Pinball

Name: Pinball
Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre:Pinball
Hours Played: One
Beaten: N/A

Before the advent of arcade games, pinball machines reigned supreme as the nation's number one non-gambling quarter muncher.  The premise of pinball machines is simple: a steel ball richoettes around a slightly elevated playing field, and you control paddles to catch, aim, and prevent the ball from falling out of bounds.  When video games hit the home market, adapting virtual pinball machines that people could play at home was a natural fit, and thus, one of the initial sixteen games released for the NES was Nintendo's own Pinball.

Of the six pinball games released for the NES, the boringly named Pinball is easily the worst.  The graphics are bland, the music is non-existent, and there's only one table, making this a game you'll grow tired of very quickly.  There's two screens (an upper level and a lower level) you can bounce in-between, and a sparse number of ramps and bumpers.  There's no real theme to the table, either; there's eggs that hatch into chicks, dancing penguins and seals, and playing cards.  It's a shame since theming is such a big part of real-life pinball machines; the real life Mario pinball game is much more interesting than anything shown here.

The only real interesting thing is a mini-game you access by hitting one of the bonus spots; it takes you to a Breakout-style mini game where Mario bounces the pinball around to rescue Pauline.  It says something about how boring the rest of the game is that the picture on the box is actually from the mini-game.  Unfortunately, the whimsy of the bonus game doesn't seem to jive with the relatively straight-forward presentation of the regular game.

While Pinball is certainly the worst pinball game for the NES, you could argue a lot of the problems (simplistic presentation, only one table) come from being one of the first games released for the system.  What I can't explain, however, is the mishmash of realism (the main tables) and surrealism (Mario-themed Breakout mini game).  There's two camps on how to approach pinball video games: create a realistic simulation (like Pin*Bot), or include video game elements such as enemies and bosses (like Pinball Quest).  Both ways are valid options, and both have their die-hard fans.  The problem comes when you try to have it both ways; you end up pleasing no one.

Graphics & Animation: 1 (Bad)
I wouldn't call the graphics awful; I mean, you can tell what everything is suppose to be.  However, I would call them about as boring and uninspired as humanly possible.

Music & Sounds: 0 (Awful)
If your not going to have any music (besides the generic black box title theme) in your pinball game, that should be because you don't want to distract from your realistic pinball table sounds.  Unfortunately, those aren't so good either.

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
The controls here are fairly average for a pinball game; with a little luck and a lot of skill, you can get the ball where you want it.  However, I'm docking a point for not having tilt, a feature in pinball video games that mimics the real life technique of shaking the machine a little bit to get the ball over a ledge or slope.

Story & Presentation: 0 (Awful)
As I stated before, every real-life pinball machine has a theme, and every obstacle and bonus mechanism in the game will be centered around that theme.  The game already has Mario in it, so why not feature him, his enemies, and warp pipes on the game's main mode?  Instead, I guess it's a pinball game about... birds and playing cards?

Length & Replayabilitiy: 0 (Awful)
You'll see everything this game has to offer you inside of five minutes.

Total: 2 (Awful)

Balloon Fight

Name: Balloon Fight
Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Arcade
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

In my review for Excite Bike, I suggest that of the original sixteen games released for the NES (also known as the "black box series"), only Super Mario Bros. and Excite Bike enjoyed popularity in America past their initial run.  You might be wondering, are their any other black box games that still hold up?  The answer is a resounding yes.

Balloon Fight is a game developed by Nintendo and originally released to arcades in 1984.  Conceived as a "clone" (gamer slang for "rip-off") of arcade classic Joust, Balloon Fight expanded upon the formula in enough ways to become a memorable game in it's own right.  In the main game, you play a balloonist who flies around platforms, popping your enemies' balloons while trying to avoid getting your own balloons popped.  When an enemy's balloon is popped, they plummet to the ground, and if they land on a floating platform, you have a few seconds to finish them off before they inflate a new balloon and return as a more powerful opponent (in the tradition of games like Mario Bros. and Bubble Bobble).  Falling into the water underneath the platforms is instant death, and if you hover too near, a hungry fish waits to attack friend and foe alike.  Other obstacles, such as clouds that shoot lighting and the bumpers from Smash Bros, serve to further compound matters.

