Retroulette #14: Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000

Today's game is a little shoot 'em up for the Sega 32X knows as Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000. I must have missed the first 1999 (hahahaha ugh). This game looks and sounds pretty good. But let me tell you folks.


I hate this game.


I hate it so bad.

So you press start on the menu screen and--HOLY SHIT THIS GAME LOOKS AWESOME.

I don't know what this mess of pixels is, but I know I like it.

There's a little clip of your little spaceship getting inside of a bigger spaceship, surrounded by other giant spaceships. Oh and they're all shaped like insects. If that doesn't already sound like an amazing game, you don't have a soul, and you should get it back before Milhouse trades it to the Comic Book Guy.

Right away I make the mistake of jumping out of my big spaceship, because that's a thing that can happen. The little ship is faster, but weaker both offensively and defensively. My first attempt at playing this game looked like this.

Time elapsed: 30 seconds

So right away the problem is this: This game is a shoot 'em up from an isometric perspective. That's pretty different, you don't see that often. But there's a reason for that.

That's fucking retarded.

It makes it very hard to see where things actually are in relation to everything else, and I crashed into things a whole bunch of times that I didn't even know I was close to. Add in the fact that controlling a ship that can move in three dimensions with a d-pad is a hate crime, and you have a game that practically begs you not to play it. But begging only works on me if you're a dog, so I carry on.

When you begin the level you're surrounded by all the other insect ships, and they fire back at the enemies and stuff, but they all suck ass, so they're usually dead pretty quick and it's just you again. Also some enemies somehow have friendly ships held hostage, and you have to kill them so the friendly will join you and help fight the supposedly evil enemies.

Of course, as I said, they suck ass. So even after you rescue them it's only like 5 seconds before they blow up.

A little later in the level some giant robots with spike hands jump out at me and kill me.

They don't do anything. I just run into them because it's hard to navigate. After getting past them, the music gets ominous. All of a sudden, this!

So yeah, I had trouble with the little giant robots, this guy is going to be loads of fun. At least I got my little buddy to help me ou--

God you guys are the worst. This guy is actually pretty tough. So tough in fact, that I never beat him. Spoilers, but this boss fight is as far as I get, because he's fucking impossible. After a few seconds, he nonchalantly walks away, and I hope that that's the end of it.

 

"Oh wait, there's a Saved by the Bell marathon on TV, I'll kill you later."

 But he's not gone. He knocks a support structure in your way.

And another one.

And hey, why not three?

 Baby, you know these things kill me. Then he just starts punching things, because why not. Then he walks forward some more. He stops in the middle of the level but the level continues to scroll. Only at the last second do I realize I'm supposed to go around him or crash. So I do, but get this.

 I fall. I fall off the fucking level.

I'M A GODDAMN SPACESHIP.  If I fall into space I should be like "Hoho I'm in space now, time to just fly back into where I was". But no, I'm dead. That's the shittiest bullshit I've ever seen. Then, after a half dozen deaths, I get past that, and he just shoots me with a machine gun. After I replay the level and get past that, he shoots me with blue laser beams. After I get past that, he just runs into me. Eventually you get the the end of the corridor, and it's just you and him. And a bunch of enemies that keep showing up. There's a locked door or some shit and every once in awhile he'll pound on it and break it a little more. Presumably I just have to survive until he breaks the door down, and the level will continue. But I tried for a long ass time, and that's just not possible. I died over and over again, and redoing the whole level over and over again, dying all along the way. But that metal bastard just shoots me with lasers or kicks me or some other cheating piece of shit dumbass thing. 

Just imagine this, but for like an hour.

That's why I hate fucking robots.

 HOW MUCH DID THE COVER ART LIE?

No. No! This cover doesn't represent this game at all.

That's more like it.