The Gameboy Charts, 2

.____________________________________________________________________. |. | |.:. T H E | |:::. ______|_ _ ______ : _______ __\_ |____ /\__. ___\_ \___|_ __ _______ _____/\___ / _/__ / _ .| \/ |/ / // |____ ___\_ \/ / / // | / | ||. :// _____/. _ \/ / // / // \______ \_________|| \/ \________/|| | //\________/\_____ / \ _______| l____||____| |________/ -rtx/art \ ____/ \/ ` ' \/ . . __ |_____ ______|_ _ ___/____ | | _______ .____| | __\_ | ______\_ _/______ __ | | _/ _/ | | .|/ _ .|___\_ \/ \/ _/___ | | // |__| _ |/ | ||. / / \\_____ \ | | \_________/| |____\_________|| \____\______/\ ______/ .| | `----' l____| \/ .::| | Issue #2 (June) ' .::.:| `--------------------------------------------------------------------' INTRODUCTION ------------ It's chart time again! Just when you thought our charts were going to come out as often as Loaded's, here we are again with another timely reminder of who's hot and who's not on the gbc scene. Thanks to all for the feedback we received after our first issue was launched. I'm happy to say the vast majority of readers liked it, and wanted to see it continue...there were some dissenting voices however, and while some of the comments verged on the ridiculous, the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed we made some minor changes to the scoring system. Hopefully this will result in a more balanced chart, but as always if you have any complaints, please contact your nearest CPL member :) NOTE: Opinions expressed below are the opinions of the named author! If Mr.X of GBCLOSERS says that your group bends over and gets anally penetrated by a herd of goats, that's nothing to do with us. Contact CPL about the CHARTS, otherwise contact the person responsible for the comment you dislike. On with the show... - Wayne Kerr .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' RULES & POINTS -------------- -1 Point - DUPE: Released a game, but only after another group already beat you? -1 point then. DUPE TRAINER: A Late Trainer with the same or less options. BROKEN: If you release a game/trainer/crack that doesn't work, -1 time! +0 Points - NON-COLOR: Mono GB or SGB games are listed for posterity, but receive no points. Similarly, a trainer/crack for a GB/SGB-only game will receive 0 points. FIX: You get 0 points for fixing one of your own mistakes. +1 Point - AVERAGE TRAINER: +1, +2, +3, +4 trainer receives 1 point. +2 Points - AVERAGE FOREIGN: Foreign (non-English) games receive 2 points, even if the game has previously been released in another language. JAP/GER/FRA/SPA, whatever. A European release of a previously available US release will also receive 2 points. QUALITY TRAINER: A +5 or above trainer will receive 2 points. CRACK: A crack for a protected/non-working game gets you 2 points. +3 Points - INT: An English-language release of a game will receive 3 points. QUALITY FOREIGN: A Foreign (non-English) game that is 100% playable. TRANSLATION: Translating a non-English game to English = 3 points. The points reflect the major amount of work this requires! +4 Points - MAJOR: Usually the best/most-anticipated game of the month. .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Aggression _____/\ .___________ :_________ eNf / \| _____/__| ____/__. / \ \___ |______ | // /\ \ | | | || /_______\ ____\__________|___________| <-----------\/--------------|--------------> DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03-06-99 INT Bust-A-Move 4 04MB +03 03-06-99 INT Ken Griffy Jr's Slugfest 08MB +03 03-06-99 INT V-Rally '99 08MB +02 ----------- TOTAL +08 ----------- COMMENTS -------- Well, this was entirely unexpected. AGS busting out in the GBC scene in a big way. I was highly anticipating the release of Bust a Move 4, but nobody knew the regular groups wouldn't be getting this out first. Good job on that one. Great to finally have a portable color version of this popular puzzle game :) Ken Griffey is also an excellent release, being the best baseball game to come out on gameboy yet (and as far as color goes, not everyone's skin is black in this one :P) - Amptor/Oldskool A few nice releases from Aggression, expecially one that I was really looking forward to, Slugfest. Nice work, hope to see more great ones from them. