Quirky Top Ten List


The 7800 may have a small library of games, but the system has its share of some really oddball titles. Here's the unofficial Top Ten:




#10 Jinks
Jinks is supposedly a game where a spaceship is traveling though some sort of space station. I can’t tell you what Jinks is, but I know it’s not that. The title screen features a meteor, a walking bird, ice, a chess board and a voice that says “You can’t catch me!” None of this is in the actual game. This is similar to Breakout, but instead of using the paddle to control the ball, you must rely on telekinesis or your skills of verbal persuasion to move ball. No luck? Oh well… go ahead and throw the game out the window.


#9 Fatal Run
In this super mundane race against time, you drive your sports car from city to city, delivering a vaccine that is Earth's only hope against a poisonous gas that has been released into the atmosphere. As you trek from town to town, you encounter a gang of baddies who want to stop you on your quest. They drive cars, motorcycles, trucks and set up roadblocks as they try to ram your machine into bits. Luckily, you have access to hordes of weapons, including machine guns, missiles, and bombs. The bad guys, who obviously want to parish with the rest of the world, do not. As you haul butt into town, you see people dying in the streets as you try to make your way to the local store. Even though you just saved their town and the world is about to end, capitalism lives as store owners charge you full price for weapons, gas and repairs. Then you head out to the next town, wondering why the government isn't helping you on your quest. Seeing a bouncing cheerleader explode and turn into a tombstone is a hard image to shake.


#8 Crack'ed
In this shooting game, you must defend two cartons of eggs in various places with your gun against all sorts of egg lovers: birds, rats, animals that slide on their butts, even aliens. Yes, you might have to defend these eggs in a tree, in the city sewer, or even on another planet. These eggs are very important to you, but for some reason you feel you have to display them in easy access nests, instead of locking them away in a safe deposit box, your car, or heck...even your refrigerator. Why, every once in awhile you'll head down to the Rooster Ranch to throw these precious eggs at this crazed rooster who will throw eggs at you. It's hard to get motivated to defend eggs, especially since all you will end up doing with them is throwing them at a rooster. So needless to say this game is a hard game to pick up and play.


#7 Santa Simon
Surely a simple game of Milton Bradley’s Simon with a lovely Christmas theme can’t be all that bad, could it? I don’t know… but there is something about that snowman I don’t like. The way he lifts his hat and says, “Hey!” makes me have to look away from the screen. All I know is that this snowman had to walk around his neighborhood and inform his neighbors of embarrassing personality flaws. Mommy? Why does the bad man have to ruin Christmas? WHY?


#6 Scrapyard Dog
In this poor man's version of Super Mario Brothers, Louie the Scrapyard King has fallen victim to the local mob. Yes, his dog Scraps has been dognapped! It seems that the Mafia longs for this wonderful scrapyard of Louie's, which features large pianos and shops inside of trash receptacles. Yes, it's a magical place, but Louie's adventures take him to the streets, sewers, and finally to the Mob hideout. Yes, Louie might be killed by basketballs, rats with sunglasses, or bouncing radial tires, but when it comes to man's best friend, Louie proves his heart is at least half as big as his nose!


#5 Impossible Mission
Impossible Mission. How appropriately named. Yes, I'm sure you heard by now that the North American version of this game is literally impossible due to a programming bug. What a boo-boo. Even if the game was not a big waste of money, this game would make an appearance in the Quirky Top 10 anyway. The agent invades a madman's hideout and tries to locate all of the secret keys to unlock his main chamber. The crazy rooms in this guy’s house would be architecturally impossible to duplicate. I can’t imagine what this bad guy has to go through to get a sandwich in this place. Sadly for the good guys, you are forced to desperately jump from crazily placed ledge to crazily placed ledge, ride elevators, search furniture, and avoid robot guards the old fashioned way, by foot. Having a gun would be nice… but I guess this agent wants to show out.


#4 robotfindskitten
This is actually an underground game that has been programmed for everything from flash games, to the PSP to Apple computers to the Dreamcast. Oops, I lied. You see this isn’t really a game at all. I believe it is a government experiment. You control an asterisk which is call a robot, and you basically rub up against all sorts of keystrokes trying to identify a kitten. Blurbs pop up when you touch something… odd blurbs like, “It’s the local draft board” “It’s a Cat 5 cable” “It’s the World’s Biggest Motzah Ball”. When your brain tries to process these hard to understand inside jokes, the government studies your brainwaves. Somehow, this is related to the illuminati… or cloning. You cannot lose this game, only your mind.


#3 Pac Pollux
All I know is this: Somewhere in France is a cartoon about a smart rat and a dumb fur-ball named Pollux who are ruled and abused by a triangle that is known as Dieu. Apparently, they can only eat delicious raspberry and disgusting plum yogurt, and the clever rat (Nestor) lies and convinces Pollux to only eat the plum yogurt because the raspberry will get him sick. Does this sound amusing to you? If it does, check out Jerry Lewis. Yeah… the guy with all the kids. The French find him hilarious, too. Buy a beret. Anyway, someone thought it would be good to combine this cartoon with Ms. Pac-Man. Pray for his soul.


#2 Midnight Mutants
It's Halloween, and you are chilling with everyone's favorite grandpa, Al Lewis, better known as Grandpa Munster. Everything was going smooth until a crazy optometrist came back from the dead, and enclosed Grandpa Muster in a pumpkin. Yep… you read that right. Holy cow, all heck breaks loose as the undead, huge spiders, bats, wolves and everything else abominable starts wandering around the plantation. It's up to you to gallivant across the country side fighting all sorts of evil in your pursuit of weapons, clues, potions, and items that will help you destroy the Evil Doctor and save Grandpa from his plasma pumpkin prison. Bosses in the game range from a giant skull that shoots out flaming eyes to a large ram’s head. This game is so darned silly, but for some reason I can’t figure out, it still feels evil.


#1 Ninja Golf
Ninjas who play golf. Not only do they play it, according to the instruction manual, this was how they graduate Ninja school. This game combines probably the two most stressful events in life and rolls it into one game: Hand to hand combat with Ninjas and the evil game of golf. Not only are the fairways and course hazards tough enough, on the green you must do battle with a huge friggin' dragon. I heard Samurai school was easier.