OH NOES!
There are 75 games and no repeats, but with how bad most of these games are it doesn't matter how many of them are included. One thing that's important to point out is that certain games on this won't work on most emulators and require EmuVT (which CaH4e3 has on his website) to run. To understand how bad this thing really is, I'll start whipping these games off one by one (figuratively speaking, of course) and then write the obligatory and nonsensical conclusion.
Oh, and you'll find that with these games there are a few themes that run throughout:
- Mediocre graphics
- Terrible sound
- The most mundane gameplay this side of the Magnavox Odyssey
We start off the plagiarism with the imaginatively titled Shark, which is of course a clone of Shark! Shark! for the Intellivision. For those who aren't familiar with the game, the goal is to eat as many fish as you can and when you grow to maximum size you have to eat the shark's tails. It's quite simple, really. As you may notice in the screenshot, the graphics are more detailed than you would expect from a Famicom/NES game. That's because this clone runs on the OneBus VT03 architecture, which allows for better graphics than the Famicom could produce. Unfortunately, this potential is wasted because only about 5 games use this, which is especially dumb given that (as far as I can tell, at least) you could feasibly fit 75 of them. Of course, the only reason to put this in over Super Mario Bros. is to prevent copyright infringement, sort of. From this point onwards, I shall refer to these graphically enhanced games as VT03 games, because that's what they're officially recognised as. In case you're wondering, the rest are labelled as VT02 and will work on a normal Famicom from what I'm lead to believe.
The gameplay is alright, what with it being a complete ripoff of another game, but one running theme throughout these games is annoying and repetitive music. From what I counted, 3 games on this entire unit have decent music, why that is I'll explain later. As I said, the graphics are pretty nice for an 8-bit game, even if that's because of a hardware modification. Certainly gives the Master System a run for its money.
Overall, it's one of the better games on this unit but if you've played Shark! Shark! before and you don't play this, then you're not missing much.
2. Super HeroCertainly one of the more interesting games on here, Super Hero is a hack of Felix the Cat for the Famicom. No, not the Hudson Soft game unfortunately, but rather a pirated remake of that game made by Dragon Co. Because I feel like pointing this out for those who are fortunate enough not to have played their games, Dragon are infamous for making really bad platformers for the Famicom and this is no exception. The physics engine is glitchy and hastily programmed, the music is poor (although better than most of the games on here) and while the graphics were pretty good in the original game, that isn't the case in this hack. Oh, and the storyline (if you can even call it that) was removed here. What's also great is how the game makes no sense at all. Why are there red Internet Explorer logos in the background? Why does Super Hero die to the touch against a fish? And most importantly, why am I playing this POS? The game itself is surprisingly in-depth for a game on this thing (mainly because a lot of the others are single-screen games) and has about 6 levels from what I remember. That said, it's still pretty poor and I'd say you're much better off with Hudson's Felix the Cat instead.
Like I said, music is fairly poor although better than average in terms of these games. Hell, at least the game has more than one song that loops through the whole thing. As for the graphics, they're pretty poor in comparison to the game it's a hack of, but not that bad. They vary between levels and the game is presentable enough, sort of.
Unless you're a masochist, I suggest skipping this one for your own sanity.
3. Road WorkerA game where you work on roads, right? Well if real life has taught me anything, it's that roadworkers are some of the laziest bastards out there, unless you count employees at Nice Code or myself of course. In this game, your job is to guide an ice cream truck (or something) to the edge of the screen by fixing the road with a number of options at the bottom of the screen. It's not too bad in terms of actual gameplay, but the main problem with this game is that it's simply too easy. You're given a full minute to complete each level which, if you know what you're doing, is more than enough. Another problem with this game is that there's no way to speed up the van or anything, so if you've fixed everything in the first few seconds, then you'll have to wait for the lazy bugger to catch up.
The graphics are basic, but they work well enough for this game at least. The music on the other hand is annoying, and turning the sound down (or off) is recommended.
4. EscapewayNow we come to real dregs, as in most of the games from this point. You thought the first 3 games were poor? Trust me, it gets worse from this point.
Moving on from that rather subjective point, Escapeway is a game that makes very little sense and it's somewhat difficult to grasp. In this game, you play as 3 heads which have the ability to jump over obstacles, apart from the ones below the one wearing sunglasses. I don't it either. You can press the up and down buttons to switch the sunglasses between the characters, and you'll have to do this constantly to get anywhere in this.
