Judge

Judge

released on Oct 04, 1980

Judge

released on Oct 04, 1980

Game and Watch game from the original 1980 silver series that was re-released as a Nintendo DSi Virtual console game


Released on

Genres


More Info on IGDB


Reviews View More

Randomly win, randomly lose. Least interesting Game & Watch game.

Played here: https://itizso.itch.io/nintendo-judge
Judge is very unique compared to other Game & Watch titles of the time, in the sense that this was actually the first multiplayer title. Judge is very simple. There is a small countdown, and then both players on-screen will hold up a sign with a number. If your character has a higher number, you hit the other player. If they have a lower number, you dodge from the other player. It's very reaction based, which I personally enjoy a lot, and I prefer compared to Game & Watch's more high-score based games with speed increases, as they tend to reset back to a very slow speed after you hit 100, or just cap out in difficulty making it an endurance test. Game A is a 1 player mode, that being you versus a computer programmed into the unit. I found it to be pretty easy and formulaic in terms of how good the computer was. It seemed that based on how slow the countdown was (it would get faster depending on how many you got correct in a row), it would have a set time it would wait before giving out an answer. There wasn't really any variable to this waiting time, meaning that unless someone's reaction time magically improved, they were just kind of stuck on the fastest countdown time they could beat the computer on. This kind of sucked because it didn't exactly feel rewarding at all, knowing I could get a streak of however many correct, get one wrong because the computer's answer was basically instantaneous, and then repeat the whole process over again. That being said, Game B seems to be the solution to this, adding the series' first ever 2 player mode. Obviously, instead of facing off against a computer, you face off against another person. Since I didn't have anyone willing to play, I didn't try this, but it's pretty easy to imagine that this mode was pretty entertaining for it's time, and because it was simply reaction based and nothing else, there's really no faults in the device itself that make this unfun to play.
This game's going to be a bit hard to give a star rating on, particularly because Game A feels so lackluster, but for this device, it was really all about Game B. I feel like because of this, I'll give each game mode a rating, and then combine them together with a slight bias towards Game B's rating. For Game A, I think I would actually put this below Fire and Ball (1.5 stars) for the fact it doesn't even feel like an endurance test like those games do, but rather it just feels so formulaic and predetermined. You obviously are going to almost always win against a computer that waits the same amount every time, up until you get to the point you can't beat the computer because he's too quick. It really sucks. For Game B however, I think I would put it on the same level as Flagman (2.5 stars), because with 2 players, there's no predetermined BS going on, so you can just keep playing and playing and playing until somebody gets bored, and that's not the fault of the game, that's the fault of the person if they get bored. So, 2 stars is the final result, and to be honest, I think that's fair.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
[1] [9]
BONK
laugh track intensifies