Genre: Pinball/RPG

Developer: Jaleco
Publisher: Jaleco
Year: 1990

Basic Idea: Earn gold to buy better stoppers and flippers, advance through levels, defeat bosses, and save the princess!

Review: While there are three regular pinball games on this cartridge, pinball is insanely dull on game consoles.  The highlight here is the RPG where you must save the princess.  Each level is unique, as you may find yourself fighting turtles, zombies, and other minions in the pinball lair.  Not only can you buy upgrades, you can also steal from the shopkeeper (at a price!).  It can be a bit frustrating when your ball drops a level, requiring you to start over, but it’s never unfair and it gives the game some challenge.  As it stands, the RPG portion can be won in about twenty minutes to an hour.  But I still come back and play it every couple years or so, which is why it ranks so high.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Year: 1985

Basic Idea: Defeat Bowser and find the princess in another castle if you can manage to pluck yourself away the minus worlds.

Review: The game that put Nintendo on the map, this is one of the most distinct launch titles ever behind Tetris (Gameboy) and Wii Sports.  I remember this being the first NES game I played as well, and I promptly got killed by the first goomba.  At first I felt the game was too hard, but I quickly got over it and soon enough mastered the game, including accessing said minus worlds and getting crazy amounts of extra lives jumping on koopas.

I’ll still play it on occasion, but it only holds my attention for so long.  I dislike the fact that getting hit as Fire Mario turns you into small Mario.  I dislike the swimming levels.  And I dislike how samey Bowser is in each castle.  It is fun to kill him with fireballs and see what enemy he turns into.

Anyway, a solid game that hasn’t aged terribly well but made so cleanly that it can still be picked up and played today.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Year: 1991

Basic Idea: Find a secret agent on each maze-like level while disposing of baddies with your boomerang.

Review: What this game lacks in presentation it makes up for in perfect play-control.  Moving, jumping, hit-detection, and attacking are all flawless.  You can throw the boomerang in all the cardinal directions at any time.  And the power-ups are amazing.  The most powerful boomerang can go through walls!

The game also requires exploration and some occasional backtracking, but nothing ridiculous.  The bosses are quite easy.  Overall, the game is easier than Mega Man but more difficult than Super Mario Bros.  While the game isn’t extraordinarily memorable, it is fun and accessible to most.

Genre: Platformer

Developer: Compile
Publisher: Brøderbund
Year: 1989

Basic Idea: Destroy a space station on a collision course with Earth, transforming between a jet and a human as the need arises.

Review: For those who haven’t played this game and want a better idea of what you’d be getting into, think of combining Zanac and Startropics into the same game.  In some levels you are a jet, frenetically maneuvering through your typical space shooter areas.  Most of the time, however, you will exploring the space station, going from room to room collecting power-ups, solving local puzzles, and destroying the occasional boss.

The game is similar in spirit to Blaster Master, but easier to navigate and with the ability to save your progress.  Granted, it’s just an annoying password system, but it’s better than nothing at all.

Genre: Racing

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Year: 1985

Basic Idea: Pop wheelies and destroy the lives of as many other bikers as possible.

Review: The second best launch-title for the NES has somewhat of a cult following.  The game is pretty awesome, but has become a bit overrated as time has gone by.

The game consists of five stages where you are racing against the clock.  Other bikers will race along side you, but they are just there to try to trip you up.  The level designs are fairly creative and require you to time jumps, hit speed strips, pop wheelies over bumps to avoid crashing, and tap the brakes on occasion to keep from overheating.  The play control is perfect, and it’s pretty much a flawless game, impressive for 1985 and still playable today.  It’s even got a level-design mode, which is user-friendly, but unfortunately not savable after you shut the game off.

Thing is the game is just so limited.  The 2-player mode is just alternating play. And since the game doesn’t save anything, the only way to compete with yourself over the long-haul is to keep a notebook of your best times.  It’s great for a quick play just about anytime, but there’s not enough here for me to throw it into the top fifty.

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.