Sega CD: Short review - Chuck Rock
Alex Di Ricco
I rented this game recently so I'll give you my impressions.
It's a standard run/jump platform game with decent graphics. The
backgrounds look nice and the creatures you fight are goofy looking.
The sound effects are very good, when you jump into water it sounds
almost real. When you kill animals they usually make funny OOFs and
GRUNTs. The music is also well done.
Now, the problem - THIS GAME IS TOO EASY. I finished it on a one
day rental. There are quite a few levels (28 or so) but they usually
are fairly short. Once I got used to the gameplay, I breezed through
the last few levels fairly easily. There isn't a hardness setting either.
One other minor problem - In this game you must often use rocks to
help you get up cliffs. In some places it's possible to trap yourself
by accidently throwing a rock in the wrong place. As long as there are
enemies around it's no big deal, you can just kill yourself. However,
if you are in an area where you already killed all the enemies off, you
have to reset the game since there is no time limit to the levels.
Overall this is a decent game, but since it is so easy it is
definately not worth buying. If you want to kill some time though,
it's worth a rental.
--
Alex Di Ricco
c60b...@WEB.berkeley.edu
a...@ocf.berkeley.edu
Christopher A. Wichura
>
> I rented this game recently so I'll give you my impressions.
I bought it about a week ago.
> It's a standard run/jump platform game with decent graphics. The
> backgrounds look nice and the creatures you fight are goofy looking.
> The sound effects are very good, when you jump into water it sounds
> almost real. When you kill animals they usually make funny OOFs and
> GRUNTs. The music is also well done.
Agreed. I'd like to add that when they added (? I haven't seen the cartridge
version) the opening animation in the beginning of the game, the person who
does the voice acting for it actually does a commendable job. Most CD games
(we've got a TG-CD, which is where most of our CD library is right now) have
PITIFUL voice acting at best. The actual animation could have been drawn a
lot better, but then the way it looks, it seems like it doesn't use a lot of
colour that it could have which leads me to believe that it might have
existed in the cartridge version (because it could be compressed well) but
used text boxes instead of voice coming off of CD.
There are also a number of other somewhat humours graphical things that the
first poster didn't mention. These were undoutably in the cartridge game,
too, but when you consider that you get 9 extra levels, voice in the intro
and a very nicely done soundtrack (I like the music on this CD quite a bit)
with some better than average sound effects coming from the game for $10
cheaper than the cartridge version, you can't loose, now can you?
Anyway, things like the way the title screen has Chuck and friends playing
different instruments in line with the music (i.e., when the guitar cuts in
you see Chuck start to play, etc) is cute as well as some of the various
things that occur during the game. The way some of the creatures attack
chuck is quite humorous and when you let Chuck stand still he turns and
either lets his (rather large!) tongue hang out or scratches his belly, etc.
> Now, the problem - THIS GAME IS TOO EASY. I finished it on a one
> day rental. There are quite a few levels (28 or so) but they usually
> are fairly short. Once I got used to the gameplay, I breezed through
> the last few levels fairly easily. There isn't a hardness setting either.
I would agree that once you figure out the style of gameplay, knowing how to
move through levels becomes easier. It also depends on whether you want to
go for all the points or not. For example, in level 3 (there are five
levels, each comprised of a varrying number of stages with 28 all-together
between the five levels) if I try and kill all the creatures underwater I
usually end up dying before I make it to the end of the level vs. when I run
through the levels quickly.
I have not finished this game, either. I haven't beat the boss at the end of
level 3 yet. I'm no joystick jock as many of the people here undoutably are.
I've enjoyed playing this game quite a lot so far, and I think that others
will to.
> One other minor problem - In this game you must often use rocks to
> help you get up cliffs. In some places it's possible to trap yourself
> by accidently throwing a rock in the wrong place. As long as there are
I've never run into this, myself.
> Overall this is a decent game, but since it is so easy it is
> definately not worth buying. If you want to kill some time though,
> it's worth a rental.
I disagree about it not being worth buying. To each his own, I guess.
Unlike many of the gloom and doom sayers for the Sega CD in this group so
far, I've been fairly pleased with the system (by brother bought the base
system, although so far I've actually bought more of the games for it than he
has). I agree that the pack-ins are the hottest (at least for people who
have had a Genesis for any amount of time before getting the Sega CD and
thus have played many of them before and screw the music disks -- what a
waste), but the first games for it have been respectable. The system is new,
so the programmers have to learn how to make use of it. I like Chuck Rock,
Prince of Persia (which actually doesn't take that long to finish), Cobra
Command and Night Trap (also doesn't take long to finish but is fun to go
through and to show off to other people). We haven't gotten Sewer Shark
since it's the one game the net has more or less unanimously hated for the
Sega CD so far, though. (And unless they've released some new games these
past couple days (someone said something about the 15th being a day for new
releases), it's the only Sega CD game we don't have yet.)
-=> CAW
--
Christopher A. Wichura Multitasking. Just DO it.
c...@miroc.chi.il.us (my amiga) ...the Amiga way...
u12...@uicvm.uic.edu (school account)
Charley Jenkins
>Unlike many of the gloom and doom sayers for the Sega CD in this group so
>far, I've been fairly pleased with the system (by brother bought the base
>system, although so far I've actually bought more of the games for it than he
>has). I agree that the pack-ins are the hottest (at least for people who
>have had a Genesis for any amount of time before getting the Sega CD and
>thus have played many of them before and screw the music disks -- what a
>waste), but the first games for it have been respectable. The system is new,
>so the programmers have to learn how to make use of it. I like Chuck Rock,
>Prince of Persia (which actually doesn't take that long to finish), Cobra
>Command and Night Trap (also doesn't take long to finish but is fun to go
>through and to show off to other people). We haven't gotten Sewer Shark
>since it's the one game the net has more or less unanimously hated for the
>Sega CD so far, though. (And unless they've released some new games these
>past couple days (someone said something about the 15th being a day for new
>releases), it's the only Sega CD game we don't have yet.)
