What I’m Playing – Anniversary Coming

June 18, 2026 by Leave a comment

I wanted to post a quick update because I haven’t been doing a ton of reviews lately and I didn’t want people to think I’m slacking. I’m working on my 15th Anniversary feature, Classic Pinball Video Games: The Definitive Review. I knew I couldn’t top last year’s Konami Shoot ‘Em Ups feature. I wanted to do something that was all-encompassing of a specific type of game like Konami Shoot ‘Em Ups, and ultimately I landed on old school video pinball. Because of all my coverage of Pinball FX and Zaccaria, I get asked about games like Devil’s Crush, Space Cadet, and Sonic Spinball more than any other games. But, I never actually played all that much video pinball as a kid. I grew up with real tables and couldn’t deal with less than perfect physics.

So, over the last few months, I’ve played every video pinball game that I could get working. In a couple weeks, that feature will be posted, and it will have, not kidding, over 120 full reviews. I’m basically posting a book of video pinball reviews. If there’s a video pinball game you loved, chances are it’s included. This includes my first ever reviews for games on platforms like Sega Saturn, Amiga, 3DO, and CD-i. The only stuff mostly missing are Windows games, and I still will likely add a few more games before I hit publish. I’ve finished reviews for these games already:

  • Video Pinball (Arcade)
  • Solar War (Arcade – Unreleased)
  • Thunderball! (Magnavox Odyssey²)
  • Raster Blaster (Apple II)
  • Video Pinball (Atari 2600)
  • David’s Midnight Magic (Apple II)
  • Night Mission (Apple II)
  • Pinball Construction Set
  • Bumper Bash (Atari 2600)
  • Queen of Hearts (Apple II)
  • Spinball (Vectrex)
  • Pinball (Intellivision)
  • Sega Flipper (Sega SG-1000)
  • Rollerball (MSX)
  • Vs. Pinball (Arcade)
  • Pinball (NES)
  • Pinbo (Arcade)
  • Pinball Action (Arcade)
  • Midnight Magic (Atari 2600)
  • Panic Road (Arcade)
  • Speed Ball (Arcade)
  • Music Ball (Arcade – Unreleased)
  • Time Scanner (Arcade)
  • Fire Ball (MSX2)
  • Moon Ball Magic (Famicom Disk System)
  • Super Pinball (Famicom)
  • Alien Crush (TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine)
  • Rollerball (NES)
  • Family Pinball (aka Rock ‘n Ball, Famicom/NES)
  • Casino Games (Sega Master System)
  • Revenge of the ‘Gator (Game Boy)
  • Pinball Quest (NES)
  • Hero Shūgō!! Pinball Party (Game Boy)
  • Pin⋅Bot (NES)
  • Devil’s Crush (TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine)
  • Pinball (CD-i)
  • Super Pinball Action (Arcade)
  • Dino Land (Sega Genesis)
  • High Speed (NES)
  • Dragon’s Fury (Sega Genesis)
  • Time Cruise (TurboGrafx-16)
  • Pinball Dreams (Amiga)
  • Pinball Jam (Atari Lynx)
  • Crüe Ball (Sega Genesis)
  • Jaki Crush (Super Famicom)
  • Pinball Fantasies (Amiga CD32)
  • Virtual Pinball (Sega Genesis)
  • Dragon’s Revenge (Sega Genesis)
  • Sonic Spinball (Sega Genesis)
  • Kirby’s Pinball Land (Game Boy)
  • Royal Flush (MS-DOS)
  • Super Pinball: Behind the Mask (Super NES)
  • Real Pinball (3DO)
  • Pinball Dreams (Super NES)
  • Sonic Spinball (Sega Game Gear & Master System)
  • Wizard Pinball (Sega Game Gear)
  • Grand Cross (Arcade)
  • PaTaank! (3DO)
  • Battle Pinball (3DO)
  • Psycho Pinball (Sega Mega Drive)
  • Pinball Dreams (Sega Game Gear)
  • Pinball Illusions (Amiga CD)
  • Thomas: The Tank Engine & Friends Pinball (Amiga)
  • Pinball Mania (Amiga)
  • Battle Pinball (Super Famicom)
  • Super Pinball II: The Amazing Odyssey (Super Famicom)
  • Kyūtenkai: Fantastic Pinball (PlayStation/Sega Saturn)
  • Obsession (Amiga)
  • Galactic Pinball (Virtual Boy)
  • Space Pinball (Virtual Boy – Unreleased)
  • Full Tilt! Pinball (Windows)
  • Getaway: High Speed II (Super Game Boy)
  • Ruiner Pinball (Atari Jaguar)
  • Pinball Hazard (Amiga)
  • Pinball Prelude (Amiga CD32)
  • Slam Tilt (Amiga)
  • Extreme Pinball (PlayStation)
  • True Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Pinball Graffiti (Sega Saturn)
  • Pro Pinball: The Web (PlayStation)
  • Power Rangers Zeo: Full Tilt Battle Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Digital Pinball: Necronomicon (Sega Saturn)
  • Hyper 3D Pinball (PlayStation) aka Tilt!
  • Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators Version. 9.7 (Sega Saturn)
  • Dragon Beat: Legend of Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Pro Pinball: Timeshock! (PlayStation)
  • ParanoiaScape (PlayStation)
  • Hollywood Pinball (Game Boy Color)
  • Pokémon Pinball (Game Boy Color)
  • Power Pinball (PlayStation) aka Golden Logres
  • Neo Golden Logres (Dreamcast)
  • The Pinball (PlayStation) aka Simple 1500 Series Vol. 11: The Pinball
  • Worms Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Pro Pinball: Big Race USA (PlayStation)
  • Pinball (PlayStation 2)
  • Little Mermaid II: Pinball Frenzy (Game Boy Color)
  • Pro Pinball: Fantastic Journey (PlayStation)
  • 3D Ultra Pinball – Thrillride (Game Boy Color)

I still have these games left to play and review:

