Vortex

"Somewhat solid, with iffy controls."

I bought this Super Nintendo title known as ''Vortex'' because it looked as appealing and entertaining as the Star Fox title also on the SNES. It was one of the games that used the FX chip, along with other titles such as Yoshi's Island, Doom, Winter Gold, Dirt Trax FX, Star Fox, Stunt Race FX and as you know, Vortex. which gave it great graphical capabilites on the 16 bit.But from when I played through the training, I realized how slow and hard to manage this game can be. The controls are a bit too sloppy, while the movement and response of your machine itself can really be a drawback and try your patience. But don't get me wrong, every other category in this game pretty much holds its own. Breakdown....

Graphics (9/10)

Extremely impressive. The backgrounds are well detailed, while all of the objects and enemies are well colored, and distinguishable. The FX chip did well.

Music (8/10)

The sound track in Vortex were also very good. I especially liked the track on Level 3 (Voltair, the Sky World). All of the music was done very well in my opinion.

Sound (9/10)

Just as the music was, the sound went well with all of the morphing system's (what you operate in the game's) actions along with the explosion noises of enemies, and yourself (when worse comes to worst).

Story and Gameplay (7/10)

In this story, there is speak of aliens capturing the 'Sacred Core segments' in a planet system known as the 'Aki-do system'. You are a pilot that has the job to take control over a 'battle morphing system', that can change into four different modes of fighting or protection. The first and main mode is the walker, which is basically a big walking robot, with the power to shoot lasers, and missles. The second mode is the jet, which is armed with lasers, and has the ability to fly over objects, and fly with great speed. The third mode, the 'land burner' is a very flat car with wheels tht is armed with lasers with also a great speed. It's pretty tough to manage, though. The last mode is known as the 'hard shell', this is a mode of self defense which distributes a hard outer cover which limits damage, and is armed with electro bombs that it can launch, and it moves extremely slow. With all of these different modes, you are to fight the Aki-Do enemies and retrive the core segments, and bring them back to the planet known as Trantor.

You go through several different planets, including an asteroid field, completing tasks and destroying bosses that are holders of the different pieces of the core. The bosses as a whole are all pretty tough. Getting through this game is a great challenge, but alot of it has to do with the slowness of your machine's reactions, and the extremely frustrating control.

Replayability (4/10)

Well, there isn't anything to do, or unlock. There are only special codes and passwords that you can enter that only help you to beat the game.

Finally, this game has some flaws, but alot of good points that do an almost adequate job of masking the flaws, but the controls and overall pace of the game could've used some tinkering. But not bad, overall.

7 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/11/04