Battle Out Run (1989)

Nothing much like Out Run, this. Outside of the fact you’re driving a red car, you know? In fact, I’d say this is rather a lot like Chase H.Q, isn’t it? Actually, it’s basically exactly the same, but not as good. The game’s fairly attractive with a nice smooth-scrolling road, but it is all a tiny bit too boring. Frustrating, too, as the menacing yellow cars like to get in the way of anything that might be considered a decent flow state. You can upgrade your car, which is nice, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals. The final section of each stage that sees you ramming your opponent into submission (just like Chase H.Q) should be great fun, but it all just takes too long, having you basically doing the same thing over and over. It’s a shame. I do like the funny portraits of the stupid-looking twats you’re tasked with murdering, though. **

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (1996)

A fairly bad version of an alright SNES game, this Brazil-only adventure for the awesome amphibians starts out quite promising but came to a crashing halt for me with the roadblock that was the first boss. It seemed, as with Back to the Future Part II, more or less impossible to avoid getting hit by its girth no matter what I did, as it tracked my every move. Battletoads is supposed to be difficult, but this is the first level and it wasn’t this way in the SNES game. It’s a good-looking facsimile of its bigger, better brother, but doesn’t feel like a complete product with its dodgy collision detection and an oddly random approach to your moveset – it’s hard to plan around a dangerous situation when you can’t be certain your attack is even going to trigger. Regrettable, as the Master System could have done with a half-decent Battletoads game, and there’s even a Game Gear version of the original they could have plundered. *

Black Belt (1986)

Fist of the North Star vibes here as you stroll to the right exploding bad bastards with your punches and kicks. Hey, this actually is a localised Fist of the North Star game! Either I called it, or I already knew and partially forgot. That happens to me fairly frequently, as a consequence of my “ complete stupidity”. As with Battlemaniacs above, I had astonishing trouble getting past the first boss. And not for want of trying! I threw myself at the fucker over and over again, but I couldn’t get anywhere. Annoying, because the game that preceded it was simple fun. I checked a YouTube video and it doesn’t even seem difficult, but try it yourself. I got pasted. Good music and a nice parallax effect here, so if you can get to grips with whatever it’s demanding of you, I’d say this will be a pretty good time. It’s very basic, but that’s increasingly appealing to me these days. ***

Blade Eagle 3-D (1988)

This is basically just a less good version of Astro Warrior. I’ve been doing a lot of comparisons to other games in this entry, which is arguably bad form, but when we’re looking at something as derivative as Blade Eagle 3-D I don’t have a whole lot else to fall back on. It’s a bog-standard vertical shooter that I find ugly to look at (though it has something of an Amstrad CPC appeal) and features a major gameplay annoyance - if you shoot the power-ups they disappear, which is a bit mean when they manifest themselves in the wreckage of an enemy you’ve just been spamming bullets into. It’s all too easy to – quite literally – overshoot and blow up your reward for a tough dogfight. Boo to that. Naturally you are supposed to play this with the Sega 3-D Glasses, but I don’t have those. Maybe add a star for the novelty if you happen to have the means to experience it. *

(Next: Bo-Br)

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