Last week’s Maximum Letdown saw yours truly mercilessly tear apart a crap fighter, so this week’s Lost Classic sees me shift gears and praise an underrated fighter from the period. Silly name aside, Metamoqester showcases beautiful graphics and frenzied gameplay, not unlike something made by Capcom and SNK. You play as one of three warriors out to kill a series of monsters. The monsters are huge and tough, but thankfully you have an array of attacks to stop them. You can also team up with a friend to battle them. With only 5 levels, the game is short, but it’s still an awesome fighter. In a perfect world, we’d see a sequel, or at least a home version which lets you play as the monsters. As it is, if you come across the cabinet, you’d do well to plop a few quarters in.

Now that the Thanksgiving turkey is digested, and your Black Friday shopping is finished, it’s time for a special 3-in-one edition of $20 GOTW, Lost Classics, and Maximum Letdown! Our first two games on the list are available either at or below the $20 mark anywhere you buy video games, so you don’t need to wait until after any holiday, camp out in front of the store, stand in line at Best Buy, or fight through the parking lot to cash in on these savings. The third game, not so much, but it’s a Maximum Letdown, so chances are, you aren’t gonna want it anyway. Anyway, click below and lets get started!
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Forget about Nancy Regan’s “Just Say No” campaign. This is how you fight the war on drugs. You, bad ass DEA enforcer/SWAT Power Ranger agent Max Force and your buddy, the equally bad ass DEA agent/SWAT Team Power Ranger Hit Man grab your machine guns and rocket launchers, and arrest every dope fiend, d-boy, thug, and even dog (yes, dogs can be arrested) you come across, and if they refuse to come quietly, then use your rocket launcher to blow the ever living shit out of them, and watch as they explode in a shower of blood and guts. You’ll visit seedy places such as the K.R.A.K. stop, which believe it or not, is a drug lab. Wow, these cats are so flagrant that they’ll put it right out there that they’re running a crack den. Along the way, you’ll either blow up, arrest, or arrest AND blow up heroin dealers, killer clowns, super strong retarded dope fiends who dumpsters stuff at you, and guys wearing mullets who throw hypodermic syringes at you, which are presumably full of their product. You even get to get behind the wheel of your car and run criminals over.

It’s obvious that American Gangster Frank Lucas doesn’t run this drug cartel, and your main enemy is a remarkably evil bastard named Mr Big, a huge head in a wheel chair. When you beat him, he turns into a demonic robo-skull-snake thingy which you also have to kill. This was ported to Nintendo thanks to Acclaim. In a hint of irony, the NES version was promoted as the first NES game with a strong anti-drug message…yet all references to drugs were removed. Even the K.R.A.K stop was changed to K.W.A.K stop. Oddly enough, the blood and gore was still retained. Of course this was one of the many games that were re-released on the Midway Arcade Treasures compilations. The main theme is even easy to hum along to as well.

Narc was the first game that bought a real solution to the drug problem facing our nation: dress up like a Power Ranger, grab your guns, get behind the wheel of your corvette, and kill everything that moves, including dogs, hippies, and morbidly obese heads stuck in wheel chairs that turn into giant demon robo-snake skull heads after taking enough damage. It’s just too bad that Midway’s 2005 attempt at a remake was nowhere near as interesting (or original) as this classic.

Fun Fact: Narc’s Max Force was featured in the Power Team animated series, which was Acclaim’s answer to Captain N. The series centered around a teenager named Johnny Arcade as he commands a team of semi-popular characters from Acclaim Video games such as Wizards and Warriors.

A few weeks ago, I included another classic Electronic Arts developed game, Lakers vs Celtics. With NBA Elite 11 being canceled, I figured I’d take another stroll down basketball memory lane. Most people don’t know this, but this game is actually a sequel to an earlier basketball game called One on One: Dr J vs Larry Bird. Jordan vs Bird was one of those games where were more more fond playing it as kids than as adults. At its time, it featured some of the best animations and graphics in a basketball game, and some pretty cool moves. Along with the standard one on one, the game featured a 3 point shootout featuring Larry Bird and a Slam Dunk contest featuring Jordan. As time went on, the game got a bit monotonous (with there only being 2 players and all) and the ref’s calls were a bit too unforgiving, but hey, it was two of the greatest players of the time going at it. Who would win? Jordan’s monster dunks, or Bird’s deadly-accurate 3-point skills? You be the judge.

Halloween is tomorrow, and who better to celebrate it with than two icons of horror, Freddy Kruger and Jason Vorhees? This weekend we’ll have a special Lost Classic and Maximum Letdown. Oh yeah, and we got the $20 Game of the Week too.
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During the late 80s and early 90s, there was no bigger story in basketball than the LA Lakers and the Boston Celtics, and this title from Electronic Arts bought it home like never before. More so than that, the game forever changed the way developers approached video game hoops. Lakers vs Celtics is perhaps one of the most significant sports games ever released. Playing off the successful and hugely popular rivalry, Lakers vs Celtics features the two titular teams along with six other teams that made it to the NBA playoffs during the 1988 – 89 season (Dos) or the 1989-1990 season (Genesis).
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Yeah, I know I’m a bit late, so lets not waste too much more time. Right after the jump is this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics, so click and enjoy.

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This odd Super Nintendo game can pretty much be described as Araknoid meets Zelda. Although it doesn’t look too much graphically, it has a unique style of gameplay that you just don’t see in action games. Playing as a firestriker known as Slader, you make use of the Traillight (which is basically a fancy ball) to stop an evil archmage. Along the way, you’ll battle monsters and rescue any comrades you meet along the way. You’ll be accompanied by a mage which acts as a goalie. You can play co-op mode with another player, or battle up to three of your friends in competitive multiplayer modes. Hopefully it won’t be much longer until someone brings this game to virtual console. Better yet, why not a 3D remake using the Wii remote?