Vectorman

Columbus Day is one of those weird holidays where I don't have to go into work but my wife does. It always comes in mid-October, which means it's generally a cold, dreary day. Generally, circumstances lend themselves well for it to be a great day for mindless gaming. And I can think of no gaming task more mindless than plowing through my Sega Genesis backlog, still sitting at twelve games strong as of this morning. It's only 1:30 now, but holy hell, I can't take this anymore. It's time to make some posts and then run some errands and then make some dinner, effectively running out the clock on this weird pseudo-holiday once again.

I started off with Vectorman. Vectorman came out in 1995 and as such is is basically the prettiest Sega Genesis game I have ever seen. We're still trapped in the late '80s when it comes to gameplay conventions - once again, we're running linearly through a number of levels with a few lives and a few continue options, and we're armed with a very limited array of abilities. Oh, did you want the plot? Here is the set up, from Wikipedia, because God knows you don't get it when you start playing the game:

In 2049, the human population of Earth embarks on a migratory voyage to try to colonize other planets. They leave mechanical "orbots" to clean up the mess they made on Earth through littering and pollution. Raster, a high-level orbot who watches Earth through a planetwide computer network, is accidentally attached to a working nuclear missile by a lesser orbot and goes insane, becoming an evil dictator named Warhead. He declares himself ruler of Earth, and begins preparing to execute any humans who dare return to their planet. Enter Vectorman, a humble orbot in charge of cleaning up toxic sludge by simply discharging it into the sun. As he lands on Earth after his last trip, he finds chaos and confusion. Because all the other Orbots are controlled by Warhead (Vectorman having not been affected because he was away), Vectorman takes it upon himself to destroy the errant orbot and restore peace to Earth.

Holy smokes. I had no idea. None at all that I was mankind's last hope, shooting my shooty-thingies in eight cardinal directions while wandering through futuristic industrial wastelands.

Vectorman wasn't aggressively bad, but I don't think I smiled once while playing it. Seems about par for a Genesis platformer-shooter.

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