Genre: Isometric

Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
Year: 1990

Basic Idea: Eat uh…balls until your snake is long enough and heavy enough to ring the bell on the high striker.  Or, alternatively, die a lot.

Review: As usual with games by Rare, the presentation is stunning.  The isometric graphics are a treat to look at even today.  The music is catchy.  Enemies are entertaining, ranging from giant feet to giant teeth.  And the color scheme is gorgeous.  Also, as usual with games by Rare, the gameplay is quite maddening.  Not only are the graphics isometric, but the controls are as well (i.e. the four cardinal directions always move you diagonally).  The controls are also slippery, making falling off ledges as easy as falling off logs.

I imagine if I had owned this game as a kid, I would have played the hell out of it and gotten used to the controls.  What would have frustrated me, even then, was the fact each level has a time limit.  Seriously?  This game is hard enough as it is.  The time limit just takes the game from difficult to cruel.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Year: 1990

Basic Idea: Throw apples–or better yet, your partner–around on your way to defeat Fat Cat.

Review: If Capcom knew how to do one thing, it was platformers.  They also knew how to handle a license.  This is a very simple game, with minutely-detailed but sharp graphics.  It’s also quite easy for experienced gamers (but not so easy to be insulting).  A lot of the fun comes in the co-op mode.  After getting used to knowing where your partner is, you can team up in some hilarious ways, including throwing each other around.  And, if you get tired of helping each other out, you can purposely kill each other in order to nab the best items.

The game could have been longer, but it did make for a perfect rental back in the day.

Genre: Platformer

Developer:  Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Year: 1990

Basic Idea: After not finishing off Dr. Wily when he had the chance, Mega Man now puts his puppy in harm’s way.

Review:  A solid platformer but there are many more I would rather play.  This game adds one pretty cool thing to the series and that is the ability to slide.  Your dog Rush is pretty much a replacement for the special items in Mega Man II, and I prefer the previous system a bit better.  Also, there is a lot of RAM slow-down issues, which pretty much negates improvement in other areas.  Still, there are some awesome enemies and bosses along with some imaginative graphics.  Worthy of play if you like the series in general.

Genre: Hockey

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Year: 1988

Basic Idea: Make a pass!  Make a pass!  Make a pass!

Review:  The best hockey game for the system was amazing at the time, but there’s little reason to play it today.  The graphics are sound are pretty great, the play control is slick, and who doesn’t love the fact that you can do close-up fighting and only the loser goes to the penalty box?  But fights are too easy to pick and there’s a bright arrow that serves as your “aim” when you shoot, so the opposing goalie has little doubt where your shot is going.  The computer is insultingly easy as usual, and head-to-head games are broken up by too many fights to keep any rhythm.  Perhaps the game’s worst sin is the game announcer yelling “with the pass!” every single time you make a pass.

The best available hockey game when it came out, but it definitely shows its age.  If you’re going old-school, you may as well play one of the EA Sports hockey games on the SNES or Genesis.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Year: 1990

Basic Idea: Beat that pesky Red Falcon again in this sequel to Contra.

Review:  This game is universally lauded, and indeed, there is nothing really wrong with it.  It’s a worthy sequel to the incredibly famous Contra, but I don’t think I’ve ever played this and didn’t think I’d rather be playing the original.  Nearly everything is identical, but the graphics and play control feel slightly less crisp to me.  Also, it’s much more difficult, making 2-player mode less fun as there’s a good chance you won’t make it through, even with the (now) 10 man life code.

Still, you can’t ignore this game if you at all like the Contra empire.  However, you can safely avoid Contra Force, the third game for the NES (released after Contra III for the SNES).  That one was a brutal effort by Konami to cash in and it fails on most levels.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Absolute Entertainment
Publisher: Absolute Entertainment
Year: 1989

Basic Idea: Give your pet blob jelly-beans and make him your bitch.

Review:  An amazingly creative game that would easily be Top 20 if it had a ton of polish.  There’s some plot about the King of Blob World doing bad things and you have to help your pet get there and destroy him, blah blah.  The game is essentially one enormous puzzle, searching out the jelly-bean that will turn your blob into a rocket(!) and send you to his planet.  To find that mysterious jelly bean, you must traverse an enormous cave with the help of your blob and 12 different kinds of jelly beans at your disposal.  Each bean can turn him into something different.  A trampoline, an umbrella, a jack, and a blowtorch are just a few of the things you can transform your pet into to help you.  Determining what to use and when can be great fun.

Unfortunately, the game struggles in a few areas.  You can put yourself in walking dead situations without realizing it.  For example, one problem may be solved with more than one jelly-bean, but by using up a particular bean, you cannot progress in another area.  Hit and fall detection is not perfect either.  You can’t save the game, so note-taking is necessary.  It’s not a terribly long game if you know what to do, but knowing what to do can take a long time to figure out.  Finally, the end-game is pretty banal compared to the rest.

Still, it’s great to have a game that was not derivative of anything ever done in a video game.

Genre: Puzzle

Developer: Irem
Publisher: Irem
Year: 1990

Basic Idea: Kick ice cubes!

Review:  Similar in style to Adventures of Lolo (but not as complex or interesting), a solid puzzle game with enough variety to keep things interesting.  Your job is to access magic pouches by kicking around ice cubes, and you can use your freezing breath to turn enemies into your own weapons.  The game doesn’t get quite difficult enough to be satisfying, but there’s nothing terribly obnoxious about it either (except maybe the music).  However, it’s brain surgery compared to Angry Birds.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Tamtex
Publisher: Irem
Year: 1991

Basic Idea:  Flip gravity

Review: The selling point of this platformer was that at any point you can decide to reverse gravity and walk along the ceiling.  This allows the game to have several intricate puzzles that require simultaneous strategy and quickness.  The boss battles are interesting.  It gets a bit mazey at times, but I enjoyed the challenge.  Unfortunately, the game gets it a bit too hard as it goes along, but at least there’s many continues and a password system.

The game is a little hard on the eyes; it’s colorful, but the colors often clash.  The music is also a bit too techy for my tastes.  The game is worth at least one play, though your mileage may vary.

Genre: Gambling

Developer: HAL
Publisher: HAL
Year: 1988

Basic Idea:  Play keno, roulette, slots, blackjack to try and become a multi-millionaire.

Review: Gambling games are a tough bet to begin with, as it’s hard to get much thrill out of playing with fake money.  Vegas Dream sidesteps this common problem a bit by adding a threadbare plot and interactive cut scenes throughout the game.  About every five to fifteen hands/rounds of whatever game you’re playing, some random person will come up to you and ask for money/a date/gambling partner/your help and it’s up to you to decide if you want to or not.  Often times, you’re getting conned and lose some money out of the deal.  But there’s plenty of lucky strikes as well where you can make extra money.  You might even have a shotgun wedding!  Playing with a friend can be fun if you enjoy a friendly competition for fake money or fake wives.  26

This game could have been improved significantly by adding a wider variety of games and interactive scenarios (especially ones that relied on more than random chance).  However, it’s still my favorite gambling game, with the possible exception of Poker Night at the Inventory by Telltale.  The sequel for the SNES, Vegas Stakes, does add craps and stud-poker (and more casinos), but some of the charm was lost.