February 18, 2010 - 10:08 pm
All the Bomberman you can handle, finally on its own cartridge!
After the highly successful release of Bomberman Collection, Hudson Soft decided to release every Bomberman title separately.
Bomberman is a successful break-away title, as it features all the vibrant colours and explosions that enable players to become men as the original Collection title.
The controls are, for the most part, the same as they are on Collection, as players make use of the directional pad, the ‘A’ and ‘B’ buttons, and jerking their body violently in an attempt to make their character move how they wish. Personally, I like to jerk my arms up and down for any number of reasons, one of which is trying to make Bomberman jump. But he never does, and I’m just left confused and feeling ashamed of my body.
Wholesome fun for the whole family.
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Posted in NES Quick Play
February 18, 2010 - 3:16 pm
Directed by John Hughes, The Breakfast Club was filmed in an incredible 46 minutes – a full 47 minutes less than its actual running time.
Based on the book “Life’s so hard for us teens :(“ The Breakfast Club follows five ragtag teens as they attempt to prove to each other that they’ve all got it so hard. The magnitude of their struggles in life is emphasized when it’s revealed in the final act that the entire movie is set during the Great Depression, the school is a prison, and the actors are all actually Irish immigrants.
The story begins with each of the actors eating a club sandwich for breakfast, giving the film its name. They then traverse the biting cold to “school” where they have “detention.” Of course we find out later they’ve been sentenced to voluntary life-in-prison sentences for hoarding potatoes.
Over the course of the next 15 minutes we’re introduced to all of the characters and their respective struggles.
John Bender: The ‘rebel’ of the group, Bender is actually a victim of child abuse. As an example, his mother once spanked him. With her hand. On his bottom. This tragic story is told through tears by Bender as the other Clubbers sit Indian-style holding hands and reassuring him it wasn’t his fault his room was “a mess”
Andrew Clark: The ‘athlete’ of the group. Clark must deal with his over-bearing father insisting he become a basketball phenom, despite being 5’3”.
Claire Standish: The ‘girl’ of the group. Standish’s parents insist on him wearing a dress and having scraggly long red hair despite him being a gangly freckled teen boy.
Allison Reynolds: The ‘basket case’ of the group. Reynolds bears the unfortunate burden of being a “diehard fan of Bon Jovi.” Quite possibly the most shameful secret to reveal.
Brian Johnson: The ‘brains’ of the group. Johnson is a 38 year old singer surrounded by teens. At the end of the movie he walks into the library with his head down and tears flowing before finally admitting he’s in “AC/DC.” “I’m so sorry guys, I let you all down. I wish I could’ve just been beaten by my parents.”
Tags: AC/DC, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, The Breakfast Club Posted in Movies

When Alphie II (Talking Alphie) was released in 1986, it rendered Alphie I (the Roughly Cut Block of Wood Alphie) obsolete. Children and parents went crazy: instead of just being able to stylishly hold down a stack of paper or keep a door open, Alphie, while maintaining its previous abilities, was now a talking robot.
In order to play with Alphie, children had to insert cards into its chest slot, then select the appropriate button from the row of green buttons to let Alphie know which pre-determined pattern to anticipate in order to tell children that they were right or wrong in their button-pressing decisions.
Aside asking parents and guardians to figure out how to afford the dizzying combination of 32 AA, C, D, and 9-volt batteries required in order to get this diesel-powered beauty humming, Alphie raised another startling question: was the child able to read and understand the directions of the card or was the child some pattern-memorizing savant? We may never know.
Alphie II was largely a product of consumer capitalism that tried to introduce children to the idea of cards and buttons so that they could understand the punch-card system at their inevitable factory jobs.
Whether or not this actually worked could never be tested, since Reaganomics understood that such jobs weren’t good enough for Americans and they were thusly banned from the country. This could potentially explain the droves of button-pressing savants who wander the streets, struggling to find meaning in their lives, but we may never know.
While some may see Alphie as a pretty face on some hollow plastic casing, its significance is actually much deeper: Alphie is the reflection of the empty husks of human beings that it created.
On the plus side, Alphie II is just as good for starting fires as Alphie I.
Inhaling deeply never felt so good.
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Posted in Toys
February 17, 2010 - 1:44 pm
Finally Caltron have thrown their finely tailored Italian hat into the ring of #-in-1 titles.
How did they do it? How did they fit so many A+ titles on a single cartridge?
Caltron 6-in-1 features:
- Cosmos Cop
- Magic Carpet 1001
- Balloon Monster
- Adam And Eve
- Porter
- Bookyman
They may as well have called it 1-in-1, ‘cause you’ll never move on past the first game you choose! They’re all THAT good. Cosmos Cop? Think “Super Mario, in space, in a robot suit, firing bullets into the center of the screen.”
Magic Carpet 1001? More like “Disney quality animation with a combat system so refined you’ll think you’re in Arabia fighting the sultan himself!”
This game is a hoot-and-a-half!
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Tags: #-in-1 Posted in NES Quick Play
From the title screen, with its Indiana Jones music, I knew I was in for the ride of my life.
You take the role of a scrappy youth named Charlie Perkins, and your ally in the game is a fellow made out of marshmallow. Charlie and his marshmallow are tasked with walking to and fro in a dimly lit city.
Are you a bad enough dude to make 30 trips to the elusive “Health Foods” store?
You may be tempted to actually walk past the Health Foods store, or even enter it, but the programmers have kept you from partaking in the mortal sin of eating organically grown celery by not allowing you to do either.
I tried getting past this limitation using my Game Genie, but after entering the Health Food store the game crashed and my NES was fried – making its only use a very large and heavy cartridge case.
A high-octane thrill ride rollercoaster full of suspense and Hollywood special effects!
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Tags: A Boy And His Blob, Marshmallow Posted in NES Quick Play
February 17, 2010 - 12:52 pm
Hot off the heels of Super Mario World is perhaps the greatest Yoshi adventure of all time!
Following the story of SMW, Yoshi has become a miner in 19th century China. Unfortunately Bowser wants a piece of the lucrative coal mining industry, and has sent his minions to sabotage Yoshi – by any means necessary!
Unfortunately the NES’ limit on the size of sprites means you wont have your tongue as a weapon, but Yoshi has gained the ability to vomit soap bubbles; a fair trade off.
Vomit your way through several thousand levels as you progress deeper and deeper into the mine. Your objective is clear – collect all of the hot peppers and various vegetables created by the deaths of your enemies – as is typical in any mine.
Fail and the mine will collapse. Succeed and you’ll live a life of riches not seen since lower class 19th century Chinese dinosaurs.
The hottest Nintendo property outside of Shigeru Miyamoto’s freshly dispatched dung.
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Tags: Bubble Bobble, Super Mario World, Yoshi Posted in NES Quick Play