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Aero the Acro-Bat: diagonal attacks

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In the rash of character-based platformers following the rivalry of Sonic and Mario, there must have been many which were unfairly overlooked. Aero is not one of these; it sold well enough to get a sequel, so was not overlooked; and if it had been so it wouldn’t have been unfairly.

Maybe I am being a little harsh; I have only played the first five levels to far, but they are all in the circus and I am longing for some variety in the setting already. My main complaint is with the way that Aero attacks enemies, and controls in general. The control layout indicates that button A is reserved for “fire”, but I have found no way to actually fire anything. Instead, I am forced to use a drill-type attack that goes either diagonally down or diagonally up, and half the time doesn’t hurt the enemy at all (but still hurts me).

A great platform game lives or dies on the accuracy of the jumps and the momentum the character has. Aero is competent enough, but it’s not fun to control – plus there are frequently unavoidable deaths from going too fast or due to trampolines launching you into spikes off-screen. Luckily for present-day me, save states make this a lot more bearable.

Virtua Racing and Virtua Racing Deluxe: evolution of the Mega Drive

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Virtua Racing in the arcade was a revelation. Until this point driving games were generally represented by a curving path drawn on a 2D plane, with you having to react left and right to keep in the middle of the road (the game was moving your sprite automatically in the opposite direction). As amazing a game Chase HQ on the CPC was, the driving model was basic at best. Even Road Rash had only a semblance of steering. There were some exceptions – Hard Drivin’, Stunt Car Racer, all the Mode 7 flat racers on the SNES – but it wasn’t until Virtua Racing appeared that you could really feel like you were driving a racing car.

It came with a price tag. While most games in the arcades were 50p a go (or even 10p for the older cabinets), the big noticeable Virtua Racing cabinet was £1. I hadn’t paid £1 for a go of an arcade game since the Virtuality cabinet on which I played VTOL. At least Virtua Racing didn’t make me feel ill, with a headset that didn’t fit properly and a framerate that was probably measured in seconds per frame, although going back to the arcade game now the refresh rate isn’t anything to write home about either.

So I didn’t play VR much in the arcade, but the few times I did it was a great experience. And then they announced it was going to be released for the Mega Drive. Oh my.

It cost £70, almost twice the price of a standard game, and it included an extra processor to allow for the polygonal graphics. The framerate wasn’t amazing (15 fps compared to that arcade’s 30), the graphics were very much cut back, but the feeling of racing was still there. I bought Virtua Racing and played it a lot.

I don’t think any other games ever used the same extra processor on the Mega Drive, but not long after Virtua Racing was released Sega announced new hardware for the home – not only a new console (which would be launched as the Saturn), but an add-on for the Mega Drive to increase its capabilities. The 32X did not sell well, which is why I was able to buy mine for £25 a couple of years later. It’s a fun machine to own because the games are actually pretty decent, even today.

Sega released Virtua Racing Deluxe for the 32X, and it’s a big step up from the Mega Drive version. It runs at 20 fps – which is still very low for today’s standards, but feels fine – and there’s a lot more detail on the screen. I played this version even more than the MD game, even though I did get it much later on.

Since Virtua Racing Deluxe was a launch game for the 32X, both these games came out in 1994 – March for the Mega Drive, and December for the 32X. Comparing the two games shows quite a lot of progress for nine months – and the huge upgrade the 32X was able to enable.

The resolution and clarity of the graphics is immediately apparent here – the 32X has more colours, relying less on dithering for shading, and everything is made up of more polygons. Even the HUD overlay is better constructed, with the map rotating with the car, and the information taking up a little less space.

I must apologise for the lack of consistency between these images – I wasn’t planning on comparing them when I took the screenshots. Nevertheless, you can see here the detail on the car is massively improved for the 32X game, even if you can’t see the struts holding on the wheels (due to them being the same colour grey as the road).

You can also see that I completed the course faster on the 32X.

The 32X has added particles, a clarity around the edge of the road, and for some reason the car’s at a slightly different angle.

Revisiting these games (admittedly via emulation) is instructive to see how far we’ve come, and yet also how much has remained the same. Virtua Racing came out on the Switch a few years ago, and it is (as you’d expect) even better than the arcade game – 60 fps, improved handling, expanded game modes – but the game plays the same as ever, and the Mega Drive versions are just as fun.

Mega-lo-Mania (MD): COMPLETED!

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Yes, this again. Seems I didn’t play it at all in 2023! How did that happen?

Anyhoo, this time through I played as Caesar (the green one), and for the first time I can remember, I wasn’t asked to form an alliance at all for the whole game. Normally at least someone panics and tries to get me to join with them, although I almost always decline.

As usual, I reached the Mother of All Battles as the end of the game as the only god who remembered to stash away some humans, so naturally I won that by default.

The Revenge of Shinobi (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I know this was highly lauded on release, but I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a massive fan of the game. Or the Shinobi/Shadow Dancer series, actually. I don’t hate them or anything, but I certainly wouldn’t hold them up as fantastic examples of the best the 8 and 16 bit consoles had to offer like a lot of people seem to. See also Ninja Gaiden, actually. [Edit: Oh, it seems I like the 3D port of Shinobi III for the 3DS. Well, that’s me correcting myself then.]

Maybe it will have improved with time? Well, no. Not really. It’s still not bad at all, but it feels just so empty and generic. Ten billion similar platformers since are probably to blame. I played through it, completed it, and moved on. And yes, I used the “make the 00 become ∞” thing so get all the shuriken because I’m not an idiot and there’s no way in hell the game is possible without them. I also found it odd that you can’t decide when to use your sword and when to use your shuriken. It seems you can only throw shuriken, but if the enemy is close you automatically sword them instead? A very odd design choice when you have limited ammo.

Oh, and that final boss? With his whippy hair? Utterly ridiculous.

Kid Chameleon (Switch): COMPLETED!

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It’s been a while, but with it recently popping up on the Switch Online service, I gave it another go. This time, I’d remembered how damn difficult it was, but even so, a few later levels (especially one which was an autoscroller) are properly brutal.

Yes, I used save states. You have to, and not even because it is difficult – it’s just so, so long and there aren’t any built-in save options or passwords or anything. All you can do is make use of a cheat where you skip from level 2 to the end boss. I did that, obviously, but then started again and played it properly.

It still stands up pretty well today. Collision detection is a bit hit and miss (oho!), and the music is mostly dire, but the platforming and the hat powers you get are both fun. All the baddies that shout DIE! at you a lot is also funny.