Today I take a look at Darkwing Duck which was a game made by Capcom for the NES under the Disney License. It’s an all around great platformer like you’d expect out of Capcom, however, as great as it is, it does have it’s flaws.

There's a bunch of shipwrecks and missing planes huh? Let's go and solve this case....alone...

The plot of the game is pretty cool. It’s 1930 and there have been reports of various shipwrecks and missing planes within the perimeter of this mysterious island in the Bermuda Triangle. Your character decides that he will investigate the area to see what he can find as well as to solve the problem that is causing these disappearances. When he makes it to the island, he realizes that it is inhabited with living, breathing, dinosaurs who are very aggressive as they try to take his plane down.

Why report such an amazing discovery when it's much more fun to simply kill 'em all?

Of course a game with such an amazing plot turns out to be a shooter. You control a biplane, as well as a submarine during an underwater level, and all you need to do is shoot everything in sight. Controlling the game is easy. You have a button to shoot and a button to control a secondary weapon. Much like any other shooters, you can pick up a power up that looks like a P capsule that will help you through the game. The P capsule can be used in multiple ways depending on how you position it. You can position this capsule in 8 different directions which include up, down, left, right, and all diagonal directions. Positioning the P Capsule in front of you will allow you to shoot a more powerful bullet. Positioning it diagonally above you, left or right, will allow you to fire a large fireball along with regular bullets that can ricochet off of walls and ceilings. If you place it directly above or below you, you can fire a fireball directly above or below you as well as firing regular bullets. Having the capsule diagonally below you, left or right, will allow you to drop bombs on enemies and having the capsule behind you will allow you to leave bombs for enemies to run in to.

When you obtain the P Capsule you can play with it in different positions for different results.

There are all kinds of cool enemies for you to face throughout the game. You’ll face various dinosaurs. However, you also have to deal with cave men. Cave men are very annoying to deal with because they jump onto your plane and hold it down, making it more difficult to control, which can lead to you crashing into various walls or leave you trapped in the line of fire causing you to lose a life. These cave men seem to have a personal vendetta against you also as they will try anything to kill you even if it means killing themselves. They’ll jump off of cliffs, come at you riding pterodactyls, and damn near chase you to the end of the level if you let them.

Why do those cave men hate me so much? It's not like I'm a Geico employee or anything.

If I were to tell you that this game is easy, well, I’d be lying. This game will eat your quarters faster than you can say “Jurassic Park.” Like most shooters, one hit kills you. Unfortunately, 1 hit doesn’t apply to enemies alone. If you crash into scenery, you can also die. Items you can pick up appear in eggs that you need to break open. Crash into the egg and you will die as well. Despite the game’s difficulty, that doesn’t stop it from being an awesome game. You will want to come back for more because it is very addictive.

I'm a dead man aren't I?

For 1989, this game looks fantastic. There is excellent amounts of detail in the background and just in the game itself. The game is very vibrant in color and it’s all really nice to look at. It’s obvious that the people who worked on this game paid very close attention to detail as you can see things in some of the backgrounds that connect to the story. For example, in an underwater stage you can actually see shipwrecks in the background at certain points. Also, the bosses that you face look awesome. I also love that they add statistics for the boss, such as a name as well as weight and length. It’s not something necessary, but just a nice bit of detail that adds to the experience. The soundtrack to the game was also very well done. All the songs in the game fit the pace of the action. The soundtrack makes you want to kill as many dinosaurs as you can and it just sounds awesome all around.

Adding little stats during the boss fights was a very nice touch.

All in all Prehistoric Isle in 1930 is a shooter that everyone should play at least once. It’s pretty steep in the difficulty, but it’s still full of action packed fun and addictive game play. The game has nice detail in the visual department as well as an excellent soundtrack. I won’t give away the ending of the game, but the ending also makes the game worth a play. The game deserves no less than 4 stars. I really wish SNK would allow Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony to add this game to the online stores as a downloadable. The game is just too good to pass up, in my opinion.

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Mario Bros. is a simple arcade style game in which you play as Mario, a plumber, who has to deal with a pest problem within the sewers below New York. Mario is joined by his newly debuting brother, Luigi. Player 1 takes control of Mario while Player 2 controls Luigi.

Play as Mario or Luigi and help get rid of the pests that infest the sewers.

The controls of the game are rather simple. You move your character with the d-pad and jump with the A button. While the controls themselves are simple, controlling the character himself is not quite as simple. Mario and Luigi have rather slippery controls when it comes to their movement. It takes a bit of playing to really get used to how the two move around. The slipperiness of the controls is nothing that will make you turn the game off in a fit of rage, but it does have a bit of a learning curve.

Hit enemies from below to knock them on their back. If you don't hit them while they're down they'll get back up and become more aggressive.

There are various pests in the game to deal with, but the primary three are turtles, crabs, and flies. You can’t run into them head on or else you’ll simply kill yourself. What you need to do is hit them from underneath to knock them on their back. Turtles and flies take one hit to knock them down, but crabs take two. When you knock an enemy down, you then have to run into it to defeat it, however if you take too long, the enemy will change color and become faster and slightly more difficult to deal with. When you only have one pest left to deal with, it will also change colors and become faster and more aggressive.

