MEGA MAN X4 x86 COMPUTER ACTION, PLATFORMER CAPCOM

4 WHEEL THUNDER DREAMCAST RACING MIDWAY (KALISTO)

ROAD RASH 3D PLAYSTATION RACING ELECTRONIC ARTS

These games don't have much in common... they're all on different systems, and even the two racers have completely different play mechanics.  One trait they share, however, is that they PISS ME OFF.

I don't know why games like these three end up this frustrating.  Perhaps the companies that designed them thought it would extend the playlife and make the players think they're getting a better deal for their money.  Maybe they just want to challenge their customers.  Or maybe they have no idea how to actually make a game FUN and didn't bother to hire competant play testers who would inform them that the average gamer doesn't like to fall off their bikes just before the finish line and drop from 1st to 7th place after ramming into a car that was hidden behind a hill.  Whatever's the case, it needs to stop.  These games are all well designed (with Mega Man X4 being the best of the bunch), but the fun was sapped right out of them thanks to the programmers cranking the difficulty to eleven like the braindead members of a satirical rock band.

All right, let's start with Road Rash 3D.  This series had frustration issues from the moment of its conception... the Genesis owners whose jaws hung open from the surprisingly realistic and interactive 3D playfields kept them open to swear endlessly after being bucked off their bikes and thrown to the ground by the game's wide assortment of obstacles.  Everything that you remember from the Genesis games has been ramped up in Road Rash 3D, and unfortunately, that includes the difficulty as well as the quality of the graphics.  I'll give Electronic Arts credit for the improved presentation... there's voice acting and even film clips in Road Rash 3D, and they're both high in quality and add a lot to the game's atmosphere.  Each of the game's four rival biker gangs (ranging from the Asian Kaffe Boys with their streamlined Japanese bikes to the Dewleys, a bunch of Harley riding rednecks inspired by the Hell's Angels) trade crude, sometimes very clever insults before each race, and the entertaining full motion video clips that play after you've reached the finish line take some of the sting out of losing.  That's helpful, because you'll be losing a lot.  It isn't really the fault of the control... using the analog sticks to steer and accelerate is a little awkward, but you get used to it, and it does give you a level of precision you wouldn't get with the joypad and buttons.  The real problem, in a nutshell, are the cars... they're scattered all over the place, and if you're in the left lane, you're almost certain to collide head first into one.  Naturally, the right lane is a little safer, but the slow moving station wagons here won't honk to alert you if you're about to hit them.  If they're just behind a hill, you won't even know what hit you until you've been launched in mid-air from the impact... and that's when your opponents take advantage of the situation by passing you en masse.  There's no way to describe how you'll feel when this happens a hundred feet from the finish line... you're left speechless, only able to cry or (more likely) throw a tantrum that would leave even a two-year old impressed.  If it gives you any idea, I've ripped the CD out of my Playstation, thrown it to the floor, and set my drink on it.  You hear a lot of game reviewers talk about using games as drink coasters, but the high octane frustration in Road Rash 3D convinced me to make this silly cliche' a reality.

At least Road Rash 3D gives you the vague possibility of a victory... you won't even get that in 4-Wheel Thunder, a promising racer in Midway's Thunder series that's quite literally ruined by its overwhelming unfairness.  I'm not the world's most talented game player, but I've been playing long enough to know that something's seriously wrong if I can't beat the first round of a game after multiple tries.  The worst part is that you won't even get another round until you finish the first one.  I normally don't mind designers carrot and stringing the player along like this, but when the goals set by the designers are impossible to achieve, you're left with a very short game and a very big ripoff.  I paid five dollars for this at Blockbuster and I'm still not sure if this was money well spent.  I'd be really happy with the purchase if there were selectable difficulty levels, or if your opponents weren't given the sickening advantage of being placed ahead of you, or if you could place rather than win to advance to the next round... it wouldn't have taken much to make this game a lot more enjoyable.  Unfortunately, Kalisto didn't stop to think that maybe average players and novices might want to play 4-Wheel Thunder, so instead of enjoying the solid control, great playfield design, and silky smooth graphics in all the rounds, you're just left wondering if they're all as good as the first one.  Even when you're NOT playing the game, you're frustrated, because you'll keep thinking about all its wasted potential, and all those great rounds seperated from the player by a solid iron gate of maddening difficulty.

