Compilations of old arcade games serve many purposes. One, they reintroduce the classics
to a new audience. Two...they illustrate just how bad I am at video games.
How many times can Derek die in five seconds? Starting...NOW.
You know, the whole concept of dying in video games is just stupid. Listen, if I paid for
the game, I should be allowed to experience it. Can you imagine buying a loaf of bread,
only to be told, �Dinner Over?� Before you even got to eat the damn thing? This whole
notion is just preposterous.
So is this game�s name. It�s Konami Collector�s Series: Arcade Advanced.
There�s almost as many words in the name as titles in the game!
So this game was sent to us by our good friend Marc from Brooklyn. I was excited to see this
come in, too. I�m a huge fan of old-school everything. My general approach to life is...the
older, the better. Games, movies, cartoons, women�the principle always stands. The only
problem when it�s applied to video games is...old games are f*cking hard, as balls.
As you might�ve gathered from the title, this is a collection for the Game Boy Advance.
Konami released this back in 2002, which was already 11 years ago. That�s pretty crazy.
Anyway, it comes with six classic Konami arcade games. Frogger, Scramble, Gyruss, Time Pilot,
some kung fu game I can�t pronounce...and Rush�n Attack.
And I really like that lineup. You get the big names like Frogger and Rush�n Attack,
as well as some lesser-known classics. Games I�d never even heard of, to be honest, like
Scramble and Gyruss. And Kung Fu McGee. These are very faithful recreations of the arcade
originals, too, built from the ground up for the GBA hardware.
Of course, Frogger is probably the headliner. It�s one of my least favorites in the batch,
but a classic nonetheless. The kung fu game, on the other hand, is my least favorite. It�s
just a really weird game. I guess, ostensibly, it�s about timing. But honestly, I�m not
even sure. You have an arrow that follows you around�no idea what it means. Nonetheless,
this was a very early fighting game, and it shows. This one is more of a novelty than
a still-playable classic, like the others in the collection.
Rush�n Attack is as awesome as it ever was. It�s basically a side-scrolling stabbing
game, with the Cold War aesthetics so characteristic of gaming in the 80s. Time Pilot is interesting,
too...it�s a shooter, but it�s not side scrolling. In fact, it�s everywhere scrolling.
You can fly your plane in 360 degrees and take down enemy fighters...and it�s freaking
hard as hell. But my favorite game in this collection is easily Gyruss. It�s, like...if
you took the classic eighties space shooter, but gave it a Tempest perspective.
Like most compilations, this one only goes as far as its included titles. And frankly,
a decade later, having only six games on a portable compilation feels very dated. But
in 2002, this was a sweet collection. It doesn�t save high scores, which sucks, but the games
are faithfully recreated, there�s some new content and hidden extras...
And this time...no quarters required. Or I�d go broke.
It�s Konami Collector�s Series: Arcade Advanced.