Data East’s Sly Spy makes no attempt to hide the fact that it’s inspired by James Bond, although it is a fun game regardless. Playing as an agent (whom you are asked to assign a 3-digit number at the beginning of the game), you are tasked to save America from terrorists. While most of the game takes place in a side scrolling view similar to Namco’s Rolling Thunder, some of the game’s levels mix up the formula adding variety. When you start the game, you’re skydiving while shooting at the bad guys, and in another level you ride a motor cycle. The boss battles are pretty easy, and there are James Bond references throughout the game.

Sly Spy is one of those games that while it may not be anything Earth-shattering, it represented every thing that was cool about arcade games. Just like Big Karnak and Flashgal, Sly Spy would have benefited from a NES or Sega Genesis release. This game is available on Data East’s Wii classic arcade compilation disc, so now you have another chance to check out this game.

Okay, so this isn’t so much a game as it is a peripheral which for a time at least, changed the way we played Game Boy games. Back in the mid 90s, the Nintendo Game Boy was tearing up the handheld competition, even though it had a monochrome black-and-greenish screen. Of course, everyone wondered what it would be like if the system were in color. That answer would come in 1998, but this little device for Super Nintendo could help gamers get halfway. Plug it into the top of the SNES, then stick a game cart in the slot on the top, and you could play your Game Boy games in 4-color goodness. You could even adjust the color palette, and it would generate a code which you could share with your friends or enter to instantly recall your palette. I created a palette for Castlevania II: Blemont’s Revenge that turned the crystal castle level into a night time skylight paradise. You can even design the border around the screen as well. After the release of the Super Game Boy, several games were produced that made use of Super Game Boy enhancements when played on the system. These enhancements include special borders, SNES effects, two-player modes using SNES controllers, and the Game Boy version of Space Invaders even unlocked the full SNES version (sans 2-player mode) when used with the Super Game Boy. Of course, the popularity of the unit saw an instant drop when the Game Boy Color was released. At the time however, the Super Game Boy did a good job of breathing new life into your old Game Boy games.

SNK’s Baseball Stars did for video game baseball what Tecmo bowl did for video game football. Actually that isn’t right. Tecmo bowl merely made video game football more fun and realistic. Baseball Stars not only made video game baseball more fun and realistic, but it also introduced features that were unprecedented at the time. By being one of the first video game sports titles to feature built-in memory, it contained some features that were unseen in other sports titles at the time. It is considered by many to be the best baseball game ever released on the NES, and many of the features it introduced still impact sports games today.
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Square’s Secret of Mana (or Seiken Densetsu 2 as it’s called in Japan) is an action RPG similar to Gauntlet. In fact, it could have almost been considered an early dungeon crawler even before Diablo (of course while Diablo focused on level grinding, SOM focused on story and exploration). Despite its simplicity, SOM managed to be every bit as engaging as a Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, and it became every bit as memorable as other games from the 16-bit era.
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To call the third entry in Bethsheda’s Elder Scrolls series a fantasy Grand Theft Auto would be a serious understatement. While progression in the GTA games is tied to the plot, there is seemingly no limit to what could be done in Morrowind. While there was a story, you were not obligated to follow it. You can rise to the head of a guild, level grind yourself into a tank or an ultra-mage, or just plunder for treasure all day. You can even become a vampire or werewolf and spend your nights stalking victims. If it wasn’t for the combat system, it would most likely have become one of the PC’s top titles as well as an Xbox system seller.
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These days, the Duke Nukem franchise has regulated to a running gag, especially with Duke Nukem Forever being delayed so much that it has been all but confirmed as canceled. However, it wasn’t already like this for the series. In fact, when it was released in the mid-90s, it stood alongside games like Doom and Rise of the Triad as one of the early great first person shooters and to this day it’s still well-loved by fans. Also like those early FPS titles, Duke has managed to earn its fair share of controversy with it’s sex and violence. Starring as the titular character, your job is to thwart an alien invasion. You’ll shoot up dozens of mutants across a variety of environments. While the game’s premise is nothing new, the game’s sense of humor sets it apart from the pack. The game parodies many pop culture icons, and the cover itself was inspired by the film Army of Darkness. You’ll also encounter women in various states of undress, which caused the game to earn a considerable amount of controversy.
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Blessed by the deities of ancient Olympus, Diana of Themyscrya travels to man’s world to bring peace, love, and equality as Wonder…..oh wait a sec….

The star of this week’s Lost Classic bears a bit of resemblance to a certain DC comics icon, and it’s also one of Sega’s first female protagonists. Taking control of the title character, you set out on a mission to take out a fat guy who looks like the Kingpin. Hmm, lets see, we a hero that looks like Wonder Woman, and a villain that looks like Wilson Fisk. No wonder we didn’t see more of her after this 1985 release.

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By 2002, the Mortal Kombat series had become a running gag of the fighting game world. The last gamers had seen of the series was an awful port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and the horrific action game Mortal Kombat Special Forces. Now granted, the fighting game scene was in a slump, but even then there were still quality titles such as Capcom vs SNK 2, King of Fighters, and Dead of Alive 3. Midway knew that they if Mortal Kombat was once again going to be relevant, they would have to go back to the drawing board, and they did just that with Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
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