REVIEW: Trap and Turn

GAME TITLE: Trap and Turn
GENRE: Board Game
SYSTEM: MEGA DUCK (MD009)
DEVELOPER: Commin (Sachen)
RELEASE DATE: 1993
GENRE: Board Game
SYSTEM: MEGA DUCK (MD009)
DEVELOPER: Commin (Sachen)
RELEASE DATE: 1993
Trap and Turn is one of the Megaduck's harder to find games, despite it being released as a Cougar Boy variant. Whether it is one of the more desirable ones is questionable, depending on your love of the board game Othello/Reversi, itself something that has more than a century of history behind it.
The game seems to have garnered incredible popularity in Japan, given its history of being ported under various names in videogame for during the 90's.
The game seems to have garnered incredible popularity in Japan, given its history of being ported under various names in videogame for during the 90's.
Reversi/Othello in it's board game form. Can you tell that we are struggling for screenshots with the Megaduck!
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Each of the 4 selectable levels has a different character to compete against. Not that it matters as the CPU will destroy you no matter who you select!
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This is how the game starts. Control your excitement. You aren't going to win anyway!
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To avoid frustration the game's HUD displays a map that, theoretically, should help direct you to the tokens that you are supposed to collect. Unfortunately, due to the dark colour palette selected by the developer and the Mega Duck's less than clear screen it can be difficult to judge what is what on this tiny portion of the display.
Ultimately, none of this matters as Street Rider, while a fairly faithful port, is still a fairly faithful port of a game that was already well over a decade old on release and is now well into its third decade and showing it. For a game about racing a car it's surprisingly slow paced and this, combined with the repetitive nature of its gameplay and the generic look of the stages means that it's almost as much a struggle to continue with it as it is to squint at at the map on the Mega Duck's screen. Musically, Sachen have done an outrageous job in plagiarizing Rally-X's theme tune and this alternates with other tracks throughout the stages but this isn't enough to bring about nostalgia for a game that never really captured the imagination in the way that Namco's little yellow dot eater did.
Street Rider does a reasonable job of cloning a popular although hardly legendary arcade game, however this is one instance where it probably would have been better to simply let the original ride off into the sunset.
Score 6/10
Ultimately, none of this matters as Street Rider, while a fairly faithful port, is still a fairly faithful port of a game that was already well over a decade old on release and is now well into its third decade and showing it. For a game about racing a car it's surprisingly slow paced and this, combined with the repetitive nature of its gameplay and the generic look of the stages means that it's almost as much a struggle to continue with it as it is to squint at at the map on the Mega Duck's screen. Musically, Sachen have done an outrageous job in plagiarizing Rally-X's theme tune and this alternates with other tracks throughout the stages but this isn't enough to bring about nostalgia for a game that never really captured the imagination in the way that Namco's little yellow dot eater did.
Street Rider does a reasonable job of cloning a popular although hardly legendary arcade game, however this is one instance where it probably would have been better to simply let the original ride off into the sunset.
Score 6/10