150 SNES games reviewed

Day 27



Top Gear or as our friends in Japan would know itTop Racer is a racing  game for the SNES,it was published by Kemco and developed by Gremlin Graphics.

It was one of the  first racing games to be released on the Super NES, so when it came out it was immediately popular, everyone I knew back then seemed to have either this or exhaust heat with the lucky and truly dedicated having both. Top Gear and its two sequels Top Gear 2 and Top Gear 3000 were created by the same developers as the famous Lotus games which had been released earlier on the Amiga and the Sega Mega Drive.

It is important to note before anyone gets to excited that this game has no connection to the TV show with the same name.
 
The good points are that the game feels very fast, I hadn't played it for a fair few years and when I started playing it this morning I was very surprised at how fast it felt, it is also very bumpy in a way which is kind of hard to explain,  but it is worth noting because I remember that back in the day a few people I knew couldn't play it because when it was in motion it made them feel sick. I love it it actually helps to make you feel like your in there racing but its important to note before anyone goes out and pays for this game, it might be worth looking for some footage on you tube so you can see if it effects you.



I lost my first few races which meant instead of progressing I kept seeing the starting screen again and again but I soon realized that I wasn't paying proper attention to my gears. You don't get to choose a car or buy add ons for it or to even mess with its handling and tires, if this is something that is important to you then your probably better off with Exhaust Heat. Once I started paying attention though I soon found that I was up there fighting for pole position again and again, this is when the game began to get really fun, but just when I thought I had seen it all, when I thought I had it in the bag that's when things changed a little bit.

 I had noticed that there were pit stops but I had never seen the need to use them, sure I had got a little bit tight on fuel at times but there was always just enough to see me fly past the flag in first. You see short races don’t  really require a pit stop and refuelling, but the lengthier ones will see you coming to an abrupt halt half way around the track in one of your latter laps if your not careful.

 This adds a whole new level of strategy to proceedings as you begin to have to think about when to have a pit stop, how long to stay in the pit, sure you can see your position getting worse while your being filled up but you know that in the longer races if you don't fill up then your going to come to a stop and loose. Whole races can be won or lost based on your judgement of when you should pull in for a pit stop or how long you can put it off. 

The graphics are good for the time, the screen is always split even when your playing on your own, in this case there is a computer rival in charge of a car on the bottom half of the screen. I like the music in this game, it might not be technically brilliant but it is fun, it fits its purpose of pumping you up for the races brilliantly and makes a change to all those games back then which suffered from having no sounds in game apart from that farting rumbling engine sound which used to be popular back then.

I would give this game a good solid 7 out of 10 , it is a fun game but I miss having a choice in terms of what car to drive and the options to tune it up and buy upgrades, basically this game just seems like a very big slice of arcade fun not that thats a bad thing but you need to keep that in mind if your thinking about getting this.

A lot of times when I have seen this game online its been about £8 for an import cart or about £15 for an English one with a boxed copy being as high as £30.. I only paid £3 for my cart, the sequel does seem to be a little cheaper and easier to get your hands on though (I will get around to reviewing that sooner or latter).

Day 28



Ryan Giggs Champions World Class Soccer was the game I played a little last night as well as early this morning. It is obviously a football (soccer) game and it was released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as well as the Megadrive. It was developed by Park Place Productions and published by Acclaim.

You might not have heard of Park Place Productions largely because they were a bit of a bright light that burnt out very quickly. They were founded in 1989 and in 1993 they had become the largest independent developer of computer games they had  130 developers making 45 games for 14  different publishers. At the end of December 1993 the company collapsed spectacularly, basically they didn't hit some targets they had been set by publishers and as a result of this they were denied payments, pulled out of contracts and literally left Park Place Productions up the creek without a paddle.

The first thing to note is that the whole Ryan Giggs thing is a bit of a con, the British release featured a picture of the player on the game box and the cartridge label but any real connection to the guy or inclusion of his name ends there. The German version featured a player famous to them Sepp Maier, and the French featured a player who was likely to interest them Paris Saint-Germain none of the three have anything to do with the game beyond the box art and cartridge label though so from now on sod Giggs I will be referring to this as Champions World Class Soccer or CWC Soccer if I get lazy.

Modes of play included in the game are the standard type, Exhibition Match and Tournament Mode. There are the obvious options to turn certain things off and mess with how long the matches last etc but nothing out of the ordinary.



The game’s presentation is pretty decent, there is a TV announcer talking about the match before it starts, talking as in text along the bottom of the screen but the text is pretty cool, it mentions which team you are and what is good or bad about you  for example I got something on the lines of the following for my first match ''England have always been good at defence but there shooting record is a little unpredictable''. The in game graphics are pretty much the bog standard average football game graphics from this point in time so I don't have a lot to say about them, they don't make or break the game.

I like the fact that there is a big blue star around the character you are in control of, it is very easy to know who you are and then there is a button which seems to exist just to help you do little ticks either dribbling the ball around your feet, turning backwards for a second or shooting forward quickly, well quickly for this game. Unfortunately this is the point at which my review has to get a little bit sour I am afraid that personally I feel that the gameplay is bad, the game is slow, both passing and shooting are hard and frustrating, to the point you'll soon find yourself turning the air blue. Sometimes it takes a few seconds for your character to become properly attached to the ball like you do in most football games. You will have ran on to the ball and it just wont end up under your control so you'll be running backwards and forwards hoping it attaches to you and then a computer controlled player will just run straight up and claim it with no problem or pause in proceedings.


In my opinion this game is the worst SNES football game I have played so far, I like the TV start, I like the fact it makes it obvious who you are but I don't really like the controls or the gameplay, it also didn't give me my any of my demands such as great goal scoring animations or a voice shouting goal. I would give this game 4 out of 10 , its not unplayable but there is much better games out there for your cash.

If you decide that you simply need this game to live the good point is it will cost you only £4 or £5 to buy it online and get it posted to you.

Day 29



Mickey mouse was the most well known character in the whole world but back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Mario was just about everywhere, and not just in his video games. He had his own cartoon series the Super Mario Brothers Super Show and then it spiraled from there to the point he had his own action figures, stuffed toys, shirts, candy, and even a breakfast cereal. At one point in time you couldn't do anything without seeing Mario. On the other side, Mickey Mouse in comparison wasn't getting seen as much, sure he was on T shirts and at Disney land but he wasn't quite as up front and in your face as he had been Television channels tended to air  the more modern Disney cartoons of the time such as Ducktales, Chip-N-Dale Rescue Rangers, Tale Spin, Darkwing Duck, and such. 

