Columns 971997

In the tradition of the Bust-A-Move series, Taito's Bust-A-Move '99 is a traditional puzzle game. The main objective is to destroy or get rid of (by dropping) all the bubbles located within the stage. Once you do this, you'll graduate to the next level. While the premise may sound simple, the logic and execution is not. Using a "bubble shooter", you must aim and shoot your bubbles to the top of the screen so that you can bring three bubbles of the same color together. When you do this, the bubbles will pop. One way to earn points is to have the popping bubbles as well as the bubble that was shot fall off the screen (in multi-player, it puts these bubbles on your opponent's side). This also gives you a lot less bubbles to take care of. Bubbles are constantly falling down. Popping them all in a short amount of time is necessary because the longer it takes you to pop them all, the faster they will drop. If you fail to clear out all the bubbles and they reach the bottom of the screen, the game is over. Bust-A-Move '99 contains some new options never seen in the Bust-A-Move series. There are now special bubbles (star, metal and rainbow to name a few), obstructive bubbles and blocks and new backgrounds. You are also given the opportunity to create your very own stages with the create-a-level editor.

This video game is a puzzle block fighter similar to other Japanese block games on the Super Famicom like Dossun! Ganseki Battle. The player has to match coloured blocks together and gain combos/special blocks to fight against its opponent. The game features stylized "muted" graphics and a soundtrack composed by Hideyuki Shimono and Akihito Ohkawa. This was their first collaboration before Zero Divide in 1995.

In the year 1990, Nintendo held a now rather famous video game competition called Nintendo World Championships as part of the Powerfest traveling video game festival. Contestants would compete against each other in a triathlon of the NES titles Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer, and Tetris. The ROMs themselves were modified to suit the competition, and the winners would be determined by an overall score count from all three games. High placing winners took home a cash prize amongst other goodies. However, the finalists of this competition each took home their own copy of the specially made ROM on a standard NES cartridge. Another issue of the cartridge, colored in a golden tint similar to The Legend of Zelda cartridge, was even more elusive and was only distributed as a prize giveaway in Nintendo Power Magazine. Today, these two cartridge variations are some of the most elusive and sought after video games in history and are often considered a holy grail of video game collecting. As of recent years, only 116 gray cartridges and 26 golden cartridges are known to have ever been printed.

1991 Du Ma Racing is an unlicensed horse racing game for the NES that was developed by Idea-Tek and published by Super Mega. The game offers two game modes. In race mode, two players can compete in a race. By pressing a button at the right time, they can build up their horse's power, then press another button to release it and give their horse an edge in the race. The player who does this faster and more accurately will have a better chance of winning the race. In gamble mode, 1 to 6 players start out with 500 credits to place bets on 5 horses. The race will be simulated without any player interaction, and at the end of each race event players will get their respective prize money. The goal is to earn more money this way than any other player.

You are a BLOB (a Bio-Logically Operated Being) and are sent into the core of a planet in order to prevent dit from blowing up.

An evil Bomber named Emperor Terrorin who has the power of Time itself has freed various criminal Bombers from their prison cells in orbit around Planet Bomber. Setting them up in a warped time and space, Shirobon, Kurobon, and their Louie (Rui) companions must travel through stages and defeat them before going up against Emperor Terrorin himself. Super Bomberman 5, released by Hudson Soft in early 1997, was the final Bomberman game released on the Super Family Computer - the Japanese version of the SNES. The game was released in two variations: a standard cartridge and a gold cartridge, which was sold exclusively through CoroCoro Comic. The gold cartridge included extra maps in battle mode.

Tetris DX has everything you need to satisfy your puzzle appetite. Play marathon, the classic Tetris game. Try your hand at ultra or 40 lines, two Tetris games with a twist. The vs. game will have you playing for hours!

Venture back to Hyrule and an age of magic and heroes. The predecessors of Link and Zelda face monsters on the march when a menacing magician takes over the kingdom. Only you can prevent his evil plot from shattering the land of Hyrule. In your quest, you'll venture into twisting mazes, dungeons, palaces and shadowy forests. Test your mettle with mighty swords and magical weapons. Or heft a boulder and hurl it at your enemies. If the going gets tough, dive into a river - you can swim to escape! Learn powerful spells, locate magical artifacts and solve the mysteries of the evil magician and the hidden realm of Hyrule.