When there is only one enemy left, it also changes colors and becomes slightly more troublesome.

After every few levels, you will get to play a bonus stage in which you have to collect all the coins on screen before the time expires. If you can collect all the coins, you will be rewarded with an extra life. Of course the first time around it will be rather simple, however the game will increase the difficulty of these bonus stages the further into the game you get. The second time around they’ll cover the platforms in ice, making the game even slipperier than it already is. After that, they’ll simply make the platforms invisible, meaning you need to learn where each opening is and what kind of jumps you need to make in order to collect the coins. It should also be noted that you can earn extra lives by obtaining a certain amount of points.

Collect the coins within the time limit and earn an extra life.

Of course, much like any early arcade game, the difficulty increases the further into the game you get. The pests increase in number and speed as well as other various traps get introduced all to make your game that much more pain inducing. Some of these traps include fireballs as well as bits of ice that freeze platforms. Luckily, even though you have to deal with these nuisances, you’re not necessarily helpless. At the bottom of the screen you have a block called a POW block. When you hit it, it knocks all the enemies back once. This is great for turtles and flies because they only take one hit to knock down, however crabs will still be standing. You can hit the POW block up to 3 times before it goes away. Unfortunately, the POW block does not come back or give back the number of uses as you progress through each level, so you need to use it sparingly.

Hit POW blocks to knock those pests down. You only get three uses of it though, so use it wisely.

Be careful of various traps while playing. Fireballs and ice covered platforms can really be annoying.

Graphically speaking, for an early NES game, it looks good. Mario and Luigi are easily recognizable, the pests are easy to distinguish, and it looks fine. Not a lot of real detail as far as what’s going on in the background or anything of that nature, but you can’t really blame the game for that simply due to when it was created. The soundtrack to this game isn’t very large. You have the song that plays during the title and a little tune that plays to introduce each stage, but no overall song during actual game-play.

All in all, it’s a solid little game for an early arcade port on the NES. Yeah, the controls are slightly slippery, but it’s not slippery to the point of rage. It’s a fun game that’s designed for short bursts of fun. Of course, since the game is based purely on points that adds an immense replay value just to try and beat your own score, let alone when you have friends to play with you. You can purchase this version of the game off of the Wii Virtual Console, but chances are you may have played other versions of this game through the Super Mario Advanced titles on the GBA as well through other means, such as the bonus 2 player game in Super Mario Bros. 3. I’m going to give this game a 4 star rating. It’s an arcade classic ported on the NES, what more could you possibly ask?

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"Listen, I'm getting tired of you just lying around the solar system. It's time for you to gain some responsibility, I'm forcing you to get a job dammit! Carry my children."

In the opening cutscene The Sun tells the Earth, known as Gaia in this game, that he has chosen her to “bear” his children which will be known as “life.” Ultimately you are playing as “life.” Gaia will lead you through various periods of time where you basically get to play around with various stages of evolution through the five groups of vertebrates. You’ll start off as a lowly fish in the ocean, eventually become an amphibian as you finally reach land, then become a reptile, a bird, and then finally a mammal. During your time as a mammal, if you figure out how, you can even evolve into a human, which is pretty beneficial to you and worth a try.

Start off as a tiny fish and eventually you can become a nearly unstoppable monster.

The controls for this game are pretty easy to pick up on. You use X to attack your enemies. The attack I’m referring to is a biting attack which is your primary attack throughout the entire game. As the game progresses, most notably when you start playing as a mammal, you will be able to perform a back kick by pressing A. You can also use the Y button to bite, but this bite is not for attacking, but rather eating. The Y bite is rather useless though since the X attack bite can also be used for eating. The Y bite isn’t really useful until way later in the game, though there are a few moments where you may need it. When you finally make it out of the ocean, you can use the B button to jump.

Oh great, I go from being a lowly fish and I evolve into a creature with a bad case of the mumps.

Throughout the game, your objective is pretty much the same. Kill, eat, and evolve. You will be doing this in nearly every level of the game, but you need to in order to survive. When you kill an enemy, a piece of meat will be revealed, and when you eat it, it will restore health and give you evolution points. Evolution points, which can be viewed in the top right corner of the screen during play, are points that you obtain by eating creatures and can be used to basically “purchase” various upgrades in the evolution menu. Some enemies you kill will give you a piece of meat that is flashing. This flashing meat gives you more evolution points, anywhere between double to five times the normal evolution points.

During the age of reptiles, you can change from a measly little dinosaur with scoliosis to a giant monsterous killing machine.

You can evolve all kinds of various parts, but each part costs a certain amount of evolution points, and as you progress through the different ages, the things you can evolve to become more expensive. This means the game has a heavy reliance on grinding which can make the game very repetitive. What adds insult to injury though is once you’ve grind enough and become the monster you want to be, the evolution points you collect throughout that age become meaningless because you lose them with each new age. This is especially insulting when you beat end bosses, and bosses give off a ton of evolution points, all of which are completely meaningless to you. Also, even though you became this giant monster, for the most part, you don’t get to keep your powered up form with each new age. Only as you progress from the Ice Age to age after that do you get to keep your current form. This is probably a good thing though, since the game would become way too easy.

