Adventures of Lolo
Original system: NES
We gave it: NR
"Can Lolo save Lala after solving an almost endless series of mazes?" What the hell does that mean and is it contagious? We're not sure, but there are only a couple of ways to find out if a Lolo can rescue a Lala: a) play through Adventures of Lolo and see if you can save the girl; or b) go find a guide online and read about what happens at the end. Which option you choose really depends on how much time you have on your hands. Lolo is a pretty decent puzzle title; it was developed by HAL Labs and came off the back of a well-known Japanese series (Eggerland - and no, that's not a game about 1988's second summer of love). Presented from a top down perspective the aim is simply to open the exit to each of the game's 50 rooms, but to do so you need to collect all the hearts, which opens the treasure chest which unlocks the door. Often harder than it sounds.
Worth playing? If you're looking for some retro puzzle action and want to check out Kirby's blue cousin, sure.
Worth paying for? Not really, although you'll get more out of this than a lot of the other NES VC releases.
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Original system: Mega Drive
We gave it: 4.5
It's pretty easy to kill a career. One tiny slip-up, such as shouting "I am the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard. Bow before me puny humans!" on national TV, and suddenly the child star of such critically acclaimed Australian dramas as "Kangaroo Down, Sport" and "Chazwazzas the Musical" isn't good enough any more. But enough about my youth, let's talk Alex Kidd, for he had a similar fate.
Once the darling of Sega's Master System, thanks to the likes of Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Alex Kidd in High-Tech World, Alex Kidd found the transition from cute 8-bit star to beefy 16-bit adolescent a little too hard. Enchanted Castle, his only outing for Mega Drive, was a botched attempt to stay relevant, a side-scrolling platformer with shoddy controls, terrible collision detection and boss battles that consisted of random rock-paper-scissors showdowns. Keep an eye out for Alex Kidd and Wonder Boy's new reality TV show - coming to cable soon!
Worth playing? We gave it a 4.5, so that means no!
Worth paying for? That would be a crime against gaming.
Balloon Fight
Original system: NES
We gave it: NR
Balloon Fight is a 'homage' (i.e. rip-off) of the classic arcade title Joust. Instead of riding emus and ostriches, however, you have a couple of balloons strapped to your back. The principles are very much the same though. The controls are a delicate balance of left and right with upwards thrust, leaving you bobbing and falling across the map, which is fun in and of itself, and requires a deft touch to hit your opponents from slightly above to pop their balloons (and then their parachutes).
Worth playing? It's fun for what it is, but nah, go back to Joust instead.
Worth paying for? Nope.
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
Original system: SNES
We gave it: 8.8
I dare say you're all well-versed in this series, so I'll keep it brief. Donkey is out the window for this game - instead you're swapping between Diddy and Dixie, each with their own strengths. Another well-designed no-nonsense platformer, this game looked brilliant at the time (less so now) and offered up more challenge than the first game did. A barrel of fun, ho ho.
Worth playing? If you're a big 2D platform fan, absolutely.
Worth paying for? Only if you didn't pay for it on SNES or GBA.
Final Fight
Original system: SNES
We gave it: 8.0
This game (and Golden Axe) taught me a valuable lesson as a child. Eating chunks of meat you find on the streets will heal you. Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness tried to teach a very similar lesson many years later, namely that eating chocolate bars you find in the sewers beneath Paris will also heal you. Fortunately, by that stage I wasn't as easily convinced. In any case, Final Fight is a bona fide arcade classic. This was a game with big chunky sprites for characters, and simple but fun combat that let you pick up pipes and knives and stuff, in addition to your standard attacks. The SNES version, however, lost a character, was slightly censored and had the two player co-op completely exorcised. Again, we have to ask why arcade ports are such a problem for Virtual Console? Surely we should be getting the best version of a game?
Worth playing? It's fun, but you'd be better off finding an old arcade cabinet and playing it with a friend.
