November 1986 (Capcom)

I’d disappointed.  I know that people are going to not like this, but I am.  I switched this back and forth between a thumbs up and a thumbs down more times than I’d like to admit¹.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled lately.  I like Commando, and Ghosts ‘n Goblins was amazing.  Capcom might have raised my standards a bit too much.  Maybe I should have played 1942 before the other games.  In the end, I decided that was the biggest problem and that’s why it’s ultimately getting the thumbs up.

Where Commando felt right, 1942 felt slow.  I know it’s a bomber, and a WWII bomber at that.  But shouldn’t it go faster than some guy walking around on the ground?  At least the planes all move at a good speed relative to each other.

One major thing that this has going for it is the lack of sprite flicker.  Not saying it doesn’t exist, but it is a lot better.

Like all of the arcade ports that I’ve noticed so far you can continue if you get a game over.  I think that’s great that the developers understood that people could in theory play forever in the arcade and didn’t take that away from people who bought the game for a home console.

If you really like shooters this isn’t all that bad.  But I wouldn’t use it to convince someone that shooters are great either.  Not that we’ve had any of those yet anyway.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun time waster.  But I’m not going to lose sleep over the fact that I’m not very good at it.

1. That number is somewhere between 3 and 50 for those who care.  And that’s not counting the times I wanted to switch it but didn’t because I was in the middle of a sentence.

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November 1986 (Capcom)

This is why I’m not attempting to finish games.  I played this game for a good while.  The video further down this review is about as far as I ever got.

Which isn’t to say that the game is bad at all.  And I’m not going to pass judgment about if something is too hard as long as it plays well.  And Ghost ‘n Goblins sure does play well.  After last month, and Karate Champ for that matter, these games just seem perfect.  The jump button jumps, the attack button attacks.  Too much Super Mario Bros. makes me want to kill enemies by jumping on their head.

Let’s look at the game though.  Your girlfriend gets kidnapped, cliché now but that never seems to bother me.  I don’t play games for the story.

The game does have it’s weird parts.  Like how your characters starts running around in his underwear ¹.  Or how you can seemingly pull lances out of your butt in order to throw that at zombies and crows.

There are some things I love about it though.  Weapons upgrades stay with you.  And that knife you get to throw comes out a lot faster than the lance.  Although upgrade probably isn’t the best word since I grabbed a lance when I had the knife.  So don’t just grab everything that appears on the screen unless you’re sure you want it.

One other thing to keep in mind is that this is an early example of a game with a fake ending.  When you finish every level you learn that all of the suffering you just went through was a trap and that to really beat the game you’ll have to go through it all again at a harder level.  If I found that out by playing the game instead of reading about it on the internet I would have been pissed.

I’ll definitely be coming back to this one.  And somehow, I think I’ll like it better when I get to devote more time to it.  These arcade ports are proving to be a lot more addictive than I thought.

1. Boxers, just in case you’re wondering.

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November 1986 (Capcom)

I have to preface this whole thing by saying that I generally don’t like shooters, am not very good at them, and get fed up with them rather quickly because of the previous two facts.  I’m going to try not to hold this against any of the games.

So far Commando is the best shooter for the NES.  Granted the competition is Donkey Kong 3,and it’s a stretch to count that.  The only other thing that comes close is the collection of light gun shooters and none of them are really all that close either.

People knew what they were getting with this game back in the day.  It had high resolution graphics.  It was state of the art.  The box says so, and the box is never wrong¹.

I’m not going to get on Capcom for saying that stuff, partly because I don’t have a good way to check it.  What I will say is that the graphics on some parts were flashing so much that stuff seemed to disappear for small periods of time.

Ignoring that, I see it as a shooter.  It’s going to take something special to convince me that any shooter is more than just a shooter.  But for what it is, Commando is a fun game.  At least for the parts that I survived to see.

There is a two player mode.  Sadly I don’t have a second player to play with me.

I wish I could get into more details, but that would require being better at the game and not dying.  I don’t see that happening very soon.

1. I lie, sometimes it is.  See some proof.

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November 1986 (Technos Japan/Data East)

Fencing is cool.  Fencing disguised as a fighting game is not.  This isn’t some high tech fighting game.  This isn’t even an NES fighting game.  It’s disguised fencing.  Nothing more.

Ok, I’ll back off of that a little.  Karate tournaments really use a point system.  So I’ll give the game a point for emulating real life.

I got a half point on things.  So I’ll give the game a point for having hit detection and move distinction down well enough to distinguish between whole and half points¹.

But sadly, I give myself the match for the game play.   It’s just not cool.

I’ve said this elsewhere², but I’ll say it again here.  I think a large part of liking a game or not is the mindset we have going into it.  I saw this game and thought it would be at the worst a decent fighting game that was maybe held back by the limitations of its time.  I wasn’t expecting  Street Fighter II or anything.  I was just expecting something sort of along the lines of Kart Fighter.

I would have been very happy with it, but it didn’t live up to what I was expecting.  I’m hoping that when people bought the game back in 1986 they had a better idea of what they were getting.

Oh well.  The rest of this month should be epic.

1. I’m giving myself 7 points if this is all randomized.
2. Over at GBA Weekly in fact.

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The main draw here, besides the fact that chronogaming is just awesome on a stick, is that there are 2 people playing the game each time.  Which means unlike the rest of the blogs I know doing this there’s a bit more control for bias.  Yes, I’m a nerd for saying that.

Anyway the idea over there is to add a new game a week.  So far there’s 2, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity and Super Mario Advance.  I’d say you should check it out.  And if you don’t agree with something, there’s another review right there on the same page.

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June 1986 (Sas Sakata/Data East)

Let’s put a positive spin on this one for a change, because this month we need all the help we can get.  Tag Tam Wrestling plays a lot better than M.U.S.C.L.E. I guess that’s like saying it moves faster than a dead sloth but at least it’s something.

The characters move in 3D.  Still can’t attack that way but it’s progress.

The whole tag team idea is cool too.  If nothing else it essentially double the life meter.  Of course that works the other way too.

Also, ….. I can’t do this anymore.  I’m so happy that this month is over because I really don’t know what I’d do if I had to sit through something like this again.

