Overall 8.3 Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 10 Story 8 Depth 10 Difficulty 9
10
A Classic! FlashBangGamer9
This game is wonderful. I remember walking into the arcade in the 1990's and being astounded at what I was seeing. Games, in all shapes and sizes. Some where huge with plastic toy guns, and others where they had fancy hand drawn graphics such as Dragons Lair. There was game however. That did catch my attention. It was a strange looking experiment, and it seemed to almost beckon my hands towards its screen. This game, was CarnEvil. CarnEvil had a game cabinet with two plastic pump-action shotguns. Why? Well, I will try and explain without giving the ending away. Basically, there is this town you live in, you play as this nameless protagonist, who is taking a tour through graveyard to see if the old rumor about Ludwig Von Tokkentakker's grave is true. He finds a coin in the grave, and decides to put it in the jesters mouth that's on top of the grave, and BAM! The carnival sprouts up from the ground giving a dazzling display of carnage and death. You then grab a shotgun from the shooting range and decide that your going to fight to the death to get out of here. That's the story in a nutshell. Released in 1998, CarnEvil is considered one of Midway's best arcade games *, giving House of the Dead some competition (both games came out the same year). But what people remember the most about the game is its rather surreal and dark humor, as well as its highly disturbing premise. Definitely not one for the kiddies.
Game play-
The game play is pretty much straight forward, as it is with most light gun games: you blast everything that tries to kill you, reload
when your chamber is empty by shooting off the screen or using a pump provided on the game's pump action shotgun (for MAME, the pump can be assigned to a button on the keyboard, game pad or whatever you use), and on top of that don't shoot the innocent girls and shoot the power ups. Nothing too incredibly different there, except for the pump action shotgun controller (Be warned: I have seen copies of this cabinet WITHOUT the shout gun and with a normal light gun pistol!). In addition, you can choose what order you play the first three stages. You chose one, and when you beat it you chose the next one. Each of the three stages have their own characters and settings, but more of that in the story aspect. On top of that, you also have a health bar instead of torches or med-kits that represent a certain amount of HP.
Sound and Graphics-
For the time this game was released,(1999) it had very good graphics, now its in the middle and still not bad at all. The levels look great, and so do all the bad guys. As for sound it is pretty scary and adds to the mood of the game, lots of screams and the right music at the right time.
The Difficulty- This game was very hard for me first time going though it. The regular bad guys are hard when there in masses or just pop up and are pretty small. The boss's have insane health and offer a pretty good challenge.
Replay value- The only reason that I did give it a 10/10 was cause of the fact that it always kept me hooked. It is good to replay after you beaten it so you know where every thing is and you can go for the high score. Plus if you play it often you can show off to friends, or strangers.
Overall: The game is very well, designed, very well built, and just overall, very fun. Hope you guys enjoyed this. Bye!
Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 10 Story 8 Depth 10 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 4.4/5
Submitted: 04-20-13
Review Replies: 3