Action Fighter - Sega Master System review

That car doesn't really look very suited to fighting action

Game: Action Fighter
Format: Sega Master System
Developer: Sega 
Publisher: Sega
Year Released: 1986
Also Released on: Arcade, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga
Now Available on: Nothing

Is it a bike? Is it a car? Is it a plane? No, it's Superm, er, Action Fighter. That's Action Fighter, not Superm Action Fighter. Action Fighter is one of the Sega Master System's earliest games, a conversion of an arcade game with the same name. It also appeared on a few home computers too, something I didn't know until I took a look at the Internet a few seconds ago. Then again, I didn't even know it was originally an arcade game until Wikipedia informed me. Now I'm curious to see what it looked like on other systems. Might find out after I've written this. I really don't know what's going on with the formatting on this page. Blogger seems to have a mind of its own today.  

What happens if I push 3? The game explodes?? I'll try that then

Action Fighter is an overhead vertically scrolling drive 'em, fly 'em, shoot 'em up. A Drflshmup to give it its made-up modern name. The idea of the game is to drive, fly and shoot things. I'm sure there is a purpose for all of this reckless behaviour, and I'm sure that purpose is explained in the instruction manual or on the back of the box. So, seeing as my fancy has been well and truly tickled, I shall find out. Exactly why must I drive, fly and shoot things?

Hang On! Is that the bike from, er, what was it?

Hmmm, so according to the text on the European box, you "Take the motorcycle from "Hang On," equip it with hi-tech weaponry and give it the ability to transform itself into an aircraft or car - and you've got ACTION FIGHTER!" Well I never, it's the Hang On bike! I still don't know why it needs equipping with hi-tech weaponry and or why it has the ability to transform itself into other vehicles.  Maybe the American box has more info. Here is its text in full, and I'll put it in italics to make it stand out:

Get ready to play a starring role in the incredible world of international espionage. You receive five different assignments. All action-packed. And all extremely dangerous. Your secret weapon? A vehicle that transforms into a dozen different deadly devices.  Your high-speed motoscycle can turn into a customised car and then into a sound-barrier breaking jet plane. All in a matter of seconds. The real test? To know when to use which weapon. Because the wrong machine, at the wrong time, can prove fatal.  

That reminds me, I need to watch the People vs, OJ Simpson.
Everyone tells me how good it is

Oooh, so it's espionage then? Spy games and the like. A bit like being a spy hunter of sorts? Original. No mention of the bike from Hang On though. Maybe being a vehicle used for spying, it doesn't want its true identity revealing. Instead, it's just described as a motorcycle that can transform into a dozen different deadly devices (nice use of alliteration there, Sega!). Unfortunately, the box only mentions two of the transformations, the car and plane, and they are the only two in the game too. I feel short-changed now. What are the other ten, and why aren't they in the game? Why mention a dozen if you're not going to let us see them? And what's all this bullcrap about knowing when to use which weapon? Yes, you can switch from bike to car and back to the bike if you want, but why would you? Once you've gained the ability to change to the car, you'll never ever go back to using the bike as it's horrible to control. And you change automatically from car to plane and back again depending on where about you are in the level. Yes, I think that whoever wrote the box text hasn't actually played the game.  

Red Two. Get back in formation. That is an order. Red Two!! Just you wait until we get back to base.

Your president certainly gets straight to the point. Either
that or he can't put together full sentences yet.

But I have. In Action Fighter, after picking your name, a message from the President of wherever you are tells you to unleash fire and fury on whichever place has pissed him off. You then set off on your little bike, whizzing along a road at stupidly fast speeds, avoiding other road users - or just shooting them - and collecting letters. For some reason, many of the vehicles you can destroy are ambulances. I did initially think that doing so would result in some sort of penalty, but apparently not. The sick and injured are clearly not worthy of your consideration, so need dealing with accordingly. There are quite a few parallels between this game and the modern-day policies of a certain orange President. You speed up by pushing up on the d-pad, slow down by pushing down, and fire with button 2. Every now and again, you'll spot a Sega van. Driving into the back of it causes your vehicle to become enhanced with faster and more powerful weaponry. After you've collected the letters A, B, C, and D, which apparently correspond to the four corner sections of your vehicle, your bike transforms into a car. The car is easier to control than the bike, but operates in pretty much the same way. You can switch from bike to car and car to bike by pressing buttons 1 and 2 at the same time. Go on to collect the letters E and F and your car will eventually stop at a checkpoint, gain wings and take off. 

We'll fight them on the beaches, we'll fight them on their
freshly mown lawns.

