• Rock'n Rage Header
    1980s,  Review,  The Quarterhole

    Review – Rock’n Rage

    Musicians traveling through time is strangely well-trodden ground. Rock'n Rage could be called a pioneer of it. Maybe? It involves bandmates hitting mummies with their instruments. I'm not sure there's another game like it out there, so that's positive. It's just too bad the quality isn't quite there.

  • China Gate Header
    1980s,  Review,  The Quarterhole

    Review – China Gate

    Technos might be better known for the Double Dragon and Kunio-Kun games, but they've gone weirder with their beat-'em-ups. China Gate is a 1988 arcade game about the cast of Journey to the West fighting Oompa Loompas and Danny DeVito. I may be stretching things a bit with my interpretation.

  • Street Rod Header
    1980s,  Review

    Review – Street Rod

    My dad probably would have loved Street Rod if we had it on our old DOS Shell/Windows 3.1 machine. Now, he's just going to have to live vicariously through me as I live out the '60s car culture dream. Unfortunately, said dream doesn't include a 427 cu. in. engine.

  • Hoshi wo Miru Hito Header
    1980s,  Kusoge,  NES

    Review – Hoshi wo Miru Hito

    I’ve spent quite some time mired in the sticky pits of kusoge. Crap games are becoming an area of expertise for me. That’s not simply to say that I know of a lot of bad games, but rather that I know how to appreciate them. That’s right. Did you know you can enjoy bad games? Not just in an ironic…

  • Ben Bero Beh Header. Image via FlyerFever.com.
    1980s,  Bakage,  Review,  The Quarterhole

    Review – Ben Bero Beh

    I have a confession to make: I’m attracted to weird Japanese arcade games. There’s a word for it: Bakage (Ba-kah-gey, not ba-cage). It means stupid game. It’s not to be mistaken for kusoge (koo-so-gey) which means crappy game. I have made the mistake before, but merely because I didn’t know there was a name for bizarre games. 1984’s Ben Bero…

  • Monster Party Bert talking to, uh, I think his name is Mike.
    1980s,  Miscellaneous,  NES

    3 Child Endangering NES Intros

    Rescued from the now sunk Destructoid community blogs, this article harkens back to a time when I was desperate for attention. I mean, I still am, but I was then, too. It's about how 8-bit children threw themselves headlong into danger, sometimes for the promise of candy, other times through coercion.

  • Castlevania NES Header
    1980s,  NES

    Review – Castlevania

    I still remember the day after I first completed Castlevania. I met with my friend and said to him, "Okay, you're really not going to care or even understand what I'm going to tell you, so just pretend to be excited: I beat Castlevania." He was very convincing in his performance.