Zombie Revenge (Dreamcast, 1999)

**Hey guys; as expected, I missed ANOTHER October Horror Games month! I've been busy lately, what with moving 1600 miles across the country to start a new job at a game studio in California. I do plan on finishing these though! Stay tuned.**

Known mostly its over the top horror atmosphere, location-specific enemy damage and absolutely ludicrous voice acting, HotD is one of the elder statesmen of the light-gun genre. Think of it as a good version of Crypt Killer (does anyone besides me think about Crypt Killer?). Most of the franchise plays it straight; move through a variety of locations on rails, clowning on zombies and mutants with a fun and satisfying selection of firearms. Every one of the light games absolutely rules.

However, once in a while Sega likes to mix it up and we'll get a strange spinoff title such as the The Typing of the Dead, The Pinball of the Dead, the odd minigame collection (featuring two zombies in love!) House of the Dead EX, and today's exhibit, 1999's Naomi/Dreamcast title Zombie Revenge.

There's still a whole lot of shooting for a beatemup

The game is full of setpieces and novel situations, like this deathtrap room

Unfortunately, Zombie Revenge is the weakest spinoff of the franchise. The light-gun theme (and first-person viewpoint) is dropped in favor of a beat-em-up style of gameplay similar to Sega's own Dynamite Cop, released the previous year. Control the excellently named Stick Breitling (the standard man character), Linda Rotta (the standard woman character) or Rikiya Busujima (a ki wielding force of nature who resembles a 1970's Japanese crime movie archetype, specifically actor Yusaku Matsuda) and prevent the confusion in the city during a zombie outbreak.

Per the HotD Wiki, Zombie Revenge was originally titled Blood Bullet: The House of the Dead Side Story and Zombies Nightmare, two way cooler names.

Is it good?
Zombie Revenge is a sharp looking game, with detailed character models and decent looking environments (mainly grimy urban areas) and a few sick boss designs. There's even a stage in the latter part of the game where you revisit Curien mansion from HotD 1, complete with the classic stage 1 theme and the iconic run through the mansion courtyard!

Disappointingly, the bosses do not follow the trend of being named after tarot cards here, other than our pal Magician

WE HAVE GUNS NOW

There are lots of arcade style gimmicks, such as rescuing civilians and pulling the brakes on an out of control train while your partner holds off an endless wave of enemies. The presentation side is flashy, goofy and well done.

On the other hand, the gameplay leaves me cold. The combat feels stiff and repetitive; I don't feel that each character's arsenal is varied enough to really empower the player. Gunplay, which is actually a large part of the combat--it's still House of the Dead after all--is similarly unsatisfying. The visceral fun of blasting zombies to pieces from the mainline games does not translate at all in Zombie Revenge.

Speaking of not feeling empowered, the difficulty in this game is very uneven and in my (and many others) opinion is difficult in a cheap way. Come for the atmosphere, not the gameplay.

A full playthrough should run you around 45 minutes or so and boyoass do you feel every one of those minutes. Honestly if it were a little shorter and breezier I think the game would do well for it.

I'm glad the big ghostly head from Crypt Killer got a job in Zombie Revenge

Even Stick can't believe that's his name

Is it scary?
Shit no; any other HotD game is scarier than this one, and there are no scary HotD games. This franchise has always been more of a B-movie experience than actual horror...rundown mansions, over the top violence, mad scientists, bad acting. On that front, Zombie Revenge does exactly what it set out to do. I suppose the time limit could be nerve-wracking if that sort of thing bothers you. It doesn't help that an alarm noise plays incessantly when it's time to move on and the announcer will straight up yell THERE'S NO TIME when the clock starts running low.

Should you buy it?
Welllll, that really depends on the person. I don't think it's an extremely good game, but it is a spectacle, and as of now you can find it on ebay for around $30 USD. For House of the Dead fans I say go for it! For everyone else, I would recommend Dynamite Cop if you want a DC beatemup.

Also, someone on the development team was a big Desperado fan if that helps influence your decision at all!

Cosmic Smash Undiscovered Secret Characters?? UPDATED

I know the title is very clickbait-y, but I've been searching online and can't find a single reference to this, so it may be new to you: Cosmic Smash has a secret character!

Okay, I know how this looks. Blurry cellphone photo, bad angle--I panicked and was playing on a real Dreamcast and wanted to get evidence in case I couldn't replicate the secret.

But look at this shit! It's the worker characters that you can see building the "cosmic bus" stages during the credits scene at the end!

After beating the game and completing one of the secret 1-on-1 final stages, I started up a new game. Usually, the game opens with the announcement "Welcome To Cosmic Smash". This time, though, the announcer said "We Want Cosmic Smash", a line that I don't remember playing elsewhere in the game. Unfortunately I lost before completing the game again so I didn't see if something else happens.

I immediately fired up a Dreamcast emulator to see if I could repeat my performance, and...I can't. I'll keep trying but so far I'm mystified! This is everything I can think of that I did when it appeared.

