Baseball Stars Professional

Also known as: N/A

Developer: SNK

The original Baseball Stars on the NES was absolutely fantastic, especially for its time. SNK attempted to capitalize on its success by creating a coin-op baseball game and calling it Baseball Stars Professional. While not technically a bad game, to call this game the professional version of the NES original is laughable. The only thing that is an improvement in this game over the 8-bit original is the graphical presentation. This game looks fantastic. Unfortunately, that’s where the improvements end. The game doesn’t seem to control as well as the original, which may be by design. Again, this was designed for arcades, so it’s to the developer’s benefit that you lose so you pop more quarters in. But when the computer hits the ball to the shortstop and I have to take two steps to get to the ball, then toss it into first to see the runner safe at first base by a decent margin…when earlier in the inning I saw the computer do the exact same play, but with me being out at first as the end result, it gets pretty frustrating. I get that different players may move at different speeds, but similar scenarios seem to happen frequently in this game. Also hurting this game is a lack of game modes. It’s just an exhibition game or a tournament. In the arcade, that’s understandable. But if you got this for the Neo Geo, then you may be underwhelmed by your options. While baseball fans may find enough here to find enjoyment in this game, it feels like a big step down from the 8-bit baseball classic that it was named after. SNK improved on everything here when they created the arcade version of Baseball Stars 2, but for what this is, it’s a passable experience…unfortunately, it’s nothing more than that.

Review added: 12/27/2021

Battlezone

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

Battlezone is one of those games that probably seemed absolutely amazing for the time, but looks a bit prehistoric by today's standards. In this game, you play in a first-person view, with you behind the controls of a tank, with the goal of shooting at other tanks that explode when hit. By explodes, I don't mean that there's an actual explosion as much as I mean that if the tank was made of Legos, the Legos simply fly all over the place. That kind of explosion. The kind that hurts your feet when you try to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night and forget that bits of the explosion are still on the floor. You're not limited to tanks in this game, though. Eventually you'll also have missiles and flying saucers to contend with, along with enemies that gradually get faster as you destroy more and more targets. The goal is to survive as long as possible before your tank becomes the one that explodes like a Lego sculpture. Firing at the targets is slow, so accuracy is key - you can only fire one shot at a time, and once you fire, you're waiting for roughly three seconds before you can shoot again if you miss, which is plenty of time in the open for the computer to take advantage when things speed up. Obstacles are also a nice touch to be included in the game as they provide both a safe spot to use for cover at times, but also a deadly part of the game if you bump into one when attempting to avoid the enemy. They add some nice strategy to prevent this from simply being a "spin around and shoot stuff" game. There's also a radar for you to take advantage of, so that you're able to see potential danger coming, even if you're not facing that general direction. Anyway, at first glance, and maybe even at first play attempt, Battlezone seems like a pretty basic game, but with fancy-for-the-time graphics. After you play it for a while, however, you'll start to see that the gameplay is actually a bit deeper than it appears. Other games of the time kind of overshadowed Battlezone, but it was still a very solid game when it was released back in 1980.

Review added: 01/27/2026

Berzerk

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Stern

Evil Otto…what a jerk. He kills you, and he does it with a smile. In Berzerk, you take the role of "the humanoid" according to the arcade flyer, and your goal is to navigate through one of 64,000 possible maze patterns that are randomly displayed on the screen. These maze patterns are not difficult to navigate through at all…which is why it's natural that these simple mazes are littered with robots for you contend with. Naturally, most players will see a screen full of enemies and feel like they need to clear the screen out before moving on…but not so fast, Jack…..or Marcy….or Edward….whatever your name is, just pretend I got it right the first time. If you spend too much time on a screen trying to blast away the mechanical menace s around you, then the most horrifying creature to ever appear in video games will appear on the screen and hunt you down. This creature is Evil Otto. He may appear to simply be a red smiley face, but what kind of sick, demented soul smiles while killing others? That smile never leaves Evil Otto's face as it hops towards you like Pepe LePew after seeing a potential mate. Unlike most enemies in video games of the time, Evil Otto is indestructible and cannot be defeated. When he appears on screen, your only options are to run or die….and you need to act quickly 'cause ol' Otto is faster than the humanoid. Aside from the gameplay, and nightmares caused by Evil Otto, the game also "talked" to the player with its "unsurpassed 30-word vocabulary," again, according to the arcade flyer. If you've ever walked past a Berzerk arcade cabinet, you'd probably remember it - having an arcade cabinet say, "Coins detected in pockets" as you walk by would likely grab your attention. Anyway, Berzerk was a very fun game for its time and is still pretty fun to play today…and Evil Otto is just as evil as he ever was.

