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Title: Daze Before Christmas
Author:Funcom/Sunsoft
Rom Player: Gens
Reviewer: Zomboid
Synopsis: First of all, let it be known that I love Christmas, despite...no, partly because of how commercial it's become. Now if ya think about how many festive products are churned out each year around this time, it shouldn't come as a huge shock to you to find out that there was a game like this made. Since in addition to Christmas, I love classic games. You could say that I was pretty happy to find a game like this. Anyway, let's git down to bidness!
Right on the title screen you're confronted with a grim vision of the North Pole gone wrong. Santa seems cheerfully optimistic, despite being mere moments away from being beaten to death by an angry snowman and his friends. On the next menu, aside from an evil looking Santa, you've got 1 or 2 player modes and options. Now, I played the ROM of this thing and was alone meaning I couldn't play 2 players so I can't say how that plays. There are 3 difficulty settings and I went through it on the default level despite it being incredibly easy. I honestly don't know how a game could get much easier, but if you really are mentally challenged or have nubs for hands...No, it's still extremely easy. Anyway, the story involves someone named Louse cooking up an evil plot to ruin Christmas by scaring off the elves and stealing all the presents! Do you think Santa is gonna sit idly by and let that son of a bitch ruin Christmas? Hell no!
Gameplay: 5
Of course, this game is a platformer so expect a lot of jumping and stuff. You have 3 buttons. 2 buttons shoot the same magic attack but you can upgrade the magic by picking up special items...not that it helps, considering almost every enemy can be killed in 1 hit. The third button makes you jump. Wow! Aside from your magic attack though, you have the Santa equivalent of Mario 64's ass stomp attack. You simply jump your fat ass into the air, and press the jump button again to make him bring down the spirit of Christmas upon the evildoers that seek to destroy it! Also, if you hold the down button, Santa pulls his hat down over his entire body and you can crawl around like that. Now that the extensive control list is covered, I'll discuss the rest of the game. The goal of the normal levels seems to be to pick up every Christmas present while rescuing your elves and killing any enemies that get in your way. When you kill an enemy, they leave a present, which leads me to believe you're giving out dead rats and things as gifts. If only it were that easy in real life:( . Anyway, you can of course kill enemies with your ass attack or by hurling projectiles of searing Christmas joy, but there is also another way. If you happen to come across a cup of hot coacoa and drink it, you see what happens when Santa gets really pissed off. A few changes happen with the most noticeable at first being his nice new red horns. In addition to his fashion sense changing, he also swings his bag instead of throwing pansy magic attacks. Also, instead of sexually assaulting enemies with his ass, he stomps on them. His face is that of a man possessed by pure rage. God help us all:(. Oh yeah, while evil Satan (DID I MEAN TO MISPELL IT? MWAHAHA!), you can't open presents. I think they put that there to really show you that naughty = no presents:(. In between the enemy clobbering, you'll have to search high and low (not really) for the presents, reindeer, elves, etc before continuing to the gold star at the end of the level to proceed to the next one. Preventing you from getting to the end of the level are mainly evil toys, giant rats, snowmen goons, etc. Not a single one of em poses much of a threat unless you have Parkinson’s or something. There's the occasional boss too but they're not much harder than the average enemy. Every now and then you get to a level where you fly around a country dropping presents into chimneys while dodging enemies (which include balloons). These levels are kind of something resembling a challenge but still pretty damn easy. You just drop the presents into the smoking chimneys and if you got it in they stop smoking...Which I can only assume means you plugged the chimney and filled the house with smoke, killing everyone inside. Merry Christmas! There are 24 very short levels and the level screen is like an advent calendar, which I must admit is kinda cool.
Graphics: 7
One thing that stands out in this game is the graphics. They just seem really smooth for a Genesis game. They're not the best, but they're not bad for the time it was made and they're very in tune with the theme of the game. The enemies don't look blocky and neither do the backgrounds. They're really cartoony which is the only way they could possibly be for this kind of game. It's pretty much the same 3 or 4 backgrounds over and over again, and I swear you have to go through a few levels twice, but other than that everything's slightly above average in the graphics department (for a Genesis game).
Sound: 6
The music is very repetitive and you'd expect more than one or two Christmas songs in there but overall it's not too bad for the most part. The sound effects are the kind you'd expect on a Warner Brothers cartoon but it suits the game and the graphics. Would've been nice to have more Christmas themed stuff and what's there isn't the greatest, but you can always turn off the sound (which I did).
Replay Value: 3
None whatsoever. I usually play it once every year during the holidays if I remember to, and that's about it.
Originality: 8
There've been lots of dumb platformers made for whatever reason over the years, but this is the first and only console Christmas game that I've played.
Overall: 6
Not a spectacular game by any means but not a bad one either. It is what it was meant to be. A simple holiday game meant to be enjoyed by little kids and the retarded. Download the ROM since it's Christmas time (while I write this) and enjoy a simple holiday platformer...or don't, I don't really care, ass.
Best Cheats: They probably exist, but if you need them, I'm genuinely surprised that you're able to read this.
Game Play: 5
Graphics: 7
Music/Sound: 6
Originality: 8
Overall Rating: 6
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