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Chey’s Top 25 – #12 – Tetris

Genre:  Puzzle
Platform:  All

This was the game that started it all, folks.  Video games had been fun, leisurely things to help pass the time up until this one.  It’s Tetris, the first uber-addictive game, at least in my world.  I was in sixth or seventh grade when we rented this one for the NES.  I remember distinctively because my cousin Nikki was spending the night, which was normally a really big and fun deal.  This game made me all but ignore her.  My mom tried to pry me away without much luck.  It was the first time I remember feeling addicted to something.

The game is really simple and I don’t have too much to say about it.  You line up the pieces and complete lines to clear them.  The more you clear at once, the higher your score.  Your goal is to keep playing for as long as you can.  It’s been done on every platform since its birth in 1984.  It was developed by two Russians, and I would argue it’s the best thing to ever come from that country (including the space program!).  The individual pieces are called Tetriminos.  You can find all sorts of Tetris-inspired memorabilia.  I have a board game called Tetris link and Matt made me Tetrimino shelves:

Tetris Shelves

My favorite version will always be the NES version, simply because it was the first one to get me hooked.  I have played many, many different versions of it, but this one is still one of the best.  Not to brag, but I’m pretty good at it.  If you have somehow never played it, just do a Google search for it and you’ll find a version free online.

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Stinkers – Mahjong CUB3D

Genre:  Puzzle
Platform:  Nintendo 3DS

I was really excited to get this game.  I like Mahjong games.  And this looked similar to Picross 3D so how could I lose?  This game has one fatal flaw and I will never understand what the developers were thinking, other than taking the easy way out and destroying their game in the process.

In this game, you are given 3D shapes covered in Mahjong tiles.  In typical Mahjong (which is actually the Chinese game Shanghai, not Mahjong) style, you match tiles to clear the play space.  It’s a very simple matching game, with just a smidge of strategy thrown in.  You need to know enough to clear outside tiles first.  That’s about it.  This game is the same in concept.  It’s the game play that wrecks this game.  Take a look at the picture below.  Do you see the problem?

Mahjong CUB3D play

You probably need to understand the 3DS to see the problem.  The top screen is a display screen.  The bottom is a touch screen which allows you to use a stylus to interact with the game.  However, this game uses the buttons to play.  That is the stupidest idea for a game like this.  It could have been as fun as I expected by using the touch screen.  But no, they had to go and use the buttons and D-pad.  Because of this critical flaw, this game is forever doomed to my stinkers list.

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Oldies but Goodies – 3D World Runner

Genre:  Arcade
Platform:  NES

We had this game when I was a kid.  It was a really quirky game which had you running.  That was the premise, as far as I knew.  You were running through a world.  Toward what, I don’t know and never did find out.  Here’s what Wikipedia says:

“In the game, the player assumes the role of Jack the WorldRunner, a wild “space cowboy” on a mission to save various planets overrun by serpent-like beasts. The game takes place in Solar System #517, which is being overrun by a race of aliens known as Serpentbeasts, who are led by the evil Grax.  As WorldRunner, the player must battle through eight planets to destroy Grax.”

Yeah, the game never mentions a word of this when you’re playing.  As far as I know, you were just a kid late for school or something.  You don’t control when the runner runs – he does that automatically.  You do control his direction.  There are barriers you need to run through and mobs to avoid.  There are power ups to collect and you can jump as well.  You can jump pretty high.  In fact, there are parts of the levels that require careful timing of your jumps to pass.

This was a commonly played game in our house.  As soon as I heard the music in the video below, I smiled and immediately started humming along. It’s pretty catchy. We would never really get farther than maybe the fifth level, but we sure tried.  Check it out if you get the chance.

 

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Chey’s Top 25 – #13 – Donkey Kong Country

Genre:  Platformer
Platform:  Super Nintendo

My siblings rented a Super Nintendo (SNES) way back when and had rented this game along with it.  I happened to be at the house that night and played a bit of it.  The next day, I went out and bought a SNES and this game just so I could play it more.  This game is absolutely amazing and defined the SNES for me.

The graphics, for the time, were jaw-dropping.  I had never seen anything like it.  The water level (shown above) was the best thing I’d seen.  Add in a gorgeous soundtrack and perfect gameplay and you’ve got yourself a hit.

You play as either Donkey Kong or his sidekick, Diddy Kong.  You could switch between them at will, which was necessary in many levels as each had their own strengths.  Diddy couldn’t kill certain mobs and DK couldn’t reach some spots that Diddy could.  It made for a new level of gameplay.  There were also save points throughout the levels, which were absolutely necessary.  The game features the top-down view of a map between levels and you could go back and play previous games.

There were collectibles in the game as well besides your simple coins (bananas in this case).  In every level, there were level-up balloons scattered about.  There were hidden areas to each level.  You could also find animals to ride (ostrich, shark, rhino, frog) which all added to the gameplay.  There were also letters that spelled out KONG and gave free life if you found them all.

There were some very memorable levels in this game.  Besides the aforementioned water levels, my favorite was the mine cart level.  In it, you rode in a mine cart and had to jump your way through broken tracks and obstacles to make it to the end.  I played this level over and over because it was so fun.

DKC play

If you have never had the pleasure of playing this game, you need to find it.  I still have it for my SNES and do play it from time to time.  I have it on the GCW Zero as well, but there’s something special about playing it on its original hardware.  There was also a Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3, and each were fun in their own right.  Nintendo came out with a couple of reboots – for the 3DS and Wii.  I may cover those at a different time.  This was the game, however, that really launched Donkey Kong into modern Nintendo fame.