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire Newcomer Aggression surprised everyone by releasing 3 games in one day. Bust-a-Move 4 was somewhat disappointing unfortunately, but Aggression seems as if they might give Menace some great competition for US releases. I hope to see more of what they can offer in the future. - Opoth/Menace Wow! AGS came out of nowhere on GBC to put out a couple of the best games released this month, namely BAM4 and Ken Griffey. After further inspection Bust a Move turned out to be pretty poor, but that's not the fault of AGS! Ken Griffey was technically excellent and a pretty decent baseball game too, all-in-all a good month (day?!) for AGS. Expect to see more from them in the near future. - Wayne Kerr/Capital Three quality games - good work! The team behind V-Rally must be one of the best coders, technically. Slugfest really seem to be a really anti-emulator game - let's just hope this isn't the start of a new trend from the developers. - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Capital ________ _________/______ ____ / __/ ____\_ / / _____ | // |__/ _____// /_/\ | `----\________/_______|-rtx\_____/____\----' DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30-06-99 INT Asterix & Obelix +4 Trainer IPS +01 29-06-99 INT Pokemon Pinball (English) +1 Trainer IPS +01 26-06-99 INT Conker's Pocket Tales +4 Trainer IPS +01 25-06-99 INT Hugo 2 1/2 +3 Trainer IPS +01 25-06-99 INT Disney's Tarzan +3 Trainer IPS +01 19-06-99 INT Spy vs. Spy +2 Trainer IPS +01 04-06-99 INT Paperboy +2 Trainer IPS +01 03-06-99 INT WWF Attitude *CRACK* IPS +02 02-06-99 INT Maya the Bee & Her Friends +2 Trainer IPS +01 ----------- TOTAL +10 ----------- COMMENTS -------- Capital strikes again with more trainers. All of them are at least +2, which is great to see. The more options the better and having many options for hits like Tarzan and Conker's Pocket tales is great work. - Amptor/Oldskool What a surprise! Capital releases many of the greatest trainers that I've seen so far. I always seem to look forward to their next one as their menus seem to get better and better. Great work peeps. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire You can always expect great trainers and fixes from CPL, and June was no exception to this rule. I'm sure we would all like to see more games released by CPL in the future, but for now their trainers are great. - Opoth/Menace A quiet time for CPL this month, no game releases and only a few trainers (as usual) churned out by Rotox gave us any points! At least this month myself and Gilligan contributed a little, and hopefully things will pick up once summer is over. - Wayne Kerr/Capital Trainers, trainers, trainers - where are the games?? At least Capital shows who are the no. 1 when it comes to trainers, although there's no real quality trainer here. Running a PC program to find the imporant memory locations for lives etc is not much of a feat. Spending an extra day or two to make a quality trainer would do Capital good. Just a funny note concerning the Spy vs Spy trainer: turn on infinte lives and play the black spy, and you're in for a really though fight!! - Zizero/Eurasia (Note to Fredro/Eurasia: Look above.. Do these charts look biased to you? If the above was about you or Eurasia being mentioned like that and these charts were done by you I'm sure this comment would get removed) - Rotox/CPL .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Eurasia & Nightfall MTX!____.--._)\____ .-. ____/(___:.___ .