|
Only about 28p a game
By Alex McChesney
The post office up the road from my place of work has recently undergone a spot of refurbishment. Subsequently, they've expanded the range of products they have on offer. All well as the usual stationery, stamps, lottery tickets and postal services, you can also, should you be so included, purchase a copy of Cyborg Cop 2, enumerable trash romance-novels, and all manner of cheap rubbish that can be generally lumped together under the banner "gifts." (Gifts for people you don't like very much, perhaps.)
My eyes lit up, however, when I saw this...
88 games of dubious legality for only a tenner? Bargaintastic!
It's one of those plug-and-play retro systems built into the base of a joystick that are popping up like mushrooms at the moment. They tend to have miniaturised versions of some ancient console or arcade hardware built into them, along with a load of games in ROM. I like them. They're dirt cheap, and ace for casual gamers who don't want to muck about with emulation just to get a quick nostalgia fix, or kids who are a bit too young and jammy-fingered to be trusted with a proper console, and they act as neat little capsules of gaming history. When we were last in the US we stayed with R's cousin, whose 7-year-old daughter was a dab hand at the likes of Ms. Pac Man and Xevious courtesy of the official Namco arcade ones. It was nice to see that the games of yesteryear could still be enjoyed, and hopefully, in the future, warmly remembered by a generation who weren't alive the first time around.
These things aren't all quite "above board", however. I already own a Super TV Boy, which is basically a miniaturized Atari 2600 with a bunch of official cartridges built-in, crudely hacked to remove all copyright notices, sometimes with colours and other minor cosmetic details changed, and with generic names. Sure enougn, a cursory glance at the back of the "Joystick 88" box revealed screenshots that looked suspiciously like they were generated by an 8-bit Nintendo console, and a list of ace titles such as "Happy Panda", the completely-missing-the-point-of-copyright-law-evasion "Coin Tetris", and my personal favourite: "Tactful Monkey." Clearly, it was an NES-based console plus a load of hacked ROMs.
A Tactful Monkey, yesterday.
Needless to say, I had to make it mine. It could either turn out be an easy (and, at £9.99, pretty cheap) source of retro-gaming jollies in front of the telly, or a tiny disappointment bomb waiting to go off on Christmas day in the front rooms of disadvantaged children the length and breadth of the country. The only way to be sure would be to brave that uncomfortable RSI-inducing lump of black plastic, and play every single one of those 88 games. In order, then...
1. Super Fighter
A fairly comprehensive graphics-hack of Super C (aka Contra II), this gave me hope for the system. A decent enough game to begin with, the altered graphics don't look too shabby, and I was quite enjoying its simple runny-jumpy-shooty action. Until, that is, I realised that it was seemingly impossible to end the game. I lost life-after-life, but kept springing up again. Until I pulled the plug that is. Ideal for kids with self-esteem issues, perhaps. Less so for the rest of us. Oh well, 1 down, 87 to go.
2. Space War
On first impressions, this was a bit more like it. At least it was possible to lose, though I still managed to play for 20 minutes by simply holding down the fire button. It's a vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up which was originally called Gun-Nac. (Although the original logo has been taken off the front screen, it's still called by name if you watch the little intro scene.) Fairly enjoyable for a while, until I tracked down the original ROM and had a go on the PC via the gift of emulation. The graphics haven't been butchered too badly, if you can forgive some eye-watering colour schemes, but where the original zips along at a fair old rate, the hacked version just crawls. I dunno whether it's down to bad emulation or a shoddy conversion from NTSC to PAL, but it doesn't bode well for the rest of the games in the set. Being attacked by tin-openers, dildos, and the torso of a giant woman whose arms you have to shoot off is briefly entertaining, however.
3. Racing Car
A sort of split-screen Pole-Position clone, this was once "Corvette ZR-1 Challenge", with all references to the titular automobile manufacturer replaced with a picture of a manga-style girl in a flouncy dress requesting that you "please waiting..." Not much cop to begin with, and again seems to run a lot more slowly than it should.