  • Super Robot Pinball (Game Boy Color)
  • KISS Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Microsoft Pinball Arcade (Game Boy Color)
  • Akira: Psycho Ball (PlayStation 2)
  • Elemental Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Muppet Pinball Mayhem (Game Boy Advance)
  • The Pinball of the Dead (Game Boy Advance)
  • Pinball Challenge Deluxe (Game Boy Advance)
  • Pinball Advance (Game Boy Advance)
  • Austin Powers Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Pinball Tycoon (Game Boy Advance)
  • Patriotic Pinball (PlayStation)
  • Sonic Pinball Party (Game Boy Advance)
  • Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire (Game Boy Advance)
  • Flipnic: Ultimate Pinball (PlayStation 2)
  • Mario Pinball Land (Game Boy Advance) aka Super Mario Ball
  • Pac-Man Pinball Advance (Game Boy Advance)
  • Pinball (PlayStation Portable)
  • Metroid Prime Pinball (Nintendo DS)
  • Ottifanten Pinball (Game Boy Advance)
  • Odama (Nintendo GameCube)
  • Alien Crush Returns (WiiWare)
  • Baby Pac-Man (Atari 7800)
  • Demon Tilt (Modern Platforms)

The feature also has a bonus section of the games I deleted from the feature. Mostly “same game, different platform” situations where I didn’t put enough time into the game to actually do a fair review. I likely will be adding even more games as I check off the stuff I missed. And yes, Space Cadet is there. It’s called “Full Tilt! Pinball.” After the reviews are finished, every game will be ranked. Which game will stand tall as the greatest classic video pinball of all-time? Right now, Pro Pinball: Timeshock is looking pretty good. Plus some games that are questionably pinball, like ParanoiaScape, seen below, will count for the rankings.

I went back and forth on whether it and PaTaank for the 3DO should count as pinball games. If they had come in first or last in the rankings, maybe it would have mattered, but neither did. However, there are ten games so bad that I honestly have to put them in the discussion of the worst video game ever made, for any genre. When video pinball goes bad, it goes really bad. PaTaank for 3DO, seen below, is one of those ten games. Neat idea, atrocious execution.

As soon as this project is done, I will go back to playing a variety of games. Some stuff I have my eye on reviewing are Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and the Switch 2 DLC for Mario Wonder. And if there’s ANY missing games on the above list that aren’t for Windows (which are stunningly hard to get working without being glitchy as all hell) let me know. Games like ParanoiaScape didn’t show up in searches for video pinball games. Had I not gotten a reader suggestion for it, I would have missed it for sure. I’m intending to do a C64 game called Mechanicus and a few older classic computer pins. They’re just not on the list yet. I also don’t know if anyone has made indie video pins games for old platforms (“homebrews” though I hate that term). I have one, Baby Pac-Man, which I’ve reviewed once before, but if there’s homebrew NES, Atari, Genesis, etc video pins, I would gladly add them. And yes, I will finally review Demon Tilt as the cap to the feature. The reason I’m not doing the sequel is because I like the nice, round number. The arcade Video Pinball came out in 1979 and Demon Tilt came out in 2019. So this feature covers forty years of video pinball evolution in the sequential order of its release. I really hope everyone enjoys it in early July! Back to work!

“What do you mean you don’t want a Gold/Silver version of Pokémon Pinball? WE ALREADY FINISHED IT! What would you have us do? Replace the Pokémon with generic robots? (puts down phone) They said they don’t care what we do with it, but it can’t be based on Pokémon Gold/Silver. Actually they told me to shove it up my ass but I think they were being metaphorical. How do I know? It won’t fit!”

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What I’m Playing – February 2026

February 23, 2026 by 1 Comment

I’m FINALLY going to do these damn games. For real this time.

Hey everyone! The kids had last week off school so we spent the week doing family things, and that included Angela and Sasha helping to knock out some pinball projects. For the first time since July, The Pinball Chick got updated with six new reviews. Instead of posting one gigantic feature on the forty Zaccaria Retro pins, I decided to let them trickle out slowly since the amount of time I get with my family to do these features can be limited. Again, I hadn’t updated The Pinball Chick since July! Check out our thoughts on some tables from the Zaccaria Retro line. Aerobatic Retro, Black Belt Retro, Cine Star Retro, Circus Retro, Clown Retro, and Combat Retro. The next one will drop tomorrow. And there’s so many more pins that I doubt we can ever catch up. We’re going to be checking out the Blood West lineup next.

(Zaccaria Pinball) Blood West Remake – aka Dot Matrix Display
(Zaccaria Pinball) Blood West Retro
(Zaccaria Pinball) Blood West Solid State
(Zaccaria Pinball) Blood West Deluxe

More updates will trickle out at The Pinball Chick from now on. We tortured ourselves with the pitiful Zaccaria Retro line, but actual good Zaccaria table reviews are coming too. Okay, so their AI art is sometimes eye-rolling, but nobody can accuse the designers of lack of ambition with their actual table layouts. In fact, Magic Pixel started a new line for Zaccaria Pinball, called the EM+ pins. They’re kind of like saying “what if they had a 2000’s design mentality in the 60’s/70’s, before solid state was invented?” We’re still working our way through them, but so far we really enjoyed Combat EM+, collectively rating it a 4.0 out of 5 (the votes are still coming in though). Here’s the EM+ line, which is sold in packs of four for $7.99 on Steam. These tables are coming soon to AtGames Legends Pinball too. Also, we have a new team member, Matt. Because of him, we can now do the Olympic style “highest and lowest scores are eliminated” format that I’ve been dying to do.

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We probably have pinball on our mind because of the recent announcement of Pokemon by Stern. None of the Vice Family have gotten to play Pokemon yet and probably won’t until around April, but our friend and Pinball Chick Team member Dave Sanders wanted to share some thoughts on it. “Stern’s Pokemon is the most family-oriented pin ever released, and it’s based on the most valuable long-running all-ages IP in the world. All Stern had to do to succeed was get that part right. In recent years, their tables have geared towards tournament players or serious collectors in their own right with complex layouts or a large number of tighter shots. This is the one that doesn’t. It’s a less-is-more, pick-up-and-play layout that anyone can walk up and start flipping. The thing is, Pokémon was ALWAYS going to be the game where, in advance, you had a firm idea of whether you wanted it or not, if you were invested heavily in the IP already, or have kids that are (the screen uses a lot of material and clips from the cartoon show). It’s a machine built for simpler game-to-game fun that knows exactly where to stop.” Here’s the trailer and, yeah, it looks fun. I think this will be the first pin of the 21st century to break 10,000 units sold.

