Reviews Archive

Secret Command/Rambo A relatively simple game that plays similarly to the arcade game Commando, you run around with top down perspective shooting the enemy. One of the better 2 player games on the System. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cloud Master Very nice though a little on the basic side horizontal shoot-em-up. All the usual elements of attack waves, bosses, and power-ups apply here along with a difficulty level which I would firmly place on the challenging side. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tazmania Here's an exclusive Master System version of Sega's Tazmania series. Now, I'm not a big fan of the series in general as I find Taz games whilst pretty well made to be a bit cheap and full of leaps of faith/cheap hits, but I know the games have their fans out there and if you like the MD incarnations then I see know reason why you wouldn't love the MS version as it has all the hallmarks of the other games (fast platforming, spin attacks) and to my mind is slightly less cheap too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Lion King This is a downgraded port of the popular 16-bit game, it looks very nice and plays pretty well all things considered, the game does unfortunately tend to chug at some points which can make timing some of the more difficult jumps quite hard but all in all the game is good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Flash The Flash must have some of the most impressive music ever created for the whole system and is extremely fast and well programmed, in fact, sometimes the game can feel a little too fast not giving you the needed reaction time which tends to hurt the gameplay a little. Taking everything into account though you still have a very well made game that certainly plays above average for the system. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Baku Baku Animals The Master System achieved a high level of success in Brazil, mainly due to the Brazilian company Tec Toy who handled it there, not only would they bring most of the best games to the country and translate many of them they would also bring it upon themselves to port Game Gear titles to the MS, Baku Baku Animals is one such example of this, a pretty good puzzle game where you have to match animals with their related foods in the Tetris vein. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gauntlet An extremely good port (one of the best of the time) of the seminal arcade game where the aim is to run around shooting monsters and finding keys. It was a little bit out of date by the time it was released for the Master System but still stands as a great 2 player game for the system. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Danan - The Jungle Fighter After being told that the end of the world is nigh most people would go to an armory and stock up on weapons, not Danan he just strolls to his kitchen to arm himself with smallest knife he can possibly find, why? because Danan is hardcore, saving the world is not enough, he has to humiliate his enemies whilst doing it! Your general solid platformer with RPG undertones, there's some higher than average levels of presentation and narrative here but damn do I wish the knife was a little longer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Klax Block stacking puzzler where you need to match colours, it's a nice game that has appeared on many different systems over the years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Astro Warrior Probably the oldest game to make the list Astro Warrior is a very fun and frenetic shooter that plays very similarly to the vertical scrolling levels found in Lifeforce. Don't let the crude graphics dissuade you from checking it out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Aladdin A completely original version of Aladdin was made for the Master System, this time with a more puzzle orientated Prince of Persia style with graphics that have to stand as some of the best on the system. The biggest problem with the game unfortunately is that it's pretty shamefully short and easy which is the main reason why it only reached 90 in the list. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Outrun Port of the arcade classic that turned out pretty good under the circumstances of the inferior 8-bit Master System hardware. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pacmania Pacmania brought a whole new level of fun to the original as now as well as being able to collect power pills whilst munching along you had the ability to do a quick jump over the ghost's head's to avoid them. A great and pretty accurate port. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Asterix and the Great Rescue This Asterix game was not handled by the same people as the all time classic Sega versions, it was made by Core who were better known for their Chuck Rock games at the time (and later for Tomb Raider) and as such plays very differently to the other Asterix games on the Master System. It's quite low on action in comparison, removing your ability to jump on your enemies heads leaving you with just the gimped punch ability and tends to veer more into puzzle game territory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Krusty's Fun House Help Krusty work out how to guide the mice to the crushing machine in this very classy version of the cool multi-format puzzler. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ World Class Leaderboard World Class Leaderboard was pretty much the only word in serious golf games during the 80s, it's very well made and always had some of the more impressive graphics for the time period. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Choplifter Choplifter is one of those enduring classics that's still though of quite well today, the basic aim of the game is to fly around shooting the enemy whilst picking up surivivors off the ground and flying them to safety. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spellcaster Spellcaster is the predecessor to the Mega Drive game Mystic Defender, Whilst it's sequel goes for an action only stance Spellcaster attempts to mix platforming with RPG elements, unfortunately neither element works quite as well as it should but as a whole it's still a very good game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Putt and Putter Putt and Putter is a very well made and fun miniature golf game that's quite addictive once you've got into it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Termintor The Terminator is a no-brains all out blaster, it's a lot of fun, and has especially noticible high quality music and graphics. The one thing I will criticise it for though is that it can be occasionally confusing, which caused it to lose some places in the list. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Next