Game Debate #181: Vectorman

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

[NostalgicMachine | 235]

Vectorman is THE definition of a 5/10 game for me. I remember playing this in SEARS and being blown away by the visuals, but quickly figuring out that's about all the game had going for it. Perfect for a weekend rental IMHO.

[twiztor | 851]

2 hours ago, NostalgicMachine said:

Vectorman is THE definition of a 5/10 game for me. I remember playing this in SEARS and being blown away by the visuals, but quickly figuring out that's about all the game had going for it. Perfect for a weekend rental IMHO.

exactly my thoughts. was excited to try this game because of the marketing, hype, and looks of this game. turned out to be a perfectly average game.

[Webhead123 | 675]

I've only ever played Vectorman for about 5 minutes, so I can't exactly rate the thing. From what I've seen and heard about it, it sounds like a very average experience. I do seem to remember thinking that the camera was very jerky if the player changed direction quickly and that was disorienting enough to make it hard to stomach playing.

[RH | 4,903]

Man, my cousin had this one and when I went to his house, we spent almost all of our time playing Sonic 2, 3 or S&K.  If we diverted from that, we played Virtual Bart because we loved throwing the tomatoes at the passerbys.  I even own Vector Man because I've tried to collect every game I've played and had limited experience with as a kid.  Regardless... I don't remember this game feeling rememberable.

Technically, I've played it but it's probably less that 5 minutes, which I why I give it the "Never played, but I want too" selection.  I remember so little, I want to give it a solid try since it's from my past.  but, honestly, I probably won't.

[Brickman | 3,984]

Never heard of this game, it might not have been released here. I watched a quick clip and it looks like an average platformer.

[fox | 1,667]

How did Vectorman win the poll over two other heavy hitters only for everyone to suddenly now say it is mid or they didn’t actually play it

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

12 hours ago, NostalgicMachine said:

Vectorman is THE definition of a 5/10 game for me. I remember playing this in SEARS and being blown away by the visuals, but quickly figuring out that's about all the game had going for it. Perfect for a weekend rental IMHO.

Nailed it! This was a weekend rental back in the day and I remember bulldozing straight through it. It was pretty fun though unspectacular. 6/10

[MegaMan52 | 2,445]

7/10 

I've played it in Sonic Gems Collection (and still do on occasion), along with Vectorman 2.

The actual game, honestly, isn't that great, but still reasonably good. It didn't really do anything new, and it can be a little frustrating at times. The default controls are a little weird (A and B to shoot and C to jump, X to jump in Sonic Gems Collection), but at least the game has an option to configure the controls. I don't know, I guess I just prefer pressing B (Genesis) or A (GameCube) to jump.

I do like Vectorman's fluid animations, and the game has a cool soundtrack (especially the music in the first level; I can listen to that for hours). 

Also, I like that you can move Vectorman around on the Sega logo screen.

Edited December 4, 2023 by MegaMan52

[Gloves | 11,777]

Owned it, played it, didn't enjoy it, sold it. It's a very Sega game... never was my jam.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

I never had an issue with the game but I think @Gloves put it best - a very Sega Sega game. All glitter and no gold. Good graphics and a decent platformer but falls short in more ways than I can remember 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

This game defined the Sega Genesis for me back in the day: all flash and no substance.  I've since learned that there are some excellent games on the console, but back then, any time some braggart would want to show me the game that was going to blow me away and change my mind, it would invariably be something like this... total meh.

[Webhead123 | 675]

3 hours ago, fox said:

How did Vectorman win the poll over two other heavy hitters only for everyone to suddenly now say it is mid or they didn’t actually play it

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

3 hours ago, fox said:

How did Vectorman win the poll over two other heavy hitters only for everyone to suddenly now say it is mid or they didn’t actually play it

It's like asking how Five Nights at Freddys beat Until Dawn and Dead Space 

[NostalgicMachine | 235]

It just feels like the perfect demo game. You play it for five minutes and it's fun. You rent it, it could ruin your weekend.

