Paperboy / Rampage
GBA (2004)

In both Paperboy and Rampage, you can break glass. I had to think a long time to come with something these two games have in common, and other than both currently being owned by Midway, that’s all I could come up with. Despite the unlikely pairing, both games were fun in the arcade and remain fun on the Gameboy Advance.

In Paperboy, players must guide a bike-peddling newspaper delivery boy through what can only be described as the world’s most dangerous neighborhood. If the inattentive drivers and open manholes weren’t bad enough, this particular street has roving lawnmowers, rabid dogs and a full roster of characters and obstacles that would send most newspaper boys straight to the unemployment line. Your goal is to pick up bundles of newspapers and throw them into the mailboxes of your subscribers. Miss a house and they’ll drop your services; hit all of them, and you’ll pick up new customers. The game ends when you loose all your Paperboys, lose all your subscribers, or make it through all seven days without dying.

One of the most challenging things about playing Paperboy was that due to the games isometric presentation, the area where your Paperboy resides is actually a small corner of the screen. This problem is multiplied on the Gameboy Advance’s small screen. The small play area means problems will present themselves quickly and often, testing your reflexes constantly. The original game’s controls (which were included on a real pair of bicycle handlebars) ported over nicely to the GBA; A pedals, B brakes, and either trigger button tosses newspapers. Many of the game’s speech samples made it to the conversion, and the original music, while simplified, is also there. The game’s only major annoyance is that your bicycle constantly drifts to the right, making “going straight” a constant battle.

Rampage, in contrast, is much simpler. After choosing the mutant of your choice (King Kong, Godzilla, or the Wolf Man), the goal of Rampage is to simply tear stuff up. Smash buildings, bash cars, and eat anyone who gets in your way. Each mutant has a stamina meter that goes down as your take damage; lose all your stamina and it’s goodnight, Gracie.

This version of Rampage has been watered down slightly. Kicking has been removed from your monster’s repertoire, while punching and jumping have been retained. Destroying the buildings seems to be easier in this port, although that may be intentional as the original videogame allowed three players to team up against cities. As with Paperboy some of the sound effects and graphics have been watered down, but there’s so much going on in Rampage that it doesn’t take away from the overall experience.

Need for Speed: Carbon
Xbox (2006)

Need For Speed Carbon, the latest entry in Electronic Arts’ popular racing franchise, picks up where last year’s Need For Speed Most Wanted left off. More than just a “carbon” copy, the most recent Need For Speed game tweaks the franchise formula by adding several new options and features, resulting in a slightly different (but equally fun) racing experience.

The perpetually dark Palmont City is a stark contrast to the autumn backdrop of Most Wanted’s Rockport City. Urban streets and neon lights have replaced last year’s rustling leaves and rural landscapes. Palmont is divided into four territories, each of which is then subdivided into smaller counties. Initially rival gangs control the territories, but it’ll be your job to take them over one county (and race) at a time. In between races a mysterious back-story unfolds, delivered through Need For Speed’s patented (and somewhat creepy) mesh of CGI filters placed over live actors. The story, with a plot as deep as most episodes of Scooby Doo, involves a bag of money getting switched, a double-cross, and (thankfully) a lot of racing.

Most of the racing formats have carried over from the previous game: circuit races, sprints, checkpoints and speed traps are all back. The clunky drag-racing event from last year’s game has thankfully been dropped and replaced with drifting. In drifting races, the object is to slide your way around a course, scoring points along the way. The closer to the wall and the longer you stay there, the more points you’ll rack up. By linking drifts together you can add score multipliers, but spin out or tap the wall and your drift is over. The physics and control inside drift races are so different from the rest of the game that they almost feel like a completely separate mini-game.