--/ _ | | \___ \/ _ \/ ___/___]/ _ \--. | / __| l | _/ _ \___ \ / _ \ | | \_____\_____|_\_ \__|__/ ____/___| _|__/ | |/ _ \[___]/ ___| \(__ __| __/ _ \ | | | / | \ / | | _ | / __/ _ \ |_ |_| \__| /___\_____|__|__|__\__| \ |__/___\__\ `-' `-' DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23-06-99 INT R-Type DX +1 IPS +01 22-06-99 INT R-Type DX 08MB +04 17-06-99 JAP Pocket Hanafuda 02MB +02 10-06-99 JAP Kandume Monsters 08MB +02 08-06-99 INT Game Boy Camera *Gold* 08MB +00 GB 06-06-99 JAP Momotaro Collection 08MB +00 GB 06-06-99 JAP Bomberman Collection 08MB +00 GB 04-06-99 INT Bust-A-Move 4 +1 Trainer IPS +01 04-06-99 INT Paperboy +2 Trainer IPS -01 DUPE 03-06-99 JAP Katou 1-2-3 08MB +02 01-06-99 INT Conker's Pocket Tales 16MB +03 ----------- TOTAL +14 ----------- COMMENTS -------- And the most anticipated game of the month was R-Type DX. I thought this game could have been done better though. Generally, I dislike playing shooters that you die after one hit. Although e^n released an infinite life trainer, I don't think that's enough. I'll just wait and see if someone else brings out a better trainer or just buy an action replay :) Hmm..I see a -1 point for Paperboy +2 Trainer. I know there will be some argument about this after the charts are released :/ - Amptor/Oldskool Is it just me or do I see a lot of JAP releases coming out of e^n? :) Anyway, not only do they release another great game, R-Type DX, but they also train it. Keep it up. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire EUR&NFL definitely scored the best game of the month with R-Type DX. Of course, everyone expected Conker's Pocket Tales to be the release to have, but it was unfortunately disappointing. All in all, a solid mix of games and trainers is keeping EUR&NFL going strong. - Opoth/Menace Eur&NFL came back strongly this month, with a couple of big releases. Conkers Pocket Tales was eagerly awaited by all on the GBC scene, but turned out to be a _major_ letdown with below average gfx and gameplay. A black mark on RARE's otherwise unblemished report card...not EUR's :) But then, game of the month, R-TYPE DX! As good as a shootemup as I've seen on handheld, and definitely worthy of the 4 points. On the flipside of the coin, EUR managed an unwanted GBC-scene first by releasing a dupe trainer for Paperboy, and also released a +1 trainer for the awesome R-Type that was completely worthless (infinite lives for a game with infinite continues?!). Not much on the trainer side this month, but if the 'inside' warez continue, expect EUR to climb the charts next month... - Wayne Kerr/Capital R-Type, game of the month according to many, although I truly can't see why... The trainer was also a real disappointment for this "big" game. Lots of Japanese releases which I've never checked out. Of the game releases, Conker's Pocket Tales seems to be the best game. - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Independent/Anonymous _______ -poyZ! __ ___\______________\ __/ __ /_/\ _\ \_ _ / _ \ /_/\ .---\_\/-/______/___/___/_________\-\_\/---. `------------------/-----------------------' DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 05-06-99 INT Rats! +8 Trainer IPS +02 ----------- TOTAL +02 ----------- COMMENTS -------- Cool, a +8 trainer. Now that's what we like to see. Good job :) maybe you should consider joining forces with Capital. Or maybe e^n to give them some real competition ;) - Amptor/Oldskool A Rats +8? Impressive for it being an old but none-the-less fun game. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire Not much to say, but big trainers are always nice. - Opoth/Menace Absolutely tremendous work from Zizero, who has since joined EUR to bolster their weak trainer-force. I'm sure we all look forward to seeing future productions from this quality coder... - Wayne Kerr/Capital First ingame trainer. +8. A cool game. 