Do you know how you have a game that's pretty good, but not that good? Enough to stay up til 1 AM or 2 AM to play it but then you get frustrated on a level you know HOW to beat and you know you SHOULD beat but you're too tired.

That's where I got with Pharaoh's Revenge around level 34 and I took a break. 34 of 200 ain't bad for day 1.

Another recurring theme I find in middling games is how it's nice to be able to speed them up, but the controls become impossible, and the additional puzzles of working around the controls to execute the solution you know is there can get stale.

Sometimes you need a game that's just a bit wrong in several ways to really understand what you like in the genre. Something like Lode Runner "just works." Something like Pharaoh's Revenge is Lode Runner-ish but without the spontaneity. It's like if someone rewrote your favorite novel to make it less concise and readable.

Took tons of save states to beat Choplifter with a perfect score. It's nearly impossible straight away. Need to sleep on it before I FAQ it & determine when each variety of nasty new enemies appears. I'd never done well enough to get the shooting UFOs before & while I prefer the arcade version(uses graphics and sound boosts very well,) I gotta give it up to Dan Gorlin for conceiving and executing the basic idea so well in the first place.

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