Disney teamed up with Capcom and brought a fair few titles to the Nintendo NES most of which are considered classics such as DuckTales. Disneys relationship with Capcom didn't end with the NES though. Eventually the union brought us the game I am going to talk about today The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse, known in Japan as Mickey's Magical Adventure

The game is a bright colourful platformer with the player taking on the role of Mickey, its part of a trilogy released by Capcom although us Europeans only got 2 out of 3 games (in fact Japan was the only territory to see the 3rd one at least until they got GBA remakes). You move in the same sort of fashion as in most typical platform games, and you can defeat enemies  by jumping on them but you can also attack them by grabbing blocks and other stunned enemies spinning them around in Mickeys hands and then using them as a projectile.



One of the gameplay features this game is most known for is the ability to find new outfits for Mickey, which give  give him different special abilities. So for example you get to play as Fire fighter Mickey who can use his hose, sometimes this feeds in to puzzles as well as being an option for attack, for example you might have to put out a fire to progress, it reminds me of the Mega drive title Kid Chameleon which seeing as I love that game is not a bad comparison at all.
The graphics are great full of colour and character, the sound is cheery and matches the overall feel of the game, the controls are good, I don't think they are quite Mario good but they certainly more than do the job. When it comes to complaints some people would bring up the fact that Mickey's Magical Quest is quiet an easy game, but that's understandable since it stars Mickey Mouse, Capcom clearly knew a lot of kids would be playing this, so if it was Mario the lost levels hard it would have just led to mass complaints and screaming children. Its not completely unchallenging there are a few skills and basic patterns to learn and its kind of nice to find a game which focuses on the fun and doesn't penalize you for anything. You have unlimited continues, when you Die you start again with a full set of hearts and you don't lose any of your coins at all when you die. 

If you like fun platform games I would urge you to try this game, its a brilliantly uncomplicated slice of fun, it might be a little easy, and it might be a touch short in fact its length is the only real thing keeping me from giving it a huge score... All things considered I think I need to give this game a 7.5 out of 10.

If your after the game I tend to see it going for around £10 for the cart although big warnings have to be given about the fact that the second one is rarer and if you want to play the 3rd SNES one your going to need to go down the import route. One way around this is to go for the Gameboy Advance remakes, they are more or less the same games with a few extras thrown in and they might be a little cheaper and easier to get your hands on (Plus you can get a European Version of 3 for the GBA).

Day 30




Super Mario Kart what can I say about it that you wont all have heard a million times, I cant even build anticipation by trying to hold my opinion back until the end, starting this review by talking facts and figures so lets just start by saying I love this game and work from there.

Mario Kart was developed by Nintendo EAD it came out in 1992 in American and Japan and then 1993 in Europe. It went on to Sell nine million copies worldwide,this figure in the end made it the third best selling SNES game overall. If you added on to this all of the sales it has made digitally with its release on both the Wii Virtual console and the Wii U virtual console then you start to realise what a golden egg laying goose this game has been for Nintendo.

Now days everyone knows what Mario Kart is and the announcement of a new version is met with an onslaught of happiness, sales jumps for the platform its coming to and a media frenzy. It wasn't always quite like this as far as I can remember though. When people first got wind of the original Mario Kart the responses were more on the lines of what the heck is Nintendo doing? Sure Mario had been used for tiny cameos in Nintendo sports related titles and such but a babyish looking car racing game what were they thinking was the sort of question I remember being asked by other kids at school. There was a genuine belief by some that Nintendo had lost the plot. Yet not one kid could manage to keep this opinion after they had played it. A lot of the guys at school did that thing guys at school always seemed to do when presented with something that proved there initial opinion wrong, they denied ever having said a bad word, they claimed that they had been Nintendo's biggest supporter all along and knew that Mario Kart would be an all time classic from its inception.



Super Mario Kart received positive reviews across the board no one seemed to have a negative word to say about it, well apart from SEGA that is who tried to use it in there adverts to show Nintendo to be some kind of slow old fashioned baby toy compared to there sleek fire breathing Megadrive (the advert were Mario kart is running on the side of an old caravan . This now seems crazy because Mario Kart is not a slow game.
Mario kart is often credited with creating the cart racing genre, more than this though it was the game that gave people a sense of confidence that Nintendo could achieve anything they tried after the first Mario Kart game if Nintendo had told you they were making Mario's bungee jump massacre you would just nod and go ''they know what they are doing''.

For those of you who haven't played the original Mario Kart the young and hermits I will quickly talk a little about the game itself. In Super Mario Kart the player takes control of one of eight Mario characters, each with different qualities, high top speed, good acceleration, great handling … all of them are basically equal but lend themselves to certain play-styles. In the single player mode players can race against computer controlled characters in multi-race tournaments trying to win the gold, silver or bronze cup. There are power ups found on the track, you pick up flashing boxes which then give you one of several power ups a red shell which acts like a heat seeking missile, a banana skin which causes anyone who drives over it to skid out etc. The screen is always split in two with one half showing you racing and the other showing a map. The graphics are not necessarily amazing for the time, they are however colourful and full of character. This is not just some carting game with Mario and CO thrown in it, you actually feel like your driving through the Mario game lands and this is one of the games greatest advantages. The music is brilliant, you can hear noises related to your driving the car engine, the tires skidding but they are always nice little back ground touches never interfering with the great music that plays.

I just cant fault this game, the SNES version is still brilliant. I wasn't going to do this game so early on but recently I brought my third copy of this game. I got a Japanese cart for £5 loose and ever since the day I got it I have put it in to my machine and had 20 minutes on it every single day. Some games age badly but this is still brilliant and I feel sure I could put this in the slot 20 years down the line and still feel the need to play it, for this reason I can not help but give it 10 out of 10.. 

If you want Mario kart the news is good in that It is available on both the wii U and Wii Virtual console and is well worth the cash. With a bit of effort you should be able to get a Pal Cart of this for about £17 or a boxed copy for around £40, its super popular but it sold by the shed load so there's no shortage of copies.

Day 31




Alien 3


The game was developed by Probe Entertainment and Eden Entertainment Software, published In North America, Europe, and Japan by Arena Entertainment, Acclaim Entertainment, LJN, and Virgin Interactive. It is sort of half based on the film Alien 3. I have to say half based and not based because well its set on the Prison planet from the film, Ripley is shaved bold but then there are a lot of differences between the game and the film. In the film there is basically 1 alien and no one has any weapons, in the game this is completely altered Ripply the main character basically has all the guns from the Aliens film and there is a never ending amount of Aliens. I guess it is easy to see why they did this after all a game where you spend your whole time running away from one super powerful creature with nothing much to defend yourself sounds a lot harder to get right than a game where you spray lead at a never ending assortment of alien scum.

