deKay

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 …

Yes, the 72-in-1 has a light gun, and Duck Hunt is one of the built in games! It’s a lot easier than I remember, though, managing to get to Round 22-ish, with a score of over 560,000 on my first go. I only missed three ducks in total, and by Round 22 you can’t miss any. And I did.

My “72-in-1 V-Com Console” (from GBAX) arrived today, so I set that up. Of course, it doesn’t have 72 actual games, only about 12 and then variations on them. Pocket Monster is the first on the list, and surprisingly, isn’t a hacked copy of another game. OK, so it’s pants – a crap side scrolling platformer with rubbish graphics and sound, but at least it’s a “new” game. And yes, it does star Pikachu.

Hurrah! 36 card “run”! Then of course, I chose Double or Nothing, and got… nothing. Bah. Had several more goes though, but didn’t manage anything near 36 cards. 15 was about the limit after that.

A helpful young lady on Usenet explained what I was supposed to do in this game, and so I started having more success with it. It seems you pick a start card, and from then on, all cards you place down must be either the same suit, or same value. And that’s pretty much it. I did manage a run of 24 cards, which was pretty good, I thought.

I’m really quite impressed with this game. I’ve managed about 12 stages so far, with Million Invaders being the most taxing. There are about four times as many invaders as usual, all 1/4 of the size. It takes quite a while to kill them all, plus you’ve got more to shoot at you! I found out that getting hiscores on Original mode also unlocks power-ups for New Age mode, so I played that for a bit too. And only managed …

Yes, I got some new games today! Space Invaders DS is, in one game mode at least, exactly what you would expect – a port of the original arcade game. In “New Age” mode, however, you get all kinds of bizarre layouts, patterns, screen “widths” and other such stuff. I completed one zone in this mode, and most of a second zone, before dying.

Technically, this is the same title as Cool 104 Joker, since they’re on the same card and you share “Ruze” points between the two games. It is entirely different to play, however, coming up like a cross between Glocal Hexite and Pipe Mania. I also understand how to actually play this one too – line up pipes across the board to get points. It isn’t easy, but at least I know what to do!

But only for 15 minutes or so, as I have no idea what you’re supposed to do. I mean, it’s a bit like Video Poker to look at, but them rules don’t seem to apply here.

It did click! Well, a bit, anyway. I completed the first level fairly easily this time, and then decided on the Pirate level. The “booty” puns were, quite frankly, filthy. I didn’t complete it this level though, but I was only 30 or so coins off the required 500.

“Erm” is probably the best way to describe this game. Either that or “Cel Damage meets Jet Set Radio meets Area 51“. The fact that one of the characters seems to be Mojo Jojo in a different body is also disturbing. I’ve only played one level so far, and that had involved randomly “becoming” people, laying giant yellow drawing pins, vacuuming up coins, and punching people with a huge spring-loaded boxing glove. And some rollerskating. I failed the level, but …