I agree! Everyone seems to be down on the Sega CD. Yea, I agree more
colors would have been great! But I'll settle for excellent CD music &
sound effects. BTW I really like Sewer Shark! Why does everyone dislike
it so much? Each to his own I guess! I do hope they release better games
though, e.g. Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, ect...
Just my $.02
Charley Jenkins
Teh Kao Yang
>I agree! Everyone seems to be down on the Sega CD. Yea, I agree more
>colors would have been great! But I'll settle for excellent CD music &
>sound effects. BTW I really like Sewer Shark! Why does everyone dislike
>it so much? Each to his own I guess! I do hope they release better games
>though, e.g. Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, ect...
>
Actually, the only negative review on Sewer Shark has been from Hashit. I've
seen a few positive reviews, including yours. I thought this game looked like
the most promising of the first batch of Sega CD games, and I wonder what
could be so bad about it. If you liked this game, could you post the reasons
why you thought it was good? There really hasn't been a good detailed review
on this game.
I think that both Dragon's Lair I & III are coming out, according to this
month's Gamepro.
-Teh Kao
Nathan W Stehle
>colors would have been great! But I'll settle for excellent CD music &
>sound effects. BTW I really like Sewer Shark! Why does everyone dislike
>it so much? Each to his own I guess! I do hope they release better games
>though, e.g. Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, ect...
>
>Just my $.02
>
>Charley Jenkins
>
belief, I was pleasantly surprised by the Sega CD. I think it has potential
and we will start to see more games with a geater variety. Some people
do not like the interactive movie-type games because they aren't enhanced
platform games. Sega is trying to show what the system is really capable of.
I mean, why buy the CD if all they add are intermissions to a game that
would have been fine on a cart? I for one think that laser-disc games are
great, but I wish they weren't expensive. I want something with replay
value. I don't like being done with a game forever, but that's me. That
doesn't mean I won't get some of these games, because some are so interesting
and involved that they're fun. And why whine about getting CD games out
there? I think I would wait for a quality game than have a bunch of lousy
ones. I also think that numerous games were promised to be out, but many
were from 3rd party software companies as well as Sega. I have never seen
a company with a perfect track record in regards to releasing games when they
say they will.
Nathan
Hasit YJM Mehta
it, and expect it from you! I must say again I hated Sewer Shark the
graphics are very fuzzy the sound is not great and the game play is just
plain bad. There are plenty of carts that are MUCH better than the Sewer
Shark CD. I must also say that I do not own ANY Sega-CD games, I have owned
most of them but have returned them. I have yet to see one game that is
worth buying. You must remember that in my case I also have a Macintosh so
most of the PC ports are also availible on my mac and in most cases they are
FAR superior to the SEGA-CD versions, e.g. Prince of Persia. There have not
been any great games released for the SEGA-CD yet, but I guess that is
understandable afterall I have owned my sega-cd for only a month or so.
Hasit
Teh try to be a little more polite after all your name is not all that
"normal" either!
LANE STEVEN LOREN
on the cd-rom. If you look at some of the pictures of the soon to
be released Sherlock Holmes II for the Sega CD you will see
some quality digitized footage. You can see these pictures in the most recent
EGM and also in Gamepro I believe. The digitized pictures seem to be
finally getting to where they should be.
Good Job Sega. Now let's see it in the stores.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSee YYYYYYYYYYa,
Steve from boulder
Hasit YJM Mehta
first Sherlock Holmes game, so I think the second one will be good as well!
Hasit
Eric Castle
>
>>Unlike many of the gloom and doom sayers for the Sega CD in this group so
>>far, I've been fairly pleased with the system (by brother bought the base
>>system, although so far I've actually bought more of the games for it than he
>>has). I agree that the pack-ins are the hottest (at least for people who
>>have had a Genesis for any amount of time before getting the Sega CD and
>>thus have played many of them before and screw the music disks -- what a
>>waste), but the first games for it have been respectable. The system is new,
>>so the programmers have to learn how to make use of it. I like Chuck Rock,
>>Prince of Persia (which actually doesn't take that long to finish), Cobra
>>Command and Night Trap (also doesn't take long to finish but is fun to go
>>through and to show off to other people). We haven't gotten Sewer Shark
>>since it's the one game the net has more or less unanimously hated for the
>>Sega CD so far, though. (And unless they've released some new games these
>>past couple days (someone said something about the 15th being a day for new
>>releases), it's the only Sega CD game we don't have yet.)
>
>I agree! Everyone seems to be down on the Sega CD. Yea, I agree more
>colors would have been great! But I'll settle for excellent CD music &
>sound effects. BTW I really like Sewer Shark! Why does everyone dislike
>it so much? Each to his own I guess! I do hope they release better games
>though, e.g. Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, ect...
>
I just rented a bunch of SegaCD games. I was playing them with 2 friends and
we all agreed that the only game we liked was Sewer Shark. We didn't like
Cobra Command ( couldn't get the hang of it and after a while didn't care to ),
Chuck Rock ( another platform game which was very tedious ), Black Hole Assault
( not enough moves - got boring ), and Night Trap ( too much constant switching
of rooms so you never get to watch any of the movie ).
Although it took a while for us to figure out what to do in Sewer Shark (how and
when to make the turns and how to Re-energize ) we finally got the hang of it.
The info is in the instructions but didn't seem very clear. We all thought the
sound and graphics were excellent.
Just my 2 cents.
Eric
er...@apple.com