After playing through something tough like Time Lord I often like to unwind with something on the lighter side. Since I have had fun in the past with some of the gameshow type games on the NES I thought I'd try my hand at some Wheel of Fortune. Well it turns out I probably sunk more time into the Family Edition than I did playing Time Lord Its an incredibly short game, and not hard to beat both computer opponents, but I had a hell of a time trying to solve the final puzzle and win my Emerald Necklace. I typically wasn't even familiar with the phrase or person in the answer (except when I couldnt get Donald Trump for some reason). Eventually I was able to get a puzzle that I could answer. I have to say though that there seemed to be a large variety of puzzles since I never saw one repeat in all the time I spent playing.
Luckily in the Jr edition of Wheel of Fortune I had a much easier time. Being Canadian and them throwing Toboggan at me in the final puzzle was pretty nice Got to make off with my new TV and VCR with much less trouble.
Felt like it was time to try something with a bit more meat on it again so I popped in Orb 3D to check it out. It was very confusing at first, but once you figure out how to control it and what your objective is, its actually a pretty fun game. You basically play Pong with yourself and you have the ability to make the ball change from the foreground to the background mid pass. By doing this you can interact with the objects in the room. There are 30 rooms in total and each one has a special puzzle for you to solve in order to move along. It starts off pretty simple doing things like knocking down a set of bowling pins or winning a game of tic-tac-toe and eventually moves into more complicated puzzles like winning a mini-game of chess or navigating a ball through a maze. Some of the puzzles are challenging, but you have as many continues at your disposal as you need so its not to bad. Definitely one of the more unique titles I've come across.
I had originally planned to try the other two Wheel of Fortune games I hadn't tried yet, but after adding the last few games to the personal list I keep I realized the next game I beat would be a milestone (which I'll get to in a minute). So I thought it should be something a bit more epic than a game show. What's more epic than saving the world from Super Villians? I couldn't think of anything so I decided to go with Captain America and the Avengers. I've played this game before and it was pretty tough. This time I read the manual and figured out you can actually level up your characters and earn them some new moves. So right from the get go I did about 20 minutes of grinding and maxed out Hawkeye and nearly maxed out Captain America (Iron Man and Vision have been captured by Mandarin and Wasp is more of an information center). With that taken care of the game becomes significantly more playable.
The game has a map of the US that you can navigate with your characters independently or as a team. In order to play them as a team you have to get them to the same area on the map and beat the level with whoever entered the area second. This again makes the game much more fun as you can swap between characters at any time that you can stand still. They both played a bit different which made them both equally useful in different areas and situations. I tended to favor Captain America during most levels, but Hawkeye was awesome on most boss fights. I don't know how the hell I would have beaten Mandarin with Captain America. Once I did beat Mandarin it turns out he wasn't the mastermind though and it was Red Skull really pulling the strings. So I took off into space for a final battle with Red Skull. It was pretty tough and it ended taking me three really good attempts to finally knock him down while I was on my last hit with my both characters.
As I was mentioning above Captain America and the Avengers put me to a milestone. It was the 250th NES game I've beaten and recorded since October 2011!!! I'm quite proud of that number, and even though there are several easy victories in that list there are as many or more challenging ones. I think its a pretty solid list so far. If I can keep up the pace with my 100 in 100 challenge I should be able to surpass 300 games beaten over the next little while. At that point I'll have beaten roughly half of the NES games that I own, which is pretty damn cool if you ask me.
Here is the full list of 250 games beaten. Click on any of them to view the corresponding videos:
Future Plans - Besides working on Captain America and the Avengers in the last little while I've also been spending some time with Gun Nac. I beat it relatively easy on the default settings, but it turns out you need to beat it on Expert to get the real ending. That is proving a bit more difficult. I've gotten to the final stage, and even the final boss, but ran out of time. I'm trying to perfect my strategy on a couple specific bosses and figure out the best use of my money and mail bombs. With a bit more time I'm confident it'll fall, but in the mean time I'll probably play some more game shows.
Its an incredibly short game, and not hard to beat both computer opponents, but I had a hell of a time trying to solve the final puzzle and win my Emerald Necklace. I typically wasn't even familiar with the phrase or person in the answer (except when I couldnt get Donald Trump for some reason). Eventually I was able to get a puzzle that I could answer. I have to say though that there seemed to be a large variety of puzzles since I never saw one repeat in all the time I spent playing.
Got to make off with my new TV and VCR with much less trouble.