From: caw@miroc.Chi.IL.US (Christopher A. Wichura)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: Re: Sega CD: Short review - Chuck Rock
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Date: 16 Dec 92 04:35:02 CST

In article <1gir9nINNsq4@agate.berkeley.edu> c60b-4gi@web-1d.berkeley.edu (Alex Di Ricco) writes:
>
>    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.
caw@miroc.chi.il.us  (my amiga)                          ...the Amiga way...
u12401@uicvm.uic.edu (school account)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video