Retro Game of the Day! Gradius
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Yesirree - today's game is the great Gradius by Konami, released originally (arcade) in 1985 and ported a year later to NES and a good slew of other platforms. And still going strong! Some of you may remember this game under the title "Nemesis.".png)
And so, here we have the game that really popularized the whole "collect powerups to increase your arsenal" in videogaming. I am not sure if it was the very first to have any level of a powered-up shot, but it's certainly the one which did it most notably to begin with..png)
A standard horizontal shooter, and a fairly colorful one for its time, you would kill waves of enemies - certain foes would leave behind a "powerchip" in their wake, if you grabbed it you would increment a meter at the bottom of the screen. When you collected enough you could activate a powerup of your choosing (speed up at the low-end, options, shields, alternate weapons). On that note, the "invincible options" that shadow your ship (and showed up in many similar games) also can trace their origins here, though I would be interested to see if they showed up in some obscure game previously..png)
Gradius followed a long line of similarly-presented shooters, one of the more notable efforts being Konami's own Scramble (to which this game can directly trace its lineage). This title upgraded the general presentation of this sort of game, with an end boss waiting at each level's conclusion (often with their own "power bars" which must first be shot away at, to reach their core weakspots). The graphics and sound FX were also a noticeable upgrade from what many other scrolling-space shooters looked like in those days..png)
Gradius is a fairly lean game by today's standards, though still difficult and certainly very playable. It can easily be considered one of the most renowned games of all time, which has left a very notable impression on the entire gaming landscape. Its legacy is long and we will still see games bearing it's namesake, and play style, for years to come, even if it has been out of fashion for generations.
And so I give you another TurboGrafx-16 launch title, as opposed to some of the other offerings this looked rather tepid at the time. You had 
My not-quite-15-yr-old-self did give this game the once-over at the TG-16 Pre-Launch event that year (I think I just blew my budget for hyphens for the whole of 2010) and my attentions quickly scattered to some of the other offerings noted above. I never was much of a fan of any kind of pinball, video or otherwise (with certain exceptions) and I should expect that may from my generation felt the same. Well that is a shame, as I would discover years later, that Alien Crush is a pretty well-assembled little piece of software!
As it has been alluded to, my knowledge of the more intricate workings of pinball is not quite stellar, though I do know that this particular game has been critiqued a bit for how the physics are portrayed. Certainly no deal-breaker, as anyone who sits down to play this will have a hard time not getting sucked in anyway. The game does a fine job of melding classic pinball gameplay with options afforded it that could never be done in the physical realm (satisfying my rule of "why does it have to exist as a videogame?"). The whole affair is tastefully done, the graphics and effects are crisp and clean, and the game is quite addictive.
So what is the overall problem then? I'll hold that video pinball as an idea, on the whole, is a bastard child of sorts. It never received much love from either side (the dedicated pinball wizards, the serious videogamers). There's been more than a handful of very well-presented efforts, Alien Crush amongst the most famous of them, and these games are so timeless between their design and execution to merit classic status - but will forever be considered a mere sidestep in the annals of gaming unfortunately.
All of that being said, I implore the reader to seek out such games, they are sadly under-represented and offer a blissful experience for pure gaming, for what they are these games are quite unique. At some point I will dig through the sequels in the Crush series (Devil's Crush, Jaki Crush) but for now, get it on with some GutBusters...
And just for fun, some (vague, and odd) 
Welcome to 
Released in 1992 for the Neo Geo, Viewpoint was quite the looker of a game in its day. But be warned, if you've never picked up the controller to try this one out, and you are planning to now - prepare to die. A LOT. Even for seasoned shooter veterans, this game will put you through your paces as you adjust to survival in isometric space.
The presentation looks gorgeous, I really want them to rebuild this in stereoscopic 3D somehow as the whole thing looks like you could nearly reach into the screen and pluck all the individual players right from the game with your hands. And eat them like delicious candies. Why must we live in a world where there are no Viewpoint candies! It sucks so hard!
