The Mammon Philosophy

Puzzle-adventure games have always put me in a bit of a muddle. I love the hilarious descriptions and the offbeat non-sequitor dialogue (let’s not pretend that any serious point-and-clicks have ever mattered; there’s a reason everyone loves Maniac Mansion and nobody talks about Project: Iceman.) But I hate the “hilarious” solutions, especially the ones involving offbeat uses of items that don’t make a whole lot of sense. Honestly, who’s going to think of playing an arcade machine to get the password to the secret lab’s inner door?

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Come on up for the waiting tonight! I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, so I picked out a few short time-wasters and knocked back some classic gaming. First there was Bionic Commando, which has been in the news lately thanks to Rearmed and the new 3D remake. It troubles me because they gave the new commando a bionic arm. He always had a bionic arm, you say? Not so! The original game clearly shows that his “arm” is actually a sort of futuristic whip attached to his belt, putting Ladd on the same weapon proficiency tree as Simon Belmont. Bionic Castlevania would be an awesome game. Somebody should get on that.

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I was all set to do a little “first impressions” update on Ys Book I & II, maybe set it up as a counterpoint to my Crystalis item from the other day. But that isn’t gonna happen now, because in their infinite wisdom, the big N decided to buck the trend and give us Splatterhouse II, a beat-em-up that puts the “oh my god that is disgusting!” in “M for Mature” without bothering about any of the clever juxtaposition that makes Zombies Ate My Neighbors fun or the degrees of variety that spice up favourites like Double Dragon or Streets Of Rage. They also saw fit to bless us with the Master System version of Sonic The Hedgehog, knowing full well that thousands of players have already purchased the original Genesis hit.

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