The controls are just weird.  I’ll give them some slack, they did have 2 buttons to play with.  But you grab the opponent, then pick your move from a menu.  Yes, a fucking menu.  In a wrestling game.  To pick the move.  You might as well play a wrestling text adventure.  Except a text adventure wouldn’t be so damn frustrating because you might get to do a move every once in a while.

It’s not all bad, this game did provide the inspiration for Strong Bad.  And without that, we wouldn’t have Strong Bad Emails to listen to.

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June 1986 (TOSE/Bandai)

I think there might be a point to Ninja Kid.  But I don’t hate myself enough to find out.  So I’ll give you some information about it and let you decide for yourself.

It was made by that timeless partnership, TOSE and Bandai.  I’ve ripped them apart enough for all of us to know what to do when we see that coming.

Needless to say, at this point Nintendo is the dominant force when it comes to publishing and developing games.  They have some good ones.  I’m not going to count because I know it’s more than 0.

Ninja Kid is the best game from TOSE and Bandai so far though.  I guess that’s not really saying much, but it is what it is.

The entire game feels like an ice level in Mario.  And I hate the ice levels.  Bad combination.  This also might be the first instance where stairs aren’t really stairs.  It looks like I’ll have to jump up to get to a higher level, but instead I can walk right through.  Why?  I don’t know, but it’s so crazy I’ve made a video just to show you.

I would think that someone would just make the world and stick with it.  A terrible layout is better than an inconsistent one.  I would even settle for different placement of the levels if I had to go through them in the same order.  I know that in some of those instances I had a choice of which level to go into.  But that’s the point, sometimes there’s a choice and sometimes there isn’t.  That’s not just bad game design, it’s downright lazy.

There are parts where the stairs aren’t really stairs.  They’re roughly stair like pieces of mass that you can walk through even though common sense says you shouldn’t be able to do that.  I played levels where the point was to kill enemies, to light candles…

Actually, lets go on about that.  If the point if the level is to make a flame pass over a candle so it can light, I need to be able to make the flame pass over the candle.  It’s way too hard to do that.

I could go on for a while adding stuff about levels where I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do and the unfair way some enemies come onto the screen and act like they’re playing Contra¹.

I’m going to be optimistic.  The next game was made by different people.  But I have a feeling this month is going to be a giant stinker.

1. Although we haven’t seen Contra yet.  So maybe we should say they’re going, well, we just haven’t really seen anything like that yet.

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June 1986 (TOSE/Bandai)

Just for a little bit of context, Nintendo had this weird rule back in the day.  Before 1990 when the rule was taken away, 3rd party developers were only allowed to release up to 5 games a year.  Obviously this would be easy to get around, just create “another” company to release a game.  But I do have to admit that such a rule should have one good consequence.  With this rule, publishers would have to release good games since anything bad would essentially waste of their allotted 5 for the year.

Which really makes me wonder.  Did Bandai release this rule existed?  Did they think Nintendo was bluffing?  You have to remember that this was the 2nd month of games being released, and the first for non Nintendo developed and published games.

Or, and this is what I’m both really afraid of and thankful for at the same time, was this really one of Bandai’s top 5?

In Chubby Cherub you’re a naked Cupid character.  You run around trying to collect food.  Some food will five you the power to throw hearts at dogs and cats who are trying to get you.  Some food will refill your meter so you can fly.

Stupid premise aside¹, the game just flat out sucks.  The hit detection on eating the food is really weird.  I couldn’t see any indication of how many times I could throw a heart.

At least I could pretty consistently count on how far the heart would go.  Right before where I wanted it to go it would disappear.

Maybe the worst part though is that when you lose a life it takes you to a screen that looks like you’re just starting the game.  That’s pretty weird if you ask me.  Why not just start right up again?  I think someone was just too lazy to come up with a graphic for death.

But chin up, it has to get better.  I think.  Maybe not though, we still have one more TOSE/Bandai game this month.

1. If you look at any game the right way you’ll be able to make it seem stupid.

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Junk 1986 (TOSE/Bandai)

Let’s go ahead and give M.U.S.C.L.E. credit for 2 things.  First, it had a different box style.  Wahoo for that.  Second it has music playing through the title screen.  A lot of the Nintendo games didn’t do that.

That’s where my praise ends.  I don’t know what TOSE thought while they were making this.  I really don’t know what Bandai thought when they agreed to release it.

The game is based on a Japanese manga¹.  At least to me, the characters might as well be the same.  They look like a 4 year old made them in one of those creepy crawler things and finished them off in an easy bake oven.

The worst part is that the wrestling ring is in 3D.  Except you can’t attack in 3D.  I know this would probably have been difficult to pull off this early in the NES’s life, but it still bothers me.

Your jump kick move is about worthless.  There’s no way to tell if you’re on the same plane with the other guy.  I spent most of my fights jumping past my opponent as he jumped past me.  Rather annoying.

I’m also still not sure what that ball did that I grabbed when it was thrown in the ring besides making my guy flash.  I think someone forgot to tell TOSS and Bandai that flashing characters in video games means you’ve been hurt and you’re in “I can’t get hurt right now so I have a chance to get away before I get hurt again” mode.

The game also has a two player mode.  I feel sorry for the unlucky soul who got suckered into playing.  I feel worse for the person who actually spent money on the game.

I think I’m going to go cry now.

1. Get ready for more of those.  And for me to have no idea what’s going on with the game since I don’t read them.

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Since I don’t have real release dates I can’t really go every X number of games without some kind of safety net.  So unless there are any objections, I’ll be doing awards every roughly 20 games or so.  That number isn’t exact because when I get to 20 games I’m going to finish the month and start over in counting when the next month begins.

Of course it would work out that after March of 1987 it would be exactly 20 games since the last set of awards.  That’s just how things work out I guess.

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June 1986 (Nintend0)

Donkey Kong 3 is just full of problems.  Not ones that make it unplayable by any means, but that doesn’t make them any better.

It starts with the character.  You’re Stanley.  Not Mario, or Luigi, or anyone else we’ve seen before in a Donkey Kong game.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with introducing new characters.  But this comes out of nowhere.

