Captain Silver

I've alluded to my predilection for side-scrollers in the past. I actually sat down and beat everything from Earthworm Jim and Boogerman to the ill-famed Alex Kidd series. Captain Silver is another in the long line of Sega Master System side-scrolling action, with its ups and downs. Sadly, the downs are glaring, and definitely take away from the enjoyment factor in this one.

Captain Silver is a swash-buckling, keel hauling, parrot owning pirate. For those of you who remember, he sort of reminds me of Monkey Island "Mighty Pirate" extraordinaire Guybrush Threepwood, with a little more flamboyant an outfit going on. No self respecting pirate wears white tights under his green, baggy pants. And yes, I remember Errol Flynn!

The controls are straight-up platformer, with your jump and swashbuckler buttons. Unfortunately, Captain Silver never laughs and jumps off of anything, which may have you pirate aficionados looking the other way. For the most part, the controls suffice. The biggest problem I had with this game is the difficulty in crucial parts. Jumping to moving platforms can be incredibly difficult! I later played this one on an emulator, just to take advantage of the save/restore state feature and actually pass the damn level!

Boss fights can be a pain too, as the bosses don't seem to have any discernable pattern. That's a bad sign when you're already throwing the controller and screaming at Sir Silver and his stupid tights-wearing can't jump to the damn platform piece of ...

The graphics are pretty impressive, though. Your character is brightly colored, as are the ridiculous bears in Hawaiian tourist outfits who attack/run into you. I actually like how walking quickly in your character's direction deemed someone an opponent in these old games. The enemies are basically what you'd expect for a game like this; natives and the like. The music is good, in the sense that it isn't annoying. You also collect gold throughout each level which can be used to redeem power ups and such. Like I said before, not a bad game, but not good enough to keep you interested 'til the end. Personally, I'll stick to Guybrush and the three headed monkey to do my swashbuckling.