"Oh, I'll let you fail as often as you like, just don't let my father, The Sun, find out, even though he sees everything you do."

This game is easy, and for various reasons, but one major reason. You have infinite lives. There is no way to get a Game Over at all. Gaia will keep reviving you no matter how many times you end up losing. The only punishment for dying is your evolution points are cut in half. Even still, you’ll probably crush through most of the ages anyway once you evolve enough, so chances are you won’t even worry about dying that often in the first place. While I stated earlier that collecting evolution points becomes useless after evolving, that’s actually not entirely true. You can actually abuse the evolution menu by evolving and devolving unnecessary parts to your character which will always restore your health to full, so if you have a ton of evolution points, that gives you the opportunity to constantly heal yourself if needed. This is generally a strategy used against bosses.

Forget the bald eagle. This thing is the new bird to represent America.

Throughout the game there is another plot point, however you’ll be too busy killing, eating, and evolving to really care too much, or frankly to even notice. Basically, there are these crystals that mysteriously appeared which are causing strange, yet powerful forms of evolution throughout the different ages. Most of the bosses in the game are basically creatures who are abusing the crystals and insist on becoming the most powerful creature by using them. You can actually gather crystals for yourself.

During your time as a bird, if you find a certain red crystal, you can become a dragon.

There are 4 types of crystals in the game. yellow, green, blue, and red. Yellow crystals are generally in the first or second level of every age and are there to give you advice on how to survive in each age. Red crystals allow you to evolve into very powerful creatures for short periods of time. These creatures are generally more powerful than anything you could ever become during that age. You can also save these creatures in a “record of evolution.” Saving these creatures allows you to re-transform into them. To transform back into these saved creatures you need to collect green crystals. Green crystals are stored, so you can transform back into a red crystal monster whenever you need to. Chances are though, you probably won’t use green crystals often. Finally, there are blue crystals which generally give you a ton of evolution points. Each blue crystal generally gives off a different amount of evolution points over another. One might give you 1000 points, and another might give you 10,000. These crystals are very rare though so unless you know where to find them, chances are you won’t come into contact with them very often.

A chance for world domination? Sounds tempting.

Most of the boss fights in the game aren’t that difficult, this is primarily due to the fact that you’ll generally be as evolved as you want to be during that era, so your attack, defense, health, ability to jump, and so forth will be pretty high. That’s not to say that all the bosses are pushovers though. Some bosses can still beat the ever loving crap out of you if you aren’t careful. Some bosses are more interesting than others though since they will give you the option to join them in taking over the world. If you choose to join them, you’ll get a little cutscene letting you know what happens, and in most cases, it’s pretty much along the lines of you take over the world, live a while, and eventually die or are never seen again for various reasons. Unlike actually dying though, you don’t have your evolution points cut in half, you merely have to restart the level. So there is no real consequence in choosing to join those bosses.

Oh, so that's where rednecks come from.

Graphically speaking, E.V.O is actually nice to look at. There are a lot of nice colors and various stages to look at. The creatures you can create also look pretty cool too, and some look really threatening. The soundtrack is okay. It works for what it is, but one song is particularly annoying and downright obnoxious. That song is none other than the song that plays primarily during the Age of Reptiles. To really describe the song, it sounds like a trumpet vomiting out notes. This song and various incarnations of it constantly play throughout halfway through the game, onward.

E.V.O Search For Eden ~ Dinosaurs’ Land

Without giving the ending away, there really isn’t much more to talk about with E.V.O – Search for Eden. It seems like I did a lot of complaining, but I actually really like this game. I love the unique nature of it. That being said, there are some aspects about the game that could turn people off, such as the constant need for grinding, the repetitve nature of levels, and how all useless collecting evolution points becomes once you evolve into the dominating monster you want to be, other than for the sake of abusing the evolution system to heal. That being said, the game is rather unique and is deserving of a playthrough at least once. I’m going to give this game a 3 and a half stars. I really like this game, but by no means is it a perfect game and it has some rather obvious flaws in presentation and game design.

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This game takes place 10 years after the events of Real Bout: Fatal Fury. Geese Howard is long since dead and Southtown is starting to forget his existence. Terry Bogard has taken it upon himself to raise Geese Howard’s abandoned son Rock Howard, who hates himself for who his father is. Due to Rock Howard’s training under Terry Bogard, his fighting style is a combination of both Terry and Geese. He is also the main protagonist in this game. The main antagonist for this game is a man named Kain who turns out to be Rock’s uncle, Geese Howard’s brother in law. When you beat the game with Rock, Kain reveals that he knows the whereabouts of his mother, who Rock believed to be dead. Rock then joins Kain, and to this day, no one ever knows what happens after that, as there was no sequel ever made and no type of closure to this cliffhanger.

Fight in 1 on 1 battles in beautiful levels.

Although the game is a sequel to the Fatal Fury franchise, it’s fighting style is more akin to the King of Fighters series than the Fatal Fury series, as the background/foreground fighting has been removed.  What makes the game different from King of Fighters and Fatal Fury is the introduction of the T.O.P (Tactical Offense Position) mode. When the health gauge reaches this area, the character enters the T.O.P. mode, granting the player character the ability to use T.O.P. attack, gradual life recovery, and increased attack damage.

