August 2nd, 2007
As I’ve mentioned before I have a Virtual Boy and didn’t hate it. I talked about Mario Bros. yesterday so I could talk about Mario Clash today.
Mario Clash is almost completely identical to Mario Bros. with one major difference: the game is in pseudo 3D (no big surprise here). The game is mostly the same: various vermin come out of the pipes and you have to hit them to flip them over and kick them while they’re down. This game, though, introduces a foreground and a background and a new play mechanic, the ability to pick up and throw shells.
You can throw the shells left and/or right like in a boring, not 3D game or you can throw them from the foreground to the background and vice versa. This makes the game slightly tougher since you have to have not only a good sense of timing, but a sense of timing in 3D space. Other than that, it’s basically the same game. Not quite a sequel, but still a good way to waste a couple of minutes.
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August 1st, 2007
Before they were super, and really before they gained worldwide notoriety, Mario and his brother Luigi spent their days cleaning out sewers. For some reason the sewer they’re spending their time in has a series of platforms and some pipes at each corner of the screen. Various enemies come out of the pipes at the top of the screen and walk lazily along the platforms toward the pipes on the bottom, which they’ll enter and reappear at the top. Enemies like crabs, turtles, and jumping flies (technically called “Side Steppers”, “Shell Creepers”, and “Fighter Flies”). What will Mario and his brother do? How can they rid the sewers of this vermin?
All three of these enemies, it happens, are vulnerable if they are flipped over on their backs. Pound the ground underneath their feet and will flip over (some are tougher to flip than others). Once they’re incapacitated you just run up and kick them into the water below. Once you kick them, a coin will appear that you can grab for bonus points, but the real goal is to clear out all of the enemies so you can go to the next screen with more pipe-dwellers.
The game gets pretty tough as you go on. There are fireballs that move erratically, icy enemies (Slipice) that make the floor slippery if not dispatched quickly, and icicles that fall from the ceiling. It gets pretty harrowing.
There’s not a lot to this game, but you do need some finely tuned reflexes and the ability to be able to see nearly the entire screen at all times. It’s devious in its ability to draw you in with the simple first few stages and the completely maniacal later stages.
Posted in Arcade, GameBoy, NES | No Comments »
July 31st, 2007
Boulders and Bombs was in the box when we picked up our Atari 400 from a yard sale, and was easily the most complex game that I ever had for the system.
Since we got the game used, I don’t really know what the back story was, but the game itself went something like this:
The top half of the screen was the sky and the ‘above ground. You didn’t actually do anything up here, but it’s where your antagonists did their thing. Antagonists in this case meaning giant bird-things. We’ll get into what they do in a minute.
The bottom half of the screen is the underground. Underground that’s filled with boulders. You initially control a giant digging apparatus that you use to dig from one side of the screen to the other. After making a tunnel, you press the button and are in control of a little man. You need to make this man run across the screen to the exit tunnel. The little guy has the ability to lay bombs to get out of sticky situations. And so the title of the game is fully represented.
The bird-things (remember those?) will try to impede your progress by drilling holes into the ground and filling up your tunnels with this… stuff that fills up your tunnels and bars the way. You have to then clear the schmutz so your guy can move through. Carefully, lest you smash him over the head with your digging tool (it kills him, incidentally).
You can play up to 4 players with this game (way back in the early 80s!). Players 2, 3, and 4 control the baby giant bird-things and try to stop your progress, while player 1 tries to outwit them.
Overall, it was quite the fun game. I’m actually kind of surprised it’s not more well-known.
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July 30th, 2007
If you want to talk about one of the most obscure games in the Mario universe, you’d be hard pressed to find a game weirder than Wrecking Crew.
Mario, it has been established, is a plumber, but he has a plethora of talents. He’s a true renaissance man. Among other things, he’s a referee, a tennis player, golfer, scientist, go kart driver, and in this game, a demolitions expert.
Mario dons a hard hat and wields a sledge hammer and must (gasp!) destroy things. He’s got to use his brain to smash the things in a precise order so that he can destroy everything on the screen. It’s an odd thing to mention, I know, but you do have smash the occasional ladder. Smash the wrong ladder at the wrong time and you don’t get to climb it, so you lose.
Of course there’s a foreman running around, inexplicably trying to stop you. And don’t be surprised to find some eggplant-men running around. How’s that for a construction site?
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July 29th, 2007
I’ve said it a few times, but it bears repeating: games from the ’80s were weird. Pengo is no exception. Pengo the penguin inexplicably walks around mazes formed from blocks of ice. Enemies will pop out of some of these blocks and can crush the ice blocks in an effort to walk into Pengo, killing him (or her? I don’t really know). Pengo isn’t going to just stand there and take their abuse! He (or she?) can shove the ice blocks in a straight line and they’ll sail along until they hit another block or the side wall. If there are any enemies in the way then they get squished. Squish them all and you win the level, win the level and you get to go on to the next, win enough levels and you get a cute cutscene.
Pengo is elegant in its simplicity. Well, maybe not so much ‘elegant’, but it is ’simple’. A simple game that’s fun enough I don’t feel cheated spending a quarter on it now and again.
Pengo at the KLOV.
Posted in Arcade | 1 Comment »
July 28th, 2007
For every Jezzball there was in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack, there was a Chip’s Challenge. A game that, kind of like Skifree, I really didn’t care for, but seemed to have quite the following.
