B is for....

Batman

Game Boy

Another game based on a film and this time it’s loosely based on the 1989 film by Tim Burton which I presume that surely most people have seen by now so will know the plot.

Batman with his vast array of weapons has to make it through the standard platform levels of the time fighting of various bad guys, unless they decide to just run into a pit which one did and generally get to the end of the game.

The weapons are good and the levels are a good length but the only real negative was that the extra lives could be in some bizarre places which I imagine with much thinking could actually be collected but on just a 15 min run through I didn’t have the time.

Within the 15 minutes: Got up to level 2.2.

Will I play it again? Yes, it’s a pretty decent platform game which I’d like to play through.

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg

GameCube

Billy Hatcher is a cutesy type of game which would probably appeal more to children than it would to adults but don’t let that put you off. From the 15 minutes that I played it also seemed to be a bit of a bizarre game.

Playing as Billy Hatcher you are a human who gets pulled into Morning Land by Chickens who inform you that the Crows have taken over. You then go on to find the Chicken suit which gives you your powers. Well, when I say powers it doesn’t give you powers in the superhero sense as in the time I played you pretty much cannot do anything with it except for control eggs with which you can run over enemies, throw at enemies, bounce up and down with and finally get them to crack to reveal lives, moves etc.

One really annoying point I found was that you will get to a bit, say where you need to bounce up to a ledge, and you have to figure out how to do it. You then get to another similar ledge a bit later in the game and a tutorial will pop up telling you how to do it! If I’ve already done the move why do I then need to know how to do it, but daft.

Within the 15 minutes: Had rescued the Chicken Elder and completed the first mission.

Will I play it again? Err yes. I think I will give it another shot in all honesty.

Bomberman Generation

GameCube

I absolutely love Super Bomberman on the SNES, it has a great multiplayer mode and the single player is fun and simple. This game however is nothing like Super Bomberman or any other version of Bomberman that I’ve ever played.

The multiplayer mode is still available but the single player mode is a different kettle of fish. The older style single mode has been done away with a game pretty much like any other 3D game that has been released over the years except this for me in the short time I played felt like one where the developers could not be bothered to put any effort in.

The story is annoying and cannot be skipped; your ‘guide’ throughout the game just pops up at inconvenient times and in all honesty of what I played there wasn’t that much to do. I just wandered around the level blowing up things that looked like giant vases collecting level-ups and then having to cross over logs to get over bridges. Very disappointing.

Within the 15 minutes: Had gotten to a boss on Octopi Woods.

Will I play it again? I will eventually but am certainly in no rush.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Master System

Based on the film with what is possibly one of the worst performances ever committed to celluloid, if you’ve seen it you know what I mean, this game isn’t actually that bad.

On first glance this just looks like a Castlevania clone and in all honesty it is but the further you get in you realise that it is actually quite a decent game. Playing as Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves character in the film) you pretty much just walk along destroying members of the undead with different weapons like an axe, flames etc etc.

Like I say, this is very similar to Castlevania and of what I’ve played so far seems to be a good game in its own right. It’s fun, quite challenging and has some quite tough bosses.

Within the 15 minutes: Reached the fourth level.

Will I play it again? Yes, actually found it to be quite a good game.

Bubsy II

Megadrive

I’m going to be completely honest here of what I played I didn’t really enjoy this game at all. I found it to be frustrating and barely fun and nowhere near a patch on other platform games that I’ve played over the years.

I cannot really put my finger on why but there was something about it that made it for me to be very mediocre. It’s not that you can just run through the levels as you can do that on Sonic, it’s not that you can work through and use different costumes, items as you can do that on Mario but somewhere along the line something just didn’t click.

It’s really disappointing as I was actually quite looking forward to playing this and was quite pleased when I managed to pick it up. Maybe I should give it another chance but I don’t know.

Within the 15 minutes: Completed two levels and was working through a third.

Will I play it again? Possibly not, even tempted to get rid.