The sound is poor yet again. Graphics are OK I guess, but like they say, graphics don't make the game. Now if someone told Mirage Software that back in 1994, we wouldn't have had Rise of the Robots.
Anyway, this game is bad, confusing and should be avoided IMO.
5. Aether CruiserThe first of many really bad shooters, just like Action 52. Well, apart from these ones being more samey and less glitchy. In this game, what you have to do is shoot at asteroids and space ships and TBH, I can't even come up with a better description for this game because that's literally the whole thing in a nutshell. Now it's not exactly easy to review a game that's as bare-bones as this, but one problem that this game certainly has is the lack of variety in the enemies. You have space ships that shoot at you and asteroids which don't shoot at you. Yeah, like I haven't seen this in any shooter from 1979 onwards. There are bosses that appear every now and then, but all they do is shoot at you and that's it.
Sound is poor yet again, and the graphics are barely above the standard of an Action 52 game.
Unless you have to play absolutely every shooter that exists, this is simply not worth playing at all.
And now we come to the obligatory Battle City clone. Unlike most of them, this one seems to be programmed from scratch, because it doesn't play as well as the original game. For those who aren't familiar with Battle City, the goal is to destroy all of the tanks in a given level to progress to the next one. There's also environmental hazards and powerups every now and then, but it doesn't get much more complex than that. When compared to the original game, the control isn't quite as good. The tank moves too slow and to add insult to injury, the enemies are smarter than they were in the original game. They'll only shoot if they can see you, and some of the bullets can't even be shot at, pretty much leaving you as a sitting duck in certain situations. As well as this, the lack of a HUD makes it unclear as to how many tanks are left, so half of the time you just wander around the map looking for tanks.
The graphics are definitely a step up from the original game with a lot more detail in the map. There's no music in this one, instead this game opts to remake the sound effects from Battle City. Unfortunately, they're more annoying than they were in the original game.
Pulveration is one of the few games on here that might be worth playing, but you're better off just playing Battle City.
Moving on to another VT03 game, Octopus is another game that makes practically no sense whatsoever. While playing it you'll be confused by the fact that you're a mermaid (who appears to be Ariel judging by the title screen) collecting diamonds to free a trident in the middle of the screen, while dodging a green manta ray and what appears to be a Black Hole Sun. (Insert Soundgarden reference here) If you get caught by either of them then you lose, although because you get unlimited lives it doesn't matter anyway. No idea how many levels there are because I'm not masochistic enough to play through this game, but it just seems to be the same thing every round except with a different level layout.
The graphics are certainly bland for a VT03 game, even the title screen doesn't look all that good. The only interesting thing about them is the random images that appear whenever you win or lose. No idea how a manta ray or Black Hole Sun would be able to tie up a mermaid, but it's not like the rest of the game makes any sense. The music is annoying as usual, and there are no sound effects.
This game makes little sense, and from what I can tell it's main purpose is to confuse the player more than anything. Avoid.
Starring the creepiest looking rabbit I've ever seen. Aside from that, what you have to do in this game is rescue some rabbits from a burning house (or something) while dodging giant (and incredibly slow) bullets being fired by terrorists in a plane. It's boring and isn't worth your time. You can probably tell that I was bored while writing these reviews.
The graphics are poor and so is the music. Nuf said.
Avoid like the Noid's mutant rabbit cousin.
9. IslandNow we move on to one of the best games on the whole collection IMO. Island is a ripoff of Kickle Cublicle for the NES, a game where you kick enemies to turn them into cubicles, except they don't turn into cubicles in this ripoff. The control is OK for the most part, although it's somewhat annoying that you can't move diagonally. The game itself is surprisingly challenging, mainly because you have to be right next to the enemy to kick them. It works well enough though, and it doesn't completely suck at least.
The graphics are quite mediocre as usual, although the music isn't as annoying as it is in most of the games on here.
This is probably one of the few games that you could find a minute's worth of enjoyment on this collection.
And now we move on to another Shark! Shark! clone, except this time around it lacks the benefit of nice graphics. Quite frankly, it's so similar to Shark that it's not even worth documenting. I'll just go out on a limb and say that including this one was completely pointless, although it's not like the other 74 games are any good.
