High octane, side-scrolling, shoot-em up action!

Captain Planet and the Planeteers is based on a cartoon of the same name, which follows the story of Johnny America and his personal jet – aptly named Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

In Captain Planet and the Planeteers, players take control of Johnny and his jet while they try to defeat the invading forces of Esso, Irving, and Exxon-Mobil and effectively bring down the Democratic and Republican parties of the United States by eliminating the source of their funding.

Thematically, Captain Planet and the Planeteers takes a different approach to gaming by focusing on what is known as a psycho analytical inversion. Players are encouraged to throw hatred in the forms of swastika-shaped projectiles at incoming enemies. But because of the simple fact that hate cannot destroy Big Oil, the player will not succeed until she or he can address her or his own inner Big Oil.

…Of course, there is less soul-searching involved if you just turn the console off. Highly recommended.

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Grab your helmets and strap yourself into a large piece of metal ‘cause it’s time for Championship Rally! Ever since the ‘incident’, Championship Rally now requires all of those participating in its rallies to do so safely.

Championship Rally pushes the Nintendo Entertainment System to its limits with its beautifully rendered quasi-3D graphics and its stellar soundtrack. The controls also shine as the developers managed to show players just how smoothly a cinderblock can take turns. The NES soundboard also begs for forgiveness as Championship Rally squeaks and beeps an orchestral MIDI onslaught.

Championship Rally also has an added feature where players can enter their names for future use – a feature that teaches players that learning how to navigate the menu system is 3/4ths  of the fun.

In the end, players will find that Championship Rally is an excellent wall-crash simulator that will prepare them for the sadness of the real world. This experience alone justifies the title’s re-release as a set of memorial Dale Earnhardt plates.

Once you figure out how to get the plates into the NES, you’re in for the ride of your life.

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Ladies and gentlemen: behold the cutting edge of video game-based entertainment.

Game developers Active Enterprises Ltd. took a risk in calling this game Cheetah Men II, since the first game saw a limited release in the form of a single wax-cylinder. The second installation, however, saw a much wider release as it was purchased by Nintendo of America and repackaged for North Americans as Super Mario Bros. 2.

Cheetah Men II follows the story of the Battletoads after they escaped from Witch Mountain. Fans will see many similarities to previous titles as they jump, walk to the right, and – if they decide to walk while attacking – shooting arrows out of their chests.

Cheetah Men II also has familiar controls, as the ‘B’ button jumps, the ‘A’ button attacks, and the ‘power’ button on the Nintendo Entertainment System console allows players to realize that they’re alive and still have time to go do something meaningful.

All the signs of a true classic.

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How 2 pounds of soggy noodles irradiated the world.

Not content with using wood stoves to boil their noodle rations, the Soviets longed for something more. The solution came (as it often did) in smuggled American magazines – printed some 15 years previous.

The spineless, gutless, jellyfish of America had somehow developed an oven capable of browning a turkey using only the smiles of children to power it. Unfortunately the U.S.S.R. was devoid of smiling children, so a new method of powering such a device needed to be found.

A breakthrough came about in 1977 when a group of the Soviet Union’s top scientists were able to mildly heat a glass of water using a compact device known as a “Nuclear Power Plant.” This “power plant” was perhaps not as svelte as the American “microwave,” but what it lacked in looks it made up for in ability to create nuclear fallout.

Comrades within the Soviet Republic were eager to have a plant in their own backyards, but first it needed to be able to actually boil water.

In 1982 a test was conducted to see if, given the risk of blowing the entire plant up, a glass of water could be boiled. The test was a complete success as the plant’s core suffered a meltdown.

In 1986 they followed the previous test with another, this time willing to risk destroying the entire Ukraine in order to boil the water needed to make some tasty and moist noodles.

And boil the water they did – in quite incredible fashion. Not only did the Soviets boil the water – they boiled the vegetation and the citizens. As the nuclear power plant exploded, it unleashed an incredible blast of radiation across all of eastern and western Europe.

Now all that’s needed for a boiled cup of noodles is to walk into the 1000 kilometer radius surrounding Chernobyl – the water should boil immediately, along with your skin and internal organs.

Mission Accomplished Comrades! Chalk up another victory for Soviet ingenuity! High fives!

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The first of many Japanese titles to commemorate the United States’ first successful manned-missile explosion.

In Challenger, players are put in the shoes of John S. Washington, one of NASA’s leading scientists. After working for twenty-hours per day for the last five-weeks on the Challenger Missile, Washington wakes up in a cold sweat as he realizes a grievous error: he forgot to correctly assemble the exploding mechanism (a plunger and a fuse). Washington leaps out of bed and hops on the nearest southbound train, thus beginning the game.

Players must try to get from the top of the train to the “inside” of the train in order to comply with safety standards, using their throwing knives in order to fend off rabid birds and angry men who are Communists and want the US government to fail.

Can you make it to the launch-site without enough time to fulfill God’s will, or will you be convicted of treason? Choose quickly, you only have 99 seconds.

The birds are a metaphor.

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Thank patriarchy for a toy so deliciously Freudian.

While originally released in the 1960s and again in 1970s, Clackers briefly disappeared before making a triumphant return in the 1980s in order to be sold again, before consumers realized that they already had a pair from the previous decades.

Based off a design that naturally occurs in nature, Clackers consisted of two balls attached by a string, which had either a plastic ring or handle in the middle for the clackee to hold.

Once the cartridge was loaded, players had a number of modes to select from, as shown in the following official Clackers Guide to Clack Successfully.

The Clackers suffered another decline in popularity as children began to become ‘soft’ toward the end of 1980s. There were complaints about the balls shattering upon impact and children taking the hard, acrylic plastic balls off the face.

In a later attempt to sell the product once again, not only were the balls made out of a lighter plastic, but the string was also removed and replaced with solid plastic connectors that left nothing to chance and kept the balls on a definite path.

Manufacturers also decided to include “handles” that allowed the players to “hold on”, bringing Clackers from “being more of a weapon” into the realm of being “kind of a toy”.

Clack, clack, clack, clack. Yup, that’s wonderful!

Why anyone would want to do that, I have no idea.

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