Experience the innovative T.O.P system to bring the pain.

The game has a pretty decent roster, but unfortunately the only returning Fatal Fury character is Terry Bogard who now has a change in appearance no longer sporting his iconic hat, ponytail red vest, and white and red Chuck Taylor all-star shoes to now having shoulder length hair and wearing a brown bomber jacket with a white star that says “Running Wild” below it, white shirt, blue jeans, brown boots and hatless.

The classic Terry Bogard look

Terry Bogard, as seen in Garou: Mark of the Wolves

Characters

Play as various fighters and see if you have what it takes to be the best.

Initial roster

* Terry Bogard – Terry is the main character from earlier installments in the Fatal Fury series. In Garou, he has a new look: his long blond ponytail is trimmed, and he has exchanged his trademark red vest, hat, and shoes for a bomber jacket and brown shoes. Terry has a new Desperation Move (the “Buster Wolf”); however, he can no longer perform his original trademark move (the “Rising Tackle”), which is now Rock Howard’s technique.

* Rock Howard – Rock is the son of Geese Howard and protégé of Terry Bogard (as Terry seemingly killed Geese in Real Bout Fatal Fury and adopted the thus orphaned Rock). He is the main hero of Garou. His fighting style combines techniques of both Terry and Geese, giving him an edge on both offense and defense. He wears a red and white jacket with a white star on the back, similar to Terry’s classic vest. His motif, as used in the game’s logo and in some of his attack and victory animations, is angelic wings.

* Kevin Rian – Kevin is a high-spirited police officer of Second South. He is also a friend to both Terry and Rock. He fights using Sambo (similar to his distant relative Blue Mary), although much of his fighting style revolves more around direct strikes than grappling. He is cheered on during fights by his friend’s son Marky. In Garou, he seeks revenge for the death of his partner, murdered by Freeman.

* Bonne Jenet – Bonne Jenet is a female pirate who is looking for treasure in Second South. Her fighting style involve wind-like projectiles that hit multiple times, and swooping attacks intended to catch opponents with suddenly-changing directions. She is one of two female fighters in Garou, and is noted for her beauty both inside and outside the game; she often exploits it for her own personal gain.

* Kim Dong Hwan – Dong Hwan was taught Taekwondo by his father, Kim Kaphwan, and has a friendly rivalry with his brother Kim Jae Hoon. He is more of a show-off and slacker than his brother, relying more on aerial attacks and juggles (i.e. attacks that strike the opponent into the air uncontrollably). He believes he is a “genius” in the story, and doesn’t need to study diligently in order to master Taekwondo, but his father and brother see it differently.

* Kim Jae Hoon – Jae Hoon was taught Taekwondo by his father, Kim Kaphwan, and is a brother of Dong Hwan’s. Jae Hoon admires his father, so he fights more like him than Dong Hwan does, with a combination of high and low attacks with plenty of power behind them. Like his father, he has a strong sense of justice and chivalry, but unlike his brother, he establishes his strength through constant practice.

* Gato Futaba – Gato is a powerful fighter always in search of stronger opponents. He is the older brother of Hotaru Futaba, but hotly denies this. His actual background and motivations aside from these are unknown. He is often portrayed acting callous to opponents, and is notable for a large claw scar on his back visible in one of his win poses.

* Hotaru Futaba – Hotaru is the younger sister of Gato. She searches for her brother. She is generally very polite and charming, and is accompanied by her pet sable, Itokatsu. Her stage takes is a belfry, where a flock of birds removes her cloak.

* Hokutomaru – Hokutomaru is a ninja who trained under Andy Bogard. He is extremely fast and crafty (with many moves that are among the fastest in the game), making him a nearly unpredictable opponent to deal with. His stage is a traffic accident that he caused, as he was unfamiliar with urban ways due to his age and training.

* Khushnood Butt – Butt is a Kyokugen-style karate expert, who trained under Ryo Sakazaki. He is named Marco Rodriguez in Japan but was renamed in America (possibly to avoid confusion with mixed martial artist Ricco Rodriguez). He leads a somewhat austere life in a wooded area on the outskirts of town, and fights using powerful, deliberate attacks. Just like Ryo, he has several famous moves from Art of Fighting with some of his own derivatives. Many of his victory quotes sound insightful and philosophical, just as serious as his training and demeanor.

* Tizoc – Tizoc is a famous pro wrestler in Second South and is seen as a hero in the eyes of children. Somewhat disillusioned, he enters the tournament in order to rekindle his own interest in fighting. His name in Japanese versions of the game is “The Griffon Mask”.

* Freeman – Freeman, real name unknown, is a mysterious serial killer that fights using slashing movements with his hands as if they were claws. Little is known about him, except that he killed a friend of Kevin Rian, and defeated Kim Kaphwan in a fight.

Bosses

* Grant – Grant, real name Abel Cameron, is a master of the dark style known as Ankoku Karate. Being Kain R. Heinlein’s closest friend and personal bodyguard, he is the sub-boss of the game.