After taking over an entire territory players will face one of the game’s gang leaders on a one-on-one duel. Boss races occur in two stages, the first of which is a routine sprint race where you’ll take on the boss heads up through his or her own city. The second part is a two-part race through Carbon Canyon. The first time through, you’ll chase your opponent down winding canyon roads, earning points by how closely you can trail your opponent without bumping their car. Once you reach the end it’s back to the top for a second run, this time with you in the lead. The goal is to reach the end of the run while maintaining a positive score. Without nitrous or your friends to help you, later runs through the canyon will put your ultimate driving skills to the test. One wide turn on a tight canyon corner and you’ll achieve massive airtime the hard way.

To appease old school, new school, and wishful-thinking racers, Carbon’s cars have been divided into three categories (muscle cars, tuners, and exotics) with three escalating performance tiers. Players begin with a couple of tier one cars from each category to choose from, but can unlock others by winning races. Performance items can be won, unlocked or purchased and installed on your ride, but eventually you’ll need to upgrade to a higher tier car to continue your winning streak.

Carbon ups the car customization ante with the addition of Autosculpting, which allows gamers to not only apply different body kits to their cars, but also mix and match kit pieces to create entirely new looks. There are literally hundreds of flames, vinyl stripes, tribal designs, and other symbols that can be added your car, each of which can be then rotated, skewed, or repositioned. Along with all the wheels, spoilers, hoods, roof scoops, muffler tips, paint colors and schemes, ride heights, and dozens of other parts that can be added to your car, the possibilities are infinite. Each car tier also has half a dozen performance mods that can be unlocked and purchased, from turbo and nitrous to brakes and suspensions. Each performance piece contains adjustment sliders that allow gamers to adjust each part, so you can do things like configure your nitrous to either last longer, or blow harder. True gearheads will no doubt get a kick out of constantly tweaking their rides.

The biggest difference racers will encounter in game is the addition of wingmen (and wingwomen, for that matter). Hirable teammates can be unlocked, hired and fired at different points throughout the game. Crew members come in three flavors: drafters that can lead you through races at record speeds, scouts who will drive ahead revealing track shortcuts, and blockers who’ll smash into your rivals’ rides, giving you an opportunity to take the lead in the process. As helpful as they may sound, EA’s implementation of wingmen is done so awkwardly that your “friends” more often than not cause you to lose races instead of helping you win them. The drafters are the least useful of the bunch – they’re great on straight-aways, but will unfailingly lead you crashing into a corner headfirst at breakneck speeds. Blockers aren’t bad early in the game, but you’ll soon find they rarely have enough nitrous to hang with the pack, resulting in a continual barrage of “I can’t keep up!” from your sidekick. Scouts are probably the most helpful with their ability to point out all the game’s hidden back alleys and shortcuts, but even they have a way of inadvertently hitting the brakes and smashing into your car or even running you off the road and into a wall as your opponents sail by, laughing.

The only major disappointment Carbon delivers is the de-emphasis on police chases, particularly in career mode. Police chases are no longer missions of their own, and escaping from a pursuit delivers few rewards. The police cars have been scaled back from their nearly indestructible status in Most Wanted, making them fairly easy to cripple or simply outrun. The cops’ inclusion this time around is half-hearted at best, which is too bad as the chases in Most Wanted delivered some of the series’ most adrenaline-pumping moments. While there are a few pursuit-related missions in the game’s Challenge Series, their inclusion feels tacked on.

While the heart of Need for Speed has always been Career Mode, there is also a Challenge Series that contains three-dozen challenges, each of which will unlock game-related items. From the main menu you can also check your reward cards, to show tasks that need to be performed within the game to unlock additional items. While the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Carbon also include various online racing modes and scenarios, the Xbox, PS2 and GameCube editions do not.

With so many changes between editions it’s hard to say whether Need For Speed Carbon is better or worse than its predecessor. Racing fans will enjoy the new tracks and the limitless amount of tweaks that can be administered to their virtual rides. The canyon challenges are a fun addition, and drift races are a welcomed replacement over last year’s frustrating drag races. On the flip side, the idea of wingmen is better in theory than its implementation, and the lack of police challenges throughout career mode is disappointing. While the game delivers in the racing department, the video sequences and plot are epically goofy. Need For Speed Carbon is a fast and friendly racer that’ll have you squealing the tires for many gears to come.

