Battle of The Ports - Led storm / mad gear - マッド・ギア - Show #209 - 60fps

Now this is a confusing game in understanding where it came from. The Japanese title is known as Mad Gear. There's also a US version of the game with English text going under the Mad Gear name too. Then there's the US title version known as LED Storm which is the same game as Mad Gear. But wait, the original version of this game was actually called Rally 2011 LED Storm and that's the better version in my opinion and it's also the version you are seeing now. In this futuristic looking game you can transform your vehicle from a car to a bike. In the final released game which came out a year later in 1989 you can't change your car during gameplay. You must choose one of three vehicles before the game starts. Personally I don't think the game is as appealing either plus that cool talking intro is missing. Let's take a look at the final version of the game before looking at the ports. Now here's something odd, the home ports use the original game's assets, the assets from the "beta' release. I'm not surprised as they look much nicer. The only thing they don't include is the transforming car. So how good is the Atari ST port? Well, one of the highlights of the arcade game was the awesome music. I have to say that despite the simple sound chip of the ST we do get some nice tunes. It's just a shame the same can't be said about the game play. This port is notoriously difficult. The time allotted to complete a stage basically means you have to a flawless run. I couldn't even complete the first stage! I got so close a few time but could never do it all because of the kamikaze AI that rams the *** out of your car. Some really nice music from the Follin brothers in this Amiga port but sadly it's just the same as the Atari St when it comes to gameplay. Strangely, the lower frame rate at which the game runs actually makes it easier. That's not to say it's not without its problems. The energy bar seems to still deplete the same amount on a stage no matter how fast you drive and if you come off the track, God forbid you need to get somewhere in a hurry because the elevator that brings you back is powered by snails. Why oh why are European home computer arcade ports developed by numbuts? This Speccy port could have been fantastic if it wasn't down to one stupid gameplay flaw. The energy power ups appear off track most of the time meaning they're impossible to reach which in turn means you can't collect extra energy most of the time resulting in a first stage that's harder to complete than it needs to be. It really is a shame because this moves fast, sounds good and even looks good. As you may have guessed by now, Software Creations are responsible for every port so far and they've all had something wrong with them. In fact most games they develop are poor. Anyway, this Amstrad CPC port looks more like an early build of the game it's that bad. No music, crappy graphics, horrible scrolling, no indicators during game play to tell you how much energy you have left and the power icons being off track most of the time just like the Speccy port. Truly an awful mess. How about this. The Commodore 64 port actually allows you to transform from the car to the bike just like the early version of the arcade game! Not only that but its stages resemble the arcade more closely too than any other port developed by Software Creations. I'd even go as far as saying it played well too if it wasn't for the overly strict energy limit. Thankfully in this port the energy puck ups float on to the track area as they should do.