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.

When I was a kid I had Nintendo Power.  While the magazine was mostly awesome (in both a helpful and an 80’s sort of way), it always had a list of all the games I didn’t have.  I dreamed of one day owning every single game.  You know, when I got older and was rich.  I was so excited when I learned about emulators.  Imagine my disappointment when I realized most NES games sucked hard.

There are 785 titles for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and that doesn’t include Famicom titles that didn’t make it over from Japan (I decided not to include Famicom titles).  And I think 781 of them are either shooters or platformers.  I don’t have anything against those two genres (in fact, many will make my list), but if the NES library came to life it would be attack of the clones.  I have not played every game.  However, I have played many of them, if not to completion, at least long enough to know they sucked.

A lot of sites will break down scores for graphics, sound, control, etc. when reviewing games.  Bah. The only score that matters is “How likely am I to want to play this?”  All of those subcategories affect my enjoyment, but I like different games for different reasons.  For example, there’s one game with atrocious sound and underwhelming graphics that is in my Top 20.

I hope you will join me in fondly remembering and discussing these classic games.  I hope there are some hidden gems you’ll discover.  I hope that there are some hidden gems that you all can educate me about.  I also hope there is at least one game Rhubarb has played, hated, and is high on this list.

Game #100 will be posted next Monday.  Starting tomorrow and throughout this week, I will post games I am confident would make my Top 100 if I bothered to play them.  But because they are long and I no longer have the patience to go through them, I didn’t feel right just randomly giving them a spot in the countdown.  Perhaps some of you have played them and can enlighten me further.  If by chance I do wind up playing a game and adding it to the list before it’s over, I’ll simply cram it between two games on the countdown where it would be.

Enjoy this list, and boot up your emulators, because now you’re playing with power!