by: Corey Peace

October 16, 2005

Tecmo has finally joined the “classics compilation” bandwagon by releasing Tecmo Classic Arcade, a compilation title that includes 11 Tecmo arcade games from back in the 80’s. The list of games is as follows: Tecmo Bowl, Rygar, StarForce, Solomon’s Key, Pleiads, Senjyo, Pinball Action, Strato Fighter, Swimmer, Bombjack and Tecmo Cup. This game is for two types of people only, absolute classic gamer fans and/or children who just don’t care.

Tecmo Bowl
Everybody’s favorite, classic football game is back for the first time and plays just as good as the arcade version. The gameplay is surprisingly intricate for a game from the 80’s, including football factors such as downs, yards, touchdowns and the ability to pass, tackle and even change between positions.

Rygar
A classic 2d, side-scrolling adventure game where you simply must pass through each level by avoiding obstacles and defeating enemies at the same time. Use your spiked shield to destroy enemies and jump on their heads to knock them out. You also have a special spin attack ability that really helps out when you’re surrounded by enemies.

Strato Fighter
Strato Fighter is a side-scrolling space shooter that is a lot like the famous Gradius series, where you simply fly left, right, up and down while collecting weapon power-ups and destroying numerous hordes of enemies. This is probably the best game on the disc, because even though all these games ‘were’ fun, Strato Fighter is still fun even to this day!

Solomon’s Key
Play as Dana and collect the key in each room to escape in this action/puzzle game. You move around by climbing and creating blocks to help you through the rooms and even destroy any enemies that might be crawling around as well! For the most part this is just and average action game with no really hard ‘puzzle’ element involved.

Star Force
This is a classic vertical space shooter where the screen moves from up to down while countless hordes of enemies come from the top shooting all kinds of lasers and missiles. This game would be pretty fun but it’s almost just insanely difficult to even survive because the enemies are far too overwhelming right at the very beginning of the game, making progress very difficult.

Tecmo Cup
Dribble past your opponent(s) and get to the goal in this overhead soccer classic. This game is very basic and basically straight to the point. You are either on Red team or the Blue team and must score on your opponent’s goal to win. Passing, running, shooting and tackling are all available moves you can perform.

Bomb Jack
Help Jack collect al the bombs before it’s too late! Try to beat the clock and avoid enemies at the same time while collecting bombs in a Pac-Man styled fashion. Certain power-ups and upgrades are available such as 2x-5x points, extra lives and an item that changes all enemies into collectible coins to help gain more points.

Pleiads
The Earth is in danger from alien invaders! Destroy the alien mothership and save the world! Pleiads follows a very Centipede-like gameplay style where you move left to right and up and down on the bottom of the screen while enemies scroll down from the top and try to invade Earth by shooting lasers of all sorts! Gameplay is very slow though while enemies are very fast and very brutal.

Swimmer
This comical action game features colorful backgrounds and stylish graphics (for the 80s). Try to avoid the fish, logs and pond skaters as you try to swim to Treasure Island. Swim your character from bottom top in this scrolling action game as you are meant to swim past or dive underneath obstacles and crazy fish who for some reason want you dead.

Pinball Action
A simple pinball simulator with a variety of unique playfields and interesting game mechanics. You can shake the pinball machine (tilt) and move your ball if it ever gets stuck or give it that little nudge that it many need to access a certain area or gain special points. You only get 3 balls though and it can be very hard to keep your ball from falling straight into the gutter.

Senjyo
A very unique and quite amazing 360-degree shooting game set in space. You control a manual moving turret where your goal is destroy enemy space tanks before they get too close and destroy you! This game is incredibly difficult in the fact that the enemies move ridiculously fast and you move ridiculously slow! Grrr!!!

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Overall, Tecmo Classic Arcade is a fun little game for the absolute fans of classic games or children who are just looking for a game to play. In reality though, this compilation of classic arcade games is just extremely boring and very disappointing for this day and age. Seeing how this game is also $30, you can definitely find a far more enjoyable, current title for the same price or maybe even less. Wait till this game has gone Platinum, is price reduced severely or when you find it laying on the ground from the average gamer’s boredom.

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