Or "Police Vs Thief: Violent Chasing" as the title screen calls it. This one is really boring, all you do is chase after numerous thieves and crash into them. (Or a "Catch Out" as the game calls it) You can't do u-turns and the levels are mazes which consist of nothing but road. Every now and then, Bernard's Watch appears out of nowhere and if you pick it up, the thief is frozen in place for several seconds. Vice versa if the thief gets it. But like I said, this game is really boring so I wouldn't bother playing it at all.
The graphics are bland, although not awful. At least you actually appear to be driving around a town so they do get the job done. There's no sound in the game at all, so if you have to play this for some crazy reason, might be a good idea to put the Ridge Racer OST on, even though that game is about 47 million times better than this.
As you can imagine, this game isn't worth your time and you should avoid yet again. BTW, wouldn't Cops and Robbers have been a better name? If you're gonna make an awful game, at least make it sound interesting beforehand.
Time for some Towers of Hanoi, because that's basically what this game is. If you happen to be a big fan of the original game, it might provide some entertainment for about 2 minutes but for the rest of us, no. One thing that's annoying is the controls. When you're actually trying to play the game, the mouse (or hand, rather) you're controlling moves way too fast, which is simply a nuisance for a game like this.
Just like the previous game, sound is completely absent so the same rule applies here because I'm too lazy to think of another one. The graphics are bland and basic as you can see, and not much effort put into them on the whole.
If you want to play Towers of Hanoi, then you can do without paying $10 or so for this thing.
One of the more interesting games, Wonder Rabbit is a platformer starring about 7 different rabbits (I'm too lazy to count), each with their own abilities and drawbacks. Thankfully, none of them are anywhere near as creepy as the one from Rabbit Village from earlier, so we're fine. The controls are fairly simple for a platformer but there are 3 problems that arise from them. Firstly, for whatever reason you press the B button to jump in this game, where's the A button uses whatever power your rabbit has. Secondly, the movement is about as stiff as Super Hero's, making it a pain to get anywhere in this game. And the worst thing is that to switch characters, you have to tap A and B at the same time. This doesn't sound too bad, but when you really need to switch characters to avoid getting hit or whatever, a lot of the time you'll end up pressing them out of sync (if you're an idiot like myself, at least). Couldn't they use the Select button for this instead?
The game itself is surprisingly complex, with levels actually requiring keys to complete. Hell, you even get bosses every now and then, which is something you don't see often on this unit. That said, it's still not a good game. As mentioned earlier, control is poor and having to switch between 7 rabbits is excessive and just a pain to do a lot of the time. The bosses (as far as I got, at least) are really easy and a lot of the time, death is caused by a lack of familiarity with the levels.
Unlike most of the other games on here, the music is stolen this time around. In case you don't know, the soundtrack is stolen from Devil World for the NES. The problem with this is that because of the nature of that game, the music is very repetitive and gets annoying quickly in a platformer. I guess Nice Code figured that if they're gonna release the DreamGEAR in North America, they might as well steal stuff from games that weren't released over there. Or maybe not, because many of the graphics are stolen from Super Mario Bros. 2. If you're gonna steal resources from a game, make sure it's not one that everyone and their uncle has played already. (That goes for you as well, Coco Pops) As for the rest of them, the animation is choppy as hell although in fairness, the game itself doesn't look too bad aside from that.
It's one of the better games on here, but it's still not worth recommending. There are many platformers on the NES which are much better than this, including Super Mario Bros. 2.
Now we come to a game which is simply bleh. Vigilant is a side scrolling shooter, but don't go expecting Gradius-type gameplay, or even Scramble complexity for that matter. In fact, this resembles G-Force Fighter off Action 52 more than anything. Just like that game, the levels consist of space corridors where the walls are instant death, you can only shoot one bullet on the screen at any time, enemies appear in set patterns which seem to have been picked at random, enemies are easy to dodge and yet their bullets are near impossible to avoid half the time, the levels seem to end at random nondescript points and both games are just really boring in general. However, this game does add a "Gas" metre, which doesn't really seem to do much. Thankfully, there are no game-breaking glitches or anything, but it sure isn't gonna hold your interest for long. This game is at least somewhat challenging and it it has a couple more features than its Action 52 counterpart, but that's like calling the SNES version of Mario is Missing an improvement on the NES version. Either way, it's still tripe.
The graphics are enough to make G-Force Fighter look decent in comparison. OK, not quite, but they're still pretty poor. Animation is minimal, the stages are mostly in greyscale and all look the same (at least GFF had different borders for each level) and making the Gas bar dark purple is a really bad idea when you actually want to read it. Hell, everything's just as nondescript as they were in GFF. As for the music, there isn't any. All you get is a few bad sound effects and that's it.
