Der Nerdery

Orb 3D is easily one of the best pong/puzzle remakes ever made. I really sucked at it when I was a kid but I still love it.

Nerd Rating: 9/10
# of players: 1P
Genre: Retro Puzzle/Skill Game
Game System: NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)

The story behind the game:
You are a Explorer First Class and on a mission to defeat the  evil space wizard, Krohn. Your ship, which is known as the Millennium Orb, is the only space craft strong enough to withstand the energy forces of Krohn’s ever-growing black hole. You must keep the Millennium Orb in position by moving Force Shields on the outer edges of each chamber in Krohn’s domain. The fate of the entire Universe is in your hands!

My Nerdpinion:
One of the most surprising things about this game is that it used  ”3-D” glasses (one lens was clear and the other was tinted) that actually come with the game. The 3D effect is produced by the constantly-moving player ship. The ships movement hides the dual image used for the 3D effect.

ORB-3D is a intergalactic approach to classic game of pong. The game is played by keeping your spaceship (the Millennium Orb) from leaving the screen by bouncing the ship back and forth between your paddles on the left and right of the screen. Like classic pong your paddles only move up and down on the left and right sides of the screen.

Where ORB-3D differs from pong is in the way the Millennium Orb travels in the background behind all of the targets when it is moving left across the screen. Then on the orb’s trip back to the right side of the screen, it travels in the foreground in front of all of the targets. As your ball passes behind or in front of a target click your “A” button to reverse directions and transition from the foreground to the background or vice versa. If your timing on the button was accurate you will activate your target when your orb ship passes through the middle space.

While keeping the Millennium Orb on screen you need to pay close attention to your fuel and try and hit the targets in a specific order. Each target you hit earns you more fuel. As time passes your fuel meter will slowly drop. If you miss your orb with your paddle you will lose quite a bit of fuel. If your fuel gets too low you can go to Vern’s space station for a chance to try and fuel up. You get a limited number of credits to go to Vern’s so only go when you absolutely have to. Once at Vern’s you have a short period of time to navigate the Millennium Orb through small holes in the space station. Each hole you travel through gives you additional fuel, then the hole will close behind you. If you don’t make it through any of the holes fast enough they will begin to close one by one before they all shut. Every once in a while you will encounter what I think is Vern himself, Which is a floating pink monster head with horns. In order to get out of this “Vern’s” level you have to poke out his eyes.

There are 30 levels in the game and each is a completely different puzzle. Once you get into the game a few levels it starts to get REALLY hard. After a while you will begin to encounter moving targets and targets that have to be hit multiple times before they disappear. An example of the multi-hit targets is a level that starts out with a bunch of caterpillars on the screen. Hit a caterpillar with your ship and it will morph into a cocoon. Hit a cocoon and it then turns into a butterfly and disappears shortly after. One of the harder moving targets is the cheshire cat level. In this level the cheshire cat is constantly disappearing and reappearing elsewhere. Since it is rarely is the same place twice it is really hard to aim and hit your target before it changes places again.

What would have made it better?
If the game had a 2P mode where you both play at the same time on the same puzzle. Both players could simply race to hit the most targets. It would be really cool if there was some sort of devastating effect if your ships collide, like both ships shoot off in random directions. It would be really cool if I could get my hands on some old school 3D glasses.

I highly recommend Orb-3D to anyone that likes simple games like Pong and Tetris. Even though the game was created in the 80’s this game has held up well over the years and STILL tons of fun to play.

This guy kinda sucks…and doesn’t make it look as fun as it really is. Anyway… here is someone dying within 2m43s on the first level.