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1. Grandia (PlayStation)
2. Jungle Hunt (Xbox - Taito Legends)
3. Jungle Hunt (Atari 2600)
4. Jungle Hunt (Plug & Play - ColecoVision Flashback)
5. Donkey Kong (Atari 2600)
6. Donkey Kong (Intellivision)
7. Donkey Kong (ColecoVision)
8. Bubble Bobble (NES)
9. Side Arms: Hyper Dyne (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
10. 1941: Counter Attack (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
11. Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PSP)
12. The Ninja Kids (Xbox - Taito Legends)
13. Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16)
14. Golden Axe Warrior (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
15. Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 (Dreamcast)
16. Growl (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
17. Arabian Magic (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
18. Dungeon Magic (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
19. Gekirindan (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
20. Ys II (Saturn - Falcom Classics II)
21. Darius Gaiden (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
22. G Darius (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
23. Giana Sisters DS (DS)
24. RayStorm (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
25. Mr. Do! (ColecoVision)
26. Beauty & the Beast (Intellivision)
27. Boxing (PlayStation 2 - Activision Anthology)
28. Crystalis (NES)
29. Dragon Warrior (NES)
30. Faxanadu (NES)
31. Tombs & Treasure (NES)
32. Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy)
33. Kirby's Adventure (NES)
34. Kirby Super Star (SNES)
35. Hoshi no Kirby 64 (Nintendo 64)
36. Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS)
37. Dig Dug (Wii - Namco Museum Megamix)
38. Phoenix (Xbox - Taito Legends)
39. Phoenix (Atari 2600)
40. Pleiads (Xbox - Tecmo Classic Arcade)
41. Kangaroo (Atari 2600)
42. Final Fantasy Adventure (Game Boy)
43. Gorf (Atari 2600)
44. Richard Scarry's Huckle and Lowly's Busiest Day Ever (Pico)
45. Mickey's Blast Into the Past (Pico)
46. Secret of Mana (SNES)
47. Psycho Soldier (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0)
48. Genshi-Tou 1930's (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0)
49. Datsugoku: Prisoners of War (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0)
50. SAR: Search and Rescue (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0)

1984 was a tough year for gaming. The Crash had decimated much of the second generation and the NES was still a year away (though the Famicom had been released in Japan). The console games that slowly continued to trickle into the market consisted mainly of re-issues, late arcade ports, and licensed titles such as this.

Now licensed games have something of a bad reputation; some would say it's deserved. But Gremlins isn't all that bad. It consists of two distinct "boards" before looping. The first plays out like Activision's Kaboom! The movie's main character (Billy?) must catch the Mogwai before they descent upon midnight snacks. If a Mogwai is to reach a burger it transforms into a Gremlin cocoon. Strangely enough there doesn't seem to be a way to "lose" in these stages. Though if you miss shooting down a Mogwai you also miss an opportunity to gain points.

Stage two plays out like a fixed shooter. The Gremlins hatch out of their cocoons and make their way to the screen bottom. Here they must be shot before reaching their destination; otherwise a life is lost. When all Gremlins are taken down the game loops. I believe stage 8 is where the difficulty reaches its peak and every stage after is just 8 on repeat.

Screenshots don't do the game justice. Graphics are simplistic, but everything controls quite smoothly. There's some nice animation and a cute little musical ditty too. The game is rare and rather expensive. Is it worth is? Maybe to collectors. For casual gameplay just stick to the more common titles that Gremlins apes - namely Kaboom! and Space Invaders.

As far as the Year Challenge goes, I may now be done with second gen consoles. Let's see if I can get through a NES launch title next...

This isn't part of the Year Challenge, but I decided to give it a go since I already had the Atari hooked up.

I also have a stupid anecdote to go along with this one. There's a lone independent game store in my local city. It's frequently staffed by someone we (by "we" I mean prfsnl_gmr and I) know only as "The Guy." Now, The Guy is a rather gregarious and loquacious fellow. But he's also known for for his crass sense of humor and propensity to rant endlessly.

During one such rant he was semi-coherently relaying his dissatisfaction with modern games. Halo is for fratboys. Nintendo is baby-ish. Xboxes don't even work. PS3 is too expensive. And so on. At the apex of his ramblings he exclaimed "I'd rather just play Frogs and Flies than any of this bullshit!" So, The Guy, I dedicate this playthrough to you.

F&F was developed by Mattel for the Atari 2600 and C64. Later, an "enhanced port" known as Frog Bog was made available on the Intellivision. The game is very similar to the old Sega-Gremlin arcade game known simply as Frogs.

The goal in Frogs and Flies is to eat more flies than your AI or second-player opponent. Player 1 is a green frog, while the AI/player 2 is red. Oddly enough the red frog starts with a bit of a lag; if a second player doesn't touch a joystick within a few seconds then the computer simply takes over.

Two game modes are available. In the standard mode any movement of the joystick will cause your frog to jump cleanly from one lilypad to the other. The controls can also be changed to another setting where up is used to jump and left and right cause your frog to walk/hop around. With this configuration frogs can also fall in the water with mistimed jumps; getting out takes a second or two. I'd really recommend sticking to the default controls as the game is annoyingly difficulty otherwise.

Flies have all sorts of different patterns. Some move in a straight line while others zoom erratically around the screen. The background slowly changes throughout the game from morning to night, concluding with a black sky. Surprisingly, F&F has an ending complete with the text THE END being dragged across the screen by a firefly. Though, this does occur whether you win or lose thus making beating the game and "achieving" a Game Over indistinguishable.

Well, The Guy was sort of correct. Frogs and Flies is a lot of fun. Better than modern games? Eh, probably not. But it's cheap enough and entertaining enough to deserve a place in any Atari collection.

Like everyone else who backed Mighty No. 9, I got this game for free. Even if I had paid the four bucks the game normally costs, I think I'd be happy with it. There's not really much to say about this. It's a short and sweet 2d platformer.

I played this last year after finishing the X campaign and found it to be frustrating. I beat this mode about three weeks ago and... found it to be frustrating. This mode just does not jive with the game. Vile has to stand still to fire most of his weapons, he can't dash despite being able to do so in his X Mode boss fight, and the points system leads to either an unbalanced or middling arsenal. The free play mode, the mode that allows Vile to use any combination of weapons desired without managing points, fixes one of these problems, but that's all it does. Traversing the Mega Man X stages with Vile is an awkward ordeal of slowly avoiding enemy fire, mid-air bomb drops, and standing still waiting for things to die. It was kinda fun to play as one of the series's baddies, but this just doesn't feel right.