* Kain R. Heinlein – Kain is the mysterious host of Southtown’s “King of Fighters: Maximum Mayhem” tournament. Being the younger brother of Marie Howard (Geese Howard’s deceased wife and thus Rock Howard’s mother), he is Rock’s uncle. He is the final boss of the game, but the player needs to have at least an AAA-ranking win average throughout the game in order to reach him (and to see each character’s full ending).

Perform devastating super moves to decimate your opponents.

Visually speaking, this is easily one of the best looking 2D fighting games to come out at the time, if not ever. The animation is very smooth and SNK used quite a bit of pseudo 3D effects for the backgrounds to add a very nice touch. The soundtrack to the game is also well made, as per the usual with SNK fighting games. The songs fit very well with the stages they take place in and quite honestly this is a soundtrack you could consider listening to outside of playing the game.

Overall, I give this game 5 stars. In my opinion it’s one of the best fighting games ever made. It has very solid gameplay, smooth animation, a decent soundtrack, nice level design, and a pretty decent character roster (despite a lack of more Fatal Fury characters, but I won’t rate the game down just because of that.) While the game is most known on the Neo Geo, it was recently added to Xbox Live Arcade. I say if you’re into fighting games, definitely give this game a look.

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The title screen for Donkey Kong on the Gameboy

The Gameboy rendition of Donkey Kong hit the scene back in 1994 and was one of the earliest Gameboy games to work with the Super Gameboy periferal which hooked up to the SNES and was used to give some Gameboy games color. Of course you could also play this game in the traditional black and white/putrid green Gameboy as well.

Play the original levels of the arcade classic.

The plot of the game is identical to the original arcade version. Paulina, Mario’s girlfriend, was kidnapped by Donkey Kong and it’s up to Mario to rescue her. Speaking of indentical to the arcade version, the first four levels you play are the same levels that were in the arcade version of the game. These levels are pretty much there to give you an idea of how to control Mario. Controlling Mario is rather easy. Mario can jump by using the A button, however in this version of the game, Mario can perform different types of moves with the A button. If you press down and then the A button you can do a hand stand, which can be used to deflect falling objects that would normally hit and kill Mario, such as barrels. While in a handstand position, if Mario presses A again, he will do a high jump. This high jump is great for getting to ledges above you that would be unreachable with the normal jump. Mario can also do a jumping backflip. To do the backflip, while you are moving in a direction, press the opposite direction and A at the same time. The backflip also jumps higher than the normal jump and also covers more distance than the handstand jump, so more times than not you will be using the backflip to maneuver through levels. It also makes the first four levels much easier. When you beat the arcade levels, it looks as if Paulina and Mario will be reunited, but Donkey Kong simply gets back up, snatches Paulina and runs off signifying the true start to this epic.

Thought you saved the girl and can go home? Not quite. That's fine though, the thrill is in the hunt.

After the final arcade level, when you see a cutscene of Donkey Kong running with Paulina, these scenes happen after every 4 levels. More times than not, these cutscenes will teach you a mechanic about the game that will suddenly be applied to you throughout the remainder of the game. Also, the game will add up the remaining time of the four levels together which will give you a certain amount of extra lives. For every 100 seconds you get, you get an extra life, also, whatever is left over also adds to your life. In the picture above, you can see that my total was 359. That means I scored 3 extra lives for the 300 seconds as well as an extra life for the remaining 59 seconds. This is one of the mechanics that makes the game rather easy because unless you try to lose you really won’t be struggling for extra lives. During these cutscenes if you see your overall score flash that means you set a new record. This adds a whole level of playability to the game because you can keep coming back just to beat your previous record.

The map will tell you where you are as well as the location of Donkey Kong

After the cutscenes, you will be brought to a map to show you where you are and it will even show you where you are in comparison to where Donkey Kong is. He will always be at a level that is a multiple of 4, for example, level 4, level 8, so on and so forth. On the map screen, after 4 levels you will be given an opportunity to save. While you can save during gameplay, you will only save your score up to that point, not the actual levels completed. It’s kind of useless for people trying to get through the game, but for those who care about their score, it’s a nice feature. The maps obviously represent what kind of levels you will be playing and there are a lot of different level types. The stages include a big city, a forest, a wooden ship, a jungle, a desert, an airplane, a glacer, a rocky valley, and a tower.

Solve various puzzles to find the key and get to the exit

When you pick a level, you’ll realize that things are not quite as you remember them. Now your objective in each level is to grab a key, which can be grabbed by pressing the B button along with other objects in the game such as levers or barrels, and bring it to a door. You’ll find out rather quickly that this game has some very clever stage design and every one of these puzzles is fun to solve. Some of these fun little puzzles include having to create bridges or ladders to reach various areas or having to pull switches to open gates or create bridges. Much like in the original arcade game there are various enemies that get in your way as well. Some of these enemies can be taken out simply by grabbing them and throwing them into other enemies, or they can be taken out with the Hammer and Super Hammer.  The Hammer kills any enemy it hits, even enemies you cannot touch at all such as fireballs, and the Super Hammer allows you to smash through certain bricks. These are just some of the things given to you which are necessary to solve various puzzles and get through traps. There are even level design aspects also taken from Donkey Kong Jr. such as levels that require climbing on vines.

