Game Boy Advance

Game Description: As you play through the varied worlds of the Mushroom Kingdom areas, you'll have to bounce Mario through all sorts of challenges to move on., When Bowser kidnaps Peach and escapes to another dimension, a scientist uses his Spherifier to transform Mario into a ball and fires him after the fiend. It's just a pinball game, right? Hardly. It's a flipping adventure. Mario rolls through different worlds. Instead of performing his signature jump on enemies, Mario just steamrolls them in ball form. Each pinball arena contains a door to the next level.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Comic Mischief

I'm a big fan of gimmicky pinball games and I also like Mario, so this little cart seemed tailor-made for me. It started strong and kept me playing for a few hours, but everything went downhill so rapidly that it was force of will alone that enabled me to see the credits roll. In fact, I grew such hatred for it that it went out my window and became a gift to the creatures living at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. I'm sure the sea cucumbers will get more use out of it than I will.

This game pits the mustachioed Italian plumber against his original nemesis, Donkey Kong. Unlike Andrew, I didn't play the original Donkey Kong '94 . But I knew about it, and I was anxious to play this updated title, knowing it to be a mix of puzzle-solving and classic platforming.

Game Description: Invisible enemies are revealed with his x-ray vision, his Arm Canon discharges explosive firepower, his hearing is unparalleled, and his strength is no less than 100,000 horsepower. With his superior, electronic brain, he decodes robotic languages and secret codes. Help Astro uncover his full potential through 10 non-linear, interactive areas, including a volcano, outer space, underground, and the city.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Mild Cartoon Violence

It's rare to find a handheld game with this much emphasis on narrative (and narrative logic) and Osamu Tezuka's colorful roster of characters are ultimately crowbarred in to good effect.

As in DK '94, a set of oh-so-simple moves and rules combine with such coherency and common sense that the emphasis is placed almost entirely on the quality, variety and ingenuity of the first-rate level design.