NES Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars doesn’t hold your hand. Besides automatically driving you into the first cave where you can locate the faster blaster, you’re on your own. What’s rather unique for a game of this era, is that you can complete it having missed nearly all of the key factors, ie rescuing R2-D2, Han, Leia, or Ben Kenobi. At the end of the game you’re given a completion total, which to gain 100, you’ll need to not only rescue all characters and make it to the end with them all alive, but also complete every cave on Tatooine, and find the map room in the Death Star!

NES Tetris

Tetris

So how can you complete this infamous puzzle game, Tetris? Well in theory you can’t, Tetris will simply keep on dropping blocks at an increasingly faster and faster rate until you eventually lose.
The best ending on Tetris, Kremlin rocket, 120,000 points.

NES Zelda 2

Zelda 2: L'avventura di Link

Forse il più grande cambiamento di Zelda 2 fu l'inclusione di un sistema di EXP, simile a quello di altri RPG giapponesi dell'epoca. Penso che qualsiasi tipo di statistica appaia in un gioco di Zelda abbia immediatamente fatto insorgere molti fan, anche se non è certo il sistema più tattico mai usato, semplicemente Vita, Magia e Spada. La chiave del gioco è la funzione SKIP, che permette di saltare un potenziamento a favore della conservazione dell'EXP per potenziamenti più costosi. Questo permette di potenziare prima la spada, il che è essenziale. Da bambino non avevo letteralmente idea del significato di queste statistiche. Non c'è da stupirsi se non sono mai riuscito a completarlo!

NES RoboCop

RoboCop

Much of RoboCop’s challenge comes from working out what your actually supposed to do half the time. For what appears a simple run n gun, there are a few WTF moments! Combined with trying not to run out of power (time) there is a significant challenge here!

NESIncredibleCrashDummies

The Incredible Crash Dummies

Of all the tie-ins from LJN to make it across the pond, I think its strange to see a game based on a cartoon that was never released here, which in turn is based on a public service announcement for wearing a seatbelt, also never shown over here! Yes that’s right, this game has its roots in road safety! While we had Darth Vader as the Green Cross Man, America had the incredible crash dummies, telling folks not to be a Dummy and wear a seatbelt.

NES Donkey Kong Jr

Donkey Kong Jr

Perhaps the biggest difference in Donkey Kong Jr vs Donkey Kong is that this time, Mario (known as Jumpman still), is in fact the villain of the piece. Instead of saving Pauline from Donkey Kong, you control Donkey Kong Jr (better known simply as Donkey Kong on Super Nintendo), and must save your dear pa (the villain of the first game) from the clutches of Mario. It’s a nice touch to spin on the way heroism is portrayed and credit to Nintendo for a fresh approach.

NES Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong

While Donkey Kong is nothing but charming, it holds more in common with a generation of games that preceded it on Atari systems than it does with what followed on the NES, a period in gaming driven by high scores not end-screens. By the time you can make a cup of tea, you could have complete this. Not much challenge but a joy to play regardless.

NES Soccer

Soccer

Soccer was one of many ‘Black Box’ launch titles for the NES. These mainly consisted of short arcade ports of already existing Nintendo games, along with some original games including crackers like Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, Metroid, Zelda, Kid Icarus to name a few. It also included Soccer! Quite possibly the worst, (though there’s still a lot to come) football game on the system.