Wario Ware Inc. Mega Microgame$! Gameboy Advance Review

This game came out in 2003 for the Gameboy Advance.  It is a collection of 5 second mini games.  There are 100's of mini games in this game.  You play through a quest type mode where you visit different people and go through their mini games.  There is a boss fight at the end of each level.  The game is totally randomized the way the mini games come up and it gets faster as you progress.  There are lots of other mini games to unlock and lots of hidden secrets.  This is a very strange game overall but it is awesome.  It is always fun to pick up and play anytime.  The game play is awesome, the graphics are awesome, and the sound and music is awesome.  This is definitely one of my favorites.  I don't give many games a perfect 10 but this one deserves it as it is awesome in every way.  I highly recommend it!

Mario Bros. NES Review

This game is an arcade port for the NES.  It is the best home console port I have ever seen.  The game plays identical to the arcade version as far as I can see.  I was never a fan of this game but it is pretty decent.  It is way more fun if you play with another person because it offers simultaneous play.  There is not to much to say about this game.  You run and hit turtles and crabs from below to knock them out and then jump up and kill them.  You collect coins and avoid fireballs.  Once you kill a set number of enemies, you clear the stage and move on to the next.   Every 3 stages there is a bonus stage where you collect coins for score bonus in a set amount of time.  Overall I give the game a 6 out of 10 stars.

Judge Dredd SNES Review

Adventure platformer for the SNES.  This is based off of a Sylvester Stallone movie of the same name which I have never seen.  I am not a big fan of hunt and search platformers which this game is.  It is an average game with decent graphics, music, and sound.  You walk around a level and search for objectives to fulfill a primary and a secondary quest.  You shoot a gun with unlimited ammo and you can also kick and punch.  You can arrest perps just like the game Narc and there are weapons power ups scattered throughout the level.  Playing this game gave me motion sickness.  I think it is due to all the up and down scrolling.  There is a password feature in the game so you can continue.  Overall I give the game 5 out of 10 stars.  Nothing really special about it, just an average game.   

1943: The Battle of Midway NES Review

Shoot em up arcade port for the NES.  Awesome game.  I have many fond memories of this when I was a kid.  One of the best shoot em ups on the NES and easily one of the top 10 8-bit shoot em ups of all time.  You start out with 3 skill points that you can assign to various things like offensive power, defensive power, special weapon, etc.  This is one of those "you VS everyone else" type games.  You fight through a stage in the air and then a second part of the stage where you fly down to the sea and go against planes and ships on the sea.  There are different size planes that do different things as well as the ships.  At the end of each stage you fight a huge boss.  There are many hidden power ups that you can find in the game.  The game play is awesome, the graphics are awesome, and the music is awesome.  Top notch shooter on the NES!  I give this one a perfect 10.  There is nothing wrong with this game, it is perfect in every way.  If you own this game you will find yourself replaying it all the time.  I highly recommend it.  

Transbot Master System Review

I have seen a lot of reviews of this game with people praising it and saying that it is the best shoot em of the 8 bit era.  I have to disagree.  While it is not a bad game, it is not a great game either.  It is one of the limited card games on the Master System.  I believe they released either 10 or 12 card games.  This game is a side scrolling shoot em up.  I am very critical of shoot em ups because they are one of my favorite types of games.  I do however give every game I play an equal chance.  This game is repetitive and very easy to get bored of.  You can acquire 6 different power ups that are lettered A-F.  When you get the power up question mark orb it starts cycling through the letters.  You have to press the button to stop on a letter and activate a power up.  The power ups have a gauge and will run out.  After progressing through the stage for a bit you have to get a certain power up and destroy a certain type of enemy to open up a portal to the underground stage.  At the end of the underground stage you fight a boss.  After you destroy the boss, you start back at the beginning again going through the entire process again.  The game has really good graphics and music for the Master System.  Game play is ok and replay value is ok.  Overall I give the game a 5 out of 10 stars.  Nothing really great here but not horrible either.

