Cyber-Lip | The Earth Is Ours

[00:00:00] Hey Aaron, will you let me kiss you on the Cyber-Lips? Totally. This is Neo Geo Go. Hey everybody, we're Neo, and I'm Neo, and this is my friend Geo. Yo, what up, Geo Hound? I'm Neo Tokyo2040. Ooh, there you go, okay. Alright, that's my full name. And as I'm sure you've heard, we are here to talk about

[00:00:40] Cyber-Lip, this time. Released on November 7th, 1990, developed and published by SNK, as most of these games are. And Cyber-Lip is your basic run-and-gun, Aaron. I think it's our first run-and-gun on this thing. NOM-75 is a different thing. That's a cabal shooter. This is our first straight-up run-and-gun. Think like Contra or Turrican out there, you know, or later Metal Slug that would come to Neo Geo. But, uh, yeah. That type of game. Cyber-Lip. Spoiler alert,

[00:01:10] I really like this game, Aaron. Yeah, I did too. I thought it was really good, except for, like, maybe a couple nitpicks, but yeah, it was awesome. I like this because it's your classic early 90s cool dude design, you know, with the main character. He has like that orange spiky hair and like the sunglasses and everything. It's like, I'm so tubular, bro. We didn't even say bro back then. Tubular, dude. Dude and dudettes.

[00:01:40] Right? It's almost like Aaron. It's almost like something someone would do today to make like a parody of the 90s, except it actually existed for realsies and we played it. Oh, God. Yeah, I bet. I'm pretty sure there was two dudes. Yeah, there's two. Yeah, the second player looks very similar. I think it was there. Maybe. Yeah, it was like Brooke and they have names. Yeah, they have names. Yeah, it's like Brooke and Terry, I think.

[00:02:08] And yeah, they're very, very 90s, like leather bound and shit. But okay, can I say something controversial? I don't say enough controversial things on Neo Geo Go. I would like to right now. I think Cyberlip is better than like Contra 3. I've never been that big of a fan of Contra 3 and I think Cyberlip is better. Straight up. I haven't played a whole lot of Contra 3. Surprisingly, I've played a shit ton

[00:02:37] of the first game. I've played that game over and over and over. I wouldn't say it's better than the first Contra though, because that game is just like NES Contra. I mean, not arcade Contra 1. Arcade, Contra and Super C are very different. Yeah. Yeah. Not very, very different, but definitely different feeling. They definitely clean that shit up at home. It's one of those cases where it's better at home. Why didn't Cyberlip ever come home? This seems like SNK had a bunch of we kind of talked about this with Super Spy, right?

[00:03:07] SNK did a whole bunch of home ports at this time via like other companies like Takara or whatever. Yeah. I feel like Cyberlip would have been a shoe in once Super Nintendo launched. I understand it wasn't out yet, but I don't know. Maybe there just wasn't a good way to port it to home consoles without making it look shitty. Possibly. I don't know. Well, I think it definitely would have and it would definitely would have lost a lot, Aaron, because like this is yet another early SNK Neo Geo game

[00:03:35] with fully spoken dialogue for every cut scene. Oh, yeah. With the boss. I'm sorry I keep bringing this up. I feel like I say this every episode so far, but I just I really want people to understand how special this was at the time. We really did not have presentation like this before Neo Geo. Yeah. The way the boss do talks to you between each mission, too. He's just like, you got to go destroy supercomputer and they have to wait for like the next line of dialogue to load

[00:04:04] before he says the next thing. I always think it's weird when games do that, especially like RPGs or little cut scenes. It's just like they're they're clearly know what's in the text box so they can't keep talking. Yeah, I always think that's funny, but I love I love that voice. It gives and the and the guy there, he gives that sort of like leftover 80s sort of like blood sport kind of like total recall kind of or like running man kind of character.

[00:04:34] You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, I'm like that that type of error that had just passed. Like I'm like, no, I guess total recall did come out in 1990. So never mind. It was it was current. But you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And another thing I want to point out to the I think the boss designs are really fucking cool. More so for like for the aliens as opposed to like the robot bosses because the robot bosses were just like there's just the one where it's basically space invaders where they're like coming down and you shoot them as they come down

[00:05:03] and they circle back around. But like the alien ones, they're like the first boss is just this fleshy mass with like a snake like neck. That was sweet. The third one is like a tentacly eyeball creature. That's pretty fucking sweet. And then the other than the lame ass robots, all the alien bosses are really fucking cool. I like that ship. Yeah, that was cool. Actually, that does kind of remind me of, you know, the first boss of Contra 3 is that turtle, that giant turtle thing where you kind of like,

[00:05:32] yeah, because that first boss, I feel like they got that from Cyberlet. But yes, I'm accusing Konami right now of ripping off Cyberlet. Fucking turtle. God damn it. I like the pace of this game, you know? It's kind of slow and a bit deliberate, but I like that. That's fun. It gives it a different pace compared to like Contra or Super C or whatever. It almost feels like, I don't know if you ever played Midnight Resistance for Genesis or Arcade, but like that, it kind of has that like nice slow pace to it.

