Every Friday GamingNexus takes a look at the best and worst in classic games; we call it the Retro Round-Up. Unfortunately this week the GamingNexus staff is in sunny Southern California attending the annual E3 Media & Business Summit. That means that nobody had a chance to check out this week`s Virtual Console games. Heck, we`re busy dealing with a trade show; I doubt we even know what the Virtual Console games are this week. But don`t worry; GamingNexus isn`t going to let you down. Instead we`re bringing you a brand new feature that takes a look at six classic games that will never come to the Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade or GameTap. We decided to have a little fun and talk about a few games that we remember liking 20 years ago. Will these games hold up? Find out when we spend the next two pages taking a serious look at everything from Batman to Michael Jackson in a very special episode of Retro Round-Up: Do They Hold Up?

NOTE: These are not the Virtual Console games for the week of July 14; instead these are six random games that I remember liking 15 - 20 years ago. We will return to our regular programming next week.

Batman (NES/1989)
How I Remember It:
I remember being so excited about this game when it was released. Not only did it have this dark look to it (a rarity for an 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System game), but it was based on a movie I was DYING to see. In retrospect I can see the error of my ways, but this SunSoft game was netting strong scores from the game critics and looked like it might be better than all those other movie cash-ins. And the critics weren`t wrong, from what I remember. I don`t remember specifics about the game, but I do know that I had more fun with Batman than I did any other 8-bit movie game. Then again, I was pretty into Batman at that time, so my memories may be a little skewed. Either way, this is definitely one of my favorite 8-bit games and I`m interested to see how it is now.

How It Is:
Why is Batman purple?? I know that this movie`s soundtrack was done by Prince, but this is ridiculous. The first thing I noticed was that this game doesn`t really follow the plot of the movie. The enemies just seems to be random (albeit heavily armed) gang members, and most of the bosses have nothing to do with Batman the movie, comic strip or TV show. If you can get over that you will find that this is an exciting action game. Unfortunately it suffers from a lot of problems that plague these 8-bit titles. The game is extremely difficult, often to the point of frustration. The controls are fine, but it`s a shame that you are stuck with only one weapon at a time. Thankfully these are minor problems and Batman proves to be a spectacular movie-based game, even if it`s only loosely based on the Tim Burton movie.

Does It Hold Up?
I was fully prepared to be disappointed by this game, but Batman for the NES impressed me. It may not have much in common with the movie of the same name, but as far as I can tell this is a solid 2D action game. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.



Tengen Tetris (NES)
How I Remember It:
Everybody says that Tengen`s version of Tetris was far superior to the Bullet-Proof Software/Nintendo version, but now with twenty years between us is that still the case? The truth is that I`m a huge Tetris fan. If it wasn`t for the original X-COM, I would definitely say that Tetris is the best game of all time. Yet, it`s been decades since I bothered to dust off my original copy and plug it into my 8-bit NES. I do remember this Tengen Tetris having a decidedly darker tone, using dark reds and browns. Or maybe it`s the controversy surrounding it that make...