Lame update, I know
Well, Justin and I are currently working on a video game review community that's going to rock the casbah if and when we actually get it up and going. I had already written one review so far. It's for the game Dark Castle. A horrid game for the Sega. As for the moment, being the site is in the works, I'm just going to post my review here but I'm too lazy to rate it for the rating system we came up with for now.. Though I doubt you'll be interested, if you wanna find out the rating you're going to have to wait for the community to be finished. So, without further delay, I give you my review!
I crept into the castle gates as the full moon barely lit the dank atmosphere around me. A rat scuttled into a hole as I entered the great hall, eerie, foreboding. Four doors led in four directions to four dark corners of the castle. I took the left door. The set of stairs ahead of me unrolls, a sea of stone-cold steps. I walk down the steps, seeing the rats scuttle around. A pixel of my body touches a rat. I die.
I re-appear at the top of the stairs, as if I have some kind of extra chance at life. I tilt my arm and toss a stone at the rat, turning into a pile of indistinguishable rat mush. A bat swoops through the air. I'm halfway down a staircase, powerless to stop it. The bat swoops past my head. I laugh as my body takes the hit. It swoops past me again. I die. Back at the stairs again. Will this nightmare never end? I race down the stairs, killing the bats and rats. I make it to the bottom of the stairs, where a door appears out of nowhere. A zombie comes out of the door. I die.
Although I should be long gone, my journey through the castle is not over yet. By some mysterious force I can continue! I run down the stairs, killing the bats and rats, kill the zombie, and run to the edge of the stone platform. As I take a step from the platform I lose my footing. There I spin, unable to control myself. I regain my footing. A bat hits me on the head. I die. *rip the game cartridge out of my Genesis, and throw it out the window.*
Welcome to the horrible world of Dark Castle.
Quite possibly the worst game I have ever had the misfortune of reviewing. I can basically run down a checklist of things that should be good in a game, and are seriously awry in Dark Castle.
Bad graphics?
Check!
Dark Castle has weedy sprites, an intro sequence that would make Altered Beast say ''Egads! That's awful!'' and bland, uninviting backdrops that wouldn't look out of place on the Master System. Even then, they'd still look crap.
Your main character is made out of cardboard- and not the good kind you can wobble to make a cool noise with, I mean the stuff that you find out in the rain. You know, that's all soggy and dull. The rest of the graphics look pretty corrugated, too.
Naff sound?
Double check!
Well, better make that one check. You see, Dark Castle only has one music track in it. This is the traditional 'evil castle' music, in ear splitting monaural sound and one instrument playing. This devastating riff lasts about 20 seconds, before a very obvious repeat. The music... never... changes... Ever! Well, unless it changes when you complete the game, but rather you than me. As for the sound effects- look on the bright side, at least it has some. Pity they were so utterly stupid. Bats that squeak like a badly oiled grocery cart. Your main character, a reject from the Bill n Ted movie auditions (his vocabulary consists of 'Woah' and... that's it really) However, my personal favorite is the evil eyeball. ''Nenenenene!'', it screams. ''AHHH! Make it stop!'' I reply.
Wretched control system?
You betcha!
Dark Castle doesn't really have one to speak of. I never felt in control of the game. I suspect that making a fist and mashing the buttons randomly would give me an equal chance of surviving this game, because the controls have as much response as a trolley car with polished mirrors for wheels slipping along an ice rink. The controls are so complex and enthralling, I'll even detail them for you in this review, because that's the kind of guy I am:
A- Jump. Seems simple enough, right? You can jump left and right a preset distance. Once you jump, you cannot control your character in mid air. Most jumps require pixel-perfect timing that if you miss them by the smallest of distances, the character will plummet to his death. Bare in mind, that if you don't jump over such tricky obstacles as steps and minute ledges, you'll fall over. I think the game developers took the words 'Watch your step' too literally. It would also help if the graphics weren't entirely horrid.
B- Crouch. Who cares? You'll never use it. The bats just fall right on your head during mid-flight. Even if you thought you could avoid it, you were wrong! Actually, it looks like your character is kneeling down and crying if you press it repeatedly, so I'm guessing he feels the pain as much as I do.
C- Throw a Stone. No swords, no sheilds, no arrows, nothing but stones, my friend! Also, in the wonderful world of Dark Castle, there is no gravity Whatsoever. When I say throw a stone, I actually mean shoot a stone out of your missle launcher-shaped arm. You can move your arm in a 360 spin (the man has very little human qualities now that I think of it), to change the angle of the missile launcher, but it still seems to be thrown in a random direction regardless.
And that is Dark Castle in a nutshell. The game can be broken down into two steps- choosing your level and dying repeatedly. There are 4 initial levels to choose from, all so tragically bad and difficult I have never beaten a single one. I wanted to, trust me I did. Nothing would've been more satisfying then to beat this terrible realm of pixelated mayhem. Even the toughest of games can be beaten with skill- the only way to beat Dark Castle, and a way I'm sure you'll find most satisfying, is to take a sledgehammer and smash it into space dust.
