Nerdicus NES Review #80 : Battletoads & Double Dragon

Title : Battletoads & Double Dragon

Publisher : Tradewest

Genre : Beat Em Up

Players : 1 / 2 Player

Release Date : 1993

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $60-$70

You may be asking yourself, what can make one of the best NES games even better? How about adding another one of the most difficult Beat 'Em up's into the mix? That's right. You've got Battletoads, probably the hardest Beat Em Up on the NES, mixed in like a cocktail of pure insanity with the characters from the Double Dragon series.

Can you say, "EPIC"?!

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Nerdicus SNES Review #9 : Aero the Acro-Bat 2

Title : Aero the Acro-Bat 2

Publisher : Sunsoft

Genre : Platformer

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1994

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $6-$7

Yesterday we took a look at Sunsoft's newest mascot of the 1990's, Aero the Acro-bat. While the mascot was a little bit tiresome, the game itself was actually pretty enjoyable. Let me make this point known. I found the Iguana in the Iguana entertainment logo more of a mascot than Aero. I mean, seriously who wouldn't want to play as a surfer Iguana with sunglasses? Ecktor the Clown on the other hand is one of the scariest villains I've ever seen. I hate clowns.

Ahem, so while we played the first one on the Genesis, I figured we'd go ahead and try the second one on the SNES, which is my go-to system. 

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Nerdicus Genesis Review #5 : Aero the Acro-Bat

Title : Aero the Acro-Bat

Publisher : Sunsoft

Genre : Platformer

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1993

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $6-$7

Ah, the 90's. The generation in which gaming different publishers tried to push a whole symphony of new and potential mascots for their brand. Some worked, most didn't. We all remember what happened to Bubsy. But here's another victim of the ill-fated "mascot-wars" (oooh, just thought of another blog idea because of this). It was entertaining how they tried so hard to make up some cool new anthropomorphic mascots, but most of them ended up just being completely abysmal.

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Nerdicus NES Review #79 : Battletoads

Title : Battletoads

Publisher : Rare

Genre : Beat Em Up

Players : 1 / 2 Player

Release Date : 1991

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $15-$17

Retro games were known for being difficult. So difficult in fact that I guarantee you that you didn't beat half the games you had in your retro game library. I'm looking at my stack of Nintendo games right now and I'm not ashamed to say that at least 75% of these games kicked my ass. Some more so than others.

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Nerdicus SNES Review #7 + #8 : Addams Family Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt & Addams Family Values

Title : Addams Family : Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt

Publisher : Ocean

Genre : Action Platformer

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1993

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $10-$12

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Nerdicus NES Review #78 : Battleship

Title : Battleship

Publisher : Mindscape

Genre : Turn Based Strategy

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1993

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $5-$7

You already know how I feel about board games being turned into video games. But when you take a bonafide classic board game and add a few little quirks to make it that much more enjoyable, well then you have my attention. And that's what Mindscape did here with BATTLESHIP. You know Battleship. You probably played it hundreds of times when you were a kid.

"OH NOES!!! YOU SUNKS MY BATTLESHIPS!" 

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Nerdicus SNES Review #6 : Adventures of Batman & Robin

Title : The Adventures of Batman & Robin

Publisher : Konami

Genre : Action Platformer

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1994

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $50-$65

Yesterday we played a little bit of the Genesis version of The Adventures of Batman & Robin, and here we have the SNES version. Now these two were very different from each other, with the Genesis version being a more of a run 'n' gun a la Contra, while the SNES following more of a traditional action / platformer route. The SNES version was also published by Konami, while the Genesis was pushed out by Sega. Huge difference right there. But who am I to complain? I love Batman, and I'll take any opportunity I can get to play a Batman game.

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Nerdicus Genesis Review #4 : The Adventures of Batman & Robin

Title : The Adventures of Batman & Robin

Publisher : Sega

Genre : Action / Run N Gun

Players : 1 / 2 Player

Release Date : 1994

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $12-$15

Here we have one of those cases where a game was released on a bunch of systems, but was somewhat different on each one. I'll go and review the SNES version tomorrow, but I figured I'd review the Genesis one first. Not to mention, this is one of THE hardest side-scrolling action / arcade style games I've ever played. And I'm proud to say that I beat it back in the day, with the help of a good friend of mine who teamed up against the forces of evil with me.

