oh man do you know how hard it is to find a game u remember playing but have no idea of the name or platform? almost fuckin impossible. But you sir, Clint have squashed a longtime headache for me by reviewing this game. thank u. all i remembered was the slingshot and backwards hat. now to find out what that damn game where u play as a little purple clad magician shooting magic in a megaman style game is called.
@@Mediazzzzzz if you had a Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and above in the mid 90's, you had tons of freeware games on random floppys, and Monster Bash is almost always on them, right after Doom. Isn't it nice to remember/find a game that old you played? It's like remembering an old friend's phone number from 20 years ago.
I remember playing this game on a 386...then my keyboard broke; the left arrow key was busted, but not Numpad 4. Finding the spread keys on the numpad uncomfortable, I had two choices; go to the trouble of learning how to move with three arrow keys and the four sitting a little over thataways, or not play Monster Bash. Please. I even remember trying to write fanfic for this game. Of *course* I adapted.
Wait... if the girl down the street is "Jungle Jill"...than the Jill of the Jungle series was just some girl bouncing around her backyard? Kind of a Commander Keen thing...
This was the first PC game I ever played. My 3rd grade teacher would let us play her games if we did good in class. Took me many years to figure out what it was actually. Think that was 27 year ago....
You can also get this through Steam, the original version and the new HD remaster. I didn't know there was HD remaster on the way and brought the original about 2 months before the remastered version was released. Either way I love this game.
You misunderstood. On the contrary, I said I loved Shadow Warrior and Crystal Caves, but found THIS game by Frank Maddin disappointing... In my review of SW I praise it constantly, might wanna give it a look.
Great review as always-but I really think you should give Monster Bash another chance. There's some great stuff in the later levels, and gameplay will become less frustrating when you get the hang of the controls. :)
28 levels!? Or 10 levels shareware?! I don't think I ever got past level 2. Never found the last pet and couldn't exit. Doomed to wander around as each obstacle took it's toll until my inevitable demise.
I used to be really good at this game when I was a kid. I just started playing it again on DosBox, and holy crap, it's a lot harder than I remembered. It also turns out that most of the sound effects did not work on the version we had years ago. I'm hearing sound effects now where I did not know there were sound effects--MIND BLOWN. Also, the saw mill sucks. Screw that level.
I grew up with monster bash... I distinctly remember playing the game with sound only being produced by the PC speaker when my dad came home and told me that at work they just got new computers with so called sound cards. This magical hardware not only added music to all the games I knew and loved, no, it also was supposed to make the skulls in monster bash yodel when you shot them. I knew I had to have one.
Apogee changed "Halloween Harry" to "Alien Carnage" because the game would be seasonal...while "Monster Bash," a halloween-like game with title and theme song like the famous Mash, can be "enjoyed year-round." Go figure. "Annoyed more than challenged" is right; large sprites and fast action often don't give you enough reaction time. Great 16-color EGA graphics; SMOOTH scrolling. I'm glad the game didn't pander the "It's gotta be 256-color VGA or it ain't shit" line so common back then.
9 ปีที่แล้ว +10
If you work on it a bit, I believe you can speak like Duke (Nukem).
So what are you guys doing for Halloween, eh? 'cause I'm real- I'm really lonely... I just thought you and I could hang out, I mean - I'm not gonna hurt you. Just ugh...Go down to the...SUGAR SHACK! and get a bread... but not too big.
Games like this always make me long for simpler days. Days when a simple platformer was plenty fun to play, and we didn't need some 80 hour epic to be pleased with our purchases (or lack thereof). Maybe I'm just getting old... :P Thanks for yet another entertaining review! *thumbs up*
Awesome review as always Clint! Dude, you're seriously my favorite DOS games and hardware reviewer. I can remember buying the shareware release of this at Wal*Mart for a couple of dollars when I was a pre-teen... the box said it came with both 5 1/4" disk and 3.5" disk versions... I was so excited to play, got home opened the box AND... yeah, they lied, it only came on 5 1/4" and at the time, the custom PC my family had got me only had 3.5". Great game, always loved it. :)
Bio Menace was a huge time consumer for a large portion of my youth. Hoping for a Lazy Review of that Game in the future.Thank you for making entertaining videos.