NARC
PS2/Xbox (2005)

The 1988 Williams arcade game NARC had its name stenciled across the marquee, accompanied by bullet holes, splattered blood, and a hand written note that read, “say no to drugs.” In that classic side-scrolling game, players killed or arrested drug dealers and confiscated their drugs and money. It was pretty clear throughout the game which guys were good and which guys were bad.

In Midway’s 2005 game with the same name, the division between good and bad is not as clear. In Midway’s NARC you play one of two undercover police officers chasing down some drug dealers spreading a new drug (Liquid Soul) onto city streets. During your mission you’ll have the opportunity to take crack, beat innocent civilians to a pulp, and shoot anyone who gets in your way. Overall, the game looks and plays like a budget version of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series. You’ll run around a virtual town in that familiar third-person point of view, completing missions and racing from point to point. Throughout the game you can make either good decisions (like confiscating drugs from dealers and dropping them off at the police station) or bad ones (like shooting old ladies in the face with an assault rifle) which will turn your character toward either the good or the dark side of the force – the police force, that is.

If the adult language or violence levels in Grand Theft Auto made you uneasy, then steer clear of NARC, which drops more F-bombs than the South Park movie. And if the four-letter words don’t make it clear that this is not a game for kids, the action soon does. Part of your training involves learning how to apprehend, cuff, and beat suspects. Even as a beat cop, you will serve as judge, jury, and executioner. No one in your precinct will complain about the lack of a speedy trial as you proceed to crush the skulls of any drug dealers, dirty cops or jaywalkers you encounter. Most of the game’s training missions center around learning the different ways to kick suspects’ asses. “Don’t forget,” a fellow officer states, “once a suspect fall to the ground you can press Triangle to mount them and then press X and Square to continue beating them!” Your training session ends when the brother of a recent arrestee appears, gun in hand. Your final training session involves disarming the man and then shooting him with his own gun. Guilty!

NARC is essentially a sleezy, second-rate Grand Theft Auto knockoff. The graphics are dark and sometimes blurry, and the soundtrack is about as cliché as it gets (“I’m Your Pusher”? C’mon.) I had originally rated the game’s soundtrack a 6, but I had to constantly turn it down due to my son being in the next room. I can really only see two possible target audiences for this game – people who can’t wait for the sequel to Driv3r, and people who still think beating up virtual people for no real reason is a hoot. I played through about half of NARC over several days, and felt dirty afterwards every time. If you curse RockStar every waking moment for not making State of Emergency, then run as fast as you can to the nearest gaming store and pick NARC up. If you think you might get at least a minor “tee-hee” from grappling with criminals or hearing computer people swear, at least rent this game before buying it. Even with an MSRP of $20, you might end up feeling as though you’re the one who has been robbed.

Namco Museum Remix
Nintendo Wii (2007)

A quick scan of my personal game collection reveals Namco compilations for every disc-based system I own. I’ve got all five Namco Museum discs for the original PlayStation, Namco Musem for the Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, and the 50th Anniversary releases for the GameCube and PS2. When I heard that yet another Namco Museum release was in the works, this time for the Nintendo Wii, I was afraid it would simply be more of the same. It’s not — but after playing this mixed-up mash-up, you’ll wish it were.

Namco Musem Remix contains fourteen games which fall into two categories: five new remixes, and nine original classics. The menu system is a 3D platformer, where gamers choose games by navigating Pac-Man through a brightly-colored 3D world. it is here players get their first taste of Remix’s wonky controls. Actually, that’s not fair; the menu’s controls handles better and make more sense than most of the games do. Like of the games, navigating the menu requires nunchuck controller.

