A curious sci-fi reimagining of the game more commonly known as Snake, Taxan’s Serpent takes the venerable arcade classic Blockade and adds special attacks (as well as some sort of galactic war story) to the whole affair.
Serpent
Japanese Title: かこむんじゃ • Kakomunjya
Developer: Dual
Publisher: Naxat/Taxan
Release date: 4.6.1990 [JP] 11.1990 [US]
Genre: Arcade
Super Game Boy: No enhancements
Previous in series: None
Next in series: None
Similar titles: Tron (Light Cycle mode) [Bally-Midway, 1982] • Snake [Nokia, 1997]
Gallery
Jericho GM
I’m a huge fan of Serpent. I especially enjoy fighting the CPU in this game. Jeremy didn’t mention it but on the highest difficulty level, the CPU has the ability to switch his head to the other end of his body once you pin it down, allowing him to move again. So the only way to beat him is to either render both ends immovable (which is really, really difficult), or completely box him in with your body which causes his head to explode immediately. Add in the weapons and the controls and you have quite a bit of a challenge.
I also found it interesting that they seemed to have crafted a sci-fi story there that we only got glimpses of in the start screen and in between matches. Really adds to the charm, I think.
Alpha Force rules.
Wmpyr
When I first got this game I was really looking forward to it but I was immediately disappointed by the controls. I simply didn’t understand it (I got it used without the manual). Left is go left from the Serpent’s point of view and A button is right from Serpent’s point of view. It took a little while to get use to it, and even now sometimes I can screw up, but it’s still a very very AWESOME game if you like this sort of thing! I liked it so much I downloaded a similar game onto my laptop. The GB version is far superior though. I like that it reminds me of the films TRON and Robot Jox.