When in flight mode, the game becomes a standard vertical shooter. Just shoot everything or dodge them. Button 2 remains your fire button,  but button 1 becomes your bomb-dropping button. Use it to drop bombs on objects situated on the ground or in the sea. This includes some of the end of level bosses, which are the ones that your President requested you to destroy. 

The game continues in the same way throughout the remaining levels, only sometimes you begin the level as the plane which will then later become the car with the boss battles taking place on ground rather than in the air. Eventually, once you've switched your vehicles around enough times, and used them to take out whichever nasties are stupid enough to get in your way, you'll complete the game. 

The magical transforming Hang On bike doesn't really look the most aerodynamic vehicle, even when it has wings

Old Hang On finds the 14th hole, but has put the ball in the
water hazard. 

Action Fighter is very samey. Although changing from one vehicle to another should offer some variety in gameplay, both gaming styles are fairly similar to each other, and just repeat one after the other. As well as being repetitive, Action Fighter is also extremely tough. On the ground at top speed, it's impossible to react to the presence of other road users and to make turns when you need to. And constantly having to press fire tires out your fingers very quickly. Your vehicle does have auto-fire which works by holding down the fire button, but it fires so slowly that it's pointless. Of course, you can slow down, but you'll either slow down too much and need to speed up again, and then back down again, or you'll just decide to drive like a snail, which only results in you getting rear-ended. Finding that happy medium (Russell Grant?) isn't very achievable. The constant shooting, dodging, slowing down and speeding up, combined with regular deaths, just makes the game a pain in the ass to play. And when in the air, although you no longer have to deal with controlling your speed, you get bombarded with enemy aircraft and their bullets, some of which are hidden from view in the clouds. And those that aren't are hidden from view because of the Master System's flicker. You really have to shoot and hope. Kind of like having unprotected sex. Or perhaps not. Perhaps to rebalance the odds in the player's favour a little, a bit of variety to your firepower would have been nice. I don't mind hard games, but I don't like games that are only hard because they are unfair. The only saving grace in this game is that you have unlimited lives as you play against a timer. It starts at 999 and counts down. If it reaches zero before the end of the level, it's game over. The game really is a typical example of what early Master System releases were like, being just the same game on a loop. I can't even imagine it being much fun even if you do persevere with it and get good at it. Unless you have a weird ambition to become an Action Fighter master, it's probably not going to keep you entertained for very long.

Their are some enemies in those there clouds. Somewhere.

Have you seen my chopper? Hehe

As far as graphics go, everything is nice and colourful and ok to look at, although the aforementioned clouds and flicker only add to the overall frustrations that the game seems only to happy to serve up. To offend your ears, two or three nasty-sounding tinkly "tunes" play in the background, They're not even good for Master System standards, and don't even sound in tune. And the sound effects are just awful. Like everything else in this game, the graphics style and music don't change as you play through it. There really is nothing that signifies to you that you are progressing through it. Even some colour changes would have helped a bit. And any change to the music would have been good. Maybe different notes. Or no notes. Yes, no notes at all would be best. 

You can bog off if you think I'm carrying on
with this shite Mr President

So, um, yes, I can't think of anything else to add. That's Action Fighter. Pure garbage.

RATINGS

Presentation – 70%

A car whizzes into the foreground, flashes its lights and the title is displayed. A few intermissions give you your objectives for each level, but there's very little else.

Graphics – 65%

Graphics are ok. The roads are grey, fields are green, water is blue and the clouds are white. And they fudging hide enemy aircraft in them. I hate those clouds. 

Sound – 45%

Turn it off. Turn it off now. Horrible.

Playability – 38%
At first, the game feels like it might be fun. But it quickly turns out that it isn't. It's not fun at all. It's hard, repetitive, frustrating and is about as enjoyable as visiting the dentist. Actually, my dentist is quite tasty so I don't mind doing that. 

Overall – 40%

Not the Master System's finest hour, or even 15 minutes. Quite horrendous. It might improve with practice, but there really are more worthwhile things to practice getting better at. 

Possibly the best part of the game, entering your name

Retro Review: Toki: Going Ape Spit (Mega Drive)

This is the Japanese titlesceen. I can't find the PAL version.

Toki is one of those arcade games that wasn't particularly well known or even well regarded but which seemed to get ported to just about every computer and console known to man. Most of these were straight conversions of the original, attempting to replicate the arcade game to the extent that each respective platform's technology would allow. However, Sega's Mega Drive version was different. Instead of releasing a conversion, it looks like Sega released an interpretation of the arcade game. Quite possibly, the game's programmers had never played the original and based their version on some screenshots they'd seen in a magazine.  Still, seeing as the arcade version had its faults, maybe a re-imagining of the game wouldn't be a bad idea.

Toki: "Fancy a ride on my disco stick?" 