If you like G-Force Fighter (and if you do, then you're probably locked up in an asylum) then you'll probably like this game, but quite frankly, this is a shooter that's barely above Action 52 standards.
Much to my disappointment, this is not Devil World with mirrored levels, but rather what appears to be another Kickle Cubicle clone, sort of. It's not exactly the same concept, but I guess it could still be considered a ripoff nontheless. In this game, you have to go around spawning blocks of ice and then kicking them towards empty spaces so you can walk further or something. If you do this enough, then you can activate the switches right in front of the devils that inhabit the mirrors to destroy them. Got that? Didn't think so. Hell, it took me ages to figure it out. Makes about as much sense as the screen that appears after you lose a life. The gameplay itself is much more annoying than Kickle Cubicle, mainly because you can't attack the enemies directly, not to mention that they fire projectiles at you frequently. Not sure how many levels there are because I'm not masochistic enough to play through this game, but I can't imagine that there'd be much variation between them.
Graphics are mediocre as usual, and don't make sense at points. In fact, a few graphics (as well as the pre-level screen) are copied from Kickle Cubicle due to laziness on Nice Code's part. The music seems to use a better sound engine than most of the other games, but the tune is so repetitive that it gets annoying fast.
Overall, play Kickle Cubicle instead.
Or Harbour if you're British, or Absolutely Broken POS if you've ever played this game before. Harbour is a basically a game where the entire objective is to shoot stuff, and that's it. Because it's in a first person view, you use a cross-hair to shoot this stuff like in a rail-gun shooter, but this is nowhere near as fun as House of the Dead or even the SNES version of Revolution X. (Which really is saying something because that game is godawful) The game itself takes place on one screen and it won't hold your interest for long.
The music is poor as usual, although because this is a VT03 game the graphics are some of the best you'll see on this unit. That said, graphics don't make the game so it's not exactly compensation for the tepid gameplay.
Terrible as usual, bring on the next victim.
Unfortunately not a lazy hack of Antarctic Adventure for the NES, in this game you play as a cub who goes around picking up some nondescript objects which somehow allows it to progress to the next level. To do this, it has to go around an ice maze while dodging the various seals or whatever, as these are instant death thanks to video game logic. This game is slow, dull and feels like someone tried to make a Pac-Man derivative and failed.
The graphics look like they were inspired by Kickle Cubicle (I know I keep mentioning this game, but blame Nice Code for having some sort of obsession with it) but even so, they're still not that good. Music is the typical Nice Code pain, so mute as per usual.
If you can't figure it out yet, this game is not worth playing so let's move on to something else.
Time for an obligatory Pipe Mania clone! Actually, I think I'll stick with the DOS version. Anyone who's familiar with Pipe Mania (or Bioshock, for that matter) will undoubtedly be familiar with this game. Place pipe pieces in such a layout that will allow the water to go to the exit. It really is that simple. To me, this seems to be easier than the DOS game as I think you get more time to complete the level, and you don't have to contend with the water catching up to your pipes.
While the gameplay works well enough, the audiovisuals are poor. The graphics are bland and ugly as you can see in the screenshot, and the music is terrible to say the least.
Overall, if you want to play Pipe Mania, stick with the original.
Yay for titles that make no sense! Anyway, this game is a very archaic racing game similar to Street Racer on the Atari 2600, where the goal is drive up the screen while dodging obstacles precariously placed in the road. Problem is, when you're going at full speed you simply don't have enough time to react to them so you end up crashing a lot as a result. You race against the computer, but he's pretty easy as long as you don't crash too much. One thing that's odd is that the HUD states that there's a time limit, even though there really isn't.
The graphics are poor, to put it simply. The scrolling is badly done and the ground is pink for some crazy reason. The music is typical awfulness as usual, so moving on.
Yay for more titles that make no sense! This time around, we have the obligatory Bomberman clone, and a pretty bad one at that. (In fact, another version of this game is actually called Bomberman) The game design is actually not too bad for the most part, but there are three flaws that ruin the experience. The most major one is the enemies' AI, as they're way too smart for its own good. Most of the time, the only way to possibly take them out is to lead them into an inescapable trap, which is a pain to do in this game. The second problem (from what I've heard at least) is that there's only one level which loops over and over. Haven't been able to test that as I'm not very good at this game, but I wouldn't put it past Nice Code to be that lazy. The third problem is that unlike the original game, the levels are preset as opposed to randomised, which kind of detracts from the replay value.
