Reviews
Advance Wars: Dual Strike DS Review: War on Two Fronts
Dual Strike doubled Advance Wars’ commanders, screens and chaos — two COs, tag powers and battles fought on two fronts at once made it the series’ maximalist peak.
Author: Sal Benedetto
From the Vault columnist. Grew up feeding quarters to the Ms. Pac-Man machine at his uncle's pizza place; still owns his childhood SNES and every Nintendo Power he ever begged his mother for. Writes the retrospectives and the hidden-gem hunts.
Reviews
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass DS Review: Sailing by Stylus
Phantom Hourglass rebuilt Zelda entirely around the stylus — drawing boat routes, sword swings and boomerang paths — and produced the DS’s most inventive adventure.
Reviews
Pokémon Diamond DS Review: Sinnoh’s Slow, Grand Adventure
Pokémon Diamond carried the series onto the DS with a new region, global online trading and 107 new creatures — a stately, enormous adventure whose only sin is its speed.
Reviews
Mario Kart DS Review: The Racer That Took Karting Online
Mario Kart DS stuffed sixteen retro tracks, mission mode and the series’ first online racing into a cartridge in 2005 — and set the template every handheld kart racer still follows.
Reviews
New Super Mario Bros. DS Review: The Plumber Goes Back to Basics
After fourteen years away, Mario returned to side-scrolling in 2006 — and New Super Mario Bros. proved the old formula, polished to a mirror shine, still ruled handheld gaming.
Features
VIC-20 Hidden Gems: Ten Cartridges and Tapes the Crowd Walked Past
Beyond Gridrunner and Jelly Monsters lies the VIC-20’s second shelf — Minter’s Hellgate, a Dracula rescue, a periscope classic and seven more gems worth your slot time.
Features
The Yak on the VIC: Jeff Minter’s Formative Llamasoft Years
Before the C64 fame, Jeff Minter built Llamasoft on the VIC-20 — Andes Attack, Abductor, Gridrunner and Hellgate, written on the machine that taught him speed.
Features
The $299 Friendly Computer: How William Shatner Sold the VIC-20 to America
At $299, with a Star Trek captain asking ‘Why buy just a video game?’, the VIC-20 became the first computer to sell a million — the friendly computer that started it all.
Reviews
Mole Attack VIC-20 Review: Whack First, Ask Questions Later
Commodore’s cartoon whack-a-mole for the VIC-20’s first wave — nine holes, one mallet, and moles with no respect for your reflexes. Simple, silly, surprisingly tense.
Reviews
Pirate’s Cove VIC-20 Review: Scott Adams Sails for Treasure
Adventure No. 2 in Scott Adams’ series reached the VIC-20 as Pirate’s Cove — build a boat, mind the crocodiles, and dig where the treasure sleeps.