It also looks like the game can’t decide what it is.  I’ve marked it as an Action/Platformer because that’s what Nintendo says it is.  But it acts a lot like a shooter.  And a bad shooter at that.

Finally, the premise is just weird.  Donkey Kong wants to eat whatever you’re growing in your greenhouse and hits bee’s nests to get you to go away?  What’s up with that?  And how is bug spray supposed to get rid of an 800 pound gorilla?

All of that aside, play the game and don’t think about it.  It’s actually pretty fun.  Maybe it’s in the same vein as how a movie can be so bad that it’s good again, but whatever works.

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June 1986 (Nintendo)

Ah, Urban Champion.  It’s almost not fair to even look at this game.  On one hand it’s a fighting game on a system that essentially has 2 buttons.  Sure, you could use Start or Select but somehow I don’t think that would have helped much.  On the other hand you had a genre that just wasn’t really developed well yet.  Street Fighter hadn’t even hit arcades yet.

In all honesty, I hesitate to even call this a fighting game.  It’s more of a beat ‘em up where there’s only one enemy and it takes a lot of time to get rid of him.  There’s no choice of characters except for the fact that you can have two players, then you can pick between a guy who looks just like the regular character but with different colors.  You don’t win by depleting the opponent’s health meter necessarily.  You could knock him into a man hole and have him fall down.

But you’re not just fighting against the other fighter.  I’m not sure if I like this or not, but there’s a woman who obviously doesn’t like what’s going on down on the sidewalk and drops pots on you.  Thankfully you can see her early enough to get out of the way.  You also have to take a break when the cops come by.  So you get worked up enough to fight with some other guy but you both care enough not to get caught by the police.  That makes a lot of sense.

I know I shouldn’t be too hard on this game.  It is the first fighting game on the NES.  It didn’t exactly have Street Fighter to go against when it came out¹.

That being said, I can’t help it.  I felt like the entire game had to  go through a molasses filter between my pressing buttons and stuff actually happening on the screen.  I didn’t hear anything when I hit the other guy.  But that can be passed off as something I notice now that wouldn’t have been a big deal at the time, sort of like not having the screen scroll left in Super Mario Bros.

The fighting is the big problem though.  This is a fighting game.  I want to hit people.  I want to kick people.  I only get to do one of those.  Really, would it have been so hard to have one button punch and the other kick?  I don’t think so.

Really, this is probably better than I’m giving it credit for.  But not by much.  And that doesn’t mean you should actually play it either.

1. Just in case you’re curious, that came in April 1987 for the arcades.  So it wasn’t that long of a period without it but it was there.

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June 1986 (Nintendo)

I’m just going to come right out and say it.  I’ve never been a fan of this game, and I blame it on Super Mario Bros. I played that game way before I even knew this existed.  For anyone who somehow didn’t know that this came before the Super version I’ll bet it had to be a bit of a letdown.

I’m going to pretend that it’s not a Mario game.  That should help a lot.

Like most of the arcade games for the NES so far there isn’t any sort of tutorial or any way that I can find to let you know what you should be doing other than letting the game sit on the title screen and watching.  That was probably what really started me on the path to not liking this.  I’d gone years knowing that Mario jumps on enemies and then they die.  Or at least are incapacitated for a time.  But not here.  Instead I have to jump under them.

I’m starting to come around to the game now.  Different enemies have to be beaten in different ways.  Some just have to be avoided.  All or nothing bonus levels.  Really, if it wasn’t a Mario game I don’t think I would have ever had a problem with it.

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June 1986 (Nintendo)

I can only imagine the horror that ensued when parents told kids they brought this game home.  Especially if the parent couldn’t remember the full name of the game or was otherwise confused about it.  For the past 7 months or so the only game with Jr. in it was Donkey Kong Jr Math.  Donkey Kong itself had only been releases in June too, so if somehow a parent was cool enough to buy a game before the kid asked for it and just told them it was another Donkey Kong game there’s a chance the kid went berserk.

Let’s look at the game though.  It’s another game that I’ll be coming back to because it’s fun and I’m not very good at it.  The basic idea is that Mario has kidnapped Donkey Kong.  Probably as payback for kidnapping the princess in the last game.  There’s also a slight chance that this is the first appearance of Wario and everyone has missed that since he’s disguised as Mario.  You are Donkey Kong Jr., whose job is to rescue Donkey Kong.  Very original.

Lack of new plot lines aside, this is a good game.  Climb up vines, chains, and what appears to be really strong globs of snot and avoid the enemies on your way to the stop of the screen.  It’s more fun than I just made it sound.

There’s one thing though that still bothers me about this game.  DK Jr seems to be made out of eggs.  I fell off one of the platforms in the second screen and went down a total of Jr’s height.  That’s a fall of about roughly 5 ½ feet¹.  Shouldn’t my character be able to handle a fall of his own height?  The most careful rock climbers in the world don’t even wear any kind of safety gear if they’re climbing that high.

Despite the frailty issues, which I’ll blame on Jr being raised in captivity even though I don’t have anything to back me up on that, I just have to like this game.  I prefer it to Donkey Kong myself.  Not sure what the general consensus is about which is the better game though.

1. Estimate based on Jr looking half as tall as DK and DK being twice as big as a regular gorilla.

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June 1986 (Nintendo)

This may be the most playable game I’ve gotten to so far.  Yes, there were some big titles back in October, but I’m being serious about this.  Balloon Fight is definitely the best arcade port we’ve gotten to so far.

The concept is a little weird.  Basically you’re playing a cute version of Joust ¹.  Run into the gremlin dudes from above once to pop their balloon, and twice to make them go away.

In a first for this series, two players can play together.  Sure, you could do that in Tennis, but that’s an exercise in futility.  And you could play against each other in Baseball, but that’s not the same.  The closest might have been the “2 Player” options that were nothing more than forcing people to take turns.

This is a big step that Nintendo is taking.  For the first time I can really play with someone.  It’s amazing that it took this long considering all of the arcade games that could do it.

