Science Reviews

With good reason, the R-Type series has been called one of the finest side-scrolling space shooter titles around. Perhaps this is due to an extremely unique style of gameplay. Now, the first two titles in the series have been rereleased on the Game Boy Color! Read on to see how the game measures up.

Graphics: The game has a TON of glitching (you'll often be killed by bullets you can't see), as well as slow-down. Likewise, there isn't much room to manuver on the GBA's small screen. This is the game's greatest weakness. 2/5

Play Control: Simplistic, like most side-scrollers. 3.25/5

Challenge: This is a HARD game. The graphical flaws only contribute to this. 4.5/5

Theme/Fun: It's a fun game, but there's a problem - IT'S MISSING STAGES! WHAT A RIP! (Fortunately, the two entire first games can be found on the Playstation game R-Types. Get IT if you want the complete games.) 3.5/5

Sound/Music: Very nice, they contribute to the science fiction feel of the game. 4/5

Storyline: In your spaceship you must destroy an evil empire. It's a story that's been done to death. 3/5

Originality: The play style, which revolves around the force device, is something no other shooter series has been able to match. 4/5

Replay Value: Sadly not too high (getting high scores is the only reason to play more than once.) 2/5

Overall Score: 3/5
I LOVE R-Type games, but this IS NOT the best system for it due to the small screen. If they wanted to make the series portable, they should've held off and released this for the GBA. Still, this isn't a bad game, and is recommended if you can find it in the budget bin.

It rules unless you get aggrivated easy. Then I'd suggest you'd sell it or don't buy it. Here's a quick tip: When you have a pod always collect the power-up unless it endangers you.

I LOVE THIS ARCADE GAME YOU ARE IN A SHIP KILL ALIENS ITS good and you battle huge bosses lots of color and get new attacks with powerups and hundreds of enemys BUY THIS GAME IF YOU LIKE ARCADE GAMES!!!

I remember this game from my young teens....it still hasn't changed and is just as much fun as still addicting. The graphics are ok, but for those of us old timers from the Atari 2600 generation, this will feel like putting on a pair of old shoes! Its challenging on a small screen and takes some getting used too. I reccommend this to the 30 something crowd!

This is a great conversion of the original Atari 2600 game from 1983. The graphics are better but the same addictive game play is there. And the price is good too for a new GameBoy Color cart. A password system lets you pick up a game where you left off previously rather than starting from scratch.

This one's a classic, folks. I don't remember 'Yar's Revenge' being one of the "bigger name" games on Atari. It wasn't a 'Pac Man' or a 'Space Invaders', but it was definately a fun game. I loved it back then and I love it now. The Game Boy port of the title is excellent. The game is just as I remembered it. The only noticable difference is that the playing field is larger than the Game Boy's screen, meaning it will have to scroll in order to get to the other side. This is a minor footnote, however, and is an obstacle that will quickly be overcome. If you loved this game in the 80's and own a game boy, grab it up!

We first saw this game at the NAGC (National Assoc for Gifted Children) conference this year and were intrigued. Our son is 4 and loves to play the game. We have all learned so much about the different eras and the history of the dinosaurs. Definitely recommended for children interested in science and/or dinosaurs. The different levels of questions allow the game to grow with the child.

I bought this for my daughter (age 4) for Christmas, and she was thrilled to be getting her own game, and about dinosaurs, no less! Unfortunately her enthusiasm (and mine, my almost 6 year old son's, my husband's, and my mother-in-law's) quickly died out as we played. It is advertised as similar to Candyland, which it is. But unlike Candyland, there are very few ways to change the order of the players--once someone gets out in front, they stay there. Even playing at Level 1, when you don't have to answer the questions, it is just too long. And as for the questions...well, there is one question card for each area on the board. On the card is a question for each color on the die. So if everyone rolls the same color (which did happen when we played), then everyone gets the same question. So basically, we are pretty disappointed with the game. The best part about it seems to be fitting the dinosaur puzzle pieces into each side of the board.

By combining a puzzle with a game we found this to be really fun to play. My kids wanted to play it again and were thrilled to be able to answer more questions the more they played. My youngest child even caught me from behind and ended up beating me! The reading,web site and museum list in the instructions was a great added bonus. I would recommend this for any one who likes dinosaurs.

I have this game and it is pretty good shooter game but doesn't have any action. The words are blurry so you can't see the text. It has good graphics but the gameplay lacks action and it doesn't hook you on to it to keep you playing it. The weapons are pretty cool but overall the game is worth 2 stars. :)

With many PlayStation-owning shooter fans singing the praises of Einhander and R-Type Delta, this one has sort of been lost in the shuffle. That's a shame, because G Darius has lots to offer both hardcore and casual fans of the genre.