The nine retro classics included on the disc in their original form are Galaxian, Dig Dug, Mappy, Xevious, Gaplus, Super Pac-Man, Pac & Pal, Pac-Mania and Cute Q. Each game can be played by either using the Wiimote and the Nunchuck together, using the Wiimote by itself, or using the Wii Classic Controller. I don’t own a classic controller, but hopefully these games play better with one of those than they do with the other two choices. The nunchuck/Wiimote combo is almost impossible, and the Wiimote by itself (rotated) isn’t any better. The Wiimote’s d-pad is amazingly inaccurate, making controlling these games much more frustrating than it needs to be. This makes playing the few good games like Dig Dug difficult to control, and the lesser-known titles frustrating to learn.

That leaves us with the five new game remixes: Pac ‘N Roll, Galaga, Pac-Motos, Rally-X, and Gator Panic. Your enjoyment level of these five games will probably hinge on how familiar you were with the originals, and how upset you will be when you discover than these aren’t like them. Your opinion may also be swayed by how much you like Pac-Man, as he appears in all the remixes for some reason. If you’re okay with those things, there’s some fun to be had here.

Take Galaga Remix, for example. In this version, you job is to protect Pac-Man as he rolls his way down open-faced tubes located in outer space (think interstellar water slides). As Paccy rolls through these tubes he’ll be attacked by updated-but-Galaga-inspired space bugs. Using the Wiimote as a laser gun, enemies are disposed of by pointing at then and firing by using either the A or B button. Although Pac-Man’s route runs on auto-pilot, you can make Pac-Man jump and dodge bullets by pressing up on the Nunchuck. Thirty seconds into the game I began to wonder, why didn’t they just make A jump and B fire and drop the Nunchuck altogether? Alas, that is not the way the Nintendo Gods wished it. Instead you’re forced to hold the Nunchuck the entire time only to make Pac-Man jump, a maneuver that’s required maybe once or twice per level. Somewhere along the way, the quintessential top down shoot-em-up has been transformed — er, remixed — into a shooter-on-rails starring Pac-Man in a rainbow slide. Hmm.

Most of the other remixes aren’t quite as radical in their redesigns, but they’re all significantly different from their source material. Feeding the stereotype that the Wii is catering to casual gamers over hardcore fans, all the games are simple to learn and, at least during the earlier levels, pretty tough to get killed in.

Namco Museum Remix’s lone bright spot is its multiplayer support. For those with enough friends (and nunchucks) available, the remixed games are slightly more rewarding. None of them will ever be referred to as your favorite game, but they do take some of the sting out of paying $40 for this title.

Wii owners with a thirst for Namco nostalgia should pick up one of the two Namco Museum titles available for the GameCube and play those instead.

Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary
2005 (PS2/Xbox)

To commemorate their 50th Anniversary, Namco has released pixel-perfect translations of sixteen of their greatest classic arcade games, all on one budget-priced disc.

Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary brings sixteen classic arcade games such as Pac-Man, Galaga and Dig Dug directly into your living room. All the games play exactly like their upright counterparts, and they should by now; this is at least the third time Namco has released ported versions of these arcade games to the home console market.

Back in 1997, almost a decade ago, Namco released five separate compilation discs for the original Playstation. Some of the games on those discs include Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Pole Position I and II, Rally X, Bosconian, Xevious, Mappy, Dragon Spirit, and so on. In case you missed them the first time around, in 2001 Namco released Namco Museum for the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. Namco Museum includes, and stop me if this list sounds familiar, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Pole Position I and II, and so on. The five disc Playstation collection included a museum area, where players could view development stories and view related pictures. Namco Museum for the PS2/Xbox/GCN included updated versions of many of the games.

This brings us to Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary, which contains the following sixteen games: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Rally-X, Pole Position, Pole Position II, Xevious, Dragon Spirit, Bosconian, Rolling Thunder, Mappy, Sky Kid, Pac-Mania and Galaga ‘88. If you include the import only Namco Museum Volume 6 (which included Rolling Thunder and Sky Kid), fifteen of the sixteen games have already appeared on previous Namco collections for home gaming consoles (Galaga ‘88 is the only debut, and to play it on Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary, you’ll have to unlock it first).