But let’s get back to the game at hand.  There’s another mode where you try to move across the screen popping green balloons while avoiding what looks like evil, sparkling fireflies that will pop your balloon if you run into them.  When I first tried it I was ready to pass it off as something added on because there was space left in the game’s memory.  Then I got mad when I died and played again.  It was a bit weird at first to go right to left, but this mode is pretty fun too.

Just to make sure you don’t miss it, Balloon Fight = awesome.

1. We won’t see Joust until June of 1988, so for fans of that game this will have to do for a a few years.

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June 1986 (Nintendo)

I’m not going to lie, I suck at this game.  It was a struggle for me to get off the first level.  I never got off the second level.  Really, it makes me happy that my goal is to play everything and not finish every game.

With that in mind, I really did like playing Donkey Kong.  I wish you didn’t lose the hammer, that’s the only reason I stayed alive sometimes.  I also wish you didn’t die from falling down.  But really, those are nit picky things.

What isn’t picky is the controls.  It’s probably the modern gamer in me just not being able to wrap my mind around ancient controls, but I would really like it if I could control Mario¹ in the air.  Even if it’s just to be able to press a direction and jump to get him to jump that way.

I’ll have to come back to this later and get farther in it.  But until then, my monster score of 7200 will have to do.

1. I know it’s Jump Man, but he’s Mario and that’s that.

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June 1986 (Nintendo)

Know what would be a great idea for a game?  One where you have to shoot yourself.  Yep, Nintendo made a game where you have to shoot yourself.  Family friendly Nintendo, who will later miss out on Mortal Kombat because of the blood, who won’t let crosses into games, made a game where you shoot yourself.  That’s just crazy.

If only it stopped there.  Cars drive off of cliffs.  Liquor bottles fly at you.  Balloons are magically weighted so that the bullets inside of them allow them to float in midair.  This game is so weird you’d think it was a Japanese only game.  Turns out it wasn’t released over there.

All kidding aside, this game is worth trying out.  My only real complaint is that you essentially have 24 minutes to beat the game.  There are 4 levels and you get 6 minutes in each level.  Your time doesn’t magically come back if you die.  However, your character is smart enough to jump if he absolutely has to in order to keep walking.

Even with all of it’s craziness, this is probably the best light gun game as far as playing it today is concerned.  Or at least the best one Ive gotten to so far.

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June 1986 (Nintendo)

Here’s where things really start to get a little weird.  This game had already been in the arcades for a few years.  That isn’t too weird.  It had already been on the Japanese Famicom for a few years too.  In fact, this was the 3rd release for the Famicom.  So why are we in the US just seeing it now?

Who knows.  I’m not going to worry about that sort of thing.  Maybe Nintendo wanted to stay away from arcade ports for the launch.  Mario Brothers hasn’t come out¹.  Let’s just look at the game.

I’ll start off by saying that I’m not a huge fan of Popeye.  Which isn’t to say that it’s bad, just that I’m not going to spend hours playing it.  I can certainly see why others would.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get over that. I went and played again just to be sure.  Now that I have a better grasp on it, I actually like the game.

My biggest problem was wrapping my brain around the fact that you can punch, but you can’t punch Bluto² unless you eat spinach.  That should make sense since in the cartoon Popeye is a bit of a weakling without his magic substance.

Anyway, once that got cleared up the game went a lot more smoothly.  Not great mind you, but definitely a few steps beyond enjoyable.  I wish there was more spinach, but other than that it’s really not bad.  And honestly, that’s just the not very good at games but likes playing them kid in me coming out.

1. Or at least it hasn’t come out with our made up release schedule.
2. who for some reason is called Brutus here

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What I do have is a list of games that at least gets it down to the month and year.  I was going to try using Wikipedia to get some exact dates, but they can’t even decide if Super Mario Bros. was released in 1985 or 1986 in the US.  Nintendo says 1985.  With that in mind, I’m going to just randomize the list in each month unless I have a reason to do otherwise.  We’re actually going to get one of those this month.  But let’s take a general look at things first.

It’s been about 8 months since the last US release.  8 months of playing these games and shooting stuff with the light gun and not having new stuff to bug parents about.  Then we get 8 games relatively all at once.  These games are

• Balloon Fight
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong 3
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Gumshoe
• Mario Brothers
• Popeye
• Urban Champion

As for the order, I have no idea what it will be except that Donkey Kong will happen before Donkey Kong Jr. which will happen before Donkey Kong 3.  Other than that, it’s up to the randomizer.

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Anyway, I was sitting around the house and thought that it might be a good idea to give out awards.  So every month or so of gaming time I’ll have a chance to highlight some games.  The exact time frame will vary based on the release schedule.  For example, December 1986 only has 1 US release so it will be combined with other months.

There will be as follows:

• Best Game for the game that I think is the best of the group
• Hidden Gem for the game that I think is really good but people don’t know about it
• Worst Game for the game that will make you want to gouge out your own eyeballs with a rusty spoon
• Honorable Mention for a game that I feel needs to be highlighted but didn’t win one of the above awards

So onto the show.

Best Game – Super Mario Bros.

I didn’t want to pick this game.  I wanted there to be something else so I wouldn’t make the stereotypical pick.  But I just can’t do it.  There is nothing else out at this point that I can honestly say is better than Super Mario Bros. It’s not even close.  Maybe part of that has to do with the fact that there just aren’t really any other platformers out for the NES at this time.

I’m looking at these as NES games and not as ports from other systems.  There’s just nothing that I can say bad about Super Mario Bros. that isn’t some desire for a bit of future Mario games to have existed earlier.  And I can’t fault a game for that.

Hidden Gem – Wrecking Crew

Lost in the shuffle of Mario games.  Coming to America on the NES before Mario Brothers was not very nice to this game.  I’m really wondering what would have happened if the US audience had seen this after Mario Brothers, or ever before Super Mario Bros.  As it stands, this game is just forgotten.  And if you ask me, that’s worse than being known for being a terrible game.

Worst Game – Clu Clu Land

You know it’s sad when you’re the worst game out of a group that includes an educational game.  Clu Clu Land is an interesting idea, but the execution just isn’t there.  I think the most telling thing about this game is that I tried to think of a different control scheme to make it better and it ended up being exactly the same.  If my dream scheme doesn’t work, then there’s something wrong.

