Tengen/Namco

unknown

Sports

1-2 Players

The characters in R.B.I. Baseball look more like sumo wrestlers than baseball players, but their girth never becomes an issue until they're sent into the outfield.  Like many baseball titles on the NES, R.B.I. Baseball has strong batting and pitching, but the fielding is agonizingly slow, making it tough to guard your bases and catch pop flies.

Nintendo/Rare

February 1988

Action/Racing

1 Player

You know what would make remote-controlled car racing even more exciting?  Missiles and bombs... oh yeah!  While you're at it, throw in some upgrades for your car's frame, engine, and wheels, and some vicious computer opponents who'll really make you sweat.  Don't forget the graphics and sound... make sure they're both excellent.  Oh yeah, now that's racing in style!

Tradewest/Rare

December 1992

Action/Racing

1 Player

R.C. Pro-Am makes a surprise comeback, this time by a different publisher.  That's not all that's changed, though... this time, you purchase items with the money you find in each course, and the physics feel more realistic than they did before.  One thing that hasn't changed is the difficulty... this mother's tough, and she's going to spank you 'till you're black and blue!

Absolute/Imagineering

May 1992

Racing

1 Player

It's a shame about this racing title... the graphics are sharp, but Race America has some very, very stupid design issues that make it hard to play and almost impossible to enjoy.  Shifting is incredibly cumbersome, and you're stuck in the tiny rear view mirror of your opponent's car until you catch up to him, causing a disorienting shift in perspective.

Jaleco

October 1988

Sports

1-2 Players

Multiple perspectives and more realistic characters make Racket Attack look better than many of its competitors... but they also make the gameplay a whole lot worse.  After every serve, the camera switches to a confusing trapezoidal view of the court that makes hitting the ball an exercise in frustration.  It'll spend as much time bouncing off you as your racket!

Nintendo/Square

October 1987

Racing

1 Player

This is a solid racing game that borrows many of its ideas from the Sega classic OutRun, but offers a few of its own to keep it from being too derivitive.  You'll take the wheel of one of two slick automobiles, changing radio stations on the fly while dodging traffic on your way to the finish line.  Get pushed off the side of the road and you'll witness a spectacular crash!

FAST FACT:  Square had originally named this game Highway Star, in an apparent tribute to the classic song by hard rock musicians Deep Purple.  Ironically, Highway Star was never actually used in the soundtrack of either Rad Racer or its sequel.  Years later, the song would make its video game debut in the Super NES release Rock 'n Roll Racing, designed by Warcraft creators Blizzard Entertainment.

Square

June 1990

Racing

1 Player

The radical racing continues in this sequel to Square's first NES hit.  Rad Racer II has a more realistic feel than its predecessor... this time, inertia comes into play, making your car slide just a bit as you change lanes.  You can also use turbo boosts to reach your top speed more quickly, a feature which more than makes up for the less impressive soundtrack.

Broderbund

September 1987

Action/Shooter

1-2 Players

Take your heavily armed helicopter and sneak into the nefarious Bungling empire, dropping bombs on the factories responsible for its war machines.  It's an innovative concept, but one that may have been too far ahead of its time.  Raid on Bungling Bay suffers from indistinct visuals, choppy scrolling, a monotonous soundtrack, and factories that just... won't... die!

FAST FACT:  Your eyes do not deceive you... this game was designed by the creator of the megahit SimCity and Sims series.  These days, Will Wright likes to encourage gamers to build things from scratch, rather than tearing them down with bullets and bombs.  His latest release, Spore, lets you guide the evolution of an alien world, starting with single-celled organisms and ending with interplanetary explorers.