The menu on Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary presents gamers with rendered versions of arcade cabinets, and (only) three 80’s tunes that play in random order. Trust me — you will get sick of hearing Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen” in a hurry. In an ironic note, while the games themselves take only a second or two to load, the rendered menu takes a solid 10-15 seconds to load each time you quit a game.

Analysis of the disc shows that the entire contents of Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary take up about 250 meg; it’s a shame the other 4+ gig of space (this IS the DVD generation, is it not?) weren’t utilized. Why not include 300 songs in the menu instead of 3? If this is supposed to be an anniversary disc, treat it as such! Where are the interviews, the behind the scenes footage, the commercials, the music, the EXTRAS? If you were to celebrate your wedding anniversary this poorly, you might not have a next one!

The one thing Namco did manage to nail was the emulation. All the games play perfectly and are indistinguishable from the originals, but is that enough in a world where every 10-year-old kid knows where to download these ROMs from? I’m not sure Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary offers gamers enough for their money. The games look and feel great, but they looked and played great the last two times I bought them. Without any extras or bonus features. These games are re-re-rereleases, and without anything extra included, I have no reason to purchase this. If you don’t own one of Namco’s previous compilations, then by all means this is a good deal — you can’t go wrong with 16 classic games for $20. But if you already own one (or more) copies of these games, Namco hasn’t given you any reason to purchase them again. Worth picking up if you already own compilation discs with these games; skip it if you already own them.

MTV Music Generator 3
PS2/Xbox (2004)

There’s a weird genre out there for home consoles, programs that aren’t really games but actually programs that stretch the limits of what videogame consoles were originally designed to do. One such franchise is MTV’s Music Generator series, the latest of which (Version 3) is available for both the Xbox and PlayStation 2.

MTV’s Music Generator series debuted on the original PlayStation back in 1999, and suffered due to the console’s hardware limitations. Without much memory or storage space to work with, the original was more frustrating than fun. Version 2 (released in 2001 for the PS2) added tons of new samples and tools, but the program was too complex, convoluted and cumbersome to win gamers over. MTV Music Generator 3 is by far the best of the series – now that the novelty is over, developer Mix Max and publisher Codemasters have dumped all the fluff and created an honest-to-goodness music sequencer for current generation console owners. The interface is slick enough to have you rockin’ the block in no time.

MTV Music Generator is a sequencer, a program that allows you to create music by putting samples (digitized recordings of sounds) in order (or, sequence). Sequencers have multiple tracks, with each track able to hold one sample. These tracks are then all played at the same time. MTV Music Generator 3 supports 24 simultaneous tracks that appear in a large, easy-to-maneuver grid. The speed at which the song plays (known as Beats Per Minute, or BPM) is adjustable. To build your song, all you need to do is place a sample in a track and then click on the small boxes when you want your sample to play. These tracks are built one at a time and can then be played back, copied, stacked and looped.

Out of the box budding musicians get ten songs to remix and/or deconstruct. This is a good way to jump in and learn the basics of the program’s interface, however the sample choices here are limited and it’s pretty tough to actually make a bad-sounding song since all the samples are pre-snipped to the correct length. Plus, in remix mode you are limited to four channels. The true power of the program isn’t revealed until you dump the remixes and start creating your own tunes from scratch in studio mode.

MTV Music Generator 3 has literally thousand and thousands of samples to choose from already built into the program. Who knew there were a hundred different types of snare drums? If you want to tweak your sounds, there are several different effects such as delay, echo and reverb that can be added to each track as well. And if you still can’t find the perfect sound, you can sample in your own (up to 8 seconds in length). The Xbox version supports creating samples from any music already ripped and stored on your Xbox hard drive. The PS2 version allows you to record music samples directly from audio CDs. This obviously opens up an infinite world of samples to little song maestros, the only limit being one’s imagination.

