The Misadventures of Servebots

Let me get this out of the way first:
Servbots have to be the most annoying characters every created for a video game EVER! It's not just me that thinks this either.

Exhibit A. When they first were heard, one of my cats darted out of the room in a frenzy, jumped to the top level of a cat tower and fell off.

Exhibit B. The other cat in the room at the time got up and slapped the TV while Servbot was crying on the screen.

Exhibit C. My wife came up about 15 minutes in to ask me what that annoying voice was.

I think all of these conclusively prove beyond a doubt that Servbots are evil vial creatures.

These guys are one of the main characters in a prequel to the Megaman Legends series (which in itself is a spin-off of the Megaman X series which is itself a spin off of the main Megaman series. Sheesh.) called The Misadventures of Tron Bonne.


I played this game for a bit over thirty minutes due to the store I had to sit through, most of which is voice acted fairly well though the main character Tron is a bit over done and the Servbot's sound like the annoying crying children that folks use to justify not having kids. During this time I got to experiance the basic jist of the game and a bit of the story. Basically, Tron is a bad girl who steals with a partner named Tiesal, who I can only assume to be her dad as they have the same last name but it is not distinctly stated that he is such. They go around hunting treasures, aka looting, in hopes of riches when one day Tiesal is kidnapped over a large loan he has taken out and can't repay. Tron vows to repay this loan and save him. How is she going to do that?

Stealing in a big robot. Yep, it seems that the game is all about stealing stuff and hunting for treasure while looking like a bad ass. These tasks are divided up into missions which are themselves divided up into different types. The types I encountered were:

Puzzle missions - Missions involving the use of a special "tank" robot (I put in quotes as it really is the normal robot you run around in with wheels attached). This robot can lift a limited amount of heavy crates full of meat and then carry them a maximum of 10 spaces to your ship. Yes you are stealing beef with the option of getting a bonus for getting crab meat. Now it sounds pretty simple (which it is) but it is complicated by a few things. First, sometimes there are very heavy metal boxes that you can only pickup and move to an ajacent square. Second, there are wooden blocks that you can pickup and move anywhere, including sometimes using them to make a bridge across water. Once you steal all the meat, you end up selling it for money in the game.

RPG missions - Missions that require you to walk around in a first person mode down corridors (caves and such) and hunt for treasure. You can point and send your Servbots via a "Beacon Bomb" to investigate things such as treasure chests, openings in the wall, or to turn off traps via switches on the ground or walls. These are pretty strait forward and just involve trekking forward and making sure that you go down any branching paths.

Action Missions - The Action missions generally allow you to destroy areas in your mech-like body such as towns and use your Servbots to loot buildings and townspeople. Then you are thrown into a type of boss fight at the end. The first of these such missions finds you fighting what seems to be the local policewoman. Not only is she pretty funny while trying to stop you with her tiny police car, but when you have destroyed that you get to hunt her down on foot. It's pretty hysterical since your a giant robot. I will say one thing about the controls as they can become frustrating when you first attempt an action missions, they take a bit of time to get used to especially if you have not played any of the Legends Series. Even once you do, they can be a bit cumbersome. They don't impede the fun much though.

In the time I played this game I must say I did enjoy myself, even with the sometimes annoying voice of the Servbots. Since the game is broken up into missions, you will find yourself enjoying some more than others. I found the RPG missions to be pretty boring as there was not much challenge and due to the age of the game, the repetitive graphics of the corridors and caves really start to get to you. These are made up for with the puzzle missions that really provide a challenge and the action missions that are just plain fun.

Pros: Fun Game
Variety of Missions
Graphics are bright and colorful
Cons: While some of the voice acting is really good, some is just god awful
Controls take some time to get used to
Servbots are soooooooooo annoying

Would I play again: Actually, I think I am going to right now.


P.S. - You may have seen these annoying Servbots in a more recent game...

Do a Barrel Roll!!!

There are a few things you learn when you sit down and really play Starfox 64 for thirty strait minutes.

1. This game is short and can almost be beaten in that short amount of time.

2. Somebody somewhere got fired for adding an underwater level that had no business being in this game. This isn't "Marinefox" and I'm not playing to save the universe from a rabid killer oyster.

3. Circa 1997 Nintendo if you wanted a female character in a game you just take an existing one and make them, and everything associated with them, pink. Pink indicates girl and girl indicates pink. Got that? Good.

4. Rumble is the greatest invention Nintendo had until the Wii remote.

First things first, lets talk about the length. The game does have "branching" levels that give enough variety for at least a couple of play throughs. I say branching in quotes because you only really have a choice of what boss battle you fly to in a level and then after you end up on an alternate path that gives you access to a different set of levels to progress thorough the game. It really takes only about three times though to experience all the levels. In the 30 minutes played, I was able to progress to the end of the game and beat it. For seasoned folks it will really only take a few hours to see everything Starfox 64 has to offer.

Just because it's short, doesn't mean it's not fun. Starfox 64 has one thing going for it that many games seem to lack, being fun. The game is downright still just a blast to play. I didn't once regret playing for my thirty minutes and really want to play some more. It was still just as fun playing it now as it was 13 years ago when it first came out. Then it was something revolutionary as you could finally feel what was happening in the game with the included rumble pack. Now, we really take for granted rumble, but back then, it was something to marvel.



Pros: Still fun
Multiple Paths
Cons: Graphics and Art don't hold up too well to age
Can be beaten in one sitting

Would I play again: Absolutely.

So here's the plan...

My name is Brian. I'm married. I like cats. In fact, I have 5 cats currently and have acquired them over the course of the last two years. Their names are as follows:

Sega - He wins at life.

Atari - She could care less.














Neo-Geo - Gee, I wonder what he is named after.














NES - Are you starting to notice a pattern here?



















Lynx - He's the newest edition to the bunch.













In case you didn't notice, all these cats are named after one thing, video game systems, and that brings us to my other eccentricity: video game collecting.


I currently have a collection totaling over 1500 separate console games. I also own quite a few in arcade form (those number in the hundreds). Since there is obviously no way for me to play all of those in a timely fashion, I have decided to take them one by one and play them for a solid 30 minutes. After that thirty minutes, I will decide to myself if they are worth playing more or not. Since I'm doing it anyway, I might as well write my thoughts down for others just in case you happen to want to know what's worth playing and what isn't.

A few words of warning:
I own everything from Atari 2600 games that were made before I was born to every current system so don't expect there to be a review on every new game out there.

I would like to take the time to apologize in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes as I am no Shakespeare.

Also, I believe I am required to let you know that I do work for Best Buy but that these "reviews" in no way are the opinion of the company and that I am not doing any of this for them.

Lastly, I may go on a tangent here or there, but generally those are reserved for either very, very good games, or horrible pieces of crap that make me want to gouge my eyes out with ice picks.

Enjoy.