I fear that, since almost all of your foes in this game are robot aquatic creatures (sharks, crabs, sea horses, etc.), some people may dismiss it as "silly". In fact there is nothing silly or stupid about it. It's a fast-paced side-scroller with intensity to spare, and it boasts some of the most hectic bullet-dodging mayhem you'll ever encounter.

Your spacecraft has two weapons which are fired simultaneously: the standard, straightforward gun (horizontal) and grenades (vertical), both of which can be upgraded by snatching orbs from defeated enemies. What makes the game unique is the capture ball, a weapon you can launch at your foes to turn them into your sidekicks. They'll follow you loyally and attack whenever you fire, like the "options" in the Gradius series. There are quite a few different enemies you can do this to, and all of them have unique offensive capabilities. Some fire a very basic shot; some fire a "spread" shot; some hurl themselves at the opposition, causing damage by brazenly crashing into them at high speeds.

Speaking of speed, G Darius rips along at a pretty brisk pace, although the stages themselves are of satisfactory length. Minor slowdown sometimes occurs when you're doing battle with a boss and it launches about 100 bullets in your direction at once. In those rare cases, the slowdown is actually a blessing in disguise, because it affects everything on the screen, not just you.

Yes indeed, the screen can get mighty cluttered at times, but never to a hopelessly overwhelming degree. Unlike some shooters where staying alive is a strictly academic process of trial and error and moving into the right spot at the right time (cough, R-TYPES, cough), G Darius never "punishes" the player for an unwise maneuver by condemning him/her to an instant death. If your reflexes are sharp enough and you never release the rapid fire button, there is always at least a fashion model-slim chance that you'll be able to blast your way out of an extremely sticky situation and emerge victorious by the skin of your teeth. Your shields can be powered up much like your weapons can, a fact that brings new meaning to the term "life-saver".

Mind you, you can do more than dodge and peck away at the opposition to elude destruction at the hands (well, fins anyway) of a big, bullying barracuda or a cluster of kamikaze catfish. Foes bound to your service by the capture ball can be detonated if you want to take out any surrounding adversaries (or if you just plain get sick of having the stupid beasts follow you around). Even better, you can use them to power up your Alpha Beam, a weapon that will easily cut a swathe of carnage through standard enemies and lay some serious pain on the bosses as well. Don't start thinking you're omnipotent, though; each boss has a similar weapon (imaginitively titled the Beta Beam) and when yours meets theirs head-on, a struggle for supremacy ensues, with both beams growing in size and power until A) the duration of the beam expires, B) the battle concludes, or C) the entire screen gets filled by a glorious outpouring of blazing destruction originating from one side or the other.

The graphics here may not be terribly impressive but they get the job done. The designs of the enemies sometimes leave a bit to be desired (there's only so much you can do to make robotic fish look exciting, y'know?). The backgrounds are the game's strongest visual point, with some cool animation telling miniature stories while you're fighting for your life. There's one stage where a planet in the distance is doomed to be destroyed every time you play. Poor planet. My favorite stage has the ruins of a human city floating around; check out your ship's reflection in the mirrored windows of a skyscraper torn from its foundation, silently drifting through space.

The soundtrack has some forgettable fare with a 16-bit feel, but a few tracks are really striking. There's one (in the stage I just described) that can only be described as sounding "spacy" which is devoid of percussion and is so laid-back, it makes the on-screen chaos seem like some bizarre new age therapy. The final battle music is suitably catchy and adrenalized...you can also hear it when you first load the game, before pressing start, but obviously it won't have the same impact. And the "game over" tune is...dare I say it...beautiful! It almost makes it pleasant to end the game prematurely.

At the end of each stage, you'll have to choose between two adjacent stages to move on to. There are fifteen stages in all, and you'll have to beat five of them to win the game. Plus, each stage splits into an upper route and a lower route at the half-way point, and the boss will use different attacks against you depending on which route you take. Therefore, you'll have to play through the game quite a few times before you can truthfully say that you've seen it all. This, plus nine difficulty settings and the ability to adjust your reserve lives, credits, and capture balls makes for very high replay value for shooter fans of all skill levels.

If you still enjoy 2-D shooters, either passionately or casually, I cannot recommend this game enough, as long as you're prepared to PLAY it rather than just look at it. Whatever it lacks in graphic intensity, it more than makes up for with the IMPORTANT kind of intensity, and that's in the gameplay department. I've had this game for several years and I can't imagine it growing tiresome anytime soon.

This is a good game for the money when you compare it to Gradius III & IV for the PS2. I like this game because you can sit down and play very quickly. It doesn't take long to learn what to do or to get started. You can take different paths through the game to mix things up and there is a vs. Boss option that allows you to just fight the bosses. It is a pretty simple side shooter, but it keeps me coming back because it's fun to play.