Air Diver Genesis Review

Here is an Afterburner clone for the Sega Genesis.  In my opinion this game sucks.  I am not a big fan of fighter jet sims anyway.  This game has hardly any control.  It is difficult to control and it is very repetitive.  You do have a stage select but every stage looks identical to me.  There are some options like increasing the difficulty and starting with a higher or lower amount of players but this game really falls short.  The graphics are very bad for the Genesis.  The sound effects are not that good either.  Overall I give this game 3 out of 10 stars.  Not fun at all and super repetitive.

Fast Food Atari 2600 Review

This is a different kind of game.  You control a mouth and you have to eat junk food that scrolls from left to right.  You eat hot dogs, burgers, pizza, shakes, fries and so on.  You want to avoid the purple pickles though, I want to say that they are rotten pickles or eggplants.  If you eat enough fast food, you advance to the next level.  You can move anywhere on the screen.  The fire button is not used at all.  Every level gets faster and faster and if you eat 6 purple pickles, the game is over.  The game play in this game is pretty decent for Atari 2600 and the replay value is pretty good.  I find myself popping the game in from time to time and playing for about 10 minutes.  Overall I give this game a 5 out of 10 stars. 

Dragster Atari 2600 Review

While I am sure this game was cool in 1984 when it came out (I don't think so), it really sucks.  See the screen shot?  Thats the game, thats it.  No starting line, no finish line.  It is hard to believe that David Crane of Pitfall! fame wrote this shovelware.  One of the worst Activision games ever made.   Your goal is to get the best time possible as you shift through 4 gears while avoiding blowing your engine.  The concept of the game is unique, I will give it that, but the game play and fun factor are horrible.  Every time I play this game it is a chore.  Overall, I give it a 1 out of 10 stars.  It did not get a 0 because the concept is cool and you can play 2 players against each other. , but the game overall blows.

Rally Bike NES Review

This game is horrible and repetitive.  It has really bad graphics and is super slow.  When you crash or touch something, you are sent back to the beginning of the level.  you could be 1 second from finishing the level and touch the side and crash and be sent back to the start.  It is very frustrating.  The music and sound in this game is also very poor.  The game reminds me of something that would be on like a 32 in 1 plug in play controller.  Overall I give the game a 2 out of 10 stars.  It is barely playable.  It would suck to get this game as a gift back in the day, or actually buy it thinking it is a good game.  Ughhhh! 

Phantasy Star Collection Game Boy Advance Review

This game is a collection of 3 classic RPG's by Sega.  The collection was released in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance.  I am not going to review each game in the collection individually.  I will review the collection as a whole.  I am a big fan of the Phantasy Star series so I was happy when this came out.  This collection has Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System, Phantasy Star 2 for the Sega Genesis, and Phantasy Star 3 for the Sega Genesis.  The only one missing for the 8 bit / 16 bit systems is Phantasy Star 4.  If you have never played any of these games, I highly recommend them.  This collection contains the roms of these three games and they play and sound identical to the single versions.  There is a battery back up so you can save your progress just like the originals.  I give this a 9 out of 10 overall.  It would have gotten a perfect 10 if it contained part 4. 

No Escape! Atari 2600 Review

This game is an OK game.  Like I have said before, it is hard to find good Atari 2600 games.  You are a guy who can run back and forth and shoot a (kinda steerable) shot into the ceiling knocking bricks down.  The bricks fall and hopefully hit your enemies who move back and forth and get increasingly harder when you clear a stage.  If you hit the enemies instead of the ceiling, it will spawn another enemy.  You have a power gauge at the bottom of the screen and if you get hit by enemies shots of falling bricks, you lose power.  When you run out of power, the game is over.  After you shoot all the enemies on a level, you get points for how many bricks are left.  The game play is pretty smooth for a 2600 game and the graphics and sound are on par with other 2600 games.  It is a decent game to pick up every now and then and play.  I do have it on my 2600 regularly played shelf.  Overall I give it a 6 out of 10 stars.  I probably would have given it a 7 if there were more to it than just the shooting stage.  Maybe there is more to it and I have never made it far enough?  I am not sure  

Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings SNES Review

This is a platformer for the SNES released in 1992.  I am not a fan of platformer games and this game is probably the reason why.  Its sucks bad.  It is plain horrible.  I didn't fine anything about this game that was good.  The game literally gave me motion sickness and made me nauseous.  The SNES controller has 8 buttons not counting the D-pad and most games utilize at least 4.  This game uses 2 buttons, 1 for jump and 1 for faster jump.  I don't really have anything else to say about this game except that it is pure crap.  I give it a 1 out of 10 stars.  It would have gotten a worse rating but the graphics are pretty decent for an early release SNES game.