Unfortunately, the program’s output options aren’t nearly as robust. All your creations have to be played back using the program itself; there’s no “export” feature to dump your creations to MP3 and no way to share them online with others. To get your audio creations pumping in your car, you’ll either have to hook your console’s audio cables up to your computer and record it that way, or simply seatbelt your console into the front seat of your ride and wire the whole thing into your bucket’s stereo. Pimp my ride, indeed. The program includes a visualization mode (think Windows Media Player) that will show cool visuals while blasting your beats at your next house party, although the words “cool” and “playing music you made on your Xbox at a party” should never be used in the same sentence.

It would be easy to dismiss a program like this by simply saying, “it’s not as robust as computer-based sequencers,” and that’s true. Programs like Fruity Loops and Sonic Foundry’s Acid do offer more features, but they also come with a higher price tag and a steeper learning curve. MTV’s Music Generator 3 gives fledgling beat makers a place to strut their stuff with its simple interface, huge sample library and sampling ability. Serious musicians may eventually outgrow the program’s limitations and be frustrated by having to constantly switch cables to record their creations to MP3/CD, but the program’s ability to allow users to create completely original music will give amateur composers hours of fun jamming time.

MotorStorm (Demo)
PS3, SCEA (2007)

Coming around the dirt track’s final corner, I pour on the boost, blowing by trucks at blinding speed. As I pass the pack and blaze toward the finish line I look back at them. As I turn around I only catch a split second glance at the boulder I’m about to smash into. My car flips end over end in slow motion as fenders fly in one direction and tires bounce in another. Upside down I see racers passing me by, none of them foolish enough to look back at me. Going from first place to fifteenth never happened so quickly.

SCEA’s demo for their upcoming mudslinging title MotorStorm may be my favorite game to date for the PlayStation 3. The demo, available as a free download through Sony’s online store, is just under 700 megs and may take gamers an hour or more to download and install. The wait is worth it.

The MotorStorm demo is limited to one track and two vehicles types. Players can choose between two different trucks (with three different paint jobs) or two different motorcycles (also available with three different paint jobs). Obviously, the big heavy trucks handle much differently than light, nimble motorcycles. Bike riders can also throw punches at and kicks at opponents a’la Road Rash. The game itself is 100% arcade racing action. Steering is performed with the left analog stick, while the PS3’s new “triggerish” R2/L2 buttons dish out the gas and brakes. Each car also comes with boost (limited by temperature) and a handbrake, handy for sliding close to (but hopefully not off) ravine edges. Gamers can swap between 1st person and 3rd person views, and honk their horn in vein at vehicles in the way.

MotorStorm features some of the most spectacular videogame crashes ever. Plow into a rock, billboard or guard rail at top speed and you’ll see parts of your truck fly off in every direction. As your car tumbles end over end in slow motion, the game’s virtual camera swoops around the action, noting every detail. The motorcycles don’t explode quite as well, but then again you get to see your poor biker’s body thrown around like a rag doll.

The power of the PlayStation 3 is immediately obvious through MotorStorm. The graphics and framerate are top notch. The framerate blasts along at a steady rate and Sony claims that the full version (which also supports online play) will be even faster. Throughout the game mud constantly flies and sticks. Ruts are formed, items are destroyed, cars are dented. Dirt accumulates on your windshield. The devil is in the details, and MotorStorm is definitely devilish.

However.

MotorStorm demo is still a demo. As such, I encountered multiple bugs in only a short playing time. One frequent bug is that the game occasionally starts without sound effects, with only the background music playing. A quick stop/restart fixes it, but it probably happens one out of every ten games. I also experienced a few wonky collision sequences — during one motorcycle crash my rider hit the ground, began spinning, and took off into the sky like a helicopter. It took almost 30 seconds for him to return from the stratosphere to the brown dirt below.