Instead of buying Gradius III & IV for PS2 (if you have one), you could buy this and another game for the same money. G Darius is much better than Gradius III & IV even though it was created for the PS1.

P.S. if you can't find it - try Funcoland

I bought this for my 3 1/2 year old who is really interested in the solar system. He loves playing with these toys and treats them well. However, they are made of a "model" type quality rather than a "play" type quality. The stickers easily slide off the pieces; which easily come apart. I was also disappointed that there was not any type of information page included to describe any of the space structures and what they are used for. The box is the most durable feature. Overall the quality and educational value is poor and could be improved, but my son still loves it.

I bought this set for my four year old son. For the price, I couldn't ask for a better toy. The pieces seem like they would break easily if a child was too rough on them. My favorite feature is the container. He has so many toys and no place to store them. The container makes clean up easy.

Poor quality - pieces do not fit well and are constantly falling apart. The most durable part is the container.

I agree with the first reviewer. I purchased this kit for my 10 year old son, who is above average intelligence and has a voracious appetite for scientific knowledge and experiments. He is fascinated by the kit, but the instruction book is so poorly written that he cannot even begin to make sense of it. I am taking the other reviewers advice and purchasing some other basic electronics books in hopes of salvaging the [money] spent on the kit.

I've always been interested in learning at least the basics about electronics and finally decided to do something about it. I bought a couple of 'intro to electronics', 'electonrics basics' type books and I bought this toy. While rated for 10 years and up, they'd be pretty bright 10 year olds. The kit comes with capacitors, resistors, diodes, wires, transistors and even IC's. The other reviewer is correct. Resistors are all color coded -- and very small --- and very many in this kit. I finally spent about 4 hours labelling over 50 tiny plastic bags so I could easily find the appropriate parts to do the projects.
The manual explains how to identify all the parts, and for the projects uses a step by step approach to instruct one on how to put the project together. For example, "Insert 100 ohm resistor in B12 and J12 on the breadboard". In this respect, yes, a 10 year old could easily follow these instructions. The diagrams show the breadboard layout as well as showing you the "real" schematics. That coupled with my reading through my "electronics for dummies" books -- it's actually all starting to make sense as to why components are laid out they way they are. Without the other books, I would not have figured that out just from this kit -- but, if you just want to make things flash and make sounds etc and follow the instructions, that that won't matter. The manual does attempt to explain why something works -- but I was lacking the bare basics, so it didn't make much sense.

All in all, I would highly recommend this kit to anyone who really has an interest in learning about basic electronics and wants to put things together.

It would be a great kit for family projects. However, there are a ton of very small parts and good eyesight or a magnifying glass and a flashlight would be recommended for those of us with less then perfect eyesight.

Well worth the cost, working out to much much less then $[money]/hour of enjoyment to work through the 300 projects.

What the descriptions fail to mention is that resistors, one of the most critical types of electronic parts, are *always* color-coded. If, like me, you're even moderately color-blind, you have a very expensive paperweight on your hand.

For people without that problem, this looks to be a greally great kit.

This box of dinosaurs is great! My son and I play together with them for hours. He's learning what kind of diosaurs they are and you can see his imagination going wild every time he opens the box! The box is handy because you can take it with you wherever you feel like having some prehistoric fun. Not for kids under 3 as there are alot of small pieces. Definately a good buy for little ones that love dinosaurs!

THis toy was great, but basically the same as the Animal Planet Dinosaur playland. My son loved both of them. The other review here said it was just an empty box!!! Boy is she wrong. My box is packed full of fun dinosaurs! My 3 year old is in heaven!

My son has tons and tons of fun with the dino box. He stands on it, pushes it across the carpet, opens it up and looks for treasure, even hides in it. However he couldn't understand why, when he first opened it, there were no dinosaurs inside. I had to explain to him that it was just a dino box. He loves it anyways.

Ok for you peope that dont know what this gam is about here ya go. This is a racing game that was only realeased in Japan and in Europe. You can choose between sevreal charecters 2 of which u must "unlock" to play. There are charecters like Mega Man ,Bass, Roll,Quick Man and Ice man to name a few. It works like a Mega Man game where u beat a Master u get his weapon. But in this case u get their car parts!!!!! Also each charecter has there own special move or weapon. I do know that this game was the 10th anivversary game for the japanesse. And 4got this game is a CLASSIC SERIES GAME not to be mistaken for battle nework.

I am a Mega Man freak and I hav never heard of this game in my life!What is it? Plz,sum1 help me.If u hav any details,or own this game,plz review!

Just as Mandi Paugh says in her MMHP, it's a true diamond among the dirt.

