Super Play's Top 600 Super NES Games: #550 - #501

#550: Mecarobot Golf

37% Perhaps the worst golf game we've ever played. You can do far, far better than this.

#549: Uncharted Waters

37% You'd expect there to be an excruciatingly complex and involving game lurking here somewhere. But could I find it? (Answer: No.)

#548: Battletoads/Double Dragon

37% This really is a waste of time. It comes to something when the best part of a new Super Nintendo game is the small section which replicates a 1970s arcade hit. Tch!

#547: Acrobat Mission

38% Acrobat Mission is a really appalling vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up. To buy it you'd have to be completely mad.

#546: Carrier Aces

39% A desperately thin attempt to create a flight simulator for the SNES. Japanese kamikaze pilots would be insulted, if they hadn't all killed themselves.

#545: Star Trek:
The Next Generation

39% A compilation of very poor sub-games adhering only loosely to the Next Gen theme. It's a cosmic disaster that will disappoint gamers and Trekkies alike.

#544: Family Dog

39% The controls are horribly unwieldy (the animation seems to take precedence whenever the game's got to take a decision between moving 'Dog' and completing a sequence of actions), you get sent back frustratingly far when you die, and it's all dull, dull, dull.

#543: The King of Rally

39% A real disappointment. Brilliant 3D scrolling -- it's a very striking game when you first see it -- but with very little to actually do.

#542: Wizardry V

39% Slow, tedious, pointless and completely inexcusable in the '90s. I hope we never see anything like this ever again.

#541: Super Godzilla

39% It captures some of the Godzilla atmosphere, but this doesn't make it a particularly good game. The fighting is quirky; original, but not very much fun. And there's little variety. Boo, hiss.

#540: Double Dragon V

39% Not as good as the two biggies, despite its 24 meg. Diverting for a while, and the CPU plays a mean game, but generally too shallow and lacking real fight. And the graphics could be better.

#539: Beavis & Butt-Head

39% Committed B and B fans -- if such people exist -- may get something out of this, but, as the gruesome twosome themselves would no doubt say, 'this sucks'.

#538: Imperium

40% Imperium is very lack-lustre. In a couple of days time you'll probably have forgotten it ever existed. (It's called Assault Suits Darion in Japan, but the way.)

#537: Olympic Summer Games

40% Not the best use of an Olympic tie-in, which seems wholly satisfied with shoving reams of Atlanta '96 emblazoned title screens down your throat rather than sorting out its faults. The whole thing feels a little flat and is essentially only worth considering if you throw parties regularly. It won't have a long life if you're Billy No Mates, you see.

#536: Foreman For Real

40% A license. A flash graphics routine. A poor interface. For Real manages to miss the spot in every respect, turning in as bad a performance as the first Foreman game.

#535: Monopoly

20% If you get really, really bored on a rainy day, this may just amuse you for about 10 minutes, but only if you haven't already got Monopoly the board game.

#534: Wordtris

41% Fine in principle, and fun for a little while, but they seem to have made a bit of a hash of it. What should need lots of brain-power is really just a game of luck.

#533: Space Invaders

40% Personally, I can see it being a hit in Japan, hearing in mind it's selling for only 4,980 yen (approximately £26), and the Japanese people's notorious love of all things out of the ordinary. Over here, though, I can't see anyone but the most nostalgia-huntry fanatics buying it.

#532: Incredible Crash Dummies

41% For the price of this cart you could actually buy a Game Boy. Perhaps you should ask yourself what you want from your machine?

#531: Liberty or Death

41% Liberty or death? Death is marginally the better option here. (Unless you're a wargame fan, and fascinated by American history.) You'll want to play something fun after you've had a go at this.

#530: North Star Ken 6

42% Effective, large, smooth-moving sprites, some funny moments and lots of speed, but TERRIBLY shallow in the gameplay department. It's a chore to play and absolutely no competition for Street Fighter II.

#529: Super Black Bass

42% I don't understand how anyone could enjoy fishing, unless you count the bit where the fish are barbecued and eaten. And that's what it all boils down to in the end -- whether you've got the patience for this sort of thing.

#528: Turbo Toons

42% Initially very amusing but, much like that looping background scenery of every Hanna Barbera cartoon, it's too simple and becomes repetitive far too quickly.

#527: Action Pachio

42% It's yawn city and bad enough to have us scrambling to cover up the monitor when someone from Sega Power walked into the room for fear that if they saw this, they'd be taking the Michael out of us for months.

#526: Super Tom & Jerry

42% A largely worthless attempt to cash in on the Tom and Jerry name that isn't going to keep the average player amused for long.

