A Defense For Insector X
I've gotten in so many e-fights about Insector X for Genesis (not the arcade version, so I'll leave that out of discussion). If this game is brought up to the typical shooter/shmup fan, they'll take it as a joke. I have had to defend this game more than anyone else in the universe since it was a game I grew up with and loved, only learning to respect it even more after 10 or 11 years. I have even became a little famous for defending this game, so whenever a nerdy e-battle broke out on a message board, a poster would always mention Insector X just to get me started again. So I've decided to make one big article to sum up why Insector X for Genesis rulez and why I think most shooter fans are overlooking it because it's not as cool looking as the Esp. Ra. Crap., Gunbirdpoo, or Dragon Shit. This should save me a lot of time in life so I don't always have to constantly defend this gem of a electronic game.
Attack One: "The Graphics Suck"
The biggest insult I get about Insector X is that the graphics suck. I personally think they are awesome, but this is a valid point if you compare it to other console shooters at the time and the future ones ahead. I think the game had some nice background artwork (inside the pyramid, second level, and city especially), radical sprite designs, fancy yet simplistic explosions, and huge bosses with a considerate amount of detail. Why exactly do the graphics suck then? Their answer: No parallax scrolling. By response: Big whoop. Parallax is a nice sweetener for eye candy indeed, but back in 1990 when the Genesis version of Insector X was made, the parallax trend was just starting to get big and every game on the block didn't have parallax. I think part of the reason the Genesis version didn't have parallax scrolling was because the arcade version, made in 1988, didn't have any since both versions shared most of the same background graphics. So by all means, the graphics in Insector X were far from suckage, but could have used improvement.
Attack Two: "Not Enough Bullets On Screen"
Of course the screen isn't loaded with bullets, dumb ass, the game was made back in 1990, before the wacky million bullets on screen craze started. One person commented to me on this that even though Insector X was before the bullet hell shooter fad, it still didn't give enough bullets on screen to make it entertaining. When I first read this, I obviously knew this guy didn't play much of the game and I was right, he only played up until the second level or something ridiculous like that. The first two levels in the game don't feature a whole lot of bullets on screen, but it still had just as many as any other easy level in a shooter at the time. However the real surprise comes around level four when it does have quite the amount of bullets on screen and by the last screens of the final level, it gets crazy with bullets and they go very fast. In fact I don't recall many shooters back in 1990 or earlier having this much bullet action and at such fast pace. Another cool thing to mention about the bullets is that the more powerful the weapon you have, the faster the bullets shoot out of enemies when you kill them, only adding more challenge and balance to the game.
The person I mentioned further stated that even if there are more bullets in the later levels, he still wouldn't want to waste the time playing through the first levels to do so. The bullets start to get heavier by level three and it shouldn't take long at all to get to level three, so you must have a severe case of ADD if you can't wait through the first two levels just to get a little more action. Even more so if you have a severe case of ADD, you probably wouldn't want to play a shooter from that time anyways.
For my evidence on this case, I present not only the following images below BUT an actual gameplay video with lots of bullets on screen. Click here to download the video. (sorry for low quality and choppiness of the video; I don't have very good video recording tools at the moment and the real game runs much faster than this and isn't choppy. I hope to update this in the future.)
Attack Three: "Large Hit Box Ratio"
This is the only possible con I could agree with about this game, but it's hardly a problem at all. The character you control does have a large sprite and the hit box is indeed as large as the sprite. However, the large hit box ratio really doesn't get in the way at all and only because a problem at the second-to-last screen on the last level, which is still very possible to get through and is actually quite a fun challenge. Perhaps these Insector X bashers are far too use to their modern shooters with the extremely tiny hit box and they just aren't used to the fact that shooters once did have a hit box that was around the same size as the actual sprite. Honestly though, if you thought the hit box in Insector X got in the way, you have to really suck at the game. If the hit box ratio was THAT big of a deal to you, then try the arcade version which has a smaller hit-box.
Result
The results boil down to this: The people who spit on this game have ADD, only played up to the beginning of level 3 at absolute most, were only looking for parallax scrolling while they played, and thought they could use the hit box ratio as a good excuse to why the game sucks.
- Keranu, August 23, 2006 4:06pm USA Central Time (unsure date and time :( )