In fact it looks like it has taken until now almost 21 years latter for someone to have a crack at a game which is based around the idea of being stalked by 1 single alien from the Aliens films. Currently The Creative Assembly I working on Alien Isolation which is said to be that kind of a game, there already making DLC based on the movie Alien, maybe with is similar 1 alien killing people set up they will one day make Alien 3 DLC. Maybe a game that would follow the film Alien 3 more correctly just simply wasn't possible back then, still I digress.



Graphically, the game is pretty good for the time. The Ripley's sprite is large and for the most part its not bad at all, the clothes look right, the basic shape is right but maybe its just me but there is something almost alien about her neck, and the lack of facial features makes her look a little like Voldamort of harry potter fame. There are lots of little cool touches though like how her gun swings by her side as she's climbing the monkey bars so I guess maybe I am being a little harsh.- The backgrounds are multi-layered for that 3D style look, they are also very detailed. The backgrounds are overly used though with 5 or 6 being repeated again and again and again, add to that there are bits of scenery in the foreground that you can't see through. Sometimes there are aliens behind these and this means that you need to either run the risk of being harmed or shoot just in case which wastes your sometimes limited ammo. There is not a lot in the way of sounds but what is there is good the gunfire sounds great and so do the screams of the aliens you kill.

I find the game enjoyable in small bits but I definitely don't think its a classic or anything. I think it needs a map you can easily bring up, it also needs a bit more variety, everything looks the same, your always killing the same things mostly in places that look the same. This game is very time consuming, and can at times be very difficult. Its easy to get lost and some of the missions seem more complex than they need to be. There are a few alien bosses here and there but they aren't too hard. The problem is it all starts to feel a bit like a chore at times which is not how a came should feel.

Average game 5 out of 10 not really worth bothering with. If you want a good fun retro Alien related game I recommend you get Aliens Trilogy on the PS1 its a first person doom style shooter but its brilliant, fun, fast wrapped in movie sounds and neat touches. If you do decide you need to own alien 3 then there are plenty of Pal carts of it about online around the £8 to £10 range with boxed copies starting around the £15 mark.. There are several complete copies of Alien Trilogy for ps1 on ebay at the moment for around the £5 mark including postage if you own a playstation Id go for that instead for your aliens retro fix

I remember going round to my mates and playing Alien 3, and finding it super scary! At the time, I didn't even know what Alien was!

I agree that Super Mario Kart is still great. I have it on WiiU (and SNES) and it is still good to play (not just with rose-tinted spectacles).

yeah some games you pick up now and have a go and wonder how did I ever think this was good... then you remember it was a much more basic time and that it probably seemed better at the time because of that etc  ... but then some of them are still amazing now Matio Kart, Super Metriod.  The same will probably be true of the stuff we have now when we look back at it in 10 to 20 years....

I went back to some old GameCube games recently and thought they were awful. The controls were so unresponsive!

Day 32


The game I am going to be talking about is NBA All Star Challenge, it was developed by Beam Software and published by LJN (Acclaim in japan). It was released in Europe in 1993

Ok back when I was younger there was only one NBA game that ever got plugged into my Super Nintendo, there was only one NBA related game that I ever played at friends houses and to cut this rambling intro short, it wasn't this one.

The first thing you will notice upon playing NBA All Star Challenge are the gameplay options, there's one on one, 3 point challenge, horse this I the games first problem. You will have most likely brought it expecting to play full real games of basketball and here you are playing games that only involve 2 players one either side, and only involve a half court.

When it comes to picking your player your not met with a list of names or even player pictures no your met with a list of 27 teams, when you click on one of these teams you will see the player that the team has been allotted.. So if you are a fan of basketball you better hope you can remember who played for who back when this game was released and hope that they were the chosen one for that team. Of course if your not so keen on basketball as a sport and just like a knock around fun sports video game to mess around on this point is a bit mute. Still the main body of this game feels like something that would be just a bonus/side mode in another game which is not a good start.

On television a one on one shooting challenge would be a kind of exciting showdown a chance for ballers to see who is the better man away from the confines of the game, with no help from your team mates, you would think that in this situation if you get two legends facing off then the crowd would chant, scream explode, picture this in your mind, then take that picture and turn it into a video game. Imagine the sprites shooting the cheers as they score the painful exhaled noises of disappointment, still sounds like it could be a decent concept for a game if it was treated in this way doesn't it?

Well now I have made you build a pretty picture I am afraid I am going to smash it, so is there chanting is there clapping? No there is no sound whatsoever, except the thud of the dribbling and that scuffling trainer sort of noise. No crowd interaction, no music to reflect if your winning or loosing, no music at all. This same dreariness carries over in to the graphics, sure there not bad but there not good either the players don't really look like who they are supposed to be, sure they might be the right skin colour and roughly the right height but beyond that they just look like a bunch of palette swaps all of them moving running and shooting in the same fashion.

The game is not bad for what it is, the controls were at first a little confusing you have to press a button to jump and then press it again to shoot, but it just feels like some kind of series of basketball themed mini game. I guess Id need to give this game something like 4 out of 10 taking everything in to account


If your thinking of getting this game I will tell you that most of the copies I can currently find online cartridge only are around the £6 to £8 mark including postage and packaging. My copy was a NTSC copy I managed to find online for £3 with free postage. I don't want to name names and spoil things but there I a much better NBA related game out there and id hold my pennies back for that.

Day 33



Now the game I am going to talk about today is Battletoads in Battlemaniacs it is a platforming beat 'em up game from 1993 developed by Rare and published by Tradewest. Tradewest no longer exist and rare well I could write a whole article about there fate, the short of it is that they are still around but now they are owned by Microsoft and are largely making Kinect based games and hats for Xbox Avatars. 

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs was not the start of the story though this series began with the original beat 'em up game Battletoads which was released for the NES in 1991. (This title was ported to the Megadrive, Gamegear , Gameboy and Amiga). The Battletoads were largely created with the purpose of trying to be rivals to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and there video games. In fact at the height of battle toads popularity they even managed to get a television cartoon pilot although this unfortunately never got spun off in to a full series, if you enjoy 80's television cartoons I recommend you track the pilot down.

The Original Battletoads was a very popular game, it was fun but brutally hard, it was a good beat em up with a two player mode but it also had sections where you rode on hover bikes and these were mercilessly hard worse still if you were playing them in two player mode if one of you crashed you both had to start that section again which led to screaming arguments and shattered friendships.



