Core Blimey!
Those with a good memory may remember already seeing Frenetic here on AtariCrypt about five years ago? However, my review was, ahem, less than favourable. If I remember correctly, the graphics were nice and I thought the gameplay was well-balanced. Yet, I oddly rated it as nothing more than a cheap & nasty Amiga port. Well, that was a long time ago and I figured that I needed to revisit Core's vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up. Let's see if I was wrong back then.
Frenetic transports us slap-bang into the 23rd Century with soulless scientists still debating over the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Well, as often happens in the world of sci-fi gaming, life on Earth is under attack from such creatures. It had to happen! This time it's aliens from the planet "Mozone". Hmm, anyhow we have to head into the unknown to pave the way for the safe travel of Earth's vessels and help prevent the extinction of humanity. Sounds like fun, right?
Before we begin, how about a screenshot? Yeah, let's do just that so here you go...
Giant trees and rocks throughout level one and it's pretty much green throughout!
Big levels, Big Guns, Big Monsters
There are eight ginormous levels stuffed with hundreds of aliens out for human blood. Some will stroll into your line of fire whereas others swirl majestically onto the screen. So, it's obvious what to do - bang on the fire button and kill as many as possible. Power-ups are available along the way to upgrade your ship's firepower. They are essential and blessed with different types of upgrades: forward firepower, speed, side armaments, shields, etc. Sadly, these pickups areas are few, so I was often left vulnerable and underpowered after losing a life. Yes, power-ups are gone after dying.
Hang on a moment, do you have a friend sat idle? Well, there is a cool option for two-players which is brilliant and certainly comes in handy on those harder levels later on. Sadly, I have no friends... Sniff... boohoo...
Finally, each stage has the expected end-of-level boss and these are huge beasts. When I say huge I really do mean it. They will take lots of time and firepower to defeat, but most aren't really that difficult (beyond the time required to kill). Unless you have just lost your power-ups then you can expect that battle to last a long time... a very long time!
Let's take a break from reading and view another screenshot. How about one that looks creepy and very alien...
Later levels might look funky but the gameplay remains exactly the same!
Aesthetics
The backgrounds are excellent on most levels, especially the first with tons of colour and artwork I really liked. The enemies move spritely with different attack patterns and the bosses are ginormous creatures taking up most of the screen. The vertical scrolling isn't great which is disappointing because the Atari ST has many similar games with smoother framerates. In fact, I'd say that the graphics look better in these screenshots compared to when actually playing.
The music is by Martin Walker and is brilliant - I love it!! Not only that, but it works well alongside the sound effects too I thought. Sadly, that same tune plays throughout which is incredibly disappointing and a massive shame because Martin's one-track is quite excellent. We needed more as I know I would have enjoyed listening to more of his work.
So, it looks pretty and sounds great so let's celebrate with one final screenshot of a funky boss...
Some of the bosses are great and some are... rather rubbish!
The CryptO'pinion?
Well, in hindsight, it looks like I wasn't wrong after all? At best, this is an average shoot 'em up but, if you can find a friend, then it will be a little more bearable. Well, for a few games anyhow. Frenetic needed more progression, more power-ups, and more pizzazz. It's boring. So boot up something like Xenon II, Wings Of Death, SWIV, or Flying Shark.
What I liked: the first couple of levels have well-balanced gameplay and I even reached the third stage - without cheating believe it or not! However, the best feature of all is the two-player mode which is fantastic and certainly helps to (partially) compensate for the things I am now about to moan about.What I didn't like: the power-ups are needed to defeat the bosses but these are lost after losing a life and new pick-ups are very scarce. Each level is a long slog without variety, excitement or progression and the repetative tune becomes irritating. Basically, I'm getting a nasty whiff of a cheap Amiga port.
Reading this back, I feel that I'm being too harsh? Or perhaps I'm in a bad mood today? Okay, am I wrong? Is this a great shoot 'em up and I'm talking nonsense? Feel free to let me know what you guys think in the comments below.
Rob & Lee, coder and artist for Frenetic. Gee whiz thanks, guys. It's a lame ending screen too!
I think you're pretty much spot on with this, and to a degree, your previous review (I've not played it since the 90's so right now I'm going with your first review, but i'll give it another go sometime soon). It was a pretty poor conversion to the ST, and imo not a great shmup on either formats.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. I can only apologise for missing your comment a couple of years ago :( I'm now wondering if you did get chance to play it? Let me know.
DeleteI think this game had the potential to be a simple shooter but a fun one. Sadly, the fun part appears to be missing for me. Core should/could have done much better!