The graphics are alright, although where this game is set is beyond me. The music is surprisingly not bad in this game, at least they actually put some effort into it this time around. Then again, it's probably a remake of something else for what I know, most like one of the SNES Bomberman games I never got around to playing. (I had the ones on the Playstation)
If you really want to play this game, I'd suggest Bomberman instead. With the exception of Act Zero, all of the other ones outclass this version by a mile.
Another VT03 game, which is nice, I guess. Anyway, this game is basically Jupiter Scope from Action 52 with better graphics and the asteroids being replaced by falling space ships, who have the added ability of moving diagonally. Oh, and the 2 player mode was removed, just because. As well as this, the game goes on forever because there's only one level. Also worth pointing out that if a game is being compared with something from Action 52, that tends to mean that it's a barely playable abomination.
The graphics are well-detailed but make no sense. What the hell is the background supposed to represent? The bottom looks like a really poor attempt at an isometric perspective. And if you're fighting the Earth then why are you just rooted to one screen the entire time? There's no music during gameplay and as usual, the sound effects (that is, applying to the games that actually have them) are poor.
To sum this up in one word, boring.
Greatest video game name ever? Oh wait, that'd go to Irritating Stick for the Playstation, or maybe Parodius: Nonsense Fantasy for the SNES if you count subtitles. Anyway, what we have here is a clone of Nightstalkers for the Intellivision. In fact, it's pretty much the same game with different graphics and an altered level layout as far as I'm concerned. As a result, it's one of the best games on here, although that really isn't saying much. For those who've never played the original, what you have to do in this game is go around and shoot random enemies. You get the ability to shoot by collecting a powerup, which gives you 6 bullets and only reappears when you run out of them. One enemy will actively shoot at you while the others move around randomly. Not one of the Intellivision's finest moments, but it's better than a lot of the other games on here at least.
There's no music, just a few bad sound effects in the whole thing. The graphics are bland and don't do justice to the Famicom's capabilities, especially given that the stage basically comprises of blocks and nothing more.
If you want to play this game, I'd suggest going with Nightstalkers instead if you own an Intellivision. For everyone else, don't bother.
And now for the mandatory Arkanoid clone, and an awful one at that. Quite frankly, this game makes Alleyway on the Game Boy seem like a masterpiece by comparison, which is saying something because that game is pretty boring in itself. In theory, the gameplay is identical to Arkanoid with all of the powerups and such, the only difference being that instead of clearing all of the blocks to move on to the next level, you have to hit a giant diamond instead. What ruins this ripoff is the physics. You don't even get a chance to hit the ball half of the time because it moves too quickly and erratically. I think Nice Code would've just been better off hacking the original game, at least it'd actually be playable that way. Oh, and there's only 6 levels instead of 33 or however many the original game had.
The graphics look like a poor man's Arkanoid as you'd expect, and the music is pretty bad in general.
Overall, there's about 9285 better versions of this game out there so pick one of those instead.
And now we come to one of the worst games on here IMO. Burrow Explorer is a really bland and basic game, where the whole objective is to navigate your way through a maze. The problem with this is that you can only see about 2cm in front of you and because you have to avoid enemies, this is very annoying as a result. The concept is basically Snail Maze off the Master System crossed with Illuminator from Action 52, and the end product is inevitably a POS.
The graphics are naturally some of the worst on the unit, and the music is typically awful as well.
Avoid.
And we come to another one of the worst games on here, again IMO. Trust me when I say you're really spoiled for choice when it comes to picking the worst titles on here. In this game, what you have to do is collect balls and bombs with 4 differently coloured pouches. (Or something) Problem is, these items appear too quickly and as a result, make it almost impossible to play the game with any sort of competency. Even if they did appear in the right amounts, the game would still be boring as hell because the concept sucks anyway. Not to mention, there's no clear indication as to which balls and bombs go into which pouches, confusing the player as a result. The items and pouches are different colours, but it seems to be random as to whether the game says "Good" or "Wrong".
Graphics are poor, and the music is even worse than most of the other songs on this unit.
Avoid again.
Hello... I'm new here and it's my birthday. I have a controller but it's a 50-in-1 controller. My favorite is Wonder Rabbit!!!
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