Battletoads Battlemaniacs follows the story of two of the Battletoads, Rash and Pimple, on a quest to stop Silas Volkmire and the evil Dark Queen from ruling over the world while rescuing a princess and there fellow toad. Many of its levels are enhanced or remixed versions of levels from the original Battletoads, so its a sort of semi sequel, semi remake.

The first thing you will notice is that the sprites in this game are large and the game in general is very colourful. The soundtrack is kind of basic but the music suits the game well.

This game is not just a beat em up its a massive mix of things yes you will fight but then there is also hoverboard racing platforming, and much like the original Nes Version the game is enjoyable but sections of it might have you tearing your hair out. If you like hard games with a sence of humour then it might be just for you if however if you hate games with challenging pieces that your going to be having to try and try again then your going to hate battletoads. This makes it a very hard game to rate because its overall quality depends on the kind of person who is playing it, therefore a score I give it might in fact be meaningless to you. I have never completed Battletoads, but I have spent a very long time trying in the past, personally I see it as a challenge which keeps on brining me back.

Personally I would give the game a 7 out of 10, its fun, there is a fair degree of variety and its a good game to play with friends, well as long as they enjoy a challenge. I have to warn again that if you hate games that will see you die again and again on certain segments then this is not for you.

This game was before Rare's partnership with Nintendo in fact it was as far as I know the last game they released for the SNES before beginning to work on projects for Nintendo..They had invested their significant profits from games during the NES period to purchase a bunch of very expensive Silicon Graphics workstations. This move made Rare the most technologically advanced developer in the United Kingdom, and I think most of us know what this led to.

If you want to purchase Battletoads then your looking at anywhere between £13 to £18 for the cart and if you want a copy in a box in good condition then you will probably need to look at sort of double that range. I looked at buying it in a shop cartridge only for £18 but instead ended up buying a cart from online for £14 including postage... this is the most money I have spent on a game specifically for this thread but I also feel that copies of this will become rarer in the coming years.

Day 34



When I buy retro games they tend to belong to one of three catergories  A) are games which I owned as a kid and want to get again becaue I have fond memories of them B) are games I remember friends owning and wih I had owned myself and C) are games which I can get cheap and figure what the heck I will give it a bash.

Todays game comes from Category 3. I had quiet a few friends at school and all of them owned one console or another but the most owned console was probably the Super Nintendo, not everyone had the same taste in games though. So sometimes when I would go to visit a friends house I would get to play a game that I otherwise wouldn't have got to try. One particular friend was mad on sports, cricket, football, boxing, motor car racing and unless it was a crazy sports related title like Punch Out. 

So one day when I went round he had a new game, one I hadn't really heard much about and that game was Power Drift. The first thing I noticed on its case was that it was Published by U.S Gold but at the time I had never heard of the Developer Rage Software. 

U.S. Gold was founded in Birmingham in  1984 as the publishing division for a software-distribution company called Centresoft. Its primary reason for existence was to republish popular American computer games in the UK, for spectrum and Amstrad CPC users the US Gold logo became a big part of our lives. Us Gold no longer exists and it turns out nor does Rage Software. Rage's first title Striker sold more than one million copies and established Rage as a major creative force in the interactive entertainment industry but ironically the very thing that started them off a football title would ultimately be there undoing. In 2000, Rage began to expand into publishing. Due to a long run of games that did not sell as expected there. The lack of sales and cost associated with there  David Beckham franchise tends to be considered to be what ultimately led to the company going bankrupt in 2003.



When my friend popped Power Drive into the cartridge slot I have to admit that it was nothing like what I epected. Putting it simply Power Drive is an arcade racing game based around rally driving. There is not a great deal of opening presentation to the game you pick your car from an initial choice of two and then you start your career

The graphics are isometric, you can see the whole of your car almost as if its a remote control car that your looking down at, this might seem to be a little basic at first but with the tricks under the games bonnet such as full sprite rotation and super smooth screen scrolling in every direction you soon realise that what looks on paper like average graphics actually look a hell of a lot better when moving. There are a few tiny issues with screen flicker but this mostly happens when the arrows that warn you of upcoming turns appear over the top of other objects, its only a momentery issue and you can still tell what direction the arrow is pointing so it doesnt really affect your game.  There are night levels and the following migth sound like a strange thing to praise but the cars headlights are handled brilliantly both of the headlight beams are animated separately, which just looks brilliant the two lights overlap each other and its just a brilliant little touch which I cant help but mention. Ok well thats enough about the cars and there headlights, its time to talk about the backgrounds. They at first seem a little bit basic the tracks and the scenery both look a little plain at first but they are full of subtle little details which take into account the characteristics of the  country you are in.



The music is typical early 90's game music I cant claim its amazing but then again its not bad, basicaly it does it job which is to be moderatly exciting and to muffle the engine noises etc so that they dont became a pain in the butt, you can turn the music off if you would prefer to hear your engine or if your going to play your own music while you play.

The game has 3 types of stages they are individual time-trials, head-to-head races against the computer, and skill tests. There are 8 rounds of gameplay, set across a range of countries . As you race you get prize money for winning races but it is important to note that the cost of repairing your car is very reqlistic compared to other games, meaning if you have repeatidly ping ponged your car off of the walls then 90% of your price money is going to be spent on knocking your car in to shape. You can race with a knackerd car but it becomes harder and harder to control and slower so its not really recommended.

At first this game will seem hard because it doesnt control like a lof ot other snes racers or at least not many of the wildly popular ones, if you have played either RPM racing or rock and roll racing then powerdrive would be down your alley. Once you get used to the controls though it becomes a challanging but fun driving game. I would give this game an 8 out of 10, I really enjoy it still today and can easily throw it on for a quick hour again and again. This game can be got for around £10 to £15, if you want to try it I would keep my eye on the various sites and try to grab a copy as close to the £10 mark as possible. The game is not wildly talked about and doesnt seem to have any particularly big cult following or anything so with a

Loving this thread. Awesome idea and well presented.

Thanks Odyssey really appreciate you saying that....  On the one hand its fun on the other hand its a bit tiring trying to keep playing a game a day and make sure I space out the more famous titles and spread out the genres   ...Im wishing I had said 50 games in 50 days right now  lol

Day 35



U.N. Squadron is a side scrolling shooting game which came out in arcades in 1989 It was programmed by Capcom and released for use on there CPS arcade hardware, I wont explain what this was but if you look back to my Final Fight review there is an explanation there.