Balloon Fight improves upon the basic Joust formula in several ways.  First of all, the controls are stronger, and you'll never die from a cheap shot you couldn't react to.  The slippery momentum is gone here, making the controls more about judging how fast you should flap your arms (to gain lift) at any certain time.  There's more level variety here, too; the first three levels serve as a practice, similar to Joust, and then levels four through twelve cycle indefinitely.  Each level has it's own layout and placement of obstacles to keep you on your toes.

The biggest addition here, and something I wish a lot more NES arcade ports had done, is the addition of a second, simple but awesome mini-game called Balloon Trip.  Basically, it's Flappy Bird, almost twenty years before Flappy Bird existed.  You navigate your balloonist through a never-ending randomly generated maze of electric sparks to get the highest score possible.  It's challenging yet oddly relaxing at the same time, and easily qualifies as it's own game, making the fifty dollar price tag a lot easier to swallow.

Balloon Fight is at it's heart a Joust clone, but it expands upon the formula in so many ways, and came out so much earlier then Joust's NES port, that you could be forgiven for assuming Joust ripped off of Balloon Fight.  The greater variety of levels, plus the addition of the excellent Balloon Trip mini-game, makes this "tribute" a clear superior to it's predecessor.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics are simple but charming; I especially like the way the enemy bird-men use a bicycle pump to re-inflate their balloons.  Little touches like this, and the animation on the collectible balloons, show how much a little extra attention can elevate a game.

Music & Sounds: 1 (Bad)
The Balloon Fight theme is actually pretty catchy; too bad what you'll mostly hear during gameplay is the annoying bicycle-squeak sound effect of enemy's flapping their wings.  The other sound effects are pretty satisfying, especially popping balloons, and the theme does play on loop during the Balloon Trip game.

Controls & Level Design: 4 (Excellent)
The controls here are great, giving you the perfect blend of challenge and precision.  The level design is a little on the simple side, with little variety, but  it lends itself well to the constant chaos happening on screen at any given time, and the randomly generated nature of Balloon Trip (a rarity on the NES!) means you can play endlessly without getting bored.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
In true arcade fashion, their's basically no story whatsoever (the manual doesn't even give the poor balloonist a name).  The presentation is simple but appealing, with little touches like an animated balloon serving as your menu cursor elevating things a little.  I especially like the fact  that the whole of the game takes place at night, with stars always twinkling in the background; it provides a nice change of pace from the usual "blue skies and clouds" background of so many platforms on the NES.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 3 (Good)
Easily one of the best of the one-screen platform games on the NES.  You can get into that arcade groove, but things are hectic enough that you can never truly relax, and the randomly generated mazes of Balloon Trip ensure you can play forever without getting bored.

Total: 12 (Average)

Super Mario Bros.

Name: Super Mario Bros.
Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Platformer
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: Yes, countless times

In the early eighties, most video games were about one thing.  Space Invaders was about shooting aliens, Pole Position was about racing cars, Pac-Man was about eating pellets and avoiding ghosts.  Then, in 1985, everything changed with the release of Super Mario Bros.  In this game, you could stomp enemies, break bricks, breath fire, throw turtle shells, grow giant, climb beanstalks into the sky, swim, jump off bullets, and more.  There was absolutely nothing else like it at the time, and to say it changed video games forever is an understatement.

The basic gameplay is simple: you walk from left to right, collecting coins, avoiding or defeating enemies, and try to reach the flagpole at the end of the level.  The genius is in how complicated they made the game with such simple rules and constraints.  For instance, taking damage.  Gain an extra "hit" and you grow to giant size; take damage, and you shrink back down.  This visually communicates in an instant whether or not you can afford to take a hit from an enemy.

Another example is attacking enemies.  You're taught at the very beginning that you attack enemies by jumping on them (the only exception being spiked enemies; another example of clear communication through graphic design).  As you progress, you start to realize the hidden depth of this attack: bouncing off enemies to reach new locations, stomping multiple enemies in a row for more points, jumping off turtle shells to send them careening at your opponents, etc).

Add all that to the wide variety of the game (traversing mountains, swimming underwater, riding platforms through the sky, avoiding lava spurts in castles, etc) and you have a game that offers a shocking amount of depth and replayability.  I've been playing the game almost as long as it's been out, and there's still techniques (the wall jump, standing inside a shell) I've never been able to pull off.  Super Mario Bros. is a game that's still as fun to play thirty years later as the day it came out, and that's a testament to amazing creativity and game design.

