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He jumps! He shoots photons! He runs around! It's Vectorman!

Perhaps you've heard of this one; it's another Genesis classic. Developed by BlueSky Software and published by Sega, Vectorman was released for the Sega Genesis in 1995. It's a 2D action platformer, but some may classify it as a run-and-gun since Vectorman shoots photons out of his hands. Whatever. Vectorman may have been an incredible game in its day, but it doesn't hold up today. 

First off, you can go to options and choose to turn the music and sound effects completely off, if you like. You can also choose a difficulty (lame, wicked, or insane), listen to the game's music, and configure the controls (despite the fact that the Genesis controller has three buttons, Vectorman can only jump and shoot, so two buttons are used for shooting). Okay, now we can start the game. 

The opening will give you the plot for the game: "It's 2049 and Earth's cities, forests, and icecaps are fouled with toxic sludge. Humanity has escaped to the stars, leaving mechanical 'orbots' to clean up. One powerful orbot, Raster, oversees the clean-up through a planetwide ComNet. Tragedy strikes when, in error, attendants connect a salvaged nuclear bomb to Raster's master control circuits. 'WarHead' is born, and he stands for tyranny, hatred, and oppression. By WarHead's decree, Earth is forged into an instrument of death for the returning humans. Vectorman lands his space barge after delivering a load of sludge to the sun. Unhindered by evil mind control, he will not rest until WarHead is defeated and the Earth is again free." Okay, so who is Vectorman, and why does he even care about earth? And he went to the sun? How did he do that without turning into vector-fries? Whatever. 

Right away you'll notice that Vectorman uses special pre-rendered graphics. No doubt this was in answer to Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country, which had come out the previous year. Too bad these "special graphics" don't hold up today; in fact, the graphics look kind of sloppy. 

                          Get off my conspicuously high-floating tracks!

Each level is called a "day." Day one has Vectorman starting at the terraport. You run and shoot bad guys with photons right out of your hands! You can shoot TVs which hang overhead for extra stuff. As you run through the level, you'll collect photon stars. You also have a time limit; you'll want to collect 2x or 3x when you see them because they will lengthen the time. One cool thing is that Vectorman can double jump; that's right, while in the air, he can do an extra jump. This is certainly helpful throughout the game. Level one is pretty short. The boss is a plane that drops bombs on you and moves left and right. Original. 

If you thought Day one was short, get ready for a super short one with Day two. Vectorman is in the form of a tank and he's riding on railroad tracks way up in the sky. This giant rock creature is climbing on the tracks in front of you and you have to shoot him. Oh, and jump. Shoot and jump, that's all you do in this game. After a few hits he falls and Day two is over! That's it? That was a whole level? There will be more super short days. 

Day three is back to the 2D platforming. Sadly, the level design in Vectorman is boring. Three levels have the same setting (terraport, which was the setting for day one); they simply vary the platforms and the sky is a different color. That's called poor level design. For the levels themselves, there is nothing interesting, no puzzles to figure out, no hidden areas, just jumping on platforms and shooting baddies. One level has you underwater jumping from platform to platform. . . to platform. . . to platform. Oh, and shooting as you do so. Yes, Vectorman becomes repetitive fast. I suppose they try to vary things up by having really random short days where you do weird things, like one day called "Rock and Rolling" where you're a car and you have to move forward while avoiding giant fists that want to pound you. Or another day called "Stayin' alive," where you spin around on a disco floor and shoot at this thing in the middle of the room. Sadly, these strange levels do not save the rest of the game. 

Vectorman can transform into a few things, which is cool, except the programmers could have used these to far greater extents. He can transform into a bomb, a drill, a car, a rocket, and an aquatic form. The tragedy here is that these forms last for only a few seconds, and sometimes they are wasted. For example, when he transforms into a drill, he can plow through enemies, but he can't jump! So if I run into a wall, I have to wait for him to change back. What a waste! Perhaps it would have been better if you could get the power-up and choose when to transform using that thrid button that is going to waste on the controller. And the bomb transformation doesn't even make sense; he changes into a bomb and explodes! Then he reappears and is just fine. Whatever. 

The bosses were disappointing too. The boss of day three is this flying creature that shoots fire balls at you while flying from side to side. After several hits, it transforms into a polar bear. . . that shoots fire balls! And no boss music! The weird techno-y music of the level keeps playing while you fight the boss. That is just wrong, especially for 1995. I know some people really like the music for Vectorman, but I just thought it was weird and every level sounded the same to me. And after you defeat a boss, Vectorman puts his hands up in the air like he's saying, "Oh yeah, I'm BAAAAD!" Yeah, you definitely bad, V. 

Final Verdict--3 Stars: It's Okay

Vectorman is not a terrible game, but it's really not a good one either. It lacks creativity and charm, is very repetitive, and really isn't any fun. What a bummer. Now I'm sure some of you have great memories of playing Vectorman back in the day, but my point is that it doesn't hold up well today. My game cartridge says on the side "Mega Hit Series." This game was a hit back in the day, one of the best Genesis games out there. Really? I think you're better off sticking with Donkey Kong Country. 

Join me every Saturday as we take a look back at all kinds of retro games, good and bad.