Konami tries its hand at looking into the future for this one, Capcom Barcelona ’92!

Barcelona ’92, released in 1989 by Konami, appears to be a collection of squiggly text and some sort of gaming event where people from all around the world gather in order to show their athletic ability and express their love for oppressing minorities and the poor.

To play the games in Barcelona ’92, players must alternate between pressing the ‘A’ and ‘B’ buttons and sometimes pressing a randomly selected direction on the ‘directional’ pad.

The control scheme accurately depicts the existentialist dread experienced since World War II, showing players the seemingly random meaninglessness of the universe and the non-existence of its coders.

A valuable insight into our frightening future where governments spend billions of dollars to train individuals to do mundane actions with the hopes of being rewarded with metal medallions, which will then be traded for oil. Hash oil, that is. Puff, puff, pass.

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Hailing from the muddy banks of the Uganda, James Harris got his start in the United States by actually being born into an upper-class family in Connecticut. After attending Harvard Law, Harris decided that he would rather earn a degree from the school of hard-knocks, so he moved to Florida to pick fruit, then to Michigan to be a part of the booming automobile industry.

It was in Michigan that Harris met his future trainer Houston “Bobo Brazil” Harris. The two lovers departed the harsh atmosphere of Michigan for the more open-minded state of Arkansas, where the two could train and pick fruit together unimpeded.

Harris made his rounds in the various hobo wrestling circuits that Arkansas had to offer, wrestling under the names of “Sugar Bear”, “Ugly Bear”, and “Big” Jim Harris. Harris got his big break, however, when Vince MacMahon invited him to join the WWF in 1984, where he would become popular as the Ugandan head-hunter “Kamala”, but he continued to wrestle as “Sugar Bear”, “Ugly Bear”, and he often reprised his role as “Miss Elizabeth”.

Harris had several runs in the WWF, but he gained notoriety in 1986 during a photo shoot for the magazine Sports Review. In an attempt to construct a feud between Harris and Hulk Hogan, MacMahon wanted the magazine to feature Hogan’s head on Harris’ head-hunting spear.

Due to an error in communication, this is exactly what happened. Hogan’s head managed to be reattached to his body, but with his brain having gone 3-hours without oxygen, his mental capacities were greatly reduced. Harris was picked up by police outside the photo shoot and he was eventually sentenced to death by an Arkansas jury for inappropriately touching a white man. There have been many appeals by Harris and his lawyers for the case to be re-opened, as Harris has claimed that “Hogan was retarded long before I got here”.

Despite this evidence, to this day Harris awaits his punishment on death row.

Harris never won a title during his stay in the WWF, but he does have the recognition of having been sat on twice by André the Giant – a truly heroic action.

Congratulations.

Perhaps the most excellent of all the Castle series – aside from Castle Most Excellent 32: The Final Journey of Adventure and Glory.

In this classic Action-Adventure-RPG with flight-sim elements you take on the role of Rip Stevens, a professional door unlocker based out of New York, New York.

Rip has agreed to take on the ultimate challenge in door unlocking – a haunted castle. Are you a bad enough dude to unlock several doors per level while being haunted?

After an incredible 59 hours of playing I finally beat the first level – or what I like to think of as the first level, which is actually just the very first door that needs to be unlocked.

The difficulty can luckily be ramped down by taking the game out of the NES and using the components of the cartridge to unlock doors within your house.

It was one hell of a ride, but I’d do it all over again if required to by local and/or state law.

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Captain America returns in the exciting sequel to Argos no Senshi.

For those who have forgotten since the previous game, Captain America is perhaps the most famous character in Japanese mythos. He is not only a brave and mighty ninja warrior – but also a protector of the sacred island of Japan.

There is a fictional war taking place referred to in-game as “World War II” wherein a number of global superpowers have declared war on one another. In Captain America and the Avengers, or CAATA for short, Captain America is tasked with protecting the Japanese mainland from foreign invaders.

Unfortunately, every step you take in the game advances a countdown known as “The Bomb” in reference to the atomic bomb, which will inevitably drop, ending the game and your life.

True patriotism is playing the game knowing the outcome. Are you ready for the ultimate sacrifice?

Captain America may not survive this journey but the Japanese ideals he stands for will live on forever.

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Bubble Bobble 2 will make you laugh. It’ll make you cry … and if you’re not careful, you might just learn something.

Still high from the unexpected sales of the first Bubble Bobble – known as Yoshi the Chinese Miner in Japan – Taito Corporation Interactive Development Corporation decided to get Bubble Bobble 2 onto the shelves of Zellers and K-Mart as quickly as possible.

The game’s designers were put in a tough position when they were told to meet the deadline of “the day after Bubble Bobble shipped out of the warehouse.” In order to do it, they decided to glue stray copies of Bubble Bobble to Kirby’s Dreamland.

Most Nintendo Entertainment Systems were not designed to house two NES cartridges. But for those astute individuals who voided their warranty by bravely modifying their NES, they were rewarded with a solid sequel to the original Bubble Bobble.

Those who didn’t modify their NES ended up with a ruined copy of an otherwise perfect Kirby’s Dreamland.

Excellent graphics, enthralling story, thrilling adventure. Only you can help Yoshi escape from the mines!

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This ain’t your granddaddy’s California Raisins.

California Raisins: The Grape Escape is the title that brought the exciting world of the NASCAR license to the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Because Acclaim – developers of California Raisins – declined to have every pixel decorated with a corporate logo, however, NASCAR refused to allow any of its racers to appear in the game. Acclaim and NASCAR worked out a deal that allowed fans to enjoy the sweet taste of NASCAR on the NES by agreeing to sell California Raisins for the handsome price of -$15.

Like one would expect from any racing game, the directional pad allows players to steer their NASCAR-styled automobile left and right while the ‘A’ button accelerates and the ‘B’ button does something called ‘braking’. I’m not sure what that is, but it seems to slowdown the car, a huge improvement over the official NASCAR technique of ‘crashing into a wall’.

The only downside to California Raisins is that the turning seems kind of sluggish in the Las Vegas and Houston racetracks. And for some reason there’s a raisin walking back and forth on the screen, but otherwise it’s a flawless NASCAR title.

Indicative of the quality one would expect from NASCAR.

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