Clu Clu Land

Developer: Nintendo
Year: 1985

Clu Clu Land is another one of those really early 1st party NES titles that usually turn out to lack depth but be completely addictive. It's impressive how many of those there turn out to be, how much Nintendo got right immediately out of the gate.

If you played Chu Chu Rocket on the Dreamcast (and I assume you did), you'll find that this game feels sort of similar. In Clu Clu Land, you literally bounce around a screen and change direction by sticking your arm out and grabbing a post, which are arranged in a grid around the board. The object is to move over certain parts of the screen that draw a picture, though you don't know before-hand what that picture is going to be.

It's manic, and it's simple, and there's co-op, and it's fun and addictive. What more do you want?

Rating: 7/10 Not a lot of depth, but that's OK.
Advice: Get used to the fact that if you're going down, and you want to go up, you need to press right or left.
Trivia: When I was dating Daisy Klingman, we all used to annoy her by asking her if she'd ever seen the movie Cru Cru. This game made me think of that. Wow. That was annoying.