"If you really wanna play darts, go find a board..."

Darts is a sport that's been around for centuries and has undergone many variations. Back in the time of most Greek myths, darts were usually quite long. Nowadays they're maybe a couple inches long, fitted with a little point on one end and then with some plastic feathers on the other for guideance. There was also a game for the NES made, Magic Darts. As far as it went it was a good idea, but I really feel that if you've got an urge to play Darts, you ought to go find a pub or something that has a dartboard. This game just doesn't capture the fun found in real Darts.
Gameplay 5-10. You have several different modes of play, and for each you can set different rules, but in all honesty, it's still fairly average. You use three meters when preparing to throw, speed, angle and direction. Unlike real darts, where you actually look at the position of the board from where you're standing and then adjust it to make the throw more effective, you just use that small rectangular device we all know as the NES controller. That does all the work for you.
Control 5-10. It seems to work well, but I'm used to real Darts as you can probably imagine. I'm still not very good, but... I prefer being not very good at the real game. Then I can actually at least pretend to be adjusting my tactics. The NES game just doesn't offer that element of fun I require when playing darts...or maybe it's just that I'm not in a bar.
Audio 5-10. It's got some catchy music, but the sound effects just don't cut the cracker. Not that there's really any sound effects when one plays darts except when the dart hits the board, but I know the NES can produce better souned than this. At least there's no speech. All in all I hated NES speech. It's always so muffled and unintelligible...well...most of it is.
Story ? Well, it's just a game of Darts. You can choose from a dozen or so players and even have up to four people playing, you and three friends, but you need a special adapter.
Challenge ? Well, I'd imagine it takes time to adjust your aim or whatever, but I didn't take that time here. I quickly became bored and went on to other, more interesting titles.
Overall 5-10. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that I don't feel they should have bothered here. Darts just isn't fun when played on a gaming console.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/04/02, Updated 03/01/03