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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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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Video game newcomers Hector Entertainment Factory do their best to break into the menu simulator genre with Business Wars.

In some year that will never be deciphered because it appears in Roman numerals, Hector released Business Wars in response to the age-old question of what it would be like to stare at the back of a man’s head as he converses with another man.

This question was beautifully answered in the genre of menu simulation. Avoiding the strict use of menus while incorporating some graphics, Business Wars might not be for purists of the genre. But Hector did not make the same mistakes as witnessed in the later Advanced Dungeons and Dragons series, where ‘graphics’ replaced text, making the title more of a ‘game’ than the digital instruction manual that fans loved. (See: Heroes of the Lance.)

In the end, Business Wars, with its use of the directional pad as well as the ‘A’ and presumably ‘B’ button, is a legitimate attempt to undo the seemingly irreparable harm caused to the genre by Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Hector stepped up the plate and scored a touchdown, showing that it is possible to return to the hay-day of ‘sitting in a car full of notepads’.

Some called it the Saviour. I called it my Lord and Saviour. I called it Jesus Christ, and we embraced.

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Now that we know the origin of the Game Boy, let’s take a look at what makes it tick.

Engineers at Nintendo were faced with a problem – “How can we take the incredible graphics of the Nintendo Entertainment System, remove the color, halve the resolution, and do it all while requiring a mere 4AA batteries/minute?”

The solution was to combine the finest green LCD panel with the most powerful CPU outside of a solar powered scientific calculator.

The Game Boy was capable of displaying a baffling 4 shades of green, varying from “I faintly see some green that’s darker than the green the screen always is” to “that’s a very dark green, right there”

Your controls are fairly standard, with “A”, “B”, “Select” and “Start”. Though some Game Boys shipped with the elusive Nintendo PowerPad, making it possible to unfurl the pad and do some impromptu jogging on the spot.

Coming up: The exciting conclusion – the Top 10 Game Boy releases of 1989.

Let’s take a look at the new face of Hollywood – Anthony Michael Hall.

Born in captivity, Hall took well to his surroundings, eventually being released into the wild. At seven he starred in his first commercial, a Honeycomb cereal ad. By 13 he was already playing Rusty Griswold in the National Lampoons Vacation series – something most kids don’t do until at least 14.

By 15 he had become addicted to huffing the fumes out of his Ferrari’s tailpipe. His time away from the zoo had caught up with him. Without the proper trainers and facility staff he was now on his own. If only there were people who could have taken responsibility for him – people older than him, with some type of genetic connection. Mother Nature is a harsh mistress.

While still suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning he followed up Vacation with Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink. Each film earning progressively more at the box office until finally culminating in an incredible $936. Hall’s contract allowed him to collect the entirety of the ticket revenue, and he quickly invested the money into his idling car.

As the 90s approach Hall has been vocal about his inability to stop lying face down in his garage with several expensive luxury cars running. He’s personally starred in a number of commercials warning children about the misuse of Italian performance automobiles. Unfortunately he’s been blacklisted in Hollywood until he can get his problem straightened away.

Will Hall pick himself up off of his garage floor, turn back the key – and perhaps turn back the clock, to a simpler time? A time when his only comfort wasn’t found in the hum of a finely tuned engine echoing through his purposely small garage?

We can only hope – and look forward to the next film about an awkward teen.

Are you a bad enough dude to Crazy Castle?

Everyone’s favourite Nintendo Entertainment System series Crazy Castle^{[citation needed]} is back and better (and bigger!) than ever as Bugs Bunny is now on board to take the series to the next level.

In The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, players control some nameless rabbit as they try to avoid (what appears to be) cats while they struggle to collect any number of things. These things are collected by engaging in the exciting game of walking up and down staircases and going in and out of doorways.

Showing that Acclaim always was and always will be on the cutting edge of video game technology, The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle features some of the most innovative controls to appear in the Crazy Castle series. Pressing ‘up’ or ‘down’ on the directional pad allows players to move in the direction the rabbit is facing, as well as to go up and down stairs! Pressing left and right allows for players to move left and right!

If players come across a weapon, they can – presumably – use it by pressing the ‘A’ or ‘B’ button, but I didn’t get that far. I also didn’t get far enough to see the appearance by Bugs Bunny. Whatever it is, I can only assume that it’s the final boss.

Best NES game containing the words Bugs, Bunny, Crazy, and Castle.

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