Play levels similar to those from Donkey Kong Jr.

During normal stages there are some things to grab along the way. A parasol, a purse, and a hat will be sitting in various spots and if you collect them, not only will they increase your score, but you can also play a bonus stage as well. Depending on what kind of time you finish you will play one of two games. If you finish with an even time, you will play a roulette wheel game where you have a chance to earn a certain amount of extra lives. More times than not it will be either 1 or 2 lives, but on occasion you will see an opportunity to win 3 lives. No matter what you see on the wheel though the game automatically guarantees at least 1 extra life. If you do this with an odd time then you will play a slot machine game which. Certain combinations give you certain amounts of lives, for example, anytime you get a Mario, you will automatically get 1 extra life, and for every Mario you get it will be an extra life. If you get three of Donkey Kong, you will get 5 extra lives. Donkey Kong, Mario, and a hat, in that order, will give you a random amount of extra lives. In this bonus stage though you have the chance of obtaining no extra lives, so the risk is higher but so is the reward.

I've been spinning 'round the wheel of life and I made one more night, yeah I've been spinning 'round the wheel of life.

Every fourth level has you facing off against DK. Every showdown with DK that isn’t a final level of the stage has you face him in a similar fashion to the arcade game. All you need to do is simply make it to the area where Paulina is and you win. As you get further into the game these levels become more tricky, especially once Donkey Kong Jr. shows up to torment you by doing cruel things such as pulling switches to remove bridges or lock switches in rooms, or even throw mushrooms at you that cause you to shrink. Despite some of these cruel things DK Jr. does to you, you can’t help but love playing these levels just to see what kind of mean tricks they pull on you.

You thought Donkey Kong was annoying on his own? Well, Jr. shows up just to torment you.

Whenever you face Donkey Kong in the final level of the stage it’s a barrel chucking fest as you must hit Donkey Kong 3 times with barrels that he throws at you. These fights are generally a good time to use the handstand move as you can deflect barrels with it and have them land right next to you making them easy to grab. Grabbing barrels is easy since all you need to do is stand on top of a barrel and simply press the B button. You need to hit Donkey Kong 3 times with a barrel. Obviously in the beginning of the game it will be rather simple but become more complicated as the game progresses. Soon enough the barrels will no longer stay on screen after Donkey Kong throws them, or after you hit Donkey Kong with a barrel a mushroom that shrinks you will come out of it. Either way the fights with DK never become boring or repetitive because of the different aspects that DK brings with him with each new fight.

Throw barrels at Donkey Kong to beat him.

Graphically speaking, the game looks pretty good for the Gameboy. There is a lot of nice detail in areas and some cool little effects added to make it seem as if you’re actually progressing in a certain direction. This is more noticeable closer towards the end of the game during the Rocky Valley stages where you can begin to see the Tower get closer into view the further you get in that set of levels. Obviously if you played this on the old black and white/putrid green Gameboy you didn’t have to worry too much about colors, but for the Super Gameboy, while the color pallet wasn’t as wide as it would be had this game been ported to the Gameboy Color it still has a nice range of color added to it making it nice to look at. I also love the soundtrack to this game. A lot of the songs during the levels themselves are cheery, but some levels are also quite atmospheric, such as the song that plays during most of the stages in the desert. Each track of the game feels appropriate for the levels you are playing and nothing feels out of place. I also hold the opinion that the game has the best boss music of any Gameboy game. I’m speaking of the music that plays during the penultimate fight (second to last fight.) While I hate using this term due to how cliche it has become, it is absolutely an epic song.

Donkey Kong (Game Boy) – Showdown At The Tower

This is easily my favorite Gameboy game ever made, and it almost seems like it would have to be given how good this game truly is. It has some of the best level design ever seen for the system and is probably more clever than some of the newer games we see today. The game has some nice detail visually as well as some excellent audio work. The game also has an excellent amount of replayability. I can tell you first hand that every time I beat this game I always make a new save just to keep playing, it’s that good. All in all this is a perfect Gameboy game. It’s great for sitting around, it’s great for on the go, and it’s just all around great. I cannot give this game any less than a perfect 5 star rating. I highly recommend a purchase of this game immediately.

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Box art for Gyruss on the NES

Gyruss was made by Konami back in 1983 for the arcade, however the game was ported for the NES in 1988 with the help of Ultra Games, to create the (in my opinion) best version of the game. For the NES version, the graphics were made slightly larger, extra levels were added, the game now had mid bosses as well as bosses in general, phasers were also added to your weapons list (and trust me in some of the levels they are absolutely needed.)

Face various bosses as you make your way across the solar system.

In the original version of Gyruss there was only one song, which was a slightly remade version of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The song was still used, however, that was also remixed into 8 bit gloriousness, as well as adding extra songs to the soundtrack.

Destroy your enemies to save the universe.

Gyruss was a very innovative game for your basic shmup (shoot em up) because it featured a tunnel-like style for gameplay, in which you would rotate around the entire screen and shoot inward, with the enemies going through and if you miss them, they will go into the background (you can still shoot them while in the background, but you don’t get the 1000 pt bonus for it.)