Worth paying for? Nope. Why give your hard-earned cash for the inferior SNES port?
Kid Chameleon
Original system: Mega Drive
We gave it: NR
"There was a new machine in the arcade that one could walk into and play. It used holograms to create a reality not our own. Everybody played it. But it was a little too real. The boss escaped, and began capturing kids by defeating them at the game. This is the story of someone too tough to beat. Someone known as... Kid Chameleon." Man, what a douchebag character. I'm sorry, but even when this game out having a kid who's meant to be cool because he wears sunglasses, jeans and a leather jacket and rides a skateboard smacks of committee. No matter, he's not in the leather jacket for long because the crux of this platformer is that you can wear different helmets that give you different abilities. Climb walls, slash at enemies with a samurai sword, even don a hockey mask and wield an axe. The idea may not be that original, but Kid Chameleon built up quite a following at the time. These days though, the lack of any kind of save/password system is the biggest nail in this potentially interesting retro coffin.
Worth playing? Only if you have fond memories of it from when you were younger. Then again, you may be better off sticking with the memories.
Worth paying for? It's not a bad game, but no, it's not worth your cash.
Mach Rider
Original system: NES
We gave it: NR
"In the year 2112, the Earth has been invaded by evil force. You are a 'mach rider'!" Invaded by evil force? NOOOOOO!!! Better get on my bike, then, in this 1985 NES launch title, and try and take them down. Woah - look out for that oil slick! And that one... and that one... turns out the future has a lot of oil slicks. And rocks. And water puddles. This game does NOT stand up well today.
Worth playing? No, no, no.
Worth paying for? Absatively not-a-roony.
Mario and Yoshi
Original system: NES
We gave it: NR
I almost feel sorry for some of these old NES games. I mean, they did their service to the company back in the day, and now they should be living in secluded retirement - at the backs of cupboards or perhaps on the shelves of collectors, happy in the knowledge that their time has passed. No such luck. (For them and for us). Nintendo wants to put them back to work, regardless of whether they're relevant or fun any more, and is wrenching them out of retirement to prop them up on the gaming stage, sweltering under its bright lights. Which brings us to Mario and Yoshi (although you may know it as Yoshi's Egg). A falling block puzzle game, various Mario-related items drop down from the top of the screen, and as Mario you must switch the columns that are built at the bottom, both to vertically join like and like, and to join the top and bottom halves of the yoshi eggs that fall down.
Worth playing? Why you'd play this today I have no idea. It's not that good a puzzle game and it looks atrocious. So, no.
Worth paying for? Absolutely not - there are so many better puzzle games out there.
Mighty Bomb Jack
Original system: NES
We gave it: 4.0
Bomb Jack eh? Fun arcade game, pity they went and tried to make it a platform game in the form of Mighty Bomb Jack. The end result is pretty half-baked, and while I still like the way that Jack controls - the ability to precisely control the heights of your jumps and to float, the lack of any other interesting abilities, combined with the labyrinthine level layouts means this one is best left in the past.
Worth playing? Do you want to live in the past? I don't (that would be a no).
Worth paying for? No way, we won't pay!
Open Tournament Golf
Original system: NES
We gave it: NR
The second Nintendo golf game released on NES (after the imaginatively titled "Golf" years before), Open Tournament Golf hit in 1991 and, at least as far as the American cover goes, hoped to cash in on both nationalism and Caddyshack. Strange combo I know but when you have Mario kitted out in a stars and stripes outfit, whacking a ball AND a gopher on the cover, what else are you meant to think? So yeah, you play as the All American Joe, Mario, with three courses on offer and ranks to rise through. The gameplay uses the tried and true power metre system, and lets you choose your line and club from a top down view before switching to behind the player for the actual shot. This is actually a pretty reasonable golf game... pity that there have been so many better golf games since.
Worth playing? The gameplay is solid, but why not just play one of the recent Mario Golf outings? Advance Tour in particular is brilliant and you can probably pick it up pretty cheaply by now.
