We continue on to the last issue of Nintendo Power for 1992, and the cover game for this issue is Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally. The letters column for this issue has nothing of interest.

Batman Returns Guide

So, this is more of a brawler than a Ninja Gaiden style action-platformer. Oddly enough, we get maps of the whole game. It’s kind of odd – you really don’t need maps for brawlers. Boss strategies, certainly and maybe specific notes for levels, but not maps. Maps are considerably more useful for platformers.

James Bond Jr. Guide

You remember this cartoon show? Yeah, me neither. Anyway, it got an action-platformer for the NES with some very expansive levels as well. We get maps for stages one through three, and a couple notes for level 4. We also get an important not that in order to get the proper ending for the game you have to beat it twice.

Tecmo Basketball Guide

They did football. They did football, they did soccer (or Otherplacian Football), so now it’s time for basketball. We gets notes on the playbook and strategies for the game. I’m gonna note that this is the first basketball game I’ve seen thus far that had a playbook.

Caesar’s Palace Guide

Well, this one is a gambling game licensed by the casino. However, it doesn’t have the structure of the Casino Kid series.

Legend of Zelda – Link to the Past Comic

This is the last chapter of comic. No, really, the title is “The Final Battleâ€. Link and Ganondorf throw down. Link and Zelda work together to defeat Ganondorf, with Link taking on defending the Triforce – which unfortunately leads to Link becoming more distant from the Princess, with the two basically breaking up.

Super Mario Land 2 Guide

We have a guide for Mario’s second outing on the Game Boy, and the introduction of Wario’s arch-nemesis, Wario. We get notes for each of the zones in the game, leading up to the final zone – Wario Castle.

Bonk’s Adventure Guide

Hudson’s real-we-mean-it-this-time-honest mascot has finally come to the Game Boy, as opposed to keeping the character on the Turbo Duo. We get maps of all 6 rounds in the game.

Looney Tunes Guide

Sunsoft has a new game for the Game Boy with the license for the characters. We get different characters for different stages, with each playing differently. Daffy Duck goes up against Marvin, Porky Pig has a shump stage where he goes up against the witch (though I only recall Bugs going up against the witch), Tweety naturally goes up against Sylvester, Taz has a sort of bonus stage, and Speedy Gonzales doesn’t go up against any recognizable antagonists that I recall him facing. Anyway, The Road Runner is up against Wile E. Coyote. Finally, Bugs goes up against Elmer Fudd.

Super Mario Adventures Comic

Mario comes to the rescue and throws down with Bowser. Meanwhile, Luigi and Yoshi set about freeing the other Yoshis. With Mario, Luigi, and the Yoshi’s working together, eventually Mario and Luigi beat the Koopas (and Bowser) save the Princess and thus save the day.

Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf Guide

The Genesis semi-helicopter sim has gotten ported to the SNES. We get a run down of all the possible co-pilots you can get, as well as the sub-screens, and a map of the first mission of the game.

Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally Guide

We get a run down of the game’s power-ups and maps for a selection of stages in the game, along with a table showing how many of each kind of flags are in each level of the game. The game looks pretty fun, and I particularly like the single screen shot we get of the final boss fight of the game.

Spider-Man & The X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge Guide

I’ve played and beat this one before, so I’m not going to play it again. We get maps of the prologue and the first stage for each of the X-Men plus Spider-Man, as well as notes for each character’s second stage, leading up to the final boss rush.

Pushover Guide

This is an odd little game that plays off the whole “knocking over dominoes in a row†thing, and combines it with Lemmings.

Super Scope Showdown

This is a little combined preview/guide thing for 3 upcoming games that take advantage of the super-scope – Battle Clash, Bazooka Blitzkrieg, and X-Zone (which was actually reviewed in an the EGM I recapped yesterday).

Nester’s Adventures

Finally, we get some useful in-game advice. Specifically, we get some advice for taking out enemies in the Mode 7 Landspeeder level in Super Star Wars.

Top 20

Street Fighter II continues to hold the top spot for the SNES, while Mario holds the top spots for the NES and the Game Boy (and with Zelda and Metroid holding the #2 spots, respectively.)

Celebrity Player Profiles

Apparently this feature is coming back! Our profile this issue is of Craig T. Nelson of “Coachâ€. He does actually play video games though, with his real-life kids. Nelson recently made appearances in “The Proposal†and “Blades of Gloryâ€, and perhaps most famously did the voice for Mr. Incredible in “The Incrediblesâ€. He also decided to stop paying taxes entirely, saying on Glenn Beck’s show, and I quote “I’ve been on food stamps and Welfare, did anyone help me out? No.†Putting aside the stupidity of that quote, I’d like to wish Pixar luck re-casting Mr. Incredible (should they do a sequel to The Incredibles) because of Mr. Nelson spending time in federal prison for tax evasion.

Now Playing

Of note in the also-rans that were reviewed this issue are F-117A Stealth Fighter, which they considered to have too steep a learning curve. Koei’s fantasy strategy game Gemfire was also too slow for their taste. Yeah, they reviewed other titles but there really isn’t much that caught my attention on this one.

Pak Watch

Of note in upcoming titles is SimEarth, Sonic Blast Man, and Yoshi’s Cookie. Also, in Japan we get mention of Final Fantasy V and Barcode Battler.

My Quality Control pick for this issue is going to be Death Valley Rally.

Filed under: Video games, Where I Read Tagged: Nintendo Power, video game magazines, Video games, Where I Read

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