Wednesday 26 December 2012

Review: Rolling Thunder 2 on Sega Mega Drive



I first came across Rolling Thunder 2 during the heady Mega Drive days of the early 1990s and loved it instantly. It’s one of those rare games that actually evokes a sensation of identity with the main protagonist during play. You dodge bullets, hide in doorways and defeat waves of evil henchmen - in essence you feel just like a real secret agent!

Released in 1991, Rolling Thunder 2 was a port of the Namco produced arcade game that was released a year earlier. This home version also has a few extras thrown in for good measure. Extra levels, power-ups, story cut-scenes and a unique password system were all added to beef up the home console offering.

The game is a side-scrolling "run and gun" affair in which you play a secret agent on a mission to track down the crime syndicate Geldra. Two playable characters are featured: a suave Bond styled male named Albatross, and his female counterpart Leila (complete with bad 90s perm!). Co-operative two player is supported and really adds to the fun! I stress that the two player offering is “co-operative” because it relies on you sharing weapons, ammo and health power-ups. There’s no room for loose cannons in the war against Geldra!

Gameplay is a mixture of gunning down waves of henchmen and also memorising the patterns of when they appear. Conserving ammo and dodging enemy attacks plays its part as well. If you should find yourself with an empty chamber your gun is still capable of firing a fairly lame single bullet at a time until you can find somewhere to restock. Each level has two floors that you can switch between with a high jump and enemies spawn on both floors. There are multiple doors in each stage that offer refuge from being attacked and they also house power-ups including extra health, ammo and special weapons. You can pick up machine guns for rapid fire and flame-throwers for when you want to get up close and personal! Most levels also have secret doors containing power-ups but there are no visual clues as to their locations – you’ll just have to experiment.

Enemies come in a variety of guises, from standard henchmen that vary in strength to stage specific ones that you’ll need to figure out before attacking. There are henchmen with force fields, scorpion-like guys that can disappear into the ground and enemies that copy your moves by hiding in doorways, peeking out periodically to try and put a bullet in your skull! Even bats and panthers make an appearance to try and take you down. There is a boss battle every few stages and these vary in imagination and difficulty. If there is one flaw with this game then the difficulty spike is probably it. The levels themselves are challenging but it won’t take you long to get past them if you persevere. The bosses however are a different story. A couple of them verge on being plain unfair and this can be a little frustrating. Having said that they are far from being impossible and there’s a great sense of achievement to be gained from besting them.

The graphics in the game are decent enough although they hardly push Sega’s 16-bit masterpiece to its limits. Having said that there’s a nice consistency to the quality of the stages, the backgrounds and the enemy design. Animation and collision detection are both good, meaning you’ll never die and be sat there wondering what the hell just happened. The music is good, with suitably spy-themed jingles and there’s even the obligatory Egyptian theme for the desert level!

Rolling Thunder 2 really is a great game – one of the Mega Drive’s many gems! At the heart of a well presented package lies a core game mechanic that, quite simply, is just a hell of a lot of fun. Grab a copy, grab a mate and get after Geldra before they destroy all of the world’s satellites!

This review will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Article: What's In A Name?




Hi there, and welcome to the Negative Resistance blog! I've been toying with the idea of creating a blog for some time now. Other than deliberating over what to write about within the sphere of gaming, I also found myself overly concerned with what to name my blog. This is the short story of how the name “Negative Resistance” came into existence!

First a bit of background for you. I consider myself very fortunate to have grown up in the 16-bit era. It really was a fantastic time for gaming, where everything was so full of energy and had that hint of magic surrounding it. Back then you picked a side in the Sega vs. Nintendo war and you stuck to it! You spent your school breaks and evenings arguing with your friends about what was best; Sonic vs. Mario; Mode 7 vs. Burst Processing; Mortal Kombat blood vs. Street Fighter 2 ports - the list was endless! Of course both systems had their merits but I never knew anyone back in the day that owned both consoles at the same time. That’s very unlike today where it’s quite commonplace to have a PS3 or Xbox in one room and a Wii in another.

This short bout of reminiscing brings me back to the point of this blog entry. I vehemently despised Nintendo back in the day. I was Sega through and through. I had Sonic pyjamas, Alex Kidd slippers and, more importantly, I had a Mega Drive! I simply couldn't concede that the likes of Mario Kart et al on the SNES were quite obviously fantastic games and well worthy of my attention. I would go around to friends’ houses and play these games just so that I had more ammunition for the school playground the next day. You could say that I put up a lot of resistance to anything that came out of Kyoto!



Today is a completely different story however. While I still pine for Sega's golden age, I’m also busy acquiring the best that Nintendo had to offer on all of its platforms. I currently have a SNES, N64, GameCube, DS and Wii all sitting proudly in my console collection. This brings everything nicely full circle because you could say that by actively seeking out and collecting Nintendo games I now have... negative resistance!

 So there you have it. A blog title that I'm happy with and my first article to boot!


Over the coming weeks I intend to muse on all sorts of things; the demise of Sega; how life was better when Sonic and Mario hated each other; how I avoided PlayStations until 2010; how smartphone gaming changed my world, and much more! There will also be the odd retro review thrown in for good measure as well so please stay tuned.

And remember, when it comes to retro gaming: resistance is futile!