Super Play's Top 600 Super NES Games: #400 - #351

#400: 3D Baseball

63% Only true baseball fans are going to get their money's worth. A fluent knowledge of Japanese is essential to work out what all the options mean.

#399: Super Off Road

63% A fast and funny off-road racing game, great with two players, but too small and short to be worth this sort of money.

#398: SD Great Battle III

63% Some great graphics and characters, but no-one will be impressed with the stale and unchallenging action. Cute though, and anime fans will appreciate it.

#397: Mech Warrior

63% Pretty good graphics, and the nearest thing yet to an assault suit simulator. This is great as far as it goes, but sadly that just isn't far enough.

#396: Total Carnage

63% Cleaning up all the gore would have been forgivable if the game was as good as the original, but it isn't. Although it looks similar to Total Carnage, this version fails to capture anything but a tiny percentage of the frantic, over the top, kinetically shot away action of the original. If, like me, you love Smash TV, then my advice is to go and play it some more. This is a step in the wrong direction.

#395: Extra Innings

64% Neatly presented, but ludicrously fast.

#394: Wing Commander: The Secret Missions

64% Despite the so-called extended gameplay and the more involved plot, The Secret Missions still failed to 'ring my bell,' and became increasingly tedious as I played. As far as I'm concerned, The Secret Missions are best off remaining a secret.

#393: Drakkhen

64% Fantasy role-playing games aren't too common on the SNES (not in English, at any rate), and Drakkhen is consequently a welcome release. It's not exactly brilliant, though.

#392: Bassin's Black Bass

65% It sounds stupid. And it is. But I have to admit that Bassin's is oddly compulsive, perhaps for its sheer novelty and laidback style. There goes my career as a games journalist.

#391: Super Strike Gunner

65% Extremely dull and run-of-the-mill, but still quite enjoyable in its own little way.

#390: Super Slap Shot

65% A fast and furious ice hockey game, but NHLPA Hockey is so much better.

#389: Speed Racer

65% A disappointing game; the decent racing bit is marred by the sloppy platform sections. Tch.

#388: Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

65% It's a tad more fun than the text above makes out, but not by much. Buy Mario, Lost Vikings or Pitfall 2 instead.

#387: Zool

65% Detailed backgrounds, fast, smooth scrolling and stomping music. Tinny, sparse sound effects, poor animation and repetitive gameplay. On balance? Average. Yeah, definitely average.

#386: Marvin Missions: Daffy Duck

65% Nice-looking, quite good fun to play, and with plenty of Daffy Duck-ness. You've already got lots of games like this, though, and -- take it from us -- you don't need another one.

#385: Cutthroat Island

66% Fair to middling scrolling slash 'em up that tries to incorporate new ideas, but ultimately falls flat.

#384: Champions World Class Soccer

66% Absolutely not the Ryan Giggs of SNES football games. Except that it quite obviously is, if you see what I mean.

#383: Fun 'N Games

66% Okay, so it's aimed at the younger folk but with the advent of multi-media, the quality and imagination behind this cart should have been much better. This could be more accurately titled: Questionable Fun 'n Very Poor Games.

#382: RoboCop 3

66% A difficult arcade game that might appeal to real Robocop fans, but otherwise proves to be frustrating and altogether unremarkable. It's a real shame there's no digitized speech, too.

#381: Pipe Dream

66% Neat race-against-time puzzle game format, well presented, but lacking the variety, number of levels and essential head-to-head two-player mode to make it a real classic. Almost identical, and cheaper on home computer formats.

#380: F1 Grand Prix

66% This is the nearest rival to Super F1 Circus in look and feel, but on playing, it proves to be far inferior. Graphically, F1 Grand Prix is pretty much on par -- if that was the only purchase criteria there'd be little to choose between then, but in every other way it comes across as a much shallower and less sorted game.

#379: Rushing Beat Shura

66% It doesn't look too bad and certainly plays well enough, but it's got all the lastability of an M&S prawn mayonnaise sandwich.

#378: Q*Bert 3

67% Gently amusing and nice to look at, but not for anyone other than the most casual player.

#377: Romance of the Three Kingdoms III

67% Dedicated strategy wargamers will be in anorak heaven for a couple weekends. I know I was. Normal human beings should steer well clear.

#376: Blues Brothers

68% A nice little platform game, though a bit simplistic, and out-classed by Mario et al. And it's not too easy, unlike many of its type.

