70%Arcade

One of the best rail shooter games ever made and its a real shame it never got a console port because I rarely see it out in the wild. If you find it, give it a try because its a real blast.

60%Arcade

After 15 years in the lead-up, my playthrough of the game did not disappoint, because I am now a mature adult and can temper my expectations. This is a House of the Dead clone from the late 90s, only far more humorous. The carnival presentation is well done, with lots of jokes and wackiness packed into four short levels.

The graphics trade clarity for detail. Although there is a lot to see and the environments are rich with details, the enemy models look grungier than its inspiration with grossly pixelated textures stretched over their few polygons. The shadows, lighting and effects are very impressive for the time, though they make the enemies harder to see, which is a disadvantage in a game relying so much on quick reactions.

Gameplay-wise it is as straightforward as you could wish. One button fires, one button reloads, and that's all there is to it. There are occasional health and weapon pickups, and I liked that enemies react differently to an acid gun or flamethrower than they do to standard bullets. There's plenty of gore, and you can shoot the limbs and heads off enemies while they still keep coming. The hit detection is sometimes off, especially when shooting enemies around the neck - the game seems to be unable to decide whether to register the hit on their head or their chest, and just gives up. There are also several moments where damage is simply unavoidable - arcade game bullshit, they really want you to insert the next coin.

It's worth noting that this game is far, far more aggressive of a money-making scheme even when compared to other arcade games. Each continue takes two coins, not one. Even the goddamn story is based around inserting tokens. The sensory overload of the music and sound effects, the quick and underwhelming Game Over screen, and the design around civilians all seem to want the player to either insert more coins or get the fuck out as fast as possible (in HoTD civilians give you extra lives if you save them - here they don't give you jack shit, but their death will cause you to lose health). However because the game is so short, it can fairly easily be beaten in six continues. It also seems this aggressive policy worked for them, as this game was more successful for Midway in arcades than Mortal Kombat 4.

Unlike House of the Dead, there are no alternate pathways to take in this game, and there isn't anything new to see after you've beaten it once. You can mess around in the arcade machine's options to replace a dead baby boss with a giant teddy, made a replacement for more family-friendly arcades, but that's about it. However, this game would have been very fun as a two-player experience with a friend back in the day. While it's nothing special today, I had fun with it as a 30-minute closure to a game I'd wanted to play since childhood. 6/10!