Sofel reaches deep into the collective unconscious for this one, as they combine humanity’s two greatest loves and products (children and casinos) – up until this point, it was believe that nary the two shall meet.

World-renowned for their ability to ask hard-hitting questions with their video games, Sofel further cemented this view with the release of Casino Kid, which placed a kid in a casino.

In Casino Kid, players walk around a lush casino environment while receiving cryptic messages that let players know that the Casino Kid isn’t quite old enough to understand ‘rules’ or ‘language’ or ‘No one under the age of 19 or 21 – depending upon which country one is in – is allowed into the casino’.

Because Casino Kid is based in reality, players can’t play any games. They can walk around the casino and talk to its patrons. Consequently, there isn’t much of a game here. It’s just reality, served cold and hard, much like my third wife.

Sofel hits another touchdown with this one, while teaching respect for one’s elders and upholding relevant social values.

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Living a life of solitude, Mr Mary becomes concerned after some sort of airplane or helicopter crashes into his cabin.

Awoken from his slumber, Mr Mary goes into a rage, running through the forest in order to punch every bird and coyote he sees in its smug face. This act of extreme violence is undertaken while doing one of the most Christian things (collecting sacks of money), which creates an interesting contrast that should keep gamers coming back for more.

The controls in Cliffhanger are relatively simple and easy to grasp. The directional pad allows players to move back and forth. The ‘B’ button unleashes Mr Mary’s fury in the form of kicks and punches; and the ‘A’ button shows off Mr Mary’s calf and thigh strength, as it allows him to do a 15-foot vertical leap from a standstill.

The goal of Cliffhanger is to get all the sacks of money and set them on fire in order to bring about the New World Order and end the Liberal, Homosexual, and Jewish Triumvirate’s conspiracy to control the media. Remember: it’s not a conspiracy if it’s true.

But since it’s not true, there is nothing to worry about.

OR IS THERE? (No.)

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After moving to the mountains of Tibet in order to become Buddhist monks, the Sofel Video Game Concern decided to take a vow of poverty.

In an attempt to reflect that vow of poverty in the high-falutin’ world of video game production, Sofel created Chitei Senkuu Vazorudaa, a game which accidentally added ‘celibacy’ to their list of vows.

Chitei Senkuu Vazorudaa, released as Super Mario Bros. 2 in East Germany, tosses players into the high-octane world of sub terrain travel and exploration. In order to accomplish this Communist make-work activity, players must drive their vehicle to the right side of the screen and engage in the genocide of the underground dwellers as they do it.

Luckily, genocide has never been so easy to commit, as Chitei Senkuu Vazorudaa features a meticulously crafted control scheme that makes use of at least 89% of the buttons on the Nintendo Entertainment System controller – and it’s even compatible with the Plastic Bag Over Your Head peripheral.

To play, players must make use of the directional pad to move left and right, while the ‘B’ button shoots and the ‘A’ button switches between various options for travel. Showing the influence of classics like Chexder, Chitei Senkuu Vazorudaa also allows players to switch between modes of transport by giving them the option to ‘drive’ and ‘fly’. This is unlocked through an intuitive system of pressing directions on the directional pad in tandem with the ‘A’ button – I spent a brief moment as a mechanical dinosaur before beating the game by discovering the in-game power-off key combination.

Unfortunately, Sofel made only a dozen copies of this cartridge, all of which were mixed with feces and grass in order to cover up the landfill created to safely store E.T. for the Atari 2600.

Vow of poverty successfully maintained.

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Finally, a game that combines the age-old pastimes of hitting balls and holding sticks into one compact plastic cartridge under the ambiguous name of ‘pool’.

Tired of the old idea of pool, Konami decided to take pool in an entirely new direction. This new way of imagining pool is called Championship Pool, which was released as Super Mario Bros. 2 in the former Yugoslavia.

In this reconstruction, Konami decided to do away with that whole ‘water’ thing, fill the pool with concrete, and erect a solidly constructed and American made table. Upon this table, one can find a series of numbered balls. This changes the goal of pool from ‘not drowning’ to ‘putting balls into pockets by hitting them with another ball that one must first hit with a stick’. The smell of chlorine remains, however, as chlorine is now huffed from a paper bag between turns.

All of this can be accomplished quickly and easily by pressing the ‘A’ button. Championship Pool also has the unique feature of forcing its players to look at a picture of an old man instead of watching their opponent play – a change that would be welcome for most Nintendo Entertainment System titles.

No longer will pool be associated with being half-naked in a deathtrap – but there are still plenty of other ways to make this happen. I call it ‘Friday night’, for example.

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Japan finally lets the world know its stance on threesomes: perfectly fine as long as the woman stays in the middle and doesn’t do anything.

City Adventure Touch: Mystery of Triangle is a unique title in that it was designed to combat what was perceived as the destruction of family values, led by the Jewish Hollywood Homosexual Agenda. This agenda is evident in such titles as Double Dragon and 1991 Du Ma Racing.

To make their mark on the norms and values of gamers, Toho Cinefile-Soft Library unleashed the Leviathan known as City Adventure Touch. This title features one of the rawest forms of game play to ever send women back into the kitchen and make me a sandwich. It consists mainly of double-teaming a group of midgets while protecting a female, which players must do until they become bored.

The controls are relatively simple – the ‘B’ button punches and the ‘A’ button oppresses a visible minority – making this an excellent title for that Good Ol’ Boy on your Christmas shopping list.

Wholesome fun for a traditional family. Not for gays or feminists.

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Redefining the lift-genre one helicopter crash at a time.

In the mid 1980s, both the lift- and helicopter-genres of video games became safe, predictable, and – some would argue – stale. The Jaleco Corporation, never ones to turn away from a challenge, saw this sad state of affairs and did their best to provide mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for a bloated corpse.

The result was Choplifter, a game that’s more about lifting than it is chopping. In this title, players must do the hitherto unheard task of flying to the left side of the screen. The controls are intuitive as the directional pad allows the helicopter to lift and maneuver, while the ‘B’ button sometimes shoots bullets and sometimes drops bombs, and the ‘A’ button sometimes rotates the helicopter ever-so-slightly and sometimes does nothing at all.

Because of its controls, Choplifter added some difficulty to the genre. In the past, most helicopter titles allowed players to fly ‘forward,’ but trying to fly forward in Choplifter only increases the difficulty.

Taking the genre a step backward. …By which I mean a step forward. You know how the kids are using ‘backward’ these days.

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