Pulseman (SEGA Genesis)

Continue from same level: I lost all my lives to the boss and had 5 continues. The area select showed up, and I selected the same area again, which dropped me right into the boss fight, so I didn't have to play the other levels again.

I'm in San Fransisco for GDC, and awoke at 4.00 in the morning due to jetlag. Time for a Mega Drive game.

This game feels a bit like a Mega Man X. You can jump, punch (which turns into a shot if you wait), and turn into a spark that moves diagonally, although I'm not quite sure when I can do that, and when I can't. I played through the Japan level, which started out as a very uninspired level with big dumb blocks to jump on and the enemies consisted of robotic cat heads and mice. Then you enter a TV and go into a cyberspace world. The boss of the level was neat, it was a hacker with a VR headset, seemingly controlling a TV broadcast with a VR glove. I entered cyberspace and fought his giant vectorized hand. After hitting it 11 times, I was back out in the real world and punched the hacker once to finish him off.

The India level serves as an introduction to the spark mechanic. You can jump onto a power line with A, and then push the D-pad in a direction to jump between adjacent power lines.