System: SNES

Wii Points: 800

I spent many hours standing in my younger brothers cramped bedroom, doing “a life each” on this game. He was a real whizz at it, and would usually get through several levels before it was my go, where I would fall promptly into a pit.

This game is good. Really good. But you know that, if you’ve played it, and if you haven’t, you should. Now. Because this is the pinnacle of 2D platforming. It’s delicious, in it’s design, delivery and execution.

The very, very bestest bit, is the addition of frantic bongo drumming when you leap on the back of your companion Yoshi. No, hang on, the bestest bit is when you find that area with thousands of coins in the sky and you can get like, loads of 1ups by flying through with the cape, but you suddenly run out of time and have to rush for the exit. Or, no! The bestest bit is when you finally find the right exit in a ghost house after being stuck in one for ages. Oh, I can’t choose a bestest bit, because the whole game is one big bestest bit.

It’s the bestest bit of Mario gaming ever.

Verdict: 9/10

System: NES

Cost: 500 Wii Points

Big franchise for Nintendo, this one, I had never played the original, or any of the sequels – so I came to this unsullied with no nostalgic bias. It’s semi-famous for being the first game to feature a female protagonist, although really, I think this was just a way for the designers to reward players with a bit of soft titillation for playing well.

It’s a platformer, set in an underground cave environment full of nasty aliens and other hazards injurous to your health that must be either be avoided or blasted into smithereens. (How big is a smithereen, by the way? The size of an average cornflake? Could be a new cereal – Sugar Frosted Smithereens!) Running and jumping through the caves feels wierdly floaty and stiff to start with, but after some practice, it’s possible to pull off almost acrobatic moves.

The hook here is that the environment is one big area that can be explored at your leisure – certain parts of it can only be reached when you have upgraded your characters space armour with various power-ups, starting with the morphball, which allows you to duck down into a tiny ball and roll through tight tunnels. It’s kind of the forerunner to the sandbox games we are familiar with today, like the god-awful ‘Grand Theft Boringly Violent & Profane’ teenage boys are so very fond of. The only issue here is you receive hardly any information about how to progress through the caverns from the game itself. In fact, some areas, which are pretty crucial to the game, can only be reached by exploding blocks which look exactly like the walls and floors of the caverns. So how do you know which blocks are explodable or not? Simples. You download a map from gamefaqs.com and go nuts. This isn’t really a problem for me or any current gamer, but honestly, back in the day, I very much doubt I would have finished this game without help.

After much exploration finding power-ups and upgrades, this game really becomes a blast to play with a couple of easy bosses and some nasty, sticky jellyfish to deal with in the closing areas.

Verdict: 7/10

In fact, it’s odd I have the Wii in the first place after being a loyal Sony customer for years (not a fanboy though, never a fanboy) – but, I just couldn’t face another “better graphics, better-sound, bigger-games” generation. As I started gaming on an Atari 2600 and Spectrum 48k, playability is always far more important to me than presentation. ‘sides, I like artistic graphics, not ultra-realism. So I wanted something differant, a new direction, motion controllers, woo!

As it turns out, I wanted something old. I’m spending my gaming hours exploring Planet Zebes and the Marble Zone – it seems to hold much more of an attraction to me than new titles being released even though I have a list of games as long as my arm that I want to play.

I never really knew how much of a retro gamer I was until I had the chance to get hold of these old games, which started with being intrigued by the decision to design the new Mega Man 9 game (available on WiiWare and well worth a download) in the style of one of the old 8-bit games.

So, to follow, reviews of the games I have download from the Wii Shop and further musings on games and gaming in general. Probably.