Joust/Defender -- 2-for-1 retro gaming action

I've been collecting Gameboy games for use with my colour Gameboy, Super Gameboy and Liberty Gameboy emulator. I've also been getting into a bit of classic gaming action. Finally, I've been limiting myself to paying no more than A$30 for new Gameboy games. This title's score on these points is almost perfect.

This product is a colour Gameboy re-release of the two titles previously released on the original Gameboy, which are in turn of course Gameboy conversions of two classic arcade games. I hear that the first Gameboy release supported the Super Gameboy (which matches my experience with the original Galaga/Galaxian release), but unfortunately this one does not. But since getting hold of a Super Gameboy is almost impossible these days I guess Midway felt it was a waste of time.

Tech specs aside, what's the gameplay like? Well, just as hard as I remember. If you haven't played either title in a while and/or were never really got at them anyway, expect to get nuked quickly and frequently. The games are faithful reproductions, all be it a bit low res, right down to the coin-gobbling nature of the arcade machines. But don't reach for that Action Replay just yet. Both games let you set the difficulty with three parameters; "Difficulty" -- which appears to be related to speed and timing, "Lives to Start" -- goes right up to 99, and "Bonus Every" -- which lets to gain lives every X thousands of points. Set it at every 1,000 points for a never ending game.

You learn quickly, especially after playing a few never ending games, and you can slowly bring the difficulty up through these three settings so the games can be hours of fun. Defender supports two players alternating and Joust supports two players linked, so you and a friend can while away the hours in miniature retro gaming heaven. Or it can simply give you something to do on the bus.