However, I think we’d have a different winner if Clu Clu Land didn’t have the unfortunate luck to be a release title.

All of that being said, Donkey Kong Jr. Math was right there in the mix.  However, it’s saved because it’s an educational game.  And if anyone expects anything good from an educational game they deserve to be disappointed.

Honorable Mention – Hogan’s Alley

Proving that there’s more to the light gun that shooting ducks and space ships.  I was torn between this and Wild Gunman, but I think that Hogan’s Alley has the edge because of the trick shot portion of the game and the fact that you have to actually pay attention to who you’re shooting.

There won’t be any more US releases until June of 1986.  Thankfully we won’t have to wait 8 months to read about another game.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

Wrecking Crew features Mario and Luigi.  That’s where the similarities between this and Super Mario Bros. end.  Mario Brothers too for that matter, but the US hasn’t seen that game yet for the NES.

I might be going out on a limb for this, but I would think that if I were actually playing this in 1985¹ the biggest surprise for me would be the new set of enemies.  In the US the thought might consist of something along the lines of “Why is Mario suddenly fighting against robots instead of crabs and turtles?”  I don’t know why either, so I’m going to stop worrying about it.

This game seems to get a bit lost in the Mario sequence.  US gamers had been seeing Mario Brothers in the arcade since 1983, and Super Mario Bros. is a much better game.  It’s really not fair to compare Wrecking Crew to either of those games because the only similarity is that Mario is the main character.  If that’s a good enough reason for you, you might as well throw Golf into the mix since Mario is the main character there as well.  Maybe even Tennis since Mario is the ref.

Enough about that, let’s get onto the game itself.  Wrecking Crew is the first genre crossing game for the NES.  There are enemies running around that will make you cartwheel to your death straight down, passing through any structure that may get in your way.  There’s a certain path you need to take in the levels, or at least a way you can screw yourself over if you make the wrong move.

There’s also a bonus game where you race against some guy who looks like a mutated turtle with a spike coming out of his head to find a coin.  Kind of lame, but it’s a break from running away from robots and fireballs.

In short Wrecking Crew has Mario as the main character, but is not a Mario game.  Keep that in mind, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.  Or at least think about it in the same line as Mario Brothers and not Super Mario Bros.

1. Let’s keep in mind that I wasn’t even born yet so there’s no way in Hell that could have happened.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

I feel like Wild Gunman is going to get  worse than it deserves treatment from me because I already did Hogan’s Alley.  Which sucks, because Wild Gunman is a bit better when you think about it.

Both games have a mode where there’s a wall with windows and you shoot people as they show up.  It’s hard to say which is better because you get to pick between having innocent people in the mix or two guys who will both shoot you if you’re not fast enough.

From here on out, Wild Gunman is a different game.  There are 2 basic modes beyond what’s explained above, and they aren’t much different in theory.  With 1 outlaw you’re in a duel with 1 outlaw.  You can also have a duel with 2 outlaws at the same time.  This might not be very fair in the real world, but it’s great for the game.

There’s no trick shot.  The target’s don’t move.  It really is the worst of the 3 light gun shooters available at the launch of the NES.  But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game at all.  It’s just that something has to be the worst.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

In the end, this is a tennis game.  I’m not a fan, but I’ll try not to hold this against the game.

You can play singles or doubles.  I tried the doubles, but since my wife is gone for the weekend I didn’t have anyone to play with me.  It seems just like singles though, except you have another person with you.

The controls are simple enough.  A or B swings at the ball.  There’s a pretty good 3D look to the game considering when it came out.  The thing isn’t really bad.

Ok, I take that back.  If you don’t like tennis then this is not the game you should play to try to get into tennis.  You start to serve automatically.  Sure,  you can just not swing for the ball and be fine.  But I shouldn’t have to do that.  I also went through an entire set double faulting on my serves the whole way through.  And that was on the easiest setting.

The bright spot in this game is that Mario is the ref.  Other than that, I think I’m just done with it.

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I’m not sure what he’ll do when he gets to Sonic the Hedgehog.  Apparently he doesn’t either if this comment is to be believed.

I can’t say for sure. Assuming I don’t combine less interesting entries and keep a steady update schedule, I have well over a year’s worth of updates to work with here. Not only that, but I do have a job and am taking 18 hours of classes this fall, so while I have dedicated myself to finishing this, I’d rather not take much more on my plate than I already have. I have a few ideas, but I’d rather finish Pre-Sonic Genesis and see where my life is at the tail end of 2011 before making any promises.

Until decision time though, let’s just read what he has to say on the games that will definitely be included.  Plus, this is a pretty recently started project so if you start reading now there isn’t too much catching up to do.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

Stack up is a pretty simple game in theory.  The same professor dude from Gyromite runs around the screen and you get to blocks that make ROB move around and grab discs of different colors to stack them in different ways.

Honestly, that’s about all I can tell you.  Without an actual ROB to use the game is relatively unplayable.  Sure, you can technically play the game without ROB.  If you want to use it as a giant, wacked up game of memory.  Or you could use something instead of the discs and move them around yourself.

There is a multiplayer mode.  Both players try to control the one ROB.  But honestly, this game was painful enough without trying that.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

I struggled a bit with how I should categorize this game.  Technically I guess you could say it’s a simulator since it’s simulating a pinball machine.  Which would work for this one, but there are some wonky pinball games.  I didn’t want to say it’s an arcade game because I don’t think that really tells you anything about the game.  It’s like saying you like sandwiches.

Onto the game itself.  Technically there’s a 2 player mode in this.  Once I found out that it’s just taking turn and playing pinball I didn’t even bother.

Pinball has 2 game modes.  A has a lighter ball, and B has a heavier (and more realistic) ball.  Other than that the modes are exactly the same.  The controls are a bit wonky.  A or B controls flippers on the right and anything on the D-pad controls flippers on the left.

The coolest thing about this game is that the board is 2 screens, divided into top and bottom.  This can make things a bit frustrating when you knock the ball off the bottom screen but not far enough into the top one to make it stay there.  There’s also a mini game where Mario is featured in a Breakout style game.

