Role-playing games began their climb to popularity during the early 80's on the many personal computers of the time period. These turn-based titles brought a more strategic element to gaming for those looking to use their minds more than their reflexes. Square obviously saw the importance and lure..

What do you get when you combine the River City Ransom theme with Track and Field-style gameplay? You get Crash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge. The game takes the street gang theme and creates some fitting Olympic-style events to go along with it. Sounds like a mouth-watering proposition, but sadly..

Sometimes, you just have to wonder who at Nintendo is in charge of the Virtual Console game selection. Perhaps it's one of those people who, when unable to decide what to do, throws a dart at a dartboard with possible "options" on it in order to come to a decision. That almost has to be ..

Today people might look at Midway as the financial disaster that they are and chuckle. In the better days of arcades, however, Midway developed a number of hit arcade games including their hit Mortal Kombat series of fighters. While MK is likely their most famous effort, they also had some respect..

For those not in the know, Life Force started out life known as Salamander in Japan and was renamed for western audiences. The Salamander series is a spin off to Konami’s famous Gradius series of shooters, the main differences in Salamander are the introduction of a simultaneous 2 player mode, v..

While the original StarTropics was a great game, it did have some nagging problems. In 1994, after the SNES was already out for 3 years in the US, Nintendo saw fit to finally make a sequel to one of the (sadly) most underrated games on the NES. But they didn't make it for the SNES - They actually ..

After two successful Mega Man releases on the 8-bit NES console, Capcom decided to upgrade the series with a few new game play twists for the third release in an effort to add a little more game play variety to an already amazing package. They also created 8 brand new Robot Masters for players to ..

Devil World is one of extremely few Nintendo titles that was released in Europe, but not the US. Most likely this was due to Nintendo of America's strict rule not to feature any "religious" factors in games, and seeing as the game includes a devil, that just wouldn't slide with them. It'..

After the success of the original Castlevania title on the NES system, Konami decided to change things up quite a bit for Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Gone was the straight-ahead platforming action of the original, replaced with a much more rpg-flavored approach that placed more emphasis on item..

The characters from River City Ransom (Of which the main character is known in Japan as Kunio-kun) are back for a friendly game of dodgeball. Or are they?If you've played the aforementioned game, you'll know that the Kunio series hilariously overdoes everything. You were able to smash enemies arou..

First, a lesson in linguistics – ‘Kurukuru’ in Japanese means ‘turning around’. Why am I telling you this? Well, it neatly explains Clu Clu Land’s rather unusual title, and also gives some insight into the mechanics of the game.You assume the role of a funny-looking fish called Bubbles..

Poor old Stanley the Bugman, not only have all the bugs got into his greenhouse, there’s a big ape pestering him too. To add insult to injury, he would never feature as a playable character in another Nintendo game again and be forgotten forever, whilst Mario went on to international stardom.Don..

Pac-Man wasn't the only popular arcade game Namco made. Aside from Galaga, Mappy, and others, there was also Dig Dug.In Dig Dug, your objective is to dig through the earth's soil and eliminate the monsters lurking within it. You can move through the soil (Thus creating tunnels) by simply moving ar..

Let's be honest, a platformer built around a tiny baby and his rattle doesn't exactly beam with potential from the start, so it's no small wonder that this game was originally rejected by Nintendo of America at the time it was submitted for release in the US. But if you look at screenshots of Bio ..

City Connection was a moderately popular arcade game in the early 80's. The game stars you as a rather strapping young man driving around the world to paint the roads white in order to prove he's been there. Doesn't make much sense to us, but hey, whatever floats his boat!While doing so you must w..

Sky Kid is a NES port of the arcade game with the same name. You play as the Red Baron or Blue Max, both famous World War I pilots.Your mission is to fly through hordes of enemy formations, pick up a bomb, and drop it on the enemy's headquarters or main weapon. It is noteworthy that in this game, ..

Technos’ Double Dragon became a household name and River City Ransom gained rave reviews from all and sundry, but people often forget that the company also released Renegade on the NES, forming what many fans deem to be a classic trilogy of 8-bit fighting games. Sadly, Renegade is easily the wor..

Double Dragon is a classic NES game which was immensely popular in its day -- so much so that it led to a string of sequels. Predictably the NES conversion of the arcade original made some compromises and changes to the game. The levels are laid out differently and there are now only four of them...

To herald the start of the new baseball season in the USA, it seems fitting that Bases Loaded should get a Virtual Console release. When this was first released on the NES twenty years ago there wasn’t really much that came close to it. The simple, yet innovative gameplay struck a home run with ..

Another Mario puzzler? Say it ain't so! Like Mario & Yoshi (Yoshi in the US), Yoshi's Cookie is a lesser known title than Dr. Mario and Wario's Woods, which is mostly because, well, it's not that interesting.To its merit, it's not another falling block puzzler. In fact, this is one of the more..