RVG Forum

Home Alone debuted on the Game Boy back in 1991, within months of the Genesis & Super Nintendo versions. As in the film of the same name, the main character Kevin aka Macaulay Culkin, has been left home alone by his family and has to stop the bad guys, the wet bandits, from stealing all his family's prized possessions. The game mechanics are simple, the game has 4 levels, on each level you must collect all valuable items and drop them through a chute into a safe room. Once all items are saved you then gain access to the cellar and have to fight your way past ant like creatures to the safe. Before you get to the safe door you have to fight a level boss. These are a spider, a rat, a ghost and finally Marv & Harry. Throughout your mission you can find a number of traps to stun the wet bandits, although they also hurt you. Although not the smoothest to control, the game is passable, however, it is very tedious. With the exception of a few key plot points it barely follows the movie. A good example of this is the fact the that the wet bandits in the normal levels look nothing like Marv & Harry and infact in the game there are 3 bandits rather than the 2 in the movie. The music is very tedious and repetitive, its one of the few games you want to play with the volume down. Although not documented, you could be forgiven for thinking this game was originally intended to be something else and had been re-purposed for the Home Alone franchise. It’s not quite bad enough to own for the fun of it. I would just give it a miss. For a Home Alone game worth the time try the Mega Drive/Genesis version.

Kirbys Dream Land is a well polished, easygoing 2d platformer that screams happiness and fun, in a good way! Taking on the role of Kirby in his debut, back in 1992, you work your way through a number of levels, sucking up enemies, floating in the sky and zooming around on a magical star. This is definitely a pick up and play game, ideal if you're going on a road trip. In places it falls into the category of a mindless game, not very challenging but the eye candy (yes I used that word for a Game Boy game) and fast paced happy bouncy music make it an addictive game you will go back to again and again. The story line, which is pretty irrelevant, is that King Dedede has stolen all the Kingdoms food for a giant feast. Kirby has to go retrieve it! Unfortunately the game doesn't have a save feature, which makes the High Score board feature kind of pointless. But being able to get extra lives by earning points means you don't really need one. In terms of control, as well as the usual running and jumping, Kirby is able to inhale big gusts of air to enable him to fly, or suck up microphones which when spat out kill all enemies on the screen. As with many great games the level of thought that has gone into this game is evident, this is another definite must for a Game Boy owner.