'nuf said. OK, the game is old, but so what? - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Menace ._____ /\___ _______ _______ ___|. \/ |____\_ \_/ _/____ |:. || \/ / / /// |__rtx| `---l_____||____/_____/_____/\_________/---' DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29-06-99 INT Pokemon Pinball (English) 08MB +02 24-06-99 INT Disney's Tarzan 16MB +03 18-06-99 INT Chessmaster 08MB +03 18-06-99 INT Spy vs. Spy 08MB +03 03-06-99 INT Paperboy 08MB +03 ----------- TOTAL +14 ----------- COMMENTS -------- Menace busts out with four great games this month. I, as well as most others, particularly found Tarzan to be an enjoyable game. Brings back memories of when I was playing Lion King on SNES. This game has the same old style Disney video game graphics which normally I'd think are boring, but not this time. I think the good gameplay makes up for the familiar style. Spy vs. Spy is pretty cool. I like the idea of hiding bombs and watching the other player find them and get blown up ;) Good work on more quality stuff. Mainly this goes out to rza this time.. - Amptor/Oldskool Only thing I can say for Menace's releases this month is: wow. Tarzan owns and Poke P-ball is much better in ENG than JAP anyday. :) BTW, sup Rza! - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire While a comparably slow month, Menace continues to do what they do best in June, and that is releasing games that people want to play. Spy vs. Spy is the best of the bunch, and I'm sure all the Pokekiddies will appreciate the english version of Pokemon Pinball. We should definitely be expecting more from them in the future. - Opoth/Menace Well, looks like Menace took a little breather this month, managing only 5 releases which by their standards is pretty weak! Still, compared to almost everyone else they are kicking some ass, with both Spy Vs Spy and Tarzan high quality games. - Wayne Kerr/Capital Several fine release! My first real contact with the Spy vs Spy series, and I must say the game looks very good! Disney's Tarzan was also pretty cool, with digital background samples. Still, as I chess player, the most anticipated release of these was - for me - Chessmaster. It was thus a big disappointment that the game was just a colorization of the old one, and the game doesn't even run in double-speed mode!! - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Newbie _______________________________ __\ __ ___ * _ _ _ \ \ | \| |__\__\ |\ | | / / / \__\ \ | ' | ___/\| \| |/ /_ | | ___/ | . | ___/ ' ' / _ \| | ___/ |__|\___|_____/_____/ / /| |_____/ \____/ \_/ DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25-06-99 INT Yannick Noah Tennis 1/2MB +00 GB 22-06-99 JAP Noobow 02MB +00 GB 22-06-99 JAP Splitz 1/2MB +00 GB 21-06-99 JAP Luca's Puzzle Adventure 04MB +02 ----------- TOTAL +02 ----------- COMMENTS -------- The first one of these releases, Luca's Puzzle Adventure sounded interesting so I loaded it up. Not bothering to check if it was Japanese, I quickly found it to be unplayable. I'm starting to wonder, are all these legit releases or homebrew? - Amptor/Oldskool Newbie is one of those groups that come from out of nowhere and sneaks up on you unexpectedly. For a kiddie game, Noobow is very addicting and it's actually fun. Syl777, I'm looking forward to more releases from ya. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire Sometimes old GB releases are fun, but not when they're also jap. I didn't take a close look at these, but hopefully Newbie will offer some interesting releases in the future. - Opoth/Menace Some crappy JAP puzzle game and some ancient GB roms that no-one wants... Can you tell I'm impressed yet? Hope to see some _real_ releases from these guys in the coming months. - Wayne Kerr/Capital Haven't checked out any of the games, so not much to say. Always nice with new people releasing games though. - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Network International Limited _______ ___________/\_______/\__ \__ \| ____ __/_ ___/ / \ \/ \/ \_/\md / \ \_ \_ \_ \_____\_______/________/__________/ DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25-06-99 JAP World Soccer GB 2 08MB +02 04-06-99 JAP ClassKing Yamazaki 08MB +02 ----------- TOTAL +04 ----------- COMMENTS -------- I tried ClassKing for about a minute then quickly programmed something fun back onto my gb-x card :) Well, I always like to see more soccer (okay football but I'm not from europe so I don't spell gameboy color "gameboy colour" either ;) game come out. I didn't try this one because I heard it was pretty much the same as the last soccer game that came out. - Amptor/Oldskool NIL never ceases to impress me but this month was kinda slow for everyone. Great releases, though. Keep up the good work. