Apple IIe - Super Bunny

Super Bunny takes me waaayyyy back! Really the only reason that I'm reviewing this game is because it's one of the first games I remember playing on the Apple IIe way back in the 2nd grade. It was super-addictive to me at the time, and even now I found it somewhat addicting. It's a simple game where you need to cross moving platforms from left to right, grab a carrot from some kind of troll creature, then use your time-limited super powers to run into the creatures on the screen which destroys them in campy flashes of word balloons like Pow!, Zap!, and the like. I know I shouldn't be surprised to find a wikipedia article about this game, but I am.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bunny)

Super Bunny

(Released in 1983 According To Wikipedia)

Rabbit Power!!

There's a little song and a saying before each level, and the story seems to be that Reginald Rabbit is in a cavern and must fight his way out by eating the carrot power-up and destroying the creatures. I always thought the troll holding the character was evil, but in retrospect maybe that's just me being judgmental. After all, he does give Reginald the carrot, and really doesn't even try to stop him. If you reach the troll in a short time, you get a 500 or 250 point bonus. There's no time limit as Reginald, but Super Bunny only has a limited time to destroy the creatures, or he has to head back over to the troll for another carrot.

Are Owls and Bats Parasites? 

Stage 1 - The First Computer Troll

His Power Levels Are Enormous!!

SMACK! Breakfast Of Champions!

As the game progresses, it's pretty much the same throughout, but with more difficult platform timing, different character sprites, and some double platform enemies.

Super Bunny Does A Little Dance Here.  What A Punk!

Stage 2 - You Know Those Platforms That Are Like, Double Platforms?

I find the double platforms to be easier, since you have one less obstacle when moving through the stage.

That's The Kind Of Self Aggrandizing Attitude I Like!

Stage 3 - Watch Out For Big Cats!

As soon as you start Stage 3, you get an extra life. You might need them because it's pretty easy to die quickly in this game. It really shouldn't be, but I find the ticking sound of the timer along with my impatience makes me want to rush through the levels, even though there's no real reason for that.

I Guess I'm Trying To Escape This Cavern - What A Succinct Plot Point!

Stage 4 - It's Turning Into A Real Zoo Here

That's Some Ferocious Carrot Breath!

Stage 5 - Almost Home

As you start Stage 6, which is also the last stage, you're rewarded with another extra life.

You Don't Know Me!

Stage 6 - Home Of The Double-Double

And that's all there is too the game. After Stage 6, you can keep playing for points, but there's no added challenge or difference in the levels. It actually took me a good hour or more just to get through this game, but I remember playing for what seemed like hours when I was a very young kid. 

Hope All Those Carrots Are Sitting Right...

Thanks For The Fitting End To This Epic Saga

One thing that kind of takes away the fun now that I'm older is how easy it is to get a high score in this game. I remember trying so hard to beat the game over and over to beat the other kids at my school for the high score when I was young, but it's really simple. When you're in Reginald form, just hop around on the platforms for awhile and you'll get points for every hop. I just used one of the double platforms to hop for awhile, rode another platform back up, and repeated to get a great score in a short time. But then I got bored, and also I died...

King Of The World...Of Super Bunny

I would give this game a 6. It's far from a masterpiece, but it gets a better grade based on the time it was released and my memories of this one. It's better than several dozen NES games I've played (Color Dreams, I hate you), and it's addicting until you beat it the first time or use the score trick above. My favorite part of the credits in the opening of this game is that there's actually somebody credited with the story. So yeah, if you wrote "Vaporize Those Varmints" back in 1983, you could get a video game credit!  

Commodore 64 - Toy Bizarre

Toy Bizarre is a great game by Activision for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. Luckily, it can also be easily played on C64 emulators for different platforms. It came out around the same time as Mario Bros., and has a few features that are somewhat similar. Each level is a single non-scrolling screen where the left and right fields wrap around (so the player can move from one side of the screen to the other more easily), and features platforms and several different kinds of enemies.

