After a slow last few weeks working on some time consuming titles I wanted to blast through a few shorter titles to help me feel productive. So I did just that!
Thought I'd finish up the last of the Volleyball games (licensed ones anyway) on the system. First on my list was Kings of the Beach. Plays like a more serious version of Super Spike V'ball. Tournament mode consisted of 15 matches of 2 on 2 volleyball to 15 set point games. Late in the game I figured out how to expoit the computer, but early on it seemed like each rival had a different weakness you could take advantage of. After figuring that out the game was a breeze and I was quickly crowned the King of the Beach!
To finish up my V'Ball trifecta I played the only traditional volleyball game and Black Box title, Volley Ball. This one plays with 6 players per side rather than 2 like the last 2 games. Seemed quite crowed at first and took a lot of getting used to. Spent several games getting slaughtered, but eventually figured out how to abuse the AI and won my 3 matches that resulted in a victory.
Some time ago I tried out Blue Brothers and was amazed at how it seemed to have nothing to do with its source material. As I got further into the game it seemed to have less and less to do with it too. Its a semi-puzzle platformer, which is normally a great combo in my books. But in the case of BB it wasnt great. I think the main issue was some tricky jumping combined with the fact that your character is utterly defenseless. You have to avoid nearly everything in the game or you'll take damage. Luckily its a short game so it was over in less than 20 minutes once I got the hang of it.
Lastly was Lode Runner. I used to play some version of it on a friend's PC years ago and remember it fondly so I was actually little excited to check out the NES version. It didnt disappoint. The game has built in stage select so its very easy to complete, but still a fun game none-the-less. There were a few levels that took a while for me to figure out, but for the most part its fairly straightforward. The video is pretty long, but its literally every second of me playing the game. Usually I restart my games after I fail and restart the recorder in order to cut down the time of the videos, but with the infinte chances and level select I just went with it. You can see my learning curve in its fullness with many many deaths early on and getting temporarily stuck on stage 6 before I find my footing and start running pretty smoothly through some levels.
Some of you might have seen my recent post in the Small Scores thread in which my buddy Duke.Togo graciously hooked me up with a beautiful copy of a new homegrew game - Assimilate.
Since this was my first homebrew I was pretty interested to see if it really felt like an NES game. Its was a pretty cool experience and I may expand on my experience with it in the future, but for now feel free to check out the entire game during my playthrough via the link below.
Future Plans - After getting a few more titles under my belt I think I'm ready to dive into my next epic adventure. Got Romance of the Three Kingdoms II lined up and ready to go!