[00:06:02] You should play Midnight Resistance. It's a Data East game. I think you would enjoy that. If you like Cyberlet, you would like Midnight Resistance. Point is, yeah, I like that. I've always liked that in Running Guns and I think, you know, as the years go on here and that genre kind of goes away until Metal Slug happens, Metal Slug also has that pace to it as well. Oh, yeah. I can see what you mean. Like the pacing of the character and everything. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Each level is

[00:06:30] pretty goddamn short. So, yeah, that totally works perfectly in this kind of game and I like that the levels are that short too because you also have that chance in between levels to end up going to that like sewer level. Mm-hmm. I forget if it's, if you just, if it gives you that if you choose the wrong floor or something because like in between levels you go to this elevator and you choose like up or down or whatever and then. Yeah, that is a, that is a fun element

[00:07:00] to it that you get to like pick that way. Why don't you two games like to do that, huh? They like to let you pick, you know, something like that. I think that's a fun little, it's like, it doesn't really quote unquote cost much in like development to implement something like that. It's just a fun little player element, you know? Hey, you can just pick the next level. Sure. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Invites you to come back next time with more quarters, play it again and play that other level too. Mm hmm. I definitely, dude,

[00:07:30] I hell did that with shock troopers. Oh my God. I was like, yeah. Oh my, how many times are we going to mention shock troopers until we get the shock? Shock troopers doesn't come out till like 1997. We got a ways to go. Oh my God. We're on 91. Yeah. So, um, oh, I love when you go in the ammo door and it's like the scene of them reloading his gun. He looks like he's at Blockbuster Video or something. or something. It's just weird.

[00:08:01] I'll see you later, honey. I'm going to the ammo store. Do you want anything? And it was cool that you can, um, oh, what is it? Like the power, you don't lose power-ups when you die. They're always there, but that's what like the ammo stores are for is they'll replenish ammo for. I think it's all of your, all of your power-ups, isn't it? Or is it just certain ones? No, I believe it's all of them. Okay. Yeah, that shit's really good and you can switch between them at will. Like that shit's really fucking cool. So, uh, metal slug, like you'll pick one up,

[00:08:30] you use it until it's gone, go back to your dumpy pistol, but like this one, you can just pick one of like, I think it's like seven or eight different weapons and you can use them based on your current situation. Like I used the, uh, I think it was like a little Uzi. I used that quite often. Like the spread fire gun, that shit was good. Yeah, I thought that was a very fun element when I played this back in the day. I don't think any other game, any other running gun up to that point let you do that.

[00:09:00] This actually might be the first one that lets you do that. Yeah, I can't think of any other, I can't think of any other running gun that does that because even Contra, it was the whole, you pick something up and use it till it's gone and then Contra 3 does let you do that, but that came after this. So, again, I'm accusing you, Kanaan. I'm accusing you of a lot right now. I love when you lose your last life and he's like, I'm a goner. Yep, that shit's really good. It's really funny. And the fucking backgrounds are really,

[00:09:30] really good too. Like there's that one stage where it looks like in the background, you can see like a fucking Halo ring world almost. That shit was really cool. I think that was like the desert level or something. Yeah, if there's one thing that I don't really care for about this game it's that you can't move while aiming up. So like when you aim up you have to stay still and God forbid an enemy is like coming right at you or shooting right at you you have to like aim up real quick fire off a couple shots and then move.

[00:09:59] Otherwise, like they'll shoot directly down at you and kill you and that shit was annoying. Yeah, obviously that's a very deliberate gameplay choice. You know, they wanted it to be that way. So yeah, I get it. Like every, you know, Mega Man famously does not let you fire upwards ever, right? Like it's a very deliberate choice of theirs, you know, it's just the way it's built. The bosses are great besides the turtle one. All of them are pretty good to me in my opinion.

[00:10:29] I love that the doors have the same in like go in font to super spy. It's like the exact same in. What if they're in the same universe? Yeah, maybe. And I feel like it gets reviewed. I feel like it gets reused for burning fight as well. The same in icon when you go in like doors and shit. So I think it was just a SNK thing at the time. Hey, let's just let's just use the assets we have. Who cares? No one but Dre, no one but Dre is going to notice. So fuck it. Do it anyway.

[00:11:00] Yeah. This kid's coming here to this bowling alley every week and seeing our new games. He's the only one who's going to know, hey, that's the same font. I'm going to write you a sternly worded letter. Dear Konami, how the fuck dare you? How dare you rip off Cyber Lip? Dude, the ending. Did you see the ending? I don't think I got the true ending because I guess spoilers for Cyber Lip, but if you don't, what is it? If you don't pick

[00:11:29] the right doors at the end, you don't get to go fight Cyber Lip. You just do boss rush and then that's it. Okay. So if you actually beat Cyber Lip, the creepy commander guy, he turns out to be an evil robot to begin with. The guy who sent you on the mission. So it's a bad ending no matter what. Yeah. It's just like game over. The world is fucked anyway. So shit. Yeah. So he turns out to be he was evil

[00:11:59] the whole time and then game over. Man, life's a bitch, huh? Watch like 2026 for the year Cyber Lip to they're like, hey, remember that game with that like with that canonical bad ending? Well, they're excom to in that shit. Yeah. Aaron, I'm going to give Cyber Lip a B plus. I think this game is really good. I can't quite put it higher than that, but it is really good. Oh, man, I give it an A minus because

[00:12:28] other than not being able to aim up, I thought it was pretty good. I can't think of any other reason to not play it because I mean, if you had the choice of this or Metal Slug or I mean, oh, even Contra, there's still a pretty good reason to play it. It's really fun. Well, Metal Slug won't be out for a year. I don't know why I keep playing this as if we're actually in the year November 1990 and playing this at the time as if other games don't exist yet, but other games didn't exist yet. So Cyber

[00:12:57] Lip was kind of it and it was great. Okay, what are we talking about next time on Neo Geo Go? Talking about puzzled. Puzzled. Puzzled. Without the accent. All right. See you next time. Until next time, Neo Geo Go. Get yourself a real job.