Review of Abadox (NES)

Abadox is a title released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989, developed by famed company Natsume. It's a generic shoot em' up in space, but it has a cult following and has a part of many people's childhoods. Does it hold up to the hype and still stand as a great game decades later? Let's find out.

Story : You, the hero, have been sent to take out an alien menace and save the world. Do you have what it takes? I hope so, because apparently you're all that stands between salvation and Earth's total destruction. Same old space plot stuff, but it should be noted that a lot the fights don't take place in space but rather the inside of monsters. Very nice idea and touch.

Graphics : The graphics in this game are full of gore, which is something unheard of for a video game back then and also part of why this game has such a strong following. I have to admit, it's fairly awesome to see the amount of detail they put into this game. Anything sick and demented is shown here in full. It's a very engaging part of the game because you're just itching to see what comes next. You, the background, the enemies, everything in this game is drawn and animated very well for a Nintendo game.

Sound : The music is mostly ambient action music but it works very well. I think perhaps a more horror movie oriented soundtrack would have fit the graphics better, but as it stands it's still very nice. The sound effects are solid, but there's nothing special that catches your attention. There's many tracks in the game, so a big variety of music is there if you're into that.

Game play: One cool thing is that you're not actually in a space ship for the entire game, you're in some kind of power suit with a gun. At least I hope it's a power suit, otherwise you're just floating in space with a normal suit and gigantic gun. The controls are very precise and accurate, which they need to be for a game like this.

There's not a huge variety of power ups, and you lose them all when you die which is going to be often. Still, there are some fun power ups here. You've got your homing missiles and rotating shield, for starters. The difficulty in this game is slightly easier than similar shoot em' ups of the time. I think it is actually a good thing, since many of those older games were simply far too difficult.

Re playability : There isn't any, at least no immediate replay factor. You'll see all there is to see the first time around, so the only reason to play is it to check out the graphics again if you love gore. Still, this is very nice game to revisit down the line in a year or two.

Overall : 8/10. A great shoot em' up with unique elements and great game play that holds up over time.