Review – EA Replay (PSP)

Anticipation : 7
Expectation : 7
Initial Reaction : 3
Overall : 5
Genre : Various

 

EA Replay is a collection of old “classic” games.  Included in the collection are the following :

• B.O.B.
• Budokan
• Desert Strike
• Jungle Strike
• Haunting Starring Polterguy
• Mutant League Football
• Road Rash
• Road Rash II
• Road Rash III
• Syndicate
• Ultima: The Black Gate
• Virtual Pinball
• Wing Commander
• Wing Commander: Secret Missions

In addition to these classic games, EA decided to add some extra content such as multiplayer, collectible cards, and mid-game saving.

Unfortunately, this collection falls well short of being fun and entertaining.  My primary interest was the Wing Commander and Syndicate games.  I remember playing these on my PC and thoroughly enjoying them.  In fact, the Wing Commander series is still one of my all time favorites.

It’s not that the games don’t live up to present day expectations.  I’m realistic, I know that these aren’t next-gen multi-million dollar megahit games.  I realize we’re not talking about the latest in graphics and gameplay.  But I do expect them to play the way they did back when they were new games.

Wing Commander falls way short of this goal.  The WC games included are apparently the SNES versions.  The controls are just too quick!  It’s extremely hard to identify and target incoming ships and the controls are confusing.  Unfortunately, this killed the entire experience for me as I was very much looking forward to playing WC again.

Budokan and Syndicate are a little better.  For the most part, they’re what I remember from years past, although the Syndicate they included was the SNES version.  The gameplay seems to be identical to the originals and while not the best games in the collection, they’re not the worst.

The rest of the collection is actually pretty new to me.  I’ve heard of Road Rash, but never truly played it.  After taking a look, it reminds me of Pole Position, but with a bike.  The controls are responsive and the games seem to play pretty well.

B.O.B. is pretty fun to play.  I vaguely remember hearing about this game, but never played it.  B.O.B. is a side-scrolling platformer game.  It’s pretty neat, actually, and I had some fun playing it.  Worth checking out.

Jungle Strike and Desert Strike are pretty fair games.  I’m not a huge fan of games like this, so I don’t have much to say.  They’re worth playing if you’re fans of helicopter shooters, but if not, avoid them.

Mutant League Football is actually pretty fun.  Apparently this was a play on the Madden series of the day and they did a pretty good job with it.  Definitely worth a look.

Haunting Starring Polterguy is a very odd game.  The idea is to scare a family out of their home by screaming, making noise, and haunting items.  It’s a fun game to try out, but I don’t think it really stands the test of time.

Ultima is just plain horrible.  Again, this is not the original Ultima series from the PC, but a  port from the SNES version.  This game is simply horrible, just avoid it.

And finally, Virtual Pinball.  Not much to say here, it’s a pinball game.  Fun for a little bit, not much beyond that.

 

Overall I was extremely disappointed with the collection.  If I knew that most of these were ports from the SNES version, I would have passed off the collection altogether.  While I have had some fun playing Road Rash, B.O.B., and Mutant League Football, the game has mostly collected dust.

 

If you really need that classic-gaming fix, however, pick up the Sega Genesis Collection instead.  I’ll be reviewing that in the near future.  Definitely worth looking into.