Vegas Stakes, Double Dribble, Ecco Jr.

The game: Vegas Stakes
Its cost: 800 points

Lucas DeWoody – Vegas Stakes from HAL (sequel to Vegas Dream on NES) is far more than just a meager poker sim—its borderline a poker adventure/RPG. You and a group of friends are all going to the Golden Paradise Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Once you get there, you can also travel to the other casinos in the area (Hideaway, Buffalo Head, The 2020, and Laurel Palace). There isn’t exactly a story of such, but there is lots of character dialog and interaction between you and your in-game friends. You travel in pairs and can ask them for advice during the course of any game, though their advice may not always be on the money. You start with $1,000 to spend and have most of the casino stable games available (including poker, craps, blackjack, roulette, and slot machines galore) at various levels of play, depending on the casino you choose. Your goal is to amass ten million dollars. You’ll also have to deal with beggars from time to time. People will come up to you and ask for donations to pay for a variety of things, some legit and some not. If its legit, you can get a good return on your generosity, and if its not—its money in the can. The graphics are nice to look at with lots of digitalized pictures and authentic sound effects, though the music will begin to annoy if you play the game for long sessions. Vegas Stakes looses a point for the lack of SNES Mouse support. The original game supported the SNES mouse as an optional controller, and it made things much easier to manage than with a standard controller. It’s not a stretch to imagine using a standard USB mouse with the Wii to supplement the feature, so why wasn’t it included? What good is having USB ports if they aren’t used? Overall, the conveyed feelings of adventure, interaction, and camaraderie helps to give the game a lot of character and the player a purpose to keep going with the $10,000,000 goal. Without that, it would be pretty hard to recommend at all, because the ultimate question boils down to whether of not you want to spend 800 points on a collection of games that you can traditionally play online for free. The multiplayer mode pushes the game over the top though. Vegas Stakes is a rarity among the first-party Nintendo games, and you’re likely not to find another full-fledged gambling sim like it on the VC/Wii Shop for some time, if at all. Gambling fans should definitely take a chance on Vegas Stakes.

Outstanding overall presentation; Loads of character interaction; Authentic gambling; Good variety of games

Music gets annoying in long sessions; Poker not included in multiplayer because other players could see your hand (and vice versa)

Nintendo Entertainment System

The game: Double Dribble
Its cost: 500 points

Lucas DeWoody – Double Dribble was a revolution upon the time of its original release. In the dredges of early crappy NES sports games (most of which were first party), Konami’s Double Dribble was a beacon for quality. Not only the first 5-on-5 basketball game for a console, Double Dribble was arguably the first home “arcade style” sports game, a genre later classics such as NBA Jam and NFL Blitz would further evolve. While featuring authentic rules and realistic settings, Double Dribble focused on fast action and otherworldly dunks. Unfortunately, the game suffers from a few killing flaws that appear glaringly obvious in light of modern innovations. First of all, the court has “hot spots”—meaning, there are certain areas on the field where you are far more likely to trigger a 3-pointer than usual. There’s also an elaborate dunk animation that triggers during otherworldly dunks. It was impressive for a NES title with its huge sprite, though now it looks more like a stuttering Silver Surfer flickering by at a seizure inducing rate. The sprite flicker will also give you a headache rather quickly and makes it extremely frustrating to keep track of the ball in a cluster of players. Though there is no NBA license, this could be forgiven if there were a lot of cities represented, but there are only four (Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York). Double Dribble is right now the only basketball game available on the VC, but is pales in comparison to its 16-bit peers. Double Dribble was a good game for its time, but just doesn’t stand up now as a good arcade sports game in the face of later arrivals that have drastically surpassed Double Dribble’s achievements, although this much has to be said—NBA Jam, Hangtime, and Showtime only supported only 2-on-2 play…Double Dribble supports 5-on-5 action. It’s probably not enough to sway your opinion, but it is worthy of mention.

Full 5-on-5 play; action presented is true to sport; First NES game to support speech; Simple and easy controls; Three difficulty levels

The dribbling sound will make your head throb at high volumes; Time clock runs fast; No NBA license, and only four teams; sprite flicker makes it easy to loose track of the ball in a cluster

Sega Genesis

The game: Ecco Jr.
Its cost: 800 points

Lucas DeWoody – Well, you knew this one was coming sooner or later, didn’t you? First there was Ecco the Dolphin, a classic game and beacon for old-school Sega innovation. Next arrived Ecco 2: Tides of Time, a sequel that improved on the original in almost every single way….then Sega had to go and screw it all up. In 1995, Sega dropped this abomination on the public. Ecco Jr. swayed away from the serious setting and oceanic majesty of the first two Ecco games and decided to go with kid friendly fare. While the core mechanics are intact, the gameplay and difficulty level have been lowered to a brain dead level. The levels are much smaller, the enemies have all been removed (you can’t die), and your entire mission is to go on a series of fetch quests for specific objects or creatures using your traditional Ecco abilities (sonar, swimming, and so forth). To add insult to stupidity, there are educational elements worked into the experience including an informational section that teaches children about dolphins, but you can only access it with a password. There are 27 stages, but they are so short that you’ll blaze through in no time at all. You also get a password after each stage should you with to continue, but seeing as all the passwords were included in the manual for parents…well, you get the point. To put this all in perspective, Ecco Jr. is the Genesis version of a Sega Pico (Google it) game of the same name. That alone should be enough to scare you off. This “game” belongs with the ranks of such “classics” as Mario is Missing and Donkey Kong Jr. Math. Don’t just far stay away. Run like hell.

Kid friendly; Cute as a plushie; Basic Ecco mechanics are present and intact

Will cause anyone over the age of four to pass out from intense boredom within the first ten minutes

some images courtesy of vgmuseum.com