This arrived today, so have a quick go on some of the modes. It basically consists of three main types of game: Shanghai, Shisensho, and some sort of “falling” Shanghai, where there’s “gravity” at the bottom of the level and removed tiles allow others to fall. Completed a “standard” Shisensho level, but failed the others.
And, magically, the 72-in-1 also has a Famicom cart slot (although you have to put the cartridges in upside down). So I played this for a while. Actually did pretty well, managing some 18 rounds before I was finally out of points. Normally I struggle to last 5 or 6. One hand of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 Characters / 7-8-9 Bamboo / Pair of Green Dragons was most impressive, until I found I got only about 5,000 points for it, and not the …
Grrr. There is cheating afoot. There must be! I never get any of the tiles I want, and the computer always manages to finish before I’m even halfway. When I get down to needing, say, either a 3 of Bamboo or a 6 of Bamboo to win, I get a steady stream of useless Wind and Dragon tiles. Conversely, if I want a particular Wind tile, all I get is tiles from suits I’m not even aiming for. Cheating. FACT. …
I got a new video capture device today, so I thought I’d test it with my Famicom. And I then spent an hour playing (and losing) Mahjongg on it. Bah. I’m sure this game cheats. You start with 27,000 points, and over the course of about 10 rounds, I lost them all to the computer. I won just one round, and only got about 500 points for that. Cheeky cheating computer. Boooo!
With it being Retro Week (now extended to Retro Fortnight) on ugvm, and with a guy coming up in a few weeks to interview me about old game systems, I rummaged through the loft this weekend for some old kit. Standout games were: Virus (Speccy)It’s a bit bloody hard, yes? Qix (Atari 400)Excellent, even if the Qix (that’s the multi-line baddie in the middle, yes?) seemed to move at random rather than bounce off things. River Raid (Atari 400)Pretty good, …
This arrived today (so no box scan yet). It is a compilation of 10 or so “table games”, although how Breakout is a table game, I have no idea. Played Breakout (which bizarrely has to be played with the d-pad and not the more obvious stylus), Mahjongg, Patience (“Solitare” for you merkins), Othello (“Reversi”, again for merkins), a card game I figured out how to play but don’t know the name, and what I know as “Shisensho”. They were all …
Another Pocket PC game, this. It’s a poor man’s Shanghai really, but passes the time. Mind you, I actually have Shanghai on my iPaq too, so I don’t really know what I’m playing NeoTiles for…