The full version of MotorStorm has already been released in Japan, but SCEA (desperate for a killer app at this point) continues to tweak the game before its US release. Sony, if you’re out there, here’s what the game needs:

– split screen racing.
– online racing (apparently, already done).
– a way to turn off/abort the crashes (they look great but get old).
– ability to rip/insert your own music.

I’ve spent over $200 on six PS3 games, and I show off the system to friends using the free MotorStorm demo. I can’t wait to see the full version later this spring.

Mini Desktop Racing
Nintendo Wii (2007)

In Mini Desktop Racing you race mini (as in tiny) cars that also happen to be Mini (as in Coopers). And unless you have a collection of Mini Cooper tattoos, the odds of you enjoying this title are smaller than a mini Mini.

Using the same game engine as Rig Racer 2, Mini Desktop Racing also shares many of that game’s craptastic qualities. The games’ menus are identical (sans the background wallpaper), and after playing one game after another you will understand the concept of “shovelware.” Mini Desktop Racing was released for the PC and PS2 back in 2005, but apparently the lure of making a few bucks off of uninformed Wii owners was too great to pass by.

In the mid-80s Galoob introduced Micro Machines, miniature toy cars about half the size of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. In 1991 the first of many Micro Machines videogames were released, a series that appeared on everything from the NES to the PS2. All eight games feature miniature cars racing on oversized race tracks. Of course Micro Machines does not have this market cornered; other games, such as Toy Story Racer for the PS1, also featured miniaturized racers competing in real world locations. And while Mini Desktop Racing is another game within this genre, it adds nothing new to it. The tracks are uninspired, the graphics are a step back from the 2002 Gamecube Micro Machines game, and the game’s controls are downright weird.

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Micro Machines (Gamecube, 2002) and Mini Desktop Racing (Wii, 2007)

Using a unique and somewhat bizarre control scheme, steering is performed by pointing the Wiimote at your television screen and twisting the remote left or right as if you were opening a door knob. Other controls, like brake/reverse, are mapped to places like down on the d-pad. Of course, blaming this game’s failure on its wonky controls is kind of like blaming the stinkiness of a turd on a single peanut. The game’s graphics are barely on par with PS1/N64 launch titles, and the game’s music will have you talking about the great graphics. The tracks are all simple, similar, and headache-inducing. Gamers begin with one vehicle choice (not much of a choice, really) with promises of unlocking more, but I couldn’t bring myself to play long enough to find out.

By mixing a horrible control scheme with boring tracks and awkward controls, it’s almost as if Data Design Interactive is daring you to hate this game. Well, Data Design Interactive, I accept your challenge. This game is awful.

Millipede / Super Breakout / Lunar Lander
GBA, DSI Games/Atari (2002)

DSI Games’ latest game pack consists of three games, Super Breakout (1978), Lunar Lander (1979), and Millipede (1982). DSI has a consistant track record of offering gamers two newer games (Gauntlet/Rampart, Paperboy/Rampage, Spy Hunter/Super Sprint) or three classic games (Pong/Asteroids/Yars’ Revenge, Centipede/Breakout/Warlords) per pack. This pack contains three classic Atari games, although none of them will hold your attention for long.

Super Breakout is the sequel to Breakout, the spiritual successor to Pong. As Mitch Hedburg once said, “The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much I play, I’ll never be as good a a wall. I played a wall once. They’re relentless.” The same goes for the miles of bricks waiting for you in Super Breakout — eventually, you’ll lose. Other than Pong itself, there is really no more simplistic game. In Super Breakout you control a paddle and must bounce a ball against a wall of bricks. DSI’s port plays exactly like the original arcade version, which is no technical feat of wizardry as most cell phones can do the same thing.

No more technically impressive but slightly more entertaining is Lunar Lander. In Atari’s first vector game, you must land the Lunar Lander on one of several landing platforms, varying in size and difficulty. Each thrust of your engine uses some of your fuel (which cannot be replentished), so you’ll want to make adjustments sparingly throughout the game. In the arcade you could buy more fuel throughout the game by inserting additional quarters, but that’s not an option here. There are several different difficulty levels to choose from, but a finite fuel supply guarantees your game will be over in just a few minutes.

