The last classic collection I got on sale recently was the Contra Collection.  I’m not a big fan of Contra either, but I do like it a lot better than Castlevania.  I was never very good at Contra, though.  I do remember it being very popular when I was a kid in the 8- and 16-bit days.  Most people I know either had it on the NES, or rented it a lot.  It may not be the first run and gun game, but it is one of the first that perfected and popularized the genre.  I even remember one time reading a newspaper comic strip back then where two kids were running home to play NES games, and one of the kids said “Let’s play Contra!”  So anyway, let’s take a look at the Contra Collection!

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Play as one of several multicolored knights as you battle it out in top down viewed arenas in a gameplay style similar to Gauntlet or Atari’s Combat on 2600.  Up to eight can go at it locally or online in this title available for Switch, Xbox One, and PC (reviewed on Switch here).

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For the longest time I thought the first video game I ever played was Pac-Man.  But it was actually PONG, I just didn’t realize it at the time.  You see, when I was very little, my dad built our very first TV.  He ordered parts and instructions through a place called Heathkit.  This was in the late 70’s, so it was a great big old wooden monster that looked like a piece of furniture.  But that TV also lasted well until I was in high school!  He also built a metronome with Heathkit, and one of the other extra things he added to the TV was a home PONG clone that you could pull out at any time and play if you changed it to channel 3.  I was so young at the time, though, that I didn’t realize this was a video game, just something you could do if there wasn’t anything on TV.  Anyway, that’s my PONG story.  Never would I have imagined that someone would combine PONG with a dungeon crawling RPG, but now you have PONG Quest.  It’s available for Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

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So I have to admit, I’ve never been a big Castlevania fan.  So why did I get this collection?  Well, one, it was on sale.  Can’t resist a sale.  Plus I wouldn’t have bought it full price being digital only.  And two, I also love classic game collections period.  And three, it has one game in the series that I do really like, and it’s my favorite Castlevania game ever.  It’s also never been released in the US until now.  Can you guess what it is?  Well you’ll just have to read on to find out!  So let’s take a look at every game on this collection!  And let me know in the comments section what your favorite Castlevania game is.

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If there was ever a game that needed the Dragon Ball Z license, this is it!  Fly Punch Boom! is a unique take on fighting games.  You control a Punchy, a super powerful being with the ability to fly and possesses ridiculously strong attacks.  You fight other Punchies in locations like cities, underwater, and even outer space.  This over-the-top action fighter is available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

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Father’s Day is coming up, and sometimes around now I think about the video games my dad likes to play.  While he currently mostly plays casual games on his iPad, back when I was a kid, he played a lot of racing games in the arcade.  I remember sitting in his lap in the sit-down racing arcade cabinets to play hits like Pole Position and Turbo.  Years later when I was too big to sit in his lap, he still played arcade racers like OutRun and Ridge Racer.  And one of the few games I could get him to play on the NES was Rad Racer!  So when I saw 80’s Overdrive on the Switch, it made me think of him.  80’s Overdrive is a retro inspired pixel racer that plays similarly to OutRun.

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A few of the games I got on sale recently are three collections of Konami classic games.  So today we’ll look at the collection with a bunch of Konami arcade titles.  I’ll go over the other collections in the coming weeks, don’t worry.  They should’ve called this the Shooter Collection, because with the exception of one game on here, they’re all shooters.  So let’s take a look at what’s on here!

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Do you like Smash Bros.? (Who doesn’t?).  Do you miss the 2-D platforming sections in previous Smash installments like the Subspace Emissary?  And do you also miss being able to edit your moves like in the Wii U Smash?  If you said ‘yes’ to those questions, than you may want to try Megabyte Punch.  It uses the exact same control scheme as Smash, but allows you to control a robot with customizable parts as you tromp through 2-D platform areas, brawling other robots along the way.  It’s like a cross between Smash Bros. and the GameCube classic Custom Robo.  It’s available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

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Two women, Tanya and Olga, share a bond that gives them magical powers, but an evil queen separates them so their powers are weaker.  Now it’s up to the one woman who didn’t get captured to rescue the other one and overthrow the tyrannical queen and her vast army in this 2-D retro styled hack and slash platformer.  It’s available on all current game consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

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I don’t know if it was because there was a Spring Sale, or if it was Golden Week in Japan, or maybe because of all the Coronavirus stuff.  But there have been a BUNCH of games on sale lately.  A few weeks ago, I got about five games on sale on PS4 for mostly less than ten bucks each!  Most of them were arcade collections.  Originally they were all 20 bucks, which isn’t THAT bad anyway.  But I feel that digital only collections like this are still too pricey at that amount.  If they were physical copies yeah I’d pay that.  But since they were only digital I decided to wait for a sale.  One of the games I got from that sale was the Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, which comes with seven arcade classic co-op side scrolling beat ‘em ups.  There are also a bunch of neat artwork galleries in this game as well, plus you can save your games and even play them online!  But since I like to talk about the games in these collections, let’s do that with this one.  In the coming weeks I’ll talk about some of the other games I got on sale, too!

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