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.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Sunsoft
Publisher: Sunsoft
Year: 1990

Basic Idea:  Somewhat based on the Keaton/Nicholson movie, you go around Gotham killing baddies armed with several types of weapons and a wall-jump.

Review: I’ve known several people who insist this game is awesome, so I’ve given it a shot several times.  The graphics are top-notch and the music ain’t bad either.  The weapon choices rock as well.  But when on the first level of the game I continually fall into pits and crash right into enemies, I have a hard time mustering the strength to keep going.  It also ain’t just because the level design is difficult.  Batman’s jumping ability (and its responsiveness on the controller) leaves a bit to be desired.  The one thing I can say is that the game gives you unlimited continues, so if you’re good enough to get through a stage on three lives, at least you never have to start from the beginning.

Why is the game ranked #99 despite the tepid review?  Well, it does have some positives going for it.  Mainly, though, I had a hard time filling out my top 100.  I played many, many, many games trying to fill it out, and many of them couldn’t make the cut either.  So I thought I’d give the final two spots to two classic games that I don’t personally love but I can see why others do.  The remaining 98 games are all ones I do get enjoyment out of playing.

Genre: Arcade

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Year: 1988

Basic Idea:  You defeat enemies by blowing bubbles and capturing them inside said bubbles.  Then you stomp on them, collect some power-ups, and do it about another 100 times.

Review: I admit I have never played this game with two people, which I hear is where most of the fun lies.  As a 1-player game, it’s a little repetitive.  Not nearly as much as Pac-Man, but it’s still a bit simplistic for my tastes.  The graphics are distinct but drab, and the repetitive music doesn’t hold me either.  That said, it is easy to learn, with responsive controls and an appropriate difficulty curve.  I’ll take it for granted (especially since this game often hits top ten lists) that the game is pretty awesome with two people.