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Fireworks game! Boom Boom Rocket

Genre:  Rhythm
Platform:  XBox 360

Independence Day is tomorrow here in the US, so in honor of one of the staples of the holiday, I’ve picked a game involving fireworks to discuss.  This is Boom Boom Rocket, available on the XBox 360 Arcade.  It’s a wonderful rhythm game which is fairly easy at the lesser difficulties, but is really hard to master.

Once you select your song and difficulty, the music starts and multi-colored arrows are thrown up from the bottom of the screen.  The colors represent the different colors of your buttons, or you can use the d-pad with the corresponding direction arrows.  Once the arrow reaches the purple line at the top, you press that button.  If you are successful, you will be rewarded with a firework.

Once you build up your multiplier meter enough, you can trigger your super ability, which gives you 24X points or something crazy like that.  This is how you climb the leaderboards, but I always forget to do it.  I tend to concentrate more on perfecting the game than getting a high score.

Fortunately, you can play this game less visually and more audibly.  The music is really your cue.  You just need to know which button to press.  It’s similar to Guitar Hero or Rock Band in that respect.  The graphics are absolutely beautiful and the music is wonderful as well.  It’s all classical music, which I really enjoy.  If you like rhythm games and classical music, I would check this one out.  It’s currently only available on the 360 and hasn’t been added to the XBone backwards compatibility list yet.

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Hidden Gems – Puzzler World

Genre:  Puzzle/Word
Platform:  Nintendo DS

This game was close to making my top 25, but I felt I had enough puzzle games there.  This entry on the Nintendo DS is a collection of many different types of puzzles including hangman, picture puzzles, crosswords, word searches, sudoku and many more!  There were actually four games in this series, and they may not be done.  Any one of them is great and they each add or remove something from a previous game.  There was one released for the Nintendo DS, two for the 3DS and one downloadable for the 3DS.

It all started on the DS, however, so that’s where I’ll start, too.  I have spent many, many hours on this game.  It’s great for quick bursts of puzzling fun.  The later levels will start to take longer to solve.  Toward the end, it was taking me 20+ minutes for some of the more detailed puzzles.  The stylus, as usual, is perfect for puzzle games like this.  The crosswords are handled well as you can write the letters on the screen and it is able to detect them.  It may take a bit of tweaking in the settings for it to recognize certain letters, but once it’s dialed in, it’s near-perfect.

The variety of games is nice and will keep your brain occupied.  They are a great mix of logic puzzles and word games.  You don’t have to play any that you don’t want to, which is nice.  Many games only unlock games as you play, but this one lets you have full reign.  There are also challenge modes in some versions, where the puzzles are a bit harder.  My favorite are the word searches (I’m just a sucker for them) and the link-a-pix, which is the ambulance picture above.

You may not have heard of the series, but it’s a must if you like puzzle games as much as I do!

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Chey’s Top 25 – #14 – Picross 3D

Genre:  Puzzle
Platform:  Nintendo DS

I have played through this game three times total and have played through it perfectly once.  According to my DS, I have spent over 200 hours playing this game.  I will probably play it another 200 in my lifetime.  It was a new way of thinking for me and the only puzzle game of its kind that I’ve ever played.  And it is challenging and so much fun.

I had never played a picross game before, so the switch to 3D was non-existent for me.  I have played them religiously since, but this was my intro to the genre.  This is a logic game through and through.  You are presented with a cube or other shape with numbers on the outside of it.  Your job is to whittle away at the cube until you reveal the hidden shape inside.  The numbers are clues to help you do this.  The stylus and touch screen make this a breeze and fun.  They represent how many cubes are in each row or column.  Getting started is pretty easy as long as you have either 0’s (none of the cubes belong in that row) or the maximum numbers of cubes for the row (all belong).  From there, you can work your way through it and figure out which cubes belong there and which don’t.

The most challenging part of this game is the perfection, though.  To get a perfect score, you need to complete a level perfectly and within their time limit.  It forces you to think a bit more quickly than you might like, which means that you are apt to make mistakes.  I had to replay some levels six or seven times to get it perfect.  Some puzzles took upwards of 25 minutes to complete.  And I loved every second of it.

If you like logic and puzzle games, definitely get this one.  There’s is a sequel released in Japan, but 3DS games are region-locked, so I’d have to get a Japanese 3DS to play it, which I’m not going to do.  There are rumors that it is going to be released in Europe, so I’m hoping they extend that to the US as well.

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Oldies but Goodies – Yo! Noid

Genre:  Platformer
Platform:  NES

So apparently, between McKids, the Cool Spot game, and this game, I was a sucker for advertisements when I was a kid.  Both this and McKids were pretty good, though.  Despite it’s massive advertising, it really was a fun game.

You are playing as the Noid, who was always the bad guy in the commercials.  Anyway, you are trying to help him get through a city and eat pizza.  He is armed with a yo-yo and you boink the baddies out of your way as you collect inexplicably floating scrolls, which give you power in the mini-game at the end of each level.  Pretty much every level is the same, with very few variations.  Some of the mobs and scenery may change, but the game play does not.  The graphics are just ok, but the music was catchy!

Yo! Noid Play 2

At the end of each level, you got to play a mini game against the anti-Noid (?).  You picked  and bet how many pizzas you could eat.  It could get ugly as you could be devious and spice his pizza, and vice versa.  I don’t really remember what you got for it, but I remember it as being fun.  I don’t know that I’ve played this since I was a kid, so if I played it now, it might be no fun at all.  It’s good enough in my brain to be an oldie but goodie, though!

 

 

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