Now, I intended to review Pokemon Pinball for Game Boy Color, but then I remembered that I had created the template for Classic Video Pinball: The Definitive Review and I decided to start working on that instead. And, I’m doing it solo without my friends and family. They offered, but I want to do this one by myself. Oh, I’m sure Dave will be in my ear most of the time, but these are VIDEO GAMES where the genre is pinball, and despite having my own digital pinball blog, I never played video pinball games as a child because I grew up with real tables and the angles never felt life-like to me. I think the first time I actually thought “this feels like real pinball” was Metroid Prime Pinball. It sure wasn’t Pokemon Pinball for GBC.

Look how big the ball is compared to the flippers in the original Game Boy Color version of Pokemon Pinball. It makes finding the correct angle so weird, especially when so much of the ball touches the flipper at once. The Game Boy Advance sequel was much, much better.

And for you pinball haters, don’t sweat it. I’ve got reviews coming for Adventures of Lolo and its Japanese counterpart Eggerland: Meikyū no Fukkatsu. I’m pairing them together because most of the puzzles from the US version of Adventures of Lolo were cut and pasted from the Japanese game, which is set in a gigantic maze similar to Eggerland for the Famicom Disk System. I finished the US Lolo rather quickly and I’m close to finishing the Eggerland sequel. I’m stunned that my previous Eggerland reviews did so well, but I thank everyone for that.

Sigh. No, they didn’t fix the speed or style of the water levels. If Eggerland: Meikyū no Fukkatsu gets a NO!, these will be a big part of the reason why. I guess for this genre I just prefer the American Lolo style of “beat a room, go to the next room.”

For those who want something a little meatier, I think I might finally  play Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and other action-RPGs for review. I’ve avoided them because they’re a pretty big time investment, but hell, I’m spending 10+ hours on single digital pinball tables. I might as well start getting reviews up for the games people request most. Do you have a favorite classic action RPG? Let me know! Then again, I already beat A Link to the Past in under 5 minutes so maybe I should play something else.

But what a five minutes! Verdict: YES! 

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What I’m Playing: Tis the Season for Definitive Reviews

November 30, 2025 by 6 Comments

This is what I’m working on. So good.

Hey gang! I wanted to provide a quick update since it’ll be a few more days, maybe a week, before the next IGC review is posted, but it’s going to be a big one. I’m currently working on Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story – The Definitive Review. It’ll contain full reviews for all forty-two games in the collection plus my review of the documentary and emulators. This review is over five-hundred days in the making since I started it in May of 2024 and abandoned it, but those completed reviews were still there, and now I’m finishing it. I’m happy I am, because Gridrunner? Ah, so good. No seriously, guys, SO GOOD. But I still have over two-dozen games left to play and write-up. It’s slow going because Jeff’s games often have hidden layers of complexity and nuances that take a while to get a feel for. But it’s great! I’d never played Gridrunner or Mutant Camels or any of his stuff besides Tempest 2000, even though I’ve known Jeff for a while. So this has been fun and I’m happy to finally knock this set out. After experiencing Gridrunner, safe to say this $30 set is cruising to one of the easiest overall YES! verdicts I’ve given. The documentary portion is probably the smallest of the Gold Master series so far, but it’s solid.

There’s an alternative universe where Jeff instead wrote down “Alpacas!” And that’s literally the only difference between that universe and ours as far as I could tell. Somehow, the company is still called Llamasoft too. Weird, right? Like, as far as alternative realities go, pretty disappointing, really. Oh and they spell “Tuesday” differently. It’s “Twosdays” there. So Jeff wrote “ALPACAS!” and Tuesdays are “Twosdays” and that’s it. No different world leaders or anything. Finland wasn’t wiped out by a zombie virus, at least in that universe. The one I was at before that? Well, I mean, I don’t want to think about it, but this last one still had Starbucks on every corner. F*cking Golden State Warriors are having a disappointing season there too. Even the coffee tastes the same, and coffee always tastes different in alternative realities, but not this one. I was there. Hardly worth the trip through time and space.

After I finish Llamasoft, I’m honestly not sure what comes next. BUT, it’s the holiday season and in recent years I try to have special features that feel like celebrations of gaming. Back in 2022, someone told me that Atari 50: The Games They Couldn’t Include made for great airplane reading during his holiday travels. Made my day, totally, and I’ve heard similar stories from other holiday features, like Game & Watch: The Definitive Review. I f*cking hate boring airplane rides, so the idea that someone wasn’t bored because of my work? God, that made my year. Well, I mean, what was left of it. A week or so was made, but it was MADE dammit. I’ve been really proud of my holiday features too. They’ve been some of the work I’ve been the most proud of, and I want to keep being proud of them, but that requires games that capture my imagination. Last year I had Light Guns and Tetris Forever. This year it’s Llamasoft and whatever comes next. I really want to do Atari 50 (especially since Part One, with all the new games or modern takes on old games, has been up for a while) but I’m going to guess knocking out all 160 retro games in Atari 50 and its DLC sets isn’t going to be possible in the time span I have. I do have other Definitive Review options, including some oddball choices like SNK 40th Anniversary, which I have covered at IGC but not as a full fledged Definitive Review. Gosh, I should have saved Konami SHMUPs for Christmas. Alas.

If I do SNK 40th, I would probably throw in at least some reviews of the games mentioned in that collection’s timeline that weren’t actually included as playable games in the set, such as Vanguard II.

I have Marvel vs. Capcom Collection. I could do the original Capcom Arcade Stadium since my Definitive Review for 2nd Stadium is one of my most popular features ever. I could grab the new Mortal Kombat set. I’m open to ideas. There’s so many collections out there that I could cover. For the first time in a couple years, I don’t have a Taito Milestones set to do at this time of year so my schedule is open. Or, I can do a make believe set. In 2025 I’ve done Kung Fu Master and games inspired by it, I’ve done Adventure Island, and I even did Kid Niki of all things. I could do something like that with another forgotten franchise. Or I can go back to knocking out Nintendo classics just so I have those reviews up for reference for the under the radar stuff. I’m open to ideas. One idea that’s likely a non-starter is a follow up to 2024’s light gun feature as I need the stars to align perfectly to have my family there to play it with me and I can’t guarantee it. But if I were to do it, would you rather have Sega Light Phaser for the Master System or classic coin-op light gun games?

