Smash TV review - Super Nintendo

Smash TV it's the television ratings winner of the 21st century! In this fabulous game show, the contestant, spurred on by a screaming front man, runs around a series of single screen TV studios shooting the hell out of all manner of evil robots. Should one of these robots touch or shoot him, his failure isn't rewarded with a cheque book and pen, rather he is killed in a fit of hideous pain. Rather sinisterly, that's why Smash TV is so popular, with the blood-crazed public.

You start the game as a hopeful Smash TV contestant battling through drones, clones of Mr Shrapnel, the Mutoid Man and many other grotesque robots in search of the mystical Smash TV Pleasure Dome. Should you reach this fabled area, you are undoubtedly the greatest Smash TV player in the universe. If you don't get that far, you're probably dead.

What the Mean Machines staff thought

This is like having a Smash TV coin-op all of your own! The graphics, sound and gameplay of the original machine have all been perfectly recreated and the end result is the fastest, wildest, most frenetic shoot 'em up yet seen on a home system. It's utterly maniacal, with hordes of baddies to blast into oblivion and loads of hyper-destructive weapons to blast them with. It's challenging too - I've finished the coin-op loads of times and still find this tough! Smash TV is without a doubt the purest, most brain-off, reflexes-on blastathon I've ever played - if you're a shoot 'em up addict, this is the best fix you could ever get.

My eyes almost popped out of my sockets when I first played Smash TV - it's virtually identical to the awesome Williams coin-op! All the graphics and sounds of the coin-op have been crammed into this mega conversion - even down to the rantings of the Smash TV front man! The gameplay is almost exactly the same as well, with scores of sprites on-screen, no slow-down at all and only a small, almost unnoticeable amount of flicker. The simultaneous two-player mode is the icing on the cake. The difficulty level is perfectly pitched as well. Completing stage one is quite easy, but the later levels are really testing - especially when you've got around thirty drones after your blood, two cannons firing at you and five Mr Shrapnels threatening to explode at any moment! Smash TV is a brilliant conversion and should appeal to anyone after a testing exciting shoot 'em up.

Buy Smash TV from Genki

Retrospective comments

This game is as fast and frantic as they come. This is now on the XBOX Live Arcade and is as good as ever. Cries of 'I'd buy that for a dollar' still ring in my ears!

Now if I could only win that toaster!