Sword legion : Clearly, you haven't played Ocarina of Time recently. You are likely going from memories when you played it back when you had much less experience as a gamer and thus remember it being harder. But if you play the two games back to back, you'll see Twilight Princess has much longer dungeons, trickier puzzles, and much harder bosses, especially in the earlier dungeons.

Top Gear was one of my favorite racing games from my childhood. I have played this game many times through and know just about every detail of the game. Is the game good? Let's see.

To start with, the game is quite ugly for Super Nintendo Entertainment System standards. It's not bad enough that you can't tell what things are, but it certainly doesn't use the full power of the console. The graphics also do a poor job of discriminating between hazards. For example, most turns in the game will have arrow signs telling you to turn. Crashing into theses signs drastically slows your car down. However, the much larger construction signs as hazards on the road don't slow you down any more than these signs. And some obstacles, despite being much smaller or weaker than these signs (such as billboards and even GRAPES) will stop your car as if you'd just ran into Superman. There is also very little variation in terms of level design (graphically) - all there seems to be are grass levels, snow levels, and desert levels. There are also night and day levels, sometimes the sun rises or sets during a level, and your headlights turn on or off - a nice effect for the time.

The sound is even worse than the graphics. It isn't outside of reason to think that the original Game Boy would've handled these sounds - generic music, crashes that sound the same whether you're hitting rocks or trees, and nitro that sounds like a finger snap.

But games are not sounds or graphics. The real question is the gameplay good?

You have four cars to choose from, as well as automatic or manual transmission, a few different control schemes, metric or imperial, and even the ability to type in your name. The cars range from a lightning fast car that guzzles down the gas, accelerates poorly and turns like an elephant, to a slow car that turns on a dime, accelerates quickly and seemly never runs out of gas. Fuel consumption is actually quite an important part of the game - the longer races have pits, and it isn't unusual in 7 or 8 lap races to visit the pits twice. But the car makes a big difference - for example, in San Francisco, the Red and Purple cars cannot finish without pitting. The Blue car can get away without pitting, but it will have to move fast to finish without doing so (gas depletes based on RPM, not time or speed). The White car on the other hand can indeed finish the race easily without making a pit stop - a big advantage. On shorter levels, there isn't even a pit stop on the track at all, and if the curves on the track are gentle, then the faster cars have the advantage.

If you're playing alone, then the bottom half of the split screen will be accompanied by "Computer". Really, that's its name (the other AI drivers all have names). It's actually pretty fun to play like this, as it's like having a 2-player mode without the second player. Computer drives much differently than all the other AI drivers. The other AI drivers finish at fixed times (the one to beat is Richie) but Computer's top speed seems to "rubber band" - if you just sit there and don't move, Computer will likely finish 8th. But if you're miles ahead of Richie, then Computer is going to be the only AI close to you. Strangely, the fuel gauge seems to be stacked against Computer - he'll use fuel much faster than you would, but Computer is over-safe about pitting (I've only ever seen him actually run out of fuel once). None of the other AI drivers need to pit, nor do they ever seem to crash.

The controls for this game are pretty smooth, although a tad slow if you're driving one of the cars with bad grip (pretty sure that's indented). The gas pedal, the brakes, shifting gears, and the Nitro all work as expected. It is nice that if you're playing with another person that both players can set their own controls.

The levels are functionally quite well designed. Some tracks are speedways, some tracks are constant turns, and some lay in between. You are racing from country to country around the world and some tracks have landmarks visible (though the graphics render them unimpressively). You progress through the game by finishing at least 5th in a race (in 2 player mode, only one of you needs to finish 5th or higher). But the points add up on the poorly named world ranking (it really should be regional ranking, as it resets every region), and you need to be at least 3rd overall to continue to the next nation. Should you finish below 5th in a race, finish below 3rd in a region, or run out of gas and not finish at all (it is possible to "coast" across the finish line, or to be hit from behind by another driver and "knocked" into the pits) then you are sent back to the beginning of the country and you need to try again.

This game is actually pretty fun to play despite it's poor graphics and sound. Give it a try, the racing is quite fun. But watch out for your rivals - Computer and Richie.

I'm sure you've heard the Angry Video Game Nerd talk swear about this game. And the truth is, it's games like this that create people like him. This game is based on the movie (uh-oh) of the same name. And while the Batman Forever movie is fun and entertaining, this game is nothing of the sort.

