Tape Worm is an early Snake variant which has you, as Slinky the Worm, eating beans. Unlike a real tapeworm, Slinky doesn’t appear to be a festering intestinal parasite originating from uncooked meat.
Before becoming the world’s greatest grill salesman, George Foreman was a two-time world heavyweight boxing champion. Foreman’s unlikely comeback, which saw him win his second title at age 45, was fodder for Acclaim to put him in a bunch of subpar boxing games, of which Foreman for Real was the last, and arguably the worst.
James Bond 007: The Duel was a run and gun platformer featuring Ian Fleming’s super spy that owes a lot to Namco’s Rolling Thunder, though it’s not nearly as good. I’m pretty sure the ad for the game marks Timothy Dalton’s last official appearance as Bond.
Dr Franken is an odd little adventure/platformer putting players in the role of Franky, a kinder, gentler version of the 1930s Universal incarnation of Frankenstein’s monster. Franky is on a quest to find the parts of his girlfriend, Bitsy, so he can reassemble her.
Taito’s Growl (or Runark in its original Japanese release) is a rather odd take on the arcade brawler, given that you essentially play as an forest ranger who deals with poachers with a mix of fisticuffs and explosives. The home port for the Mega Drive lost a bit of the luster of the arcade version, unfortunately.
College Slam was basically NBA Jam with NCAA teams, built on top of the existing NBA Jam architecture by Iguana Entertainment, who did the NBA Jam ports for home consoles. The game features most Division 1 college teams from the time.
The Terminator 2: Judgment Day arcade game was one of Midway’s finer shooters. The home versions were renamed to T2: The Arcade Game to differentiate them from the other (godawful) Terminator 2 games Acclaim had in development at the same time they were working on the arcade port. The truck level is still a bastard.
Everybody’s favourite pink blob turned 20 today, so we’ve rolled out a classic Kirby ad in celebration. Kirby’s Avalanche and Kirby’s Dream Course are just two of a multitude of Kirby spin-offs, but they’re still fantastic games. Heck, Avalanche (or Ghost Trap) is just a reskinned version of Puyo Puyo, developed by Compile.
The Game Boy Advance release of Sabre Wulf was a reimagining of the classic ZX Spectrum game, published by THQ following Microsoft’s purchase of Rare. The game is a platformer that draws reasonable influence from Donkey Kong Country, but each stage involves players stealing loot from under the nose of the titular wolf and running back to the start without getting caught.
An early entry into Activision’s plan to establish themselves as a major force in Windows gaming, HyperBlade was an ultraviolent future sport not unlike that seen in the film Rollerball combined with ice hockey. One particularly amusing part of the game was that the rok (the ball) could be replaced with decapitated heads if one were to execute their opponent mid-match.
