Gate of Thunder

Gate of Thunder is awesome. Where do I start? It's a horizontal shooter! I bet you've played some of those, maybe, but not like this one, ever... this could be the most intense horizontal shooter ever, for the TurboDuo (contrary to popular belief, the TurboDuo was out BEFORE Sega's CD system. Psha!)!
Ok, so Gate of Thunder is fast. Like, intensity, multiplied. You couldn't get this sort of speed on a cartridge... not even on a chip!! They should have called this Blazing Gates of Lazers, because it's big-time fast. My partner Tony lost his loafers playing this!
The weapon system is revolutionary! You collect your weapons but you don't lose them... you don't go from one to the other, so the intenseness is right there from the beginning. You get to select them at any time, and they can be used to infinity! Now, there are also option things, too, and these shoot the weapon you shoot as well, and this triples your fire! You've got this laser... it's like, you see enemies, and you're all, ''ZARK!'' and they're all, ''no thanks,'' and that's all she wrote. And this game maybe works in threes, because there are three weapons you can get!
They give you other stuff to get, too. Like shields, natch! Ok, so you fly around the beautiful CD levels, and you'll know they're going to keep you on the edge of your seet. The enemies come out non-stop. Levels are all sorts of sceneries, like there's one that's cavernous... very earthy! That definitely brings out the arcade feel!. There's also a level over a future city and one over some ground. The thing is, though, it's all about the bosses!
There's this one boss, he's like a robot, like ED209 from Robocop... he goes down pretty easy though, like a stupid Feka goon would. Plus, he's nothing compared to this other robot, who is like a floating tank, and he is symmetrical. He shoots cool lasers, and you have to dodge them. There's LOTS of dodging in Gate of Thunder. That's the Duo for you!
Ok, you haven't heard songs like this. This music is ultimate, a real amazer. It's on a CD, and it's full of all sorts of wailing guitars and badical tunes. This thing kicks butt! It stomps butt! It does all sorts of stuff with the butt. Anyway, it has to be called Gate of Thunder just from the thunder of the music! It's cool to fly around and hear guitars, man, they push you like nitrus!
So, anyway, I hope you didn't by into all that Sega propaganda with their CD system. THE TURBODUO CAME OUT FIRST! Don't get me started on Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, Gate of Thunder is great, it's a fast shooter with fast music and it just feels like an arcade game.

Fatal Fury Special

Now the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 is hardware from 1987 and its not quite as powerful as the Genesis or SNES. It has less RAM, a slower processer, and the HuCards (Cartridge) has less maximum storage space. However, the PC-Engine CD add-on allowed games to have several hundred times more storage space on an individual CD. This game in particular also required a 2 MB RAM expansion called the Arcade Card. These accessories made storage and RAM no longer an issue and the other hardware such as the video and processor could work at its full potential. In this review I'll mostly touch on how it compared to other 16-Bit ports and the Arcade.
For those of you not familiar Fatal Fury Special is a 2D fighter released by SNK for the Arcade and home consoles. It bears similarities to Street Fighter 2 and also brings some unique game mechanics to the table. It featured a great cast of characters, had a great presentation, and was very popular in the arcades. It was also the basis for the King of Fighters series.
Now booting the game up it has the Arcade intro but this console can not do scaling so Rugal doesn't move towards the screen like the original. The menus have a classic Neo-Geo look and the artwork in the menus better resemble the Arcade compared to the Genesis and SNES ports.
Visually the character sprites are very well detailed and almost match the Arcade in quality. The Sega-CD's port has characters sprites that more closely resemble the Arcade, but only that and color seem to be the only advantages over the PC-Engine CD visually. On the Arcade when characters would move to the back lane they would scale down in size. Since the console can't do scaling they instead quickly change into a slightly smaller version of their sprites. This is the only console port that did this and it's a nice touch of detail given limitations.
Compared to the other 16-Bit ports the backgrounds much more closely resemble the Arcade. It seems like the other ports changed them, scaled them down, and even, removed sprites. These are much closer but lack the layering capabilities of the original and there were a few things removed. Over all I was content with the effort made to capture the original levels.
A lot of people seem to say that the PC-Engine has better color than the Genesis but I personally think the color palette of the PC-Engine in many cases is too bland. In fact both the SNES and Genesis more closely resemble the Arcade color palette.
Over all we have much cleaner visuals on the PC-Engine CD version thanks to the vast amount of storage and RAM.
Getting into the audio, the music uses both CD Audio tracks during fights and the old PC-Engine hardware for menus. The CD Audio tracks are great, Arcade quality if not better. The music and sound effects using the old hardware are low quality even for this console. Some sound effects are even inappropriate for what happens. For example crashing into a barrel makes a beeping sound.
All in all the PC-Engine CD offers a much more gratifying experience than the Genesis, Sega CD, and SNES. The best fighter on the PC-Engine period is Street Fighter II Championship Edition in my opinion, but this one offers a lot of entertainment as well.

