Vectorman (MD)

Game Profile

In the year 2049, mankind is forced to abandon an over-polluted Earth to seek out other planets for colonization while the mechanized Orbots stay behind to clean up the mess.

When the Orbot leader, WarHead, starts blowing a few circuits and a war among the mechanical brethren, a sludge barge pilot named Vectorman is the only one willing to step up and fight him.

You'll morph into a speeding train, a power drill, a mechanical fish, or a mighty dune buggy in this warfare adventure. Equip yourself with weapons, pick up morphs and power-ups to defeat WarHead and restore peace on Earth.

Game Review

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Review

USA Thu, 05 Apr 2007 by Darren Calvert

More than a load of old balls?

OK, so the main character is compromised of green balls, don't let that make you overlook one of the better 'run and gun' games to hit the Megadrive / Genesis. The shallow premise for the game is that humans have ruined the planet Earth and left the..

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User Comments

James Casey

1. James Casey United Kingdom 08 Mar 2007, 22:35 GMT

Vectorman was the greatest game ever released on the MD. If this is released, it will be amazing. This game was absolutley amazing. Buy it!

Kevin

2. Kevin United States 06 Apr 2007, 13:41 BST

I can't wait til NA get this game. One of the best Genesis games ever!

Borb

3. Borb United Kingdom 07 Apr 2007, 19:42 BST

I've been saying that they will never release this on VC because it's too damn good....turns out I was wrong...luckily so.

TheReaFONZ

4. TheReaFONZ Ireland 06 Jun 2007, 22:35 BST

Hey I just down loaded this and I gotta say:

four stars!

pfft! Four stars my ass!

This game deserves five stars easy. It's amazing, the graphics for the MD are amazing. I mean holy cow there aint an MD game out there to beat it and the game play KILLS gunstar easy. Gunstar is kiddy, Vectorman is bad ass all the way. The music in places can be pretty funky too. Please people don't over look this game cause of the four star review. This game rocks the gates of hell it's that good. This game plays as if you gave mario a semi automatic, a bucket of prozak and sent him on his way. Plus i'd say it looks like the "gears of war" for it's time and thers no deniying that game kicked ass. Please download this game your missin out otherwise.

PS. Did I mention he's made of green balls?

Dazza

5. Dazza United Kingdom 07 Jun 2007, 00:06 BST

Chill out Fonz! 4 stars is a very good score. We just did not feel Vectorman was up to the 5 star standard set by Gunstar Hereos and Contra III.

Bass X0

6. Bass X0 United Kingdom 14 Jun 2007, 02:24 BST

i am surprised this isn't in the u.s yet... i wonder why.

Garcian Smith

7. Garcian Smith United States 17 Jun 2007, 17:46 BST

This game is also on the Sega Genesis Collection for PS2 and PSP. I'd highly recommend getting it on there if you have either due to the quicksave feature, and the fact that it's only $20.

TheNintendoBoy

8. TheNintendoBoy United Kingdom 03 Jul 2007, 12:50 BST

zero personality, corny plot and mediocre level design with a gimmick that feels rushed. The sound fx is way too loud comp. to the music.

chopblock

9. chopblock United States 28 Jul 2007, 03:55 BST

Honestly, I don't see how Gunstar Heroes deserves anymore than 2 stars. It's a painfully small and boring game. Vectorman got a TON of play time out of me back in the Sega days. I can't believe I let wii fanboys convince me that Gunstar Heroes was worth my 8 dollars.

Jade Louise

10. Jade Louise United Kingdom 05 Aug 2007, 02:02 BST

This a fun game. However I wont be downloading it as its on the Japanese PS2(and GC) version of Sonic Gems Collection along with Vectorman 2, Streets of Rage 1,2,3 , Sonic CD and Sonic R.

PowerLegend

11. PowerLegend United States 15 Aug 2007, 06:57 BST

are they gonna release this damn game here or not? it's been over 4 months since europe got it and it STILL hasn't been released here. it's even worse than zelda 2

Pocketim

12. Pocketim New Zealand 18 Aug 2007, 00:11 BST

the game box has written on it play to win $25,000

PowerLegend

13. PowerLegend United States 23 Aug 2007, 06:39 BST

alright you know what, forget it. i just realized that its on sonic gems collection. i'll get that instead

alvieao

14. alvieao United States 16 Sep 2007, 03:28 BST

I do have the US Sonic Gems Collection (sadly, without the SOR trilogy) which had VM and its sequel as unlockables. For a game that was considered an answer to Nintendo/Rare's Donkey Kong Country, Vectorman delivers great action with graphics that pushed the Genesis further. Definitely play this game! I'm glad Vectorman was finally released on the Virtual Console in North America...