Graphics & Animation: 3 (Good)
Super Mario Bros. was one of the first games released for the NES, and while it's graphics remain iconic to this day (especially the design of Mario and his enemies), they still leave some room for improvement.  From his earliest days of Donkey Kong, Mario has always been shown wearing blue overalls and red shirt. Super Mario Bros 2 and 3 were both able to find ways to represent this, but in the original you're stuck with red overalls and a brown shirt for some reason.

Music & Sounds: 4 (Excellent)
Be honest; even if you haven't played it, you can still hum the Super Mario Bros theme song.  Like Tetris and Mega Man 2, the music from this game has permanently imprinted itself into popular culture, spawning endless covers and remixes.

Controls & Level Design: 4 (Excellent)
The controls in Super Mario Bros. set the standard for how people expect NES games to control, right down people always expecting jump to be assigned to the A button.  The real beauty though comes down to the little touches and tweaks you normally wouldn't even notice.  For instance, Nintendo designed the game so that if you almost but not quite clear a jump, the game auto-adjusts and puts you on the platform (it's the reason you can run over one-brick-sized gaps).  It's something you would never notice during play, but it adds a smoothness to the controls that make Mario clones (rip-offs) never feel quite right when you play them.

Story & Presentation: 3 (Good)
The story here is told through presentation (i.e. lowering a turtle flag and raising a star flag at the end of each level) and through cutscenes at the end of each castle (although every cutscene is identical save the last one).  The presentation is nice; the Mushroom Kingdom is clearly a world under construction, what with it's random brick formations, floating girders, and exposed pipes everywhere.  There's been plenty of debate over the years as to what the subtext of the game might be; my personal theory is that it's a statement against the urbanization of Japan's more rural areas.  Still, just the fact that we're still talking about it (and still referencing/parodying the famous "princess in another castle" line) is a testament to how enduring this game is.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 4 (Excellent)
It's been thirty years now, and people are still posting new Let's Play videos to YouTube showing off secrets and tricks of the trade for this game, and Nintendo is still trying to replicate it's success with the New Super Mario Bros. line of games.  Yes, I know I stated I wouldn't let a game's legacy influence score, but my point is to illustrate the infinite replayability of this game; I can think of few games that have been replayed more.

Total: 18 (Excellent)

Clu Clu Land

Name: Clu Clu Land

Year: 1985

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Nintendo

Genre: Arcade

Hours Played: 4

Beaten: N/A

Imagine being an early NES adopter in 1985.  You're impressed by Super Mario Bros, you buy the system, and now you're ready to get some more games.  Of course, for an entire year there's only sixteen games to choose from.  Excite Bike is a classic, and I personally enjoy Balloon Fight, but past that, what else is there?  Urban Champions?  Ice Climbers?  Golf?  Well, any of them would be infinitely better choices then Clu Clu Land.

I'm just going to say it now: Clu Clu Land is a terrible, terrible game.  At first glance, it's pretty similar in concept to Pac-Man: you constantly move forward through maze in a top-down perspective, outrunning enemies, picking up fruit, and trying to clear the board.  Instead of eating yellow dots, you run over spaces to reveal hidden gems, and when all the gems are uncovered, you've beaten the level.  Their aren't gems in every space, though, so you have to remember where you've already been.  When all the gems are revealed, they form a picture.  This is suppose to help you figure out where the gems you're missing are, but since they didn't bother localizing it, the pictures are often Japanese symbols or letters and thus aren't a whole lot of help.

The biggest deal breaker here is the controls.  In Pac-Man, you hold left to turn left, and the next time he passes a left-facing passageway, he turns.  Not so here.  When you hold left, you're character (no idea what his name is) holds out a hand (flipper?), and the next time you pass a pole, he grabs onto it and swings leftward.  Only, if you don't let go of the button, he continues to rotate.  Ever hit the left button and end up going right?  Because it happens pretty frequently in this game!  But if you do find yourself going in an unexpected direction, don't worry; if you hit a wall, you bounce off and reverse direction!!  The result is you're always flying across the screen in random directions.  You can also shoot a stun beam at your enemies, but I played for over an hour before I ever remembered to do that because I was so busy fighting the controls.  I ended up playing a total of four hours just to get to the point where the levels start repeating (only five levels) and the controls still don't feel natural.