Review added: 01/29/2026

Body Slam

Also known as: Dump Matsumoto (Japan)

Developer: Sega

Body Slam was, I believe, the first all-woman’s wrestling game ever made. The game was based off of the All-Japan Women’s promotion in Japan, but changed around for the North American audience. In fact, only Dump Matsumoto’s name remains intact, with the rest of the roster like Bull Nakano and the Crush Gals getting generic names. The gameplay is very simple, yet still fun...And I personally enjoy how the smaller girls bounce right off of the bigger girls unless they hit a move, and how sometimes after even connecting with a move, the bigger girls don’t react. It emulates how their matches really took place against each other. It also adds some challenge to the game if you feel like being an underdog - it makes you feel like you're accomplishing something when the larger gals finally start reacting to your offense. It’s also worth noting that the matches are exclusively tag team matches with three-minute time limits, which sounds limiting, but it works pretty well here as it provides a further challenge. Due to the challenge added in, Body Slam never really feels boring, but it's also not so challenging that it doesn't seem fair. But anyway, this is simplistic wrestling fun...And it may also be the first wrestling game to include a kendo stick as a weapon to use. You can thank Dump for that.

Review added: 01/26/2021

Bomb Bee

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Namco

Bomb Bee is the Japanese-exclusive sequel to Gee Bee…and while it does some very minor improvements, it's pretty much the same game with only a few minor differences. Basically, if you've played Gee Bee, you know what to expect here…It's still a hybrid of Breakout and a pinball table. You've still got two bumpers to bounce the ball around the screen with. You've still got colored blocks to break on the screen. You've still got the NAMCO letters in the center of the screen to activate. Breaking all blocks on one side of the screen changes the circular bumpers at the top of screen from a value of 10 to a value of 100. But anyway, the gameplay is not too different at all from Gee Bee. Most of what is different is cosmetic. Bomb Bee features a full-color display, where Gee Bee did not. Basically, that's the only major difference here, though. Bomb Bee is still fun, and if you enjoyed Gee Bee, you'll probably still spend plenty of time with Bomb Bee. However, since it doesn't really do a whole lot to improve upon the gameplay formula of Gee Bee, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed by Bomb Bee.  It's a decent game, but I simply expected more. Namco completely made up for that disappointment with its excellent end to the Gee Bee trilogy - Cutie Q, which was also a Japanese-exclusive release, unfortunately…but as a result, Bomb Bee just feels an unnecessary bridge between two solid games in Gee Bee and Cutie Q.

Review added: 11/11/2025

Boot Hill

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Midway

Boot Hill is technically the "sequel" to Gun Fight…but it feels more like an updated Gun Fight than anything else. In Gun Fight, you needed to have a friend around to play the game. Boot Hill was basically made for us introverted folks that sometimes just want to play solo without the need to interact with another human being. In Boot Hill, you can play against a computer opponent, so even if you're an introvert (or if you simply don't have any friends willing to play this game with you) you can enjoy the fun, frantic shoot-outs that Gun Fight offered. Further improving on the game is the visual presentation. Boot Hill used a colored background as a backdrop for the game, then used mirrors to project the game onto that background, making Boot Hill much more visually-pleasing than Gun Fight was. There's also improved sound effects and a few other, minor additions that add to the presentation, like how the characters shrink or grow in size, depending on where they are in the environment - a crude way to show how far or close they are from the screen. Gameplay-wise, Boot Hill is near identical to Gun Fight…but that's not a bad thing since Boot Hill was such a fun game. I do notice that the environments seem to be mildly adjusted, making it easier to land "trick shots" by bouncing bullets off the top or bottom of the screen to hit your opponents, which is a large part of what makes this fun, in my eyes. However, if you go into Boot Hill hoping for major gameplay improvements, you won't really find them here. It's just a tweaked version of Gun Fight. I do wish that Boot Hill offered a little more to the gameplay to make it stand out a little more, but as it stands, Boot Hill does feel like a mild improvement over Gun Fight, and is the version of the game that I, personally prefer.

