Defunct Games vs. SNK Minis

Apparently somebody at SNK spent a lot of time playing Pac-Man, because Marvin's Maze is about as close as you can get without being sued. Instead of being controlling a pizza-shaped hero, you are a weird alien dude who looks a lot like Q*bert. You roam around a maze picking up red dots and power pellets, all while avoiding robot-like enemies who are after the poor alien. What sets this game apart from other maze games is the use of two-story levels. Instead of just one maze to worry about, players are forced to contend with an upper and lower section. The game also adds a projectile weapon (which can kill multiple robots in one shot), one-way bridges and tubes that connect the two floors.

Unfortunately the game suffers from a lot of the same problems that plagued the original Pac-Man. For starters, the gameplay can be a little sluggish. You don't have to hold a direction to move Marvin, but changing directions isn't always as smooth as I would have liked. It's also extremely slow. I love that there are so many different mazes to conquer, but it would have been nice if things sped up as you went along. Still, don't let these minor gripes keep you from enjoying this addictive maze game. You're definitely getting your money's worth with this PSP Mini, even if you already own Pac-Man Championship Edition.

No, it's not a prequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but rather a return to the crowded vertical 2D shoot-em-up genre. This 1985 hit is a lot like Namco's influential masterpiece, Xevious. You fly a spaceship around an Earth-like planet shooting bad guys in the sky and dropping bombs on gun turrets on the ground. The game rotates through a number of mostly good looking backgrounds, including forests, water and weird religious temples. The action is fast and there are plenty of enemies to take down in the air and on the ground, as well as a boss that refuses to give up.

HAL 21 is the kind of game that gets so close, but doesn't quite stick the landing. Even with fast action and a cool boss fight, there's not enough here to recommend. There are no power-ups, the stages tend to repeat a bit too much and I got sick of the one boss rearing its ugly head over and over. Even more frustrating is how pedestrian the whole experience feels, especially when compared to Vanguard from 1981. With so many better shooters available as PSP Minis, nobody should have HAL 21 as their top pick. Interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying.

If Vanguard and Sasuke vs. Commander are the best arcade ports SNK has to offer, then Athena is definitely the worst. Here's further proof that sometimes a cool character can be part of a truly terrible interactive experience. With her bright purple hair and penchant for wearing smoking hot bikinis, Athena is the type of video game character I can get behind. It's a shame the game she's in is such a mess; a cavalcade of poor design decisions. Very little about this 2D action game works, yet I'm grateful this game exists. Without this 1986 turd SNK wouldn't have cast Athena in a multitude of fighting games.

Athena has a lot of promise, which makes the disappointment that much greater. You run around common RPG-style environments punching, kicking and slashing your way to victory. Unfortunately your standard attack barely registers and it's often hard to tell when you're attacking. Things get a little easier when you pick up an axe or hammer, but even then you'll have to contend with cheap shots that can kill in just one or two quick hits. The check points are nonexistent and the game is far too repetitive for its own good. I did appreciate the different special items our heroine can pick up, but it wasn't enough to take away the bad taste from my mouth.

With the possible exception of Athena, the final two SNK games are definitely the best known of the bunch. Up first is Ikari Warriors, an overhead action/shooter that apes Capcom's Commando. You play an Arnold Schwarzenegger-style action star that gets dropped behind enemy lines to kill everything in sight. Along the way you'll be able to pick up new weapons and even pilot a tank, all while working side-by-side a second player. Although SNK has attempted to port this game a number of times (most notably on the Nintendo Entertainment System), the arcade's funky controls have consistently gotten in the way.

In case you aren't familiar with the arcade cabinet, Ikari Warriors features a unique rotary control. This arcade joystick allowed players to turn in eight directions, imitating a dual-stick shooter (without worrying about a second stick). There are a number of ways SNK could have handled porting this control scheme, but they chose to use the right and left shoulder buttons to rotate the player. This isn't a bad set-up, though I would have preferred turning the face buttons into a faux-second stick. It worked well with another PSP Mini, Dracule: Undead Awakening. This set-up certainly takes some getting used to, but once you get it down you'll be killing soldiers like the best of them. Ikari Warriors is the better of the two war shooters, thanks in large part to the interesting level designs and harder difficulty.

Guerrilla War is a lot like Ikari Warrior, only this time you take control of ... Che Guevara? And is that Fidel Castro as the second player? Okay, so this PSP Minis port is based on the localized American version, but when the game was released in Japan it took direct aim at the 1950s battle in Batista-controlled Cuba. While I'll admit that this makes for a cool story, it doesn't improve what is an otherwise unspectacular war-based shooter. This is the type of game that exists for no other reason than to suck tokens from your pocket, which means that you'll have to put up with countless cheap deaths that were created on purpose. It may be easier than Ikari Warriors, but that doesn't mean it plays fair.

This is a visually appealing game, even a quarter century later. The characters are large and the backgrounds are full of detail. While I didn't mind using the shoulder buttons for Ikari Warriors, I was less impressed with the rotation in Guerrilla War. The level designs are too narrow to take full advantage of the rotating shots. What's more, the game's five levels aren't diverse enough, leading to a lot of forest fights. This makes sense given that this is supposed to be 1950s Cuba, but the developers never took full advantage of the unique history lesson. Still, Guerrilla War isn't a bad game, especially for $2.99. It's fun in short bursts and is looks good on the PSP's screen.