Worth paying for? If you absolutely have to own an NES golf game, this is the one. I wouldn't pay for it though.
Streets of Rage 2
Original system: Mega Drive
We gave it: 8.5
So many fanboy hours lost. So many debates over which series was better, Final Fight or Streets of Rage, all of which basically boiled down to which side of the SNES/Mega Drive fence you sat on back in the day. Pledge allegiance to one and trash the other. And yet here we are with both series' on the same console. The ironing is delicious!
Putting all that aside and just focussing on the games at hand, it's clear that while Final Fight on SNES was a gimped version of the arcade game, Streets of Rage 2 - being built from the ground up for Mega Drive - is simply more fully featured. Shameless rip-off of Final Fight or not, this puppy has four playable characters, simultaneous two player co-op and more detailed graphics than the original Streets of Rage. If you're going to get one of them, this is the one to get.
Worth playing? Sure thing, it's a classic.
Worth paying for? If you have a hankering for a mindless 16-bit beat 'em up, you bet.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Original system: NES
We gave it: NR
A Mario by any other name would smell as sweet. This is the ultimate test of that (bastardised) saying. If this game hadn't been re-fashioned into a Mario game, and instead had been released in the West as it was in Japan, as Doki Doki Panic, would people still have liked it as much? Would it still have sold over 10 million copies? We don't know but there's no question that this is the black sheep in the Mario series, with a number of radical differences from the original - four playable characters, enemies you could pick up and throw (no head bopping here!) and a weird vegetable fixation. Pulling vegetables out of the ground and throwing them? Puh-lease, what was that about? Even though some regard this as a Mario series imposter, it's still a good game.
Worth playing? Yes.
Worth paying for? No. Why not give us Super Mario All-Stars? That I could recommend.
ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron
Original system: Mega Drive
We gave it: 7.0
Humans. They're annoying aren't they? They stow away in your interstellar ship, then wreak havoc on your formerly funky world. Looks like it's time to find 'em, bottle 'em, then boot 'em the hell off. Or at least, that's the thinking of ToeJam & Earl in their second - and very different - Mega Drive outing. This time you're looking at more of a traditional 2D platform game, except it's more hide 'n' seek than head boppery. Thankfully the humour is intact, as is the rampant 'funkiness'. Expect deliberately trippy visuals, badly digitised cheesy voice-overs ('alright!') and a bass-heavy soundtrack.
Worth playing? It's a lot less interesting now than it was then, although you may want to play it co-op for old times sake.
Worth paying for? Despite having a soft spot for this game, no, it's probably not worth your money.
Virtua Fighter 2
Original system: Mega Drive
We gave it: 3.5
When is one of the greatest and most influential polygonal fighting games not itself? When it's completely retooled for Mega Drive. This is yet another example of how ridiculous the Virtual Console system can be. Why release this? Virtua Fighter 2 on Mega Drive has nothing in common with the proper VF2, and instead is just an awful, sprite-based cash-in adaptation. Why further sully the good name of Virtua Fighter? We have no idea. Avoid like the plague.
Worth playing? We'd stare at the wall instead.
Worth paying for? They should pay you to download it.
Wonder Boy in Monster World
Original system: Mega Drive
We gave it: 8.0
Wonder Boy is a classic gaming series, no doubt about it, but Monster World just doesn't give me the warm fuzzies in the same way it seems to for other people. It's competent, certainly; the presentation is charming at times, and the RPG-lite elements such as buying and equipping weapons, gaining new abilities and exploring an interconnected land certainly work well against the action platform backdrop, but when it comes down to it, this isn't really a game that has much relevance to modern gaming.
Worth playing? If you loved it as a kid, sure, play it again. If you've never played it, well, it's a good game, but there are a lot of good games out there...
Worth paying for? I wouldn't pay for it. You might though. Your call.