The game was released in Japan under the name Area 88 the same name which was used for the Super Famicom (Japanese version of this game).

The game is a typical side scrolling shooter unlike many of Capcoms other shooters around this time such as there 1940 series  which are vertical scrolling shooters. It was based on a Manage series Area 88 which never really came to these shores, the game has a nice intro which explains the rough idea behind the story however. Unlike some shooters which are one hit and your dead this game is a little different, if your hit then your plane is damaged but if you can keep it safe from harm for a little while then you'll be fine, this actually adds to the excitement, you will find yourself going OK, OK I have got to keep away from the enemies as you keep trying to dodge incoming fire and hold on. When you manage it you will thump the air in triumph and when you fail you will curse yourself for not having quick enough reflexes but the main thing is it always feels like any failures are down to your own lack of skills. Before starting a level you get the option of purchasing  special weapons or added defense options from the  shop.As you shoot down enemies you gain cash and at the end of the level you are on any special weapons you purchased and did not use get converted back in to funds and added to your cash resevere. This is a great little addition as once you get better at the early levels you can try to challenge yourself with the added benefit of an easier time in latter missions by trying to complete the earlier ones on a strict budget allowing you to hold back enough money to kit your plane out with lots of special weapons for the latter missions.



If you were a big fan of Capcom then the Snes was definitely the machine for you to get your arcade fix on back in the day. If you have read my final fight review then you might be asking round about now OK what has been dropped from the original Arcade version.

Well the SNES version is not an exact replica of the coin-op, yes it is  a port and yes this port does have certain things missing and disappointingly yes one of these missing things is once again the two player mode. Some of the games levels are different or modified from the arcade version but it is not always in a bad way, its not really a worse version its more of a slightly remixed version. In this case they didn't just strip things from the game, there are actually a few added editions including some more weapons and the chance to purchase different aircraft. Ignoring the missing 2 player mode this game is no worse than the arcade machine its just a little bit of a different version.

With bright graphics, enjoyable music and epic action it is hard to see what this game could do better. The end of the level will see you meeting some kind of large end of level boss which you will have to defeat, at this point you better hope you have held something back to save the day.

I would have to give this game a 8 out of 10 its a darn good scrolling shooter the only thing it is really lacking which would make me bump the score up would be a two player mode, at this point some of you must be wondering if Capcom ever managed to bash out a high quality snes game which catered for more than one.

If you want to try this game you will most likely be paying £15 minimum for a cart of it, I managed to get one for £10 but it took a heck of a lot of looking around and waiting. Capcom have actually made quiet a few of those classic collections but Un Squadren has never seemed to make the cut, this is probably one of the reasons it holds its price.

I loved side scrolling shoot 'em ups. I think nowadays they are too complicated. But back then you could have difficulty that tested skilss without the need for confusing the player.
Resogun is ok of course but I do miss the older days when it comes to this genre.

I find far to many of them to be bullet hell based now days...there all aimed towards the pro not the average user  , but thats just my opinion.

Exactly. I agree.

Day 36



Super Strike Eagle for the SNES was both developed and released by Microprose. Yes that Microprose. MicroProse was a U.S.video game publisher and developer, foundedin1982 by Bill Stealey and the one and only Sid Meier. It developed and published numerous games, many of which are to this day fondly remembered either  as groundbreaking titles or as titles with huge cult status examples being the Civilization and XCOM series. The Majority of their internally developed titles were often either vehicle simulation games or strategy titles.

The name Microprose still exists today but it has basically nothing to do with the original company, all of the big names and talent from the original Microprose left and formed Firaxis Games in 1996. The name Microprose was acquired through the original company having been brought up when it was struggling and the people who brought it at Hasbro have since sold the rights to the name and varies other assets which have been sold on and on till they ended up in the hands on someone who wanted to use it 

The basic story behind this game is that you are a fighter pilot flying for the United Nations whose overall objective is to bring various governments around the world back into cooperation with the UN basically by blowing the crap out of them, yes this could be termed as diplomatic negotiations James T Kirk style, or at least it could be if there was a mini game involving sex with hot alien women, still I digress.



The game uses three different perspectives. When you take off the game starts you off in 3rd person, utilizing its mode 7 graphics to give you an interesting interactive take off then once your up in the air the view switches  to an overhead world map, where the plane can be moved between objectives, in this view you can see enemy jets and missiles and if you can keep your distance then you'll stay in this view.  When enemy planes get close to you the game switches briefly to a first-person cockpit mode, this is kind of like wing commander, in that you chase the planes and try to get them in your sights, this is kind of the most realistic looking part. When you find yourself near to mission-critical targets (ones which you have to bomb) then the game again switches view this time to an overhead bombing mode, this is where the game uses Mode 7's scaling and rotation abilities the most.

I find the game fun, it kind of just leaves you to it though and doesn't hold your hand much which is either a good thing or an awful thing depending on how you like your games also the switching of views is something which some people will probably like, others will probably be confused by in my opinion though this is one of the things that makes the game really interesting and different. Some of the graphics are amazing for when this game came out but then they are a little bit dated now, there is a real sense of effort with this game though, like they tried to throw every trick in the book at it in order to make it stand out. Back in the days I remember this game getting a lot of 65% type ratings to me there seemed to be a generally attitude of this game not being the kind of thing that belonged on a console. Now days though we have seen just about every type of game possible both on pc and on console, yes some might lend themselves to one slightly better than the other but I always feel the need to salute people who try to get a new trick out of an old dog, who try to break convention. For this reason I give this game a 7 out of 10, back in the day If I had played this game I would have scored it even higher than that I believe.

I brought this game specifically for this thread because I managed to get a US copy boxed with manual for £6 including postage, and at that price I have to admit I am incredibly happy with this game. There are a few copies online now knocking around the £8 to £12 figure for boxed American copies, as for UK pal versions though they seem to be few and far between with people asking up to £25 for a cart alone. This game is an easy import it played on my modified machine and through a regular cheap converter with no issues at all so it might even be cheaper to get a boxed copy and a cheap import converter rather than go pal.

Day 37



Spin dizzy Worlds is a puzzle game published by Activision,originally released on the Amiga and Atari ST(in 1990) which was then ported to the SNES by Ascii Entertainment. The game is a sequel to the 1986 video gameSpindizzy which was released on early home computers such as the Amstrad CPC, ,commodore 64,ZX Spectrum etcetera . Spindizzy worlds uses an isometric view, and the player controls a robotic device named GERALD (who looks like a yellow spinning top) His Name is an acronymn for  Geographical Environmental Reconnaissance And LandMapping Device. The idea of this game is to  explore a star system before it is destroyed collecting the jewel like icons there as you do.. 

