Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

NES titles anyone? We have three for you but it's not likely that you'll want to download them. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

City Connection
Clu Clu Land
Urban Champion


 
Price: GB £3.59, EU €4.99
Publisher: HAMSTER
Developer: Jaleco
Released: 1985
System: NES

Something of a novelty here as this port of a game which once “graced” arcades has you driving along roads in a futuristic city, spraying them white as you pass over them to prove that you have been there... basically automobile graffiti.

While on your mission to paint the town white as it were, you must watch out for other motorists, police cars and seemingly suicidal cats sitting in the middle of the road; the highways aren't just limited to ground level, some are placed parallel above each other while you will also find them stacked vertically as you traverse them all in your gravity defiant mode of transportation.

You can pick up cans of oil which you can fire at other cars in order to get rid of them or you can wait until the move off-screen but generally you just have to avoid all obvious obstacles in your way. As you move through the levels you will traverse through “real world” locations so the backdrops will change but they really aren't much to look at as the game is a graphically grim. Audio is amazingly inept too and you'll want to hit the mute button a mere moment after playing, the hardware at the time could have handled a lot more but the developers obviously figured that it wouldn't be in keeping with their whole lazy arcade port ethos.

That is really just about all that there is to see here as there is nothing else really worthy of note of god forbid praise; it's just the same restrictive, repetitive and redundant gameplay throughout the whole soul sapping experience and is not even worth the “cheap” five hundred point price tag even if you happened to be one of the few people who liked it when it was around the first time if thats possible; please avoid this for the sake of your own sanity.

Verdict : A drastically dire driving disaster.

Price: GB £3.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Released: 1984
System: NES

This is definitely one of the more quirkier releases available for Nintendo's 8-bit machine, the plot goes a little something like this; evil sea urchins have stolen all the gold bars in the underwater world known only as Clu Clu Land and it's up to Bubbles, a (would you believe it?) bubble fish who has taken it upon himself to reclaim all the stolen gold and restore equilibrium to the ocean.

At first glance you would be forgiven for mistaking this title for a Pac-man clone and in some respects this may be true but only on a very loose level, the way you play is you must move by swinging around from peg to peg that make the maze on each level all in an attempt to collect the gold bars that are placed throughout the level; incidentally the 'gold bars' are actually the rupee sprite from Zelda merely re-used.

Upon swinging around the course you will fill in gaps between the pegs, these lines that appear have a purpose for they are the outline of a design and once you've collected all the pickups and 'drawn' the outline you can progress to the next level. It isn't all as simple as that though as of course you have such hazards as whirlpools to avoid as well as sea urchins, though you are not defenceless as you have a sonar blast at your disposal which you can stun your enemies with before slamming them into a wall.

Everything does get progressively harder though as there are more traps, a strict time limit and changes to the rules such as moving over a gold bar a second time will undo the work you already did, couple this with the awkward controls which may be original but become more bothersome as the game progresses, everything just gets too frantic in the end and the excitement of zipping through each level soon turns to frustration which is a shame for a game that shows such promise in its beginning.

Visually it looks how you'd expect a game of it's era too and while it's not without its charm it does feel a little rushed, especially when you take into account the imported sprites, the sounds are nice enough but not as the audio featured in some of the classic NES titles. Overall it's not a terrible title and you may have some fun with it, but any enjoyment derived will be short lived upon reaching the later levels plus once you've played it once there is little to go back for so you'd be better off spending your hard-earned points on far more superior offerings that are already available.

Verdict : Underwhelming underwater-based arcade title.

Price: GB £3.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Released: 1986
System: NES

Urban Champion - for that is its name - is a god-forsaken wreck of a game! It involves you walking out and about, then when someone appears you give them a clout; it's a game that's too simple! I hear you all shout.

Moving from left to right, only a few paces until the next fight! You know it's not right, when a game like this just fails to excite; promoting a 'pass-time' which is nothing more than a blight, you can see why the experience never takes flight.

Punching and kicking 'your man' in the shins, punishing the - probably - wicked for all of their sins! You just keep pressing onward, in some attempt to just 'win' unless you get thwarted by a hole or a bin.

The visuals while detailed are incredibly old, the streets are most certainly not paved with gold! Same for the tunes which have had their chips, reduced to nothng more than mere bleeps and blips.

It just goes to show while the genre roots are so humble, that this game is still nothing more than a fumble. I would advise getting Final Fight if you're up for a rumble, if you get this instead you'll do nothing but grumble!

Verdict : Urban Champion of nothing but mediocrity.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!