First off let me apologies for the screenshot quality, it’s the best I could do with what I had. The reviews are all quite short, just so you get the general idea of what the games about and if it’s any good or not.
A Ponte
I’m doing this in alphabetical order so don’t be too put off by this first game, but this one is really bad. Basically you just fire a cannon at people walking across a bridge, and that’s it. Sometimes the people taunt you with a little dance. It’s actually quite tricky to hit them as it takes your cannon ball a couple of seconds to reach the bridge so you have to fire quite away in front of where the person is walking. To add to the frustration the ball fires upward and then down onto the target, but it’s difficult to judge exactly where it’s going to fall. After a few tries you kind of get the hang of it but the trouble is it’s just not that much fun to play for any longer. The music is terrible.
Air Hockey
Now this is pretty good actually, I used to play Air Hockey at the arcade years ago and Devworks have got the feel of the game spot on. The puck does seem to glide and it reacts well to the way you hit it, so if you don’t hit it dead on it will glide much slower like the real thing. There is a 2 player option which I haven’t tried but I’m quite sure that’s the best way to play it. Having said that the A.I. isn’t bad. Graphics are adequate but nothing special. The real shame with this game is the music, just sounds like a mess of noise!
Anaconda
The same game as Snake on the old Nokia phones, which I played to death on the bus going to college! You get to choose from 4 levels of difficulty. Your snake gets longer as you eat fruit, you can’t control the speed of the snake just the direction, as your snake grows it gets more tricky to navigate the screen. As the levels progress there are more obstacles to weave around. It’s not bad but I think I’m a little tired of this style of game. Graphics are average and the music is so so, sounds abit like jaws.
Aniversario
Sort of reminds me of the Green House Game & Watch game. You just shoot the spiders before they get to the cake, as you get further on there’s more and more spiders. Pity it isn’t a light phaser game as it would have been so much better. The graphics are poor but you get a nice red blood splat when you hit a spider. Playable but would have been nice to have more levels with different things going on. Music is ok on this, not as repetitive of some of the Devworks games.
Asa Delta
Hang Gliding game, reminds me of some of the flash games that get emailed round at work. This is quite good fun if abit basic, you can control altitude by tapping the C button and speed with the D pad. You have to avoid lightening clouds and try and land on the targets, the hardest part is trying to land stood up. Graphics are quite good and the music is okay but can get annoying after a wile.
Batlha Naval
This is just the board game battleships, and ‘bored’ is the word! You just keep selecting random squares in turn until you hit a ship then you get an extra go. This carries on for what seems like forever until one of you has sunk all the other person’s ships. The A.I is okay but sometimes I noticed it doing a daft move or 2. The worst thing about this game is that you can’t place your own ships at the start, you just have to go with a random selection you get given. The music is also pretty boring.
Bil Bolha
Puzzle game that actually looks really good at first glance, very nice visuals. But it’s a big disappointment, if any of you have ever had a Rubics Clock.. It’s a similar principle. It’s just frustrating and I find it difficult. The music is bad as well, doesn’t suit the game at all.
Blocos Magicos
Now I do like this one, if anyone has ever played Zoo Keeper on the DS then it’s in that ballpark. It’s not as good as Zoo Keeper though as you just get the creatures you start with and no more drop down, plus you cant get chain reactions to score more points. All you have to do is select any creature that is touching a matching creature, this can be just 2 touching each other, or if you get lucky 10+. The aim is to have none left. The best I could do is 1 left after about 40 minutes of playing. The graphics could have been better for such a simple game but the music is ok, I found myself using mute after about 15 minutes (which is longer than most of the others got!).
Caca Palavras
This really is Cacka, it’s just a word search game with some Tec Toy related words like Sapo, Oculus and Mercado. There are a few options like the time limit and amount of words to find but to be honest I cant see anyone wanting to sit and play this for any length of time. I can only guess it’s supposed to be educational for kids. The music is okay, chilled out, which is good for this type of game.
Canhao
1 or 2 player game, perhaps much better with 2 players. It’s very simple, all you do is take it in turns to fire your cannon across the valley. The controls are similar to golf games, you select the angle then one you press the fire button a sliding scale appears to select the power. One hit and your dead, game over, that it! The graphics aren’t bad really, there are asteroids flying past which you cant tell from my screen shot. Music is crap.
Corrida Da Pesada
Monkeys riding Elephants?!.. Yup, keep bashing button C until you’re in agony and occasional press B to avoid the obstacles. Music seems to be either random beeps or there is no music and it’s just the sounds of the other elephants jumping.. Hard to tell.
Corrida De Tempintas
Well this is the worst overhead racing game you could ever imagine. I think its bottle top racing, bottle tops being know for their high speeds and responsive handling. There are 12 tracks to choose from, which does nothing to alleviate the tedium. You take it in turns to (I guess) push your bottle top. It’s golf style controls again, set your angle and then hit fire when the power bar is where you want it. If you touch the side of the track you miss a go. The music is so bad it’s funny, sounds like a cat walking across an 80’s Casio keyboard.
