Virtual Console Reviews - Page 16

Experience all the thrills and skills of real casino action, as you take a trip to the ultimate gambler's paradise: Las Vegas!

Here's an oddest offering for the VC so far - a gambling game! In Vegas Stakes, sequel to the NES’s Vegas Dream, you heads to Vegas with a group of friends to try to make it rich. There are 4 casinos to go to, ranging from the-run-down Hideaway, which only allows small..

The hard-headed hero is back for more side-scrolling action in the third installment of the popular Bonk series.

Bonk 3 was the final game in the original trilogy of Bonk games. As it was the last game, Hudson seemingly decided they had to cram as much into it as they could in order to make it the best game yet - They succeeded. First off, pretty...

Super Charged

After Konami's maddeningly hard Contra/Probotector proved immensely popular, obviously it wasn't going to sit around and not make a sequel. Super C/Probotector II puts you in the role of the same heroes once again as you try to take out alien scum. This time they're possessing humans to attack you. The game's got practically the same...

Arthur must go forth to save his beloved Princess and destroy the root of all evil!

When you look at this game today, it's hard to believe that it was one of the very first Megadrive releases. Sega did an amazing job of reprogramming the Capcom arcade original for their 16-bit console - the port isn't quite arcade perfect but you have to look closely to spot the (minor) differences. Graphically..

Wreck, not dreck

Wrecking Crew's a bit of an oddball. Despite starring Mario, it flies under many peoples' radars, partly because it launched simultaneous with the legendary Super Mario Bros. and several other titles, thus meaning it was quickly overshadowed. Wrecking Crew's genre is hard to nail down, but is essentially a mix of a platformer and...

Lunar Pool reinvents the popular game of pool with a unique and futuristic flair.

The humble pool simulator has never made for the most exciting game, so a futuristic version of the classic pub game set on the moon is an intriguing proposition. It is worth noting that Lunar Pool is based on American pool, which is very different game from what the British play. This game is more similar to..

A true classic

Metroid was very popular in the late 80s and early 90s. Despite only two games being released, players loved it for its unique atmosphere and construction: the whole game consisted of one gigantic overworld with many places to explore and items to find. On top of that, there were plenty of secrets: who can forget the fact that you get...

You play as a young warrior named Jazeta. The princess Aurora was kidnapped by the evil Dirth, and the king send you on a mission to rescue her.

If you've glanced over the screens and video you might've already seen - This game is extremely similar to the original The Legend of Zelda game. The overworld is similar, the gameplay is similar, what you have to do is similar, and even some enemies and..

Dark Sol has vowed to reign over the enchanted Kingdom of Thornwood, and only you can stop him.

Anyone who has played the Atari ST classic Dungeon Master (or one of the many clones that appeared in its wake) will know full well that first person RPGs can be a hell of a lot of fun. Back when Sega first announced Shining in the Darkness (often called...

Cratermaze is a comical action game set in a parallel world.

Cratermaze started out life as a Doraemon game but presumably because the franchise wasn't known so well in its native Japan then Hudson thought that changing the sprites might make it make it more attractive to the American audience. So basically you play a little chubby dude who floats into each level using his jetpack. As the games..

Volleyball is one of the fastest team games around, and this NES classic recreates the speedy sport in a way that anyone can play.

Volleyball represents yet another of Nintendo’s dated sport simulations. Comparing to its early NES stablemates such as Soccer, Baseball, Ice Hockey and Tennis this game is easily the worst of the bunch. Considering it was originally released in 1986 it is..

Featuring a wide range of characters and personalities and a vast, endless world to explore, Breath of Fire II is the sequel to the original smash-hit role-playing game.

Capcom’s Breath of Fire series isn’t really respected that much these days – the last instalment – the underrated Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for the PS2 - was a bit too different from previous games and didn’t really..

Originally a launch game for Nintendo 64, Wave Race 64 immediately blew the competition out of the water with its impressive 3D graphics and gameplay that was anything but shallow!

Given that Wave Race 64 was a launch title for the N64, and that it has now been over 10 years since that launch, it is all the more baffling to play it today. Comparison with modern games tends to put the graphical and..

The gameplay in Galaga '90 is built upon the same premise as that of the original Galaga, but is in many ways more complex and more difficult.

This game started out life as Galaga ’88 in the arcades and saw a conversion to the Japanese PC Engine under the same name. Understandably in the two years it took to get released in North America the name...

The ninja master returns!

Nasty Neo Zeed is back causing trouble again. It’s up to our hero Joe Musashi to teach them a lesson they won’t forget with his supreme ninja skills. Unlike the original arcade classic there are no hostages to be rescued and you have an energy bar to spare you from one-hit kills. You have a limited amount of shurikens...

The standard for vertically scrolling shooters, Star Soldier is the original game that spawned all of the titles in the long-running Soldier series.

We’ve already been blessed with the sublime Super Star Soldier and Soldier Blade but now it’s the turn of the game that started it all as the NES classic Star Soldier hits the Virtual Console. Released on the NES way back in 1986, Hudson’s..

Headdy, the central protagonist of the game, is the star of the Treasure Theatre production of Dynamite Headdy.

Treasure has already secured its place in history as a purveyor of "gamers' games", encouragingly flying in the face of the accepted practice of style over content to provide such stone-cold classics as Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga and Gunstar Heroes. Among the batch of early..

Brave five rounds of haunting, nightmarish dreams in this take on the classic arcade puzzler.

Drop Off is a paddle and ball game like Atari’s classic, Breakout. There is nothing bad about making a game like Breakout, games like Arkanoid did an excellent job of just that. The innovations in that game made for an addictive game experience. It’s a shame that the same cannot be said of Drop Off..

The call has gone out throughout Dream Land – the First Annual Ghost Trap Competition has begun!

This is basically Puyo Puyo given a lick of paint, but... wait a minute, isn't that exactly what Damo typed for Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine? Well, it holds true for this game as well. Only this time, instead of Dr. Robotnik and various robots from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon,..