“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

When Dracula X: Rondo of Blood first made it on the US Virtual Console, I remained casually interested. The early Castlevania franchise has simply never enthused. Yes, the music is always excellent, and the series art has always had the fun Gothic aesthetic, but I just found the whole classic Castlevania era fairly archaic.

Simon Belmont always felt stilted in his movement, almost gawky. Don’t even get me started on how gimped the throwing weapons were. I naturally presumed Rondo of Blood would simply be more of the three NES games I couldn’t get into.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Before you were a gangster on the mean streets of Liberty City or a super powered cop in Pacific City, there was Driver on the original Playstation. You take on the role of Tanner, an undercover cop and former race car driver. It is up to you to infiltrate the gangs and help clean up New York City from the inside out.

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"Panel de PokéMon!"

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Long before the sequel to Meteos was themed with Disney characters, a Japanese puzzle game named Panel de Pon came over to North America after being re-branded with characters from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island and renamed Tetris Attack. Jump four years ahead and we find the game now re-re-branded with a paint job of the ever popular PokéMon series.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

I was perusing the internetz when I came across the news that EA is bringing the NBA Jam franchise back. I knew immediately that my next FOG review would have to be about the pinnacle of the NBA Jam series, NBA Jam: Tournament Edition. I hooked up a Genesis and proceeded to rain 3′s on the computer’s head.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

The Nintendo 64 was not known for the quality of its fighting games and War Gods certainly doesn’t help. This is one of those games that seems like the developers were trying to copy what their eight-year-old nephew told them Mortal Kombat was like, only the eight-year-old speaks a language no one understands and the uncle has a degenerative brain disease.

Sadly, some poor kid got this game for Christmas and now he hates war; all because of this game.

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"...something about bubblegum"

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Before I get going here, I want to ask a simple question: What happened to friendly, jammin’ aliens like Toejam and Earl? It seems no matter where you look, the gaming industry is cramming ‘shoot aliens’ down our throat.

Mass Effect, Gears of War, Halo, Half-Life… all of these franchises highly successful, and all of them based on the same simple formula; Go in. Shoot some aliens. Save the day.

But before anyone confronted Saren, closed an emergence hole, pistol whipped a grunt or decided a crow bar works better as a club, Duke Nukem was the prime offender.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

At some point when I was hanging out with Dave at his place of employment, Gamer Time, someone traded in a game for the NES that I had never heard of, Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos. Having grown up with the system, it always fascinates me to find games that I completely missed as a kid.

The cover art, posted as the header for this review, gave us a good laugh. It also had the box and manual intact, which pushed my decision to buy the game over the top.

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"Will blaze lasers be enough?!"

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Console ports of arcade SHMUPs are far from a rarity. In times past, the market was flooded with them. But something about that tried and true formula always keeps me coming back, even today.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Looking back on 1996 a few tumultuous events may come to mind, ranging from the controversial accusations and trial of O.J. Simpson, to finding out our favorite cycling champion was inflicted with a treacherous testicle tumor. But more importantly, at least in the eyes of a (at the time) four year old child, 1996 was the dawning of a new generation of gaming with the launch of the largely successful Nintendo 64. Only 2 games were available with the launch of this console, and only one of them was able to hold my interest every time I visited my cousins brand new ‘super-system’. I’m talking about, of course, Super Mario 64.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

In our horribly named, but entirely delightful, weekly series, we jump into the official WingDamage Delorean and go back… back in time to examine some of the games of yesteryear. So let’s see if we can get this baby up to 88 miles per hour and go back to 1985 and look at Duck Hunt for the NES.

The Nintendo Entertainment System came packed with the raddest looking light gun in the history of video games. In the 80′s, the NES zapper looked like the future. When you were done pretending to shoot your friends with it, you could use it to play what I still consider to be one of the best light gun game ever made.

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