Platform: Watara SuperVision – Mess (Multi-Emulator Super System) Emulator

Developer: Watara Supervision

Publisher: Watara Supervision

Release Date: After 1992

Genre: Shooter

Nerd Rating: 1 out of 10

Reviewed by Dovahkyle

So little to say and so much time. Wait…no that’s right. This game is about as exciting as watching someone sleep and as pleasant as being choked to the point of passing out. Mix those together and what do you get? Alien for the SuperVision. This handheld was produced to compete with the Nintendo Game Boy. After failing miserably with under 70 game releases (the Game Boy had over 800) we never heard of it again. Barely kept alive by emulators, the information on the games released is nil.

Alien is a horizontal scrolling shooter where the player controls a spaceship that is out to destroy other spaceships (original right?). Sure we’ve all seen the format a hundred times on anything 4th gen an older, but this one is different. By different I mean slow and boring. Yes it is extremely challenging and just down right hard, but it’s beyond the “playable” challenge that we all look for in a game. I find myself at a loss for words, as rare as that is, to describe this floating turd, but I will try.

Gameplay

Mountains…and more mountains…

This would be a great title to teach children how to play side scrolling shooters. At least to give them an idea what they will be up against, except this will allow them to do it at 3 1/2 miles per hour. The game sends the player right into battle with no options whatsoever. The jet can move anywhere on the screen and shoot an unlimited amount of slow moving missiles. The missiles can be charged by holding down the fire button to take down larger enemies. This is necessary for the kamikazi bosses. They come into the screen locked on to the players current position, and the only way to avoid them is to charge a missile and hit them before they crash into the player. The kamikazis don’t shoot, but they do appear faster and completely out of control.

The Nitty Gritty

Controls, Graphics, Sound

While lacking in extensive detail, we do grasp that the game is revolving around air combat. That being said, I don’t see how it is necessarily about aliens except for the Dr. Mario virus looking baddies on the title screen. I will admit as there are no cheats for this game (that I know of), and as hard as it is I saw the game over screen enough to say “No more”, so I never made it to that part of the game. As far as I could figure out there are only four directional buttons and a fire button. The repetitive scrolling background is something out of a child’s coloring book if the kid only maintained possession of a black crayon. The sound effects aren’t as terrible as they could be, but they’re riding the line. There is no music either, which is probably heaven-sent as that could’ve been just as obnoxious as the gameplay itself.

Conclusion

Just can’t match up

As hard as it is to develop video games today, I can’t imagine how difficult it was in the early ’90s. I have a lot of respect for anyone that has the brain power and patience to write code all day, and I wish I would’ve learned how to code myself. That being said, the development of this game could’ve easily been someone’s class homework and then they decided it was good enough to put in the public marketplace. Competing with games like Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle and Super Mario 2: Six Golden Coins left these Watara titles on the shelf collecting dust. I will continue to explore the SuperVision world in hopes of finding a diamond in the rough, but this one can only satisfy the desires of those who enjoy watching paint dry.

*FS Rating System*

Gameplay: 1

Story: N/A

Controls: 2

Graphics/Sound: 0

Replayability: 0

Overall: 1

Note: All screenshots shown I captured using Screenshot Captor freeware. I actually had a lot more, but they all look the same.