The best way to think of this game is as a less cutsey prototype of super monkey ball which features a yellow spinning robot instead of a trapped simian, now take that image and push the graphics back about 10 years from monkey ball and you will be pretty darn close to what is on offer here.



Gerald will spin everywhere you direct it...but you’ll have a tough time getting it to stop at first, meaning you’re going to go shooting off of this and that platform, your going to get half way up a ramp and fall off, and your possibly going to do it again and again. Going up and down elevators is hard because no matter how careful you think your being, how softly you think you are using your fingers sometimes you will find that you just cant seem to hold the little blighter in place long enough.

This, of course can cause the game to get incredibly frustrating and I wouldnt be surprised if there are not people who have torn there own hair out in flights of swearing and frustration however I have seen people play this like they have some kind of neural link with the bloody game. Just like in super monkey ball there are some players who with the right amount of practice manage to get so in tune with the controls and Geralds strengths and limitations that they can turn this in to a form of video game ballet and it becomes amazing to watch.

The graphics and sound are both adequate but that's the best I can say about them, they dont really add anything much to the game. For me this game is a bit of a Marmite game, you will either love it or hate it. If you want a fun challenging puzzle game then it might be worth giving it a whack but I would only recommend this if you have played the living hell out of monkey ball and marble madness and simply need more of that kind of game. If you decide you want a crack at this game you can get it online cartridge only pal for around £7 and that seems quiet a fair price for what it is , my copy is boxed but not in the best of shape and in all honesty I cant remember where the heck I got it from.

I would give this game a 6 out of 10, but like I said I think it is a real marmite game, I can see some people saying it deserves an 8 and I can equally imagine people calling it a poor slidy mess and claiming 6 is far to generous and that they would have given it a 3. If you like puzzle games maybe give it a bash but I can promise you if you dont usually like this kind of thing this game will not be the one to change your mind.

Day 38



What is in a name? I often find it funny when the name of a game gets changed from region to region, sometimes there are legal reasons sometimes they just think a particular name will help something sell better to a certain group of people. Here we have a game known in Europe as Looney Tunes: Road Runner,in America as Road Runner's Death Valley Rally,and in Japan as  Looney Tunes: Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote. The game is based off theLooney Tunes characters Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, maybe the name has something to do with the cartoons popularity or image in each region who knows. What I do know is I proberbly like Japans title the best as Wile E. Coyote is the star of the show in my mind. Sure we are supposed to like Road Runner but why? Because he runs away a lot and makes cheeky little meep meep noises? I cant help but relate to Wile the guy/animal who is just trying to do what is expected of him, who is trying to eat, to survive and keeps having life backfire in his face.

I kind of walked in to this game expecting a mediocre game, largly because it is made by SunSoft and its a Looney Tunes game, so I was judging it a little bit based on my thoughts to Tazmania which I played a while ago.


The graphics are pretty decent, they have a fair degree of character in them but don't get bogged down with to much detail, the sprites for Wile and the runner are cool and the graphics automatically remind you of the old cartoon while still managing to be clear and not get in the way of the game itself. If I have one major gripe in this area however it is the fact that the backgrounds are the same throughout the entire level, this does make things seem a little more boring at times than they perhaps should but I guess its not the worst thing in the world.The sound in this game is a little hard for me to judge sound effects wise there is very little, theres the typical skidding noise, a jump noise, a pecking noise, the odd meep meep and a few noises associated with things attacking you. The music for the levels well it sits right on the middle of the fence between being catchy and annoying to the point that I cant even come to a conclusion if I like it or hate it....all I can say is you wont find yourself doing a mario and humming any of this latter when you have moved away from the console.



The gameplay is kind of what youd expect your the runner and you run, Wile is constantly after you and you are trying to escape from him. So each level has you running past obstacles, making jumps and trying to find your way until you reach the finish, usually at the end of the level there will be some quick confrontation with Wile for example in the first level he chases you with a steam roller, you win and you get to see him beaten usually in the end somehow by one of his own devices in typical comic fashion. The ways that he tries to stop you may change but the strategies and weak points are always pretty easy to work out and adapt to on the fly. The largest flaw is that the gameplay is repetitive, which gives you no incentive to play the game for extended periods. The speed at which the game can move sometimes because an issue as things fly past without giving you adequate time to deal with them, it was almost enough to make me wish that I was playing a Pal copy on a Pal machine to see if the usual drop in speed pal games can experience helped. Knowing other games I have set aside to review though I know that this is an issue quite a few platformers bumped into, some of them could really have used a good long play on the sonic the hedgehog games to look at how they deal with this issue.

Road Runner: Death Valley Rally is an average game in every single way. It just leaves you with a feeling of complete and utter averageness, its not good enough to remember nor is it bad enough to laugh at or get mad at, it just exists in the middle neither good nor bad. 5 out of 10 all day long. If you want to try it a Pal cart will fetch you about £10 you might get an American for closer to £5 but strangely the Japanese copies I have seen have been more money, maybe people don't realize that its the same game or maybe not may came out over there, who knows sometimes the retro video game market is a beast with no rhyme or reason.

Day 39

So you have your sonic's and your Mario's then there are all the sort of lesser known platforming heroes some of which are in games which could rival the likes of the above others who are in games that are poor pale imitations.
If you owned an Amiga there were certain characters you were bound to know and love, one of these was James Pond, he was a well loved star of several games but they wernt Amiga exclusive in fact I think all of them ended up being on the megadrive and the super Nintendo got everything apart from his first game (James pond 2 operation Robocod, was released on the Snes with the name Super James Pond, almost ignoring that there was a previous game)
Now you might think that I am going to be talking about Super James pond or its sequel Operation Starfish but actually the game I am going to be talking about today is The Aquatic Games or Super Aquatic Games as it is known as on  the Super Nintendo. Basically this game took the character of James Pond and used him to front  an aquatic-themed parody of the sports mini games joystick wigglers like Konami's Track & Field.

This game is the only James Pond title not to be a platformer, you cant help but think that the programmers had the idea that they could spin the character off in to other genres and in doing so might help him to grow in fame and begin to approach mario levels.



