Abadox

Abadox is a Natsume designed, Milton Bradley released space shooter from march of 1990. Subtitled The Deadly Inner war, you play the hero Nazal (OK, this is bad, but it gets worse, trust me) in 5012 who must save his planet Abadox from the nefarious nebulous life-form Parasitis, which consumed all-life it meets. Worse, Parasitis has swallowed the ship containing the lovely Princess Maria whole (Yes, you knew it had to be about rescuing a hapless female, damn sexist game programmers...). naturally, being the hero, you decide that you must fly into Parasitis and destroy its energy core and rescue the Princess, whom you'll bed later as a reward (The games doesn't really say that, but you know that's what the designers were thinking :).

On the positive side, this game also some of the best graphics to be found anywhere on the Nintendo. Despite the overlong opening sequence and the obsession with asserting the fact that you are traveling you the digestive system of a huge alien, the graphics are incredible, drawn in a beautiful cartoon style. Unfortunately, the game has no dearth of flaws. First of all, the sound effects are great, but the music leaves much to be desired. I counted only around four different BGMs during the entire game. The game is insanely hard; I have never, EVER had more bullets and other projectiles come at me in a video game, and if you are shot once you start at back at the beginning of a long stage. Staying alive is extremely difficult, and the game experiences massive slowdowns at times, due to all the data being processed. However, my biggest complaint about the game is that it is an obvious rip-off of Life Force; the whole idea of blowing up a huge alien trying to eat your place, the vertical/horizontal stage layout, and even some of the monsters (note the horns in Cell Stage 1 of LF appear in Stage 2 of Abadox) were lifted directly from the 1988 shooter classic. Konami could have easily taken Natsume and Milton Bradley to court over Abadox and won.

The Verdict: A rip-off, yes. A much harder rip-off, yes. A good game, maybe; what's your patience with continual defeat?

I recommend: Hate to sound like a modern gamer, but the graphics alone merit $5 for Abadox and no more.

Graphics: A+

Sound/Music B+ and C- respectively

Play Control B

Challenge A+

Fun Factor C (you move, you die... you stay still, you die... you shoot, you die... get the idea?)

Replay Value A+

Overall: B 1/2 links