The last batch of activities in Clubhouse Games on the Switch are neither board games nor card games.  Some are parlor games, some are toy-like sports games.  Just a hodgepodge of sorts.  All right let’s finish this off.

Golf

Just a simple to understand top down viewed golf game, hardly no more complicated than NES Golf.  And speaking of which, did you know the courses in NES Golf, Wii Sports Golf, and this golf game are all the same?  And that Satoru Iwata himself designed the original NES Golf?  Also, NES Golf was one of the few NES games I could get my dad to play!  Only problem is that on Clubhouse Games, you can only play 9 holes.  I know they wanted the games to be short, but why not 18?  It doesn’t take THAT long to go through the holes.  Even NES Golf had 18 of them.

Billiards

Simple top down viewed pool.  You have three different game modes.  I used to play a lot of pool in college, especially in my freshman year because none of my friends had a car on campus, and the dorm where we all lived had pool tables in the basement you could use.  For Christmas that year I even got my own pool stick.  I was never very good at pool, though.  But at least here I can beat the computer.  Other pool games I enjoyed were the ones on Super Monkey Ball, and I rented Lunar Pool on the NES a couple of times and enjoyed it.  Did you know that Lunar Pool was Compile’s first game on the NES?

Bowling

It’s almost a carbon copy of Wii Sports Bowling except you don’t use Miis and the controls are slightly different.  Still pretty decent, though.  You can use motion or touch screen controls.  Touch screen is a little easier, but both work fine.

Darts

Like Bowling, you can use either motion or touch screen controls here.  I’ve never been very good at darts, neither here nor in real life.

Carrom

It’s like a cross between marbles and pool, and it came from India.  It takes a little longer to play than pool, but I still managed to beat the computer.

Toy Tennis

The toy sports titles here are like playing these games on a tabletop mechanical machine where you move the players along slots and swing to hit the ball.  I’ve never really gotten into tennis video games, though.  Seems like just glorified PONG to me.  Although I did like SEGA Superstars Tennis.  Any game with Ulala in it can’t be all bad, right?

Toy Soccer

It’s like foosball except you move the players vertically and not horizontally.  I’ve never been very good at foosball either.

Toy Curling

Really it reminds me more of shuffleboard here than curling.  I didn’t even know what curling was until I combined the rock and ice powers to make Kirby turn into a curling stone in Kirby 64!

Toy Boxing

It’s Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots more or less.  Use one button to block and one to punch.  If you land a punch, you’ll push your opponent back a bit.  Knock them out of the ring to win.

Toy Baseball

This mostly reminds me of the Monkey Baseball game in Super Monkey Ball.  When you are up to bat, you must try to hit the ball into slots for a single, double, triple, or home run.  Just don’t let your ball get caught by the outfielders.  It’s really fun and simple.  I find baseball boring to watch on TV and can’t play it in real life very well because of my disability, but I have enjoyed some baseball video games from time to time.

Air Hockey

That’s what it is.  Can’t describe any better than that.  Recently in an arcade I saw an air hockey game called Pac-Man Smash.  It had the maze on the field, but the cool thing is it sends about ten pucks out at once!  Very cool.  Wish it was like that on this one.

Slot Cars

Plays like how you’d expect video slot cars to play.  Press a button to go forward, but slow down in the turns so you don’t fall off the track.  You can play it with one or two players, and one neat thing you can do is that, similar to Super Mario Party, you can connect Switch screens together to make bigger and more varied tracks.  I loved slot cars as a kid.  One year for my birthday I wanted the Dukes of Hazzard slot car set so bad.  But when I got it I was very disappointed.  Like the show, there is a ramp for the cars to jump off of.  How many times do you think those cars jumped the ramp and landed exactly in the slots again?  Zero!

Fishing

A lot like fishing in Animal Crossing except you wind the analog stick to reel in the fish.  Like the slot car game, you can connect Switch screens together to make different places to fish.  Place the screens horizontally and you can make a longer river, and place them vertically to make an ocean.  And if you place the first player’s Switch upright on the stand, that part of the river will turn into a waterfall!  Neat!

Battle Tanks

It’s like a 3-D version of Atari’s Combat 2600 game.  I’ve read it’s a lot like the tank game in Wii Play.  But honestly, I don’t remember a tank game in Wii Play.  But then, I haven’t played that game in over ten years!  Honestly the only thing I remember about Wii Play is the cow racing game.  And the shooting gallery, which we’ll get to in a bit.

Team Tanks

You and another player team up to battle CPU tanks.  There are a bunch of stages to tackle, and like the slot car and fishing games, you can connect Switch screens to make bigger stages.  Depending on how you connect the screens, you may make it easier for your or the enemy, so there is a bit of strategy involved in how you arrange the stage layouts.  Neat!

Shooting Gallery

It’s just like the target shooting game from Wii Play, so you aim the JoyCons at the TV.  It also reminds me of Point Blank.  I don’t understand why Namco won’t make a Point Blank game on the Switch.  That would be so fun and would work really well.  We never got a Point Blank game on the Wii either.  But you know what system did get a Point Blank game?  The DS!  How does that make sense?

6-Ball Puzzle

It reminds me of those falling block puzzle games but you must match six marbles of the same color to make them disappear.  It’s really fun, but the CPU past Hard is impossible.

Sliding Puzzle

You must slide tiles to make a path for a wind up turtle so it can collect bonus stars.  It kind of reminds me of Pipe Dream, but I’ve never been very good at sliding block puzzles.

Piano

And the last thing isn’t really a game, just a piano you can play on the touch screen to make music.  Like the fishing, slot car, and tank games, you can connect screens here.  Horizontally will make more octaves you can work with, while vertically will make the piano into an organ!  Other players can shake JoyCons to play maracas and other percussion instruments.  And those are all the games!  Tomorrow I’ll have a wrap up with my general impressions of the whole package.  Later!  –Cary

Tags: Game Reviews