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire June was a slower month for NIL, releasing only 2 new Japanese games for all the completists out there. Not much else to say, but we hope to see more from NIL in the future. - Opoth/Menace Hello?? Anyone there?? A quiet month for Nil, with only the JAP version of ISS'99 and another fairly poor game released during June. Let's hope the masters of the far-east are back with a bang during July! - Wayne Kerr/Capital No comment. - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Oldskool . :_____ :_____ _____:""|______.| /__ _____ __. | . Y / . | ____|! /. Y . Y |__ | ! ! /\ ! |___ / . _/ l | i | l | l_____l____\___i| \__i \____|_____!_____| ================l____\=|___\================ DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29-06-99 INT Spy vs. Spy (Multi) 08MB +02 24-06-99 JAP Momotetsu Junior 08MB +00 GB 05-06-99 JAP Jinsei Tomedachi 08MB +02 05-06-99 JAP Pachi Pachi Pachisurou 08MB +02 04-06-99 JAP Real Baseball Pacific League 04MB +02 04-06-99 JAP Real Baseball Continental League 04MB +02 04-06-99 JAP Golf De Ohasuta 04MB +02 01-06-99 INT Maya the Bee & Her Friends 08MB +03 ----------- TOTAL +15 ----------- COMMENTS -------- As usual, oldskool kicks out a handful of Japanese releases. The best one here (I bet you could guess) is the Maya the Bee & Her Friends. Of course, I don't watch the children's cartoon this is from (looks real boring to me, how can kids stand that crap :) This game seems a bit difficult for kids though because some of the levels are real difficult. If you want a challenging puzzle game, try it out. - Amptor/Oldskool More JAP releases? Is this some sort of conspiracy against ENG games? (j/k) Anyway, it's good to see Oldskool releasing quality games. Hmm, Maya the Bee looks awfully familiar. Why did the South Park engine get tortured like that? :P - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire A very impressive month for Oldskool, its great to see this group not being plagued by dupe releases. Taking over NILs usual place as the prime jap releaser, Oldskool has some excellent releases for all you collectors. Hope to see more from them soon. - Opoth/Menace What can I say? OldSkool came back kicking this month, and really stormed the charts with a flurry of decent Jap releases. But the best release by far has to be Maya the Bee, an addictive little platformer which reminded me of the classic Lost Vikings series on SNES. And no DUPES! :) - Wayne Kerr/Capital Lots of release, although nothing remarkable. The graphics in Maya the Bee was a real disappointment. I can't really see the need of all this released (from the publishers) of a multi-language version of a game - isn't english good enough?? - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Rapid Fire _______ _______.___________ __ .____\_ \____\_ \ _ / _ |. |. / // | //. |___/ .| |:. || \ \_ _____/|| _/ .::| `-- l_____|\_____/____|-rtx!l_____| ------' DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27-06-99 INT NHL: Blades of Steel +1 Trainer (SEL) IPS +01 23-06-99 INT NHL: Blades of Steel +1 Trainer (USEL) IPS -01 BROKE ----------- TOTAL +00 ----------- COMMENTS -------- A new trainer group? I don't really care much for +1's or hockey games, so I don't really have much to say here. - Amptor/Oldskool Ahh, time for me to comment on Rapid Fire (oh great, another ego swelling opportunity for the Pimp). Our first release, to put it bluntly, blew big ones. That's what I get for training games without testing on the real HW. At least the members caught my mistake and fixed it along with making it selectable. Gotta give props to Alfiax for giving us a new menu and fixing the problem. