The Wii’s Virtual Console is a strange thing. As a cheap and easy way to have your favorite classic games in one place, it should be like a faithful, lifelong lover, but instead it’s like a series of unsatisfying one night stands. What I mean is, every week Nintendo releases one or two new games to the service, and usually they don’t exactly set the world on fire, while the real must-have classic games are few and far between. Our own Christopher Bowen puts it quite well:
I wish Nintendo would stop fucking around with this foreplay and start releasing shit we actually want to play. Neither of these games deserve their own write-up.
With that in mind, this week we have King’s Knight from the NES and Powerball from the Genesis. The phrase “coyote ugly” comes to mind. Alright, I’m done with sex jokes now. Here are some opinions from your favorite DHGF writers.
Mark B.: Of the two I’ve only ever played Powerball, and anything I have to say about it will be peppered with all sorts of bad words, so I don’t think I can help out there. Here’s hoping next week features games people have played?
Guy Desmarais: Not much can be said about this week’s Virtual Console release. First of all, I have never played either of them, and what I have read about them cannot be considered positive in any way. Still, I like to find a positive light for everything in life, which is pretty easy to do if you break the games down to their basics. King’s Knight is a Square game, which means there’s a chance we could be getting Super Mario RPG or Chrono Trigger soon. Personally, I’m all about SMRPG, but my colleague is getting a bad cough just thinking about the other, so I’ll add my name to the list just so he can feel better. As for Powerball, let’s take it simply as a crazy fake sports game. In that case, let’s just hope it opens the way for more crazy fake sports games like Mutant League Hockey. At least, its release would not have been in vain.
Alex Lucard: Never played either sadly.
Bebito Jackson: I don’t even know what these threads are about.
Um…ok…just me then.
King’s Knight
-Genre: Shooter
-System: Nintendo Entertainment System
-Release Date: 1989
-Price: 500 Wii Points
Charlie Marsh: Did the world really need a RPG-vertical shooter? I like shooters, but this is so slow and boring and…bad. They should have just made an RPG. But hey, it’s a Square game, so this can only mean good things for future releases, right (*cough*CHRONOTRIGGERPLZKTHANX*cough*)? Save your $5 here.
Powerball
-Genre: Sports
-System: Sega Genesis
-Release Date: 1991
-Price: 800 Wii Points
Charlie Marsh: It’s like football, but in the future, and the future is cool. Unfortunately, Powerball is one gigantic clusterfu*k, as the controls are pretty bad and it’s hard to know exactly what you’re doing. Once you get the hang of it, though, it can be pretty fun. I mildly recommend it, based on its uniqueness and the awesomely stereotypical teams, like the U.S.A. Rough Riders (represented by a cowboy) and the U.S.S.R Cossacks (represented by a dirty, rotten commie doing a funny dance). Awesome.
So hopefully, next week we’ll get something that we’ll not only want to talk about, but buy as well. Hopefully.
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