[cj_robot | 542]

Wow pretty harsh on Vectorman here. I gave it a 7/10.

I agree that it's not "great" on the same level as Contra or something like that, but I always thought it was a good game and I enjoyed it. The visuals are nice, the sound is good, controls work well, it's got a decent variety of environments and gameplay styles throughout the levels. Always thought the powerups that transform you into different things was interesting.

[CMR | 519]

5/10

Technically impressive, but conceptually boring. 

[MegaMan52 | 2,445]

Interesting that most who have posted in this topic think the game is mediocre, yet 7/10 remains the more popular rating.

[Gloves | 11,777]

11 minutes ago, MegaMan52 said:

Interesting that most who have posted in this topic think the game is mediocre, yet 7/10 remains the more popular rating.

Yeah but that's relatively meaningless - the average vote is 5.7 across all votes from people who have played it.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

12 minutes ago, MegaMan52 said:

Interesting that most who have posted in this topic think the game is mediocre, yet 7/10 remains the more popular rating.

It's shaping up to have a pretty low placement in the standings.  Like bottom 20 out of 180 games.

Granted I've tried to mostly do pretty prominent and/or good games.

[MegaMan52 | 2,445]

Of course, now that I've said that, things could change at anytime. Even so, I still believe it is a decent game.

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

I went 7/10 but I played a ton of it as a kid. It's one of the first games I ever beat.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Damn morbis and gloves combined really nailed it.

Vectorman was the ultimate hubris that was Sega Genesis combined from both the advertising side and gaming side.

Being loud, flash, flair, in your face and seemingly so appealing, hip, mature, and "not Nintendo" and if you drank that kool-aid you were satisifed.  Yet, if you didn't binge the special juice, stepped back, and took look and a listen, crack after crack formed.

You'd realize the loudness, flashiness, in your face messaging was more smoke and mirrors than quality and value for your time and money - ultimately being sold more lies than truth.  Not to say that Sega didn't have anything good, no, as that's an equally big lie as they did but it's drowned out by all the manufactured garbage.  Vectorman was the tip of the dumpster pile (right along with a few other key blow outs like Eternal Champions.)

If you're reeled in and hooked like a good fishy they're seemingly good to great games, but if you were coming off the SNES, NES, TG16 even, arcade, loaded rich kid with an AES... wtf basically would sum up the parts of the whole.  The mediocrity wins out with the bland visual and color choices, the generic "sega" style audio combined, decent but not quite nailed it controls, good to sketchy stage designs, and the list goes on.  Vectorman never vectored in on greatness, just the illusion of it.

Sega has some 9-10/10 gems, a few they did, a few Wolfteam did, as did Konami for sure, and other random one offs from virgin, accolade, etc.  Vectorman though I struggled between a 3-5 range on this one, went middle on a 4 and I think that's being slightly generous.  There are many better, and there are worse, but maybe not very good would have been deserving.

I could derail this with some solid sega games, I have dozens of them, but this isn't one, and I've ignored it in $5 dump bins as I think it's an ask even for that.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

I agree with the general tenet her, that's why I gave it a 4 out of 10.

I gave this game two chances in the past few years, but I could never make it far. It plays weirdly, the camera janks around all the time and you walk a bit too fast. So if you don't know the game by heart then you'll constantly run into enemies or projectiles. The frequent flashing lights also add to this game becoming really nauseating after a while. I honestly feel like never wanting to play this game again. At least the sequel felt a bit better to play and I managed ot beat it, but even that felt like a very average-ish game in term of gameplay.

So yeah, the presentation is nice and some of the music tracks are cool, specifically the title track. But other than that I actively dislike this game and don't understand why it's heralded as such an awesome game by some.

[fox | 1,667]

I always get mixed up between Vectorman, Vectorman 2, Vectorman CD, Vectorman & Knucles, and Vectorman on the nomad