Toy Bizarre

(Released in 1984 According To The Game Title)

The game is themed so that you're a worker at a toy factory that has gotten out of control. It's your job to stop the toys from taking over.  You start out on Monday, Hour 1, and work your way through the week. I've never reached the end, so I'm not quite sure if it winds around again or if it finished like Paperboy at the end of the week. The only wikipedia page I could find had to be translated from Italian.

(http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Bizarre&ei=RX1aTrL5BqmOmQXTsoy8DA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtoy%2Bbizarre%2Bwikipedia%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D666%26prmd%3Divns)

So the toys come in the 4 different helicopter types above, and start out as balloons that drift to the top of the screen from various points. You can pop the balloons before they burst by simply touching them.  When they do burst, the helicopters will come out. To defeat them, you can either jump over them to turn them flashing and then touch them, or you can jump on a specific block that that triggers another block to turn them flashing.

It Begins!

Monday - Hour 2

In the picture above, the block that the worker is standing on has triggered the block under the helicopters to pop-up, making them vulnerable to attack.  There's also an icon of a worker that's an extra life.  These icons are pretty liberal in the game, and also I believe you get an extra life for every 10,000 points.  

Valve Bonus

You can also get a bonus for turning the 4 valves off on the bottom of the screen.  The tricky part is that the caveman looking wind-up toy will turn them off while you play the level.  This toy can only be defeated by jumping on a block at the right moment to trigger another block as it passes over, launching it off the screen.  The valves can also be turned off after all the toys are defeated, but the caveman toy will still turn them off.  I've turned off all the valves sometimes without getting a bonus, so there might be a time limit involved or some other factor that I'm missing.

Safety Check

Every few levels, you get a chance to get some bonus points by turning off all 8 valves during a safety check.  The caveman toy will turn them off, and there will be 2 or 3 of them in the later checks, as well as an invisible stage.  The point values change depending on the speed, with 10,000 points being the highest score.

2 vs 1 in Safety Check 2

Perfect!!

Invisible Safety Check

Coffee Break

A nice bonus during the levels is the Coffee Break, where the player becomes invincible for a limited time.  During this time, the player can just touch the helicopters to defeat them, although the caveman enemy can be walked through but not destroyed.

Those Balloons Are Tricky

I'd give Toy Bizarre a 8.  This is graded based on the system of course, but it's still one of my favorite C64 games.  Even with it's simple graphics and basic gameplay, I still find that it's fun to play from time to time.  The music and sound effects are simple but nice, the game is challenging and fun, and the levels are each unique in their layouts.  One bit of frustration to the game comes from the way that the character kind of bounces as he moves, so it can be easy to run into the toys, and the spacing for high jumps versus long jumps can be difficult.  I would recommend this to anyone who remembers the glory days of Activision!

MAME - Vs. Super Mario Bros

Everybody on the planet, and even lots of animals and perhaps trees have played Super Mario Bros. at some point.  It's probably the most well-known of any game of all time, so yes the story is Mario and Luigi try to save the Princess from Bowser (King Koopa in Asian versions). Anyway, the reason I chose to look at Vs. SMB is because it's quite different in many ways than the SMB version on the NES.  

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.#Vs._Super_Mario_Bros.)

Vs. Super Mario Bros

(Released 1986 According To The Title Screen)

First of all, depending on the arcade machine's settings, the game can be much harder. On the version I played, Mario has to gather between 100-250 coins for an extra life, the timer can be set to faster, Mario can start with only 2 lives, and credits can cost as much as 3 coins. This can really up the challenge of the game, because the timer already ticks off pretty quickly, especially towards the end, and extra lives are sparse and perhaps necessary in this version. I chose to play the game with 100 coins per/extra life, and with a regular timer.  If you choose to continue, you start the game at the start of the World you were on, i.e. 5-1, 6-1, etc.