Millipede, the newest game included in the pack, is the sequel to Atari’s Centipede. Millipede these days would be called “Centipede, Part II” or, at best, be a free downloadable expansion pack. Back then though, a couple of program tweaks equalled an entirely new game. In Millipede, gamers must defend themselves from waves of centipedes, this time backed by an army of inchworms, beetles, mosquitos, spiders and even earwigs. Yes, earwigs. There are also now DDT bombs on the playing field, which release bug-killing clouds of poison when shot.

None of the three included games originally used a joystick. Lunar Lander handles the best with the GBA’s control system. Millipede is (at best) “okay” — while it’s difficult to be accurate, at least it’s not as frustrating as Super Breakout is to control. Which, in it’s defense, is no worse than playing any other game designed for paddles with a joystick and/or d-pad. My average game length in Super Breakout is about 37 seconds. Lunar Lander games last upwards of two to three minutes, which makes a five minute session of Millipede seem like a marathon. In all three instances, my interest level lasted about the same length as the games did.

Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits
GBA (2001)

Arcade cabinets stand between five and six feet tall, weigh between two and three hundred pounds, and can cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars — but thanks to the various retro compilations available for the Gameboy Advance, you can now fit several “arcade games” in your front shirt pocket (without the splinters). Arcade games are a great match for portable gaming systems; rarely lasting more than a few minutes, they’re perfect for gaming sessions on the go.

One of the first arcade compilations released for the Gameboy Advance was Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits, released in November of 2001. Featuring Joust (1982), Defender (1980), Robotron 2084 (1982), and Sinistar (1982), the collection presents four conversions sure to make those who remember the arcade versions raise an eyebrow. It stands to reason that by cramming four gigantic arcade cabinets into one itsy-bitsy Gameboy cartridge, a few things might get squeezed out. A lot of crammin’ and squeezin’ went on here.

Defender is probably the best of the four games, which isn’t saying much. The game’s simplistic graphcs (the background is a jagged brown line on a black background) are reproduced faithfully, but the gameplay doesn’t seem right. The aliens are more aggressive and move faster than I remember. And forget about sitting still and firing in both directions — you’ll be alien target practice in no time. Catching falling humans is almost impossible due to the small screen area, and using the map at the top of the screen will get you killed. It’s not 100% accurate, but it is action-packed and playable.

Every review of Robotron must begin with a whine about how the controls are not authentic, so here’s mine. In this version, you can only shoot in the direction you are facing, which inherently means you are constantly running toward the things that are trying to kill you. Again, the graphics here are not the problem — it’s that the gameplay itself isn’t the same. I realize that certain changes (such as controls) must be made when porting a game between systems, but changing how the game plays isn’t acceptable to a purist. The rest of the game is fairly loyal.

I didn’t play Sinistar much as a kid, so all I’ll say is this game is basically impossible to play. In Sinistar you fly around for a few seconds bouncing into asteroids until things kill you. I have read that the Sinistar is being assembled and crystals need to be collected, but to be honest I don’t think I ever got that far.

Joust, which most cell phones can now faithfully replicate, is the most disappointing of the four. This version plays more like a cheap fan-made shareware clone than the real thing. Again, it *looks* like Joust, but that’s where the similarities end. The sprite detection is atrocious, the screen is crowded (the platforms were squished together when the screen was changed from vertical to horizontal), and the animations are choppy. When porting a popular game that people have been playing for 25 years, you’ve GOT to get it right. They didn’t.

The problem with retro compilations is that the target audience has been playing these games for a long, long time — and as such we know how they’re supposed to look, sound, and play. If these were four original games I probably would have given Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits a higher score. They’re fun in their own right, but when all you can think about is how different they are from the original, it takes away from the fun.