For years Ice Climber was nothing but a forgotten NES title, but that all changed in 2001 when Super Smash Bros. Melee came out and featured it’s protagonists, Nana and Popo, as playable characters (known together as Ice Climbers). At the time, I was quite a big Nintendo fan (though not as big a fan as I am today) but I had no idea who those two were and so through their inclusion I discovered Ice Climber. Surely, I thought to myself, this must be one of the truly great titles of the past, to have been honoured so greatly in the Super Smash Bros. series.

Nope. Ice Climber is actually really boring. It has not aged well and is probably one of the worst games I’ve ever played. If you’re doing single player, you play as Popo as he climbs up thirty-two different ‘mountains’. Let me tell you about the mountains Popo climbs; basically, they’re nothing like mountains. You will be on the ground and above you is a platform made up of little blocks. Each time you jump into one of the blocks which make up the platform above you, they break off and you have to make a hole for you to jump through and get on to the next platform. At the end of each stage there is a bonus area where you try to retrieve food stolen from you by a condor. It’s a little hard to explain, but I hope that’s clear.

Additional hazards include yeti creatures called Topi which will kill you if they touch you and replace blocks that you’ve destroyed, Nitpickers (bird enemies from Donkey Kong Jr. strangely) and some sunglasses wearing polar bears who jump and make the screen scroll upward. To make things harder, the screen can only scroll up, so if you go high enough that the lower platforms are no longer visible, then you’ll die if you fall off the screen, even if you would have landed on them.

I realise this probably sounds a little basic, but not necessarily bad. Well, there’s one thing I’ve not mentioned; Popo jumps terribly. So often it will feel like you should have landed on a platform only for him to pass through it or to come straight down after hitting his head on a block he should have missed. You press A, Popo jumps, he either goes slightly to the right, slightly to the left, or straight up and, otherwise, you have no control over him. As this will often lead to him falling off the screen (and therefore dying) it can be extremely frustrating. That’s not to mention that your only form of defence against the enemies is a hammer which you can swing forward; Nitpickers are often quite tricky to hit with this, since they’re so much more mobile than you.

The combination of poor controls, bland and repetitive level designs and boring, droning ‘music’ make this game a very poor experience. A minor plus is that the two player mode allows two people to play simultaneously, which is unusual for NES games of this time and quite a pleasant surprise; sadly, it won’t last for long because one or both of the players will quickly run out of lives. Other than being a mild curiosity from the history of Nintendo, I can’t say much that’s good about it. Perhaps one that’s only for the huge Nintendo fans.

Rating: 3/10

Buy it here for NES.

Buy it here for GBA.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version are the games that started out the fifth generation of Pokémon. As the series was often criticised for being too repetitive, changes were made to make these entries somewhat more distinct. Most significantly, until you have completed the game’s story, you won’t see any returning Pokémon, only new ones.

But, of course, many things are still the same. You are still a kid (boy or girl) who is leaving home to travel across the lands to become a Pokémon trainer. You have to battle eight gym leaders, battle the Elite Four and take down a criminal organisation. You still encounter Pokémon in the wild and can catch anything you see. All of it is still done in an RPG style. You gain the ability to travel to more and more areas of the map as your Pokémon learn new skills. As these are all things which help to make the series quite good, I am sure not many will be disappointed by their continued inclusion.

The fact that the world is entirely made up of new Pokémon was something that I enjoyed quite a lot. You never knew what you might see next, which kept things fresh and exciting. Having said that, there are quite a few Pokémon introduced in this game which are just inanimate objects with eyes; this felt a bit lazy. At the time I was particularly disappointed with one named Garbodor. Garbodor is literally a living pile of garbage. Initially I thought it was ridiculous and that it damaged the integrity of the series… but over time, I’ve kind of grown to love it for its sheer absurdity. Speaking of the Pokémon, they now have fully animated sprites during battles, which was a very nice touch which I enjoyed. The game’s story also touched on the morality of capturing Pokémon and using them for battles, which was interesting.

Another thing which especially pleased me about this game was its setting. Previous titles had been set in regions based on regions in Japan, but this time the region (Unova) was based off of New York. I loved this game’s world, especially how urban it was at times and what makes it especially nice is that this was the first time they tried to make proper use of 3D visuals. Admittedly, the 3D isn’t put to use that often and it is generally the isometric 2D style that you’re used to, but it’s nice when it comes up. I was honestly so excited to explore Unova and to find all of its secrets and, even after I beat the story, I had a lot of fun investigating all of the nooks and crannies. At times I was in huge cities, at other times I was in abandoned buildings or wilderness and I loved it all.

So, on the whole, there’s a lot to enjoy about this game and I got well over a hundred hours’ enjoyment out of it. Back in the past, it also used the Nintendo Wi-Fi system to offer online features; there was global trading, which was fun and exciting, and the ability to battle online, I loved all of that, but sadly they have all been discontinued. You can still do local battles and trades though, which of course, is nice. But the single player experience is already very solid, so you’ll still have loads of fun without the online play. Whether you know lots about the series, or merely want to give it a try, either of these games (which are essentially the same) are definitely worth playing.

Rating: 9.5/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

Tetris is my favourite puzzle game ever and while I generally consider the version for the original Game Boy to be the definitive edition, most other editions still have something unique to offer. I find that Tetris DS is one of the only ones which is able to rival my high opinion of the Game Boy game.

What makes Tetris DS unique is that it is themed around NES games. This means that throughout the game, you get cameos from Donkey Kong, Link, Mario, Samus and lots of other classic Nintendo heroes. Not only do you get the pleasure of seeing them in their old 8-bit forms, but virtually the entire soundtrack is made up of superb remixes of classic pieces of NES music. While you play the regular kind of Tetris on the bottom screen, you get to see scenes from various famous NES games paying out on the top; you start to look forward to what you’re going to see next.

There are other non-standard versions of Tetris available to play too; there is a ‘mission mode’ based around The Legend of Zelda where you’re asked to meet certain criteria while playing, one called ‘Catch Tetris’ based around Metroid where you control a block that moves onward through the planet Zebes (you need to collect pieces and make squares while avoiding Metroids), one called ‘Push Tetris’ based around Donkey Kong which has one player controlling pieces which fall upward while another (potentially CPU) player controls ones which fall down and other different modes too. These add some nice variation and I had fun playing them every now and then, but the majority of the time was spent paying the regular mode.

In the past, there was an online mode, which was nice, but which is not available due to the discontinuation of the Nintendo Wi Fi service. There is also a multiplayer mode which is quite fun, and, interestingly, you can use items in a way which is somewhat reminiscent of Mario Kart. Overall it’s a fun experience with lots of nice additions, but ultimately, the classic Tetris gameplay is unbeatable.

Rating: 9.4/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)