Endaso

15. Endaso United States 21 Sep 2007, 08:14 BST

No, it's not quite worth four stars... it's still very good, though, and has a healthy level of difficulty. The graphics were also quite nice back during the day, and still carry a certain sort of charm today.

E-dawg

16. E-dawg Australia 19 Oct 2007, 09:42 BST

This game is good in short bursts, I have it on the Sonic Gems Collection for GameCube so I will give this a miss, but the Virtual Console version will probably be better because of the saving feature. However, I believ that the sequel is actually better, because its not so damn hard!

Bob Emmerich

17. Bob Emmerich United States 20 Oct 2007, 22:51 BST

Seeing as how this hasn't come out in the US yet but I presume will at some point -- I just picked up Sega Genesis Collection PS2 yesterday (ToysRUs for $20) and of the 36 MegaDrive VC games 20 (twenty) are on that 1 disc, thats $160 worth of VC on 1 $20 disc. I don't know how much better they may play on the VC but as long as my PS2 is hooked up and working I'll manage. Now if I could find a good N64 compilation disc I could save myself another $100 ;-)

Mii be you

18. Mii be you United States 31 Oct 2007, 21:28 GMT

This game MIGHT have been a 5-star if it was in Multiplayer.

darthmix

19. darthmix United States 02 Nov 2007, 16:39 GMT

If they bring it to North America VC, I'll download it. This was one of the cooler-looking games that I never got a chance to play the first time around because my family didn't own a Genesis.

Kevin

20. Kevin United States 19 Nov 2007, 13:25 GMT

Are they ever gonna release this here? I'm sick of waiting for this classic to be released and don't feel like wasting extra money on a PS2 or PSP just to play it.

deggs

21. deggs Canada 07 Dec 2007, 00:22 GMT

I wouldn't exactly call it a run n' gun. it's more like mega man without the stage select... it's a platform game (and I truly love platform games). the story is over-the-top camp, which is awesome. afterall, it's a game with a protagonist made of green balls...

anyways, the game is fun. end of story. i played it expecting to loath it (one of the few in the sega genesis collection for ps2 i never thought of trying until recently). instead, i couldn't stop playing it all night. if you're into platforming goodness a la mega man, you just might love this too...

jcBIOHAZARD

22. jcBIOHAZARD United States 29 Dec 2007, 22:26 GMT

About time!!!!I use to have this game on my sega, it was insane!!

Elk810

23. Elk810 United States 30 Dec 2007, 07:50 GMT

I had this game on the Sega Nomad (A portable Genesis) and Sega Smash Pack for Windows. This game is really cool and really funny. It's like an early Ratchet & Clank. It's hard, but you'll have so much fun trying to tackle it that you won't even get mad. It's even full of secret paths that you might expect from the mind of the immortal Shigeru Miyamoto. A timeless Genesis classic indeed.

24. 04 Jan 2008, 19:12 GMT

Vectorman is OK, but I wouldn't advise anyone to buy it before they gave Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier or Probotector a shot. I think its better than the sequel though.

Pocketim

25. Pocketim New Zealand 17 Jan 2008, 20:50 GMT

Hey, wait a minute, that screenshot of the red plane and vectorman, that plane looks very similar to the Egg Hawk, the first boss in Sonic Heroes!

President_Leever

26. President_Leever Sweden 30 Jan 2008, 15:19 GMT

The definition of generic action platformer #47.. I can honestly say I loathe this game and its lame, green peace inspired player character.

Iylar

27. Iylar United States 14 Feb 2008, 18:54 GMT

Please release this soon for the U.S. This was one of my favorite games for the Genesis and I was super excited when i saw that it was coming to VC. So hurry!

GameGod3008

28. GameGod3008 United Kingdom 22 Feb 2008, 17:33 GMT

Got this with Sonic Gems collection and it was a fun game but i just couldn't help but feel that this was Sega's answer to DKC, which is a much better game. STill fun though as it's a completely different style to DKC.

P.S. E-Dawg, you can save Vectorman on SGC for the Gamecube but it takes up a fair amount of memory.

Tony

29. Tony United States 25 Feb 2008, 20:28 GMT

I would take this game over Gunstar heroes. The graphics are amazing for the Sega Genesis. Its a real testament to how they pushed the software to compete with the SNES. When this game comes to the US its a must download.

slangman

30. slangman United Kingdom 19 Mar 2008, 18:16 GMT

On youtube this looks like an awesome game i do wounder if this is worth getting though since i heard some people saying they loved this game and others saying its avergae. I am really puzzled :S

illmatic

31. illmatic United States 24 Mar 2008, 19:12 GMT

It's been almost a year since Europe got this great game. Can the US have it now too, please?

