Wall Street Kid
System: NES
Release Date: June 1990
Developer: SOFEL
Publisher: SOFEL
Genre: Simulation
Inherit a net worth greater than the GDP of Sweden if you can take the title of Wall Street Kid! Your distant uncle has passed on to the great exchange in the sky and as his only living relative, you’ve been challenged to show you deserve to be called a Benedict by earning a crap ton of money on the stock market.
The family lawyer gifts you with half a million dollars to start things out and a goal to buy a house at the end of the month for one million dollars. You need to double up your cash. Each day, you start by reading the business section of the Times. This tells you about interest rates, prices, stock categories that are on the upswing, hot stocks, and miscellaneous tidbits. Your computer gives you information on the stocks, including price, category, and change from the previous day. The portfolio shows you the stocks you own, their current price, and what you bought them for. You can also buy and sell stock in lots of 1000.
You can’t just focus on the money, but have to keep your fiancee happy and your body strong. The flowers allows you to set up a date from a picnic, shopping, and going to the carnival. These take 2, 4, and 8 hours respectively. The other icon lets you choose from swimming, hitting the gym, or going on a hike, again taking the same time intervals. Some of these choices will be locked off if it’s too late in the day to complete them, or if the newspaper said something bad happened, like ticks on the hiking trail or muggers at the shopping mall.
It took me way too many tries to buy the house. The one attempt I pulled it off, I bought stock from the top categories on Monday and held them until Friday. I then sold to wait for the new categories on Monday to repeat the process. You can hold onto the stocks until the next week, but if RNGesus decides that category is on the downswing, you lose out. You can’t just buy and hold because none of the stocks double in the first month, you have to buy and sell weekly. If interest rates truly have an affect on the price of certain stocks, you could probably be more precise, but I’m not sure this is the case.
You can spend $1000 on a stock tip, which may or may not be worthwhile. Sometimes Prisila wants you to buy her something on the weekend, taking your hard earned cash. But you have a deadline to buy your house. Then you have to take out a loan against the house which is to be paid back in a month. On top of that, you need to buy a yacht before the end of the month. Together, you need $1,540,000. I came up a bit short and lost out on my inheritance, but I couldn’t take anymore.
Graphics: 1.0
Everything is pleasantly drawn, but very static.
Sound: 1.0
The background song grated on my nerves after awhile.
Gameplay: 1.0
Point, click, choose an option, next day, repeat.
Difficulty: 1.5
It’s you versus the random number generator. Even if you follow the tips, you aren’t guaranteed to make it. Take down the passwords each week.
Fun Factor: 0.5
It’s not fun. There’s a bit of addiction to trying again, but it wasn’t ever fun.
Overall Grade: 1.0
Wall Street Kid earns a D. I was hoping for something a bit more in depth, but that’s asking for way too much here.