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!

REVIEW: Tennis

Game: Tennis
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: October 2010
Rating: 5 stars


It's hard to review old sports games. As much as you try, you can't ignore the bias you have from playing through years of gradual improvements. In football games, you now have a bigger playbook and the ability control different positions. In baseball games, you can now adjust your swing and pick different pitches. Basketball games now allow you to substitute players and set up a pick and roll. Luckily, tennis is a pretty basic game: Just hit the ball back and forth. For the most part, there's not a whole lot that needs changing.

Tennis for NES lets you play singles or doubles, but you'll need a second human player to be your doubles partner. There are five different difficulties to choose from, ranging from 1 (practically disabled) to 5 (borderline superhuman). You can hit regular shots and lob shots, and you can even spike the ball when you are close to the net. You can (kind of) angle your shots if you face your character the right way. Be careful though, because Mario won't hesitate to call your ass out of bounds.

Get used to it.

A hatred for Mario that I never knew existed steadily developed while I played this game. I always knew he worked for Nintendo, but I never knew he was such a partial, cheating, fanboy prick. There were several times when I couldn't help but think that Nintendo Tennis was an inside job. My shots would be within millimeters of the line, and the computer wouldn't even attempt a swing. Meanwhile, Mario sat smugly in his judge's chair, shouting down his unjust rulings. And of course, the computer rarely, if ever, hits the ball out of bounds. If you want points, you're going to have to work for them.

Mario's prejudices aside, Tennis is a decent game. Playing on difficulty 1 is pretty pointless. You can run laps around the court while you wait for your opponent to hit the ball. I played an entire game hitting only lob shots, and I still creamed him.



Difficulty 5, however, is a different story. You can't mess around if you want a chance to beat this guy. Playing on the highest difficulty can be frustrating, but at least it gives you a challenge and gives Tennis a little replay value.

The mechanics are decent, but not great. I got frustrated a lot when I thought I was lined up perfectly, and the shot just kind of fell at my feet. It would be nice if the computer would occasionally hit a ball or two out of bounds. And I wish you could player multiplayer versus matches, instead of just doubles. My biggest problem with Tennis is actually the length of the games. You always play a 5-set match, and most of my games took around 45 minutes to complete. They do go faster, though, when you are getting whooped on the higher difficulty.

Tennis had its moments, but I think its time has passed. There are too many better options out there now if you want a quick, fun tennis game (and if you don't want to deal with the unbelievable asshat that is Judge Mario).



Review in a Haiku
My shot was in bounds,
What a shock...you called it out,
Screw you, Mario.

REVIEW: Pinball

Game: Pinball
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: October 2010
Rating: 5 Stars



Pinball is video pinball game developed by Nintendo. It chronicles the epic story of a ball and its journey to bump into things and increase the score. It features two screens of bumpers, drop targets and bonuses. Targets include seals, penguins, baby birds and classical pinball elements. If you are lucky or skillful, you can find the bonus round and help Mario save the girl.

Where is the theme here? Weak, at best.

There is a wide variety of different targets to shoot for, and this does a good job of making the two screens feel very different from each other. For an early pinball game, it does a good job of keeping the screen busy and packed with targets. This helps stave off the long, dry stretches that were present in Atari pinball games. The bonus round was a nice addition, and bouncing the ball on Mario to break through the wall and free the princess made a nice change of pace to the traditional pinball screens.

Pinball has a number of flaws which keep it from being a true classic. The ball behavior tends to be rather light and floaty. This is a common problem with earlier video pinball games, so it is easy to forgive. There is no common theme to the boards and targets, and this makes the tables feel like playing pinball in a garage sale. Many other pinball games have a tilt feature, which often gives a little extra influence over the ball behavior. I’m not sure if Pinball omits this as a design decision or a technical limitation, but it does limit your “sphere of influence”. There are no multipliers on the table and this makes high scoring games more a matter of endurance than skill. Finally, Pinball really would have benefited from music beyond what played during the title screen.

In modern video pinball games there are two schools of thought. Simulation type pinball games take great care to accurately reproduce the sights, sounds and physics of an actual pinball table as accurately as possible. This can provide all of the fun and excitement of a physical table and make us miss the classic arcades and pizza parlors.

For the record that is Pauline from Donkey Kong. Not Daisy, not Peach.

The other option is to embrace the video game aspect and use unreal environments, movable targets and boss battles that would not be possible on a physical table.

This Pinball attempts a middle road between the two...and falls short at both. It’s not hard to guess that Pinball loses its appeal pretty quickly. The lack of a theme probably hurts it the worst. A couple changes in sprites and sounds, and this could have been a much more entertaining “Mario Pinball”. Modern pinball machines work best when they put the player into sensory overload with flashing lights and sounds. However Pinball does very little to capture and deliver that energy and you are left with a competent but dreary rendition of the game. Video pinball games have come a long way since Pinball, and in this case you really can’t go home again.