G-LOC Air Battle Game Gear Review

Another fighter jet sim.  This one for the Sega handheld portable Game Gear.  Not too bad of a game.  You can select beginner, normal, or hard mode.  You can select between 9 stages when you start.  The game plays well for an 8 bit fighter flight sim.  The unique thing about this game is that after you clear a stage, you have the ability to upgrade your airplanes weapons and armor.  The game is quite challenging.  I found it pretty difficult on the easy level.  Overall I give the game a 5 out of 10 stars.  Nothing really special about it but it is a fun game to pop in from time to time.

Air Raiders Atari 2600 Review

This game came out in 1982 for the Atari 2600.  For its time, this was a pretty cool game.  It is a dogfight simulation game.  You start out on a runway and you take off.  Once you are in the air you can climb in altitude with you max being 40.  You have cross hairs in the middle of the screen and your goal is to shoot down enemy jets.  You have 99 ammo and when you run low on ammo or fuel (the gauge right below the numbers) you can go close to the ground to land.  You can land 3 times during the game to refill you fuel and ammo.  The only catch is that it does not refill them all the way, only a small percentage.  You also have to be careful of the enemy firing on you.  The gauge on the bottom is like a radar with the red area in the middle being the "flak zone" where you will get fired upon.  When you get shot a few times, it makes you fuel go down.  If you get shot a bunch of times you will go down 10 in altitude.  If you crash into the ground it is game over.  Overall I give this game a 6 out of 10 stars.  The game play is not horrible but not great.  Graphics and sound are ok for Atari 2600.  It is a challenging game but not one you would play on a regular basis.

Radical Psycho Machine (RPM) Racing SNES Review

A feeble attempt to clone RC Pro-Am on the SNES.  I believe this was an early release game for the system.  I try to give every game I review a chance but this one is just painful to play.  It is mediocre at best.  What you see is basically what you get.  You race different tracks and try and win money to upgrade your car / truck.  The only issue with the game is the fact that the difficultly is so high that it makes the game frustrating and not even remotely fun.  The game is sluggish and very hard to control.  You also have a damage gauge and it is only half full when you start a race.  If you just slightly touch another car (which is almost impossible not to do) you lose a good portion off the damage gauge.  If you touch a wall, you also lose damage points.  When the gauge goes all the way down, you blow up and it takes like 5 seconds to re spawn.  Another thing is that I didn't find a button that would let you reverse and that becomes a problem.  You get to certain points where another car will hit you and make you stop, then you have to go up a hill or ramp and you can't because there is not enough speed.  What ends up happening is that you have to go up and roll back down like 2 or 3 times to build up enough speed.  Poorly planned out game in my opinion.  I give the game 2 stars out of 10.  Not a very good game overall.

Keystone Kapers Atari 2600 Review

Another great game by Activision.  You play the role of a cop and you chase a robber.  You run faster than the robber so you can eventually catch him.  It would appear that you are in a shopping mall.  You have to avoid obstacles such as bouncing barrels, old fashioned radios to jump over, shopping carts, and remote control planes.  Something that adds to the game play is the fact that you can jump while running, jump while standing, and duck.  Hitting some objects will deduct from your score while others will take a life and start you back at the beginning.  Every time you get to the end of a level, you have to go up the escalator.  There are also elevators in the middle but you don't really have to ever use them until maybe the later levels.  The game is really fast paced and fun to play.  There is also a little radar on the bottom of the screen which I have seen in a few other Activision games.  Overall I give the game a 7 out of 10.  Very original and a quality game overall.