-Beat the game taking this route:

-score was unremarkable; I got around 800,000 and placed 2nd behind a previous top score
-I didn't get the perfect rally or the perfect trick smash bonuses, so score isn't a factor at all
-sat through the entire credits sequence
-let the title screen demo play through once after the game went back to title
-started a game afterward and was playing as the secret character 

I tried repeating all these steps on emulator to get better screenshots and as of yet I haven't been successful. I'm EXTREMELY EXCITED to discover this after playing for years (you should have heard this sad nerd yelling alone in his room when it happened) and if anyone else has info on this I'd love to hear about it.

For all I know this a well known secret that I somehow couldn't find on google. If someone comes in with an "of course you can, asshole" I'd be a little embarrassed, but solving the mystery would be worth it. Let me know if you've ever unlocked the secret Cosmic Smash character before!

ADDENDUM: I looked up the phrase the game announcer says when the character is unlocked, "We Want Cosmic Smash". Try it! I got a single result on Google: a dead website called Cosmic Bus 777.

THE PLOT THICKENS! There's at least one person on the internet who has done this. There's even a secrets section (and info on the different Trick Smashes, which I'd love to read more about). However, none of the links work; the domain has expired.

I guess my next step is to track down this AJ 187 character who used to run the site, or maybe try to find the secret documented on a Japanese site.

UPDATE!

 

I took this to Twitter and within an hour and a half a very helpful fellow (@sebmal) pointed me not only toward AJ 187's Twitter profile, but showed that archive.org actually had saved the secrets page, giving me much more information than I was even looking for.

Not only was the secret character above unlocked via a cheat code that I accidentally entered by pure chance, there are in fact six secret characters in the game.

My balls were flattened. So, with extreme gratitude to AJ 187 of Cosmic Bus 777, let's have a look at em!

Cosmic Smash secret character codes (input at title screen)

 

L = Left
R = Right
U = Up
D = Down
A = A (or whatever you have the normal swing mapped to)
X = X (or whatever you have the jump mapped to)

NOTE: You can put these in as slowly as you need to--and you'll need to take your time on some of them--so don't rush.

Worker #1 (Solid white spacesuit and transparent red racket)
Code: L R L R L L R

Yellow Man (looks like a test character; all yellow body and racket is attached to hand)
Code: D U D U D D U

Silver Man (same as default character...but chrome!)
Code: R L R L R R L

Bear (a bulky figure with a brown furry texture map, holding a giant fish instead of a racket. nice)
Code: U D U D U U D

Toshiaki Miida (worker from the credits scene--Sega logo on back, Cosmic Smash logo on front. swings a laptop instead of a racket)
Code: D A X A X A X A X A X A X A X A X A X A X U

Katsuyasu Andou (worker from credits scene--Japanese text on back, Cosmic Smash logo on front, swings a huge cellphone. the Cosmic Smash logo flashes different colors!)
Code: L U R D U D U R D U L D R U L U R D U D U R D U L D R U A

Thanks again to AJ 187 for compiling this useful info on his original site!

Pen Pen TriIcelon (Dreamcast) Manual Differences and Weird Stuff

Who'd have thought I would have this much to say about PenPen TriIcelon?

Looking through the game's English manual I was actually shocked at how colorful and fun it was; often times localizing a game from Japan would result in a boring, stripped down manual, or worse: bringing a color manual to the US and making it black and white.

PenPen's manual, on the other hand, is so nice that I knew it must have been a direct translation from the Japanese. And I was right...almost.

Censorship

This is kinda super weird: Infogrames brought over PenPen's busy, colorful manual almost exactly, but with one particular omission: two of the Course Owners (basically the "mascot" of each stage) are SMOKING IN THE MANUAL!!

Don't even worry, Infogrames put a stop to THAT SHIT right away. This is a noble enough gesture--they wouldn't want to be a bad influence on the three children who bought PenPen TriIcelon--but in localizing PenPen, they didn't see fit to make any changes to the actual game. You know, the part that kids are actually going to see.

And again...baffling caricatures like Unga Pogo are still A-OK! Don't even worry about THAT

Omissions/Mistakes

 

Here's a typo I found amusing--in the characters section, Pen Pen Sneak is listed as "female", even though the bio refers to him as "he". Are we seeing another Birdo situation?

I thought there might be something going on here, but looking at the manual he's listed as male. 0/10 nice job Infogrames.

This omission is kind of irritating and there was no need for Infogrames to make it! Check out the three stats in the character bios denoted by stars in the scan above: this is each character's ability in Sliding, Waddling and Swimming. However, this actually useful information was taken out of the US manual? Infogrames why

Lastly for this section: I wouldn't call it a mistake, but they really did basically just translate the Japanese manual for the most part--all of the screenshots are from the Japanese version of the game.

New in the English Manual

I MAY find a few surprises? yes or no, it's a simple question

Not much new here...as before, for the most part the only real changes between the two manuals are in page order and censoring the smoking characters. However, the English manual teases secret characters and levels with a luxurious two-page spread that honestly is kind of a waste of space.

Lastly we have a relic of the late 90s: the Help Line phone service. Most developers and publishers had these! Did anyone ever use them? The only time I ever called a hint line was when I was about nine years old. I don't think it was developer-specific though, just a generic Hot Tipz To Win service; I couldn't get past the mine cart level in Sega Genesis Taz-Mania because I didn't know you could press forward to speed up. I was, and remain, a dumbass.

