Excitebike

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Racing – Side-view

If you were anything like me as a kid, you wanted a dirtbike. You probably weren’t anything like me as a kid, but you probably still wanted a dirtbike because, let’s face it, dirtbikes are cool, and every kid wanted one. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably the kind of person who thinks that fishing is a sport. Of course, my parents didn’t have the money to just up and buy me a dirtbike, and given my incredible penchant for falling off my regular bike and injuring myself, I think it’s fair to say that they have other motives for failing to get me one. Thus, video games were the closest I would ever get to living that particular dream.

They weren’t much for title screens in 1985

I remember liking this game a lot as a child, but that I didn’t remember playing it much, which is strange, since there’s a fairly extensive list of great and not-so-great games I remember playing for hours on end (yes, I have vivid childhood memories of playing video games).Now, as an adult, I can understand how that came to be.

It gets old. Fast.

No, really, it’s a very good game – to say otherwise is to be a fool or a liar! The controls are tight and logical, the graphics are sufficient, the sounds are generally not obnoxious and the whole thing is intuitive enough to jump into without reading a manual (which is an important feature in a post-game-manual era, as well as back when rentals were common and commonly devoid of important parts).

Not pictured: road rash.

The crushing shortcomings, however, lie in features you’ll find yourself wishing it had. You’ll wish it had two-player simultaneous play, you’ll wish it allowed you to save more than one custom track. You’ll wish that there were more terrain features to put on your custom tracks.

John’s Rating: I give this game a 3.0 out of 5.0. Better replay value or a two-player mode would have easily put this up to a 4.0, but I really can’t justify it in light of the fact that I can explore everything the game has to offer in a single afternoon. All in all, it’s an enjoyable and nostalgia-inducing romp that I see no reason to repeat.

Duck Hunt

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Shooting – Zapper

Duck hunt is a classic. Let’s get that out of the way right now. The reason that Duck Hunt is a classic really doesn’t have a lot to do with how good the game is, but rather the fact that, for most of us, it was the only reason that our NES came bundled with a Zapper.

One duck or two?
Guns don’t kill people, at least not in early NES games. They kill ducks, which are actually more endearing than a lot of people.

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Donkey Kong Jr. Math

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Edutainment

The underlying concept of edutainment is that if you’re having fun while you learn, you will always love learning, and I’ll admit that the idea is sound. At the very least, I know that *I* enjoy learning, which has always driven me to learn pointless things that will never further my chosen career path (though at times I consider deviating to something more cosmopolitan than the legal profession such as concierge, game show contestant, or crazy homeless guy).

I digress. Allow me to introduce you to a sound argument against the proliferation of edutainment.

…

I’ve been playing Donkey Kong since my Atari days, and Donkey Kong Junior since only shortly thereafter (the aforementioned Gordon owned it, and I was thrilled by the delightful simian action it presented). I will also state that my mother, being of sound mind, never made the mistake of purchasing for me any game with “Math” in the title. So, with that in mind – namely that my childhood was untarnished by this game – this awful programming turd actually retroactively damaged my memories. I think I might actually like Donkey Kong less because of this.

So you’re a monkey and you solve math problems by competing with a second player. There really isn’t a single player mode, which is fine – you won’t want one anyway. That’s not to say you’ll want to play this with your friends, mind you. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you play this with someone, you’re legally obliged to refer to them as your “victim.”

I “won”

John’s Rating: All in all, I give this game a 1.0 out of 5.0, but only because I already decided that if something can be reasonably classified as a “game,” I shall be obliged to rate it at least a 1.0.

Dark JCO’s Rating: I can’t believe that this is even classified as a game. It doesn’t have an ending screen or a single-player mode. It’s barely playable as a multiplayer game. If you want to teach people math, just teach math! 1.0 out of 5.0.

Lord Nightmare’s Rating: I like Donkey Kong Junior Math. It’s colorful and interesting. I like Math. I like little monkeys that climb the ropes and stuff. I just can’t find anyone who will play it with me. e^πi out of 5.0

Clu-Clu Land

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Puzzle – Action 

Over the years, video game design has changed. Back in the Nintendo games, game design was a crapshoot – if you had an original idea, you might be on to the next big thing, or you might be about to discover, to paraphrase Edison, one of the 10,000 ways it does not work. Point being that, in the Nintendo days, many games were released with game mechanics that, in the modern era, would immediately end up on the cutting room floor.

It is now generally understood, for example, that game controls have to be intuitive. This can be a game breaker for nearly any game, but if the controls are sufficiently counter-intuitive, it can contribute to fake difficulty. If it goes far enough, however, it can become the entire game.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present “Awkward Controls: The Game”

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Baseball

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Sports – Baseball

I suppose that not every game can have – or even needs – a clever title. After all, Contra is one of the most well-known and beloved games of all time, and “contra” just refers to resistance fighters in general. In some cases, however, a clever title – or even just a bit of elaboration on a fairly obvious title – seems to be in order.

Do you think they tried to trademark the name?

While I have to cut it some slack for being the very first baseball game released on the NES, I don’t have a lot of love for the game. Maybe it was because by the time I got to play it, I was already spoiled by all the significantly more advanced baseball games released subsequently. It’s possible, though, that the name just killed the interest for me. Either way, I might have to dig pretty hard to find good things to say about this game.

The controls are, to put it lightly, unpleasant to deal with. On top of being poorly mapped in general (just try to make a runner steal a base or continue running on a wild ball), the game doesn’t do a good job of actually indicating when you’re in control and when you’re not. After my runners unsuccessfully chased grounders well into the outfield a few times, I finally realized that it wasn’t my fault they weren’t getting them – I didn’t control that part. I wasn’t responsible for their actions until they actually put their hands on the ball.

I should come up with something funny to say about this, but there really isn’t anything funny to say. It’s just baseball.

The game also seems to ignore the infield fly rule.  Yes, it came up.

In the Wikipedia article, a reference is made to the variety of pitches that can be thrown through clever manipulation of the controller. Frankly, the difference between a fast ball and a slow ball is insufficient to affect even the lamest player’s reactions, and therefore moot. But, thanks, Wikipedia, for telling me that my slow pitching pitcher will eventually pitch even slower by wearing himself out.

All in all, it’s not the worst game out there – most likely, not even the worst baseball game – but I wouldn’t particularly recommend it.

John’s Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0, because I don’t have much good to say about it, but didn’t thoroughly hate the experience.

Dark Jco’s Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0 – I could probably give a better review if I liked the sport of baseball, but I don’t, so I just find this game boring.

Lord Nightmare: 1.0 out of 5.0. As far as I can tell, they captured all the boring and kind of dull aspects of baseball when they