The non-Japanese Game Boy games of August, 1991, were once again all North American debuts. PAL actually got quite a few games this month, but they were all old.
Blades of Steel (Konami)
A port of the 1987 arcade and NES hit. It looks incredible compared to contemporary sports games, especially during the fights and the animations that play for a goal. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to keep track of the puck with how fast everything is moving on a small screen, so it’s not hard to see why the Game Boy’s 70% critic average is 10% below the NES version. Still, even if it’s more chaotic than you’d want from a competitive game, it’s pretty fun.
Rating: 3
Bill & Ted (Beam/Acclaim)
This is actually titled Bill & Ted’s Excellent Game Boy Adventure, but that’s absurd and I’m not putting it in a header. It’s based on a movie I haven’t seen, so I can’t comment on whether it adds anything to that, but the game is just a generic platformer. You need to collect the orbs on every level without dying. The music is pretty good. The graphics are pretty awful. This level supposedly represents Austria in the 1800s, but I don’t think anyone could figure that out from the screenshot.
Critics averaged a 72%, but most were above that and one 18% score is doing a lot of damage to the average. The written user reviews on GameFAQs and MobyGames are dire, however, with both averaging to about a 40%.
Rating: 1
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