The First thing I noticed when booting this game up was that I knew the opening music, I more than knew it, it was something I have found myself humming before and then it hit me it was a particularly cheery 8 bit version of Ode to Joy (from Beethoven's 9th). I have to say this was a good start as I put a smile on my face before I had even pressed a button.
Now in talking about Super Aquatic games I have to admit that some of these issues are not really raised in relation to the game but to the whole genre at that time...  theres only so much you can do when its bang buttons like mad till you win or loose, it tires your fingers you get blooming scared you will break the pad. The game does nothing to teach you how to play it so you end up spending so much time just messing around working out what you are supposed to be doing, sure in the day you would have had the manual and that would have helped but it wouldn’t have been that hard to put some in game instructions, some text on the screen before an event ? All of the games are really basic and despite my best efforts I couldn’t come anywhere, I admit I didnt hammer the pad as hard as a kid would have done back when this came out but who really wants to risk breaking a joypad from an old system when the number out there is finite ?
I loved the 3 James Pond platformers as a kid, I found them funny charming and enjoyable, I even enjoyed picking up the DS re-release of the second one so the problem here is I was and am invested in the character I think James Pond rules and if you cant manage to sell a spin off to someone who clearly loves the original franchise then you are clearly barking up the wrong tree.

Its just a shame, the games bright, has good music but just doesnt deliver, it feels souless and shallow and well I feel I need to give it a 2.5 out of 10 ….a sad sad day for James Pond. At first I thought that it didnt even hit these shores as all the copies I saw were American and between the realms of £10 to £15 add to the fact that a modfied machine wont even play it without a heavy duty Datel Universal Adaptor and well its expensive, but then I realised that in the UK it was called James Pond Crazy sports on the snes and its about a £8 to £10 pal game, its still not worth it

Day 40



So once again I am doing a review of a SNES game which started out life as an arcade machine before being converted, which you would think means once again I am going to be talking about things that were left out and changes that were made but no the main difference here is that the game I am talking about today is probably one you have never heard of as it was only released in Japan. I cant remember ever having seen or played the arcade machine so I am just not going to worry about that and judge it based on its self and its competition on the SNES.

When I tell you that the name of the game is Acrobat Mission you will probably say what kind of name is that for a game? Is it a game where you are an acrobat, some kind of platformer but no it is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up
The first thing I noticed was that as the game began the story scrolled up the screen and I could read it, yes its a Japanese game but literally all of the language in it, the options, the story is in English which makes it pretty cool for importers.

To start with the graphics looked colourful but basic, in fact you could almost believe that you were playing a NES game, add to that the fact that I pressed all of the button and only one of them actually seemed to do anything and that was shoot, the next thing I tried was holding down the button assuming that there would be some kind of charge attack and well nothing happened. I carried on playing it not really expecting much from it then as things went on it hit me this game ran at a nice speed, even though the players ship seems to be a really basic sprite a lot of the enemies seem to be larger and more detailed. Then I began to collect power up's and found that not only did they effect the way my ship fired they also allowed me to do charged up shots if I held the button, and the bombs I collected actually appeared on the ship and disappeared once I worked out the button to press to fire them (So in the end there are 2 buttons to use). When you die, which you will because it is a reasonably tough game, instead of instantly exploding or disappearing your ship actually sort of limps along with steam coming out of it, while this is happening your  still in control and can steer your burning space ship, you can in fact steer it into something so that when it explodes you can take enemies with you, I found this to be a really neat and interesting little idea.

The graphics are not the best but there is a lot of variety it puts Super Stirke Gunner I played about 10 days ago to shame in this area. It also has large bosses the first is a large battleship which is so long it is actually about four screens in length and covered in guns. The bullets It fires are larger than your ship and it can be tough because it tracks your movement and shoots at you.An other interesting little fact is that you don’t die if you physically touch enemy ships, sure if you run in to bullets your screwed but you can fly through enemies and get away with it. There is also space debris which can get in the way of your ship and your shots, this is something I like sure its another simply touch but the beauty of this game is all of its simple touches.



OK as for the bad side, by shoot-em-up standards this game has a very limited selection of weapons pick ups, there is the standard shot and then two or three special shots you can get by picking up letters, compare this to the absolute tonne of weapons in other shooters at the time like UN Squadron and its a little disappointing

 Another problem some people have with the game is how short it is, this game relies on being very hard after the first 2 levels to kind of prolong the game, there are only 5 stages and when you think that this game was at one point a full priced retail game that seems to be just a little short of what I think would be a fair number.

I would give this game a hearty 7 out of 10, its not perfect but it was a very pleasant surprise. Unfortunately its not available either as a Pal cart or American but with its heavy use of English and the fact  that it ran on both a modified machine and a very simple converter this is not a bad game for someone who wants to start importing or at least it would be if you could find a cheap copy, the only copy I can see online at the moment is like £25, I brought this from someone as a package deal 7 Japanese carts for £14 all of which apart from this were sports games.

Day 41



I wasn’t really sure what to play today...several games nearly made there way into the SNES to instead be pulled away at the last instant. I have tried to keep things as messed up as possible for reasons of variety and surprise, so I have jumped from games launched early in the machines life then to late games and backwards and forwards. Sometimes though there has been a degree of method behind my madness and this is the case here. Today I am going to talk about Killer instinct the reason being that I have laid a small subtle amount of groundwork for this, first I made sure that I had already talked about Street Fighter 2 the world warrior because its the ground stick every other fighting game ended up  judged against back in the day and I also made sure to talk about Super Battletoads.

You might remember that I said that in the early days of the SNES Rare released very little, so realy they jumped straight from Battletoads in Battlemaniacs to this game and Donkey Kong country. These games were made using the expensive workstations they had funneld all of there NES game profits in to.

So Killer Instinct is a fighting game developed by Rare.  Published by Midway and Nintendo, it was originally released as an arcade game during the summer of 1994. I remember seeing this in the arcades it caused a massive fuss, people flocked to it. When it was announced that it would be coming to a home system the first thing everyone I knew presumed was that it would be coming to some kind of ''next gen'' system or that it would be a massively cut down shadow of its former self. So the  following year when it was ported to the SNES every ones jaws collectively hit the floor, there was cheering shouting and the usual unfortunate fan boy prodding of Megadrive owners, some of which tried to counter the argument for format superiority with the fact that Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side was exclusive to the mega CD.