The gameplay is your standard fare, as alluded to - couple the nice polish with your usual options (a variety of special bombs, power up your pea shooter, adopt some smaller "help" ships to strengthen your cause, charge up a megablast, etc). You've seen it all before, but Viewpoint does it especially well.
The game saw some ports to other platforms, infuriating the Neo Geo purists - but those guys are always looking for things to get angry about. The PlayStation version is especially noteworthy, someone had the bright idea to obliterate the nifty pixel-art look and attach a standard 3D rendered style instead. Like it or not, still an interesting modification worth investigating.
The game arrived - as expected for an Amiga port, it lost some of its visual luster, but still looked impressive enough (giant sprites, fairly detailed graphics, and oh yes, 
You controlled a warrior, "dude or chick" - each one rather deft with a sword, though you couldn't tell by playing this game! You walked left or right, stabbing away at your enemies - stab enough and they'll fall over and die. Some fallen foes will drop potions, which grant you different powers a more powerful fire sword, health recharge, etc) but mix them improperly and you could waste potion, or even lose health.
The game was horribly assembled with clunky controls, garbage hit detection, and outright gnarly level design. But at the time, it was different, it was violent (check out that beheading!) and it was there. It's not aged well at all, though when it released Sword of Sodan was noteworthy and fun to tool around with for a couple of hours.
This little fella here was supposed to be the Turbo's answer to Mario. Preceding Sonic by a decent margin, he would have been the Nintendo Mascot Plumber's first official "rival" - but Bonk never even had a chance!
Not that it is any fault of the game's, anyway. Though he wasn't for everyone, Bonk certainly lived in a colorful world full of prehistoric enemies to quell - back in the day, this was the first viable "character action game" of the platformer style to really try and give Mario a run for his money. I have no idea how it performed in Japan, but the game really fell on deaf ears when released in the US. The TurboGrafx-16 console had a good deal of press coverage when it released the preceding year, but as time went by it quickly lost valuable ground to Nintendo's aging 8-Bit system and Sega's new, "more powerful" 16-Bit Genesis system.
Bonk was a caveman with a huge noggin, good for bashing into foes - what's more, the player could jump around and invert, landing head-first on enemies. You could get some pretty decent momentum (and points) racked up by doing this in succession.
Otherwise, the game was pretty standard fare (I say that a lot, don't I!) Proceed to the level's end, dispatch the boss, wash/rinse/repeat. In Bonk's defense, the bosses were particularly large and colorful, easily dwarfing their 8-Bit counterparts at the time - this game looked (and sounded) quite impressive!
In the end, Bonk lacked the marketability of a game like Sonic (or, of course, Mario) for many reasons. Not a bad game at all, just one which never received a proper chance due to releasing on "that other system" (and don't be mistaken, I love the TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine!). A flurry of sequels followed, some direct and other indirect (futuristic Bonk the shooter was - Zonk!) and eventually he showed up on the rival consoles (NES, GB, SNES). A nice little game in its day, and one which is still worth unearthing now. In fact, I have been looking for an excuse to finally try out the SNES sequel...!
Hey, it's not entirely my fault. I 
But ah - the game looked so good. Compared to its predecessor, Mario 2 was so much more. So many colors, so many different worlds - new enemies to kill, new techniques to attack (no more jumping and killing, now you got to pick up and throw items). New characters (pick Mario, Luigi, Toad the Mushroom Retainer, or Princess Peach) and to top it off, each character had unique abilities. Well, Mario played it petty straight I suppose, but everyone else was unique.
This game was enormously charming and compelling, everything felt straight out of a cartoon even more so than the first one. To top it off, the music was so happy and bouncy (and, no lie, it still regularly bops through my head all of these years later).
Of course, a game like Mario is huge, and so a departure like this is going to have its share of detractors. The story, famously, is thus: the "true" Mario 2, in Japan, was very similar to the first (same looks, same engine) with the difficulty cranked WAY up. Fearing that the wussy Western players wouldn't accept this, Nintendo modified another game ("Doki Doki Panic," based on some Japanese TV show or something) and essentially Mario-ized it. This seemed strange, as there were quite a few differences between how the two played, but no one cared at the time. It looked 
Even so, there's plenty of folks who even today deride SMB2 USA (as it is often referred to) as "not a true Mario game," an" aberration," even blasphemous. Bah! I was very happy with this game, even if it was a fairly completely different game - perhaps that is why (I loved the 1st Mario, but come on, everyone played that title backwards, forwards and sideways, and something different was certainly welcome).
