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It's a shame, really. Irem could've put together quite a nostalgic, quality package filled with their rich history of arcade games, including Lode Runner, Meikyuu Shima (otherwise known as Kickle Cubicle for NES), Atomic Boy, Battle Chopper, Ninja Spirit, and many more. Instead, they opted to go with two rather awful titles (10-Yard Fight and Zippy Race) and one decent arcade game (Spartan X ~ aka Kung Fu Master). What a shame.

The game set-up is rather nice. You start by selecting which arcade you want to play. From there, you 'insert coins' by hitting the appropriate button and from there you can set up each individual game with options. You can even choose between original and arranged soundtracks for every title. From there, things go downhill.... fast.

Let's begin with 10-Yard Fight, one of the worst football games ever made. If you're looking for Hail Mary's, calling audibles, hell, even time-outs, well.... you're in the wrong place. But if you're looking for super slow gameplay, horrendous control, no fun, and the worst graphics and sound, then boy! Are YOU in for a treat! Here's how it works; you're a nameless high school team with players that have no intelligence and can't run for their lives. You've got a clock of 60 seconds (playtime) and if you cannot make a touchdown within a short period of time, game over. If you get a first down, the clock will add a few seconds. You don't get to choose plays; everything is pre-set. You can pass but if you get intercepted your team gets pushed back 20 yards. Ok.... If you do get a touchdown, the computer kicks off to you again and this time there's less time to get a touchdown. Pretty exciting stuff.

I guess i'll sum up my experience with 10-Yard Fight with the only appropriate word - "Huh?"

Now, onward to Zippy Race. In the options screen you can choose to continue right where you lost, so turn that on. And don't worry; you'll only be playing it once so may as well make the best of things. You're on a motorcycle on a top-down view and you're mission is to try and score first place before you reach New York (there are 5 stages). You have no time limit per se, but you have a fuel gauge which depletes as you race. After you've progressed far enough in any particular stage, the screen switches from top-down view to a standard first-person view done so poorly it hurts. All they did was draw a street and animated lines coming down into the screen, and the screen never moves. While I suppose at the time this was nothing short of mind-blowing, looking at it now is a complete joke. Not only that, even though it's 5 stages, after the first two they just repeat the exact same courses. I'll save you the time with this ending spoiler; all it says is 'Viva! NY' and then the game starts over. Wow.....

Spartan X is the only reason why I bought this compilation, and even this is a letdown of sorts. Sure, I love Kung Fu on NES and I enjoy this arcade conversion. But in the end it just isn't worth it. Ok, maybe if this compilation cost $3-5 dollars or so it would be worth the money, but not $20-30. No way baby. Here's the deal with Spartan X; move forward and beat everybody (and everything) up with punches, kicks, sweeps, jump kicks, etc. and avoid getting hurt. That said, for some reason this conversion controls worse than the NES version and is rather unfair. For example, you can no longer jump kick diagonally at will--you have to walk forward for about a second or so before you can execute the move. Why is that? I don't know. Where this gets aggravating is in seriously unfair predicaments like at the beginning of stage 2 when all the jars are falling from the ceiling. You'll see a snake coming and so (naturally) you'll jump over it and right as you're in the air another jar comes down and cracks you right in the head, depleting half of your life! Stuff like that really pisses me off to no end. Sure, the characters are bigger in this conversion than the NES, but the NES version controls far better. Here's the plot; Thomas, a 'Kangfu expert' must rescue his girlfriend Sylvia from Mr X. Sure would be nice if Irem knew how to spell 'kung fu'.

If there's one thing Irem does know how to spell, it has to be 'rip-off' because at $20-30 that's precisely what this compilation is.

- Michael