Spy Hunter

With its smart weapons, awesome cars, Spy Hunter was viewed as a very stylish game back in the arcades on the early 1980s. It was a title that playing into any boy's fantasies- secret agents, nasty weaponry, and a driving lincese. Make no mistake though, it was the action packed gameplay that kept people coming back for more again, again, and again...

1943

The year that the war ground on may have been 1943, when rationing continued to bite down hard, construction work on the Pentagon was completed, and the Japanese forces were driven back from Guadalcanal, but it's a whole lot more enjoyable if you think of it as this wonderful little vertical-scrolling shooter from Capcom, released for the delight of the arcade-going populas in 1987...

Diablo

The game isn't just a good looking isometric dungeon crawler, it is THE best dungeon crawler. A simple - almost brainless trek through caverns and catacombs filled with vile creatures, not to mention all the loot. Blizzard spent a lot of time working on the generation of the game's spaces, making items, enemies, and geography be different every single time you load up the game...

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The Elder Scrolls games are best known for the fourth chapter in the series, Oblivion, released in 2006. In comparison,The Elder Scroll's Morrowind is altogether more of a curate's egg, neither as commercially successful nor critically applauded as it's successor. Perhaps because of that, however, it's also a much more interesting game...

Rogue

Rogue first appeared on college Unix systems in 1980. It contains an infinite variety via a series of randomly generated, ASCII-rendered dungeons that must be explored in a bid to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor (Rodney spelled backwards) from somewhere behold the twenty-fifth level -- an unlikely achievement given the imposing difficulty of even the earliest dungeon layers.

Showing posts with label Game Boy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Game Boy. Show all posts

15 December, 2011

Mario Golf

4:14:00 PM  D_Homes  No comments


  • Release Date: 1999
  • Platform(s): Game Boy Color
  • Developer: Camelot Software Planning
  • Genre: Sports


As Mario's unlikely shadow career as the world's most versatile sportsman evolved with the glorious playable Mario Kart games, golf was perhaps the most likely candidate for further expansion. The rolling hills of the Mushroom Kingdom would be an ideal location to sink a few holes. Golf games already had an established formula to riff on -- Nintendo had already made a couple of stand-out entries -- and Mario's crazy cast of friends and enemies would probably look delightful in plaid slacks, polo shirts, and funny little hats.

Who knew it would turn out as well as this, however? Camelot's game has (exceedingly light) elements of an RPG as you explore the local clubhouse, learning the ropes, setting up matches, and making friends, but it's also a smart, calculated, gold sim for one or more players. It may be easy to play but Mario Golf is filled with variables that affect play, as well as charming, rich details, such as a suite of brilliantly structured courses; nice physics and ball effects; and a lovely, comprehensive leaderboard made for keeping track of your best shots and bragging about them to your friends. Visual and aural feedback is absolutely great too, as you might expect, and the whole thing basks in the warm glow of the Mario universe -- even though you spend a rather large part of the game unlocking a range of characters who aren't the famous plumber.

Some of Mario's later excursions into sports have seemed a little tired at times as the branding, special moves, and general gimmickry became increasingly desperate and shrill, but here, on the Game Boy Color, the whole thing meshes perfectly together, and Mario is as at home on the emerald greens with a putter and sand wedge as he is dressed as a raccoon soaring over a gaggle of Koopa Troopas.

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19 October, 2011

Dr. Mario

2:08:00 PM  D_Homes  5 comments


  • Release Date: 1990
  • Platform(s): SNES, NES, Satellaview, Game Boy
  • Developer: Nintendo
  • Genre: Puzzle
In Nintendo's rush to create a Tetris clone unencumbered by the legal disputes of the original, it seems nobody stopped to ask a few fundamental questions. For example, when did this world-saving plumber find the time to acquire a medical degree? Perhaps the reason no one raised such pressing issues is that they were too busy playing Dr. Mario.

