
9/5/95
Mazer, by American Laser Games
1-2 Players, 3DO version
Mazer is American Laser Games first non live action, non full motion video game and is the start of a completely new direction for the company who brought us such titles as Mad Dog McCree, Crime Patrol and Space Pirates. The game is a 3/4 viewpoint (or isometric) blast fest that is, in many ways, reminiscent of games like Contra, Commando and a plethora of others that could be described as one man (or two) versus the evil empire with only a really big gun to keep him alive. And frankly, I've been waiting for a 3DO take on the genre for a long time. Mazer's viewpoint makes it similar to Studio 3DO's upcoming Captain Quazar (which, in turn, seems more than a little based upon the arcade classic, "Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters"). While Mazer shares a similar style of gameplay with Quazar, the theme is totally different, as there's nothing comical about Mazer.
	The story, told in the opening cinema, is that Earth has been invaded by aliens who want to create cyborgs to destroy the final pockets of human resistance that still remain after their initial devastating strike. One or two players can choose from four different characters, each with different weapons and abilities. Once chosen, you control the characters in enclosed battle arenas in an effort to free human hostages and destroy the robot energizer, which in turn creates the level's boss robot.
	Control is laid out simply enough--A button is attack, B is turbo speed, C is personal shield and Right Shift is jump. Attacks vary between characters and also depend on your distance from the enemy. All characters have certain close range, mid-range and long range attacks, but they all involve either shooting or punching something. Your shield is very finite and slowly fades away with use, but can also be used as a close range weapon. Turbo makes you move much faster, jump further and increases attack damage, but is finite as well (represented by a turbo bar below the health monitor bar). 
	Each character also has their own special attack(s), usually performed by pressing A and C simultaneously. Frankly, the game would have been better served if the special moves could have been activated by pressing the Left Shift instead, as simultaneous button pressing can be trying at times--especially when surrounded by killer robots. Two of the characters can even teleport by pressing the Right Shift and C button simultaneously.
	Mazer has about 15 levels to complete, plus timed bonus rounds where you can acquire power-ups for the next level. Throughout the actual game levels, power-up icons appear fairly regularly when killing opponents or rescuing hostages. The power-ups range from extra health, turbo and shields to tri-attack, rapid fire and a super shield which destroys all lesser enemies on the screen. Also, when your health gets too low a teleport pad will appear on the floor to regenerate your health, turbo and shield by about 20%.
	Graphically, Mazer is good, though not outstanding. Graphics are pretty clean and the game scrolls, zooms and scales to keep up with the action. The game has a nice soundtrack and the sound effects are decent as well, though the yelling, especially from the bosses, gets annoying after a while. The player characters are all digitized actors, while the enemy robots are computer generated.
	With all the elements of classic mindless action gaming, Mazer should have been, in the least, an involving, entertaining action fest. And it is, to an extent. Unfortunately, the designers really showed a lack of know-how in the actual play mechanics of Mazer. The first big question that comes to mind is why, for a first project, did ALG pick an isometric viewpoint? This is one of the hardest perspectives to make work--especially in regard to control. If they had gone with a straight side scrolling Contra clone, they could have had something great. The 3DO needs a great old fashioned-style shooter, but this isn't it. Side scrollers are much simpler to execute, have much better control (when done competently) and would have certainly allowed for much larger levels.
	And sure enough, Mazer's control leaves something to be desired. Control in the game tended to be sloppy, jerky and even unresponsive at times. Quite often, it was hard to accurately aim, or get your character to face in exactly the direction you wanted. The isometric 3D arena tended to cause the player to get hung up on walls and enemies, thereby cutting down on playing enjoyment. To add to that, Mazer's default difficulty level shoots through the roof--especially in 1 player mode. After getting through Shockwave, Immercenary, Way of the Warrior, Wing Commander and plenty of other challenging 3DO games without much problem, Mazer (in its default setting) proved too much for me.
	Robots regenerate almost instantly after you kill them and keep regenerating until the boss shows up. Many of the bosses in the game are obnoxiously difficult to destroy. Power-ups don't last and the sometimes urksome control made things even harsher. And with so many enemies on the screen at once, the fact that you only have a single room to run, shoot and jump around in certainly didn't help matters any.
	Inconceivably and very strangely, Mazer's options menu is actually only accessable by a special code (see below). Normally, the only options that the game gives the player are character selection, one or two player mode and endless continues. With the hidden options menu, however, the game offers three difficulty levels--Easy, Normal (which is default) and Hard. And frankly, this hidden options menu saved the game from a fiery death. The default difficulty, as mentioned, is unbelievably obnoxious. Even in easy mode, the game is still quite challenging. Your attacks do about twice as much damage and the enemy is a bit slower, which brings the game down to a much more manageable and entertaining challenge level. 
	Whether the high default difficulty level was added to compensate for the lack of levels and, more importantly, the small size of the levels, it's hard to say. There are some rather cool levels in Mazer, plenty of things to blow away (including walls) and the idea of saving hostages was a nice addition to the genre as well. Also, there is currently no alternative to Mazer on the 3DO, which, for fans of these games (like myself), is unfortunate, but makes Mazer a little bit more compulsive to play. Of course, there will supposedly be a true Contra clone released sometime soon and Studio 3DO's got Captain Quazar coming down the pike as well. 
	The good graphics and sound, multiple character selection, two player option and mindless action nature of the game are definitely Mazer's strong points. If you like a real challenge, then Mazer will definitely keep you occupied, but for most gamers the game will probably prove to be just too much. The control is sloppy more often than not and that made it even more trying. Overall, American Laser Games may very well have a bright future in branching away from their traditional live action gun games, but they are going to have to take a lot more care with future titles than they did with Mazer.

Cheat codes for Mazer (though not particularly useful ones):
Except for the Options Menu code, these codes must be entered during the brief period of time between when you first see the playing field and before your character is teleported in. It's not much time at all and you can't enter them anywhere else, so it's very hard to input more than one. Also, for two players, each player has to input their own codes, as they codes only affect the player who entered it. Also note that once you die, all effects of the codes are gone. All codes are entered by pressing the A, B and C buttons in a certain configuration.
1. Options Menu: Left Shift and C, during the demo loop intro sequence. Hold the two buttons until the hidden options screen pops up and be happy about it--I didn't find this code until 4 days after I submitted this article. This menu also offers the option to turn off the game's blood (which is, by default, on).
2. Super Shield: (C-A-B-A-B) Gives you one SuperShield.
3. Tri Attack: (B-A-C-C-B-A) Gives you 30 rounds of Triple Attack power.
4. Rapid Fire: (B-C-A-C-A-C) Gives you 30 rounds of Rapid Fire Power.
5. Turbo Ultra Power Up: (A-C-C-A-B-B) This code doubles the length of your turbo bar, but is also supposed to give you full power-ups on all normal abilities (whatever that means, I haven't found out). Everytime you pick a power-up, you'll regain double turbo until killed.
6. Blood Feud: (A-A-C-A-B) Only in 2 player mode. After the first launch of robots, no other opponents are formed and the boss won't come either. Players duke it out until someone loses all their lives. You only 45 seconds in this mode, or else both players lose a life. After playing through, you return to the normal version of that round.
7. You Be the Boss: (C-B-B-A-A-C). This code must be put in on the non-active controller (player 2's controller during a one player game, at the beginning of the round). It allows player 2 to control a drone, then to control the boss when it appears. After doing this however and if player 1, then the game returns to normal and the player must play through the round normally (So no cheesy cheating, unfortunately).