Never got to play this one as kid. We did own other Apogee games. Hard to imagine these day's that these games where beautiful to watch at as child. Like with Commander Keen and such. When you look at it now its a pixel mess at time. But back then it seemed so clear. It probably is also the nostalgia talking, but games back then also felt more special. I just dreamed away when playing those games. Something i miss these days. Maybe also because graphics don't leave much to the imagination anymore today. Thanks for looking back at all those great old games.
I'm impressed that they chose to use EGA graphics, when VGA was readily available. When you think of newer low-res games like Megaman 9 or Shovel Knight, Frank and company were probably ahead of their time in this regard. That, or they were cheap-skates!
I am curious why could those games only have the same 16 color palette? Was it a technical or engine limitation? It used EGA which should be able to choose 16 colors out of 64. Yes games like Policenauts are very different and one of the reasons it's use of colors looks good is from dithering. I'd say what is just as impressive is the music quality they got from the limitations of a 1980s FM synth chip.
I don't find it's use of colors that impressive. Some of the more impressive use of 16 colors were from the PC-98 and were visual novels like YU-NO and Kojima's Policenauts. Now those games utilized it's 16 color limitation very well and had some impressive art for the time. To understand what I mean just look on TH-cam for the PC-98 opening video for Policenauts. Actually here is part of the link for it. /watch?v=Upr6zoYUFAw&hd=1
I had a shareware disc that had some 25 games on it. Not sure where it came from or where it went, but this was one of the games on it. Alongside greats like Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle, Doom, Duke Nukem 1 & 2 and Keen 4, there were also games like this, Hocus Pocus, Jumpman and Pitfall. There were even a few obscure titles like Hugo 2: Whodunnit, Bio-Menace and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. I loved each and every one of them, even if I never did beat even one of them.
I KNEW I played a game that was like Ghosts and Goblins as a kid! I have never played Ghosts and Goblins though so I thought I was crazy. Thanks for sharing this, really jogged some memories. :)
Haven't played in a while but I liked Crystal caves growing up. And secret agent man. Never got into Halloween Harry. Hated when you ran out of jetpack fuel. Lol Anywho, when I was a kid I couldn't get past the fourth level of Monster Bash. Didn't realize you needed to crawl past the dragon lol
Halloween Harry freak'n rules; what other game has vending machines for the purchase of WMDs? Honestly - just outrageous. And holly shit - the witch in the opening title makes the same laugh as the skeleton in the opening menu of Medievil.
I remember going to the staples where they had boxes of these games for sales in 95 where I purchased with my Birthday money Monster Bash and a bunch of others such as Jazz the Jack Rabbit. Halloween Harry was another game we had but my brother wouldn't tell me how to launch the game so I never experienced the awesome jet pack game.
The videos shown in the end card are not clickable, I would like to watch them but I always have to find them manually. This happens with all the LGR videos I watched so far. It's just me?
I remember having this game come out on a shareware 3½ floppy I got as part of some promotion or something, I dunno. I got other floppies too with games like Commander Keen and such and they were all the same way. What makes this game interesting is that I think there was some weird glitch or something that allowed me to actually play the whole game even though I really shouldn't have been able to all things considered. It's a fun game and got nice soundtrack. I liked the training montages too.
Interesting enough, is GOG getting some ideas from this video series? many of games covered here later got GOG release. Like "hey, LGR made nice review about X, lets look if we can track down its owner and get it in store".
Have you LGR heard of a dos game called xquest? It was my favorite game as well as monster bash when I was little and I bought it as a floppy disk from a store. It was the time when you had to buy American and European shareware games from physical stores, at least here in Europe.
WTF i was supposed to have subscribed you long ago. But your videos stopped appearing in my YT subscription videos. Then i bought Retro City Rampage and found out you had made video about that game. But then i found that i wasn't subscribed to you. Did u change your channel? or something?
I knew this game looked fimiliar. This was the first DOS game I've ever played. My uncle had it. I liked it so much he came over and installed DOS for us. That was when I learned the joys of Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and Doom 2. Good think I subscribed. XD
Are you aware of Killing Cloud? Old DOS game that was so awesome I still dream about it. Very little about it is on the web. Perhaps you can enshrine it with a review? Love your show, btw!