Instead of the blank slate that beings most Tetris-like games, each level of Dr. Mario is contaminated with red, yellow, and blue viruses. Mario attacks them by way of double-sided capsules, each half coloured either red, yellow, or blue. Stack like colours atop or next to one another to eliminate them, match for or more in a row and they disappear.

One major difference between Dr. Mario's capsules and Tetris's tetrominoes is that the coins of Dr. Mario's realm are much more manuverable. The result is a greater focus on agility: if you want to succeed, you'd better master split-second reactions. For a Tetris knockoff, Dr. Mario is remarkably original. The game spawned a thriving branch of the falling puzzle genre, and without it there might have been no Lumines or Bejeweled.



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04 October, 2011

NBA Jam

2:53:00 PM  D_Homes  5 comments

Release Date: 1993
Platform(s): Arcade, SNES, SEGA Genesis, SEGA CD, Gameboy, SEGA Game Gear
Developer: Midway
Genre: Sports

The catchphrases are legendary: "He's on fire!" "Is it the shoes?" "From downtown!" You're apt to hear all these and more during a single game of NBA Jam, and if you need proof of the game's cultural currency, walk up to somebody, say any of these one statements, and see how the react. Most likely, they'll respond with the immortal, "Boom shakalaka!"

NBA Jam is the game of basketball as seen through a funhouse mirror. It uses real NBA teams and superstar players, such as Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing, although that's about where similarities to the real thing end. (One notable omission is Michael Jordan, whose likeness was too pricy for Midway to license.) Teams take each other on in games of two-on-two, which leads to fast paces, high-scoring games without a lot of passing or strategy.

The game's true inspiration is to exaggerate the sport's traits beyond the limits of credulity. When a player hits three buckets in a row, he's said to be on fire, and from that point until the other team scores, he won't miss a shot, and the ball will scorch the net. The centrepiece of the game is its monster dunks -- the player can jam it in with a variety of long-distance tomahawks, behind-the-back moves, and aerial somersaults that take them outside the frame, each one lustily narrated by a Marv Albert soundalike.

NBA Jam's sense of fun knows no bounds. Fourth quarter dunks have the effect of shattering the glass. A bevy of unlockable secret characters creates hilarious match-ups. Between the various arcade and home versions of the game, it's possible to play as actors, mascots, athletes from other sports, and even President Clinton. Slick Willie throwing down a baseline jam on Hakeem Olajuwon's head? Boom shakalaka!


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24 September, 2011

The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages

1:22:00 PM  D_Homes  4 comments


  • Release Date: 2001
  • Platform: Game Boy Colour
  • Developer: Capcom
  • Genre: Action / Adventure

The follow-up to the Game Boy's brilliant The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was always going to have its work cut out, even before you consider that, for the first time, third-party developers were handling the most delicate of Nintendo's children. And although Capcom can't compete with the master company's own designers, it does a pretty decent job of playing babysitter to greatness, with a couple of games that certainly cover very suitable territory and repeat all the right moves.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Oracle of Ages are a pair of complementary interconnected games. The two games, released simultaneously, interact via a Nintendo Game Link Cable, enabling the two titles to be played on two different Game Boys at the same time. Each game transports our hero Link to a different magical land, where a powerful oracle has been kidnapped. While the larger story can only be understood when both games are completed, each title can still be enjoyed as a standalone adventure in it's own right. And, helpfully Capcom has been taking notes, with adventures that unfold in a familiar progression of item-gathering, over-world exploration, and dungeon crawling. It's not a bad copy of the previous games, and the development team manages to throw in enough new magical twists and ideas to keep you chugging along on a series of journeys that only just fall short of what Zelda fans traditionally expect.

With visuals and controls almost identical to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the Oracle games never quite reach the heights of Nintendo's own work, though they still do a decent job. Heartfelt, varied and often clever, they serve as a reminder that the right property has the power to lift everyone associated with it.


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