Veigues Tactical Gladiator

"Platformers and shooters shacked up and gave birth to this beast of a game!"

Welcome to Veigues Mission Control. Input your personality type:

A) Impatient modern gamer
B) Shooter fanatic
C) Platformer at heart
D) Hardcore Turbo player
E) Retro gamer

Player A: Impatient modern gamer

You might get some enjoyment of the game. The sound effects are surprisingly good for a low budget title, and some of the graphics are downright impressive. There's some healthy parallax, and the some of the background textures are very pleasing. Veigues's sprite is large and detailed, although his arm animations are a little jerky, there are some cool looking retro-psychedelic effects for his punch and laser. The control may bother you a little, as Veigues' veneer system (booster pack for extended jumps) seems to be a bit touchy and at times imprecise. I would at least emulate it.

Player B: Shooter fanatic

This game is a little off the beaten path for you. If you're a purist, you may contest Veigues Tactical Gladiator's shooter status, due to gravity, yet in all other aspects VTG is clearly a shooter of the horizontal persuasion. You may not be in love with the huge sprite, it makes some dodging situations a little tough, but overall VTG offers less challenge than most shooters, especially if you load up on shields before each level (though you may feel that those upgrade points would be better suited for upgrading your two arm weapons, chest weapon or veneer). There's not too much dead space if that concerns you, though certain parts of the level design are questionable. Specifically, I'm thinking of the beginning of nearly every stage. They nearly all consist of a bum rush of enemies/projectiles obviously designed for nothing more than to whittle down your health. When your shields run out, your systems (arms, head, body, veneer) become damaged. When all are gone, it's game over. No continues for you! This chip is right up your alley.

Player C: Platformer at heart

This may not be your game, friend. There's no real platforming action to be had here. Forced scrolling takes away much of your control, and there are no precise jumps or anything similar in here. The closest you're going to get are quickly breaking through some wall-spanning (gonna invent my own term here) laser-booths. On the other hand, there's not much shooter-style dodging to drag this game down for you. Most of your dodging will come from carefully timed turning. Veigues auto-scrolls left-to-right, but you can turn around by pressing down. For a split second during this turn, you're invincible. The developers seem quite proud of this ''innovation,'' and they accordingly make extensive use of it. However, it gets tiring. Let's face it, that's happened in games before, but it was just a glitch. Some of the later levels will have you turning and a constant rate just to avoid the onslaught of bullets. Jumping around isn't going to get you through, your only hope is to turn constantly. Tiresome. You may or may not want to check this game out.

Player D: Hardcore Turbo player

Come on, man! This is a cheap and fun chip game and you don't have it yet? The cover art is typical TurboGrafx fare: a lame battle scene drawn in pastels. Nonetheless, it's an essential Chip for any Turbo collector. Read no further, you're the type of guy who claims to get fun from J.J. & Jeff. This came will seem like a slice of heaven, although there are no big innovations that make it a clearly essential chip.

Player E: Retro gamer

This is a really great game. Check her out. The graphics are better than a lot of what you'll see on supposedly superior systems like the SNES, and the music is pretty rockin' too. The control is spot on, other than the inaccurate jumping. Here's a quick break down of what's gonna happen in every level: Begin level, battle off onslaught of cheap enemies (level 2 especially bothers me. Even though your chest cannon (hold I+II) is devastatingly weak, you have to use it against these guys, and they all die from it before getting a shot off. Boring!), go through the middle of the level, probably dodging some lasers and/or missiles, reach boss, blast him a new one, finish level and go to Veigues Command Center, where you can use your points gained (based off a formula of enemies killed and remaining shields) to upgrade your mech in a variety of ways. Go again. On the one hand you could argue that this is a boring archetypal action game, but on the other hand, no game is quite like this, though the closest would probably be Atomic Robo Kid. If you're reading this review you're already interested. Indulge yourself, you won't regret it.

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/14/04