Some people would look at or play Killer Instinct and look at it from the point of view of it being a street fighter or mortal kombat clone and sure it has a little in common with both of these titles, if anything I would say it is kind of the middle point between the two in terms of style and playability. Killer Instinct was far from just a clone though, it had graphics the likes of which had never been seen in a home console game but there was more to it than that though it actually has a few game-play elements that were unique to fighting games at the time of its release some of which have been adapted by other games. (Similar ideas might have been tried in other games but KI is the one that made them well known)
Instead of fighting enemies in best-of-three rounds bouts, each player has two life bars. The player that depletes both of the other player's life bars first wins. The game also introduced "auto-seconds", which allows players to press a certain sequence of buttons to make characters automatically perform combos on opponents. Also featured in the game are "combo breakers"; special moves that can interrupt combos, for anyone who has been playing a fighting game and found themselves stuck in a life bar smashing sequence of hits that they just cant get away from combo breakers are and were a god send.



The graphics at the time were amazing, they haven’t aged brilliantly though, street fighter 2 has definitely aged better in this regard, but the sound in this game is out of this world, and not just out of this world in terms of games music it is actually brilliant music in its own right which probably explains one of the reasons that the game originally came with a CD called Killer Cuts featuring its music. To this day I still have a track from this disc on my phone so that I can listen to it when I travel.

I think that the game still more than has the quality of gameplay needed to drag you in, sure people will say there is only 10 characters and that once you have finished it with all of them there is not a lot to do, and yes this is kind of true but if you have two pads and a friend of two this game can last forever. You can get along playing it in a button mashing manner but if you want to see all that the game has to offer then it takes a lot of time and skill to see everything all of the combos, all of the finishers. Yes there is only 10 characters but there is no palette swapping they are all fully independent characters with there own move sets and fighting styles and each one of them has a story behind them.

Even given all of the years that have gone past I find myself needing to give this game a high score... I think I need to give this game an 8, its just that good. I have two copies of this, one is American and the other is English, they are both carts only unfortunately.. I wish I had a complete copy just so I still had the Killer Cuts CD.. last time I had my hands on a copy of the CD was at my brothers, he let me rip the disc and listen to it, but then he put it back in his car so he could listen to it while driving, unfortunately he was living in a rough area and someone set his car alight and well the car the CD and everything else in it turned in to a burned and melted wreckage.

If you want a copy of this game will only cost you around the £6 to £10 mark for a cart only, you can get a boxed copy for around £25 to £35 unfortunately very few of them seem to still have the Killer cuts disc in them.

Killer Instinct of course was followed by a sequel, the 1996 arcade game Killer Instinct 2, there are rumours that a SNES port of this was finished but never released, this may be true as other games were dropped towards the end of the machines life for fear they wouldn’t sell with different versions going on to become N64 games as well (Starfox 2 became Lylat Wars, and Killer instinct 2 was released on the N64 with the title Killer Instinct Gold). The Killer Instinct brand has been revivived by Microsoft who now own rare but they had used an other studio Double Helix to make the game, with apparently a tiny bit of advice and ideas from Rare. It kills me to think that KI is continuing to exist but Rare are busy making Kinect games and hats for Avatars.

Day 42



Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, or just Bubsy for short  (Yamaneko Bubsy no Daibōken to our Japanese friends)  is a platform video game released by Accolade in the early 1990s.

The designer Michael Berlyn apparently came upon Sonic the Hedgehog and loved it so much that he began to play it for 14 hours a day in order to find out what made it a good game in the hopes that he could leach the best bits of it out and regurgitate them into his own game, apparently he did this for a week, now that might sound like a lot of hedgehog loving, its a wonder no one called the RSPCA.

The game was developed and released for the Super Nintendo and the Megadrive, with each version basically the same  (The musics a little nicer on the SNES and that’s all really) Just like Battletoads Bubsy actually managed to gain enough attention to get a cartoon pilot made that didnt go on to a series.

 So even with a quick look at the game you can see the sonic Connection so why the long name Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind? Basically to spoof the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, You see the plot of the game is that Bubsy the bobcat must defend the wool of planet earth against alien invaders. I feel stupid writing this in a review I cant believe someone actually wrote it as a plot to a game and then had it released with this plot and name like they were happy with there work.

A lot of complaints have been brought up about Bubsy over the years the fact that its to fast and things literally jump right in front of you causing the game tom be slowed down a lot by death after death. Then there is the fact that Bubsy's powers were kind of supposed to be based on a cats and yet he seems to be able to fly, well fly is maybe a strong word to paraphrase buzz light year he ''falls with style''.

What is often forgotten is that Pre-release anticipation for busby was very high, the game received incredibly aggressive marketing, Bubsy was pushed as being the next big thing it was said that it would rival the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario. Bubsy won Electronic Gaming Monthly's Most Hype for a Character award in 1993. The hype didn’t disappear instantly with its release either it even managed to achieve some decent reviews Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it an 8 out of 10. Sure it did get some lower scores but the real backlash against the game seemed to happen much latter, it was like the polar opposite of a film like for example the rocky horror picture show which had reasonable success but over the years has become more and more loved growing to an absolute cult classic. Bubsy seems to have become more and more hated.

So I suppose the obvious question is do I hate Bubsy and do I hate his game?  The game has a sence of humour each level is introduced by some sort of play-on-words spoken by Bubsy in a typical cartoon voice: “what could possibly go wrong?”, or “did I mention I don't like heights?” yes some of it comes of as a little bit cheesy but its a good chucklesome kind of cheesy.



My main complaint with Bubsy's main complaint is one I have already touch on he far too easy to kill. You can be killed by the slightest touch of a n enemy  or you'll run straight into an obstacle before you even really get chance to see it, yes this is  frustrating but I dont believe that this small thing is a complete game breaker. You get a lot of lives and bubsys gliding ability can keep him up above a lot of trouble. I have to admit though that the speed in this game does not work as well as sonic, bubsy needed a move like sonic's spin so that he could just roll into a ball or something and batter anything that ran in to him. If you only had to worry about the pitfalls and not the enemies while running/ rolling like this then it would help a lot.

Visually, I really like the game its bright, I find its sprites to be pleasant and detailed. Bubsy's animation is great but its like to much attention was paid to him, the enemies and some of the other visual elements dont seem to quiet live up to his quality.

In answer to the question, I kind of like Bubsy but I do see his game as being just above average, its a 6 out of 10, it was over hyped back in the day and some people fell for this hype but then it seems to be part of an almost never ending back lash that paints it as far worse than it is. I think the truth lies in the middle

The game is not brilliant but it is not awful either, its one to go for if you have exhausted all of the more popular platformers on the Snes and you still haven’t had enough. I would however first advice that you consider getting a megadrive and sampling some of the better platformers it has to offer first.

If you want Bubsy for the Snes with a bit of effort you should be able to find a Pal cart for around £7, but if you own both a SNES and a megadrive I would tell you to actually go for the Megadrive version you can get the cart for as little as £3.50 including postage.