Raiden Trad - SNES Review

Arcade port for the SNES. The game is alright, nothing special. It seems to run at a lower framerate than any other version that I have played. It is very choppy at times which is more of a frustration than anything.  It is a simple shoot em up with minimal power ups.  You have machine gun and lasers that you can switch back and forth from by getting red or blue power ups.  You also have straight missiles and homing missiles that fire automatically. Everything seems the same as the arcade except for the choppiness.  Overall, I give the game 6 out of 10.  There are much better ports of the game.  If you have the means, play this port on the Genesis or Turbo Grafx 16.

Einhander - PS1 Review

 

This is a shoot em up released in 1998 by Squaresoft.  A very colorful game with polygon sprites.  There is a difficulty select  of easy, normal, and difficult.  The game is pretty challenging on easy mode.  You can choose between 3 ships, each with different attributes (of course).  Weapons upgrades come from blowing up bigger ships that drop the weapons that are attached to them.  You can get cannons, missiles, vulcans, etc.  Gameplay is pretty good, although I got bored in about 15 minutes.  Music is pretty good and ranges from a weird opera at the beginning to rap at the end of the first stage.  One thing I don't like about the game is that is switches automatically from side scrolling to a weird angle view.  It likes to do this view switching for boss fights.  Overall the game is an above average shooter but I don't see myself going back to it for replay.  The game gets a 6 out of 10.

XS Airboat Racing - PS1 Review

Another Mario Kart clone.  Very basic game that doesn't require much skill at all.  I am assuming after playing through this, that it was designed for young kids.  There are 3 main tracks to race on with 6 other recycled tracks.  You pick up power ups like missiles and bombs just like Mario Kart.  The graphics in this game are complete garbage for a late PS1 release.  Music is cheesy, repetitive MIDI style steel drums and bass tracks.  The game play is OK.  I guess it is what is expected.  Overall, I give this game a 2 out of 10.  I really wouldn't waste my time on it.  

Castlevania Legends - Game Boy Review

 

Yet another Castlevania game.  This one is not too bad.  Released in 1997 for the Gameboy with Super Gameboy enhancement.  You play the role of a female protagonist, with the main story being that she wants to bring peace to Transylvania.  I believe there are 5 stages, but there might be 6.  I only played through the first 2 stages.  The game plays like any other 2D Castlevania with a few quirks.  There are 2 power ups for your whip. The first increases the length, and the second will shoot a fireball.  The fireball from your whip will go through walls, which is very nice.  You can find items in the levels but it doesn't appear that you can use them.  I got an ax on the first stage but could not figure out how to use it.  The graphics for this game are pretty good for the Gameboy and the music is really good.  Game play is OK.  Honestly, it gets kind of repetitive after awhile, and the enemies re spawn if you go off the screen and come back.  Overall, I give this game a 6 out of 10.  It a bit above average, but nothing great about it.

The Guardian Legend - NES Review

 

Do you like Zelda style adventure games?  Do you like shoot em ups?  How about both combined into one?!  The Guardian Legend combines both genres into a masterpiece of an 8 bit era game.  This has remained one of my favorite NES games since I was a child.  I have replayed though the game at least 20 times.  I just got through with another play through that took about 4 hours.  You control a spaceship when you first start the game.  After you beat the first shoot 'em up stage, your ship transforms into a person.  Once transformed, you can walk around and explore the surface of the "star" you are on called Naju.  The premise of the game is to find the self destruct mechanism and blow up the "star." You will run into mini bosses along the way that will drop power ups and special weapons when they are defeated. There are tons of bosses in this game! There are shops that you can buy weapons / power ups at.  The game also has a feature whereas when your score increases, you power up the width of your normal shot.  There are a lot of special weapons and you will find yourself only using about 1/3 of them ever.  Be careful using power ups however because they consume "Chips" and your normal shot will decrease in width. The graphics are pretty decent for the time on the NES.  The sound and music are above average with some catchy music along the way.  The game play is outstanding, especially if you like shoot 'em ups, and top down adventure games with RPG elements.  Replay-ability with this game is high up on the scale.  If you don't want to do the adventure part of the game and just want the shoot 'em up levels, enter TGL for the password.  Overall, I give this game a perfect 10 out of 10.  This game for sure is one of my favorite games of all time and has stood the test of time.  The only thing that I could think of that is a negative thing is that there is no battery in the cart for saving the game.  It unfortunately uses a password system that really sucks (I hate all password systems though to be fair).  I highly recommend that you pick this game up and play it now! 

Flipper Slipper - ColecoVision Review

 

This game is advertised as a pinball game.  It is more of a breakout style game really.  There are two "flippers" that you can move left and right.  The "flippers" are also tilt-able to the left and right.  The goal of the game is to get the highest score possible.  You can hit the forest area at the top and cut down the trees.  You can hit the ten links of chain fence in the top center of the screen to break away the fence and let the dog escape for bonus score.  When you hit 10000 points, the floating beach house in the center turns into a bumper increasing the difficulty.  Graphics and sound are on par with the ColecoVision in 1983.  Game play is ok, I guess.  The game gets repetitive and boring pretty fast.  It is plagued with the problem that most early brick breaker games had; you are left with one or two things to break but the ball never reaches them.  Overall, I give this game a 4 out of 10.  Not a horrible game, but there are far better games on the ColecoVision.

Urban Champion - NES Review

 

This is an original launch title, one of the 30 "black box" games that were released at the NES launch.  There is not much to the game.  You work from left to right, street fighting your opponent.  The B button is your "hard" punch, and the A button is your jab.  You can punch in the stomach or the head.  You also have a stamina meter and a time meter.  When the time meter runs out, if nobody has won, the game is over.  When the stamina meter runs out, you no longer have your "hard" punch at your disposal.  You also have to watch out for people dropping flower pots from the buildings' second floor windows.  If you get hit with a flower pot, you will be stunned for a few seconds.  The graphics and sound are mediocre as with most early NES games.  The game play is not very good, no real strategy involved, just button mashing really.  This is not a game I would play regularly.  Overall, I give it a 4 out of 10.  It is not really worth the time to play.