Capcom was smart enough to drop this gate at the end of their game, Mega Man X4, rather at the beginning, but they should have known better than to put it there at all.  Actually, Mega Man X4 deserves a lot of praise... it's not only the best game in the series, it was beautifully ported to PCs, even using some code from the Playstation version.  What you're left with is a game that's no better than the Playstation version, but certainly no worse... which may come as a big surprise to anyone who's played the crummy Mega Man games by Hi-Tech Expressions.  Looking past the conversion, the game itself is also a pleasant surprise.  It's more fun and less frustrating than the outrageously difficult Super NES games, and the presentation has improved as well.  I love the soundtrack... it's sometimes electronic, sometimes atmospheric, and always better than the squealing electric guitars from the early Mega Man X games.  It's also worth mentioning that the soundtrack is better than one of the later Mega Man X games, specifically the contrived X6.  You tend to take the boss battles a lot more seriously when they're accented by a fast-paced techno theme rather than a cornball tune apparently taken from an episode of Fat Albert.  The graphics are a welcome improvement over the first three games, too.  The animation is fantastic, bringing life to the robot heroes and their enemies, and the scenery in most rounds is very convincing, particularly the falling snow in Frost Walrus' round and Web Spider's vibrant green jungles, accented with the occasional rainbow or waterfall.  To top it all off, the control is sharp and precise, just as it would be in a console Mega Man game.  There are hundreds of joysticks available for personal computers, so your own experience could differ, but I was very satisfied with my own controller, Interact's PC Power Pad Pro.

So Mega Man X4 performs pretty well, but it is not invulnerable to the same criticism I've heaped upon the other games in this set of reviews.  It too is unnecessarily frustrating, although the difficulty varies depending on the round and what you're trying to accomplish.  The trip through Web Spider and Slash Beast's stage is actually pretty enjoyable, but nearly everything about Cyber Peacock is aggravating.  The first half of his round is so repetitive, bland, and above all annoying that it would have been a better candidate for inclusion in Mega Man X6, where ALL of the rounds were this bad.  You'll get pretty familiar with these stages, too, unless you lace up your running shoes and speed through as quickly as possible... it's the only way you can clear these stages for good, and the only way you can collect important items like the Energy Tanks you'll need to defeat... HIM.  Er, but more on that later.  The second half of Cyber Peacock's stage is tolerable, but just when you start to enjoy switching the walls and ceilings around to roll electrified balls through gem-like barriers, you'll reach the hideout of the boss himself.  He's no problem at all if you've got a fire attack, but if you're playing as Zero and haven't beaten Magma Dragoon yet, you might as well bend over and receive your destiny.  There's no way- absolutely NO way- to approach the pulchritudinously plumed prick without getting hit, and he warps around so much that you never get a chance to attack him repeatedly.  Since we're on the subject of Magma Dragoon, he's a bastard, too, using attacks that are much tougher to predict and avoid than those of his fellow Mavericks.  Of course, you can't do much damage to him, and if you're playing as Zero you'll have to get uncomfortably close to swipe at him with your sword, which is just begging to get hit by Dragoon's Shoryukens and Hadoukens.  If you're wondering why he's got all those moves, well, "Ryu" means dragon in Japanese.  It's a funny joke, I'll admit, but I would have preferred fighting a Hibikibot instead.  He'd be even more hilarious and you'd probably stand a much better chance of beating him.

Oh, but those are just the Maverick rounds!  Wait 'till you reach the last few levels.  It's not too hard to make the Colonel extra crispy, but his sister Iris is surprisingly brutal... this is probably the worst beating you'll ever take from a fourteen year old girl.  If you're not discouraged by this, the confrontation with an immense gold-plated robot named General will almost certainly teach you some humility.  He's big, he's bad, and he's almost impossible to hit without taking some damage yourself.  Better bring along a full energy tank, or two of them if you're really clumsy.  You'll be quite relieved when this battle is over, but you haven't won the war.  Remember, since this is a Mega Man game, you'll have to fight all the Mavericks over again... and they're even more FUN the second time around!  If you somehow manage to beat them all, you'll have to face off against... HIM.  The "HIM" I'm referring to is none other than Sigma, the villain of the Mega Man X series and the reason they make stress relievers.  He never struck me as an interesting bad guy, but he's more than capable as the game's final boss, adopting four different, ridiculously overpowered forms.  The first two are actually pretty cool... he's appropriately dressed as the Grim Reaper in the first.  Once you've stripped him of the costume, he's unveiled as a very muscular humanoid, still armed with the scythe but a great deal more skilled with it.  OK, here's where the game really takes things too far.  This battle is pretty tough, but bordering on fun... if it ended right here, I wouldn't have nearly as much to gripe about.  HOWEVER, Capcom wasn't convinced that you've been abused enough to deserve an ending.  They drop you into that popular video game staple, the final confrontation, and force you to battle a combination of bosses.  Each take turns draining your life bar, with even more punishment delivered by the floating heads sandwiched between the real fights.  But you can make it through, right?  You've got two full energy tanks!  Well, hey, that's just great, but they're not going to do much good if you're forced into spikes, which kill you instantly.  And guess what?  One of the bosses creates spikes, then forces you into them with a blast of wind!  All of this reduces the fun PAST zero to a very large negative number, and it's the reason I won't touch the game again until I can find a hack for it that tilts the odds in my favor.

Look, game companies.  I'm not asking that you make your products pointlessly easy, but taking things to the other extreme isn't a bright idea either.  I'd have much fonder memories of Road Rash 3D, 4-Wheel Thunder, and Mega Man X4, and I'd consider buying sequels to these games, if I spent more time having fun with them and less time frothing at the mouth after their berzerk difficulty and outright unfairness robbed me of yet another victory.