GameCola: Captain Eric's Super Thumbs (5-6-1)

-- by Eric Regan

Welcome to another action-packed and exciting edition of what the semi-cool kids call the SUPER THUMBS! In this edition, I will be taking you on an adventure that explores parts of this gaming universe long forgotten. Yes, that's right: late 80s Battletech PC games! Now for most that would be 45.673 lifetimes of pure enjoyment, but here at THE THUMBS, we do NOT stop there. I'll also delve deep into another aspect of gaming that no one dares to speak of...DVD games! HUZZAH! This should be one interesting journey to say the least.

Mechwarrior (PC)

All great franchises must start with a single game. OK probably not, but whatever. Unfortunately the Mechwarrior series started out with this one, and surprisingly enough the developers went on to make more after it. The games that came after were MUCH MUCH MUCH...MUCH better; I mean REALLY REALLY better. Because this game is just a pain to play. Even for it's time I'm sure we could have found more entertaining things to do, like see who could catch the most bricks with their forehead.

There is not much to the game; you travel around to different planets taking on different missions to earn mechs and money to get...better mechs so you can blow up more of the same stuff over and over again. Of course none of this is a easy task, as the combat lasts usually around .34 seconds even when facing opponents of equal size and strength. Unfortunately for me those battles rarely end with a victory for the home team. Even the dorkiest of Battletech fans out there would have trouble enjoying this game.

Captain Eric's Super Thumb says...Thumbs Down.

Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception (PC)

Unlike Mechwarrior this game does not live on, and most no one has ever heard of it. However, it DOES have a sequel! Which will be reviewed shortly after this one. Out of the three ancient Battletech games, this one is by far the best. Of course that might not be saying very much since it is, by far, the only playable game. The gameplay is a bit RPGish, but there are no levels or anything of that sort. You have access to the best items almost instantaneously; you just have to collect the cash to get them. Collecting this cash is a pretty easy task—easy like putting your money in a stock that NEVER EVER goes down and walking around until you're rich easy.

The game is pretty short but also pretty difficult, because you will run into lots of random encounters, and if you fail to escape some of the more brutal ones...well, you don't really have a chance. There are no boss fights or anything of the sort, just roaming around the world collecting people. Theoretically you might even be able to go through the entire game without participating in a single fight! However, that is very unlikely. The game does let you save anywhere, which is nice.

So while it pales in comparison to any game that is around today, it is pretty fun for those who love Battletech, and it just shows you how far video games have come!

Captain Eric's Super Thumb says...Thumbs Up!

Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Revenge (PC)

While this game is a sequel to the other Crescent Hawk game, the gameplay is dramatically changed. It still is a bit RPGish, but the combat is a lot more like the Battletech game than the previous installment. However, this isn't really a good thing. The combat in this game is a lot slower than the other game, and you are a lot more likely to heat up and shut down. Your weapons reload a lot slower and movement is a chore to even watch. It is a mission-based game, and like the other games of this generation, nothing is all that easy. Slow and hard pretty much sum of the feeling of this game.

Sloshing your way through this game is no easy task. While it does include a lot more of a Battletech feel and a lot more of the Battletech universe than the other games, that doesn't make it any better. Reading the manual was more enjoyable than the actual gameplay. Now I may not be an EXPERT, but when your manual is more entertaining than your game, you MIGHT just have some serious problems on your hands! Pretty amazing that this was the last of the Crescent Hawk Series, huh!

Captain Eric's Super Thumb says...Thumbs Down.

Who Shot Johnny Rock? (DVD)

Wooo! It's DVD FUN TIME! Now if you never have seen a DVD game, they are pretty...uhh...special! They can be played on mostly any DVD player that has a remote, or even on your PS2 or Xbox.

Now the gameplay of this particular (and just about every other) DVD game includes moving the bullet cursor on top of the guy with a gun, and shooting him before the screen unfreezes and he shoots you. It's not as easy as it sounds, but I tend to make it a lot harder than it actual is. GO ME! Now at least in this, they give you some room for error as you can pay a doctor to save your life until you're poor. In other DVD games, such as the infamous DRUG WARS, if you die, it's game over. So the game took about a half hour to complete even with my many many MANY deaths.

Most of the scenes don't make much sense, as you're going to once place and you end up in some hotel with people shooting at you...but this is a DVD game! Who needs it to make sense. The game can be pretty fun just laughing at its strangeness, novelty and just plain bad acting, but I cannot in good consciousness recommend this game as anything more than something to laugh with some friends at.

Captain Eric's Super Thumb says...Thumbs Down.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 (PS2)

This game does have one cool looking main character. Sadly enough, it is not always wise to base your opinion of a game on how cool a character looks. The game is...well...decent, I guess, but it really seems to be lacking. It just feels like it could be so much better than it is. The combat is pretty lame, but yet seems to have so much promise. The combat really suffers from some crappy and loose controls. In fact, the entire game does. It has a lot of snazzy and cool ideas and SOMETIMES implements them in ways that are...uh...bearable. However, racing around trying to find another enemy to kill before you die yourself from a constant draining of your health only gives the game a rushed feeling. You can transport yourself into another world where you can find things to feed your savage blood hunger, buuut then you have to find a way out of that world. While those aspects are kind of annoying, if the combat wasn't so lame, they could've been overlooked.

Another big thing with this game is its story. Man oh man do they LOOOVE to talk in this game. I mean I guess if you have a deep rooted love affair with vampires and churches and all that fun stuff, you might find their hours and hours of babbling insightful. But for me, I just wanted to get back to the action! Of course, then I would remember what kind of action I was getting back to, and for some reason longed for a save point so that I might do other things, such as stab my eyes out or rupture my ear drums. GOOD TIMES!

Captain Eric's Super Thumb says...Thumbs Down.

Well there sure was a negative vibe in the air with this edition, wasn't there! I know the Battletech games are old, and MAYBE if games really were that lame back then, they could be seen as...uhh...decent. I did enjoy playing them for a little while, at least, and they do show you uses for all the tiny useless mechs that you would never for any other reason ever want to use in any other Battletech setting, so there are some positives that can come from this issue. Of course there are, because the SUPER THUMBS always brings you the knowledge you crave!

Come back for an even GREATER edition of the SUPER THUMBS next month, when you can be sure that at least not ALL of the games will be being played on a DVD player. OK, I can't really make that promise. Bwahahaha!

-- Eric Regan {06-01-2006}