Some Random Game: Penguin Wars (Game Boy)

Note: I played through the whole thing before noticing the actual cover.

The title alone has me intrigued enough to play it. It can be anything. Could be an action game or a strategy of some sort involving penguins. Maybe it's something completely different. Well, it certainly different than I thought, and there's only a total of one penguin. It's basically a dodgeball-esque game with a cast animals.

The objective is simply to throw as many balls to the opponent side side of the field as you can in 60 seconds. With your balls, you have the ability to smack the opposing animal and stun it. Having all 10 balls on the opposide side wins you a round and each match is best of three. Afterwards, the game just starts up again with the AI getting more ruthless. There are six animals to choose from with their own strengths and weaknesses. I went with the penguin, because it seems to be the most natural thing to. That's all there is to the game, and it's kind of decent. It's a very short pick up and play kind of game with some cute perks. Besides, who wouldn't like to take down forest critters in a game of dodgeball?

Some Random Game: Panel Action Bingo (Game Boy)

Before I first played Panel Action Bingo, I didn't know exactly what to expect. I enjoy a good old fashioned bingo game from time to time, but been a long time since I played it. I figured it's a simple game of bingo where I face AI opponent(s) in an intense game of chance. It probably would just be filling one row, the whole card or fill a certain shape. The "panel action" part of the title is either the game throwing some gimmick(s) to spice things up or because the title sounds cool. This approach seems to make the most logical sense to me. It might be silly to play a bingo game on the Game Boy, but I felt like it and thought it can be a cute little game to pass the time when travelling by train. When I did play it... well it kind of is bingo, except it's mostly not.

The game has a 5 x 5 numbered from 1-25. The numbers are randomly placed and you, playing as a bird, must go around the board selecting the numbers in order. Opposing you is some cat that gets in your way in selecting the numbers. The objective is to simply go through enough numbers to be able to make a row and beat the level, or just tag more numbers than the cat if no row can be made. There are numerous levels with three rounds each. Each round adds an additional obstacle on the board to get in your way. After that, there is a bonus round to get more points where you try to get more territory than the cat. That's basically all there is to the game, and there seems to be many many levels just doing the exact things.

The kind of amusing at first, but it gets old real fast. I've only played through 6 rounds or so thus far with no change ups, and not really noticing the cat's AI getting any smarter. Plus, it's not really bingo... in the traditional sense so I mostly felt mislead to. Maybe the game changes up a bit or gets tougher, but as of now, it's a big whatever. On the plus side, the music is unexpectedly good with some variety. It has some good midi tunes that should've been used for a better game, but oh well.