REVIEW: Wrecking Crew

Game: Wrecking Crew
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 8 stars


Wrecking Crew in an action puzzle game that pits Mario as a construction (destruction?) worker whose job it is to break stuff.

I encourage you to click play and listen to Wrecking Crew's great tunes while you read the review.

Mario's tool of choice is his trusty hammer, which he apparently stole from the Donkey Kong work site. The objective of the game is to smash all that is smash-able. While attempting to ruin a lot of hard work put in by others, non-jumping Mario must stay one step ahead of those that pursue him: disturbing walking wrenches named Gotchawrenches, which give me nightmares, and guys dressed in Intel clean-room bunny suits named Eggplant Men. Eggplant Men are normally found at constructions sites, so this makes perfect sense. If you think about, these guys are the real heroes of the game, as they are trying to protect some unfortunate developer's financial interests from some Italian asshole with a hammer.

Anyways, dick around too long without breaking anything, and a fireball will manifest and stream across the level at which the dilly-dallying occurred. So move your ass and get to the vandalizing. Once all blocks are busted and breakable ladders are down, the level is complete. There is also an NPC named Spike the Foreman that shows up during bonus levels and on some regular levels to interrupt your flow. I'll expound upon that dumbass in a bit.

I need to point out early on in this review just how much I love the music of Wrecking Crew. When you start a level, you are greeted with a quick little tune as the level is revealed to you from the top to the bottom. The tune says to me, "Do-do do-do-do do do, Here's a construction site, now go and start breaking shit up." (Go ahead, sing that when a level starts, it fits.) Once the level begins, the background tune is the happiest fucking music to break stuff to, ever. It's a cool, flowing melody that I find myself humming while I break stuff in real life. Also, it's a relatively long tune for an NES game, especially a release title. The tune doesn't loop for a while. The music fits this game; it's advantageous of you to stay in motion as much as possible, what with the constant threat of aliens and angry tools, and the music reflects this, while not lending itself to a heightened sense of anxiety. Even the death tune is kind of like, "Oh well, you died, but maybe you'll do better next time" (You can't sing along with that verse.)

Never to be heard from again, it is believed that Spike the Foreman was given a "cement nap" by Mario after level 100.

Wrecking Crew has an interesting twist in the way of Spike The Foreman, an NPC that shows up to break stuff along side you. Initially, you only see him on the bonus levels, but then he shows up on some regular levels. Spike is annoying, because while he increases the challenge, he can ruin a level by smashing a required breakable ladder or by hammering a bomb before you ascend said ladder to take out blocks, forcing a mulligan. Dumb fuck. If you're going to compete with me, don't ruin it for the both of us.

Speaking of annoyances, shouldn't a hammer work as a weapon? Not in this game. An enemy touches you, and you are dead. There are a few ways of dealing with enemies, none of which include direct skull bashing. There are doors on some levels; if opened while an enemy walks toward them, the enemies will automatically enter and roam around behind the scenes. This takes them out of the picture for a little bit. You can also stun enemies buy hammering a bomb while they are on the same level, or by destroying a breakable ladder that they are climbing. There is one other way of managing them, which requires ninja-like gaming reflexes: trap them in a barrel. There are breakable pillars that are not a part of the required breakables, some of which have barrels over them. Although the odds of death are high, time it just right and the pursuing enemy will be trapped within the fallen barrel for the duration of the game. Time it wrong, and you are in the barrel. Pro tip: trap that asshole Spike to prevent his level-ruining shenanigans.

This won't end well. If only I had a hammer... oh, wait.

The game is fun, but not without some minor frustrations. There are occasional dead ends. You can circumstantially ruin a game by falling between two barrels, getting caught in a falling barrel, or destroying a ladder that leads to unbroken breakable objectives. With the exception of being trapped in a barrel, you must either allow an enemy to kill you, or await the Fireball of Impatience to put an end to your futile effort. If you're within a barrel, you're fucked, as you will have to reset the game by pressing select and thus lose your current score. Overall, though, this isn't a big deal.

I think that there is something primal within all human beings that enjoys the act of breaking shit. Go ahead, smash a beer bottle, I'll wait. See? Feel that adrenaline rush? It's a caveman response to thoughtless action that stays with us today. That's the appeal of Wrecking Crew. We love breaking shit. Rawr! HULK SMASH! And while there hasn't been a sequel to Wrecking Crew (outside of Japan, that is,) breaking stuff is a part of most current games. Ever play Burnout? How about Boom Blox? Perhaps a little-known series entitled Grand Theft Auto?

