There aren’t many games as revered as these ones.
Defender.
Robotron.
Sinistar.
Joust.
During an era when there were a lot of big games, these were some of the biggest.
These games defined an era.
And even more than that, they defined games, in the popular culture.
They were a big deal, these games.
That’s why it’s so hard to criticize these games, but…
Sometimes, you don’t have a choice.
Thanks a lot, Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits for the Game Boy Advance.
So the GBA has a lot of these games.
Little collections of classic retro games.
And you’d think it’d be easy to put these kind of games on this kind of hardware.
It turns out that’s not the case, ‘cause a lot of these collections are kind of lousy.
This one isn’t, but…it’s not that great, either.
Actually, the problem is it’s half lousy.
Two of these games are alright…
The other two are sacrilege to the old-school.
This is like taking a sh*t in someone’s VHS player.
Why would you even do that, except to be an *sshole?
The package itself is pretty straightforward.
It’s just the four games, not really any extras or anything…which, for a collection
of only four games, is kind of a bummer.
It’d be nice if there were some extra stuff in here, to sweeten the deal.
But then again, if you can’t even get the games right, I shudder to think what the extras
would’ve been.
Footage of someone crying, in the corner?
A coupon for a free ice cream cone?
Only you get to the bottom, and you see that it’s only redeemable at your local Burger
Chef, which hasn’t been open since the arcade days?
Oh, thanks a lot, Midway.
You bankrupt *sshole.
But like I said, two of them aren’t bad, so let’s start with those.
I actually had fun with Robotron.
Which isn’t saying much, though, ‘cause how can you not have fun with Robotron?
You could be playing Robotron in front of a 50-foot tsunami full of two-headed sharks…and
you’d be having fun with Robotron.
Only problem with this one are the controls.
You don’t have two control sticks, so…you can only shoot in the direction you’re moving.
And that sucks.
That takes some getting used to.
But even when you’re playing gimped Robotron…you’re still having fun with Robotron.
Definitely the highlight of the package.
Next up, there’s Defender.
And Defender’s another one that’s pretty hard to screw up.
Even though this game does its best to try.
The problem here is, believe it or not…slow down.
This thing chugs like a crappy metalcore band in a fresh pair of women’s jeans.
And usually, this happens when an advance game is really pushing older hardware.
The opposite is true here.
This is advanced hardware, slowing down because of an older game…which is totally weird.
I mean, I’m not a technical guy, so I have no idea why that’s happening…but it does
make the game a little hard to play sometimes.
Not that Defender is ever easy.
And like, who ever saves the people?
I don’t.
Who has time, to save people?
Now, the
thing is…even these decent games run into one bigger problem.
And that is, the smaller screen of the Game Boy Advance.
I mean, these are arcade games.
And they were meant to be played on, you know, arcades.
Squeezing them down to this size poses some problems.
And those problems really have an effect…on Sinistar.
That smaller window means you can’t see much of anything.
Which means, half the time you spend playing…you’re just bumping into rocks.
And not only because you didn’t see them, but also because the controls suck.
Playing Sinistar with a d-pad is a d-saster.
I was gonna go with sinis-turd, but…
Actually, that one might’ve been better.
Joust isn’t any good, either.
The hit detection is all off, the controls are rough…I mean, I’ve always been more
of a Balloon Fight guy anyway…but even I can appreciate how awful this version of Joust
is.
This is probably the worst one I’ve ever seen.
It’s, just…
You know what?
What’s the point?
You get the idea, this sucks.
We all get it.
And it looks okay, that’s the thing.
The graphics are alright, the sound and music are mostly okay, apart from some missing sound
effects…you look at this, and it’s like, “Alright, arcade games!
These were some of the biggest arcade games, during the golden era of arcade games!”
And not just because I already said that, several minutes ago.
But then, minutes later…you see the truth, this game sucks.
And this review is over.
So we’re right back where we started.
What have we even achieved?
Thanks a lot, Midway.
It’s Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits—er, kind of—for the Game Boy Advance.
Thanks to Marc from Fresh Meadows, New York, for sending it in.