Colecovision: The Definitive Review could be fun.

In 2026, I’m hoping for a lot more inspiring sets. I’m guessing an Intellivision collection is coming from Digital Eclipse and Atari, but I’m only guessing. I would REALLY hope for a modern release of Activision Anthology, only using the Gold Master format with interviews from the people who were there. I’ll even settle for a hefty ($30 or more) update to Atari 50 for it. It fits, right? Or a modern Midway Arcade Treasures. My dream Gold Master release is Dragon’s Lair, even though I already have a review up for Dragon’s Lair Trilogy. But we don’t have a collection for Dragon’s Lair that has all the important behind the scenes features, and I can’t imagine a game that would have more interesting details. I want that, and more importantly, I think gaming needs it, but the window for it is closing. It’s a morbid thing to think about, but it has to be said that a lot of golden age developers are getting up there in age and when they’re gone, that’s it. The window is closed forever on hearing their stories directly from them. This is why I’m hoping other companies get their rears in gear and do their retro sets using similar formats to Digital Eclipse, with interviews and behind the scenes stuff. Look, collections are great, but if you really want to erase the cynical cash grab vibe that can come with them, you need those extra features. That extra effort shows it’s a labor of love first and a money-making venture second, which ironically probably will make more money. Dear publishers: I’m on your side here. I’m your target audience, a totally average gamer. If that’s what I’m into, it’s what everyone is into. We’re looking for inspirational stories, and the golden age of games are full of those stories.

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What I’m Playing #25 – Definitive Review Mayhem

December 5, 2024 by 7 Comments

I haven’t updated in a bit because I’m neck-deep in two Definitive Reviews, and they take a lot of time and work. Definitive Reviews and “The Games They Couldn’t Include” have become my blog’s signature features, and that’s awesome because they’re so much fun to do. For all the time and effort they take, it means the world to me that people dig them to the degree they do. And I’ve got a couple more planned for next year. My Taito Milestones reviews have done well, so what if I give them “The Games They Couldn’t Include” treatment? The home ports of the thirty featured games, assuming there are home ports. And I just bought Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection. I’ve never played any of these except the arcade original (which I reviewed a terrible remake of) and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap (which, again, I reviewed the remake of). The rest of the games? I’m going into them icy cold, and I’m so excited. This will not be the type of review I can do all at once, so I have no time window for when I’ll get it done. Six total games, but twenty-one total builds. It could take some time.

I’m going to try to have Power Rangers up by the end of next week. And no matter what, Taito Milestones 3: The Definitive Review is going to be posted on Monday. I wanted to do a ton of bonus reviews with it, but I’m crunching for time so it’s likely to only include one bonus review: for Parasol Stars, which I bought for this feature. It’s sold separately on every platform, and it has quality of life features that I’ll cover. Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review will be posted Christmas Eve and feature full reviews of all 18 included games plus a ton of games they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) include. Seriously, I’ve already completed the release plus all its games PLUS twenty reviews and counting, including some weird stuff.

AND, on top of all that stuff I have to work on, we just got the date for Williams Pinball Volume 8. It’s next week. We’ll try to have those reviews up ASAP. The tables are Banzai Run, Earthshaker, and Black Knight 2000. Folks, this could be the strongest three table collection in years. For Pinball Arcade, I rated Black Knight 2000 the 10th best table out of 100. Angela also rated it #10, as did Jordi. Oscar was #21, while crotchety old Dave was the lowest at #32. While I’m discussing the Pinball Arcade rankings, Earthshaker I had at #19 out of 100, while Angela was #11, with nobody else liking it as much as we did. We’re Pat Lawlor fangirls. Speaking of Lawlor, Banzai Run is the greatest novelty table of all time. For Pinball Arcade, I rated Banzai Run #21 out of 100. Jordi was the highest at #12 (and MASTERPIECE status) while Oscar was #17. We’re VERY excited for this collection.

So, what AM I playing?

Taito Milestones 3, no matter what, will be published this Monday. I’m four games away from completing it, and while I’m almost certainly not going to have time to include all the bonus reviews I wanted, I am going to try to have Parasol Stars be part of it. I’ve put a LOT work into this feature and tried to do co-op where possible. In the case of Bubble Bobble, it was single-handedly responsible for its YES! verdict. If you’re anxious for Tuesday’s release, hey, Taito Milestones 3 is going to win my Seal of Approval and probably be the Milestones release with the most YES! votes. But, is it really the best?

The current scoreboard. The * in Bubble Bobble’s YES! is because I gave it a NO! for solo play. If you have no playing partner, I don’t think Bubble Bobble is very good as a single player experience. With a partner? Yea, it’s for sure the stuff of legends.

“Look at me! I’m Wolverine!”

The feature will include rankings of all thirty games that have been part of Milestones 3, and so far. Until I played Cadash, the top three (Liquid Kids, Metal Black, and Darius II) were all from Taito Milestones 2, and the #4 ranked game (Elevator Action) was from Taito Milestones 1. As of this writing, I’m not even entirely sure Cadash is cracking that top three. That top three is a very solid collection of games. I don’t think Cadash has defeated Metal Black, so it comes down to Darius II. Despite being different genres, Darius II has all the same problems as Cadash: too many cheap shots. It gets old. It’ll be interesting to see where the remaining four games fall. Oh, and I made mincemeat out of Rainbow Islands, a game everyone told me was super hard. It ain’t super hard, as long as you have autofire and get the right items. But, I had fun. The only game I can’t say that for is Rastan Saga II. Yikes! We’ll see the final results on Monday. Until then, I have to beat Cadash for a fourth time.

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What I’m Playing #24

November 28, 2024 by 2 Comments

Your favorite Atari games, only played with.. um.. popsicles? Paint brushes? Dip switches in the correct position?

My friend Ryan got the Atari 2600+ to try out. I’m waiting for one with more modern console-like features, especially built-in media capture/upload and digital stores. Besides, I’m sort of over carts. I took a “no plastic pledge” at the start of this generation (IE Nintendo Switch), which I didn’t completely stick to, but it’s not my fault. Most of the physical media I own was given to me as gifts. You can’t wrap digital data for Christmas or birthdays. I have hundreds upon hundreds of Switch games, but only around fifty physical games, and they’re mostly Nintendo ones or retro collections. It’s the same story with PlayStation and Xbox. Loaded with games, but very little in the way of physical ones. And it’s made no difference in my life. I only beat most games once, then put them away and they sit, occupying a shelf or sitting in a box somewhere. Who needs that? I get that people are upset about physical media coming to an end, but it’s something we probably all should get used to, and I’m getting ahead of the curve. With that said, I do have a lot of Evercade carts, BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT! So, what AM I playing?