#525: Golden Fighter

42% A perfectly awful beat 'em up that combines elements of Final Fight and Street Fighter II, adds a novel pick-your-own-move option, and then throws everything away by mucking up the scrolling, animation and basic gameplay.

#524: Power Piggs

42% Dislikeable characters, ill-conceived gameplay and tawdry graphics add up to a -- yeah, sorry -- swine of a game.

#523: Death Valley Rally

42% Everything that makes Road Runner so wonderful (and that what this gets most of its marks for) dragged down by an awful game. It's too hard, and simply not worth the trouble of persevering with.

#522: Super Battletank 2

43% If just the smallest amount of thought had been put into it, this could have been the first true tank simulator on the SNES, and been superbly detailed and playable. It wasn't, it isn't and it never will be.

#521: Might & Magic II

43% This is rule-playing, not role-playing. Even 'fans of the genre' would be hard-pushed to elicit any enjoyment from this cart.

#520: Tecmo Secret of the Stars

43% Hmmmm ... mediocre. Don't be fooled into thinking that just because Final Fantasy got you interested in RPGs that they've all that good. This is a bog-standard Japanese style RPG that only die-hard fanatics will get anything out of.

#519: Super Sumo

44% Super Sumo is very nearly as good as Sumo Spirits. In fact, in quite a few ways it's better: It's slightly easier to work out what's going on, and the graphics are cute and amusingly animated. But it's just not as playable, somehow.

#518: Revolution X

45% It's an arcade game. It belongs in the arcade, where you can blast away for ten minutes then play something else. Venture any further in, and you'll discover how little there is to it.

#517: Ultima VI:
The False Prophet

45% Ultima: The Vast Profit (for old rope), more like. Compared to Zelda or Secret of Mana, this is a shameful bit of old tat.

#516: Super Drift Out

45% There's a dearth of good driving games on the SNES right now, and this doesn't address the problem at all convincingly. Too limited? Too easy? Too true.

#515: Front Mission: Gun Hazard

45% Fun Hazard, more like. Devoid of action, tactics, playability or challenge, Front Mission: Gun Hazard is the Dusty Bin of mecha gaming. And it's published by Square. The rot sets in.

#514: Ultraseven

45% Two-player mode gives lots of laughs, certainly, but of the 'oh dear, how ridiculous is this?' type. Just as tacky as the useless original.

#513: Operation Europe

46% Poorly thought out and slow; there aren't any decent combat bits to life it up. A pity, because the detail is excellent. And therefore wasted.

#512: Rise of the Phoenix

46% There's more strategy in a game of Snap. Below average, even by Koei's standards.

#511: Syvalion

46% Odd central character, which presents its own challenges, but otherwise a fairly unremarkable blaster -- and one that fails to ever get very exciting.

#510: Clue

46% The usual board game conversion comments apply, really: ie it's a perfectly serviceable conversion that has nothing over the original and costs much more.

#509: Ren & Stimpy
Show: Veediots

47% Quite interesting to look at for a little while, but deeply sub-incredible to play.

#508: Sumo Spirits
(Oozumou Tamashii)

47% Believe it or not, sumo wrestling does actually work quite well on the SNES -- sort of -- and Super Spirits is the best version we've seen yet. We're not suggesting you rush out and buy it, though.

#507: E.V.O.: Search for Eden

47% A splendid idea, but a very mediocre game. Tacked on to a shoot 'em up, say, the evolution concept could have been a winner.

#506: Super Bowling

48% The problem with Super Bowling is that it's so easy -- within 30 minutes we were getting perfect strikes every time, which makes you question the long-term appeal rather. There's little else wrong with it, true, but isn't that enough to be getting on with?

#505: Battle Clash

48% Quite a bit more exciting than previous offerings, but not conclusive proof that the Super Scope is the peripheral of the '90s (or whatever). It's just too limited, and too repetitive. (And miles too easy to finish.)

#504: Super F1 Hero

49% A pretty poor effort. The driving side of things sort of works, but the graphics let the game down completely.

#503: Super Conflict

49% Not only is this about 10 years behind what's going on elsewhere in the wargaming world, but it doesn't even work properly.

#502: Redline F-1 Racer

49% A very poor racer compared to the likes of either Human Grand Prix or Nigel Mansell's. It tries quite hard, but it's really barking up the wrong tree of playability altogether. In completely the wrong forest, if the truth be told.

#501: Power Athlete

49% A poor Street Fighter II rip-off -- and a total waste of money -- but if you did ever get to play it, I'd venture you'd grow oddly fond of it.