Saturday, April 23, 2011

Cover to Cover: Virgin Games 1992 Catalog (pp. 5-6)

Our page-by-page survey of the Virgin Games catalog for 1992 continues, with a few titles for the original Nintendo Game Boy handheld.

Page 5 is devoted entirely to the portable version of Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia, also marketed for the NES by Virgin under sublicense from Broderbund.  The game was originally created for the Apple II, remember, so Nintendo's low-powered system has enough power to support a decent conversion.  The graphics are particularly well-handled, given the Game Boy's limited shading and resolution -- the Prince never gets lost in the background:


Page 6 presents a couple of Game Boy titles inspired by games available in the real world:


Caesars Palace is the usual gambling video game, produced under license based on the popular Las Vegas casino; Virgin and other companies have continued to produce games in this series over the decades.  They're apparently popular enough, though the combination of luck and not-actual-money has never been a strong draw for yours truly.

SPOT The Video Game is that rarity of rarities -- a game based on a licensor's mascot (in this case the 7-Up beverage concern's Cool Spot) that manages to provide actual entertainment.  Virgin produced the original edition of this title for the 8-bit NES, and ported it to the Game Boy later on.  The game works largely because it's the classical strategy game of Go (a.k.a. Othello) in disguise, dressed up with charming character animation as the stones transform into the SPOT character, strolling and flipping jauntily from position to position.

Tomorrow... Virgin shows off its Genesis lineup!

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