That dinosaur died, and 65,000,000 years later, a beverage company found the fossilized remains and the CEO said “this dinosaur died via orange crush. Hey, wait a second, let’s call our soft drink.. Dr. Pepper!” Where did you think that story was going?

“Where the hell is Tetris Forever?” It’s done, but I’m adding bonus content and there’s so much I want to get to that I’m making it my Christmas feature this year. Last year, LCD Games IX and LCD Games X – Game & Watch Gallery: The Definitive Review did great, and reviewing EVERY Game & Watch is going to be tough to top. Then, I realized that the Tetris thing I’m already working on is better. That’s fine, as I have another collection to do: Taito Milestones 3. There will be no delay in it. The review will go live December 9 (I originally had the release date as December 8, but it’s actually December 10), no matter what. Bonus reviews are limited by time. There are a couple, but I’m only revealing one right now. It’s Parasol Stars, which you can also buy on all consoles. And hey, this means one Definitive Review will have the first three Bubble Bobble games, which I think everyone will enjoy. Unlike the games of Taito Milestones 3, I’ve already played Parasol Stars all the way. It was a surprise highlight for me in the TurboGrafx-16 mini. I *really* liked it. So, here’s the Taito Milestones 3 lineup.

The lineup, and before yesterday, I had never played any of the games on there, or at least the arcade versions, except Bubble Bobble.

There’s a pretty strong chance my time with one game, Runark (or Growl as it’s called in Taito 3 since that’s the American name) will be extremely limited due to epilepsy concerns. No matter what, there will be a review in the feature for Runark even if I can’t write it. Unlike Tetris, most of these games are sold separately via Arcade Archives for $7.99 each. Therefore, like Taito 1 and 2, I won’t assign different values to games. A YES! is worth exactly $8 in value to Taito Milestones 3. Three of its games (Dead Connection, Thunder Fox, and Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III) are exclusive to Taito Milestones 3. You cannot get them via Arcade Archives, but I’m keeping the value at $8 because they run off Arcade Archives’ interface. Based on my early sampling, my prediction is 5 YES!, 5 NO!, which is good enough for my Seal of Approval, but that is obviously not final. I’m not even really finished with the games I’ve written most of the review for. That’s because I haven’t gotten to co-op yet, and most of these are co-op. It’s Turkey Day in America, and to help my nieces and nephew, who will no doubt be bored waiting for dinner, I’m going to force them to play co-op with me ask politely for them to play co-op with me.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hug your loved ones. Tell them you love them.

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What I’m Playing #23: Sega Arcade System Problems and Alexey Pajitnov’s SEIZURES: THE GAME!

November 22, 2024 by 2 Comments

Hey everyone! I have two pieces of news. The first is I have Taito Milestones 3. I’m under embargo for another week and the game doesn’t come out until December 10, which is around the time I’ll be posting the review. The second news is that the main Tetris Forever review is done, edited, and ready. I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s tough to review 17 different Tetris games (plus a game of Go!), but I’m so happy I did. I discovered a lot about what makes Tetris work and what its shortcomings are. So, where’s the review? Well, it’s not done because I’m adding extra reviews to it. So, what AM I playing?

I’m pretty sure this game tried to murder me.

Among the bonus reviews in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review is the Sega Tetris Trilogy. It’s three arcade games licensed by Sega in the late 80s/early 90s that use the Tetris engine. And, today I found out that two of them, Tetris and Bloxeed, have variations depending on the hardware. So, dammit so much, I have to go back to the Sega Tetris.

Bloxeed on Sega System C hardware.

I thought I had already finished it. I have no idea if it does or doesn’t affect gameplay, but because I don’t know, I do have to play the variations before I publish. Also, from now on I’ll do my best to note what arcade hardware coin-ops are on in the headers for each review. In the case of Bloxeed, it’s both a Sega System 18 and a Sega System C release. It took me, oh, one second of seeing the gameplay to realize it’s not the same build.

Bloxeed on Sega System 18 hardware.

If you’re looking at the above screenshots and shrugging “so what?” trust me, I am too. But, I want to be thorough and FAIR, and that means I have to do all the hardware options. I really want this to be my best feature ever, and with these games, there’s just so many variations. Also, while it might be totally subtle like in the above pics, that’s only for that game. Other times? Not so subtle. This is Sega’s Arcade Tetris:

Sega System 16 Tetris

And this is.. Sega Arcade Tetris:

Sega System E Tetris

And literally as I was writing this piece, I realized that, yea, it’s going to make a difference. Goddammit, game developers of the 1980s: couldn’t you just put out one format like a normal company? And the funny thing is, this crap isn’t even the worst thing to happen to me today. In trying to be as comprehensive as possible, I discovered a little Famicom Disk System game called Knight Move designed by the man of the hour himself, Alexey Pajitnov. And it’s………. the single most strobe-heavy video game I’ve ever played. There’s nothing close. Not even the Jetsons for the NES. HUGE EPILEPSY WARNING for this video.

The idea is you have to hop around a grid using only the L-pattern of a chess knight. If you step on a tile three times, the tile breaks and you score points. You want to break as many tiles as possible before moving to the target piece, with the heart. Very clever idea and the game seems every bit as addictive and fun as Tetris. And it was even published by Nintendo! Why haven’t I heard of this? Maybe because nobody played it because that five second long strobe in the video above? It happens after every single round where you knock out even a single tile on the board. You know, the object of the game. Rounds of Knight Move (not to be confused with Knight Moves, a different game by Pajitnov) don’t take very long to finish, and depending on how you play, you could get a five second long ultra-violent strobe effect every 20 seconds or so, but probably closer to once or twice a minute. Unf*ckingreal, and everyone involved in this should be ashamed of themselves, even in 1990.

