I'm baaaaaack suckers! Going to be running off backlogs for a while until I get emulators up and running on my desktop PC, but things are looking brighter for Backlog Blitz. Anyway, it's 11:30, I'm eating ramen, and there's licorice. Let's hit it!
Jurassic Park
Remember the NES version? This is that, only with "better" graphics, worse controls, and less fun. Instead of a gun, I get a lame tazer. A TAZER. This is somehow kiddified compared to the NES version. There's also this weird first-person view in buildings, which is…eh. It's kind of tense, in a DOOM-like way, but also very nauseating. Overall, this just manages to port the NES version and genericify. Which is not that kewl.
Jurassic Park 2
Huh. H-uh. Well. This is quite something. It's like Contra, but in Jurassic Park. There's exploration, shooting, dinosaurs… It's actually pretty fun. The graphics are good—Dark but lush. The music is also solid. Not John Williams, but it sets the right mood. Bongos and pipes and such. The guns are all basically machineguns (except the shotgun), which is eh, but whatever. It's surprisingly tactical for a movie tie-in game. There's jump dodging and such. Some of the movement is a bit finicky, though. In the initial level, finding paths is a bit annoying because the "path" is just a clearing between two bushes. All the other ones have arrows pointing at them! Overall, this is pretty darn fun.
Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death
Well. The music certainly is…bombastic. This is another Contra-esque game. Or maybe Metroidesque, as far as combat goes. But Dredd Vs. Death isn't particularly fun. It's all executed competently, but yet lacks a spark. Graphics do a good job of capturing Mega City 1, the gun play isn't terrible, the platforming is okay, but I'm not having fun. All the right puzzle pieces, just not assembled.