In 1993, the third Game Boy Mega Man title arrived. Would it be hard like the first game, or easy like the second? Read on and see.

Graphics: 4/5
For the Gameboy at the time, these were great. The picture is sharp and clear, just like the NES games. The only problem is you have less room on the screen to move around, but other than that, the graphics are fine.

Challenge: 3.75/5
This game is slightly longer than the first Game Boy Mega Man titles. It's tougher than 2, but easier than 1. You can have four energy tanks, greatly reducing the difficulty. The passwords take you to the sea fortress at the end of the game, making them useful.

Play Control: 3.5/5
Just like Mega Man 4 on the NES. Walk, shoot or charge, jump, slide.

Theme/Fun: 3.75/5
The difficulty here will make you want to tear your hair out a few times, but for the most part, it's a pretty straight forward game. The Rush Jet is uncontrollable, which will make many stages living nightmares.

Storyline: 1.5/5
Wily begins mining raw materials from the ocean to make his sea fortress better, and to make new robots. What were the folks at Capcom smoking when they conceived this plot?

Music/sound: 4/5
Mostly these are remixed NES tunes, but unique stages have unique songs. All of the sounds are good.

Overall: 3.5/5
This is a very good game, but if you only get one Game Boy Mega Man title (of the old age,) make it 5, 4, or 2. I won't deny is, this is a fun game, but those ones are much better.

My sister is ordering the first three megaman games for gameboy for me, and i think the third one is the best because it is fun and challenging, The NES version is better because it is in color and it is much longer and harder, if u want to buy this game get it for the NES, if u dont have one get it for gameboy(second best choice).

This game is so cool. I remember playing this when i was little. Was this the first one with rush?

THE PRO'S TO THIS TOY IS THAT IT'S FUN AND NOT SOMETHING YOU'RE GOING TO FIND AT MOST STORES DOWNTOWN. IT'S UNUSUAL. THAT'S A REAL PLUS TO A TYPICAL CRAFT LOVING KID. MY 12 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER HAD A BLAST CREATING A FOUNTAIN SHE DEEMED TO BE UNIQUE. THE PROBLEM (OR CONS) ARE THAT THE PAINTS THAT CAME WITH THE PROJECT WERE DRY AND HARD AS ROCKS. WE COULD'NT GET THEM TO THE PROPER LIQUID CONSISTENCY NO MATTER WHAT WE DID. EVEN HAD WE BEEN ABLE, THERE'S NO WAY THE TINY AMOUNT OF PAINT THAT COMES WITH THIS KIT IS ADEQUATE FOR THE JOB. WE HAD TO BUY PAINTS, AND IT WAS NO EASY TASK FINDING SOME THAT WERE SUITABLE TO THE TASK.
OTHER CONS WERE THAT THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH ROCKS IN THE KIT TO ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE TO THE PICTURE ON THE BOX AND WHEN THE FOUNTAIN IS ALL PUT TOGEATHER, THERE'S MORE NOISE FROM THE PUMP THAN FROM THE WATER, WHICH DOES MORE TRICKLING THAN ACTUAL FLOWING...
THE IDEA IS AWESOME, BUT THE PRODUCT NEEDS A LITTLE WORK AND IMPROVEMENT. IF YOU DONT MIND BUYING PAINT AND A FEW EXTRAS, AND MAYBE EXPERIMENTING WITH THE PUMP, IT'S A FUN AND WORTHY PROJECT AND I THINK THAT MOST CRAFT LOVERS WILL ENJOY IT.

I bought this for my niece at age 11. She was able to paint and assemble the kit by herself. She needed a tiny bit of help with one of the wires that connects the battery.

She enjoyed putting it together, but when we added the rocks, it looked very bare. There definitely were not enough rocks.

Luckily we have a collection of "finds" from the beach including beach class, stones, shells, etc, which we used to decorate it.

Unfortunately my sister, after a few months decided that she didn't want the water sitting in their living room where it was waiting to spill on their new leather furniture.

I'd have to say that if you like the idea, the kit alone isn't enough. I'd recommend a nature walk for pretty stones first.

This toy was great for me (an adult), but I'm not sure an 8 year old would have the patience for it.

A couple of tips: 1) Read the directions through before starting. 2) Don't confuse the white paint with the contact cement. 3) Save a little of the brown and black paint to reapply over the white paint if it gets too light.

A couple of flaws: 1) There aren't enough rocks to make the waterfall look like the pictures on the box. 2) The pump works fine, does not leak or anything, but the sound you hear when it is on is primarily the motor running, not gurgling water. (This is lessened when you take the cover off of the motor, so perhaps playing with the wire positioning, etc., would reduce the motor noise.)

However, I *LOVED* putting this together and am satisfied with the results.