NES – The Top 100 Reviews

Top 100 NES Review: #80 – The Adventures of Lolo (1989)

A Thinking Man’s Game

Screen Shot 2018-01-25 at 5.00.13 PM

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #80/100
Developer: Hal Laboratory
Rating:

I have a soft spot for the puzzle genre in video games. I think it’s video gaming at its best: no story nor plot, just some basic mechanics that completely twist your brain. I admire people who can turn a few simple rules into extremely engrossing mind riddles while inducing an effort headache as you try and solve them.

This is the Adventures of Lolo in a nutshell: couple of blocks, couple of buttons and couple of enemies, but put all together an extremely enjoyable game. There is a little bit of a backstory, as you play as Lolo trying to save Lala who has been kidnapped by the evil Eggers (view the above image if you need the emotional coloring). Lolo then has to go through 50 rooms of puzzles to save his princess.

Continue reading “Top 100 NES Review: #80 – The Adventures of Lolo (1989)”

Top 100 NES Review: #12 – Metroid (1986)

Brutal Exploration

Rating:
Screen Shot 2018-01-18 at 4.23.37 PM

The NES is unique in gaming because it was the introduction to so many franchises: Mario, Final Fantasy, Zelda and Metroid. These franchises have now spawned several sequels and spin-offs and have appeared on every platform possible. Metroid is one of those seminal events in gaming where a new concept arose and technology was finally good enough to execute it.

My concern was that I had never played this game before, and returning to a game that was made in 1986 (which almost doesn’t seem possible) after playing all of the newer versions might just magnify the limitations of the original. I also thought of an article on Cracked : games used to be all about fun, unlike today, but truth is when you return to the them, you realize how frustrating they were.

Simply put, the original Metroid can be BRUTAL.

Continue reading “Top 100 NES Review: #12 – Metroid (1986)”

Top 100 NES Review: #1 – Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)

Restoring My Faith in Humanity

Screen Shot 2018-01-04 at 6.05.51 PM — **This resembles most of my intimate relationships – someone throwing a tantrum and the other person pretending to be a seal.**

Rating:

This past summer, I had more time that any 29 year old with a life plan should have — an entire Summer off. Our graduate program doesn’t do Summer classes which is an oddity as most other physical therapy programs have you doing a lot in the summer. All this means is instead of taking a manageable amount of credits each summer, our program shoves all of those classes along with your other coursework to see if you snap like a brittle asparagus stalk. Don’t worry though folks – I believe in a bend, don’t break mental state.

MCSMZ17_185831_D01_18_4b_575x575 — Graduate school: a blanch and shock for the mind.

Anyways, with all this free time, I decided it would be cool to achievement hunt and get to some Xbox 360 games I had purchased but never gotten around to playing. First up was Thief, a remake of a popular franchise that I only played part of it’s original incarnation on a sample PC game disc. This Yotube review describes it as “loveless sex. You can enjoy it, but something just feels wrong.” I never thought of comparing the basis of Grindr to a video game other than pokemon.

Continue reading “Top 100 NES Review: #1 – Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)”