There's
something to be said about companies that like to work out of their
forte once in a while. Sometimes when they hit on something that works,
say Capcom- they milk it like an electric bovine. But sometimes they
get tired of the same old thing year after year (so maybe not like Capcom.
Zing) and want to try other things. This can lead to great good, such
as when the playing card manufacturer Nintendo decided to invest in
electronic gaming, or great evil, such as when an insulin company or
something invests in electronic gaming.
Milton
Bradley shouldn't be allowed to produce video games directly. Liscensing
junk like Monopoly or its variants to quality developers (or Acclaim)
is fine. We need a certain number of boring, excess games to draw the
eye towards the good to mediocre ones. Trust me, Megaman X6 looks scrumptious
when it's surrounded by crap like DDR: Harry Potter MegaMix, and Rocket
Power/Rugrats/Spongebob Squarepants in: The Same God Damned Game With
Different Characters. Milton Bradley isn't known for fast-paced, exciting
gameplay. That really makes me wonder how they got away with producing
as many NES action games as they did.
Time
Lord is really about as good of a platform game as you could ask for
from a company that produces some of the most boring games this side
of a 20-sided die. They also created the mildly successful gorefest
shooter Abadox. Just a quick note about the quality of play between
the two. A shooting game tends to move you steadily along in one direction,
and the fact you're flying has the added benefit of making it so you
don't need to animate the sprite as much. Unfortunately, they tried
to use a similar approach with Time Lord, which is kind of like Final
Fight, only with more jumping and enemies who can be killed in one or
two hits. Time Lord himself slogs through levels at a Frankenstein's
Monster-like pace. This is especially noticable when you go to make
a jump and he gets no momentum whatsoever.
So,
our lethargic hero, being Lord of Time and all, must travel to various
time periods to battle aliens who want to change the course of history.
What the aliens stand to gain from it, who knows. You might assume from
the fact our hero is even alive at the start of the game that they already
failed, or maybe he already went back in time and foiled them, except
that would mean he wouldn't need to go back in time to stop them. I
don't know why the aliens seek to foil us by visiting the most scenic
parts of history like the Old West or the Middle Ages. Seems to me if
you want to eff up history you'd start with the Industrial Revolution
or something. That's not evil. That's tourism. If not for the
fact that they whip out guns and start blasting when they see you, you'd
swear they weren't a threat at all, in fact once you leave the satellite
at the beginning you fight everything but aliens.
Wanna
know something that annoys me to no end in a video game? Enemies whose
attack pattern consists of 'appear randomly in unlimited numbers.' And
that's the main reason I loathe this game. When your character has the
reflexes of Dom Delouise's thyroid, fighting a floating baby dragon
with a bomb appearing behind and above you is like trying to run
from a shark in the water. At right, a non-baby dragon that serves as
boss of the medieval stage. Its attack pattern consists of hopping from
point A to point B (but never C, D, or heaven forbid, E) while shooting
fireballs that pass through you. Of course with googly eyes like that,
I can see how he'd miss. Other enemies of note, a stable that shoots
out a constant stream of horseshoes, a horde of lawn gnomes with laser-shooting
arrows, and adorable little coyotes who attack in *yawn* an endless
stream.
For
time traveling action so intense it could turn an insomniac into a narcoleptic,
Time Lord is your game. Otherwise, I'd reccomend you spend your time
more wisely by building a time machine to go back and step on the machine
that programs Milton Bradley cartridges.