#375: Big Hurt Baseball

68% A realistic and in-depth sim. There's immediate gameplay here, good look and strategy. But it's all a waste, 'cos, after all, it's baseball.

#374: Flying Hero

68% An average shoot 'em up with sturdy gameplay and a sense of humour, but hardly a must-buy. Full of cute things, though.

#373: Battle Pinball

68% The SNES has a hard time with pinball, and the release of this improves matters not a jot. It has lots of jolly ideas and a neat line in table graphics, but disappoints everywhere else.

#372: Dragon View

68% An infuriatingly entertaining RPG awash with compounded minor flaws. It improves vastly once you're about a quarter in and have found all the short-cuts and magic stuff. Perseverance, as in life and abominably moral cartoons, will pay off.

#371: The Fortress of Fury (Operation Logic Bomb)

68% A competent and fairly attractive shoot 'em up, but one starved of decent gameplay.

#370: Super Ninja Kun

68% If platform games were cars, this one would have electric windows and a sun-roof. But it would be the same colour as all the rest, and would still be looked on with scorn by the Honda Fireblades which represent decent, imaginative games. It's a crap metaphor but you can see what I mean.

#369: Super Double Dragon

68% Some varied and enjoyable gameplay, but why does it all have to look so primitive? With more variety in the later levels this might have been more memorable. Fun for a while, but a bit of a waste of money.

#368: X-Kaliber 2097

68% There are some decent bits in here, but the package as a whole lacks the quality required to make it altogether recommendable.

#367: Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV

68% For months to come, armchair strategists across the world will be united in a state of anorak nirvana by Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV's politics and intrigue. But be honest, it's still nowhere near as good as it ought to be.

#366: Warlock

68% No, really, don't bother. Save your money and rent the film loads of times. Presumably Julian still gets a cut every time the film is hired out, so get your friends to rent it too.

#365: Lethal Enforcers

69% The action may be a bit dull in one-player mode, but the two-player is a real hoot. And that'll cost you a hefty £93. Urk.

#364: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

69% A pretty standard, fairly old-fashioned platformer that only occasionally shows any spark of real life. Playable enough, it shambles along aimlessly (much like De Niro in the film) and ends up pretty unmemorable.

#363: Pac-Attack

69% Not a bad effort really, but it suffers from the simple fact that the competition is so much better. Get Super Puyo Puyo instead.

#362: Hardball III

69% It looks like there's loads going on but, in reality, it's a pretty limited and unexciting affair.

#361: Alcahest

69% As a great-looking slasher/blaster with clever power-ups, this works wonderfully. Anyone expected much more, however, will be disappointed.

#360: Exhaust Heat

69% A reasonably sound driving game that plays quite a bit better than it looks. (And, let's face it, it does look a bit naff. Apart from the pits scene, which is great.) But -- and it's a very big 'but' -- it's nowhere near as good as Super Mario Kart.

#359: Harley's Humungous Adventure

69% Cleverly thought out, fairly inventive platform game with it's fair share of good bits, but very average visuals. It's got potential, even if it isn't always realized.

#358: International Tennis Tour

69% A solid enough tennis game, but there are two or three others that are better, and which we'd suggest you buy instead.

#357: Spindizzy Worlds

69% A nice idea, with a distinct air of nostalgia about it, but it's a bit too patchy and empty feeling to hold one's interest for long. The original Spectrum game was more fun -- lots of exploration, and less of the crummy puzzles.

#356: Super Professional Baseball

69% Not bad if you can get used to the unusual camera angles.

#355: Super Off Road: The Baja

69% Simple and fun to play, with enough challenge to last for a little while. But it's nothing very new, and the two-player mode's extreme disappointing.

#354: Sonic Blast Man

69% Gameplay wise, just an average beat 'em up. But it's got lots of nice bits, and Sonic Blast Man himself is great. Fab for fans of the genre, but no-one else.

#353: Power Drive

69% It's like Micro Machines never existed. Old-fashioned bordering on primitive, Power Drive's like a fairly good mid-'80s Amiga game. It's playable enough, sure, but come on ... it's not exactly the sort of thing you bought a SNES for.

#352: Aerobiz

69% A well-presented attempt at a little strategy on the SNES, but it's too serious and down-to-earth. There's just not enough to do.

#351: Goof Troop

69% Gather round, Goofy-lovers, and hear the news. Goof Troop is fun for a while, has some neat puzzles and will fill your breast with a minor swelling of enjoyment in two-player mode. But it's too easy, too short and your Super Nintendo won't blow up through over-exertion.