Review added: 11/09/2025

Bosconian

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Namco

Prior to writing this review, I don't know if I had ever really put a significant amount of time into playing Bosconian. I'm sure that I've played it a few times, since it's in a lot of the Namco Museum compilations that have been released over the years, but I don't think I ever really spent more than a minute or two with it until I decided to review it…and I'm glad that I decided to review it because Bosconian, like seemingly most Namco games released at the time, really is fantastic. While it's not necessarily an accurate description, a simplistic way to describe Bosconian is a mixed between Rally-X and Galaxian…but it's also more than just that. Like in Galaxian, you're in outer space, firing at various ships…however, in Bosconian, you're free to roam around a giant stage, similar to Rally-X, but minus the maze-like elements. Also like Rally-X, you've got a map on the right side of the screen so you can see where your targets are…except unlike Rally-X, where your targets are flags to pick up, in Bosconian, your targets are enemy bases. These bases can be destroyed in two ways - the safer way is to blow up the six glowing globes around the base, which will cause the entire base to explode. In earlier levels, this is the way to go. The other way becomes available after a few levels, and is faster, but has higher risk, is to wait for the base to open, then shoot that glowing opening in the center. One shot, and the base is gone…however, when the base opens, It will also fire shots, so while you attempt to quickly destroy the enemy base, you may find your ship getting gunned down. While trying to take down these bases, you'll encounter various obstacles and enemies, all with different behaviors and patterns….and to aid you with this, since you now have free-range of movement, your ship doesn't shoot forward, but backward as well. So when you're navigating space towards your next target, you'll find yourself not just lining up enemies from the front, but also trying to line up your rear, so that the shots from the back take out targets, too. Bosconian really is a fantastic game for its time and well worth checking out if you're a fan of the space shooters of the time, but prefer a little more freedom in your movement.

Review added: 04/06/2026

Breakout

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Atari

Atari's success can pretty much be given to Pong…when Pong was first released in 1972, It basically funded the company. When Atari entered the home gaming market, it was with a home Pong console. Atari had done several variations on the Pong formula to keep it popular and to keep Atari ahead of the pack as a sea of Pong clones began to enter the market. Eventually, Atari came up with a game that was as simple to play and easy to understand as Pong, and played similarly, by using a paddle to send a ball flying through the screen, but with a twist to it, to help the game break out on its own. That twist was to make this a single player game, with the goal of using the ball to break multi-colored bricks at the top of the screen. The ball bounces off of each brick it breaks, so the player is forced to frantically move that paddle left and right to continuously bounce that ball back and for until it breaks through all of the bricks. What did Atari name this break through game that has you try to make a ball break through multi-colored bricks? Well, Breakout, of course. This spin-off of the Pong formula was a success for Atari, and while plenty of the games have taken this formula and improved upon it, the original Breakout still remains fun to play today due to its simplicity and ease to play it. Like a lot of the early video games, Breakout is a game that anyone can play and have fun with…whether they've been playing games their whole life or playing a game for the first time. If it wasn't for games like Breakout being successful in the 1970s, we may not have video games today.

Review added: 11/04/2025

BurgerTime

Also known as: Hamburger (Japan)

Developer: Data East

BurgerTime was always a favorite of mine…I’m not sure if it’s because I really like hamburgers or simply because the idea of a sunny-side-up egg stalking me up and down ladders in an attempt to murder me sounds like a really good time (probably option number 2, if I’m honest) but I’ve always had fun trying to build as many burgers as possible in this game. The premise of BurgerTime is simple – climb up and down ladders, then walk across various burger ingredients. After walking across them, they’ll drop down, which causes others below it to also drop down. If you’re lucky enough to have a murderous food item walking under one of these ingredients, you’ll have murdered the murderer. Continue this process until all hamburgers on the bottom of the screen are completely assembled. Of course, if any of those evil foods get in your way, you can always throw pepper in their eyes and make an escape…if you didn’t already use it all, that is...you've got a limited supply of pepper to keep you safe. But anyway, while BurgerTime wasn’t a mega hit at the arcades like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, it was still one of the more popular arcade games for its time and one of the most fondly remembered ones for the folks that grew up in the 80s.

Review added: 10/19/2019

Burning Fight

Also known as: N/A

Developer: SNK

Sometimes, even when the difficulty is designed to be really high to make you keep popping quarters in the machine, a really well-made arcade game will keep you coming back for more and more punishment simply because despite the difficulty, it's still a fun game. Unfortunately, Burning Fight is not one of those games. Released on the Neo-Geo and in arcades, Burning Fight is a brawler that's not only frustratingly difficult at times, but it's also not very fun. The combat is dull and bland. When you're doing well, you'll likely find yourself getting bored because you're just mashing the attack buttons, backing away when the computer attempts to attack, then mashing away at the buttons again. When you're not doing well, you may find yourself getting frustrated - I literally got juggled to death, from full health to zero health, multiple times during my playthrough. When this happens, you can't defend yourself since you're hit before you have an opportunity to move. It doesn't feel like you died from lack of skill when this happens, it feels like you died from the game being cheap. On a positive side, it's always fun destroying stuff, feeling like you're a bull in a china shop, and Burning Fight has little side areas for you to enter where the goal is to destroy absolutely everything inside - including a china shop, where you knock over shelves of fine china. The game also sports some nice graphics. However, with the boring gameplay, weird hit detection, and cheap difficulty, Burning Fight just isn't very fun. They make ointments to soothe burns. The ointment I'd suggest for Burning Fight is an ointment called, "Don't play this."

Review added: 12/26/2022