Retro Monday Game 94 – Apocalypse!
Apocalypse was a ‘multidirectional shooter’ (or as we call them usually to call them now ‘Twin Stick Shooter’) game for Sony’s PlayStation. It was made by developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It was released in 1998 and was the second game that was created by the Neversoft.
The game was picked via a poll of three games over on GRcade. The three games were picked by Preezy.
Another game I knew nothing about. Which seems to be quite the common theme at the moment. Well, I have to admit, that the Playstation era visually for me, just isn’t very nice, it hasn’t aged particularly well. Obviously, it will depend on the stylistic choices made and the aesthetic of the game, but a lot that I see or play just don’t hold up. This is one of those games. It isn’t helped that I’m playing it on a 4K TV making it looks worse. For the time I think it would have been held fairly highly, and while the visuals aren’t amazing, when I re-adjusted to them, but the 4th level I was really digging the look of the game and in general prefered the game after the first level. I enjoyed my time with this, it’s not massively different to similar titles before it, when I was asked ‘what kind of game is this?’ in the stream, I said it seems similar to something like Smash T.V. but not as hard. It has different things to Smash TV, there are points where the camera angle changes and there are platforming sections, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. It’s a fun game, and for me, that’s what matters. A game doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel to be fun and enjoyable, which I think a lot of people forget nowadays and expect some kind of revolution at all times.
The sound is actually pretty good, the first level I admit I wasn’t a fan, I thought it just sounded odd. I think the music picks up from there on. with music that suits the levels, and on occasion you come across a billboard and on it is a video from a music video which can be from several bands. The ones I happened to see/hear were not something I knew, bar ‘System of the Down’ and ‘War?’ and I thought maybe on was ‘Pantera’ well, it wasn’t. The sound effects were all well done too, the various weapons all had their own unique sounds which were distinct from each other and the explosions were very loud and explosion-y. BUT, the voice acting of Bruce Willis – yes, Bruce Willis the actor – were underwhelming, the quality wasn’t the issue, it was more than he sounded like he couldn’t really be bothered with it and it just seemed half-arsed. On top of that, the dialogue through the stages was repeated way too much you heard 90% of what is going to be said by Bruce by the end of the first stage. It’s a shame as it could’ve been so much more than what it was if there were more lines recorded and Brucey actually had an interest in it.
Verdict: Recommend.
If you’d like to take part in voting for the games or even picking the games yourself, take yourself over to the GRcade forums and pop into the Retro Monday thread and just post to show your interest. Not just that, you can watch the gameplay live over on Twitch where it’s streamed at 9pm on a Monday evening.