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Nerdicus NES Review #77 : Battle Tank

Title : Battle Tank

Publisher : Absolute Entertainment

Genre : Tank Simulator

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1990

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $6-$8

Decent simulator games were rare back in the late 80's and early 90's. The problem was, video game technology just wasn't at the point where developers were able to make realistic and entertaining simulator games. If you look at games like FLIGHT SIMULATOR, or even combat based simulations with vehicles in games such as as Battlefield, it's still not perfect. Although Flight Simulator is pretty damn amazing. 

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Nerdicus NES Review #76 : Battle of Olympus

Title : Battle of Olympus

Publisher : Broderbund

Genre : Action Platformer / RPG

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1989

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $3-$5

For me, there are a few games in the NES library that some people may disagree with how I feel about them. One of them was ZELDA II : The Adventure of Link, and one of the others was a game that was very similar to that. So similar that people thought it was a direct rip off. But you know what, I don't care. The game is pretty well done, and if you have the patience for it, it ends up being pretty damn rewarding too. Of course, that doesn't mean it doesn't have it's problems also.

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Nerdicus Genesis Review #3 : The Addams Family

Title :  The Addams Family

Publisher : Ocean

Genre : Platformer

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1992

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $4-$5

Alright, this review is going to be quite the quicky. This is one of those instances where I've already played one of the ports on another system, and in this case it was the NES. This game was also released on a slew of other systems including the SNES, Game Boy, Master System, Game Gear, Amiga......and of course...the Genesis. Since I'm trying to switch things up a bit, I've decided to give it a go on the Genesis.

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Nerdicus NES #75 : Battle Chess

Title :  Battle Chess

Publisher : Data East

Genre : Chess

Players : 1 / 2 Player

Release Date : 1990

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $3-$5

If you read my last review about a battle-styled chess game, Archon, you would have remembered that I'm a huge fan of this game. After all, I was a proud member of the chess club in high school, and I am not ashamed to say it. The thing is, I also loved twists on Chess, and when you introduce any sort of battle-mode to it, I don't know what to say, I'm an absolute sucker.

But if that battle-mode is not even a battle-mode, and it's instead just watching a little cut-scene every time a piece is taken? No thanks......

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Nerdicus SNES Review #5 : Actraiser 2

Title :  Actraiser 2

Publisher : Enix

Genre : Platformer / Action / Simulation

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1993

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $10-$15

For the most part, sequels are a double-edged sword. You're getting a new game based on something you've already loved, but publishers have the habit of making changes when they really didn't need to. I don't know why this occurs so much. Maybe they're trying to make things different, in fear of their customers thinking the sequel is just a rehash of the original with better graphics. Sometimes, there's nothing wrong with that. Other times, I think they BELIEVE that they are heading in the right direction, when in actuality, they aren't.

Unfortunately for Actraiser, it suffered this fate with it's second game. 

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Nerdicus SNES Review #4 : Actraiser

Title :  Actraiser

Publisher : Enix

Genre : Platformer / Action / Simulation

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1991

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $7-$9

There were quite a few games in the SNES library that earned the privilege of being replayed more than once. These were the games that did everything right to the point where I was done, I just had to go back to it. Even years down the line I continue to play some of these games just for the hell of it. Call it a trip down memory lane, or perhaps it's just my desire to play some good games.

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Nerdicus NES Review #74 : Batman Return of the Joker

Title :  Batman Return of the Joke

Publisher : Sunsoft

Genre : Platformer / Action

Players : 1 Player

Release Date : 1991

Estimated Value (as of today's date) : $7-$9

So after playing through the Batman Returns game by Konami, my faith waned a little bit that I'll find another decent Batman game on the NES. So I turned back to Sunsoft, hoping that Batman Return of the Joker would fit the bill. This was a more direct sequel of the original Sunsoft classic. The formula remains the same, and this is how it should be. After all, if it 'aint broke don't fix it.

But somehow, they broke it.

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