Video game of the week: Castlevania for NES

In 1986 gamers across the globe were called upon to face the wrath of no other than Dracula himself. Armed with a trusty whip, and other weapons picked up along the way, gamers by the thousands ventured into the depths of the vampire counts castle, ready to wage war against chambers and halls filled with the evil Dracula's monsters.

Sound familiar? It should. For anyone who has spent a lot of time gaming over the last quarter century, the Castlevania series should be commonplace. Not everyone has played the original game, and not necessarily even the dozens of games and ports that came later in the series, but all gamers should at least recognize the title and the basic game background.

The original Castlevania was released by Konami in 1986, and it hit big in 1987 when it became available for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

The year in the game is 1691, and players control the character Simon Belmont, who is descended from a long line of vampire hunters. Simon's job? To enter that castle and do away with Dracula.

Along the way, players face vampire bats, monsters, deadly pitfalls and a host of bosses, each one tougher than the one before. Special weapons and a few other helpful items can be picked up along the linear landscape that makes up the castle. Altogether there are six levels, each one ending with a boss fight.

The music from this game is quite classic, and stands up well today. The graphics are a little bit more iffy by today's standards, but they still compare well to the arcade graphics of the time and are much stronger than those of other mid-1980s consoles such as the Atari and Intellivision, perhaps even being a little stronger than the graphically-superior Colecovision.

Gameplay also holds up well all these years later, with relatively simple controls that allowed for a lot of fun without having to think too much about what your hands are doing.

This classic game has been ported to other consoles and computers time and time again over the years, and every so often a new game in the series is released. The original Castlevania game was quality in and of itself, and it showed the potential that was to come. Decades later, I'm honored to get to play this game from time to time.

Game of the week: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were hugely popular in the late 1980s. These mutant heroes got their start in comic books, but in 1987 a cartoon television show really kicked off the career of these turtles. Soon there were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) lunch boxes, action figures, and kinds of other merchandise. So it was a natural that a video game would come along in the franchise.

There would eventually be more than 20 TMNT video games made, but the very first one came out in 1989, created by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

The objective of the game was to control one of the Turtles while on a mission to save the Turtles' friend April from the villainous Shredder. After a cartoon-like opening scene that explained who each of the Turtles were, the player's character traveled around an overhead map. The action began when the player's character went down a manhole into the sewers beneath the streets.

Down in the sewers, there were all kinds of enemies to fight. Your basic goons. Giant spiders. Fire monsters. And lots more. To help in the battle against these monstrosities, every so often your Turtle could pick up some special weapons.

Unlike most arcade games of the time period, instead of having the usual three lives, here the player gets four lives, one for each of the Turtles. So, if you played this game enough, you would likely get around to playing all four of the Turtles.

There are six main stages to this game, each ending with a boss.

The graphics were decent, but in my opinion not quite the best the NES had to offer. The action was smooth for the most part, but sometimes there was some flicker during heavy combat scenes. One highpoint of the TMNT game was the sound, which was full of great music.

This game proved popular enough that in 1990 it was ported to numerous computer systems at the time. Also, Nintendo Power magazine named TMNT the 1989 Game of the Year. Today, this game is still around, available on the Virtual Console for the Wii.

Game of the week: Excitebike for NES

After finding some success on the Famicom home video game console in Japan in 1984, Excitebike was released in 1985 on the North American version of the Famicom, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

At the time, Excitebike was a step forward for racing games. For one thing, it wasn't just a simplistic race around an oval track or along a first-person view of the road. Excitebike offered bike racing that included plenty of obstacles, some worse than others, but also allowed the player's bike to do some limited stunts, basicaly jumping up high (which might not seem all that awesome today, but in the early-to-mid 1980s this was pretty exciting for a racing video game).

Basically, the player competes against other bikes along a variety of tracks. The object, of course, is to win. Barring that, the player wants to at least come in second or third place, and to move on to other races and other tracks.

One of the unique features about this game was that it allowed player's to design their own tracks. You could go in and place obstacles wherever you wanted, then play on the track against the computer or friends. The created racing tracks could even be saved on a special cassette recorder, but this machine was, unfortunately, only available in the Japan market. Still, today, through the Virtual Console, these racing tracks can be saved onto the Wii's memory.