4. Air Tiger
1942 made shit by a slightly altered colour palette, and, again, that pesky slowdown.
1942 with a dodgy palette
5. Pocky
No idea what this was originally. Guide a little fat boy with blue hair who looks remarkably like Cartman out of "South Park" through a horizontally-scrolling forest shooting an unidentifiable white substance at midget karate black-belts. As much fun as being forced to watch an entire episode of execrable "sitcom" My Hero. They made five seasons of that, you know. FIVE!
6. Maze Ball
Er, there's this grid of cells, right? And it starts filling up with balls, one cell at a time, right? And you control this little round robot thing, which has another little round robot thing following behind it and mimicking its movements with a few seconds delay. And if you move over a cell that's been filled and press the fire button, its contents are swapped with the cell that the other robot is over. And you have to get all the balls into the cell on the bottom-left of the screen. Again, I haven't a scooby what this was before being ripped off, nor the patience to keep playing it to find out if it gets any more interesting.
7. Magic Block
Tetris-style puzzler that I think I should know the name of but can't quite place. Columns of three symbols fall from the top of the screen, and you have to line up three or more of the same symbol to make them disappear. Puzzlers are probably what the unit is best suited for, since they won't give it palpitations by asking it to do too much.
8. Street War
AKA Mighty Final Fight, despite the usual sprite and palette tweaks, this one hasn't undergone as radical a course of uglification as some of the other games on here, and even runs at a half-decent rate. Walk left-to-right and beat the crap out of pimps and hos and guys with long blonde hair wearing wraparound shades. One of the most enjoyable games on the collection so far. There's a sense that whoever was given the task of altering this one couldn't be arsed doing to much to it, which works to its credit. Where some of the others have their copyright screen altered with the name of a fake company, the "Capcom Presents" screen at the start of Street War/Final Fight now just says "Presents".
9. Hellfire
Hellfire, for example, claims to be made by a company called "Fun Foat". I'm not sure what a "Foat" is, but I'm sure I'd rather have a fun one rather than just some generic, boring Foat. This was originally the "Batman" movie tie-in game. It didn't take a lot of research to figure this out, given that they haven't bothered removing the animation at the start of the game where the Batmobile pulls up, and the caped-crusader himself gets out... only to turn into a sort of ninja-turtle looking dude with a giant head. Clearly the main reason that "Street War" was spared a full session on the uglytron was because it was tied up generating this game's hideous pink, lime-green and piss-yellow colour palette. Not a great game to begin with, even less so now that it looks like vomit.
10. 100m Dash
Cheeky buggers. To pad out "Joystick 88's" line-up, they've taken each of the individual events from Track and Field and split them into separate games. Bash the fire button repeatedly to win the race against the computer, then, rather than move on to the next event, do it again... and again... and again....
The wrong 88 Games, this was pretty awful as well
11. Panzer Fly Car
What if the Nazis, with the aid of, I dunno, captured UFO technology or something, had invented flying tanks, and set about racing them down walled roads reminiscent of the Death Star trench from Star Wars? Then wrote a crap video game about it? Originally some top-down drive-in-a-straight-line-and-avoid-the-cars type racer, but with the cars replaced by tanks. Tanks that go at 200 mph. Much less fun than that sounds.
12. Football
Rubbish footy game, based on the imaginatively-titled "Soccer". Runs like a dead dog, but it always did. Inexplicably, the players from the original now sport jaunty peaked-caps. Despite being barely controllable, I still managed to hump the computer 4-nil on my first try, simply by walking up to the goal and tapping the ball in. Even if you just decide to stand still in the middle of the pitch, it takes the opposition several seconds to wake up to the fact and try to take the ball off you. Maybe they were all out on the piss the previous night. In some ways quite an accurate portrayal of the modern football-player, but not especially enjoyable.