LGR! Did you know about the IPhone App that has a ton of Apogee games on it? I just recently found it its sick!, Has commander keen, bio menace, secret agent, duke nukem 1 and 2, i play it sooo much
You should really do a video on the Dangerous Dave games, I feel like they're up there with stuff like Commander Keen in terms of being really great early 90s PC action platformers (well, at least Dangerous Dave 2). I was actually surprised when I first started watching your videos that you hadn't made any videos about any of those games.
I remember seeing this in a bargain bin in the mid-90s. At the time I did not have a DOS machine, but then it turned out an aunt got it for me for Christmas later that year; I could never actually play it despite trying several times (as a clueless kid) to get it to run on my old Quadra 605. I hadn't thought about it since then! Sounds like I need to grab it again.
I love this game ! Yeah the blood at the beginning is a bit disturbing for what it's meant to be a older kids game. I played this game when I was 4 and odd enough, it was the Rock Golems that scared me the most :/
This games sounds and music was constantly playing in my bedroom on a Gateway 3000 tower way back, just as background noise. Love this game! Still play it to this day!
Just a guess, but methinks your PC either had no soundcard or Monster Bash wasn't compatible with your soundcard -> hence your PC had to use PC Speaker instead. And yes, that screeching noise got etched in to my head back when I was 8 or 9 :P
Same thing here… I've subscribed to the channel but this episode didn't show up in my "My subscriptions" feed. You should contact Google/TH-cam about this…
The Norwegian word for, well, crap, is pronounced the same way as "bash", so as a kid I always found the name Monster Bash especially funny for that reason alone!
This was the earliest memory I have of any video game. Combined with Hocus Pocus, Jill of the Jungle and of course Duke Nukem. Thanks for sharing!
First time I faked being sick from school was to play this game.
ZombieCurry but not the last. lol
@@robertharris6092 he's probably an adult now
@@em84c obviously?
I tried the same thing for Aces over Europe but parents put away my computer 😂
LGR, your reviews give me nostalgic joy!
oh man do you know how hard it is to find a game u remember playing but have no idea of the name or platform? almost fuckin impossible. But you sir, Clint have squashed a longtime headache for me by reviewing this game. thank u. all i remembered was the slingshot and backwards hat. now to find out what that damn game where u play as a little purple clad magician shooting magic in a megaman style game is called.
Hocus Pocus.
for some reason i barely got your response. Hocus Pocus!! thank you!!!
Dude ,I had the same problem with this game I played it when I was a kid but could not remember the name just that it was on a pc
@@Mediazzzzzz if you had a Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and above in the mid 90's, you had tons of freeware games on random floppys, and Monster Bash is almost always on them, right after Doom. Isn't it nice to remember/find a game that old you played? It's like remembering an old friend's phone number from 20 years ago.
Amazing skillshot at 4:08 confirmed.
Low-budget shareware in 1993. Yes.
Is the game available for mobile android or any site were I can download from and emulator
I remember playing this game on a 386...then my keyboard broke; the left arrow key was busted, but not Numpad 4. Finding the spread keys on the numpad uncomfortable, I had two choices; go to the trouble of learning how to move with three arrow keys and the four sitting a little over thataways, or not play Monster Bash.
Please. I even remember trying to write fanfic for this game. Of *course* I adapted.
If you want the whole game, I can upload it to you. 🙂
It still is, check my channel page. It displays a new one now due to Google+ integration, but the channel is exactly the same as always.
Wait... if the girl down the street is "Jungle Jill"...than the Jill of the Jungle series was just some girl bouncing around her backyard? Kind of a Commander Keen thing...
It now released on GOG.
Which is listed and linked to in the video description, but thanks :)
This was the first PC game I ever played. My 3rd grade teacher would let us play her games if we did good in class. Took me many years to figure out what it was actually. Think that was 27 year ago....
Did well.
You can also get this through Steam, the original version and the new HD remaster. I didn't know there was HD remaster on the way and brought the original about 2 months before the remastered version was released. Either way I love this game.