Overall
Dark Castle is so awful, so mind-bogglingly crap, that any ridiculous similes can't even begin to describe how putrid it is. This is the kind of thing I scoop up, place inside a bag and, set fire to on someone's doorstep. If you find any copies of Dark Castle, I suggest you do the same.
I crept into the castle gates as the full moon barely lit the dank atmosphere around me. A rat scuttled into a hole as I entered the great hall, eerie, foreboding. Four doors led in four directions to four dark corners of the castle. I took the left door. The set of stairs ahead of me unrolls, a sea of stone-cold steps. I walk down the steps, seeing the rats scuttle around. A pixel of my body touches a rat. I die.
I re-appear at the top of the stairs, as if I have some kind of extra chance at life. I tilt my arm and toss a stone at the rat, turning into a pile of indistinguishable rat mush. A bat swoops through the air. I'm halfway down a staircase, powerless to stop it. The bat swoops past my head. I laugh as my body takes the hit. It swoops past me again. I die. Back at the stairs again. Will this nightmare never end? I race down the stairs, killing the bats and rats. I make it to the bottom of the stairs, where a door appears out of nowhere. A zombie comes out of the door. I die.
Although I should be long gone, my journey through the castle is not over yet. By some mysterious force I can continue! I run down the stairs, killing the bats and rats, kill the zombie, and run to the edge of the stone platform. As I take a step from the platform I lose my footing. There I spin, unable to control myself. I regain my footing. A bat hits me on the head. I die. *rip the game cartridge out of my Genesis, and throw it out the window.*
Welcome to the horrible world of Dark Castle.
Quite possibly the worst game I have ever had the misfortune of reviewing. I can basically run down a checklist of things that should be good in a game, and are seriously awry in Dark Castle.
Bad graphics?
Check!
Dark Castle has weedy sprites, an intro sequence that would make Altered Beast say ''Egads! That's awful!'' and bland, uninviting backdrops that wouldn't look out of place on the Master System. Even then, they'd still look crap.
Your main character is made out of cardboard- and not the good kind you can wobble to make a cool noise with, I mean the stuff that you find out in the rain. You know, that's all soggy and dull. The rest of the graphics look pretty corrugated, too.
Naff sound?
Double check!
Well, better make that one check. You see, Dark Castle only has one music track in it. This is the traditional 'evil castle' music, in ear splitting monaural sound and one instrument playing. This devastating riff lasts about 20 seconds, before a very obvious repeat. The music... never... changes... Ever! Well, unless it changes when you complete the game, but rather you than me. As for the sound effects- look on the bright side, at least it has some. Pity they were so utterly stupid. Bats that squeak like a badly oiled grocery cart. Your main character, a reject from the Bill n Ted movie auditions (his vocabulary consists of 'Woah' and... that's it really) However, my personal favorite is the evil eyeball. ''Nenenenene!'', it screams. ''AHHH! Make it stop!'' I reply.
Wretched control system?
You betcha!
Dark Castle doesn't really have one to speak of. I never felt in control of the game. I suspect that making a fist and mashing the buttons randomly would give me an equal chance of surviving this game, because the controls have as much response as a trolley car with polished mirrors for wheels slipping along an ice rink. The controls are so complex and enthralling, I'll even detail them for you in this review, because that's the kind of guy I am:
A- Jump. Seems simple enough, right? You can jump left and right a preset distance. Once you jump, you cannot control your character in mid air. Most jumps require pixel-perfect timing that if you miss them by the smallest of distances, the character will plummet to his death. Bare in mind, that if you don't jump over such tricky obstacles as steps and minute ledges, you'll fall over. I think the game developers took the words 'Watch your step' too literally. It would also help if the graphics weren't entirely horrid.
B- Crouch. Who cares? You'll never use it. The bats just fall right on your head during mid-flight. Even if you thought you could avoid it, you were wrong! Actually, it looks like your character is kneeling down and crying if you press it repeatedly, so I'm guessing he feels the pain as much as I do.
C- Throw a Stone. No swords, no sheilds, no arrows, nothing but stones, my friend! Also, in the wonderful world of Dark Castle, there is no gravity Whatsoever. When I say throw a stone, I actually mean shoot a stone out of your missle launcher-shaped arm. You can move your arm in a 360 spin (the man has very little human qualities now that I think of it), to change the angle of the missile launcher, but it still seems to be thrown in a random direction regardless.
And that is Dark Castle in a nutshell. The game can be broken down into two steps- choosing your level and dying repeatedly. There are 4 initial levels to choose from, all so tragically bad and difficult I have never beaten a single one. I wanted to, trust me I did. Nothing would've been more satisfying then to beat this terrible realm of pixelated mayhem. Even the toughest of games can be beaten with skill- the only way to beat Dark Castle, and a way I'm sure you'll find most satisfying, is to take a sledgehammer and smash it into space dust.
Overall
Dark Castle is so awful, so mind-bogglingly crap, that any ridiculous similes can't even begin to describe how putrid it is. This is the kind of thing I scoop up, place inside a bag and, set fire to on someone's doorstep. If you find any copies of Dark Castle, I suggest you do the same.