So, you see, even 25 years ago, Nintendo knew to tap into that primal element of humanity through a video game. Add to this some of the catchiest tunes ever and 100 levels of puzzle challenge, and Wrecking Crew holds up. I'm giving Wrecking Crew a solid 8 Stars, the Terrific Tunes stamp, the Praiseworthy Puzzler stamp, as well as the coveted Test of Time stamp.




Review in a Haiku
"Under construction"?
That's just an invitation
to smash everything.

REVIEW: Golf

Game: Golf
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 6 Stars


Golf on the NES is a game where a Mario knock-off guy tries to hit a tiny ball into a tiny hole 18 times. In keeping with the spirit of the links (the grassy kind, not Zelda’s boyfriend) I will attempt to review this game in scorecard format.

Above Par

+ Golf has an excellent club selection with 14 clubs. All your irons, woods, wedges and a putter are represented.

+ Have you played Wii Sports Golf? Then you will recognize the course right away. The 9 holes of Wii Sports golf are based on the holes from NES Golf.

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!?!?!

+ Timing the swing was tricky enough to be consistently challenging. Adjusting the force of your club swing never feels unfair.

+ The first time I actually hit par on a hole was oddly thrilling. Pulling off the shot you want is a rewarding experience.

+ Intuitive enough that a non-sports gamer like myself felt comfortable with the interface after the first hole.

+ Aiming putts is consistent and accurate. I wish I could putt this well in Wii Sports Golf.

+ Two player mode is fun and competitive.

+ Fills the elusive “Games my Mom Could Play” niche.

+ Mario! Sort of. Because the features aren't quite spot on it feels like Mario concept art and that gives it some small degree of street cred.


In the Rough

- Golf?! Really?! That’s the best name the chimps in marketing could come up with?

- The course design feels random. Often you will find the fairway to be a series of islands.

A course is a course, of course, of course.

- There is a line of trees to indicate the Out of Bounds line, but beyond that is all blackness. It’s like the Langoliers ate the rest of the world.

- There is no distance indicator/estimator built into the interface. The only way you know how far your stroke of any given club will go is by your own experience.

- The lack of a running score card makes it difficult to chart your progress per hole.

- The view of Mario swinging the club is useless. The change in terrain that shows at his feet seems random and does not add any new information to the screen.

- The aiming for the drives and chips is horrible. Why not use the excellent aiming present when putting?

- Since the game is turn based, they could have implemented 4 players easily by sharing a single controller. This would have really helped since sports games tend to be more fun in groups.

- No in-game music. And a congratulatory theme after each hole would have been nice. Sound is sparse.

Slow, SLOW DOWN, WHY WON'T YOU STOP ROLLING!!

I believe Mark Twain defined Golf video games as good sit spoiled. This prototypical Golf game seems to hit birdies and bogies in equal number. It would make sense to score this game right down the middle, but the fun factor counts for a lot. Even though I had decided before I started that I was going to hate this game, I ended up having a lot of fun with it. I can see myself coming back to Golf in the future. One could do worse than to spend some time with Golf.



Review in a Haiku
Swing, cheer, swing, grumble,
Swing, swear, swing, throw controller,
Swing, sigh, putt, putt, plop.

REVIEW: Baseball

Game: Baseball
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 6 stars

Don't say they didn't warn you

The NES launched in America with several sports games: Football, Tennis, Golf, and Baseball. Baseball might be the best of the bunch. It has a fair amount of issues, for sure; but the controls are fairly in depth for a sports game of its time, and the multiplayer can be pretty fun.

Baseball has one mode: a 9-inning exhibition game that you can either play against the computer or a friend. You can choose from one of six teams: A, C, D, P, R, or Y.

The old school rivalry: A vs R

The letters are supposed to represent the Athletics, Cardinals, Dodgers, Phillies, Royals, and Yankees. No specific players are mentioned in the game, however the color schemes for each team are about right.

Pitching is my favorite part of the game, even though it can be frustrating at times. You have four pitches to choose from (fastball, changeup, curve, and screwball), and you can actually move the pitch left and right after you throw the ball. You can even try to pick off the baserunners, though I've never been successful. (On the other hand, every time I even think of stealing a base, the computer picks me off.) If you make a mistake or throw the ball right down the middle, the computer will usually make you pay. And similar to Nintendo's Tennis game, if the ball is out of the strike zone, the computer will rarely swing at it.

This ball hit me in the face, and I still swung

Hitting is pretty simple. Swing the bat, hit the ball. You can stop your swing halfway to try to bunt. The timing of your swing determines where you hit the ball. Unlike the computer, who's plate discipline is uncanny, I will swing at pretty much every piece of crap they throw. [SPORTS JOKE ALERT] If the computer is Tony Gwynn, I am Mario Mendoza.