Over the years, Excitebike has proved quite popular, and understandably so since the gamplay is quite addictive and holds up well over time. In 1985, an arcade version of this game was released, known as vs. Excitebike. This game has also shown up on several modern and semi-modern gaming consoles, often as a bonus game to unlock. There have also been a couple of sequel games on more modern systems, such as Excitebike: World Rally, which is available for the Wii, and Excitebike 64 for the Nintendo 64.

Game of the week: 10-Yard Fight for NES

Most gamers back in the early 1980s were stuck with sub-par sports games for the most part. The few sports arcade games were awful. Even the giant of home gaming systems at the time, the Atari 2600, had sports games with blocky graphics and weak play. The best of the lot was probably provided by the Intellivision console, but the games for that systems weren't the strongest, either.

Then in 1983 the Japanese company Irem released the arcade game called 10-Yard Fight.

10-Yard Fight was not the greatest game of all time, not by any means. But it was one of the first arcade games in which the gameplay was actually somewhat like the real sport it was based upon, in this case being American football.

There was actually a time limit to the game. There were even halves. The player could play at different levels, from high school to college to pro to playoffs to Super Bowl levels. Also, the player got to control the offense. And while there weren't actually different plays to run, the player could control the quarterback by having him run the ball, pass the ball or toss off the ball.

I know, I know. It doesn't sound like much. But believe it or not, this was a giant step in sports games, especially football video games.

This game proved popular enough, however, that in 1985 it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). And the truth is, the NES version is actually better than the arcade version.

How is that possible?

One major change was that players could actually play the defense as well as the offense. This was a huge addition to the game. It also didn't hurt that the graphics for the NES 10-Yard Fight were as solid as those of the arcade game, and it included all the sounds and gameplay that came with the original.

So, for a game that was never a massive hit at the arcades or in home gaming, 10-Yard Fight had a lot going for it, and it holds its place in video game history. If you're a collector of retro games, especially NES games, you might want to give this one a try.

Game of the Week: Commando for NES

You are a lone soldier facing off with limitless hordes of enemy soldiers. Your terrain is the jungle and desert. Your weapons are your rifle and grenades. How long can you survive?

That's the basic gameplay for Commando, the 1985 hit arcade game from Capcom.

The game proved so popular that ports were made to just about every home gaming console and computer system of the time, including the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, PC and most importantly, the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Now, there have been so many different ports of Commando, I would be a fool and a liar to say that I've tried them all. I haven't. But I have tried about a half dozen of them, and of them all, I have to say the version for the NES is the best and the one closest to the arcade games in graphics and gameplay.

The game itself is pretty straightforward. You play a soldier who is dropped off by a helicopter, then you scroll vertically up the screen while shooting at enemy combatants who come at you from all sides except directly behind. Your gun has unlimited ammo, which is great, but you also have a limited supply of grenades you can use to take out several enemies at one time.

The game comes in stages, and at the end of each stage you come up against a fort where tons and tons of enemy soldiers come piling out at you. Defeat them all to move on to the next stage of the game.

One of the few problems with the NES version of Commando is trying to shoot diagonally. It can be done, but the control pad for the NES lends itself more to straight right, left, up and down movement.

Game of the Week: Super Dodge Ball for NES

It was never a huge hit in the arcades, but believe it or not there was an arcade video game about dodge ball in 1987. It was originally released in Japan, and titled Super Dodge Ball when it reached the United States.

The game must have had some success, at least in Japan, because Nintendo decided to import a version to its huge mega-hit home video game console of the time, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

Super Dodge Ball is entertaining, but it does take some getting used to how the game plays and the control system.

Like real dodge ball, there are two teams of multiple players that try to smash to smithereens the other team. In Super Dodge Ball each individual member on a team has their own health meter, and once they get hit enough and the health meter reaches zero, that member of the team is trashed.

There's a lot of action here, as the player can toss the ball back and forth between players on his or her team, and the player can have team characters jump and duck and even catch a ball that's thrown at them.

One letdown is that the graphics are only fair, which is disappointing because the NES was capable of solid graphics.

The worst part of this game, however, is that a player's control of team members alternates all the time, and this is confusing. Still, a player can get used to it and learn to use it in his or her strategy.

If you want to play a different kind of sports video game, Super Dodge Ball is worth giving a try. And if you're a collector of retro NES games, you should probably check out Super Dodge Ball.