In the end, it’s a pinball game.  If you like pinball you should like this.  And if you don’t there’s almost no hope.  There’s bound to be something better coming up since this is a lunch title, but this game really isn’t all that bad.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

I’m going to admit my bias now and say that I do not like driving a stick.  I can’t drive one in real life and I suck at it in games.  I just can’t wrap my mind around needing to change gears.  I’m the kind of racing game player that uses the breaks as little as possible.  So with that in mind let’s take a look at Mach Rider.

Mach Rider has 3 game modes: Fighting Course, Endurance Course, and Solo Course.  I started with the Solo Course because I figured it would be the easiest one.  I had to go 22km in 250 unites of time.  The first time was an utter disaster because I didn’t no about changing gears.  I actually hit up just button mashing and thought it was a speed boost¹.

It’s really not too bad.  Barrels are on the side of the road and you blow up if you hit one, then magically come back.  Puddles made of water or oil are randomly on the road.  They didn’t seem to do anything beyond making a squealing noise at first.  I tried to run into them to see what happens and it turns out you get thrown to the side.  Start turning enough and they don’t effect you much.

Next I tried the Endurance Course.  Shorter race, only 20km) but enemies are thrown in.  This is where I really started to suck.  I couldn’t finish the Solo Course.  Throw people into the mix and I got to watch myself blow up a lot.  Not too much fun.  You do have a rear view mirror.  It didn’t help me too much and I continually had people sneaking up on me.

Onto the Fighting Course.  10km race and no time limit.  Just going out and shooting bad guys and not not running into barrels.  I still sucked.

From a graphics standpoint the game’s not too bad.  Obviously old school NES, but that’s perfectly fine with me.  The sound is decent as well.

It’s not a game that I think I’ll be going back to.  Not because it’s bad though.  I just know it’s not a game I’m into.  I just couldn’t seem to switch gears and watch for enemies and watch where I’m going at the same time.  But you need to try it for yourself.

1. Expect this kind of thing to happen a lot since I’m going through the games without looking up instructions or anything as much as possible.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

Remember that the goal here is to play the games today, not as they were when they were released.  For the most part I can do that.  But I have to admit that Kung Fu was a bit tricky.

First off, the game isn’t amazing by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s pretty much your standard side scrolling beat ‘em up game.  You earn different amounts of points depending on if you kick or punch the enemies.

Some enemies are coming at you with weapons.  Obviously they’re scared of you and the rage you’re in since you have to save your woman.  Some enemies come at you in groups.  In that respect, this game is pretty well named because it follows my theory of kung fu movie fighting: the hero will be approached by a group of villains who will all think they’re capable of taking his as an individual¹.

It’s repetitive.  The bosses aren’t all that difficult.  Really, there’s no logical reason why I should like it.

But I do.  It might be the two difficulty levels.  It might be that I tend to gravitate toward it when something is getting under my skin.  But whatever it is, I just think that Kung Fu is worth playing.

1. I’ve never understood how they decided on the order of attacking either.  Is it Star Trek style and the weak go first so they wear down for the strong?  Do you go high to low in rank so there’s no chance of the weak getting credit for the kill?

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Sports

October 1985 (Nintendo)

I have to remind myself that this was 1985.  You might want to do that as well, because this game is odd at best.

There are 5 levels of difficulty.  I played it on the easiest setting, high school.  You start off getting the ball kicked off and catch it with your teammates circled around you.  The idea is simple, get up the field and score.  It’s not too hard of a concept to grasp.  Except for the fact that you have 2 “30″ minute halves instead of quarters dividing up the game things so far are looking up.

This definitely isn’t Madden.  There are no plays to call.  The A button throws to your long receiver and the B button to a short receiver.  If you want a running play you can either pass it quickly with B or just not pass the ball and run.

The first weird thing that I noticed was that you’re essentially playing a 2-D game of football.  I tried to throw to my long receiver and had it intercepted.  A lot.  All but one of those where when the receiver was at least 5 yards further down the field than anyone else.  Somehow my quarterback doesn’t know how to throw the ball on an arc.  Annoying, but at least it does that for the computer quarterback as well.

If that was my biggest complaint I think I could live with it.  After all, it’s a launch title.  It’s 1985.  It is allowed to have flaws.  But the biggest one from me is that the line of scrimmage doesn’t really matter.

Yes, that’s right.  I passed the ball, ran past the line of scrimmage, and passed the ball again.  If it hadn’t been intercepted I would have tried again.  The game doesn’t seem to know that you’re not allowed to do that.

Overall, it’s not something I’d want to invest a lot of time into.  It’s fun for a while, but the shortcomings are just too much for me.

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Light Gun Shooter

October 1985 (Nintendo)

Hogan’s Alley was the actual first light gun game for the Famicom.  In some ways I think it’s better than Duck Hunt.  Yes, I think the Holy Grail of shooting games needs to move over a bit.  Here’s a quick look at what makes this game better.

1. It has different game modes that are actually different.  While Duck Hunt has the choice of 1 or 2 ducks (and the clay pigeons¹ in the version packaged with Super Mario Bros.), Hogan’s Alley has a shooting gallery mode, an around town mode, and a trick shot mode where you shoot a can to keep it in the air.
2. It’s a better game on the emulator.  You don’t have as long to shoot who you’re supposed to shoot so you have to be quick.  Quick enough that you can’t just aim at a person and wait for them to show up.
3. You can actually shoot stuff you’re not supposed to shoot.  Don’t like someone?  Pretend they’re one of the good guys and shoot them.  It’ll get a game over quicker, but that’s OK.

Of course, Duck Hunt is still the golden standard and will always be considered the best light gun game ever.  But Hogan’s Alley should be right there.

1. I always though they were flying saucers.

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October 1985 (Nintendo)

Finally, back to something good.  Well, mostly at least.  But I’ll at least start on the good parts.

In Ice Climber you go up levels made of ice armed with a hammer.  Depending on if you’re playing the Japanese or US versions you can club either baby seals or giant cotton balls with eyes and appendages who try to stop you by attacking or filling in the holes you create in the ice.  And there’s also birds who fly around doing the same thing, minus the filling in holes part.   That polar bear on the cover?  He comes around if you decide to be lazy and don’t do anything for a while and whisks you up to the next level.

