Halley Wars (1991)

This cheerfully cheap-feeling shooter offers an enjoyable vertical blasting experience; there's very little to it, but that's not really a bad thing for a pick-up and play shoot-'em-up. Levels are perhaps a shade longer than they remain interesting, but the music is pretty great and the level of challenge is very nicely pitched at a level that'll keep you plugging away at it without being totally unreasonable, as I personally find many games in this genre to be so difficult they're not enjoyable. No, I'm not just crap at them! How dare you!! Okay, I'm probably just crap at them. At any rate, this is a decent little blaster, if unfortunately by-the-numbers in its enemy formations and general visuals. ***

Home Alone (1992)

I realise how this will come across, but I hate Kevin McCalister and wish that the Wet Bandits would simply murder him with a drill, sparing us a couple of John Hughes' flicks that actively make me root for home invaders. At any rate, even after reading the manual I found this game to be completely unwieldy and next to no fun whatsoever. While it's ambitious - having you build your own weapons out of various parts and zip around the neighborhood setting traps for Harry and Marv - it is unfortunately desperately dull with it, and feels like moving through molasses at times with how slow and "jerky" it all is. It's possible that the unique (and rather microcomputer-ish) nature of this game may appeal to some, but not me. ** 

Hook (1993)

Spielberg's much-derided (but plainly brilliant) movie lends itself to a decent game, and the console title Hook was a good time, particularly on SNES. This Game Gear version is cut down, but retains some of the same charm. It's much harder than its slow-paced older brother, requiring better reflexes. This isn't a bad thing, but only being able to sustain, at default, two hits, is maybe a touch too unfair given the amped-up challenge of this version of the game. Still, jumping, stabbing and flying (hey, it's Peter Pan) all feel pretty good, and it follows the movie's story rather enjoyably if that's your thing. ***

Hurricanes (1994)

Oh dear, this is a bit crap. It's a shame, because the Mega Drive game is okay, and the cartoon it's based on... well, it sucked, but it had a banger theme song, which doesn't even seem to be on this effort's title screen. Says it all really. This is probably the weakest example of the absurd "platform games involving a football" sub-genre, worse even than Marko's Magic Football. I guess the games industry realised that you could hook in footy fans by making, er, a really good footy game? I digress. This is a banal ordeal of far-too-big levels that are almost empty of interesting content. The player movement and jumping feel pretty good, but it's wasted on these dreadful stages. *

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