Dr. Sega's Shameless Sell-Through Cartridge (Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine)

Name: Frankingsteins

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Product:	Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine
Date:	14/01/06 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: May be the only two-player game you have

Disadvantages: Tedious, limited and disappointing

An example of franchise licensing gone mad and pointless, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine coats a boring puzzle game in a completely unnecessary Sonic the Hedgehog background. There are two possible reasons for its existence: either the creator of this tedious Tetris-style game impressed Sega so much that they added the Sonic frills to help it sell, or Sega were desperate to squeeze as much money as they could out of kids who already owned Sonic games 1, 2 and 3 and the similarly arbitrary Sonic Spinball, and were awaiting the not-so-long-awaited Sonic and Knuckles, and made this up on the spot. Either way, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine is not a game that was ever worth noticing, let alone writing a review on thirteen years later.

DRMBM (which I pronounce dr’m-b’m) was produced by Sega, although like Sonic Spinball not by the talented Sonic Team themselves, for both Sega and Nintendo systems. This decision to sell out part of a popular franchise to their biggest rivals is amusing in the 21st century, as all Sonic games are now produced solely for Nintendo’s GameCube and GameBoy systems. Despite Dooyoo’s categorisation, this game was never released for the Amiga: the site categorises all old game systems under this title, with photos of each respective console determining which is which.

There is a get-out clause that avoids Nintendo having too great a victory, in that the principal characters Sonic and Tails don’t feature at all, and the source for Sonic’s enemy Dr. Robotnik and his ‘badnik’ robot creations is the cartoon series of the time, ‘Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.’ (You can tell this by Robotnik’s goofy rather than menacing appearance, and the presence of his henchmen created for the cartoon). If anything, this only makes it less appealing as a double cash-in of the original games.

The important thing to realise about DRMBM then, especially for Sonic fans, is that its relation to the other Sonic games is purely by its title, crude animated opening sequence and the look of a couple of robots. That’s it. It’s unclear exactly who the player controls, there may be an unstated hope that this lack of information could lead players into thinking they were controlling Sonic, but it’s some benevolent force trying to beat robots of increasing difficulty.

So your parents have bought the game you wanted, and you insert the cartridge, eager to indulge in another high-speed hedgehog adventure.

The opening sequence does the expected job of attempting to craft a link between the game that is about to start and the reason for the ‘Robotnik’ in the title. Also as expected, it does a very bad job. The Doctor’s first line is: “Witness my evil dream to rid Mobius of music and fun forever!” and it only gets worse from there. Robotnik explains his plan to his bumbling henchmen Grounder and Scratch, flawed chicken robots and travesties of the original game’s enemy designs, and the plan is this: Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine will turn ‘the fun-loving jolly beans of Beanville’ into robot slaves... but there are so many of them, Robotnik’s badniks are going to have to collect them.

The game screen is split into two equal areas: the player’s on the left, and the opponent’s on the right, whether this is a second player or the computer. Like Tetris, objects (the jolly beans of Beanville) fall slowly from above and have to be arranged so that similar colours go together and disappear (are saved). The opponent is presumably doing the same thing, but their contrived scenario is that grouping colours ‘captures’ the jolly beans. Of Beanville, remember.

It’s all a little unclear and stupid, but leaving the story aside, which isn’t hard to do as it actually plays no part in the game, there is only very limited appeal here. The lack of addictiveness is surprising, considering it’s based on Tetris (I hate you Tetris, you life-stealer), but the controls are so awkward that it becomes frustrating very easily. Leaving the title screen running, a demo begins which is helpful in explaining the few things the player needs to know:

The A, B and C buttons on the MegaDrive pad (that’s red, yellow and blue on Super Nintendo) rotate the jolly beans of Beanville clockwise as they fall. The jolly beans of Beanville are different shapes and arranged in either twos or threes, and gravity acts on any jolly beans of Beanville that are left poking out to the side once they have settled. Pressing down on the pad speeds their descent, as with most games like this.

Progress is made by grouping four or more jolly beans of Beanville, which at least means the player has to use their head a little when arranging them, and the level ends when the jolly beans of Beanville reach the top of one of the screens – game over if it’s yours, or continuation if you’ve beaten the opponent. There is one final addition in the form of ‘refugee beans’ (I’m not making all of this up, honestly) which look like rocks and can’t be destroyed / saved by themselves, and can only be taken away when caught in the removal of surrounding coloured jolly beans. The refugee beans are sent to a player when their opponent does something clever, like remove two sets of coloured jolly beans in one move by using gravity and their brain, and if you’re playing against an adept player, these can stack up quickly and lead to a fasts defeat.

As well as an exercise mode that allows players to practice by themselves, taking as long as they like to get used to the controls and the gameplay without being rushed by a second player, the game is split into ‘scenario mode’ and ‘1p vs. 2p mode.’ The latter is obviously the most enjoyable, and perhaps the only reason to dig this game out for repeated plays, but if a player doesn’t have any friends or siblings, or wants to pretend that they’re playing a real Sonic game with a storyline, they can opt for scenario mode and face badniks in a sequence that starts off quite hard and only gets harder. This mode rewards players with passwords each time they complete a stage, and these simple four symbol codes can be entered whenever the game is loaded.

A final note on the graphics and sound, which aren’t memorable or impressive but serve their purpose. The music isn’t very fitting for a Sonic game, reminding the player that this isn’t one, as it’s less melodic and simplistic, but as it isn’t essential to gameplay, early 90s children could listen to their Right Said Fred or MC Hammer albums or whatever else they had. The sound effects aren’t much better, as even a two-player game against the computer makes no distinction in either volume or tone between the player’s actions and those of their opponent, so sometimes it becomes a flurry of annoying beeps and boops. The characters aren’t required to do much in the way of animation, and probably the most active sequence is Robotnik’s madman jumps in the opening sequence, which are animated in about five basic, slow-paced frames. The beans all look identical apart from their colours, with two eyes staring out of the television screen at the player to elicit sympathy, but as these are the only thing that need to be concentrated on, there’s no real problem here.

‘Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog’ was a poor cartoon that had very little to do with the worlds crafted in the original games (which was continued excellently by Nigel Kitching of the UK’s long-running Sonic the Comic), and as such this is a fairly fitting if ridiculous game adaptation. The story is stupid and patronising, and the game itself pales in comparison to its influences. Every Sonic the Hedgehog collection is complete without it.

Summary: "I hate that hedgehog"