...Devil's Crush...
1990/NEC TurboGrafx 16
Review by Polas - 9/9/01
Kicking off Pinball Month is our first entry into the "Other" category (I'm not making little icons for all of the damn systems out there), as well as our first game for the ill-fated TurboGrafx 16. And while there weren't exactly too many classic games for the old PC Engine, though a few do come to mind, Devil's Crush is one of the best I've played.
As best demonstrated by the classic Splatterhouse series, the TG-16 was clearly an evil system. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as the games were good. Well, Devil's Crush is an extremely fast-paced, 3 screen, in your face ass-kicking pinball game with tons of extras. And it's evil. A sequel to Alien Crush, which was only a semi-evil 2 screen pinball game with lots of aliens, you'll be facing off with all kinds of wacky hellish creatures, with a sweet (for 1990) metal soundtrack blasting at you and your only weapons being a ball and some flippers. CAN YOU TAKE IT, MAGGOT ... sorry. This game makes me hyper. Won't happen again.
One of the best parts of this game is that it's impossible to profile everything. You'll likely find something new every time you play. But to point out some of Devil's Crush's main features and objectives, I've put together this handy, sleek, gigantic, and extremely confusing color-coded diagram:
1)These here are the blobs. You'll usually smack into them after starting a turn or when trying to ascend to the elusive top level. When you do, they change color. There's blue, gray, purple, and red. Get 'em all red, you get an extra ball. Also, if you do make it to the top level and they're all red, they'll cluster together under the flippers, which is in fact pretty swanky. It may work with other colors, but damned if I know.
2) It's a door. If you smack into said door enough times, the door will be no more, which increases your score. Damnit Polas, you're a frickin' poet. Once the door is busted, six knights will emerge, one by one. Blast them all and you'll have free access to the top level with no damn blobs in your way. Harder than it looks, because the door resets every turn and/or bonus round.
3) When you fire off the ball every turn, here's where it comes out. Yahoo!
4) The Castle, which is one of the sweetest things in the game. Get the ball inside, and a little similar-looking castle will appear between the lowesr pair of flippers, meaning that even a dyslexic one-armed man shouldn't be losing any balls. Sadly, this also goes away after every turn/bonus round. Speaking of which, if you get the ball in the castle enough times, it'll turn bright orange. Get it in again to head for a bonus stage.
5) Side Casket-skull type thingies. I didn't know where else to categorize them. Whack on them enough and they'll explode, releasing lots of drones you can kill for points or bounce off of to your doom.
Anything marked by a red arrow is a drone. These are little shits that wander out of portals and annoy you endlessly by deflecting your ball upon contact. Take between 1-3 hits to destroy, which gets you points. The 2X and 4X ball can take them out quicker, but more on that later.
These are point value indicators, which light up progressively the longer you keep the ball in play. Certain actions, like falling through a side chute or entering the big skull head, will cause your amassed bonus points to be tallied up; it doesn't really have any pattern to it, so just make them pretty lights go on and live with it.
The abundant hexagram portals. Have several different effects: the most common thing that'll happen when you get the ball in there is that it will shoot back out. Yep. However, if you can somehow get a green arrow to point at a portal (easier with the octogram spinner on the top level), you're headed for a bonus round. Also, drones use them to come out of, and if you get in one of the three near the center head, well, let's get to that right now:
Everyone's favorite, the GIANT HEADS. These all take you to bonus rounds one way or another. The Dragon mouth and Skull will open if you bust up some dragon eggs and slam some projectiles. I'm not sure how to get that bugger all the way up top open; that top level is nutty. The big female head in the center is probably the most prominent. First, you must get the ball into her head to wake her up. Then, every time you get the ball into one of three nearby portals, her face will contort until it resembles a snake-like creature of some sort. Then, ease your ball into her mouth (...) to enter bonusland. And away we go:
OK, I've outlined the many ways to get to one of these magical and eeeevil bonus rounds, so what happens there? Well, you bounce around trying to kill some bigass enemies for assloads of points. That's about it. Oh, most of them are extremely hard to go perfect on. But on the upside, you do get a powered up ball after every bonus round that lasts for a limited time. And if you get to another bonus round before it wears off, you double the points and power again. Sweeeet. The downside to bonus rounds is that practically everything resets afterward. Peh.
This is one game in which I can't really do it justice with a review. Actually, that's probably the case with all pinball games. Why the hell'd I choose it for a theme month? Ah well, the next one is ten times nuttier than this one, so we'll see. But as far as Devil's Crush is concerned, I don't think I've ever played a console game that better captured the feel of a real pinball game, and combine that with bonuses and features up the wazoo, you'll be set for hours once you pop this in. Just remember: Eeeeeevil!
EXTRA: This game also features one of the coolest passwords ever. That's right, enter "ASSHOLEFUK" as your password to get almost 70 balls and over half a billion points. Oh, and if you ever have a few days to kill, (or you have the other password that gives you 999,999,999 points) if you do in fact reach a billion points, the board explodes and you get a weird 10 second ending. Whoo!
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