Genre: Point-N-Click

Developer: ICOM
Publisher: Kemco/Seika
Year: 1990

Basic Idea:  You wake up with fiction’s most beloved plot device (see: amnesia) and try to catch the real murderer.

Review: ICOM had three of their games in this vein reach the NES.  Point-N-Click is a difficult endeavor on a console, as the control pad isn’t near as fast as the mouse (not to mention most console gamers want something a bit faster).  With that said, the story and atmosphere must be amazing to make up for it.  Uninvited was brutal.  Walking dead situations.  Insanely illogical puzzles.  Laughable haunted house plot.  Déjà Vu makes the cut.

Of the three games, this is the only one that has a plot that develops as the game progresses.  It’s pretty much your typical ham-fisted film noir dialogue and situations, but it’s improved by a pretty decent sense of tension throughout.  The puzzles seem fairly logical as well.  However, there’s a bit too much randomness in the game to keep me from being annoyed.  There are thugs who randomly steal your money, and if they do, you’re pretty much in a walking dead situation (but at least an obvious one–hope you saved!).  Also, the sound and graphics are probably the worst in this series of games.

It’s probably not worth much of a play these days, even if you loved Shadowgate or other adventures.  But if you do, there’s plenty of well-executed sections that should keep you entertained.

Genre: Puzzle

Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Year: 1987

Basic Idea:  Build blocks.  Get keys!

Review: A game similar in spirit to Lode Runner, you must collect keys (instead of gold) on each level to get through the exit.  And instead of digging holes, you can build and tear down blocks to misdirect enemies or create your own staircases to get to hard to reach places.  The level designs can be tricky (perhaps too early even, before the player has a good grasp on things) but are generally satisfying to complete.  The controls could be a little tighter, and I always hate time limits, but these are mild frustrations.  Solid, but not great, puzzler.

Genre: Baseball

Developer: Tose
Publisher: Jaleco
Year: 1988

Basic Idea:  After trying not to drop fly balls, bean the opponent’s best hitter to start a brawl.

Review: This baseball game has some serious flaws, but it’s loads better than the other three games in the series.  I am pretty sure the main reason I can tolerate all the flaws is because I owned it and played it a lot, adjusting to them.

What really set Bases Loaded apart from all the other baseball games out at the time is that the strike zone, for the first time in video game history, had depth.  You pitched from the perspective of the pitcher, and could try pinpoint placement of your pitches.  Not only that, your batter couldn’t just swing;  he he had to aim his bat as well.  The game  has other advantages over its contemporaries.  There were clearly spoken umpire calls for “Play Ball!” as well as “safe/out” and “ball/strike.”  Landing a curveball on the outside corner and hearing the umpire yell, “Strike three.  You’re out!” back in 1988 was pretty sweet.  The music, while repetitive, was pretty darn catchy.  When you hit a home run, your pitcher would hang his head in shame while the batter would do a little showboating.  And as already mentioned, if your best batter is beaned, there’s a chance he’ll charge the mound and kick the living daylights out of the pitcher.

This game would easily be top 50 if it weren’t for some seriously difficult running and fielding controls.  Unlike most baseball games, you advance bases by holding the base you’re coming from rather than the one you’re going to, which is really counter-intuitive.  Controlling your defense is insanely difficult as well.  Defenders run slowly, especially when going diagonally.  Moreover, tracking fly balls is nigh impossible, as the camera waits until the last second to catch up with your outfielders.  The defenders are already going towards the ball, but making last second adjustments is difficult.  The final dagger is that while the defenders are slow, they’re throwing arms are insanely good, as tagging up from third is likely to result in an out even if the center-fielder catches the ball at the warning track.

While the game didn’t have an MLB or MLBPA license, it was still easy to fall in love with the players, as they all had unique names and unique batting stances.  Some even had unique showboating on home runs.  My favorite team was always Hawaii, with Debro anchoring the lineup.  I never played through a whole season, mostly due to the significant lengths of a single game, but I did enjoy it quite a bit as a kid.  Unfortunately, due to the above flaws, I don’t see myself enjoying it much anymore.

But I’ll never forget the umpires, Yuk, Dum, Boo, and Bum.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Now Production
Publisher: Hudson Soft
Year: 1991

Basic Idea:  Use skateboards, dinosaurs, and tomahawks to save your girl.

Review: I was never a huge fan of this series.  The first game has pretty counter-intuitive controls and level design required memorization of pits and enemies to be successful.  And, to be blunt, the series is just not that interesting.  There are few secrets, crisp but unmemorable graphics, and just not a whole lot going on.  But the second game improves vastly upon the first, from the graphics to the level design to the addition of several dinosaurs you can control to your benefit, all with different abilities. And unlike Little Nemo: The Dream Master, the use of your monsters is intuitive.

Levels are perhaps a bit too short for my taste, but there is a nice variety.  While the game doesn’t excite me, it is well made and worth a look.

Genre: Basketball

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Year: 1987

Basic Idea:  Try to beat your opponent while missing 40% of your dunks.