But does it have scary action haunting puzzles!?
Ebay!
Monster Bash is in my top favorite games of all time! Definitely makes my personal top 5
be careful with your rare game
(puts it in the computer while it's stuffed in a hot pocket )
This game was so awesome back then. Very challenging and fun game.
You misunderstood. On the contrary, I said I loved Shadow Warrior and Crystal Caves, but found THIS game by Frank Maddin disappointing...
In my review of SW I praise it constantly, might wanna give it a look.
Great review as always-but I really think you should give Monster Bash another chance. There's some great stuff in the later levels, and gameplay will become less frustrating when you get the hang of the controls. :)
Nope, nothing's changed here, you must've either not subbed or TH-cam glitched out!
The jontron review of this game is constantly flickering in my head now.
28 levels!? Or 10 levels shareware?! I don't think I ever got past level 2. Never found the last pet and couldn't exit. Doomed to wander around as each obstacle took it's toll until my inevitable demise.
This was my favourite Apogee game! Loved it!
I used to be really good at this game when I was a kid. I just started playing it again on DosBox, and holy crap, it's a lot harder than I remembered.
It also turns out that most of the sound effects did not work on the version we had years ago. I'm hearing sound effects now where I did not know there were sound effects--MIND BLOWN.
Also, the saw mill sucks. Screw that level.
Why does this remind me of Heart of Darkness so much?...
I grew up with monster bash... I distinctly remember playing the game with sound only being produced by the PC speaker when my dad came home and told me that at work they just got new computers with so called sound cards. This magical hardware not only added music to all the games I knew and loved, no, it also was supposed to make the skulls in monster bash yodel when you shot them. I knew I had to have one.
Apogee changed "Halloween Harry" to "Alien Carnage" because the game would be seasonal...while "Monster Bash," a halloween-like game with title and theme song like the famous Mash, can be "enjoyed year-round." Go figure.
"Annoyed more than challenged" is right; large sprites and fast action often don't give you enough reaction time.
Great 16-color EGA graphics; SMOOTH scrolling. I'm glad the game didn't pander the "It's gotta be 256-color VGA or it ain't shit" line so common back then.
If you work on it a bit, I believe you can speak like Duke (Nukem).
Niccolò Mineo He already does, quite often actually. In fact, he even has a voice-acting credit as "Duke" in a game called Gas Guzzlers. :P
So what are you guys doing for Halloween, eh?
'cause I'm real- I'm really lonely...
I just thought you and I could hang out, I mean - I'm not gonna hurt you.
Just ugh...Go down to the...SUGAR SHACK! and get a bread... but not too big.
Awesome review! My nostalgia button literally just fell off!!
Scary Action Haunting! Puzzles!
Games like this always make me long for simpler days. Days when a simple platformer was plenty fun to play, and we didn't need some 80 hour epic to be pleased with our purchases (or lack thereof). Maybe I'm just getting old... :P
Thanks for yet another entertaining review! *thumbs up*
I think so Brain, but we'd need a giant fighting robot and a sustainable source of power.
Played this game when I was like 5. Never got very far in it lol but it was still fun!
LGR, you should do a video on Hocus Pocus. That's one of the platformers I remember most.
I've still put more time into this game than any other. I can't stop playing it. Send help.
Great that we can relive it through GoG :)
Awesome review as always Clint! Dude, you're seriously my favorite DOS games and hardware reviewer.
I can remember buying the shareware release of this at Wal*Mart for a couple of dollars when I was a pre-teen... the box said it came with both 5 1/4" disk and 3.5" disk versions... I was so excited to play, got home opened the box AND... yeah, they lied, it only came on 5 1/4" and at the time, the custom PC my family had got me only had 3.5".
Great game, always loved it. :)
I know it's his teeth, but the character looks like he has a milk mustache.
Scary Action Haunting Puzzles. 😄✌
Anybody notice the tombstone the said 1801-1923? Did they do that on purpose? They'd of died at 122!
I noticed it too lol. The oldest person died at 122 in 1997, but this was made in 1993.
but wasn't your ame phreakindee or something if i remember right?