It's fun to play for the YMCA
13. Winter Cup
Aah, how I long for those more innocent times, when the name of a game simply described its content. This is a hack of "Ice Hockey", which does exactly what it says on the tin. Not much has been altered, and it moves at a fair rate. Approximately 17 times as fun as "Football".
14. Bumping R-16
Innocent child's plaything, or sinister gay recruiting device designed to turn little Billy into a homosexualist by the age of 13? After the leather-clad football players and now this game, I'm not so sure. "Bumping R-16" it says on the menu, but it identifies itself as "Buming R-16" when you select it. Highly suspicious. The game itself just involves driving your little green car around a maze-like city collecting bonuses and attempting not to get "bummed" by enemy cars. True enough, after five minutes of this some hot man-on-man action would have been welcome, just to relieve the tedium.
15. Javelin Throw
Another Track-and-Field event rendered pointless given that, win or lose, the only thing you can do is toss that fucking javelin again.
16. Night Arrow
"Galaxian", but with the aliens changed to cute little duck things and your spaceship to a crossbow. A good game made all the better by the schadenfreude of killing lots of innocent little ducklings. Ducklings with bombs, mind.
17. Van-1
What if Mr T., with the aid of, I dunno, captured UFO technology or something, had converted the A-Team van into a laser-armed spaceship that flew over the countryside destroying aliens that look like sheep and shoes and flags and things? Again, much less fun than it sounds. Might be Xevious, hacked beyond all recognition. Or it might not.
18. Panda
It's Super Mario Brothers! Yay! Except Mario is now a panda who moves at half the speed he used to. Boo! More realistic, perhaps, pandas not being known as one of this Earth's speedier animals, but still boo! Oh and the music has been replaced by an endless loop of Hello My Baby.
It's a-me. Mario. As a panda.
19. Bicycle Race
The fact that your bike explodes when you crash makes me think that this was originally a motorcycle racing game that's had some "imaginative" tweaking. Fantastically dull. Next...
20. High Jump
Oh, it's another button-bashing Track-and-Field event. Next...
21. Scoring
Despite the name and the pink fleshy font used on the title screen, this isn't a night-on-the-pull simulator, alas, just a quick hack of Arkanoid. There's not much you can do to mess up its simple bat-and-ball gameplay, so it ends up being quite enjoyable. However, clearly the developers of Joystick 88 found the original game a bit to hard, and saw fit to gift us with twice as many lives this time round, which was jolly nice of them.
22. Dragon
I don't know what the NES version of this game was called, but it should be well known to anyone who's ever owned a Nokia mobile phone (or, indeed, any apparatus capable of playing games), as Snake. Guide your big pink dragon around the screen, eating food and trying not to crash into obstacles, or your own increasingly large tail. A fun little diversion.
23. Long Jump
Track-and-Field time again. Ho-hum.
24. WWFL
Some wrestling game or other. All the fun of having the shit kicked out of you by a man in a green nappy, in your own home!
25. Earth Guard
Shockingly basic horizontally-scrolling yawnorama.
26. Ladangel
Originally Stop The Express. Indeed, it commands you to do exactly that at the start of every level. One of my favourite games on the Spectrum, I didn't realise that it had been converted to the NES until now. Run along the top of the titular express, delivering cutesy but violent justice to the bad guys who have hijacked it. Rock hard, but not unenjoyable for those who like a challenge.
27. Hassle
A bit like Commando, or maybe Gunsmoke, in that it's a vertically scrolling shooter. Except that you control a rabbit, who has to shoot other rabbits with a gun that can only fire bullets about two feet in front of you. The hassle is in trying to play it at all.
If only this were...
28. Goodhand
There was a motorbike and some platforms and a flickery monster then I got bored and turned it off.
29. Destroy 1
Or Wrecking Crew, a fairly obscure entry in the Mario canon. They've given the chubby plumber plastic surgery and shaved off his trademark 'tache, but it's a fairly pointless disguise given that it still says "Mario Start" at the beginning of every level. Climb up and down ladders, break walls with your big hammer, and try not to get caught by the bad guys. Not Nintendo's finest hour, but mildly diverting, and thankfully panda-free.
