Vectorman

"Super Fighting Robot... Vectorman!"

While many of the Nintendo series were successful on their system, Capcom's Mega Man was one of the most important series. Even if Sega Mega Drive had one Mega Man game, the game wasn't released in USA and it was just a remake of the three first Mega Man games on the Nes. The Mega Drive needed one exclusive platform shooter. But not only did the game have to be as good as most of the Mega Man games, the main character also had to have more attitude since without that, Sega Mega Drive wouldn't have been so successful.

Vectorman was born. A green robot which could fire bullets from his hand gun. He could also turn to many different things if he got the right power up, like a drill which allows him to make entrance to new areas in the stage. Another of his most common power ups are the ability to transform into a grenade, which will explode after a few seconds and destroy anything one the screen that is destructible. Finally Vectorman is just like Sonic, a character who likes to do a cool pose when they have finished a stage.

There isn't much that needs to be said about the story. The game takes place on Earth in 2049. Earth have tio much pollution so the humans no longer lives on this planet, and they left all their Orbots (Read this as robots) to live on the world. A watcher robot called Raster, somehow got attached to a Nuclear Missile and turned insane. Now Raster is known as the evil dictator Warhead, and takes over Earth and says that he will kill any humans who will return to their planet. Vectorman's job is to stop Warhead.

You play Vectorman kinda similar to how you play Mega Man. Your mission is to either get to the goal of each stage, while there are enemies standing in your way. There are many TVs on each stage, which gives you a power up item if you destroy them. You can either get small balls of energy, which gives Vectorman more hit points, an item that doubles your score, an item that transform Vectorman into something else, or finally it's also possible to get special weapons.

There are two other things which makes Vectorman fun to play. First of all he can run and shoot (in 9 different directions) at the same time, and since he's an robot (or as this game calls it, an Orbot) he can also preform a double jump . Sometimes it gets really tricky to find where you should go, but then it might be good to try to jump as high as possible and see if you can find another way. Sometimes you even have to look at the background to realize how to get any further.

The difficulty in this game is actually really good. The easiest difficulty is still challenging for someone as lame as me, while the other two difficulties are more for experienced players. There are a total of 16 different stages, some of them are really strange. One of them is called "Stayin Alive" which is a reference to the song which I guess everyone have heard. The stage takes place on a disco floor, and your only job is to shoot the boss on the floor. It's stages like "Stayin Alive" which never makes Vectorman boring to play.

Many will haunt me for this, but Vectorman is just like what a "green Mega Man" should be. The game isn't the really big classic, and the Sega Mega Drive have better games to offer than this, but I still don't see how anyone couldn't enjoy this game. Do yourself a favor and try it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/07