Your character doesn’t really climb ever.  Instead you bash holes in the ice and jump through.  At the end of the level there’s a bonus stage where you have to collect vegetables and get to the top before the timer runs out.  I’m not sure how vegetables grow in the arctic climate, but I’ll leave that for someone else to figure out.

Don’t think that this game is perfect though.  It has issues knowing when you land on a platform.  It seems like have to land with your entire character on the platform.  I just pretend that the ice will break if I land too close to the edge.  After all, it is a platform made of ice basically suspended in the air.

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Sports

October 1985 (Nintendo)

I really tried to spend 10 minutes with this game.  I just couldn’t do it.

Let me state first off that I don’t like golf, have no idea really how to play, and don’t like golf video games.  So I’m probably a bit biased in this from start.

First off, I know that I shouldn’t be using a 1 wood for anything not on the green.  Every other gold game I’ve ever played suggested clubs to use.  This had me using the 1 wood out of a sand trap.  Normally I’d have thought that they just left the club suggestions out of the game, but when I finally got onto the green after what seemed like forever it switched me to using my putter.  So someone thought it was a good idea to suggest clubs some of the time at least.

In the two player game the second player has the same guy with a different color shirt on.  I’m not going to give the game crap for that.  There are more important things to a sports game than making the people look good.  I just thought I’d mention it.

Don’t get me wrong, this game isn’t all bad.  For people who know what they’re doing the experience has to be better.  And I really like the system they used for the swing.  A once to start it, twice to control the power, and a 3rd time to line the ball up with a white part of the meter to control accuracy.

But overall for the general person, I can’t recommend this game.

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Racing

October 1985 (Nintendo)

Excitebike is a racing game.  Bet you never saw that coming did you?

In all seriousness though, this is a pretty decent game.  The controls are pretty nice.  Up and down move your bike up and down on the screen.  A makes the motor go vroom and B makes the motor go VROOM.  Going vroom is the regular motor that makes the bike go.  VROOM on the other hand kicks in some extra juice.  In order to make sure you can’t abuse that using the extra juice makes your motor heat up and eventually overheat to the point where you have to pull your bike to the side and let it cool off.

Excitebike has a lot of nice things about it.  You have to worry about landing the bike right coming off of a jump.  When you’re racing against the computer you have to worry about running into other racers.  If you run into them there’s a chance you’ll be knocked off your bike and will have to get back on.  You can even create tracks, although in the US version you can’t save them at all and in the Japanese version you needed a special add on.

The only thing that I find lacking is multiplayer option.  Other than that, this game is about as perfect as you could expect from a game at this point.

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Puzzle

October 1985 (Nintendo)

I like puzzle games, so I know I’m going to be excited about all of the ones I won’t know that I’ll run across.  I got to one pretty quick.

The basic idea is to run around a level that looks like a geoboard.  There is a secret pattern of gold bars between the pegs that you uncover when you pass over them.  You don’t really control your character once the game starts.  Instead, you use the D pad to stick your arm out in a direction that lets you grab onto a peg so you can rotated around the peg to go in a different direction.  If you run into a wall you turn around.

This wonky control system means that you can’t really grab a peg and go any direction you want.  This frustrates me to know end.  The sad part is that I was thinking about how I would have designed the game differently and I thought of the exact same scheme for controlling the guy.  My wife says it might be better to have A stick out one arm and B stick out the other.  We both wonder why you can’t just turn the guy like in Pac-Man.

All the while there are some enemies running around that try to kill you.  Luckily you can turn them into an orange with the power of sonar and eat them.  But only if you have a clear path to the edge of the board, otherwise you’ll just push them.  Which means you can’t eat an enemy if you’re spinning around a peg.

This game is just frustrating.   The 2nd level is ridiculous compared to the first.  The timer runs out way too fast.  It doesn’t even have the decency to wait until you start playing the game.  Once your guy is on the screen it starts counting down.  I’m sure there’s somebody out there who likes this game, but I’ve never seen them.

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Educational

October 1985 (Nintendo)

I can’t think of a single person who liked educational video games once they get past the age of 6.  Parents seem to be the closest, but that’s really just liking the idea of educational video games if you ask me.  It seems this game is doomed from the start.

Actually, I’m going to attempt to save it.  This is no longer an educational game.  It’s a puzzle game.  You try to race against your friend that you suckered into playing with you¹ to collect numbers that will eventually, through the power to math, get to the number Donkey Kong requires.

Really, it’s not so different from Pac-Man?  Ok, maybe Pac-Man where you have to collect dots and fruit in an alternating pattern.  But I think that would be a good game too.

The A game is the easy level.  You’re trying to get lower numbers and you always start at 0.  It’s a race to get the numbers to add up.  But there’s more strategy too.  You have the option of using any combination of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing the numbers.  There are 5 places on the bottom of the screen where the operation sign can show up.  After you use it, the sign will go to the slot that was empty.  So there’s strategy in which sign to use, especially if it means making your opponent suddenly have to travel all the way across the screen.

The B type steps things up a notch.  Donkey Kong will ask for negative numbers.  Suddenly you’re wanting things in the hundreds.  Plus, you’re not starting on 0 so you have to figure out how the math works out.

The +-X÷ exercise is just useless.  All you do is figure out the problem in some world outside the game and climb the chain to see if you’re right.

I’ll step back into reality for a bit.  This game is not something I’d spend all day looking forward to playing.  It’s probably not something I’d ask a lot of people to play with me.  But if you have the right person to play with it can actually be some fun.

1. Technically the game is always on multiplayer mode.  If you don’t have anyone to play with the second player’s character just won’t do anything.  But really, if you’re not playing against someone there’s no point in playing this anyway.

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Sports

October 1985 (Nintendo)

I really want to like Baseball.  It’s simple.  No pitch controls, just throw the ball and somewhat control it by pressing left and right on the D pad to make curves, sliders, and screwballs.  Press down to make it go faster and up to make it go slower.  Pitching is pretty easy.