30. Toto
Experience the thrill of being in your favourite 80's soft rock band, as represented by a small boy in a red bandana who shoots balloons. Does not feature the hits Africa or... um...
The next time someone tries to convince you that 80's music was ace. Point them here.
31. Billiard
Plays an extremely basic game of pool, accompanied by some of the most hilariously out of tune music that you will ever hear.
32. Combata
Take your cute little ninja up a platform tower chucking shuriken at off-colour lions, for whom you will soon be filled with unexpected sympathy causing you to throw yourself into their slavering jaws just to escape the nightmare of your pointless existence.
33. Super Bowl
I know bugger all about American Football, and don't have a clue what I'm doing in this one. I know that the pitch shouldn't be orange, though.
34. 110m Hurdles
Another Track-and-Field event.
35. Beat Balloon
Or Space Invaders, with the aliens replaced by balloons. As enjoyable as Space Invaders gets. Which, let's be honest, isn't very.
36. Crypt Car
What sounds like a bad horror movie about a man who is buried in his car and then comes back to life to wreak automotive revenge on the hoods that had him killed, is actually just Dig-Dug, but with the main character replaced by a sort of tunnelling machine thingy, and, by some clever recycling, the monsters by red koopa shells ripped from Super Mario Brothers.
37. Golgotha
From this we learn that if Jesus had only brought with him to Earth an infinite supply of little, round, fizzing bombs, he could have avoided all that hassle with the Romans and the nailing to the cross and stuff. Appears to be some kind of Bomberman clone, but doesn't seem to be based on any of the official Bomberman games released for the NES.
38. Penguin
Horribly shoddy platform-and-ladder capers featuring a penguin.
39. Roge Brer
I have no idea what that means, but the game is a hardly-altered version of Mario Brothers. Rather than turn him into a Panda, all they seem to have done to the guy is remove his moustache, but even that magically reappears as soon as you jump off a platform or skid to a halt after running in one direction for a while. A decent game, not ruined by excessive tinkering, but you'll miss Mario's facial hair more than you think, believe me.
40. Sky Invader
A plug-ugly Afterburner clone, that's actually not too bad for a quick five-minute blast, but you're unlikely to revisit it too often.
41. Surface Fire
It's Centipede, right, but with the bouncing spider replaced by a tank. Don't ask.
42. TNT
Another Bomberman clone. To tell you the truth, it might even be the same Bomberman clone as #37, but with different graphics.
43. Smart Acel
Oh yeah? If he's so smart, how come he's appearing in this deeply rubbish pirate-ship based collect-em-up, eh? EH?
44. Archery
More Track and Fieldism.
45. Brush Roll 2
First, there's this anonymous purple thing winking at you. Next thing you know, you're thrust into Crush Roller, only with another primarily orange-based paint job. What is it with the makers of this thing and orange? Is there a factory of Hare Krishnas in China somewhere slaving over a hot production line churning these things out?
46. Aether Kanvas
How do helicopters fly in space when there's no air? Why am I wasting my life playing these games?
47. Bandits
There's a big yellow ape in the middle of the screen. Maybe he's a relative of Donkey Kong, I dunno. And there are wasps flying down at me and I have to shoot them but I've lost the will to live and I still have 41 games left to do and I have to wonder if anyone is actually going to read this far. I could just start making things up. Who's going to know?
48. Bounce
So good, I made a mess of my pants.
No, I can’t lie to you. It's just an uglified hack of Mappy, a game that's reasonably fun, but won't set your world alight or nuffin'
At this point, I lost the will to live, with 40 games to go.
In summary then: Officially licensed and properly emulated plug'n'play systems, like the C64DTV = cheap and easy fun. Dodgy knockoffs that run uglier versions of classic games at two thirds speed, like Mr 88 Games = best avoided. Like rabies.
April 2006
|