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire While I can honestly say I never had a chance to look at these trainers, it's never a good sign when your first release doesn't work the way it should. Hopefully things will be brighter for Rapid Fire in the future, but at the moment I am unimpressed. - Opoth/Menace "Yay, our first trainer!" -RPF. "Damn, it doesn't work" -RPF. "Yay, our first trainer AGAIN" -RPF. :) Jokes aside, this upcoming trainer group should feature in the coming months, and personally I wish them the best of luck in their endeavours. It should be nice to see another trainer team on GBC... - Wayne Kerr/Capital New group, and a broken "trainer"... a bit unusual with a trainer in a sports game though. - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' - Paradox _______ /\ :____/\ /\ __________ :____ \___ \/ \| _ \/ \ \ \ \___| / __/ / | \ |/ / | \_\__ \ \\ | / | __/ _ \ / \ _ / Y \ / _ \ |___|/ |___\\____\ |_\ :_____/__/ |___\ ----/_____|-----/_____|--\/-------/____|---- DATE CTY TITLE OF RELEASE SIZE PTS INFO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28-06-99 INT F1 Grand Prix 16MB +03 24-06-99 GER Hugo 2 1/2 08MB +02 04-06-99 INT Asterix & Obelix 08MB +03 ----------- TOTAL +08 ----------- COMMENTS -------- Paradox strikes again. Cool to see these guys in action. I've enjoyed their quality releases since the SNES days and all three of these games are no exception. Asterix & Obelix struck me as one of the best platform games I've played lately on any system while I tried it out on my V2 gb-x card to let Rotox know if the V2 had any problem with it (it didn't :) I think F1 Grand Prix is the best racing game out on GBC at the moment. I really enjoyed F-1 Race and this game, though made by a different company, has some of the same features as it (I'm just glad I don't wipe out in this one around the Z turns like I did often in F-1 Race ;) Hugo 2 1/2 is a strange game, but has some pretty fun levels where you can swim, ski, and fly. Excellent job on these quality releases! - Amptor/Oldskool Paradox does it again. I have been waiting for F1 GP for a while and it was worth it. Great releases this month, hope to a lot more from ya. - BigRedPimp/Rapid Fire A fair month for PDX, they improved over their May releases by offering games that were not previously available with different title screens. Solid European releases, hope to see more from PDX soon. - Opoth/Menace Three good games appeared this month from the Paradogs, who show some real signs of dominating the European releases. With the rumoured introduction of some quality trainermakers in the near future, expect PDX to creep up the charts over the summer months... - Wayne Kerr/Capital Asterix & Obelix was yet another example of a game put together in too short time. When are developers and publishers going to become more serious about Gameboy development? It's really a shame... - Zizero/Eurasia .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' .____________________________________________________________________. |. | |::. TOP 10 __ |_____ ______|_ _ ___/____ | | . _______ .____| | __\_ | ______\_ _/______ __ | | _/ _/ | | .|/ _ .|___\_ \/ \/ _/___ | | // |__| _ |/ | ||. / / \\_____ \ | | \_________/| |____\_________|| \____\______/\ ______/ | | `----' l____| \/ | | | | Position Group Name Total Points | | -------- ---------- ------------ | | 1ST Oldskool 15 | | 2ND \ Eur&NFL 14 | | " " / Menace 14 | | 3RD Capital 10 | | 4TH \ Aggression 08 | | " " / Paradox 08 | | 5TH NIL 04 | | 6TH \ Ind 02 | | " " / Newbie 02 | | 7TH Rapid Fire 00 .| | ..| | .:::| `--------------------------------------------------------------------' SUMMARY ------- There you have it guys and gals, another month of gbc releases scored and commented upon for your enjoyment. Nothing too notable happened this month, a typical summer release schedule seems to have very few exciting titles included...however a mention must be made of Zizero/EUR's fixing utility for v1 bung carts and their bank-switching difficulties. Nice tool! That's it, I'm all out of what little inspiration I had. It's summertime, get off IRC and go on holiday...but don't forget to take your GBC with you :) - Wayne Kerr .__________________________________________________________________________. | | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------' (c) Copyright, Capital 1999 - Art/Design by: Rotox!