MrPoo6321

32. MrPoo6321 United States 08 Apr 2008, 17:36 BST

For reals! When the crap are we gonna get this game???? I've been waiting forever! It almost makes me wanna go buy an old genesis and track down the cartridge... although with my luck it will come out for the vc the following week in the states.

Kevin

33. Kevin United States 25 May 2008, 00:32 BST

If they ever release this imagine how long it would take for us to get the sequal.

mr.niceguy

34. mr.niceguy United States 17 Jun 2008, 04:50 BST

One of my favorite games on the Genesis, and had I figured out there was an easy mode, I would've bought it too, instead of renting it like 3 or 4 times. Thank G-d I got the Gems Collection, I knew there would be more value to it than just Sonic CD(though, now I kind of wish I had that I hadn't passed up that Genesis Collection everyone is talkiny about). I found the game to be rather unique, at least compared to Contra(never got to play Gunstar Heroes and I'll admit I played Vectorman first), as someone mentioned, it's more like Megaman, rather than your usual run 'n' gun, only with Contra style controls(what I thought Megaman always needed).

Oh, and thanks to the video, I now have to go and play this game again, since it showed me a bunch of new things that I can do(I never knew the double jump could be used as an attack!).

slangman

35. slangman United Kingdom 18 Jun 2008, 14:32 BST

Never mind i bought it on Sonic Gems Collection after learning that the PAL VC version of Vectorman has slower music compared to the NTSC one. And the PAL version on the gems collection also runs at 50hz. Grrgh Sega and Nintendo need to get their act together and give us an option to play 60hz Mega Drive games on the VC.

Still its a cool game though thats worth a look.

Mickeymac

36. Mickeymac United States 14 Jul 2008, 01:20 BST

G-D I loved this game as a kid! I never played many run & guns back the, but I did love platformers, and this game had both in spades! You really can't treat this game the same way you would treat a Contra game, because then you'd be missing out on half the game. This game is basically Super Turrican with an aimable gun, transformations, and a large amout of level variety, and like Super Turrican, it has a lot of secrets. Often times I'll time out just trying to search for everything, yet I still run in to new things every time I play. I think enough has been said about this, but still, I cant stress enough that this game is not Contra, it's not Gunstar Heroes. It is a Run & Gun, but that's not all it is and it shouldn't be treated as so.

Keep an open mind.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks it's too hard, there's an easy mode that brings the difficulty down to a bearable level.

Kevin

37. Kevin United States 11 Aug 2008, 16:33 BST

Why is it taking so long to release this game? The sequel hasn't even been announced either.

PuppetMasterKuruku

38. PuppetMasterKuruku United States 30 Aug 2008, 13:23 BST

^ Screw it, stop waiting. I already have both on Sega Genesis Collection and Sonic Gems Collection. Why would you want to wait?

Ricardo91

39. Ricardo91 United States 01 Sep 2008, 05:48 BST

I don't care if this game ever gets released truthfully. Kevin, if you want the game so bad, just get the Sega Genesis Collection (for PSP, PS2, or Xbox) or the sonic Mega Collection Plus (for Xbox, GC, and PS2, It's an unlockable).

I never thought of this game as a run-and-gun. Rather, a platformer that you shoot in. This game might not be as expansive as Super Mario Bros. 3 in terms of secrets (and really, what is?), but there's still plenty of things to discover in the levels. Transforming into all those different forms is also fun. I appreciate the amount of variety the game has. One stage, you're shooting up enemies in a platforming stage, while in another you riding a railroad as a train form shooting down a metal monster jumping across it. One thing I really don't like about the game though, is the ever-ticking time limit, which hampers the exploration and makes it that much harder to get 100% in the level. Also, is it so hard to ask for just a few measley continues???

Tony

40. Tony United States 08 Sep 2008, 20:23 BST

I feel this on level if not better than Gunstar and maybe a notch below Contra. I'll give it 5 stars. I agree with the review it should be high on your virtual shopping list.

Spiderkid

41. Spiderkid United States 22 Sep 2008, 16:02 BST

TheReaFONZ had it right until he said Vectorman > Gunstar.

Stevii's Father

42. Stevii's Father Philippines 22 Sep 2008, 18:58 BST

The theme of the humans leaving the planet and leaving WALL·E...er...I mean, Vectorman to clean up is really inspiring.. :)

Junichi

43. Junichi United Kingdom 22 Sep 2008, 21:05 BST

@Stevii's Father:

Yeah, Sega stole the idea of WALL.E for Vectorman.

I played this on Sonic Gems Collection, and I couldn't really see what the fuss is all about. Maybe if I played it more I would like it, but I couldn't get into it.

pikmin95

44. pikmin95 United States 23 Sep 2008, 02:02 BST

@Junichi
Umm, Vectorman came out before WALL.E, so Sega couldn't copy.