I’m still going to go forward with including the review of Knight Move in the feature, even though I can’t play it again. HOPEFULLY awareness of this game trickles to the current regime at Nintendo and they include it on Switch Online. When they do that, they tend to remove the strobe effects from NES games. I want a build of this I can play, because the two or three minutes I played before I figured out the object of Knight Move and then nearly had a seizure from it, I was having fun. I want to play this. I can take risks on some games, but Knight Move is totally out of the question. It’s just too intense with the flashing. What the f*ck were they thinking? Were they even thinking at all? Did they give themselves headaches and slap high fives?

The best thing I can say about it is that this reminds me how far we’ve come. This sh*t wouldn’t fly in the 2020s. I think even people who aren’t photosensitive are likely to get, at best, very annoyed by Knight Move. But, I think this is so intense a constant a strobe that it would affect more than people who typical consider themselves photosensitive. My father has never complained about strobe lights, loves walking through haunted house attractions (which tend to lean heavily on strobe lights), and in general is just unaffected by this stuff. He played Knight Move for ten minutes and complained that his eyes were killing him. And that kind of strobe effect is known to give people headaches. Nintendo absolutely should have put a stop to it. It’s too intense, even by the standards of the era, and it’s beyond the pale that it was allowed to be published in this state. What a shame. Completely ruins what seems like it could be a very fun game. So it’s going to be the angriest review in the feature, and the only review I’ve ever done for a game that I only played for two minutes. So that sucked.

Thankfully, I have seventy games that are either Tetris games or games inspired by Tetris to pivot to. For God’s sake, please don’t recommend more. I have a family that loves me.

An asterisk means the game is commercially available today, and if it is, I paid for a copy out of pocket.

Tetris (MSX) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Tetris (Arcade – Sega) – REVIEW (mostly) COMPLETE
Tetris (NES – Tengen) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Tetris (Game Boy)* – REVIEW COMPLETE
Flash Point (Arcade) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Blockout (Arcade)
Tetris (NES – Nintendo)* – REVIEW COMPLETE
Nintendo World Championships 1990 (NES) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Tetris (Wearable Game Watch) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Pipe Dream (Arcade)
Bloxeed (Arcade) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Klax (Arcade)
Columns (Arcade)
Hatris (Arcade)
Klax (Atari 2600)
Knight Move (Famicom Disk System) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Dr. Mario (NES)*
Klax (TurboGrafx-16)
Columns II (Arcade)*
Pipe Dream (NES)
Welltris (Arcade)
Hatris (TurboGrafx-16)
Puyo Puyo (Famicom Disk System)
Yoshi (NES)
Pyramid (NES)
Super Scope 6 (SNES)
Pipe Dream (Super Famicom)
Wordtris (SNES)
Yoshi’s Cookie (SNES)
Pac-Attack (SNES)*
Columns III (Sega Genesis)
BreakThru! (SNES)
Tetris 2 (SNES)
Wario’s Woods (SNES)
Tetris & Dr. Mario (SNES)
Dero~n Dero Dero (aka Tecmo Stackers, Arcade)*
Kirby’s Avalanche (aka Super Puyo Puyo, SNES)*
Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber W (Super Famicom)
Baku Baku Animal (Arcade)
Panic Bomber (Virtual Boy)
V-Tetris (Virtual Boy)
Magical Drop (Super Famicom)
Tetris Attack (aka Panel de Pon, SNES)*
Virtual Lab (Virtual Boy)
Tetris Plus (Arcade)
3D-Tetris (Virtual Boy)
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Arcade, Re-Review)*
Cleopatra’s Fortune (Arcade)
Columns ’97 (Arcade)
Star Sweep (Arcade)
Tetrisphere (Nintendo 64) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Puyo Puyo Sun (Nintendo 64)
Tetris: The Grand Master (Arcade)*
Wrecking Crew ’98 (Super Famicom)*
Kirby’s Super Star Stacker (Super Famicom)*
Wetrix (Nintendo 64)
Tetris DX (Game Boy Color) – REVIEW COMPLETE
Magical Tetris Challenge (Nintendo 64)
Gunpey (Wonderswan)
New Tetris (Nintendo 64)
Tetris: The Grand Master 2 – The Absolute PLUS (Arcade)*
Pokemon Puzzle League (Nintendo 64)*
Tetris Worlds (Game Boy Advance)
Rampage Puzzle Attack (Game Boy Advance)
Columns Crown (Game Boy Advance)
Tetris Advance (Game Boy Advance)
Meteos (Nintendo DS)
Hexic HD (Xbox 360)
Tetris DS (Nintendo DS)
Lumines Remastered (Played on Xbox Series X)*

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What I’m Playing #22 – The Famicom Tetris Review

November 18, 2024 by 2 Comments

It was a 58 year old man whose best days were decades behind him against a 27 year old in the prime of his athletic life. What did people think would happen? I was born in 1989, and so by the time I was watching and remembering boxing, I had to go off my dad’s word that Mike Tyson was a generational talent. I never got to see it until years after the fact. My father is a huge boxing fan who ordered all the fights on pay-per-view, and he was HYPED for Tyson/Holyfield. As a young child, I thought Tyson seemed like much ado about nothing. I was a couple weeks away from turning 8 years old when the infamous “Bite Fight” against Evander Holyfield happened. I liked Holyfield as a kid. Him and Lennox Lewis were my favorites. I got hooked on boxing during the original Tyson/Holyfield fight, which did live up to the hype and was an exciting fight, at least for a 7 year old. The whole time my dad was saying “it’s too bad this didn’t happen in 1990!” But it didn’t, and even by 1997, almost everything about Mike Tyson that made him a boxing phenom was already gone. He was a good, but not great, tactician with a good chin, but he didn’t have the explosiveness that made him famous to begin with. I missed that stage of his career entirely. So, even as a kid, I didn’t “get” Tyson. To me, he was just another cooked boxer, like George Foreman.