Encanamento
Another puzzle game, but another I really like. The basic jist is to get the water from one side to the other using different shaped pipes. You get a 10 second countdown to start laying pipe, then the water starts to come. The pipes become available in the order you see down the right of the screen, any pipe you don’t want to use you have just put somewhere on the grid out of the way. Sometimes it can get quite frantic trying to get rid of useless bits of pipe waiting for that all important left hand bend as the water is millimetres from flooding out. The graphics do the job, music is pretty good but gets annoying after a wile.
Faroeste
Quick draw gun fighting at its worst! Not much to say, looks quite nice, cartoony. All you do is hit fire when you see you enemy reaching for his gun, trouble is sometimes he just scratches his nose, so if you shoot him you lose. Music is fairly rubbish.
Fica1
Just solitaire, works well enough. No music during play, which is probly a blessing. Get to choose from 7 starting patterns.
Forca Alienigena
This is actually a really good game (compared with most of the others). It’s a Space invaders style game with really nice visuals and controls. Nice backdrop changes as the levels progress. The music lets it down though, its quite bad, Had it had a good catchy tune it would have been worth a cartridge release.. ermm, accept it came out in 2002.
Guerra Dos Monstros
As soon as this game started up I thought now this is more like it! Fantastic music, makes sounds I haven’t really heard on the SMS. The title screen looks kinda funky as well. Then it starts.. a crappy monster based Top Trumps game. What a waste of a sound track. I played it through once and it wasn’t terrible but It just felt pointless. You keep picking your highest scoring attribute and you either beat or don’t beat the computers hand.. you swap cards accordingly and on and on and on until somebody has none left. This was much more fun with real cards.
Junte 4
Connect 4. 1 or 2 players. 3 difficulty levels in 1 player mode. No in game music. Works well, nothing good or bad to say, it’s nice if you like Connect 4.
Lance Livre
Unfortunately despite the promising screen shots this is just shot taking game, you have 3 balls and if you miss the hoop you loose a ball. You need to get 10 in to win. Its got those old favourite golf style controls again. Not sure what happens if you get 10 in as I didn’t play it for long enough (knowing my luck it unlocks the full version of Arch Rivals.. or maybe not). No in game music. Mainly bad.
Mexe Mexe Tupi
As ridicules as its name suggests. Seems to be some kind of dancing game with pirates on a beach. I couldn’t really get it to do much, I think you have to tap your buttons in a set rhythm.. Ive played a DS game like this I think. I hate it, oh and the music is bad.
Mosaico
Well this is essentially the little annoying picture shuffle game out of Fantastic Dizzy. The one thing I dislike about that game and that’s all this game is. The music is the worst I have heard so far on any game I have ever played.
Natacao
Swimming game where you have to press the correct buttons in the order given as fast as you can. A bit (very little bit) like Guitar Hero. To be honest ive had a few goes of this and happen to think my hand eye co-ordination is reasonable but I could not do better than coming last! Music isn’t very good and the graphics are rather bad.
Nim
Not much to say, I don’t understand what you have to do. Spent about 10 minutes pressing on random things and lighting the matches on the screen before I couldn’t stand it any longer! It just seems random. Music is horrible.
Pedreipo Polar
Frogger style game with very little challenge. It’s not terrible but could be much better. Once you have played it about 4 or 5 times there’s not much that makes you want to return. Just hop back and forth across the floating Ice and collect bags of money, like you do. Graphics are fine but no in game music. Once you have played it about 4 or 5 times there’s not much that makes you want to return. Just hop back and forth across the floating Ice and collect bags of money, like you do. Graphics are fine but no in game music.
Pense Bem 10 Jogos.
This makes up for 10 of the 120 advertised ‘Super Jogos’. This is a total swizz really because all 10 are just multi-choice question games but on different subjects, for example Animals and Sport. Each question has a little picture next to it, I seem to be able to answer most correctly by just going off the picture as I can’t read Portuguese very well. Oh, and the music is bad.
Zoo.
Just walk up and down with your barrow feeding your animals apples. You get 1 minute 30 seconds to keep your animals alive. Each has an energy bar that gradually ticks down but gets replenished with the giving of apples. You start off with just 4 animals to maintain but this increases by 1 after each level progression. Gets more tricky once you have over 6 animals. To be honest it’s a pretty horrible game as when your animal is near death it looks genuinely ill, the elephants come out in scabs! It’s a nice idea for a game but just too simplistic to hold your attention for long. Graphics are average and the music isn’t very good.
In summery..
These games just don’t stand up well next to the original Sega games on the system. Even the older Mark III games feel much more solid and playable. I get the impression that Devworks struggled with programming on the SMS – or perhaps it was just that Tec Toy wanted quantity over quality. I’m not sure you could say any are as bad as Championship Hockey but you’re definitely in Alf territory. I’d still recommend a Master System III - 120 Super Jogos to any collector and it’s worth giving these games a go.