Blood Gear

A mech-themed, side-scrolling action RPG for the PC Engine. I haven't heard much of this game before, and only tried it on a whim, and boy, am I glad I did so.
The game layout is similar to that of Exile. You have a typical overhead RPG scene where you advance the story, find things, buy upgrades and so forth. And when you're ready to move on, you move on to side-scrolling action scenes. You can get an idea of how Blood Gear controls during the action sequences if you can imagine games like Cybernator (Assault Suit Valken) or Target Earth (Assault Suit Leynos).You can customize your mech by upgrading various parts, and you'll also be allowed to control all-new mechs as you go through the game. The upgrading part of the game is actually quite fun, and along with a great storyline, this is where Blood Gear holds an advantage against many of other mech games. Various weapons/shields are also available throughout the game. The only downfall is that your ammo runs out rather quickly, and there is no real way to reload your guns. Adding the option to carry ammunition clips would've been really cool

Riot Zone

Everyone knows that Genesis had Streets of Rage and Snes had Final Fight, but what most people probably didn't know is that the other 16-bit console had it's own beat-em-up franchise. Well actually it's not much a franchise, being only one game and all, but since it's the only such game like this on the platform it deserves recognition. Unfortunately, it only comes off as Final Fight's underdeveloped cousin.
The first thing you'll probably notice if you play Riot Zone is its interesting sound effects. Anytime you hit an enemy or they hit you, you hear a completely unorthodox noise. The best way to describe it would be to say it sounds like someone hitting a hammer against a piece of sheet metal. Not very realistic when you consider that mutilating one's face doesn't ring like thunder. It sets a tone that the developers released a less than polished product. Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself here though. Before you can arrive at the gameplay segment of Riot Zone, you will most likely be struck with a feeling of déjà vu. The introduction of the story has a city overrun with thugs. To make matters worse, the main character's girlfriend has been kidnapped by these hoods. Obviously the soon to be hero isn't going to stand for this, so he and his best friend decide to take matters in their own hands, beat down style. Genius. The game gives you the option to control either of these two original characters. The boyfriend and finesse fighter Hawk, or his best buddy Tony, the slow muscle. {cough}Cody and Haggar{cough} Excuse me. And once the action pops off, all the usual suspects make their appearances. Yes, the skinny punks, the ridiculously fat guys, the scantly clad girls, oh and of course the ninjas, they're are all here with one common goal in mind, get mowed down by you several hundred times throughout the course of the game. And the designers even decided to get really clever in the naming of their characters, the lard balls that run at you with their bellies are named Fats. Irony of this magnitude couldn't possibly have been planned.

Winds of Thunder

When you first play Winds of Thunder, it’s necessary that you increase the volume on your television considerably. Don’t worry about what your mommy and daddy down the hall will think, turn it up LOUD!! It’s the only way that you can possibly appreciate the 21-guitar salute that assaults your ear drums the instance the game is booted up. And with all the grinding and mashing going on, you would think these axes were having sex; it's a beautiful thing. Lords contradicts the status quo of uninspiring music, and it's opening solely exists as an ear-tease of what's to come! The game’s soundtrack would most accurately be described as a blissful, metallic symphony of electric guitars. Accompanying the rousing, opening score, a richly colored, animated sequence introduces you to the game’s hero, Landis, and the antagonists, Zaggart and his six disciples, who have inhabited the seven continents of Drisal.