Alpha Mission NES Review

This is supposed to be a port of an arcade game.  Not a good port at all.  I have played the arcade version before and it is pretty good.  This game is not good at all.  Unfortunately, shoot em ups on the NES are historically not good and this one falls right into place with that mantra.  It is super slow (that is not always a bad thing) and the game play is horrible. First off there are way too many power ups (yes, you can have too many power ups) and that makes the game not very fun.  When you upgrade your shot, it is still weak and the enemies move way to fast.  Don't get me wrong, I love a challenging game but if the game play sucks, it ruins the whole thing.  You can press select to go into a power up select mode and you have energy that depletes when you use these power ups.  The boss fights are super challenging because they move about 5 times faster than your ship does even when fully powered up.  It is also frustrating that you can't tell if you are doing damage to a boss because it appears that your shots pass right through them.  There is no sound of flash to indicate that you are doing damage.  The game kind of plays a lot like Xevious with a double shot and the slowness.  Overall I give the game 3 out of 10 stars.  This one will sit of the shelf for a long time.

Donkey Kong Classics NES Review

Donkey Kong Classics contains 2 games, the original arcade port of Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Jr.  I am not going to review these games individually because everyone knows them.  They are both really close versions to the arcade and play quite well.  There is a difficulty select for each game.  Both of these games were released as single carts in the initial NES 30 release games.  Not really too much to say about this cart except that in true NES fashion, arcade games are well ported and represented here.  Overall, I give it a 8 out 10.  It does what it is supposed to do.  The only drawback is no pie factory level for Donkey Kong.  :(