First of all, there are load times. Note this is an SNES game, with a cartridge - there simply shouldn't be load times, period. I believe this game was so lazily ported from the PC version (I honestly don't know if the PC version is any better or not) that they left in the "Hold On" screens rather than remove them from the code. The developers must have "copy pasted" the code - there is no other reason to not even think of removing that screen.

The game's levels seem to be set for a side scrolling fighter (like Double Dragon or Streets of Rage) but the battle system is more set up for a tournament fighter (Like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat). This means every enemy you face takes [Batman] forever to die. They aren't actually challenging once you have a pattern down for each enemy, but the fact that every foe you face takes 3 or more of your strongest attacks just to go down wears on your nerves very quickly.

You would believe that progressing though the game would be a simple left to right movement to the end of the level, but it does not work that way. You are required to save random people placed through the level before you can advance. Sometimes they are on the main path, but other times they are placed on higher or lower floors - and you might not even know that the higher or lower floors exist. The graphics on the first few areas show holes in the ceiling or floor to indicate that you can jump up or down to another floor, but these aren't in the rest of the game. And when you DO know that there is a floor above or below, you still don't know where the exact spot is that you're allowed to jump without this graphic. So you're forced to head aimlessly around the level trying to jump.

That is, if you can figure out how to jump up and down floors at all. The regular jump button is... up. That's a bad sign right there - if the jump button is up, you know the controls were poorly designed. But pressing up isn't enough - the jump isn't high enough. So you'll try all the other buttons, but AXBY (the SNES face buttons) only do punches and kicks. So you'll press all the buttons until you happen to press... select, which fires a grappling hook. Why select, rather than a button? But even that's not enough. You need to press select and up to fire the hook straight up and climb a floor. Well, that makes sense, but you don't press them at the same time, like you would in any other video game that has button combinations. You need to press select just before you press up. If you press up too soon, you'll jump instead.

Jumping down is even worse. Most people would try the 3 ways you can normally jump down in a video game:

1. Press Down
2. "Double Tap" Down
3. Down + Jump

Trying either of the first two just makes Batman (or Robin) duck. And because the jump button is up, you can't press down and jump at the same time, due to the way d-pads are designed (using an emulator to press up and down at the same time in some games can glitch them out, since they were designed assuming you couldn't press them both at once). So how do you jump down? You press down and... R. Now, what does pressing R by itself do? Nothing. Outside of this one combination, pressing R does nothing at all. So why can't R by itself just be "jump down"? And just like jumping up, you need to press R, then Down for it to work.

These controls were designed by the Riddler. No one else in the world would design a game and make the basic controls of the game so complicated. The "difficulty" of this game comes completely from the controls.

I have been informed that the genesis version of the game has far better controls. If you insist on playing this game, play the genesis version. But the SNES cart is so bad, that even other movie games are ashamed of it.

Will they BUY retro games as well?
It would be nice to get rid of all these old games that I DON'T like. Seriously, I could trade them for games I actually would play. Kid version of me made quite a few bad decisions when choosing his games.

I also don't own a car, so I can't very well drive to places where they do take older games. But there is a Gamestop within walking distance of where I live, so I could easily buy and sell these games there.

I do hope they are reasonable with the prices though. They better not be charging $19.99 for games from 1999.

The basic premise of Paperboy is you're a... well... Paperboy. This poor boy has been sentenced to the worst paper route in the world, as everything is trying to kill him. Dogs, RC cars, real cars, old ladies, guys pushing their legs in the air, Tornadoes, and the Grim Reaper want to make sure this kid never finishes his route. But don't worry, this kid is going in armed with... a bike. And some newspapers.

While avoiding all the obstacles, you need to actually deliver newspapers. Any house that isn't red is a customer, and you need to land a paper right on their doorstep, or for more points, right in the mailbox. Should you break a customer's window, or fail to deliver their paper at all, they will unsubscribe at the end of the level. The red houses belong to people that are NOT customers - you don't need to deliver a paper to them, but you also don't need to worry about breaking their windows. In fact, you earn points for it. Careful not to waste your ammo though, you only got so many newspapers - look out for a pile of newspapers you can use to refill your supply. These are the only power up in the game.

You start out on the first level - Monday - with half of the street as customers, and three lives. When you finish Monday, you will lose every customer whose window you broke or paper you failed to deliver. Should you deliver every paper correctly, you will actually GAIN a customer at the end of the day. Lose all your customers and you're fired. However, you are far more likely to lose your lives first, as hitting anything (or having something hit you) costs you a life straight away - lose all three and your paperboy will realize what a ridiculously hard job this is and quit.

