Doom gets a 9.6. Atari 2600 Donkey Kong, a 5.4. Meet Crítica Bits

Nostalgia doesn't get a score. That's the rule behind Crítica Bits, the magazine where part of the Clásicos Básicos team reviews video games, hardware and technology, and gives the classics reasoned scores out of 10. It has 270 articles signed by three friends, and in its reviews a classic can earn a 9.6 or fail without mercy.

Since 2007 we have been keeping games, programs and movies so they don't get lost. Here we keep them and play them; over there they sit down to argue about whether they were as good as we remember, which new console works with your old cartridges, or why a better format ended up losing. We'd like you to stop by.

What is Crítica Bits?

Crítica Bits is a Spanish magazine reviewing video games (mostly retro), hardware and technology, with sections on PC components, software, film and literature. The biggest section is video games: 90 articles, 59 of them with a reasoned score out of 10. Behind it come PC Components (48), Technology (39), Hardware (30) and Software (25).

Three friends write it, and every article carries the name of the person who stands behind it. David Abellán signs the video games, literature and film pieces. Pablo Huguet covers PC components, hardware and devices. Ignacio Pineda handles technology and software.

They explain where they come from on their team page: "Before Crítica Bits there was clasicosbasicos.org, an archive devoted to preserving and spreading abandonware […]. Someone saved them, and some of us who write here came out of that team."

Why you'll like it if you come from here

Crítica Bits looks at old software as seriously as at new software, and it is wary of any text that doesn't say where its information comes from. Almost everything it publishes is documentary: it leans on manufacturer sheets, period magazine archives, industry records and what critics wrote at the time, with the link to the source inside the text so you can check it yourselves.

They are strict with scores. Only reviews carry them (games, the occasional classic console, a film or a book), and each one comes from a rubric of five written criteria: the number appears at the end, not the beginning. Articles on components, hardware and devices carry no score because, in the magazine's own words, "scoring a device without numbers of its own would be decoration". No review has been paid for.

And they don't go easy. Doom gets a 9.6, Game Boy Tetris a 9.4 and Turrican II on Amiga a 9.1, but the Virtual Boy stops at 5.6 and Atari 2600 Donkey Kong at 5.4. By the way, Tetris and Turrican II have game pages here and can be played in your browser, so you can read the score and see whether you agree.

Five pieces to start with

If you grew up on shareware: the Doom review opens on December 10, 1993, the day id Software uploaded the first episode to a University of Wisconsin server and so many people tried to download it at once that the server went down. It then explains the shareware split and the WAD files, which are still delivering new levels more than thirty years later. Here is the Doom game page, also playable in your browser.

If you want the most uncomfortable point-and-click adventure of the nineties: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream gets an 8.9. A computer called AM has been torturing five people for 109 years, the game lets you control them one by one, and there are seven possible endings. The piece explains how a story written in one night ended up as an adventure game, and how to play it today. In our archive you'll find it as No tengo boca y debo gritar (the Spanish title).

If there's still a VCR in the storage room: Betamax: Sony's glorious failure goes over the war against VHS. Sony launched its format in 1975, JVC answered in 1976 with a VHS that recorded twice as long and that it licensed to many manufacturers, and Sony kept making blank Betamax tapes until March 2016.

If a new Neo Geo tempts you: Ignacio Pineda sorts out what is known about the Neo Geo AES+, announced by Plaion Replai on April 16, 2026 for €199.99, plus €79.99 per cartridge. The brand promises newly manufactured ASIC chips, "neither emulation nor FPGA approximation", and the machine will arrive on September 16, 2027. The piece separates what the manufacturer says from what its critics dispute, each claim with its source.

If classic cinema is your thing too: the review of Nosferatu (1922) gives a 9.0 to a film that nearly vanished: Bram Stoker's widow sued, and a ruling ordered all copies destroyed. Several survived. It covers the shoot in Wismar and the Slovak Carpathians, the critical reception of the time, and which version to watch today. If you're left wanting more old cinema, there is our movies section.

Your turn

If you've ever wondered whether that game holds up today or whether you only remember it fondly, now you have someone to argue it with. Head over to Crítica Bits, open the index of all its articles and start with whatever catches your eye. On X they are @CriticaBits.

And then come back and tell us. Does Doom deserve more than a 9.6? Is the 5.4 for Atari Donkey Kong fair? We'll read you in the comments on this post and in the forum (in Spanish). And if a score strikes you as unfair, tell them too: the comments on Crítica Bits are open on all of its articles.