Battle all kinds of crazy enemies.

I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking that a game like this would become repetitive right? Well, you’re wrong. While in essence you are doing a lot of the same thing throughout the game, with each set of levels you play, new types of enemies show up and they all have various patterns that you must learn. Also, you need to be able to beat the game with one continue, because that’s all you get. If you get a game over once, you need to go through the entire game again. That might seem frustrating, but in all actuality the game is so enjoyable that you want to keep playing just to get better and better.

Ultimately, Gyruss is just an awesome , addictive, and innovative game, so I have to give it a 5 stars.

The arcade cabinet for The Simpsons.

This is the arcade machine that carried The Simpsons. The game was a side scrolling beat ‘em up within the same category of games such as Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and Double Dragon. You play as one of the members of the Simpsons depending on which slot you put the quarter in. Player 1 is Marge, player 2 is Homer, player 3 is Bart, and player 4 is Lisa. Each character has a unique way of fighting. Marge carries a vacuum, Homer uses fists, Bart uses a skateboard, and Lisa uses a jump rope.

Don't you hate it when your family is out and your bosses' assistant just kidnaps your kid? That's very rude.

Plot:
After stealing a giant diamond from Springfield Jewelers for Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers bumps into Homer Simpson, whose family is conveniently walking down the street. The encounter knocks the diamond out of Smithers’ hand, and Maggie snatches it in her mouth (in place of her pacifier), prompting Smithers to grab Maggie (rather than just the diamond) and run off. The Simpsons must give chase, but hundreds of goons in matching suits stand in their way.

Play up to 4 players and partner up with friends to perform team moves

Gameplay:
Controls are basic. You move with a joystick and you have 2 buttons, one to jump and one to attack. Characters can stand next to each other to perform a dual attack of some kind, and it varies with each character combination, so that adds a bit of a replay value to it. Controls are smooth, nothing is forced. Throughout most of the game, you’ll be scrolling from side to side fighting the same people over and over, so it may feel repetative, however, to add some difference to the game, you can pick up various weapons. Weapons include a hammer, a slingshot, signs, barrels, and just about any object you could think of. The difficulty of this game is really subjective. For the most part, the game is relatively easy, however, if you are careless, it will eat up your quarters faster than Homer at a plate of appetizers. After completing some levels in the game, you’ll be greeted to a bonus game. The game is simple, tap the attack button repeatedly to fill up a balloon of your face. The person to fill the balloon first, wins.

Quiet kid, I'm reviewing your game.

Graphics and Sound:
The graphics are excellent. Very cartoonish. When your character enters the scene, they come in dressed as a super hero, and it looks very well done. I almost think that the animators of the Simpsons TV series were called to animate the game. Sound effects are nice, and they add a very arcade feel to the game. When entering coins it does a small bit of the Simpsons theme. The music in the game also sounds very cartoonish, overall giving it a very positive vibe throughout the entire play.

Who doesn't enjoy beating up random goons in suits?

Overall:
It’s fun, addictive, however could become repetitive. The visuals are nice and the sound effects are fun. Overall this is a very solid beat ‘em up. I give this a 4 and a half stars out of 5.

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The main gameplay style is the sidescrolling platformer beat-em-up style.

Side scroling platforming beat 'em up action based on the legendary anime/manga

You run around the level, beat up bad guys in the way, collect items and try to make it all the way to the end without dying. The controls are easy. A is jump and B is attack. Holding up and pressing A will get your character to do a high jump. Some characters have a double jump, Goku uses his power pole, and some characters will fly if you repeatedly press the A button. The L and R buttons also do something, but that will be explained later on.

This type of gameplay can be played in 2 modes, Story Mode and Extra Mode.

Story Mode:

Story mode is pretty self explanatory. You play the adventure based purely on the story. You play as Goku, but you can unlock the ability to play as Krillin. With story mode you get the text based cut scenes before and after each level as you make your way across the map of the game.

Use the level select map to visit various action packed levels

Also in story mode it lets you play in the second style of game play as well as some small mini games that resemble various parts of the story, all of which I will go into further detail later on in the review.

Extra Mode:

Extra mode is more of the same thing, minus the cut scenes and the second mode of gameplay (unless you play as Goku or Krillin.) What makes Extra mode worth the play though is it allows you to pick any character from the game at all. You can choose to play as Goku or Krillin, as well as any of the bosses from Tien and Demon King Piccolo. If you really want to insult your opponents you can even play as lowly grunts/soldiers. However, to unlock various characters you must collect certain items during story mode.

The more you play, the stronger you become. Become the unstoppable warrior you know you can be.

If you can view in this picture above, you see your character has a health bar, and at the very bottom a Ki/energy bar. To use Ki you press/hold the R button. The longer the R button is held, the stronger the attack, be warned though that you have to build that Ki back up by fighting, so larger attacks may not always be better. L will cause Goku to use his power pole and make Krillin use the Solar Flare attack. Other characters will most likely block with the L button. Among the characters, Goku is the only character in this mode to have multiple specials. If you press both L and R at the same time, he rushes the opponent with a combo involving fists, the power pole and finishes off with a kamehameha attack. This move can only be used though once Goku has a ki meter level of 4.