First though, the story. As I've never been one for reading manuals, I usually use the contents of the game to understand its plot. This is quite fortunate as I don't have a manual for this game anyway. So, according to the game, the story begins with Mr Toki standing in a field of flowers with his scantily-clad lady friend. He doesn't appear to be wearing much either. However, before Toki gets the chance to get his end away, the sky suddenly darkens, the music goes crazy, and a mysterious building appears in the background. Oh no! What's worse, a giant hand then grabs Toki's bird and whisks her away to the newly erected mysterious building.. And to kick a man while he's down, a strange wizardy person appears, turns Mr Toki into an ape, and then vanishes. Toki, now in his simian-form, walks off the screen probably wondering what just happened. We are then treated to the game's title screen. The title music is chirpy and cheerful which seems kind of inappropriate given the tragedy that has just unfolded before our eyes. If there was an Ofcom for video games, I'd write a letter of outrage to them. The game's options are fairly standard, although it is possibly to give yourself a ridiculous number of lives (9 lives, 7 continues) and set it so you get a new life every 7000 points. Which is what I always do.

Worst Date Ever...

One of the first of many annoying triangle rocks

So, onto the game. At first, things don't start off too badly. Toki moves responsively to your commands, and it isn't long until you come across power ups to upgrade his spit attack. These power-ups are varied and are also quite plentiful and seem to do quite a bit of damage. And it all starts off quite fun. However, it's also not long until you come across some initial frustrations, such as stupid spikey triangle rocks that keep appearing. It's impossible to jump over them, so you have to destroy them by firing at them. One or two wouldn't be an issue, but having them appearing regularly and for no real reason is just annoying. It's not as if getting rid of them requires any real skill other than being able to fire at them. All they do is stop your progress for a few seconds. This initial frustration then leads to other frustrations. Toki doesn't seem to be in a rush to rescue his damsel in distress and plods slowly through the levels. He also can't jump very far, and gets killed every time something touches him. This wouldn't be too bad though if you had a fair chance of avoiding some enemies. Unfortunately, you don't. Sometimes, you only discover that something is waiting to kill you when you've already begun your jump into it. Enemy avoidance becomes something of a memory test rather than a test of skill.

Most of the levels are standard platform stuff with little variation between them. There is the obligatory water level and ice level, but most of the rest are fairly similar. Water levels have always been a pet hate of mine, but fortunately they're piss-easy in this game and are done within a matter of minutes. The ice level though provides quite a challenge and is both fun and frustrating at the same time. You'll be glad you've done it when you've, er, done it.

Toki's science-defying breathing fire under water trick

At the end of each level is an end of level boss. Most levels (possibly all) feature three rounds followed by an end of level baddie. Early ones are very easy to defeat. Towards the end of the game, they get quite difficult, and you'll find that you'll probably lose most of the 100s of lives you've built up on them.

I like Toki... and I like Boomer. But which one's uglier. There's only one way to find out....

An example of the game's exciting colour scheme on level 4

One of the other problems with the game is that it is quite samey. There isn't much to differentiate the style of one level from another, even despite there being water and ice ones. Graphics are dull and murky throughout. It's as if the graphic artist had a constant hangover and couldn't cope with any colour brighter than dark blue, dark grey, dark green or dark brown, and their varying shades of darkness. There is one level featuring bright fire lakes and suchlike which he probably did after having a sober day. That said, the graphics aren't horrible - they just aren't exciting, and as they don't differ much from one level to another, you don't real feel that you are really progressing through the game and getting any closer to its end. The music also causes this effect too, as the same tune plays for every level, apart from on the water level and for the end of level baddies.

Level 2 features many unexpected pitfalls.

Toki: Going Ape Spit isn't a terrible game, nor is it a great game. The game is frustrating in parts but it isn't unplayable. It's not the most attractive of games, but it probably doesn't need to be. Does it improve on the arcade original? Nope. Playability-wise, I'd probably say it's on par with the original, but it's a different game that uses the arcade's characters and ideas. I would have thought that the reasoning behind re-doing the game was to iron out some of the faults of the arcade game. Unfortunately, this wasn't done. It was just that the same problems were replicated in a different game and, to be honest, I would have preferred an actual conversion of the arcade game on the Mega Drive as I'm sure the console would have been up to it.

6/10

I would have included more screenshots from the later levels of the game, but I couldn't face having to replay it anymore to get some which is a shame as they do improve a little as things go along. However, did you ever wonder what happened to that ugly kid out of Magic Pockets? The one the programmers called Kid? Well, it looks like he became a transvestite and appears as an end of level baddie in Toki. Take a look for yourself!

Kid from Magic Pockets in his Burger King jacket

Kid's new job. End of level boss in Toki.