Something else that I read in an online walkthrough for the game was that the green extra life mushrooms don't appear in this game.  I'm not sure if there are different versions of the game or something, but on the standard version that I played included the green extra life mushrooms in the familiar spots.  They seemed not to be there after World 4-1 though, and the one in World 8-2 was replaced with a regular mushroom.  Also it doesn't seem possible to do the bounce on the koopa on the stairs trick to get extra lives.  First of all, the koopas on World 3-1 are replaced by goombas, and secondly, even in a couple places where I worked extremely hard to knock a Para-Koopa onto the stairs, trying to get the stomp repeatedly trick to work proved impossible.

So who cares right?  I mean, I can beat SMB with both eyes plucked out and playing with my one good toe.  Well...this version is very similar to the NES for the first few worlds, but around World 5-1 the difficulty really gets cranked up.  There's less power-ups to be found, more enemies, way trickier jumps, less coins, different level layouts, and in general other cheap kinds of things to force the gamer to spend more quarters.

Why not just warp you ask?  Well, seeing as how my banner says "No Warp Zones," I try to stay away from that.  But, it is possible to warp to Worlds 2-1, 3-1, and 4-1 from World 1-2, and I believe to World 6-1 (vine) and World 5-1 (pipe) from World 4-2.  The World 6-1 warp replaces the World 8-1 warp in NES SMB.  So basically you're going to have to play through the tougher levels, and they can be a bit frustrating.

It was pretty hard to capture the full effect of the levels with screencaps, but I'll give some examples from my playthrough of the game.

World 1-1 - Minor Differences Already

World 1-2 - 1-Up denied

World 3-1 - Starting To Get Trickier

World 3-1 - No Koopas! Bummer...

World 3-2 - Lots O' Pits

World 6-3 - Tricky Jump

I know this screencap doesn't really show anything too difficult, but to get to that platform you have to do full speed running jump onto a Para-Koopa and hope that you haven't accidentally scrolled it out of position.

World 7-2 - Death By Seaweed!

World 7-3 - Hey Mario, Why Don't You Bounce Off That Para-Koopa For A Mushroom... C'mon, I Dare You!  Uhhhh... Pass.

World 8-4 - Wow!  New Text!  Hey!  Friendship... After All Those Dead Koopas.... You Bi...!

World 8-4 - The Toadstool Rainbow

High Score! Yes!!

Some other differences that I noticed in the game were that World 4-4 was swapped with World 5-4, and also the castle mazes in World 5-4 and 7-4 have different paths than the original SMB.  If you're too lazy to google, the walkthroughs and some nicely done map pics for the mazes can be found at

(http://www.gamefaqs.com/arcade/584015-vs-super-mario-bros/faqs).  I believe one of the faqs there also lays out exactly how the levels correspond to different versions of the game as well.

Just an aside, I played this game on a huge screen in an arcade in Japan, and I was feeling pretty rad hanging out there showing off my old-school skills...until I brutally and repeatedly died facing off against a Hammer Bros. in World 5.  Plus it cost approximately a dollar per play, but really not a bad deal considering one play lasted way longer than most arcade games.

Overall, I would give this game a 9. I really enjoy this incarnation of SMB.  It's the same old game that was basically the reason for the success of the NES coupled with a whole new challenging aspect.  I'd probably give the game a 10, because after all it's kind of the granddaddy of awesome, but I thought that some of the later levels caused a little too many cheap player deaths. I would highly recommend all SMB old-school fans to check this version out!!

MAME - The Simpsons Arcade Game

I'm really happy that MAME is able to do something that no other system managed to get right; run The Simpsons Arcade Game!!  Ok, so there were a couple ports to old computer systems, but nothing to compare with actual arcade version. This is one of my all-time favorite arcade games. Sure, it's pretty much the same as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Final Fight, or X-Men arcade games in it's street fighting action, but hell, they were all great too!  I'm not sure why there hasn't been a true port to any other system, or even something like a download for the Wii, but so far by using MAME it's possible to play on the computer or even a hacked Wii. This game in my opinion is still the penultimate Simpsons game!  It was made in 1991, and was the first Simpson game ever!  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons_Arcade_Game)

The game starts out with an intro that's a good mirror of the TV show opening.  It also gives some stats about each of the family members; something that brought me back to the early days of the show when the characters weren't all over the place personality-wise.