AlexSays

45. AlexSays United States 23 Sep 2008, 03:18 BST

Sega stole the idea of WALL.E for Vectorman.

Lol. You have no idea how incorrect that statement is. I hope you were kidding.
If anything, Pixar got the idea of Wall-E from R.O.B.

BB Sting

46. BB Sting United States 23 Sep 2008, 07:25 BST

This game was pretty awesome for it's time. Instead of being pre-rendered by sg workstations like DKC, all of the polygons and 3d effects for this game were rendered on the fly using a process called vector piece animation which made it the most sophisticated 16 bit game ever made.

Ricardo91

47. Ricardo91 United States 23 Sep 2008, 16:23 BST

@x.supermario.x and Pikmin. I think he was being sarcastic. Er, at least I hope he is. :P
Could be the other way around though.

Badknux

48. Badknux United States 24 Sep 2008, 06:41 BST

Junichi: Yeah, Sega stole the idea of WALL.E for Vectorman

You're batting a thousand aren't you?

Anyway, I don't like Vectorman all that much. It's fun to play, I love the premise, and I love Vectorman too. But something about it rubs me the wrong way. It isn't the graphics, nor the music, but I just am not that crazy about it. I liked Vectorman 2 a little better.

Cally

49. Cally United States 28 Sep 2008, 10:27 BST

This game has some surprisingly solid shooting and platforming action. Since this was Sega's answer to Donkey Kong Country, the audio/visual presentation is respectable also.

However, I can't shake the "made-in-a-garage" feeling I get when playing this game. The level design is incredibly forgettable and sometimes flat-out cumbersome; some stages are repetitive, straightforward, or involve finding power-ups in some really un-fun vertical exploration (it has to do with the way items are hidden, with the camera not showing enough around a character to easily discern where you are in the area relative to other things).

I was pleasantly surprised that Vectorman turned out to be more than a technical demo. In some ways, I'd call it Mega Man's evil twin with platforming and shooting robots. 3/5

President_Leever

50. President_Leever Sweden 29 Sep 2008, 06:05 BST

I'm surprised you didn't mention the extremely tight camera for the platform segments. Makes some of the jumps impossible to judge and just feels akward compared to other games in the genre (contra, mega man) where you could "see the whole playfield" so to speak..

Corbie

51. Corbie United States 27 Oct 2008, 05:15 GMT

I never played this game during the Mega Drive era, but I did pick it up recently and it's surprisingly good. Solid play control and impressive visuals make it one of the more well-rounded Mega Drive side-scrollers out there. A great addition to the Virtual Console.

vio

52. vio United States 27 Nov 2008, 19:18 GMT

Mr. Cheez wrote:
"Kevin, if you want the game so bad, just get the Sega Genesis Collection (for PSP, PS2, or Xbox) or the sonic Mega Collection Plus (for Xbox, GC, and PS2, It's an unlockable)."

Just a minor correction, incase someone picks Sonic Mega Collection expecting to play Vectorman. Vectorman(and it's sequel) are on the Sonic Gems Collection, NOT the Sonic Mega Collection. The Sonic Gems Collection is available for Gamecube and PS2, you can probably get a used copy for pretty cheap now(under $20).

Nintendork

53. Nintendork United States 02 Dec 2008, 00:31 GMT

Why the heck does everyone seem to like shovelware like this!?! :O The gameplay is completely unexceptable even back when it was first released. :(

Cally

54. Cally United States 06 Dec 2008, 05:37 GMT

This and DKC . . . high on technology, low on creative gameplay. Really low. Especially this one. And Sonic Gems is actually GC only. And believe me, you want Sonic CD, the best Sonic ever by far and one of the best Genesis/CD ever.

Kobayashi

55. Kobayashi Brazil 21 Dec 2008, 00:20 GMT

Me playing Vectorman - 1st stage (Sega Genesis Collection version):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAS94toByB8

Divock

56. Divock United States 06 Feb 2009, 20:44 GMT

@Nintendork: Shovelware? Are you joking? Just because it's simple gameplay does not make it "shovelware". This game is fun. That's all it needs.
@Cally: Same here, just because it's not "creative" doesn't mean it's not fun.

Shinnok

57. Shinnok United States 24 Feb 2009, 10:33 GMT

I thought Vectorman 2 was a better game. But as they say, the value of art is subjective.

Ricardo91

58. Ricardo91 United States 20 Mar 2009, 20:14 GMT

@Vio. Really? I micht've gotten them mixed up. I do that all the time. :P

redflicky

59. redflicky United Kingdom 21 Sep 2009, 13:50 BST

Wow! Vectorman! Best game ever on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive! :)

I hope they release a sequel on the Wii Virtual Console. Called " Vectorman 2".

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