The Wonder Years 5.15.08: Week 55 - Forgotten Worlds

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 05.15.2008

A journey to a forgotten coin-op world.

Welcome to the column where all gamers of a certain age come to wallow in 16-bit nostalgia. I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield, and I'll be discussing some of the hidden gems and instant classics of gaming's golden era. Some of these games may crop up on the Wii's Virtual Console or Xbox Live Arcade at some point, some may be consigned to the annals of history. Either way, they're worth tracking down if you missed them first time round, or replaying if you were lucky enough to catch them. Let's take a trip to:

FORGOTTEN WORLDS

(Capcom, Genesis, 1989)

Do you ever occasionally find yourself in the mood for a senseless blast-a-thon? I mean, detailed plotlines, casts of thousands and sixty-hour running times are all well and good some of the time (incidentally, did anyone else think of Lord of the Rings from that brief mental sketch?), but when it's a late and you've had a few jars, sometimes you just want to kick back and blow stuff up. Big stuff. With guns. Yeah, you know what I mean. Few genres of game are as satisfyingly masculine as the arcade shooter, and if we jump back in time twenty years or so (yikes, makes me feel old...) you can find a home console world much more suited to such gaming moods. With the Sonic/Mario war still on the horizon, the platformer wasn't yet established as the 16-bit consoles' genre of choice, so instead the world was still rocking to the tune of arcade ports and games that had some genuine balls. Apologies if I'm over-selling this. Anyway, Forgotten Worlds is one of Capcom's entries into the late-80s shoot 'em up market, and it's as decent a shooter from the dawn of the Genesis' lifespan as you could hope for.

The game itself is noticeably generic, but generic with its tongue firmly wedged in its cheek. What little story there is wonderfully vague and clichéd - some time in the 29th century Earth gets bombed to hell by aliens led by a tyrant named Bios (a reference that would surely have been more apt had the game been given a DOS port) and becomes the "Dust World", but the surviving members of the human race place all their hope for salvation two warriors of their kind called, amusingly, the Nameless Ones; powerful heroes whose only means of identification is the differing color of their trousers. And surely with that dress code fate has called them on a mission, for what possible reason could there be for their conflicting sartorial tastes then to differentiate them from one another in a co-op arcade shooter! Exactly. You see where this is going, unless you're some sort of gaming girly-man (hey, it's true, everyone knows the only arcade title girls can cope with is Pacman). And if you are in fact one of said lady-boys, just rest assured that the game involves a couple of burly blokes in jetpacks shooting up alien scum.

It's probably a little redundant to describe the actual gameplay mechanics, but describe I shall. You're put in control of a Nameless One (henceforth referred to as "bloke"), a space marine equipped with a jetpack, some heavy-duty weaponry and a floating satellite/drone/thing. The game sees you fly from left to right blowing up the various baddies and monsters that come your way; one of the game's few twists of originality comes in the shape of a button that allows you to rotate your bloke on his axis, essentially affording the player 360 degree movement and firing circles. Although the mechanism isn't implemented as neatly as in the coin-op original (which featured a special analogue dial for rotary purposes), it's still a neat touch and serves well to differentiate the game from the Contra ilk. Not that those particular types of shooter are bad, far from it, they just handle a little differently. Points are gained in the manner you'd expect, and dying aliens are also kind enough to drop units of currency, which I seem to recall are named "Zennies", but I half hope I have that detail wrong as it's a horrible, horrible sci-fi name. Said coinage can be spent at Mirabella's Store, the resident power-up store which in a slightly odd break from tradition doesn't come between levels but instead appears randomly during them. Mirabella offers various items for sale, from the obvious (bigger guns) to the more inspired (information on how best to tackle the next boss) to the downright surreal (a floral size four dress - stick with it, it does more than you think).

Moving through the various planets of Earth/Dust World along the way to Bios' lair, the Tower of Dread (niiiice), background graphics are at a premium. Detail is more than minimal, with many sections of the game played against a flat black backdrop, and your little blokes possessing some downright uninspired sprites. This is compensated for, though, with some smooth parallax scrolling and a satisfying (and at times overwhelming) number of enemies present on one screen. Thank goodness for the full degree of movement. As a whole the game just doesn't look as nice as the previous year's arcade original, which I suppose is understandable on a 4-meg cart. Sonically, too, things are far from pleasing, with some very tinny sound effects that almost screech at times, so you may want to keep the volume down, or if you like you can just plug into my TV, which has taken to randomly reducing its audio output to mouse-whisper levels just for shits and giggles. I bought that thing second-hand and the brand might as well read "Panasenic".

Somewhat unexpectedly, the game seems set for release on the Virtual Console this year, in Europe anyway, but I'm sure any misgivings at such a relatively obscure title turning up will be dispelled once gamers get a hold of it. Actually, perhaps obscure is the wrong word - Forgotten Worlds is more one of those titles that simply fell through the cracks, a solid game that never really did anything outstanding to outshine its more flashy contemporaries but was a fun experience nevertheless. You know, there are hundreds of games like that littering the catalogues of the 16-bit consoles, and hopefully this column can continue to put the spotlight on a few of them. If even a handful of people reading this decide to download this game on the VC and find themselves having fun, I'll be a happy man, and you can send me the cheque whenever you see fit.

Forgotten Worlds trivia

• The player one character makes several cameo appearances in the various some company vs. Capcom games.
  
• The Genesis port features two fewer levels than the arcade original, a restriction necessary due to cartridge limitations.
  
• Despite the original title being entirely a Capcom effort, Sega actually took the time to reprogram the game themselves for its Genesis release.
  

The Videosphere

Let's take a look at this week's video highlight of Forgotten Worlds in action. Note the rather limited detail, but the surprisingly smooth action for 1980s console game.




Reactions and interactions

Seems like Battletoads & Double Dragon was a pretty popular choice last week:

Posted by: G-Walla

"I can remember playing Battletoads the first time, co-op with my brother. Wefound out you could beat each other up, and we set about to doing that. Of course, we didn't realize that it actaully zapped your life.

That's still one of my favorite things, that you could beat up on your partner. Get mad at them and wallop them one. Sure, it's counterproductive, but it's fun."

Always fun, but you have to make sure to beat your pal to the punch, lest their be real-life bloodshed.

Posted by: Guest#6191

"Ha, my roommate has the #1 speed run to this game."

Then he is more man than I!

Posted by:Eric

"I purchased an SNES last year and this was one of the first games I picked up since I remembered me and my brother having so much fun with it when we were younger. Sure its not the most mindblowing game but it can be summed up in one word...fun."

Exactly right, and for all that we can go on about storylines, graphics and technical marvels, at the heart of it that's what really matters about gaming.

Posted by: setobakura

"is it me, or does the dark queen look hot?"

Yes. Yes she does.


And finally…

Thanks for reading folks; as always, reader feedback and suggestions are welcome. Next week in "The Wonder Years" - German real-time strategy? Mmm... efficient. Until then - keep it real, keep it retro.