I wish I had called some more of these before the internet made them obsolete though! Wonder if Infogrames still maintains their help line?

ahh

Weird Sports Games 4 - Pen Pen TriIcelon (Dreamcast, 1998)

 

Pen Pen TriIcelon (General Entertainment, 1998)

Pen Pen TriIcelon (Ice Triathlon, get it) received deservedly mixed reviews, but I can think of one award it deserves: clunkiest title ever. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the confusing title hurt its sales in the US (in Europe it was simplified to the less irritating Pen Pen).

This game should be seen and heard in motion to fully appreciate. I think the developers were trying to make something cute and funny and influenced by American cartoons...I think. What they ended up with is something off putting at best and straight repulsive at worst. Look at this shit:

"HEY, KIDS"

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I know I'm charmed!

Okay, so the character design leaves something (a lot of something) to be desired, but Pen Pen is incredibly colorful, fascinating to look at, and let's be real--if it weren't also kinda grotesque I probably wouldn't remember it today. The characters bounce and stretch in cartoonish ways that you didn't see very often in 3D games.

The Music

 

Nightmarish. I mean it's actually well done, just...exhaustingly wacky and loud, and I'd say the magnified American cartoon influence on this game is most strong in the sound department.  God Bless This Hot Mess:



Actually, I can recommend something similar but better to this game's OST, and like Pen Pen it's also American style toon music from Japan! Plus-Tech Squeeze Box is a great "picopop" electronic band that makes similar high-energy, zany music:



Oh yeah...that's exactly where you wanna be.

The Game

 

What about the actual game, though? Actually...I'm into it. A racing game through deranged amusement park style tracks with even more deranged space monster birds! I love small, arcade style games that polish up their small amount of content by always giving you new things to look at or slight variations on the core gameplay.

For example, the "Tri" in TriIcelon (ugh) refers to three sports that I assume space penguins love to play--waddling, swimming, and belly sliding, each with their own control schemes and obstacles. How does it control, you may ask? Pretty bad. Let's get into the game modes!

Sliding: The most fun event by far. It's the fastest and most rewarding mode to do well in! Glowing boost powerups are scattered around the track--make use of them if you want the lead. Drifting and proper rhythm in swinging your arms is crucial to keep your penguin's speed up, making the skill ceiling in this mode a bit higher than the others. Think of it kinda like a snowboarding game.

What is this unholy place I've ended up in

Waddling: Some bullshit. Waddling is the weakest event but the one where you can most easily screw over your opponents as you now have a dashing attack. Unfortunately, because Pen Pens are about as bad at sprinting as real penguins are, avoiding all the walls, ledges and pinball bouncers strewn about this leg of the course can be frustrating.

Character designs aside the game looks beautiful

Swimming: Similar to the sliding event, but now you're moving vertically as well as horizontally through an obstacle packed river/underwater tunnel. As with the other modes a big key to doing well is hitting the boost spots, though it's a little tougher in this event. Not as challenging as sliding, but not bad!

As mentioned, theme park attraction feel of each of the four courses enhances the weirdness of the atmosphere and fills the stages up with colorful and interesting things to deal with. Something about this is right up my alley! I just love small games with lots of visual variety.  The overwhelming oddness of the game as a whole really gives Pen Pen that unique, idiosyncratic Dreamcast flavor.

Here's something unique, too:

Not Touching This One

Jesus. Come on, General Entertainment.

My shock at this guy being the owner of the Jungle stage is second only to the fact that Sega gave this the OK to bring to America with no changes! Now I KNOW that nobody else but me played this game. Ignorance aside, some of the other characters are pretty cool, like the vaguely sinister Bambi Mask:

Just a bunch of fun loving, totally normal looking creatures

By the way; do any of these characters look at all familiar to you, Dreamcast Fans? Maybe from one of the best games of all time, Climax Graphics' Blue Stinger??

Why on Earth are PenPen characters in this game too??

Honestly, I can't figure out what's going on with the development of Pen Pen TriIcelon. The characters in Pen Pen are featured prominently early on in Blue Stinger, and Pen Pen seems like exactly the kind of bizarre and tone deaf game Climax Graphics would make. The thing is, Pen Pen was developed by a company called General Entertainment, and Climax's name appears nowhere in the game. Why the crossover between these two? In the end, I guess game just recognize game.

However, when you boot up Pen Pen the company name that appears is not even General Entertainment; it's a company called Land Ho! They were probably just an internal team within General Entertainment. In any case, who could care about all this; I've got one more strange little thing to mention here...

The Weird Loading Screens

 

So...is anyone else inexplicably creeped out by the loading screens? Something about these hideous bastards being in the real world just doesn't sit right with me. And judging by the insignia on those mailboxes, these photos were taken in Sweden. But...why? What a mysterious game.

Give Pen Pen TriIcelon a try, preferably with at least one friend; as with many Dreamcast games, it's got 4-player splitscreen. For all the shit I talk on it, it really is a fun game that's worth seeing just for its oddness.