So far, this game sounds pretty good, right? That's because we haven't talked about the fielding yet. Sweet Sammy Sosa, the fielding is atrocious in this game. There were times I wasn't even positive my controller was plugged in. The developers even knew the fielding mechanisms were terrible, but apparently, they figured this disclaimer would be good enough:



I really can't tell you how annoying the fielding is. If the computer's hit made it into the outfield, the ball invariably rolled past my guys all the way to the wall. Then I just ran in circles like a bumbling idiot while the computer circled the bases. Is the computer controlling my defenders? Am I controlling the left fielder or the center fielder? Do I have a mental disability? I honestly don't know after playing this game.

The two player mode is much more enjoyable. The fielding is still just as terrible, but at least you're both swinging at balls in the dirt and getting inside-the-park home runs on grounders to the short stop. The game kind of drags on, especially with no music (except during home runs) and few sound effects. Expect to take the better part of an hour to play one game.

Game set, team P!

Baseball for NES got a lot of things right. The pitching and hitting set the bar for games to come like R.B.I. Baseball and Baseball Stars. I love that you can choose from some actual MLB teams, even if it doesn't really mean anything. Unfortunately, the fielding is so bad, Baseball loses most of its replay value.




Review in a Haiku
Errors in the field,
Overshadowing the game,
It is a damn shame.

Coming soon...Wrecking Crew!

REVIEW: Clu Clu Land

Game:Clu Clu Land
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 5 Stars



When I was a kid, I honestly thought this game was about the dudes with the white pointy hats. I mean it always struck me as kind of odd that they would have their own game, and I kind of assumed they were the bad guys in said game...but I didn’t get the plumber-mushroom-turtle connection with Mario either so I just wrote it off as one of those strange Japanese things. It turns out the hat guys have a slightly different name, and Clu Clu Land is actually about Bubbles the Bubblefish trying to recover the treasure of the sea kingdom from some jerk face sea urchins called the Unira.

Clu Clu review, Mrs. Robinson.

The catch is that the treasure is invisible and you are being chased by the angry sea urchin critters. You run all over the field and trip over the gold bars (which look like Rupees from Zelda) by chance. Typically the treasure is laid out in a symmetrical pattern to make a picture so that once you find enough, you can estimate the rest by anticipating the design. Clu Clu Land plays a bit like a wide open version of Pac Man if all the dots and the occasional obstacles were invisible. You can stun the enemies with your Sound Wave (sea urchin have ears?) and crush them into walls for bonus points.

Avoid the Unira. Which are probably contagious.

The hook to the game play is the directional control. When you change direction, you hang an arm out to grab hold the poles that make up the grid and spin yourself around. You can tap the D Pad to make a quick turn, or hold it down to spin around and around. This is probably the most original feature of the game, and while I found it to be originally quite off-putting, I grew to appreciate the strategy that it added. You can’t just head off to the other side of the screen, you have to plan a path based on obstacle and enemy locations and use careful timing to pull it off successfully. That being said, the control is never quite intuitive and causes more deaths than the enemies do.

Clu Clu Land on cards?! What a deal!

What replay value that Clu Clu Land has comes from trying to top your previous high score. This may be fine for old school gamers, but don’t look for an ending to this one. The game has 22 levels and if you can get that far, it repeats with having to run over each bar twice. There is also some fun to be had with two player mode which is simultaneous. Trying to score higher than player two leads you to take more chances and is generally more fun than playing by yourself, but not by much.

Clu Clu Land is the first NES entry into the maze game genre. However, Pac Man is still the biggest shark in that pond, and when you compare the two games side to side, Clu Clu loses badly. This is one of those times when the designers go out on a limb and try something new and it doesn’t quite pan out. On its own, it was a fun diversion that manages to be briefly amusing despite the handicap of its controls scheme.



Review in a Haiku
Try to play Pac Man
Blindfolded and with your feet.
Behold! Clu Clu Land!

Duck Hunt shirt

Woot has a cool Duck Hunt shirt for sale (today only!) for $10.

Play It: Wrecking Crew

To prepare for tomorrow's review, play the underrated puzzle game Wrecking Crew.

REVIEW: 10-Yard Fight

Game: 10-Yard Fight
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 2 stars


Sometimes there are some games that come along,
These games aren't very fun or very strong,
They need to be reviewed; all of them do,
But we don't want to bore with the review,
So in an effort to help you tonight,
In iambic verse is how I'll write:

There are five difficulties in this game,
While they grow strong, your skill remains the same,
In order to advance to the next round,
A touchdown is the goal that must be found.

