[Repost of an older review I did for NESCentral.com]

Posted by Ben Mazhary-Clark on Monday Nov 28th 2005 @ 3:25PM

River City Ransom, one of the best RPG fighting games for the NES and most likely the least heard of. RCR was released around the same time as Double Dragon (both developed and released by Technos) thus stealing the spotlight from this great game.

The storyline is simple: a gang member is holding a girl(friend) and several other students hostage in the local high school and it is up to you to beat through all the gangs on the streets, including several bosses, to free your friends being held.

You can play in single player or cooperative mode to beat down the street gangs. In either mode the game play is of average difficulty, button mashing is encouraged. Even with the button mashing the game still provides lots of fun with its RPG elements. Once you grind a gang member into the concrete with your method of choice a bouncing coin appears where their body was. Pick these up within a few seconds or they disappear. With money in hand you can go to many stores along the way and buy food to boost health and fighting stats, as well as pure upgrades like the Stone Hands book (fast fists), Acro Circus (flips and tricks), Dragon Feet (fast kicking) and many more. These upgrades, along with other forms of stat boosting, are critical in order to finish off some of the bosses.

In game dialogue from the gang members is enjoyable, with sayings like “BARF!!!” and “That guy’s a freak!” you can stay entertained for hours. The background music is interesting enough to captivate your interest and get you into the groove of walking around the city, beating gang members up for their lunch money.

Another wonderful element of the fighting aspect of the gameplay is the weapon selection. Use chains, pipes, wood sticks, brass knuckles, tires, boxes and garbage cans to beat your opponents down. These items can be found around the maps or dropped by gang members when they are stuck.

This game is highly recommended for players that always liked the Double Dragon or other side scrolling fighting games. RCR takes Double Dragon one step further with the RPG elements and the playful dialogue. This is a must have for any classic NES fan.

Buy River City Ransom or Trade for it on Goozex

As a side note, RCR was re-released for Gameboy Advance. Some upgrades were included but overall the gameplay was left intact for the classic fans.

Buy River City Ransom for GBA or Trade for it on Goozex

–Ben Mazhary-Clark

[Repost of an older review I did for NESCentral.com]

Posted by Ben Mazhary-Clark on Wednesday Oct 5th 2005 @ 2:45PM

When trying out new games that were never popular in the mass market, and in this case even rare, the first impressions of the game will either interest you enough to keep playing or make you toss it out and try something else. The unique design and concepts provided to your senses in Alfred Chicken have the tendency to make you want to see where the storyline takes you…

Alfred Chicken was certainly late in the NES timeline with a release year of 1993. Games in this era were usually put out hastily and a bit rough. Even given all of that, the game play and graphics are quite good and the sound quality is decent. The music is soft enough to not be annoying, and even though it is purposely off key, it helps carry the game along without making you want to turn the sound all the way off.

The storyline consists of evil Meka Chickens want to take over the world…Alfred is the only one who can stop them and with help from Mr. Pekles (a potted plant), Alfred must make it through 5 stages of madness to foil the Meka Chickens and save the world.

The game is a typical platformer, but you may forget that with the less than normal hero and cast of enemies. You will start off the game as a plump little chicken, in a world of cheese with mechanical mice patrolling the area. Your chicken doesn’t have any super powers, can’t shoot lasers out of its eyes, he just needs to survive. In order to get through the levels you need to jump over and press down to dive-bomb the mice with your beak; collect as many jewels as possible; flip switches to activate doors and platforms elsewhere in the level; and use springs to work your way up the platforms since chickens don’t fly well. You also must peck all the balloons on each level in order to leave. The base of your most recent balloon becomes your respawn point if you get turned into KFC.

Overall the game plays well. The controls are easy to pick up and there isn’t a point in the game in which you are left wondering where to go next. Highly recommended for someone wanting a game off the beaten path in console gaming.

Buy Alfred Chicken or  Trade for it on Goozex

–Ben Mazhary-Clark