There are some games where the controls are meant to be part of the challenge.  For instance, in Super Monkey Ball, the controls are so precise, you're constantly teetering across narrow ledges trying to not fall off.  In works in that game because whenever you die, you feel like it was your fault, not because you couldn't make the game do what you wanted.  Here, the controls are just a disaster.  It might work in a slow-paced game where you can think about each move, but instead you're constantly moving forward, trying to remember which spaces you haven't moved over yet, and trying to respond to enemies and (here's the worst part) bumpers that appear out of nowhere.  As well as gems, you can also uncover hidden bumpers, which will reverse your direction as soon as they appear.  Having your direction reversed unexpectedly is so much worse then it sounds, because not only do you have to plan every move out in advanced, but the swinging mechanic prevents you from reversing back; you have to either slam into a wall or another bumper, or "circle the block" like you would in a car.

In short, this is possibly the worst game ever put out by Nintendo; the best thing I can say about it is it didn't make me do any math.

Graphics & Animation: 1 (Bad)
I will admit that these are not the worse graphics I've seen on the NES.  The main character and enemies are nicely animated, and the graphics are initially intriguing if only because the enemies and gems bear such a close resemblance to The Legend of Zelda's graphics.  Now, I have no real idea what anything is suppose to be, but I'll save that for story & presentation.

Music & Sounds: (0) Awful
I've had to play this game for several hours to beat the first five levels (they start repeating after that) so I could consider the game "beaten", and sitting here right now, I can't even remember for sure if music plays during the levels.  I think so?  It's very forgettable, is what I'm trying to suggest.

Controls & Level Design: 0 (Awful)
Is there a score lower then zero?  No, seriously, can I make up a score lower then zero, just for the controls in this game?  The controls in this game get a minus one.  There, I did it.

Story & Presentation: 0 (Awful)
This game takes place underwater!  Apparently!  According to some of the websites (Wikipedia, Moby Games) I checked out.  Do you know what would have helped make that clear?  If they'd made the background blue (instead of black) like it is on the box cover!  Also, the main character is some sort of aquatic fish-like creature!  Apparently!  Do you know what would have helped make that clear?  If he didn't have hands, legs, and teeth during the score tallying sequence!

Length & Replayabilitiy: 1 (Bad)
This is one of those arcade-style games that just plays out endlessly, like Pac-Man, so there's not much to say about length.  However, for a game that's about revealing the hidden pictures, they put some randomization in the order the levels appear, so it's not exactly the same each time you play it.  It's a nice touch, but not enough to save the fact you'd never want to replay this.

Total: 2 (Awful)

Duck Hunt

Name: Duck Hunt
Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Light Gun
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

Duck Hunt was originally released in 1985 as one of the 17 original "black box" games for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Whether or not it came free with your NES depends on which NES bundle you got; in 1987, Nintendo introduced it's most famous bundle, which featured Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on the same cartridge.  The game mostly served as a demo to show off the capabilities of the Light Gun accessory (a gun control you could point and shoot at the screen).  When you view it as a free mini-game that comes with Super Mario Bros, it's a fun little extra, but when you consider it as a full game on it's own cartridge, it's a little lacking.

There's three games to pick from in Duck Hunt: "1 Duck", "2 Ducks", and "Clay Shooting".  "2 Ducks" is the mode most people thing of when they think of Duck Hunt.  Two ducks fly around a static screen, and you have a few seconds (and three shots) to take them out.  Your trusty hunting dog pop out of the grass holding the number (one or two) of ducks you shot; if you missed both, he giggles at you instead.

"1 Duck" looks and plays almost identically to "2 Ducks", the biggest difference being that you get three shots to take down a single duck at a time.  For some reason, this mode has a special screen every time you miss - the sky goes pink and the words FLY AWAY appear on the screen.  I was never sure why Nintendo thought that was necessarily.  "1 Duck" also includes a little-known two-player mode; the second player uses the standard NES controller plugged into port 1 to (theoretically) control the duck.  The problem is, the duck flies very fast, and the second it hits the edge of the screen the duck switches back to auto, so it's almost impossible to actually exert much control.