Nice video.
Back in the day,i played this game alot on the a school pc ;)
Monster Bash is now on GOG!
I remember Monster Bash. I had all three of them.
Bio Menace was a huge time consumer for a large portion of my youth. Hoping for a Lazy Review of that Game in the future.Thank you for making entertaining videos.
Eliassen Yesmando
I thought Jontron did a review on this, not PBG...
Never got to play this one as kid. We did own other Apogee games. Hard to imagine these day's that these games where beautiful to watch at as child. Like with Commander Keen and such. When you look at it now its a pixel mess at time. But back then it seemed so clear.
It probably is also the nostalgia talking, but games back then also felt more special. I just dreamed away when playing those games. Something i miss these days. Maybe also because graphics don't leave much to the imagination anymore today. Thanks for looking back at all those great old games.
I'm impressed that they chose to use EGA graphics, when VGA was readily available. When you think of newer low-res games like Megaman 9 or Shovel Knight, Frank and company were probably ahead of their time in this regard.
That, or they were cheap-skates!
Never get through even the first level =)
one of my all time favs!
It was a graveyard smash
This was my childhood. Even though I didn't understand any of the English in the game and only had the shareware version.
can u review Hocus Pocus some time
I like your high quality soothing voice
I was just playing this about 40 minutes ago. it is fun. Love the cuteness, but there are annoying aspects.
Just as you said "Ghosts n Goblins" I was just thinking it was reminding me of GnG :) Great review of a really weird game man :)
hey lgr thanks for adding meh in ur circle :)
I am curious why could those games only have the same 16 color palette? Was it a technical or engine limitation?
It used EGA which should be able to choose 16 colors out of 64.
Yes games like Policenauts are very different and one of the reasons it's use of colors looks good is from dithering.
I'd say what is just as impressive is the music quality they got from the limitations of a 1980s FM synth chip.
I don't find it's use of colors that impressive.
Some of the more impressive use of 16 colors were from the PC-98 and were visual novels like YU-NO and Kojima's Policenauts.
Now those games utilized it's 16 color limitation very well and had some impressive art for the time.
To understand what I mean just look on TH-cam for the PC-98 opening video for Policenauts.
Actually here is part of the link for it.
/watch?v=Upr6zoYUFAw&hd=1
I remember this game when I was younger I play this a lot back then
I had a shareware disc that had some 25 games on it. Not sure where it came from or where it went, but this was one of the games on it. Alongside greats like Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle, Doom, Duke Nukem 1 & 2 and Keen 4, there were also games like this, Hocus Pocus, Jumpman and Pitfall. There were even a few obscure titles like Hugo 2: Whodunnit, Bio-Menace and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold.
I loved each and every one of them, even if I never did beat even one of them.
I did play this game as a kid a lot! Thank you for this video!
I KNEW I played a game that was like Ghosts and Goblins as a kid! I have never played Ghosts and Goblins though so I thought I was crazy. Thanks for sharing this, really jogged some memories. :)
Best Game Ever.
Woah... I remember this. I played so many of these platformers as a kid. Do you have copies of Secret Agent and Cosmo's Comic Adventure as well?
Loved this game! Would always play this at my best friend's house alongside Road Rash 3, Redneck Rampage and Tyrian
Haven't played in a while but I liked Crystal caves growing up. And secret agent man. Never got into Halloween Harry. Hated when you ran out of jetpack fuel. Lol
Anywho, when I was a kid I couldn't get past the fourth level of Monster Bash. Didn't realize you needed to crawl past the dragon lol
Halloween Harry freak'n rules; what other game has vending machines for the purchase of WMDs? Honestly - just outrageous. And holly shit - the witch in the opening title makes the same laugh as the skeleton in the opening menu of Medievil.
For some reason my whole family STILL plays this game. So many hours wasted trying to get SoundBlaster to work correctly. Thank goodnes for emulators.
I remember going to the staples where they had boxes of these games for sales in 95 where I purchased with my Birthday money Monster Bash and a bunch of others such as Jazz the Jack Rabbit. Halloween Harry was another game we had but my brother wouldn't tell me how to launch the game so I never experienced the awesome jet pack game.
