Taz in Escape from Mars (Genesis/Mega Drive)

Hmm. The art isn't bad, but it's a Tazmanian Devil game so I'm really not getting my hopes up.

Ugh, Mars is purple. Making alien planets purple rarely seems to work. I mean yeah, it makes them look alien, but it also makes them look ugly and makes you wish you were looking at something else.

Anyway, Marvin the Martian is collecting animals for his zoo. Apparently lots and lots of similar creatures for use as enemies, and one rare protagonist creature from Earth...

That art could not have been done better. Full marks to the artist.

Anyway, Marvin teleports Taz from Earth and... oh wow look at that place. Not sure about the blue shadow coming off that tree, but otherwise that place just looks nice. C'mon game, can't we have a nice generic forest level to start us off? Anything but purple alien land.

Well the intro's over, and we're in a cage on uglyworld. Trapped forever.

Actually, it seems that Marvin hasn't been maintaining his zoo very well, I bet I could basically walk through that cracked wall on the right.

Aha, I use my spinny twister attack to escape the cell, and quickly bounce up this narrow passage. The bouncing works pretty effortlessly and is a nice addition to my character's generic platformer moveset.

Taz best pixelled object in space. Taz don't like purple stripy walls.

Taz make mental note. 'Don't eat bombs'.

Bad pickups aren't an unusual game feature, but they feel more like genuine traps in this so far. Taz will stop, put the bomb (or birthday cake with a dynamite candle) in his mouth, and think about what he just did for a few seconds before exploding. Fortunately it only chips a bit off your health bar.

A Taz statue? Oh, it's a little checkpoint Taz! I've missed checkpoints so much, it's so nice to not have to start at the beginning of a level after screwing up. That's just a quick way to kill my interest dead on a reasonably sized level.

I fell on the spikes... and I'm still alive? I only lost a bit of health! FINALLY a game that doesn't instakill you for landing on a spike. Another gold star for Escape from Mars.

Oh hey, it's another half-original idea. Spinning lets you run on the sides of pipes. Why? I have no idea. It's cool, that's why.

Aww, and he eats the exit sign. It was a pretty crappy exit sign anyway.

Well, the first world was pretty bland looking, and jumping around killing the enemies with spinning attacks and weapon pickups (like spitting rocks or breathing fire) wasn't particularly awesome, but... hey where are the enemies on those screenshots anyway? This game is full of them, sitting in zoo cages mostly at this point. Were they too shy to be photographed or something?

Anyway my point is, this so far is not a bad game. And compared to what I've been playing lately, that makes it a huge success.