04/26/09 -- We in North America have been waiting for Club Nintendo for a long time. In Japan, they have had the club seemingly forever, doling out great exclusive games only available through the club. Europe even got a club nintendo a few years back, but it was a bit of a disappointment, giving out mostly ringtones and background wallpapers. In December however, Nintendo finally graced NA with their own version of the club, and Game and Watch Collection is the first of the hopefully many games released exclusively through the club.

The package is legitimate enough, solid gold with the coveted “not for resale” bar on the back and the club nintendo logo on the front. What Game and Watch Collection is is three game and watch games from 1982 (Oil Panic, Donkey Kong and Green House) faithfully re-created for the Nintendo DS. Due to graphical capabilities of the time, all movements and actions are pre-set frames of animations that you can see on the screen in faded grey, and the one you are currently acting out is of course the filled in black ones. Game and Watch games are also simple, one track affairs, and the tasks you have to do this time around are catch oil in a bucket and dump it out the window, spray bugs with pesticide, and save princess Pauline in a simplified version of Donkey Kong. A series of Game and Watch titles were put out for the Game Boy as the Game and Watch galleries, I admittedly have only played the GBA release, Game and Watch Gallery 4. In those, there were updated versions of the games with full color graphics and fluid animations.

These are absent from Game and Watch Collection, but where Game and Watch collection shines is the fact that it is on the DS, which is a dual screened system. You see the old Game and Watch titles were all dual screened, making the Game Boy versions inferior ports, as technical limitations forced the developers to cram all of the action onto one screen. On the DS, this problem is easily avoided as there are two screens, allowing the original Game and Watch games to be enjoyed in their full 27 year old glory.

New players should see some familiar faces and locales. Oil Panic is one of the featured games in Flat Zone 2 in SSBB, the blips and bloops that passed as sound effects back then are faithfully re-created and sound like Smash Brothers, and of course the titular character. Perhaps the biggest WTF character of SSBM, Mr. Game and Watch rocks the Oil Panic bucket (vB) and the Green House insecticide pump (B). As a staunch proponent of, you can't know where you are unless you know where you've been, I think it can only be a good thing for younger players to find out the origins of some of the attacks from games that they are already familiar with.
Game and Watch Collection has to be talked about differently then most regular games as it does not actually cost a Club Nintendo user money.

You basically have three courses of action here, spend your coveted points on the only actual game available on the service, save your points for something you deem more worth your while, or buy the game on ebay and save the points. As of this writing, you can net one for $30-50, and there are less than 5 available on ebay at any one point.

The bottom line here is you know exactly what you are getting and choosing the right choice for you should be easy at this point. It is three faithfully re-created Game and Watch titles, but these are 27 year old games. The biggest appeal here is that it is a game you can't buy at the store, and if you really want a Game and Watch title, track down a copy of Game and Watch Gallery 4. At least that way you get more than just 3 games.