Nintendo’s Game and Watch Gallery 4 brings back some of the best games ever made in the Game and Watch series. The six games that are included in the G & W gallery out of the box are as following: Fire, Boxing, Rain Shower, Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong 3, and Mario’s Cement Factory. Now the thing that makes the GBA version of these timeless classics so cool is that they included the original, as well as, a remade version of all of the games with nice touchup job in the graphics department.

For the most part, gameplay of all of the Game and Watch games are very simple - left or right, up or down - an occasional pressing of the A and B buttons to shoot or punch something, all in all nothing overly complicated at all. That is the innate charm of the Game and Watch games, nothing complicated, no over dramatized story, although it would be funny to see how come the house is on fire, just good old fashioned arcade fun.

Here is a brief look at the objectives of the games included in Game and Watch Gallery 4: In Fire, you must save the helpless victims of a burning building (castle in the updated version) via safety net. As they fling themselves from the burning building, you must bounce them to safety, by moving your safety net team from right to left.

In Donkey Kong Jr., that mean old Mario has locked your father up and it is up to you to free him. Mario unleashes many traps to prevent Jr. from rescuing his father. Finding the key and unlocking each of the four parts of Donkey Kong’s cage is the only way that Jr. can save him.

In Mario’s Cement Factory, Mario, the hardest working man in show-business must operate a number of cement mixing machines (cookie making machines in the updated version) that are located on different levels; of course the elevator platforms don’t have the greatest timing making Mario scramble everywhere to complete his task at hand.

In Rain Shower you must keep your drying laundry from getting wet by avoiding the falling rain drops; the clothes are hanging to dry on two levels and on both sides of your house. By clambering up and down you must move your clothesline from right and left to avoid the falling rain. In the updated version of the game King Koopa (Bowser) is trying to hurt your buddies (which for some reason are hanging outside on a clothesline) by hurling spinies at your friends.

In the game simply called Boxing, you must do what the name implies and box. Now of course the purpose of boxing is to knock down your opponent, this can be done in the Game and Watch game by hitting the body or the head (up or down), also you can defend your body or head in order to prevent getting knocked down. But in order to achieve victory in the Game and Watch version of boxing, you must knocked down your opponent twice in a row or three times if they have knocked you down once.

And last but not least Donkey Kong 3, in the updated version of DK3 Mario is pitted in a one on one bubble shooting match against his original nemesis Donkey Kong. Naturally the goal is not to shoot each other with the bubbles; but rather to push the Boo towards the other with the bubbles, so that the Boo can scare the living daylights out of him. The classic version follows the exact same premise, but instead of Boos and bubbles, you shoot bugs with bug spray.

All in all the Game and Watch games recaptures what made gaming so magical when we were younger, simple gameplay combined with very addictive game concepts. Easy to pick up yet hard to put down, this is another unique quality that makes the Game and Watch series so special. With the addition of the reworked versions of all of the games in the Game and Watch Gallery, you can play your favorite Game and Watch game again for the first time. Also the GBA version of the Game and Watch Gallery offers six unlockable games, which makes the total of playable games included in the Game and Watch Gallery game pak come to twelve. The bottom line is fans of the old Game and Watch and gamers of the younger generation will have a great time playing these ageless classics again, and again, and, again…