Lifeforce (NES, 1988)

*Note: This game was originally titled Salamander, and was released in Japan, and later on handhelds in America under that title as well.

Lifeforce for the NES was your basic side scrolling (and top-down) shoot 'em up with a lot of the elements that Konami would later would go on to use in their Gradius games. If you enjoy fast paced shoot 'em ups, this game is fantastic, with ok background music to boot.

This game was relatively short, but a blast from beginning to finish, with 6 levels, 3 side-scrolling, and 3 top-down levels, to blast through various creatures and get to a level boss. Sadly, these bosses were relatively simple to blast through, especially when you had more powerful weapons. Still, the levels themselves, had a lot of tricks up their sleeves, including some growing land that would force you to quickly speed by and become trapped, to the objects trying to fall onto your craft. And, if that wasn't enough, tons of enemies would fill the screen, sometimes slowing down the NES, which was worsened by the use of lvl 2 lasers, and 2 option.

The game has some useful power ups, which would become the basis for power ups in most side scrolling shoot 'em up games. To use these power ups, you would collect orbs from killing specific enemies, or a series of enemies to produce an orb, then press A when you had the appropriate amount. From left to right, these power ups are:
Speed Boost, increases speed of vessel, Missile, fires 2 missiles, 1 from each side of ship, Wave, fires a wave beam (kind of an O ring) at enemies, and replaces your primary weapon, Laser, fires a laser at enemies, and replaces your primary weapon, Option, which added a pod on the outside of your ship, following you, and firing whatever weapon you have from it, and finally Shield, which.. gives you a shield.

Anyways, this game sadly has little replayability, as, beating the game just restarts you back at level 1, with nothing but a Konami logo telling you that you defeated the final boss, and little difficulty on bosses doesn't really give you the urge to go back and beat them again. This game is definitely worth playing once though.

Rating: Play it once, you'll enjoy it.

Ghostbusters (NES, 1988)

* This game was also released for the Atari 800, Commodore 64, and other consoles, with similar gameplay on all machines.

Ghostbusters, like many movie adaptations, has an unusual cheapness to it, feeling very unpolished and rushed throughout the whole game.

Graphically speaking, it was poor, probably due to being ported from the C64 and Atari 800, inferior systems at the time, and helped show Activision's inexperience with the NES console, designing only 10 games for it in total.

Audio in this game is completely terrible. Personally, I would've enjoyed a muted gameplay instead of the 1.. yes, 1 track they play through the entire game, that being the Ghostbusters theme song. (Oh, and they say "Ghostbusters" at the title screen, but that's a horrendous thing to listen to, in 8-bit).

The controls are ok, the car responds well on the overworld and driving sections, and they do move around to capture the ghosts very well, but climbing Zuul's Tower (which.. why is it Zuul's Tower, anyways? Shouldn't it be Gozer's Tower? whatever) is a royal pain. I'm fairly certain that there's no way up that thing without cheating. Hopefully I'm wrong. Anyways, the boss fight moves well, and is relatively simple.

Replayability is miserable, and once you've beaten this once, that's it.. move on.

The story is simple for this game, go in, collect cash by capturing ghosts until you can move into Zuul's Tower, head up and kill the final boss. That's it. I don't think I've seen a more straightforward game in my life. And if you do kill the boss, and finish the game (good luck getting up the tower). You'll be greeted with one of the worst translations of a credits screen ever.

Rating: Don't bother, unless you're drunk.. or bored.

The Adventures of Batman and Robin (SNES, 1994)

*Note: This game was also available on the Genesis, Sega CD, and Game Gear, however, the gameplay is completely different on those consoles.

So, right off the bat, I have to note that I'm not a huge fan of TV/Movie conversions to video games. With that in mind, I actually enjoyed this game quite a bit.

Control-wise, this game plays similar to most side-scrolling beat-'em ups, with a few usable weapons from the Batman universe for added enjoyment. The Adventures of Batman and Robin handles solidly, with nothing really notable either way for control. If you enjoyed the cartoon during the 90s, you'll like this game too.

The audio and visuals in the game were identical to the cartoon version, again, with nothing notably added or removed, and most of the levels were in fact based on cartoon episodes.

Boss fights were enjoyable, not too difficult, but can be frustrating sometimes, as you usually need to hit some sweet spot, and that's not usually a walk in the park to nail it. Overall, it's not an overly challenging game, and should provide a few hours of enjoyment.

Rating: Try it out!

Super Mario World (SNES, 1990)

This fun title was first bundled with the Super Nintendo back in 1990, bringing the famous plumber back for another platformer with new tools.

For it's time, it was a very expansive game, growing from the simple 8-bit lvls from Super Mario 3, to graphically superior 16-bit levels. Most of the "worlds" in Super Mario World were similar in quantity to Super Mario 3, but usually contained a lot of extras, including Yoshi, and having more than 1 path to clearing a stage in some cases (red stages). Also enjoyable is completing the optional Star Road added to the game, which had a unique effect of changing the landscape and characters to a Halloween-esque version.

Mario himself felt much more responsive, and his new companion, Yoshi, and cape, allowed him to rise to new areas, on the larger levels. The castle stages were completely redesigned, and feel a little more cartoony, but also have a much more enjoyable feel than the stages from Super Mario 3.

All in all, this game, and just trying to complete 100%, will lead to many hours of gameplay, and should be a fun adventure for anyone looking to play some classic games. Even veterans of the SNES should go back and give this one another try.

Rating: Definitely (re-)play!

A New Blog Is Born!

Hello readers, and welcome to my Classic Gaming corner of the interwebs. Here, I plan to educate and review readers on Classic Gaming, and any fun little facts surrounding these joyful (and terrible) games. We'll cover everything from the classic Atari 2600 games (and possibly further back) up to PS1 / N64 gaming.

Thanks again for stopping over to check out this new site, and I hope you'll find it as enjoyable as I do writing for this blog. Any questions, comments, or rants, feel free to drop me a line at fire9875@gmail.com