Like Watching The Cartoon

There was a 2 and 4 player version of the game, and it was possible to pick Homer, Marge, Bart, or Lisa.  I believe Homer uses Fists, Marge uses a Vacuum, Bart uses a Skateboard, and Lisa uses a Jump-Rope.  The plot of the game is that Smithers has stolen a diamond from a shop, and while escaping collides with the Simpsons.  The diamond ends up being used as a pacifier for Maggie, so Smithers grabs her and makes a getaway.

What's Up With The Cape Smithers?!

Of course, the Simpsons aren't going to take this lying down, so they immediately rush off to the rescue.  From the very beginning and throughout the game, many classic Simpsons characters from the first season are featured in cameos.

Simpsons And Bouviers

The family must traverse through 8 different levels to get Maggie back, fighting a bunch of Burns' and Smithers' cronies along the way.  The player can jump, attack, jump and attack, do a more powerful quick jump attack, or even use two players together to attack.  The levels are all fairly short, but they're all pretty fun to play.  Along the way, the family can also get food to heal (punch the trees!), or even attack using items like a slingshot, mop, rocks, bowling balls, and even the family pets among others. There's also a couple bonus levels where the player can mash buttons to win points for an extra life. There's not too much else to explain about the game, as it's very straightforward, but I'll post some screen shots of the different levels.

Stage 1 - Skinner and Martin

Stage 1 - Boss

Stage 1 - Marge Is Angry

Stage 2 -  Otto Not Driving A Bus, Marge With A Short Super Attack After Dying

Stage 2 - Marge And Snowball II Fight The Boss

Bonus Stage

Stage 3 - Intro With Binky As Death

Stage 3 - Dancing At The Zombie Zoo

Stage 3 - Boss

Stage 4 - Moe And Barney

Stage 4 - Where's My Spy Camera?!

Stage 4 - Boss

Stage 5 - Nelson Helps

Stage 5 - Blinky

Stage 5 - AHH!! Sideshow Bob!

Stage 5 - Boss

Stage 5 - Krusty Copter

Stage 6 - Bart Devils

Stage 6 - Boss

Bonus Stage 2

Stage 7 - Alien And Robot

Stage 7 - Boss

Stage 8 - Evil Smithers!

Stage 8 - Burnsy

Maggie And Burns

End

End 2

One more interesting note about this game was that the characters had voices as well.  Most of the family sounds pretty good, but Smithers sounds awful and Burns sounds pretty bad.  His constant "excellent" while you're pummeling him in the end is rather cheerful though.

I really never pictured Smithers as the kind of guy who pulls a diamond heist, kidnaps a baby, and has a cape with a bunch of terrorist bombs inside.  When you beat him, he even suicide bombs himself, which is pretty messed up!  I also wonder at this criminal mastermind who doesn't just pull the diamond out of Maggie's mouth so the Simpson family will stop chasing him... but it really doesn't matter at all to me, cause this game kicks so much ass!! I fondly remember spending many a quarter on this one at arcades in my childhood, and I give it a run through every now and then to this day.  I would say it probably only takes less than an hour to get through the whole game, but that's part of the fun too.  Just a quick fun game that can be played at anytime.  While there really shouldn't be much replay value, as the game doesn't have any real secrets to find, I find myself drawn to this one again and again.  It's especially fun to play with a group of friends as well!

Overall, I would give The Simpsons Arcade Game an 8. Simpsons' fans and retro gamers alike should find this game quite entertaining, but it's also easy to approach for casual gamers because of it's simple controls and familiar gameplay style.