This ain’t your Grand Pappy’s caveman platformer!

With Bonk’s Adventure, the developers of the game set out to take the size of an NES character’s head to the absolute limit – and they did just that.

Scored primarily on head size, Bonk is a 10/10 – no question. Look at the size of that head. It’s enormous.

Aside from the lead character having a large head, there are also the underpinnings of a “Video Game” included on the cart. After daisy-chaining several Game Genies I was able to find a code to allow me to move from side to side in a fashion not unlike a human being.

Overall it’s a decent effort in the large-head genre.

Item was shipped later than expected and package was damaged upon arrival – would not buy from again. Overall experience: F

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Hudson, formerly a fur trading company, have developed what would certainly be the game of the decade were it released in 1780.

Based loosely on the sci-fi classic The Holy Bible, the game opens with you being teleported down from your spaceship onto an alien planet. Obviously this is a modern take on Jesus being teleported down into Mary’s unsuspecting womb.

The first free-roaming game, Bomber King allows you to choose your own path.

Your choices are:

• Blow up trees to clear your path, or
• Stand on the first screen forever

But after several years of playing the game non-stop in an effort to set a world record for most mass in an adult diaper, I found a third choice. If you plant a bomb and walk to a position directly adjacent to it, you’ll be treated to the most rewarding choice of all.

Game Over. Now let’s see someone try to top this record.

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A classic game featuring dungeons, dragons, and possibly insight into the human condition.

When Boulder Dash was released, it flew off the shelves almost as quickly as it could be restocked. Due to its sales alone, it was voted Piece of Plastic of the Year 1980 – it wasn’t discovered that it was a game until the Nintendo Entertainment System was released three-years later.

Boulder Dash features a fully orchestrated musical score as well as a touching story about an elfin boy who tries to save his village from the dark and mysterious Lord Shadow of Shadow Island.

In addition to its story and music, Boulder Dash was also praised for its innovative controls, especially its use of

• ‘A’ button

Can you find the sword, torch, boomerang, and collect all of the crystal shards in the correct order? There’s no save feature or password system so be sure to choose wisely – otherwise you’ll have to start from the very beginning: programming the game from scratch.

Always Game of the Year in my heart.

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Sierra On-Line Incorporated introduced our children to a third-person adventure game called EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus.  This game is about a young boy, named Adam, who embarks on a complicated adventure with his talking Dolphin friend.  Along the way, he meets fish with problems, Manatees who require help, a Hermit Crab with an inferority complex and even a Whale.  While this game does bring back some nostalgic memories, it also can broach feelings of blinding white hot RAGE.

Who did those Sierra game designers think they were?!  Attempting to influence and indoctrinate our children with environmental awareness and stewardship!  Who do they think they are, Koolaid or even ADIDAS!?  I may be willing to shell out money for shoes made by Koolaid, but I don’t want to feel bad on weekends when I drive around in my yellow 2007 Hummer, littering and paint balling pedestrians, all the while blasting my Beach Boy C.D.’s.

They have injured my ability to enjoy throwing rice at pigeons and running over Sea Manatees with a Seadoo.  Suddenly the 20 points I would have been awarded for knocking out the Sea Cow is clouded by images of life long friendship between Adam and that damn Manatee security guard!

Recycling? Friendship? Caring? Animal rights and respect?  Are these the values we should have been pushing on our children?  I blame you, Sierra, and EcoQuest for the disillusioned youth and the Copenhagen Summit.

 Maybe my inflatable Margaret Thatcher will make me feel better.

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Beginning our month long retrospective of the Game Boy, we’ll take a look at the origins of the device.

In 1988 Nintendo executives travelled behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union and discovered a game so incredible that they built a console around it. The game’s name was “Tetris.” Tetris is a Russian word meaning “Dead Capitalists.” The game is a futuristic look at a world where western nations have been destroyed. It’s your job to drop the socialist building blocks of love, honor, and respect on top of the empty, cold, capitalist soil.

Are you a bad enough dude to ensure everyone gets a piece of the pie? Nintendo wanted to answer this very question, and tasked Gunpei Yokoi – their finest cake decorator – with creating a console capable of handling the 128-bit Russian masterpiece.

Gunpei emerged a year later with perhaps the most detailed cake version of what we now know as the Game Boy. Nintendo executives were tempted to eat the cake, but instead had it molded and put into production – putting the greater good over their own sinful desires – as Stalin intended.

When the Game Boy was released in 1989, featuring Tetris as the pack-in game, it lit a fire in the cold capitalist hearts around the world. The Game Boy came equipped with a link cable port, allowing newly recruited communists to share the game with one another and spread the message.

By 1990 the Soviet agenda had been furthered so much by the Game Boy’s release that the Berlin wall came down, allowing the West Germans, who’d found enlightenment in Tetris, to travel to East Germany and understand what it was to “share.”

Some say Game Boy is about video games, but they’re missing the point. It’s about equality. It’s about rationing. It’s about combing your hair each morning with a worn out shoe polishing brush given to you by the government – and enjoying it.

The Walkman was originally introduced to North America as the Soundabout. It was the first device which enabled the portable listening of music.

One of the drawbacks of the Walkman was that you were forced to listen to songs in consecutive order. This was addressed years later with the invention of "Radio" which enabled songs to be shuffled into a random sequence.

Another drawback was the Walkman’s reliance on AA batteries. The estimated battery life of 47 seconds meant that rather than listening to music, Walkman owners could simply sample it. This sampling concept would later come into play in the hip-hop community.

Eventually Walkmen were equipped with belt-fed battery loaders, capable of loading several thousand batteries per second. The same technology was used in Vietnam to load lead batteries into power-hungry Charlie.

Finally I can listen to my Fleetwood Mac cassettes from the comfort of a stranger’s patio.

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