Abadox
Reviewed by Alex
Among the many of the genres of Nintendo gaming were space shoot-em-ups, which
consist of stage after stage flying a ship, shooting enemies, collecting powerups,
and dodging projectiles. Don't expect to find much in the way of innovation in this
game, Abadox!
Graphics 4 out of 5
Probably the only thing that separates this game from others like Gradius or R-Type
is the setting. You are flying around inside of a gigantic space alien. The palette is
most of the time a wonderful mixture of reds and pinks, as there are many organs in
view. This might disturb some. The violence is not disgusting, just a few harmless
explosions. The enemies are large and organic and are done very well. They seem to
be one with the ship. For a Nintendo game, I would give this game a 4 out of 5. What
can you expect to see? Well, for starters, lots of "brains," by which I mean "any
brain-looking surface." This game never lets up on the guts theme. There are skeletal
enemies, fleshy enemies, eyeballs that fly, faces that protrude from walls, and all
sorts of things there to offend the weak of heart.
Music and Sound 2.5 out of 5
The music was not very memorable, not in the way the Bomberman II was, or any
other game with great music. I don't remember it is being very good or very bad,
either of which would stick out in my mind as I go back to review it.
Game Challenge 4 5 out of 5
To tell you the truth, I am not the best game player on the face of the planet. These
(one-hit wonders (one shot kills you)) type of games are my least favorite to play.
At any time in the game, there are a few dozen little projectiles on the screen.
Sometimes so many, that it has to stop drawing important sprites such as your
ship. This game is not hard in the sense that Dragon's Lair (NES!) is hard. No, this
game gives you fair warning before you are about to be fired at, jumped at, etc.
The hardest thing in the game is actually getting up to the bosses, not the bosses
themselves. In any case, I died many times during this game, and found it very
difficult to finish. The powerups don't give you very much protection. Your gun
doesn't get very powerful. Heck, even the powerups get difficult to kill after
awhile. There are some enemies which you can't kill, that follow you around
unless you can make them go off of the screen. The later levels are the height,
and embodiment, or tediousness.
Game Play-Fun 1 out of 5
As mentioned previously, it got very tedious in the end, but I didn't mention that
it had started that way also. You always start in the beginning of the level when
you die, not in the middle like some games do. You shouldn't even have to start
again! There are other shoot em ups where you just reappear on the screen again,
and that would have been my choice for this game also. Aside from tediousness,
there is also repetition. The levels only come in two very alike flavors: sidescrolling
and top view. The only difference is that in top view, you shoot and the screen
scrolls downward instead of to the right. Add a few graphical changes and you've
got top view. This game left a bad taste in my mouth. No, not the gory graphics. I
never want to see it again.
Overall 2 out of 5
While this game has some pretty wrapping, you can't find anything inside. There is
nothing here worth playing over, even playing the first time. Usually good music will
go along with a bad game, giving it some value, but I found none here. I can vaguely
remember the advertising campaign for this game. I can now safely say that they
were probably blowing a lot of hot air. As far as shooters go, this one is nothing special.