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Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh |
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As an update to the classic game Breakout Revenge of Doh has you bouncing a ball back and forth destroying bricks. Where it really shines is with all the great extras now added to the core game play, like the different level designs, types of bricks, and especially the new power-ups, such as some which give you the ability to fire, multiply the ball of make your bat larger. |
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Legendary Wings |
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A great scrolling shoot-em-up which has an excellent 2-player co-operative mode to its credit. Though one aspect the game certainly falls down in is originality as the basic game play whilst fun and polished is certainly nothing new of unique, which is why I dropped it places in this list. |
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Track N' Field |
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Multiplayer classic from the 80's that started the whole mash two buttons as fast as possible style game play. The fact that this mechanic has remained virtually unchanged in olympics games up to this day is a testament to it's greatness. |
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Smash TV |
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Simple top down shooter, the basic premise is akin to "the Running Man" film where you play the poor bloke stuck in the game show who has to shoot anything that moves. It includes a cool duel controller option to replicate the arcade's multi-directional firing, which works pretty well. |
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Power Blade |
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A platform shooting affair similar to Mega Man, but with boomerangs and Contra's multi directional firing. Its actually a remade US version of a Japanese game called "Power Blazer" and must stand as one of the few occasions where the mucked about with version outdoes the original (another arguable one would be the Mega Drive's Decap Attack) this is due to Power Blade getting rid of many game play problems the original had. |
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720 Degrees |
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One of the first extreme sports games and a timeless classic which must have been an inspiration for later games such as Tony Hawks Pro Skater. You have a bunch of different moves available and multiple excellent events to play. |
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Klax |
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Popular puzzle game which is similar in game play to falling block games like Tetris and Columns, though as opposed to those games Klax incorporates a conveyer belt instead of the more regular enter from the top of the screen set-up. When you get three of the same colour vertically, horizontally or diagonally you get a "klax". |
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Lunar Jetman |
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Rare's spin on Thrust's game play style. Fly about shooting the enemies and collecting the things you need for your ship. Most of the difficulty was in making sure you didn't crash. Addictive and fun. |
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Double Dragon II |
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The second game in the seminal Double Dragon series, a series that popularized the whole beat-em-up genre when originally released at the arcades. As an original game designed for the NES and not a true arcade sequel this was a pretty good game all things considered, with some nice graphics and great colour use throughout. |
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Kid Icarus |
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Every system out there has at least one wildly overrated game, and on the NES its Kid Icarus. Whilst a very good game with some interesting ideas and elements (the adventure game style weapons and health upgrades are very well implemented), as an overall experience its heavily brought down by some niggling issues which hold it back from the status of being the true classic that many people make it out to be (earlier levels are actually harder than later ones, imprecise controls, frustrations such as off screen deaths and enemies which randomly steal your money, lazy graphics obviously recycled from Metroid). Still certainly a very solid game though. |
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Little Nemo |
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Feed woodland creatures candy laced with chloroform, kill them in their sleep and wear their skin as clothes in this great cutesy platformer. It's all a bit like the silence of the lambs really (at least that's the way it looks to me) |
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Solomon's Key |
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Another great, and influential NES puzzle game. Here you can create blocks to stand on wherever you want in an effort to reach the level key item to open the door, and then get through the door. Its clever block creation idea was re-used in many later games such as Spherical and Troddlers. |
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Bucky O' Hare |
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Insanely fast platform-shooter from Konami that came out late in the NES' lifetime and is now pretty hard to find. The graphics are excellent, and the game play is fast, frenetic and a little bit difficult. |
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Bomberman 2 |
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Probably the best Bomberman on the NES, with a multiplayer mode as good as ever, but certainly not the best episode available when it came out (that accolade would have to go to the TG-16's first Bomberman, or the Amiga's Dynablaster) |
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Cobra Triangle |
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Isometric game from Rareware that is hard to classify due to it's number of varied play styles, which go from competitive racing, to bomb collection/disposal, to boss fights and other objectives. Its very under-valued and well worth purchasing. |
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Pipe Mania/Pipe Dream |
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The best puzzle games usually have the simplest concepts, and Pipe Mania is no exception. The basic aim is to lay down piping before the water catches up to you without wasting tiles, later levels add in new rules to add to the difficulty level such as end pieces which need to be joined to. This game spawned many imitators and became quite influential (even being added to Bioshock as a hacking mini game). |
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II |
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A pretty nice conversion of Konami's arcade beat-em-up. The graphics and atmosphere are very nice and the crucial multi-player option is still available (just a shame it couldn't utilize the NES four-score for a 4-player feature) |
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Rampart |
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A great, hard to explain strategy game, that incorporates elements from Tetris, as well as more standard shoot-em-up action elements. You have to build up your castle and place gun turrets, repel enemy boats, and rebuild your broken defenses. |
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Baseball Stars |
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Has to be the best baseball game you could get at the time on any platform due to its many RPG style features such as allowing you to name and improve your players through the acquisition of money. |
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Spy Hunter |
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Spy Hunter is probably the oldest game to make this list, being a port of a game released in the arcades in 1983, which really goes to show its enduring playability. The game has you racing up screen amassing points and being careful not to go too fast and crash or shoot civilian cars. |
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