Chip’s is a puzzle game that takes place on a grid (puzzles and grids seem to go together). You, as Chip, run around the level collecting computer chips, avoiding hazards, and using your noggin to solve puzzles, all with the ultimate goal of collecting enough computer chips to open the door to the next level and to get Chip in the door, all without dieing. Chip is very fragile, most likely because he’s a pasty computer nerd (who else would run around giant technological things?). One hit from anything even remotely hazardous and Chip will deadpan, “Bummer”, and you get to start the level over.
The version for Windows apparently had somewhere in the neighborhood of 149 levels, with a handy password feature. Each level had its own password, so you could keep your progress, or go back to play a previous level if you were so inclined.
I did not get through all 149 levels, I barely got through 10 levels. While hearing Chip say “Bummer” when he bought the farm was pretty funny, I just didn’t have the patience to play much more than that. The stages were so large that they didn’t fit neatly into the window, so you had to scroll around and explore a level, figuring out what to do. The problem I had was that you couldn’t really solve most of the levels as you were exploring them. They required careful exploration, planning, and repetition to get the precise sequence of moves needed to complete.
If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, check this page out.
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July 27th, 2007
Jezzball is probably my favorite game from the venerable Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows 3.x. It’s kind of like Qix in that there is a playfield and you must claim a certain percentage of the field before you can move on to the next level. On each stage there is an ever-increasing number of atoms which bounce around ominously. You are armed with the ability to create two barriers that will originate at your cursor and slowly move toward the walls, one in each direction either left and right or up and down. If they hit a wall, they will create a barrier. If they hit an atom, they will disappear and cost you a life. You claim a section by completely walling it off from the atoms. You have to claim at least 75% of the board to win and advance to the next level where you’ll gain another life and another atom. The tricky part is that though the number of atoms increases every level, the field size does not, so you must build progressively smaller ‘rooms’ to house them, and with ever-increasing numbers of atoms this becomes maddeningly difficult.
I know that if you’ve read through all of that, you’re scratching your head and wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Go here.
Posted in PC, Windows | 1 Comment »
July 26th, 2007
I do not know who Hogan is, but his alley is infested with cardboard cutouts of gangs and good guys. Good thing I have a Zapper.
Hogan’s Alley is the first light gun game that I played in the arcades. Though to clarify, I didn’t play it, my mom did. But I saw it in action, and that’s what counts!
The home version is slightly more limited, but the basics are the same, the main mode, the bread and butter of the game, is to travel down an alley. Popping out from behind walls, in windows, around fences, and the like are cardboard cutouts of a woman, a professor, a police officer, or one of three gang members (creatively named Gang A, Gang B, and Gang C). Of course, your goal is to shoot the bad guys while not shooting the good guys. Shoot a good guy or take too long to shoot a bad guy and you get a miss. Get too many misses and it’s game over.
Alternatively, you could play the shooting range mode where you are presented with 3 cutouts and must shoot the bad guys instead of the good guys. It’s pretty much the same as the other mode except that the background doesn’t change.
The third mode is a little bit different. You have a series of platforms on your left. From the right paint cans flip onto the screen. You can shoot the cans to bounce them a bit. Your goal is to bounce them over to the platforms and make them land on them for points. If any cans fall off the bottom of the screen, you miss. Miss enough and it’s game over.
I did quite enjoy this game, and am slightly puzzled why there hasn’t been a proper sequel made.
Posted in Arcade, NES | No Comments »
July 25th, 2007
Like a lot of Nintendo’s earlier offerings, Balloon Fight stands out as being endearingly bizarre. You control a guy with balloons strapped to his back who can flap his arms to maneuver around a stage. His goal is to pop the balloons of the other guys with balloons on their backs and knock them into the water or run up and kick them when they’re down (and before they can reinflate their balloons) should they land on a platform.
You also have watch out for other dangers like the fish that will jump out of the water and eat you if you get too close, the sparks that will electrocute you, and the flippers that will send you sailing in a direction you most likely did not want to go.
The game doesn’t have an end, you just pop balloons and chuck the other weird guys into the water below until you get tired of it, give up, run out of lives, or all three. I can usually last for about 2 or 3 levels before I get tired of it, run out of lives, and give up. Usually all at the same time.
Posted in Arcade, GameCube, NES | No Comments »
July 24th, 2007
Minesweeper, or some variation thereof has been readily available on just about every computer I’ve ever used for a number of years. It’s a deceptively complex game hidden behind a fairly simple to grasp concept: using your wits to locate and mark mines.
You’re presented with a grid, and on that grid a number of mines has been placed. You can click on any space on the grid to see if it had a mine under it. If it does not it will either vanish or show a number. The number represents how many squares are adjacent to it that contain a mine. If you right-click on the space, you mark it with a flag, which means that you think there is a mine there. Your goal, then, is to use your wits to reason which spaces have the mines, mark them all and win the game.
The game is also pretty unforgiving, if you click on one space that has a mine, you = dead and your game = over. So it’s in your best interest to methodically poke around the grid and carefully consider each move. Or do what I do, make the grid as large as possible and the number of mines as small as possible. Then there’s a very good chance that you’ll solve the puzzle with a single click… Unless you happen on a mine on your first click.
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