Mortal Kombat

System: Sega Genesis

Cheats Used: None

When Mortal Kombat hit the arcades in 1992, it caused a sensation, both for its violence (which upset many parent’s groups) and for it’s fantastic gameplay and visuals which featured live actors digitized into the game. In fact, this game was one of the primary reasons we now have a videogame rating system after congressional hearings on the subject of videogame violence. The game features eight fighters all dukeing it out for the chance to battle Shang Tsung and his top general, Goro. It would go on to become a huge media franchise, spawning many sequels as well as movies, tv shows, comic books and a ton of other merchandise.

So how about the home version? Unlike the Super NES translation, which replaced the blood with “sweat”, all the mayhem of the arcade original is intact in the Genesis port. The game isn’t terribly difficult due to the fact that it’s easy to spam your special attacks and I made it almost all the way to the end before I ran out of continues. The controls are perfect and simple enough for anyone to pick up and play and sound is decent as well. And, of course, it’s even more fun if you have someone else to play with. All in all, it’s very easy to see why it became such a phenomenon and why the series continues to this day.

Wayne's World

System: Sega Genesis

Cheats Used: Infinite Health

I’m a big fan of Wayne’s World. The movie is one of my all time favorites. So imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the game is a horrible, worthless piece of crap. Seriously, this is one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I would have turned it off except I hit the final boss just as I decided to quit.

First, you start off with five hit points and you can refill them as you go through the levels, but that doesn’t help when almost every hazard is almost impossible to avoid. Second, the level design is confusing and it’s easy to get lost and wind up back where you were a few minutes ago. Third, the between-level bits with Wayne and Garth are lame and not even the slightest bit funny. Fourth, hearing Wayne say “Not!” every time he gets hit gets very annoying very fast because you get hit a lot. Fifth, the levels are all very bland and there’s little to no variety between them. In short, this game is an absolute train wreck and should be avoided at all costs.

Ms. Pac-Man

System: Sega Genesis

Cheats Used: None

Now this is what I call a fantastic arcade translation! In this version of Midway’s classic game produced by Tengen (Atari’s multiconsole development arm), you not only get a perfect port of the arcade original, but you are given a multitude of options to customize the experience. First, you have the ability to set the difficulty level at Easy, Normal, Hard or Crazy. Second, you can turn on the “Pac Booster” setting which allows you to move two or three times faster while keeping the ghosts at regular speed. This setting makes the game a lot more fun (at least for me), but it’s a double-edged sword because in the later levels when the ghosts speed up, it becomes harder and harder to dodge them, thus making the game more challenging.

Third, in addition to the regular one-player game, there are options for two-player cooperative, two-player competitive and two-player alternating. Last but not least, there are no less than four different sets of mazes to choose from: Arcade, Strange, Big or Mini. A nice feature is that from the start you can choose to begin on a later level up to level seven and once you’re past that and into the higher levels, you can continue up to four times when you lose all your lives, although continuing resets your score to zero. This is a good way to get some practice on the tougher mazes. Using my continues, I was able to get to level 14 or 15, far beyond what I was ever able to do in the original game. Tengen ought to be commended for creating such a superlative experience and if you like Pac-Man at all, you should definitely give this one a try. You won’t be disappointed.