GB Reviews, Game Boy Reviews - Page 3 of 4

Sonar, so good?

Miyamoto's latest pet-project, Steel Diver, released to mixed critical reception; some found its slow-paced, strategic gameplay fun and refreshing, while others found it...well, boring. Suffice it to say that if you fall into the latter camp, you likely won't get a whole lot of enjoyment out of Nintendo's 1990 Gameboy title, Radar...

8-bit balls

Remember Tennis on the NES? Well, it's back, and this time it's in portable format! The Game Boy version of Tennis is pretty much a remake of the NES game: it's got the same extremely basic setup, but it has been polished it up slightly. Just like with its predecessor, there's not really much on offer here aside from essentially playing...

Dude, where's our phone booth?

You leap about the screen avoiding enemies and collecting “fragments of time”. Grab them all and your phone booth appears to whisk you away to the next level. With characters and locations from the two films, Bill & Ted's Excellent Game Boy Adventure sees you travel across several time-zones in this simple but addictive platformer. The intro to the game..

The poor man's Arkanoid

The most well-known block-breaking game, Arkanoid, became quite popular after its release in arcades in 1986. Many companies have created clones, and even to this day new low-budget ones show up all the time. Even Nintendo tried their hand at a clone with Alleyway for the Game Boy. Alleyway keeps things to the bare basics. No...

Mario's first Game Boy adventure is short, but sweet.

Given the popularity of the Super Mario Bros. series at the time of the Game Boy's release, it came as no real surprise that Nintendo would release a Super Mario title for its brand new portable game system. Now the 3DS eShop is available, it makes just as much sense for Super Mario Land to be...

An enjoyable and frustrating title

Arriving in 1983 the original Lode Runner was a platform puzzler that appeared on numerous systems of the time including the NES. More Lode Runner games followed on various platforms including Battle Lode Runner for the PC Engine, whilst the Game Boy's entry in the series was Hyper Lode Runner. The aim of the game is to avoid a few enemies and collect the gold..

R-Lite: cut-down, but still a cracker

Following its original 1987 arcade release, Irem's highly regarded R-Type was ported to numerous home systems, with this Game Boy version appearing in 1991. For those not in the know (estimates range from 2-5 people living under a rock) the aim of the game is to take your space fighter and blast your way through...

Mobile monkey magic

Donkey Kong Country was a fun and popular platformer for the SNES, but not everyone thought it was great. Some people (possibly Mega Drive owners) said the game was in fact quite poor and any fans were deluded fools drawn to it for reasons other than gameplay – or, as Cranky Kong says, “put a few fancy graphics and some modern music in a game, and kids'll buy anything..

Fun portable Bondage

As an MI6 agent with a license to kill, James Bond has obvious video game potential. One option is the first person shooter, as seen with the Nintendo 64's Goldeneye 007, but that's not the only choice. Released not long after Rare's classic, the simply titled James Bond 007 is a very different game, but there's still a lot of enjoyment to be found. You view the action from a..

You got Franken in my Castlevania

There is some common confusion surrounding the tale of Frankenstein, namely the fact that Frankenstein is not really a monster, but rather the mad scientist who creates the bolted-neck creature. Developer MotiveTime avoids this common misstep in their game by simply combining the scientist and monster into the same character. The end result is a pajama-laden doctor..

Far less fiddly than magnetic travel chess

As all the cool kids know chess is a centuries-old strategic board game for two players, played on a eight-by-eight grid. You have 16 pieces that move in different ways, and you may have to plan several moves ahead if you are to successfully checkmate your opponent’s king. The Chessmaster offers fans a portable version of the game to enjoy with the..

Heroes on your handheld

Turtles, turtles everywhere. By 1990, you could find the four reptile ninjas not only in comics but on TV, t-shirts, toy store shelves and in theatres. Like the majority of the available products, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan was based on the popular cartoon and sees you battle across five levels to rescue captured reporter April O’Neil. All four of..

Krud

Back, back, B. That’s the command that you need to enter to perform Scorpion’s spear move – but you have to do it slowly. Forget the quick tapping that you’d expect for a beat ‘em up, this is something with which you must take your time. It’s the same for all the special moves in the game, an irritant that’s just one of the many...

Holy platforming joy!

Gotham City is not a safe place to live. Goons and robotic drones roam the streets shooting anything in sight, gun turrets fire on people and heavy objects randomly fall from the sky. If the citizens of Gotham somehow manage to survive all that, they have to contend with the fact that the city was designed and built by prats, resulting in large chasms all over the place that..

A kut down but kompetent konversion

Smoother gameplay, new moves and more characters than its predecessor made Mortal Kombat II a hit with arcade players. The Game Boy port of the first Mortal Kombat had been a sluggish, border-line unplayable mess with terrible music so it seems unlikely anyone would have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the second game on the system. However arrive it did and..

Fun Person Shooter

Shortly before Wolfenstein 3D kick-started interest in the genre, Xanth Software F/X treated Game Boy owners to Faceball 2000: a first-person shooter that saw players working their way through maze-like corridors battling giant smiling faces (Smiloids). Less violent than other FPSs, Smiloids disappear when defeated rather than explode in an orgasmic shower of blood, and should..

Easily one of the Game Boy's best pure platformers.

With the success of their Adventure Island series on the NES console and their first release on the Game Boy platform, Hudson was obviously looking to continue that success with the release of their second Game Boy release. While the game is based on the third NES release, it actually eclipses it in some ways and brings a level of platforming to..

A treasured classic and the absolute pinnacle of Game Boy gaming.

There were initially some concerns that the gameplay experiences on the Game Boy system might end up being a bit too shallow. Fortunately, that notion was put to rest early on with some of the outstanding releases for the system. Of course no title would shatter that misconception like the release of The Legend of Zelda: Link's..

Does the diminutive adventure bring the big guns?

Let's just get this out of the way now: if you like the NES games, you'll probably dig this entry. Operation C isn't an adaptation or a port (arguably); it is an old-school Contra game. It may lack in a few notable areas, but you'll largely enjoy it. Operation C does a pretty good job of sticking to the series’ formula; a half-naked guy with big..