I didn’t see the guy who was annihilating guys in the first round. I didn’t see the guy who won his first 37 matches. There’s a reason why the Buster Douglas loss was so shocking. It was unfathomable a guy on his level would lose to a guy on Douglas’ level. It’s not one of those situations where people look back on and say “well, it was inevitable.” It feels like if you replayed reality 100,000 times, we live in the one and only reality where Douglas actually won. If you need proof that it didn’t feel inevitable, just remember that Tyson himself beat a guy who was 21 – 0 to become Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, and that, by all accounts, had an inevitability about it. Not Tyson, though. He was legit, and so amazing as a boxer that I don’t think the sport ever recovered from him. Tyson was one of those athletes who, when it was over, it was REALLY over. He had matches that ended on stoppages after committing fouls. He was disqualified after the fact against Andrew Golta for failing a drug test. No, not steroids. Weed. Which is only a performance enhancing drug if the winner gets a bowl full of cookie dough. A month before I turned 16, Tyson had his final bout against a guy named Kevin McBride. McBride was seemingly chosen because he was exactly the type of journeyman Tyson had plowed through in the twenty or so fights he had before he became the world heavyweight champion. It’s the type of match an aging boxer takes as a confidence booster, except that’s not what happened. McBride completely tuned Tyson, who didn’t just quit the match in the sixth round, but retired from boxing altogether. In the 19 years that followed, apparently people forgot that, in his final professional match, Tyson was literally beaten into an on-the-spot retirement by a nobody.

Anyone who was excited to see Mike Tyson fight nearly twenty years after he retired apparently forgot that everything after 1997 from Mike Tyson was just kind of sad. I know, because that was the only version of Mike Tyson I ever got to see. Having now found and watched his old fights, I get it now. There has never been a combination of speed and power like Mike Tyson. As a fighter, he was a one-off. Most people don’t know this, but there’s a reason why in Mike’s Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, for the first minute and a half of the Tyson match, one punch knocks you down. Because Tyson legitimately did knock down fighters with one punch in multiple bouts in 1985 and 1986. He even won a few of those matches with one punch! Imagine paying good money to see a match that lasted one round, and everyone walks away happy. That would never happen now, but that was Tyson early in his career. Why would people be happy to see a one round fight? Because everyone left with the impression that they had seen a type of fighter they would never see again, and they were right. Being cooked with no “post-prime” isn’t exclusive to boxing. Some of my favorite basketball players were that way. Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, Boogie Cousins, Dwight Howard, (some might disagree with me on that one) and most recently Derrick Rose, when it was over, it WAS OVER. They might have still been technically playing, but what stuck around was a shell that made you wish they’d turn back the clock for one vintage performance that would never come. Sports are cruel like that. In a way, I’m happy Netflix didn’t cooperate on Friday. If a vintage Tyson performance never happened when I was 8, why would I expect it at 35?

So, what AM I playing? Like you even need to ask. Here’s a preview of the upcoming Tetris Forever review: the full review of the Famicom version of Tetris. This is directly from the feature.

Tetris
aka “Famicom Tetris”
Platform: Famicom
Released December 22, 1988
Programmed by Bob Rutherford
Developed by Bullet-Proof Software
Never Released Outside of Japan

Dynamic scoring! WOOO! And.. lives? What the f*ck?

The first ever console version of Tetris is also one of the weirdest builds of Tetris I’ve ever played. First thing’s first: I love how Digital Eclipse felt compelled to put a warning that the controls are so stupid that players will want to change them. It doesn’t say it like that, but it’s not wrong. In this Tetris, pressing DOWN rotates the blocks, while the buttons do hard drops. I assume they did it this way because people hit DOWN accidentally. I sure have, but I’d prefer doing that sometimes to how the controls are set up. It’s worse because the only remapping is via the emulator itself, and while it is an option, remember that changing what button is the hard drop means that new button, presumably DOWN, is now “enter” for the menus, and now you can only scroll one way when you enter your name. So awkward, but the weirdness of Famicom Tetris is just getting started.

Dad called this “Christmas Tetris” because of the color scheme.

So yes, dynamic scoring is here and players FINALLY have some measure of risk/reward to deal with instead of just stacking for efficiency. But, there’s a catch: this Tetris is played in 25 line intervals. There’s no uninterrupted marathon mode, and also I might have a concussion for banging my head on the desk. It’s honestly incredible how many versions of this game needed to happen before the Tetris we all love emerged. I’m six games into this feature, five of which are Tetris games, and I’ve still not reached a Tetris that feels like my Tetris. And the weirdness keeps coming in the form of lives. You get to fail three times, and when you die, you still get all the points you earned for this 25-line interval, but then you restart with a new 25 line target. You also don’t get to know how well you’re doing until the breaks, as the score isn’t tallied until you die or reach 25 lines. It’s like Game Boy Tetris’ B-Mode as a solo game.

My motto of “find the fun” took a little longer with Famicom Tetris. The 25 line or bust gameplay engine put up a fight. But then I realized, screw it, embrace it by jacking up the handicap to the max. And lo, the fun was found.

Not strange enough for you? If you play with handicap and clear 25 lines, whatever progress you’ve made is retained for the next 25 line batch. But if you die, you start from scratch with a fresh pile of garbage blocks on the playfield. I don’t recommend playing on level 0, as it’s just not fun. Even if you use handicap, start on at least level 5 for speed. This is one of the rare Tetris games where the garbage blocks are the best part of the game. Without a marathon and a much slower sense of progression, challenging tall stacks of garbage is the best thing Famicom Tetris has going for it. What stood out to me the most about Famicom Tetris is how everyone involved still had no idea what they had with Tetris. I appreciate that they realized what they were doing, and what Spectrum Holobyte had done, was certainly not maximizing its potential. This was a big step, and while they had a ways to go, I did manage to “find the fun” by treating this as a hybrid of a logic puzzler and Tetris. BUT, if you just hate the Game Boy Tetris’ B-Mode, feel free to imagine this verdict flipped.
Verdict: YES! – $2 in Value added to Tetris Forever

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What I’m Playing #21 – Henk Rogers and The Hair of Extreme Distraction

November 14, 2024 by 2 Comments

Banzai Run has been confirmed as the next Williams table for Pinball FX. With this announcement, every Pat Lawlor table from the arcade era of pinball is now in Pinball FX. There’s still one table left to be announced, and the only hint is it’s from 1989. No other hints were given and if I were to spoil it, Zen Studios would no doubt call the POLICE on me, but that’s fine, hopefully we don’t have to wait 2000 years for the PARTY (monsters) to start. I know I’m doing a scattershot of potential table teases. What can I say? I’m a BAD CAT. So, what am I playing?

GODDAMNIT LET ME YANK THAT F*CKING THING OUT!

