From: Zach Keene Subject: Zach's Shooter Reviews: Super Smash TV [SNES] Date: 1999/11/08 Message-ID: <38279530.80B7A8BF@bellsouth.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en,de Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: news1.atl 942118155 209.214.52.27 (Mon, 08 Nov 1999 22:29:15 EST) Organization: Feisar is Fair? MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 22:29:15 EST Newsgroups: alt.games.video.shooters Haven't done one of these in a while... In case anyone's interested all of my previous reviews can be found (with remix and additional production by Mike B) at http://go.to/dam --- [begin review] --- Whenever one thinks of games that truly suck, the name "Acclaim" is usually comes quickly to mind. Anyone who has had the misfortune of playing "Total Recall" for the NES can quickly attest to this. Let's face it, the name has pretty much been synonymous with "crap" since day one. But even Acclaim does something right every once in a while. One notable example releasing several Taito classics to the West, namely Darius Gaiden, RayForce, and Puzzle Bobble 2 (even if the latter two received Lame Acclaim Renames[TM].) Their (or rather Beam Software's) SNES version of Midway's arcade title Smash TV is another. SYSTEM NOTES: This review is based on the SNES version. I've also briefly played the NES and arcade versions, and I'll make a few comments about them later on. Genesis and Game Gear versions also exist, and I understand a PlayStation version is pending on some upcoming Midway's Best Hits Vol. 42 collection. STORY: The year is 1999. (Well, that statement was much less obvious several years ago when this game was released. :) You are a contestant on Smash TV, a game show where you must compete for the biggest prize of all (your life) by, erm, shooting everything that moves and blowing up stuff. If you're lucky you can pick up a few million dollars along the way as well. (I've read that the premise of this game is similar to an Ah-nold flick called "The Running Man", which I want to say was originally based on a Stephen King novel, but don't quote me on that. I've neither read the book nor seen the movie, so I won't comment on the accuracy of that claim.) PLAYERS: Two people can simultaneously compete for cash, prizes, and women in bikinis. In the SNES version both players share a common pool of continues, so try to find a second player of equal skill, if possible. GAMEPLAY: Basically, a spiritual descendant of Midway's own Robotron. You are armed with an unlimited ammo machine gun and roam around a single screen arena, blasting everything that moves. Now, you can hide in the corner like a wimp and take everything out as it comes your way, or you can weave through the waves of attackers to pick up the cash and prizes that occasionally appear (everything from the 1999 Roadster to the Smash TV Home Game can be yours for the picking.) More important to your survival than the prizes are 1-ups (always a good thing), invincibility (kill everything on contact), Speed Shoes (not bad), and a wide array of weapons that allow you to blast your enemies more quickly. Examples being the Missile Launcher, which cuts through everything in its path; grenades, which have little range but fire rapidly and are fairly powerful; the ever popular spread shot; and the Orb (just call it an Option and you'll get the idea.) Unfortunately, these weapons have limited ammo and you'll go back to the standard issue machine gun when they run out. After you clear out one room, move on to the next and repeat. At the end of each of the games 3.5 levels, you'll face some Big Ugly Boss Guy, such as Mutoid Man, the huge man/tank hybrid that shoots lasers from his eyes and will run you over. If somehow you're still alive after beating the boss, you'll return to the studio to receive bonus points based on the amount of cash and prizes you picked up during the level. DEATH PENALTY: You re-enter the room with an invicibility shield. Be sure to stomp whatever it is that killed you while you can. :) CHALLENGE: You're offered three difficulty levels. In Easy mode, rather like most Working Designs offerings, you can only play the first level. There's also a Hard mode, but quite frankly, Normal is good enough for me, vielen Dank. Be warned, this game starts out fairly slow and easy, but it will get progressively tougher as you move on. By the last level, the screen will be swarming with baddies trying to club you to death, as well as tanks and the suicidal Mr. Shrapnel aiming at you. There will be quite a lot happening onscreen at any given time, and remarkably there's very little slowdown or breakup. Sound impossible? Actually, it's not _that_ bad given a little bit of practice, if you can keep your cool. Being in good favour with the Smart Bomb Faerie certainly wouldn't hurt, but fortuantely you don't have to rely on them unlike a few other games I could mention. However, it's been said about Robotron that you're always two seconds away from death, and I'd say that still holds true for Smash TV. And be careful not to step on a land mine while you're dodging the four billion other objects onsc... BOOM! Too late. :) But if you think you're really bad, there are a number of secret rooms, and if you find them all and manage to beat the game, you get the option of playing through it _again_... only this time everything moves five times faster. And you were probably worried about slowdown. :) GRAPHICS: Functional, if not particularly outstanding, even for a seven year old SNES game. The sprites are kinda small (smaller than even the arcade IIRC, but that's probably to reduce slowdown/breakup), but fortuantely not to the point of distraction. MUSIC: The good news: the tunes here are quite catchy, and will probably stick in your head for the rest of your life. The bad news: this is because they are relatively short, and will play continuously and repeatedly billions of times throughout the level. If that's not enough for you for some reason, a sound test is available so you can listen to it at your leisure. CONTROL: Controls very well, actually, which is surprising considering the "quality" of control in some of Acclaim's ports (take Mortal Kombat for the SNES. Please.) Anyway, this game is perfectly suited to the SNES controller, IMHO. The D-pad moves (duh), and you can think of the four fire buttons as a second D-Pad to control which direction you fire. Which is very logical when you consider that... VS. ARCADE: ...the original arcade employs the old Robotron setup of using two joysticks; one to move, and one to fire. Unfortuantely I absolutely hate that setup, mostly because I abhor joysticks in general, not because it doesn't work. Anyway, I never could get too far in the arcade version (damn those sticks!), but I noticed that the enemies seemed a bit larger, and some of the secret rooms availiable in the SNES version didn't seem to be in the arcade version. You'll probably notice that the tendency of the announcer's eyes to, ah, "take note of his surroundings" didn't get past Nintendo's censors. Heh. VS. NES: Worse graphics, and worse control, with one controller at least. You could plug in two controllers (possibly two joysticks even :) and try to recreate the arcade experience. If you had a multitap, both players could do that. Also, I think the grenade lobber weapon was removed, and Mutoid Man is much, much smaller. But I never got too far on this version either. VS. SEGA: I've never played any of the Sega ports so I can't comment. OVERALL: 8/10. My only complaint with this game is the fact that it can get very repetitive. It can and will take at least an hour to go completely through it (two if you do the Turbo Mode). Let's face it, nothing really changes much during that time. Other than that, if you're looking for some totally mindless blasting, you can't go too wrong with Smash TV. Good Luck, You'll Need It! Zach Keene ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Author of many FAQs: MK2, FF1, Einhander, CSOTN, AGVS, G3, and G.Darius ftp://members.aol.com/fnlfanatic/arcanelore/ Shooter fans: Visit the new alt.games.video.shooters today! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "The freedom we lost cannot be re-conquered cheaply, but however high, it's a price worth paying." - Robert Miles -----------------------------------------------------------------------