Review: The digitized voice as the game loads reminds you that you are playing Dubba Dribu, but it was pretty sweet back in 1987.  One of the game’s main draws is the totally radical close up shots of slam dunks.  Unfortunately, many of those dunks result in a loud clang as the ball goes flying.  It gets to the point where it’s almost better to take shots farther out.

Nearly every basketball game for the NES is worse than the basketball game for the Atari 2600.  Double Dribble is pretty simple, but the controls are very fluid and the action is fast paced. My main quibble is that it’s too easy to steal; thus, scoring requires a Norman Dale four-pass offense.  There are four different teams, all with slightly different strengths, though it’s mostly negligible.  Playing against the computer is either too easy or too hard depending on the level, but playing against a friend could still be fun.

Genre: Arcade

Developer: Data East
Publisher: Vic Tokai
Year: 1988

Basic Idea:  Bump and jump, just like it says!  More specifically, bump cars and jump on cars (and over bridges).

Review: While you control a car, this can’t really be considered a driving game.  The game could have been made with frogs or staplers and it would have made no difference at all.  What this Intellivision port does offer is a fun diversion.  You “race” to the end of each level, trying not to get bumped into buildings while also trying to destroy other cars for points.  The whole idea is to stay alive until you reach the end of the level, so you can face more aggressive cars on thinner highways while making more difficult jumps.

Despite how simple and pointless this game is, I still find myself playing it once or twice every few years.

If that doesn’t convince you to play it, perhaps the plot of the game will.

Your girlfriend was kidnapped by an evil maniac with the SuperCar at his disposal. 
However, you have a SuperCar of your own, and you race to get your girlfriend 
before it is too late.

Genre: Shooter

Developer: Rare
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Year: 1990

Basic Idea:  Destroy aliens in your plane from both top-down and first-person perspectives, while occasionally dropping supplies and saving scientists.

Review: Even back in the NES days, Rare usually pushed boundaries with whatever genre it was tackling.  This time, they spruce up the standard plane shooter by making the environment three dimensional.  Because of this, your altitude matters in the top-down perspective.  Maneuvering the plane in and around valleys is quite trippy.  Also, this game has one of the better first-person plane environments (interludes between levels mostly to gain points) for the NES as well.  Control is fluid and responsive.

However, it’s not the best top-down shooter for the NES for a few reasons.  First, the difficulty is not as gradual as I would have liked.  While I can get past the first stage without dying, it still requires intense focus to do so.  While it’s not too difficult determining your plane’s altitude, determining the altitude of your enemies is nearly impossible.  Second, between each stage you must dock at the space station where you can upgrade your weapons.  While this is fairly simple, you can lose lives by making a tiny mistake in this pointless part of the game.  To make matters worse, half of the weapon upgrades are mostly useless as well.

That said, it’s worth playing at least once.  Even better, use a game genie and give yourself infinite lives to experience the game in its entirety without the frustration.

Genre: Puzzle

Developer: Brøderbund
Publisher: Brøderbund
Year: 1987

Basic Idea:  Dig holes to trap bad robots, while collecting gold and escaping to the next level.  Repeat 149 more times.

Review: It’s a wonder I never played this game in DOS or on an Apple II when I was a kid.  If I had, you can bet I would have spent a ton of time with it.  While not as complex as I would like from my puzzle games, Lode Runner is pretty easy to learn and level design is unique enough to warrant continued playing.   Play control is slightly rigid, which is not fun when robots are hurtling at you, but after some time it’s easy to adjust to.  And while I didn’t use it, it was one of the first games in history to have a level editor.

Genre: Light-Gun

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Year: 1985

Basic Idea:  Shoot bad guys.  Don’t shoot good guys.  Or, for something completely different, shoot cans.

Review: First, let’s get this out of the way: Duck Hunt sucks.  It’s not as bad as Wii Play, but very few people play that game if it weren’t packaged with Super Mario Bros.  Also, I hear Gumshoe is pretty decent, but I wasn’t about to buy it to test it out (yeah, I still have my light gun).  If anyone has any other light gun recommendations, have at it in the comments.

Now, on to today’s game.  Loved playing this in the arcade.  It’s simplistic, with 1985 bleepity-bloop music, but way more fun than shooting ducks.  The can game is where it’s at, though.  If I recall, my dad could kick our ass at it, shooting cans forever and then dropping them on the ledges for bonus points.

Genre: Baseball

Developer: Tengen
Publisher: Tengen
Year: 1991

Basic Idea:  Standard baseball game, with all the teams from the 1990 season plus every playoff team from 1983 to 1989.

Review: The second and third games of this series are virtually identical, with the exception that the third game added said playoff teams to the mix, allowing the player to match-up various good teams from the decade.  The third game makes the list because of this nice addition.  Like all the RBI games, the controls are pretty easy to master and there’s virtually no frustration with the gameplay.  The ability to jump and dive were added as well.  However, the game has retained its arcade type scoring without the arcade feel.  It was if the series decided to get serious, but kept the computer AI dumb and the home runs ridiculously easy.  At least you get distance markers for your home runs.  I remember our family kept track for a while who had hit the longest one.  At one point I held the record with Howard Johnson.

Playing one-player is pretty monotonous, but it can still be fun with two players.  However, there are better bangs for your buck as far as two-player NES baseball games go.