I will take issue with one thing - the game was a lot easier to pick up and play than its predecessor. I suppose I was a bit of a Nintendo maniac back in the day, but even I was sort of disappointed with how easily one could breeze through the game. It didn't put up much of a fight - I guess loading you down with extra-extra-EXTRA lives and a few well-placed warp zones made it easy to zoom through the entire game with minimal effort, if you knew what you were doing. Otherwise, the game was fairly long and engaging, and well-designed enough to keep you on your toes. I guess I gotta blame myself for being weak and skipping through (though I eventually did play through all the levels - well, nearly!)
Love it or hate it, whichever camp you reside in, there can be no argument that SMB2 was a landmark game for a landmark series, and despite how one feels now, it was hard not to love this when it was The New Hotness. A beautifully compelling world, a new way to play, all wrapped up in an enjoyable package. The sweet animated ending was just the icing on the cake. Some folks saw "bah, stick with the 16- or 32-bit upgraded versions," but I say the first Mario 2 is the best!
Alright, that would be somewhat of an overstatement - as well, that dubious honor belongs to either the "3-D" Virtual Boy, the snafu which led to the Sony PlayStation's creation (it was originally going to be joint effort between Nintendo and Sony, as an add-on CD-Rom for the SNES), perhaps the nearly-invisible GBA original screen. I guess by way of comparison, DK3 isn't all 
Still, this was quite a departure from what made the first two games in the series so wonderful, and as a result, it is quite forgettable. Ditching the idea of Mario altogether, you know control the moves of one Stanley the Bugman - protecting your greenhouse from the titular Ape who's invaded and is causing a ruckus. He is stirring up trouble in the form of insects who want to steal your flowers - to defend, you must blats bug spray at the rankled bugs, and also at DK's heine. Shoot him enough and you'll advance a round; protect your flowers from theft, and you'll rack up bonus points.
That is about it for Donkey Kong 3. Gone is the innovative platforming, instead we have some awkward shooting wrapped up in a very bizarre theme. I mean, who 
Anyway, it is difficult to be harsh on Nintendo for a game like DK3, they gave us so much other wonderful entertainment during the era that this is a forgivable side-step (and hey, it's not like this game is unplayably bad or anything). Who knows, if they insisted on sticking more closely to what was previously successful, perhaps we could never have got as wonderful a Super Mario Bros. as we did, and then the whole world would be different, and horrible! People would not be playing video games now - they'd be outside, enjoying the sunlight! Perhaps taking in the theater, or playing sports with their kids! Oh, wait...
Let's get this out of the way immediately - for convenience, you may just want to revisit the earlier review of 
At the outset, the game gives you the choice of three warriors to pick from, each looking like they've stepped off the canvas of a Frazetta painting - Ax Battler, the muscle-bound brute; Tyris Flare, the Amazonian Valkyrie - and Gilius Thunderhead, "the little Nordic Guy." Each play very similarly, though each has a different weapon range and potential magic ability (pick up MP along the way and unleash a "super bomb" depending on your level.)
The game is pretty basic otherwise - walk to the right, kill everything that moves (or die by their hands!) Kill a group of foes to advance to the next segment, and of course there is a boss to contend with at each level's conclusion.
The other catch here is that you can mount different creatures for increased tactical advantage, to the tune of fireball-blasting or tail-whipping. Be careful, as your enemies can mount the same creatures and make short work of you just the same!
Overall, Golden Axe is a fun romp which has not aged terribly wonderfully, though it is still fun to fire up these types of games once in awhile to let off some steam. When the game released it was praised for its graphics and control, and the world it presents is compelling if predictable. Golden Axe is one of those games which was a big hit upon release and still continues to coast on the memories that original popularity even today.