The second style of gameplay is a fighting game mode.

Fight in one on one battles against powerful opponents

There are two modes for this as well:

One-on-One mode:

Very simple, you versus your opponent. You get a character select screen of 8 playable characters.

They are as follows:
Goku
Krillin
Piccolo
Jackie Chun (Roshi)
Grandpa Gohan
Mercenary Tao
Cyborg Tao

You unlock most of these fighters through story mode as well.

Survivor Mode:

Once again, very self explanatory. Pick a character and face everyone that you face on the One-On-One mode (characters from story mode also appear, they are Chiaotzu, Giran, and Nam.)

You face them in the following order:

Giran
Nam
Jackie Chun
Mercenary Tao
Chiaotzu
Krillin
Tien
Demon King Piccolo
Goku
Cyborg Tao.

Once again, look at the above picture. Like before you have your Ki and Health bars, but see the green bar under the health? That is the defense bar. When you attack your opponent and he attacks you at the same time, the defense bar goes down based on whoever is winning. Once you get the defense bar down, they are open to your wrath. Unleash combos where you can launch them into the air for either more combos or a ki attack.

In this mode, Goku, Tien, Jackie Chun, and Demon King Piccolo all have super attacks as well as their energy attacks. Goku uses his flying fist attack that he did to kill Demon King Piccolo, Tien uses the tri-beam, Jackie Chun uses a lightning attack and Piccolo uses a beefed up version of his Ki beam.

There are mini-games as well.

Boss Rush, which allows you to face all the bosses over (not the One-On-One mode, but the regular platformer mode.)

A grunt mode which has a horde of grunts coming at you all at once.

You can play the mini game that has you catch Korin.

These are fun, but not the strongest point of the game. I generally stick with either the fighting mode or the platformer mode.

Overall:

Whether you love or hate the anime, Dragonball Advanced Adventure is a fun game that has a tremendous replay value. I recommend it to anyone who loves the genre of fighting and platformers. The controls are some of the smoothest I’ve used on the GBA and it has a pretty decent soundtrack as well. The visuals are bright, colorful and very pleasant to look at. I give this game a 5 star rating. It’s not the most original idea ever, but it works rather well and is enjoyable.

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Thanks to the world of high definition TV’s even 64 bit games start to look like shit. I went back and tried to play the original Destruction Derby and the cars begin to look like Lego, boot up a dusty Golden Eye 64 cart and the landscape looks like a dog pissed on a canvas painting. Unfortunately for those that appreciate decent water based sports titles there really isn’t, much out there and if there is, nothing has bettered Nintendo’s Wave Race 64. Ironic really given that it’s sequel on the Gamecube Blue Storm was absolute garbage, it had the care and attention of a UPS delivery.

Wave Race 64 is set over a varying amount of courses from a Dolphin Bay to a Glacier ridden death trap. There are a small number of characters and even a female character to keep the feminist groups at bay! I prefer the guy in the yellow and green suit as he like a pork pie of two! Interestingly enough you can tweak around with the handling settings pre-race which is a nice touch. It works especially well if you are focusing on stunts, or you just want a steady tight ride.

The Championship Mode is a 3 lap affair whereby you have to pass checkpoints correctly (either to the left or right of each bollard) otherwise you’ll lose maximum power and fall behind the pack. It’s a very clever system, especially when you combine it with a disqualification for missing too many bollards. You’ll progress through the ranks, unlock a few new tracks and get on the high score leader board’s. It’s simple stuff there isn’t any real un-lockable content to be had here, though if you know the cheat you can ride on a dolphin. Yes Greenpeace! We’ll ride that bitch until its fins drop off!

To give the game more clout you have a time trial mode and for once I actually played it and tried to beat the set computer scores, it’s pretty addictive. You’ll also get to change weather patterns as well to bump up the difficulty, I personally loved Port Blue in bad weather, if you hit a wave formation correctly you can fly straight over a barrier gate. It feels rewarding. There is also a stunt mode on Wave Race too, so you can make the most of those back flips, front flips and barrel rolls as well as performing some gymnastic moves on your Jet Ski.

What makes Wave Race the crème-de-la-crème of Jet Ski games is down to two reasons (one which doesn’t really hold much water anymore) the graphics and the physics. The wave formations in the game are truly clever. You’ll often rarely have a race that feels the same each time. The fact as I mentioned earlier that you can manipulate the weather to your advantage by hitting big jumps, is an absolute joy.

Questions must be asked though. Why hasn’t Nintendo made a Wii version of this title? It would be easier on the eye and it’s the perfect title they could implement into its motion peripheral (just look at Wii Sports Resort) Are they afraid they may screw it up again like they did with Blue Storm? Or were the sales of the GC version that bad it lost weight in the board room for a third iteration? Questions we’ll very unlikely hear the answers to but one thing for sure. Even nearly 15 years onwards Wave Race 64 is the king of water based sports games.

So for those that haven’t played Wave Race 64 go out and play it. Preferably pick yourself up a cathode tube TV to play it on as well. Well you want to be retro right?