Hitting is pretty easy too.  You press A to swing the bat.  You need to hold it down, because you stop your swing when you stop pressing the button.  Timing can be a bit wonky, but that’s how baseball games work.

Fielding is almost nonexistent.  I could never seem to control the players.  This actually didn’t bother me too much since I’ve never been that good at fielding anyway so that’s not a big loss.  I could still throw the ball where I wanted.

There are some problems though that make it pretty unplayable today.

First off, let’s go right back to the fielding.  They tend to suck.  Balls that I would have no problem fielding myself easily get by the players.  The outfielders in particular take terrible routes to the ball.  It also seems that each player has a defined spot that they’ll attempt to catch a pop fly in.  My catcher wouldn’t go a few feet outside the dirt around home plate for a pop-up that ended up dropping for a foul ball.  Despite this he was still the closest to catching the ball.

Someone obviously thought about this game and added some nice touches, one of those being that the pitchers will shake off pitches.  This seems pretty cool, until you want to actually pitch the ball.  I had to wait for my pitcher to shake off 2 and 3 pitches way too often.  This happened whether I was pressing buttons to pitch the ball or not.

This is just one example of how slow the game is.  The other big thing to point out is that there’s a song after every half inning that shows while you see the scoreboard.  You can’t skip over this, which really sucks when you just want to get on with the game.

On the funny side though is the umpire.  Yes, there’s only one.  And he magically teleports to where ever he needs to be to make the call.  I don’t think this is a problem at all.  I actually think it’s kind of cool.

If I have some time to waste this is a decent game to play around with.  But it’s not something I’d want to invest a lot of time into.

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ROB Game

October 1985 (Nintendo)

The final release title for the NES (and the game that came along with Duck Hunt in the Deluxe Set) is Gyromite.

This is a weird little title designed to work with a robot that Nintendo packaged with the system named R.O.B.¹ I wish I had one, but sadly I don’t. Happily for me though I don’t need one to get the game to work. Thanks to emulators are for. Specifically ones that will allow the second port to pretend to have a R.O.B. hooked up.

There are two types of play for this game. In the first you are a professor who for some reason has to go around collecting dynamite.  You also have to move some red and blue pillars up and down.  R.O.B. helps with this, you press the A and B buttons on the controller and R.O.B. presses them and the pillars move.  Weird, but it works.  You can’t jump, but you can climb ropes hanging down from the ceiling.  You can’t kill the little green enemies by landing on their heads, but you can squish them with the pillars or place radishes in their path to make them stop to have a snack.  When you get the last pack of dynamite you move onto the next level.

That method isn’t too bad.  The B type though makes me want to fall asleep.  In fact, it’s so boring that the professor dud is already asleep.  You have to guide him as he sleepwalks across the screen.  And by guide him I mean make those blue and red pillars go up and down so he can get behind the Japanese fake walls at the end of the level.  You get points for how fas he goes, but it’s weird.  At the end of the first level my score was 1101.  Since you can’t make the professor walk you can’t go backwards at all.  It makes Super Mario Bros. look really good because at least in that we could go back to a different part of what was still on the screen.  I died on a few parts where the professor ran into a monster that I didn’t know was there.

The final verdict?  A type can be a fun game, and if your emulator can handle having a R.O.B. or mapping two different controllers to the same buttons you’re good to go.  Or, you know, you could actually have an NES and a R.O.B. and play it for real.  Just stay away from the B type unless you lost a bet.

1. If you don’t know about R.O.B., then you should probably go read about him. Wikipedia has a decent article.

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Light Gun Shooter

October 1985 (Nintendo)

Duck Hunt was not the first light gun game by a long shot, but we’ll cover that later.  Duck Hunt however was the first light gun game for the NES in North America.  It also came in some packages of the NES, along with Gyromite.  But we’ll get to that game later.

The original cartridge for Duck Hunt only has two modes, 1 and 2 ducks.  The ducks get faster as the game progresses.  There are 3 types of ducks, although that damn dog only holds up 1 of them when he retrieves your duck.

If you happen to have an NES then this game is a lot of fun.  If you’ve got an emulator then it’s just a point and click game.  I love Duck Hunt when it’s on an NES.  But when it’s through the emulator it’s just sort of boring.

Technically there’s a 2 player mode where the second controller can control the ducks.  I’ve tagged this game as both single player and multiplayer because I’m not going to deny that the mode exists, but I hardly think it’s worth it.

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Action/Platformer

October 1985 (Nintendo)

I’m guessing that a lot of people are going to think that I’m starting with Super Mario Bros. because it’s Nintendo’s flagship franchise.  But in fact, I’m starting with it because Super Mario Bros. came as one of the packages with the US NES release.

By today’s standards this is a pretty good game.  By the 1985 standards it’s amazing.  But I’m looking at the game as one people will play today, not in 1985.

The one thing that has always bothered me about this game is that you can’t go backward.  Miss a mushroom and you’re out of luck.  Accidentally knock it backwards and you’re out of luck.  In a word, it sucks.

That being said, it’s also one of the things I like about this game.  You have to get things right the first time and can’t go back and correct yourself.  There are other one time chances to do things as well, such as shooting falling goombas with fireballs.

I wish the multiplayer was different though.  It is nice to be able to share a game with a friend¹.  The only problem is that one player keeps playing until the die².  If I’d designed the game I would have traded who was playing either when a player dies or when a level is completed.  But I guess it could be a problem either way.  It’s the battle between getting into a groove and getting to keep it, and having the potential to not let your friend play for an hour because you’re really good.

I also wish I could save my progress with save states.  But that’s something that couldn’t happen yet and, after all, I have save states.

1. If you’re lucky you can share a game with a wife.
2. It’s Nintnedo, so you don’t really die.  But I’m saying that anyway.

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The titles to be found in this batch are as follows:

• 10-Yard Fight
• Baseball
• Clu Clu Land
• Donkey Kong Jr. Math
• Duck Hunt
• Excitebike
• Golf
• Gyromite
• Hogan’s Alley
• Ice Climber
• Kung Fu
• Mach Rider
• Pinball
• Stack-Up
• Super Mario Bros.
• Tennis
• Wild Gunman
• Wrecking Crew

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