There is a bonus round at the end of each level, where you can rack up quite a few points. Getting hit on the bonus area doesn't count as a life lost, but it will end your bonus round. Other than the extra lives you may obtain from gathering enough, the points have little meaning. Points were a gaming tradition from the arcade era that lasted into early home systems.

The controls are pretty smooth - the Paperboy moves left and right pretty easily, just watch out for the ramps in the sidewalk - the curb can't be crossed. You can also go faster or slower - faster makes it easier to outrun dangers behind you, but also harder to avoid those in front of you and it's tough aiming papers when you're zipping along like Sonic.

This game is actually very fun, and pretty addictive - it's just brought down by the difficulty. If you're an expert of Ghosts 'n' Goblins or Zelda II, than this might not seem so hard to you, but to everyone else, don't play this and expect to win. The ultimate goal is to finish an entire week and deliver the Sunday edition, but you deserve a medal if you even make it to Wednesday.

This game is infamous the gamer world over. It is THE reason almost all movie based games are doomed to failure. Mr. Spielberg set impossible requirements - the game had to be made within 6 weeks, and they had to make 5 million copies (there were not 5 million Ataris in existence at the time). People bought this game expecting something as god as the movie, and what they got, was THIS.

The goal of the game is to obtain 3 pieces of the phone and "phone home" so the other aliens can pick you (ET) up. You control ET and attempt to find the pieces of the phone. The game is played in an overhead view, and you can progress by moving to the edge of the screen. There are a few issues with this - you'd have to have a map to tell most of the screens from each other. But that's the least of your problems in this game.

As you move through the screens searching for pieces of the phone, you find these holes in the ground. If you fall into them, you have to float out, using some of your power. If your power meter runs down all the way, you lose a life. 3 lives and you're dead - classic video game law. It's also tricky to get out of the hole, you have to be careful to move away from the hole, and that's hard to do with the game's stiff controls. So knowing all this, you want to stay away from the holes... right?

Well you explore all the corners of the map and possibly run across a few enemies (more on them in a moment) and you're not able to find anything. You then mistakenly fall into a hole for the 5th time (again, stiff controls) and realize that yes, that is a piece of the phone, in the hole. To find the pieces of the phone, you need to fall down random holes and hope to find them. It's sheer luck, because every wrong answer costs you energy. Enough wrong guesses and ET ain't phoning home today.

There is one way you can get the game to tell you where a piece is, but that's by pressing the button (there's only one, it's Atari) when the icon at the top of the screen randomly shows a question mark. Even then, a piece of the phone must be on the screen you're on, or it won't work. So, if you're lucky enough, you won't have to be lucky enough to search holes randomly.

Ah, but you'd better avoid the enemies. There are two - the FBI agent and the Scientist. The FBI agent doesn't seem to do anything to ET... at first. But later, if he touches you while you have a piece of the phone, he takes a piece away! So how do you get it back from him? SEARCH MORE RANDOM HOLES?!!??!?!!!?!?!?!?!?!??! That's right, you'd assume he'd lock it up in some government room, but he must just toss it in a hole just to annoy ET. But you've also got another enemies to avoid - the Scientist. If she touches you, she'll drag you to the laboratory square, far away from anything else useful, wasting your precious time.

If (that's a big if) you manage to gather all three pieces of the phone, then you need to return to the starting square of the map (you'd better remember where it is) and then the timer for the UFO to pick up ET will start. So all you need to do is sit there and you wi... wait, no, NOT THE SCIENTIST!!!!!!!!!!

The game does look and sound relatively decent (for Atari standards, of course) but it is nowhere near enough to even begin to make up for the garbage that is the game play.

Vizzed itself knows this game is worthless.

The worst console I OWNED was the Gamecube. There isn't that much on the system worth playing that wasn't published by Nintendo - and even the big N can't make a generation's worth of games by themselves. Granted, it's not like the Gamecube was devoid of good games, there just weren't enough to get through my least favorite generation of gaming (that's generation 6 - Xbox, Gamecube, and PS2).

Also, it had Super Mario Sunshine. Biggest letdown in gaming I've ever faced - poor play control, unnecessary gimmicks, insane difficulty, and a good but only half-finished storyline. I want my fifty dollars back, Nintendo.

Grand Theft Auto 4. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of these 'sandbox' games, but Grand Theft Auto 4 just isn't FUN. It might be 'technically' good in terms of game design, but not much you can do in this game is fun at all. The play control isn't very good either - the shooting seems awkward compared to most shooting controls and the driving is simply awful. That wouldn't be a problem if almost every mission didn't involve driving - it's "drive here, drive there. Drive here", it's seriously worse than an RPG with all the running around the game makes you do. I think the missions have you spend more time driving to them than actual mission time.

