my next review of the LAST N64 GAME EVER, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (to be released early August). Preface: I know that just about everything that can be said about this game has been said already, but it definitely bears repeating.  If we're to avoid suffering a game like this again, we must continually and continuously remind the world of this horrible, horrible game. And more than anything else, we can only hope that one day, Titus shares Acclaim's fate. SUPERMAN 64