The videos shown in the end card are not clickable, I would like to watch them but I always have to find them manually. This happens with all the LGR videos I watched so far. It's just me?
Oh man, how could I forget about this game!
I remember having this game come out on a shareware 3½ floppy I got as part of some promotion or something, I dunno. I got other floppies too with games like Commander Keen and such and they were all the same way. What makes this game interesting is that I think there was some weird glitch or something that allowed me to actually play the whole game even though I really shouldn't have been able to all things considered. It's a fun game and got nice soundtrack. I liked the training montages too.
Interesting enough, is GOG getting some ideas from this video series? many of games covered here later got GOG release. Like "hey, LGR made nice review about X, lets look if we can track down its owner and get it in store".
Manda D (who did the graphics for Monster Bash) went on to work in Ultima games and later founded a game company called Dragon's Eye.
Played at my nan's do much ad a kid. Never had the full version. Apogee software wad my childhood
Have you LGR heard of a dos game called xquest? It was my favorite game as well as monster bash when I was little and I bought it as a floppy disk from a store. It was the time when you had to buy American and European shareware games from physical stores, at least here in Europe.
WTF i was supposed to have subscribed you long ago. But your videos stopped appearing in my YT subscription videos. Then i bought Retro City Rampage and found out you had made video about that game. But then i found that i wasn't subscribed to you. Did u change your channel? or something?
Great game
I knew this game looked fimiliar. This was the first DOS game I've ever played. My uncle had it. I liked it so much he came over and installed DOS for us. That was when I learned the joys of Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and Doom 2. Good think I subscribed. XD
i LOVED this game!
I dont know. As a child i really enjoyed it. Obviously Commander keen is better, but this is a really nice game too.
Ah, good times. . .
I am convinced Johnny Dash is Duke Nukem's real name.
Are you aware of Killing Cloud? Old DOS game that was so awesome I still dream about it. Very little about it is on the web. Perhaps you can enshrine it with a review?
Love your show, btw!
LGR! Did you know about the IPhone App that has a ton of Apogee games on it? I just recently found it its sick!, Has commander keen, bio menace, secret agent, duke nukem 1 and 2, i play it sooo much
You should really do a video on the Dangerous Dave games, I feel like they're up there with stuff like Commander Keen in terms of being really great early 90s PC action platformers (well, at least Dangerous Dave 2). I was actually surprised when I first started watching your videos that you hadn't made any videos about any of those games.
I remember seeing this in a bargain bin in the mid-90s. At the time I did not have a DOS machine, but then it turned out an aunt got it for me for Christmas later that year; I could never actually play it despite trying several times (as a clueless kid) to get it to run on my old Quadra 605. I hadn't thought about it since then! Sounds like I need to grab it again.
ha! That intro was funny.
I love this game ! Yeah the blood at the beginning is a bit disturbing for what it's meant to be a older kids game. I played this game when I was 4 and odd enough, it was the Rock Golems that scared me the most :/
I've been looking for this game for years!
This games sounds and music was constantly playing in my bedroom on a Gateway 3000 tower way back, just as background noise. Love this game! Still play it to this day!
I didn't forget this game. It remember this well because it is one of those rare 60fps flat formers/shooters for the PC during those days.
Reminds me of that Kelloggs game, its physics worked very similarly.
Just a guess, but methinks your PC either had no soundcard or Monster Bash wasn't compatible with your soundcard -> hence your PC had to use PC Speaker instead.
And yes, that screeching noise got etched in to my head back when I was 8 or 9 :P
Same thing here… I've subscribed to the channel but this episode didn't show up in my "My subscriptions" feed. You should contact Google/TH-cam about this…
The Norwegian word for, well, crap, is pronounced the same way as "bash", so as a kid I always found the name Monster Bash especially funny for that reason alone!
I could not forget Monster Bash. I played it for hours trying to solve it. Sure I liked my dolls and tea sets but I loved all the apogee games.
Scary reviewer, haunting review.. Yeah, I dunno.. tried being clever.. somewhat failed :X
I played this one a lot as a kid. I wasn't very good at it though. Platformers and keyboards never mixed for me.