It does NOT deserve its metascore. I'm betting part of that huge budget went to bribing critics.

I would actually have to agree. Majora's Mask focuses on the characters - almost every character in the game has a backstory and plots to solve. I also prefer this style of Zelda game over the "Dungeon Based" kind - I actually find exploring the over-world, meeting new characters, and advancing the plot to be far more entertaining than dungeon crawling.

Majora's Mask also brings the 3-day system to the table - I like the time travel concept and how the characters follow their schedules the same way every cycle. The only real drawback is the waiting. Sitting in a certain spot and waiting for something to happen at the correct time can be boring at times. But I still think it's the best of the series so far.

Your favorite Zelda? As in the character herself?
I would have to say the Skyward Sword Zelda was my favorite. She had a lot more character than the other Zeldas throughout the series - the game actually tried to make you care about her and it worked quite well. Most of the other Zeldas basically felt "there to be there" in the early games (the Zeldas in the first two games have 1 and 0 lines, respectively) and only a few others feel like characters at all.

There's also the fact that Skyward Sword Zelda looks like Maya Fey from the Ace Attorney series. That alone would've been enough reason for me to make her my favorite Zelda, but that wouldn't be a fun post to read.

PoorSmeagol83 : In Majora's Mask, Link has a flashback in the beginning of the game (when you knock the Ocarina from the Skull Kid's hand and learn the song of time) with Zelda in it. Granted it's a flashback, but she is there in the game.

The "actual" reason is because the game's creator thought Zelda was a beautiful name. Of course, this would only apply to the first game on NES. In the first few games, the manual talks about Zelda more than anyone else - and it implies that Zelda went through 8 dungeons to hide the Triforce before Link found them later.

I would also like to point out that in very few games is Zelda the ultimate goal. Zelda I, The Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, and Skyward Sword have "Saving Zelda" as the main objective. While Link does need to save Zelda to finish some of the other games, it isn't his primary goal - for example, in Ocarina of time, Link does save Zelda close to the end of the game, but his driving goal was to defeat Gannondorf.

In fact, "defeat Gannondorf" is the main objective more times than "save Zelda" is. Even when Gannondorf isn't the main villain, the replacement usually works for him (like in Zelda II or the Oracle games). So, the series should really be called: The Legend of Gannondorf.

All hail the great Gannondorf!

Am I the only one that thinks it's weird that the time line from where the hero loses comes from the easiest game? OoT is by far the easiest Zelda game - the one you're least likely to lose. I still think it would make more sense to have that branch from Zelda II or one of the games you can actually lose.

I was always a big fan of Paper Mario when I first got it, I must've played through it 10 times between obtaining the game and it's sequel's release. I loved the RPG elements, especially the battle system, but the classic Mario fashion of going through dungeons. The badges are what made the battle system deep and entertaining - most RPGs don't have anything like that. Admittedly, it has nothing on Thousand Year Door, and the puzzles can become stale if you get stuck on one area for too long. But overall, it;s a very fun game to play. Try the other games in the series too.

Yes the minish cap is a very good game indeed. I'd go as far as to say it's the best of the portable Zelda games.

Almost anything in the Ace Attorney Series. Most Sonic music is very good too.

I would say Zelda II would be the hardest game I have ever completed. With passages hidden in unlabeled walls, the unfair enemy patterns and the slowest leveling system I'd ever seen, it was more difficulty than gameplay.

Ok.

I never got far in the original Sim City. I always went bankrupt within a few years and people always complained about my taxes. I guess I'm not a very good mayor.

I'm a plot person. I like my story lines and so do I prefer modern gaming. Retro gaming has it's charms and I love my memories of it, but few retro games can hope to mach the modern plots and characters.

The truth is that Zelda II isn't hard - it's cheap. It throws unfair punches and random enemy patterns at you constantly. It simply isn't fun.

I am in favor of Obama because I don't believe a person should be denied healthcare because they don't make 6 figures. The entire US medical system the way it is currently is a complete joke.

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This picture may have been intended as a joke by it's creator, but it's the cold hard truth. No money, no health care.

Also, I simply cannot vote for someone that is against video games. Mitt Romney may be a wonderful person otherwise, I'll never know. But as he's against video games, I could no sooner vote for him than turn the sky green. Games just mean too much to mean.