Overall 8 Graphics 9 Sound 6 Addictive 10 Story 10 Depth 4 Difficulty 5
8
Beam me up Spotty! classgame
And now we come to a nostalgic favourite that was a favourite in School Computers, mine included, and man sometimes I wish I could go back to my school computer lab and play games like the Munchers and Cross Country Canada again...thank god we have sites like The Internet Archive and Classic Reload (by the way I'm the reason why the game is on the website, the radio was playing the Spice Girls version of Christmas Wrapping and I got hit by a nostalgia attack...for further context I got the Spice Girls Goodbye Single the same year we got the 95 that's how it fits together)
Gameplay and Story: so it starts off where out heroes Blasternaut and Spot are on this planet and they are waiting for his spaceship, well Blasternaut summons the ship to them, and they beam themselves on board. Just as they are ready to take off the ship, something is wrong, Spot tells Blasternaut that he's probably out of fuel again, but Blasternaut over analyzes the problem and says it's probably the "Polytronic-combustive (or is it combustion) regulator" and he sends Spot out to fix it....bad decision; it leaves Spot out in the open to be kidnapped by the Yellow three eyed Trash Alien...for basically no reason (yeah the remake had a better reason, and even the trash alien isn't even the bad guy in the remake, in fact we actually see him locked up with the classic MB bad guys when Spot gets abducted...maybe I'll play that one someday) Blasternaut contacts the galactic commander about the situation and she sends him on a mission to clean up the garbage the alien left, convert the trash to fuel (hmmm we could use that technology nowadays considering the circumstance), track the alien to his home planet and rescue spot.
Graphics: There is a mix of 2D and CGI animation, and considering this was may way back in the 1993 it looks fantastic, the backgrounds are CGI made as well and it fits quiet well. The Sega Genesis version doesn't even look that good, like it's trying too hard.
Soundtrack: There's actually little to no background music in the game, all we get is the horn infused music when the title screen pops up and when you rescue spot, however the sounds in the game are rather atmosphere appropriate (even though there isn't any sound in space) but the sounds of Blasternaut's jet pack, the sounds of the trash zapper and the screen that raises the math problem, though I will I admit I actually did play this game without speakers in the first few weeks of ownership, and it was mostly beeping noises
Addictive: So this was the very first PC game I owned when my parents got our first Windows computer, an internet-less Windows 95, and since this was the only game I had, I spent a lot of time playing it, at least until 3 weeks later when dad bought speakers and a copy of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego deluxe PC for the system (because my parents noticed hey I'm quite good at social studies too) that was the days when I would have fun without the internet, and I do admit sometimes I do wonder how I managed to go without it, but then again Teletoon had good watchable stuff back in the day, it was addictive then not so much now though, sometimes becoming an adult sucks.
Depth: There are four activities in the game, Trash Zapper, answer math problems to charge the zapper and zap the trash, Number Recycler: build and answer a math problem to send data to the core so that the trash can be converted to fuel, Cave runner (my favourite) navigate the caves inside of the Alien's home planet and fend off spiders, bats, boulders, and whatever that big red bug is (and collect the occasional gem), and finally...Math Blaster, where you have to dodge more garbage to get to the Alien's spaceship (where you can easily see a bound and gagged spot) and also collect gems in the bonus round. You can also play the activities outside of the mission modes which is good because it gives more time to spend in the caves which is what I would rather do a good chunk of the time. On average it takes me 15 minutes to complete the game in short mission mode
Difficulty: There are two different missions you can play in this game short mission, where you answer 15 questions in Zapper, Recycler, and Blaster (Cave Runner you only have to go through three more areas before you finish that one) long mission you have answer 25 questions in the three areas that isn't Cave Runner, Long mission can make Number Recycler even more difficult than it needs to be (everything gets mixed up you have to start moving down the equation columns too)
Post Review Follow-up: Oh did I neglect to mention that the game has a Y2K related glitch? the game does not recognize the year 2000...gee no wonder they remade the games. What made me decide to add this to the gaming lineup of my games, was that the 20th anniversary of me owning the 95 PC was approaching and I thought what better way to commemorate it than to play the game, and that's how the Own and Play-a-versary playings game to be on my youtube channel.
This concludes my review, join me tomorrow when I review You Don't Know Jack Television and now I actually have to play Math Blaster in Search of Spot (it's morning gaming)
Graphics 9 Sound 6 Addictive 10 Story 10 Depth 4 Difficulty 5
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 07-07-22
Review Replies: 1
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