"Clay Shooting" is probably the most interesting of the three modes.  Clay pigeons are launched over a field, two at a time, and (like "2 Ducks") you have three shots to take them down.  The reason I always preferred this mode is because the scoring system is more intelligent; how far away the pigeons are and how fast you take them out affects scoring, which adds an element of strategy to the game.  Do you take your time getting a bead but sacrifice points, or shoot them right away and risk missing?

Many games who grew up with the NES have fond memories of Duck Hunt; especially non-gamers (often sisters) who grew up with gamers will often site it as their favorite NES game.  But, though it might have made a great free extra to show off the capabilities of the NES, it's hard to justify spending fifty dollars for this game all by itself.

Graphics & Animation: 3 (Good)
Duck Hunt has very iconic graphics; there's hardly a gamer who grew up in the eighties who doesn't have vivid memories of being laughed at by the hunting dog.

Music & Sounds: 3 (Good)
There's only a couple of short jingles in Duck Hunt, but they're catchy and memorable.  The bigger star here is the sound effects; the duck quacks and the gun shots sound just right, and the laugh of the hunting dog still haunts many a gamer's nightmare.

Controls & Level Design: 2 (Average)
The light gun controls reasonably well; it has a functional sight so you can track your targets.  It's not compatible on all TVs, though.  If your having a hankering to go by an NES at Good Will so you can relieve your childhood, don't expect the Light Gun to work with your modern flat screen TV.  Also, it's a nitpick since no one remembers two player mode anyways, but the controls for the duck are abysmal.

Story & Presentation: 1 (Bad)
The presentation feels a little sparse here.  The title screen and menu are particularly uninspired.  The little cut scene of the dog sniffing are nice, but nothing similar was including for clay pigeon mode.

Length & Replayability: 1 (Bad)
Duck Hunt was a great game to break out when you had friends over who didn't own a Nintendo.  But other then that, how often did you honestly play Duck Hunt?

Total: 10 (Average)

Donkey Kong

Name: Donkey Kong
Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Arcade
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

Donkey Kong is a strange beast (the game, not the ape).  Released in 1981, it was the world's first platformer, and it took the world by storm, but by 1985 (the release of Super Mario Bros) it was already obsolete.

All the action in Donkey Kong takes place in a single screen, no scrolling.  There's three different levels that repeat endlessly (four in the original arcade version), and the point is to get the highest possible score.  For any gamer born later then 1979, the first three levels are a lot of fun (wondering what comes next), but once you've cleared the third board, it's hard to maintain much intrest in playing.  In modern times, having to beat the game more then once (Ghost & Goblins, Bubble Bobble, etc) is considered a cop-out by the programmers; while I know this was a common practice in arcade games at the time (Pac-Man, Space Invaders, etc), it still feels a little cheap, especially for a console game released alongside Super Mario Bros.

Honestly, I feel bad criticizing Donkey Kong - it invented jumping in sidescrollers, and without it we wouldn't have Super Mario Bros - but unlike Super Mario Bros, it's not a game that's aged well.  Even as far as one-screen platformers go, I'd much rather play Bubble Bobble then this.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The graphics here are iconic and colorful.  Donkey Kong himself lacks a few of the animations from the arcade version, but overall this is graphically a very faithful rendition of the arcade game.

Music & Sound: 2 (Average)
There's only one level theme, plus a few short songs for things like the title screen and level start, but everything sounds pretty good here.  Again, a very faithful arcade port.

Controls & Level Design: 3 (Good)
The controls are spot-on.  You'll never feel like you died due to poor controls.  Because the fireballs cheat, sure, but never because of poor controls.  Other innovations like being able to move while you jump would come later, but for the first sidescroller with jumping, the controls hold up surprisingly well.

Story & Presentation: 1 (Bad)
The arcade version has a bunch of cut scenes before and after each level, showing Donkey Kong carrying off Pauline, Mario's heart breaking, etc.  Most of that is lost here - the only one that made it is their reunion at the end of the third stage.

Length & Replayability: 0 (Awful)
It's just the same three levels, over and over and over.... Once you've beat the third stage, there's just not that much else to do here.

Total: 8 (Average)