There is no point in attempting a pass,
The defense always intercepts your ass,
If they are even slightly in your way,
They pick the ball; they always make you pay.

Not only is he humping my face, he is also intercepting my pass.

There are occasions when they're kind of dumb,
Like on kickoffs or just a simple run,
Criss-cross the field, run backwards if you must,
They won't catch you; they will just eat your dust.

Pro tip: run all the way to the left, then block them all at once.

Though you can beat all of the other guys,
There is one thing you do that I despise:
It's like your cleats are filled with lead or stone,
You move so slow, it makes me have to groan.

Frustration is the theme of 10-Yard Fight,
It's rarely fun and doesn't get much right,
With so much wrong with it, it isn't whole,
I cannot wait till I play Tecmo Bowl.




Review in a Haiku
Diagonal lines:
Run in them, and you will score.
Computer is dumb.

25th Anniversary Super Mario Brothers Cake

The cake makers at Pink Cake Box have made the best Mario cake you'll probably ever see.









Shigeru Miyamoto cut the cake in Rockefeller Center, celebrating Nintendo's 25th anniversary:

Junior, I am disappoint.

If Bowser was smart

REVIEW: Donkey Kong Jr. Math

Game: Donkey Kong Jr. Math
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 4 stars


Donkey Kong Jr. Math was a bomb. It was the worst selling NES launch title. It was an "edutainment" game that did so poorly, Nintendo canceled the Education Series in the U.S. and shot the person who came up with the word "edutainment." It's widely regarded as awful, embarrassing, confusing, and just plain boring.

But I kind of liked it.

I think I'm doing it wrong.

The main menu gives you three options: Calculate A, Calculate B, and +−×÷ Exercise. Calculate A is two players, where player 1 controls Donkey Kong Jr. and player 2...also controls Donkey Kong Jr. Well, a pink Donkey Kong Jr. Perhaps a sister? Perhaps just a fashionable friend? According to the manual, it's not nearly that exciting. The characters are Junior (I) and Junior (II). Papa (Donkey Kong) holds up a number, and the players race to make a math problem that equals that number.

It's pretty simple when you're just trying to add up to 49. Grab a 7, a multiplication sign, another 7...BAM. You win the round.

WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME!

But when you're trying to get to -649 and other negative numbers in Calculate B, it's a little harder. The winner of the round gets an apple. First player to five apples wins a spot standing next to Papa while the other Junior is left having a seizure down below.

This mode can actually be pretty fun when you have a second player (assuming you are both nerds).

WHO AM I!

Maybe I'm just too competitive, but I like stealing the division sign out from under my opponent or laughing at him when he falls in the water and Junior's eyeballs bulge out. You should be able to get a few rounds of fun from this mode every once in a while. And if you need to make things a little harder, use only multiplication and division signs.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!

You can pretend you're doing math homework with the +−×÷ Exercise mode. If you're OCD and aiming for a perfect score, this mode is frustrating as hell. There are 10 questions, each worth 100 points. If you get a digit wrong or hesitate for even a second, you lose points. It's hard to tell exactly what digit you're selecting since the numbers are on one side of the screen, and you're climbing a rope on the other side. If you climb even ever-so-slightly past the correct digit, kiss your perfect score good-bye. If you really can't figure out the math problem, you can just skip it, but you don't get any points.


Donkey Kong Jr. Math can be a fun game. It's not great, but it's not as terrible as most people are making it out to be. You're not going to get hours of enjoyment out of it. You're not going to take a picture your high score and have your mom put it on the fridge. But if you've got a friend and are tired of Scattergories, pop this in for a few rounds. If the one-player mode had tighter controls, this game would get a better rating.

Donkey Kong Jr. Math is barely educational. If you don't already know your multiplication tables, you're going to struggle. But it is mildly entertaining, even if it's only for 15 minutes at a time.



Review in a Haiku
Monkeys doing math,
disguised as an arcade game,
It's Edutainment!

Play It: Donkey Kong Jr. Math

You know you're bored right now. So prepare for tomorrow's review and play Donkey Kong Jr. Math in your browser.



Oh, and you'll need to study this too.

Koopa Gets a Star

Can you jump over the flagpole?

Video Games | Pop-Fiction | Episode 2: Mario Flagpole

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

I refuse to believe this. I REFUSE!!

If Super Mario Bros. was made in 2010

It's funny because it's true. And kids today are dumb.

















Awesome job here by Zack Hiwiller. Check out his site.