Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (1993)

This will be just a quick review of a classic puzzle game on the Sega Genesis.  I used to love playing this game when I was around 6 or 7.  This is Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.  Essentially, it is Puyo Puyo with Sonic the Hedgehog poorly incorporated in.  The blue hedgehog doesn't even appear in the game, despite this game being on most Sonic Collections.  If you've never heard of Puyo Puyo, you're missing out, especially if you're a puzzle buff.  I'll get into the gist of the game in the gameplay section.  For now, let's look at the game as a whole.

Story- A lot of this game has more to do with the show The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog than the Sega video games.  If you've never heard of the show, you're not missing much.  It was shitty, poorly drawn, and disjointed.  Don't watch it.  If you did watch the show, you'll notice some of the enemies are in this game, such as Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts the monkey.

I hate this little bastard...

  Dr. Robotnik is being a dick as usual and kidnaps the citizens of the cleverly named Beanville and throws them into his Mean Bean-Steaming Machine.  There, they become his slaves.  Not a riveting plot, but what did you expect for a puzzle game?

Graphics- The graphics are bright, vivid, and do their job just fine.  The background in the actual game is a little bland, but whatever.  Animation in the cutscenes and on the beans are nice and fluid.

Controls- It's a puzzle game.  In a nutshell, the controls aren't much different than Tetris or Columns.  Use the buttons to rotate your beans and the D-Pad to control the speed.  Easy peasy.

Sound- This game has some funky cool puzzle music.  In addition, whenever a player is about to lose a match, the music gets all fast and chaotic.  It literally feel like you're taking a test in school and the teacher says "One minute remaining."  It tends to break your concentation and you're bound to slip up.

A shot of the VS mode

Gameplay- If you've never played Puyo Puyo, it's actually a pretty fun puzzle game.  It is somewhat similar to tile games like Columns and Tetris.  Instead of blocks, you drop 'beans'.  You can rotate them freely, and the objective is to get four in a row of any color.  Once you get four in a row horizontally, vertically, L-shaped, or S-shaped, the blobs will disappear.  If a bean is dangling above thin air, it will drop until it hits the ground or another bean.  The objective of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is to get sick combos using your beans.  Whenever you get a 2x combo or more, black 'garbage' beans will rain down on your enemy.  It is so satisfying to be a colossal dickhead and just drop a storm of black beans on your partner's carefully coordinated setup.  To get rid of the garbage beans, you have to clear the blobs next to it.

The game offers a 1-player story as well as a 2-player vs. mode.  You can also play around with a practice mode, but who cares about that?  The story mode is fun and very difficult.  You'll breeze through the first few enemies, but the blobs will get so fast you have mere seconds to come up with an elaborate and efficient setup.  Some of these computer players handed my ass to me.  Then again, I'm not the best puzzle player in the world.

Final Thoughts- This game is extremely common, so get yourself a copy of it and start humiliating your friends.  They have copies of this game on Sega, Gamecube, Xbox 360, and PS3.  It shouldn't cost more than a few bucks, and you'll have hours of fun times.  If you have any doubts, just look how happy Dr. Robotnik is with the game.

Then again, he also looks like a Registered Sex Offender

      Rating (out of 5): ***1/2