Oh, for the want of a pair of tweezers. I’m totally digging Tetris Forever except for one hugely distracting lip hair on Henk Rogers. It’s like gravity reversed on his face, but only for one specific hair follicle. I’m told a patch is coming to fix this, and they hired the same guys who took out Superman’s mustache in the Justice League movie so you know that no expense is being spared.

“Tell me Henk.. do you tweeze? Well you will!”

Otherwise, yea, Tetris Forever is fantastic. Mostly. The lack of English ROM translations is a pain in the ass, especially for the included game of Go by Bullet-Proof Software. It’s called Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku, and I hope you know how to play Go and/or read fluent Japanese. If neither of those apply to you, this is not going to help you learn the game.

It’s hard to say I’m disappointed because there’s 18 games, but this is one of those bad habits I don’t want Digital Eclipse/Atari to get too deeply into. Up to this point, language barriers haven’t factored into any of the games in the Gold Master Series. That’s certainly not the case with Igo: Kyū Roban Taikyoku. Even a totally unnecessary +1 to a game collection becomes a drag on the whole package if it feels like the extra effort wasn’t there. Part of me wonders if the language barrier is why Black Onyx wasn’t included. I’m grateful it wasn’t. The time I could spend doing a JRPG I can instead put towards the growing list of bonus reviews I’m including. So, I’m going to go until this Tuesday, a week after Tetris Forever was released. If I have more time, more bonus games will be added. Remember, I can’t include EVERY version of Tetris, including your favorites. In addition to the eighteen games included Tetris Forever, all of which get a full review, here are the twelve bonus reviews included in Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review.

Tetris
Platform: Arcade
Released December, 1988
Developed by Sega
NO MODERN RE-RELEASE*
*The version in the Genesis Mini doesn’t count.

Tetris
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Released May, 1989
Designed by Ed Logg
Developed by Tengen (Atari Games)
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Tetris
Platform: Game Boy
Released June 14, 1989
Designed by Masao Yamamoto
Developed by Nintendo
Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)

Tetris
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Released December, 1989
Developed by Nintendo
Included with Nintendo Online Subscription (Standard)

Hatris
Platform: PC Engine
Released May 24, 1991
Developed by Micro Cabin
Never Released Outside of Japan
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Tetris 2
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released July 8, 1994
Directed by Masao Yamamoto & Hitoshi Yamagami
Developed by Tose
Published by Nintendo
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Tetris & Dr. Mario
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released December 30, 1994
Developed by Nintendo
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

V-Tetris
Platform: Virtual Boy
Released August 25, 1995
Directed by Norifumi Hara
Developed by Locomotive
Published by Bullet-Proof Software
Never Released Outside of Japan
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

3D-Tetris
Platform: Virtual Boy
Released March 22, 1996
Developed by T&E Soft
Published by Nintendo
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Tetrisphere
Platform: Nintendo 64
Released August 11, 1997
Designed by Steve Shatford
Developed by H2O Entertainment
Published by Nintendo
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Magical Tetris Challenge
Platform: Nintendo 64
Released November 20, 1998
Directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi
Published by Capcom
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Hexic HD
Platform: Xbox 360
Released November 22, 2005
Designed by Alexey Pajitnov
Published by Microsoft

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What I’m Playing #20 – Pit…..stop?

November 12, 2024 by Leave a comment

Hey everyone. It’s Tetris Day and, shortly, Tetris Forever will be downloading on my Nintendo Switch. I’m going to go ahead and prioritize that, and walk away from Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. I threw on the Sega CD version and I was just so bored I didn’t know what to do with myself. I think I’d rather spend my time reading old issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly. Which I could do if I backed this Kickstarter. Basically a coffee table book dedicated to what was the best gaming magazine for most of my childhood, with one brief window where the Official Dreamcast Magazine was my fav. What a great idea this is, and the best part is, it’ll lead to a way to read all 260+ issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

The next Williams table in Pinball FX’s Williams 8 pack will be announced on Thursday. You’ll want to RUN, not walk, to this video to watch it. Even if that run is vertical. So, what AM I playing?

I really did want to give this the old college try but Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is so dang boring. It feels like it’s modeled after the Virgin Interactive Disney games, right down to having an animation studio (in this case, the ones behind FernGully, a movie that bored the living hell out of me as a child) do the graphics. It looks so good. In fact, I think this looks better than a lot of the Virgin Disney stuff. Except there’s a lot of visibility problems. The enemies are too subtle, often stay out of sight until you’re close by, and I just was constantly blinking and taking damage without realizing what was on top of me. The platforming has a parkour quality about it, but it’s just not fun, you know? So, instead, I’m going to jump straight to Tetris Forever and pour myself into it so the review can be up by this weekend. Sound good?

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What I’m Playing #19 – (I)REM Sleep(er Hits?)

November 10, 2024 by 2 Comments

You try coming up with fun names for these posts. The time for Tetris Forever is almost here, but I have enough time to squeeze in one more game, and I’m struggling to pick it. I can tell you that, right now, it won’t be Irem Collection 2. I was generously offered a review code by ININ, but I don’t have the time for it. So, here’s what I’ll do instead: I just bought both collections for Switch instead of taking a review code. They look hella fun, and at some point in 2025, I’ll catch up to them and do both. Sound good? No? Well, there’s going to be five of these bad boys total. So far, only the first two have been released. I will do the whole collection in 2025. All five volumes. We cool? Cool.

So, what AM I playing? I honestly don’t know. Nothing right now. Could be Wizards & Warriors X: Fortress of Fear for the Game Boy. Apparently I have played it, but I don’t remember a thing about it. Not a lick. Wizards & Warriors did okay at IGC, and the brand new Ironsword review is doing fine. Another option is the final game of the NES trilogy. I did sample it a bit and..

Wizards & Warriors III - Kuros...Visions of Power (USA)-241110-065407

THE GUY IN THAT PICTURE IS GETTING HIT BY MY SWORD! LOOK HOW FAR AWAY HE IS! HO..LY.. SH*T!

Okay, maybe I should hit the randomizer. Let’s do that. Ooh, this game came up just a few weeks ago and I re-rolled. I won’t re-roll this time. Twice in a month’s span, when the pool is nearly a thousand games? Sounds like fate to me. Let’s do it!

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