Well buckos, I have fun talking about NES games and I still have well hundreds of them left to discuss. So today we get to some #1s. I think we get our first game based on a license! our first game from Europe! and our first Car racing game! How are they as games? Well you’ve come to the right place to get at least one opinion on them (my opinion is not the only one. I am just the one weirdo who wants to talk about EVERY NES game because I have nothing better to do) Let’s get ready to check out some new stuff!
Another NES game that I played A LOT as a child. I’m pretty sure it was a rental but I also believe some friends of my family that I’ve known since well I was born owned this game. I might be wrong on that but still this game has a special place in my heart and I do believe it still holds up pretty well. You play two different kind of games in here, both shumps. One is your regular shump like levels. Going from one side to the other blowing shit up like Gradius. The second part is when you get to the Air Fortress, you have to search around for a giant orange glowing orb to shoot at until it dies and then you have to GET THE FUCK OUT by finding the right exit. This is really neat and pretty well done. Sure the last two levels of the first run through of the game will have you pulling hair out of your head (or your legs, or arms or whatever) that’s not so bad if they were the actual last two levels, the end of a game should be harder than it’s beginning. No the biggest problem this game has is that it makes you play it through twice to really get the best ending which means they make the same levels harder by more enemies and changing the location of the orb and the exit plane thing. This game already had 8 levels and honestly that is by FAR enough for a game of this nature. It wasn’t like this was a game we (me and the friends) ever ever ever beat. I don’t even know how I beat the last level still. This overall is a good game that just went a bit too far. 8 levels for this shooting/exploration game is great, 16 is way too much.
I have to be honest when I was talking about the first licensed game (as in game based on a tv show, movie, or book) I wasn’t talking about this game. I also have already forgotten Tom Sawyer (which isn’t hard as that game is forgettable as hell and also shitty but I am way too lazy to change that introduction paragraph now!) This is a game that I forget exists way too often on a television series I forget exists. Yes, the man who hugs and kisses old TV literally forgets Airwolf existed. I’ve never even seen an episode. How’s that for a surprise???? I have no idea how much I will or won’t enjoy the show when I get to it but I know that I do not like this game. This game had stuff going against it from the get go. It’s another one of those Top Gun Style Cockpit Outlooking Air fighting games that I just never got. However while I can at least tell you that After Burner might be a game you’d enjoy if you are into those types of games I can tell you that you should just avoid Airwolf. I want to at least be able to show you that licensed games can be fun and cool but Airwolf (and Tom Sawyer) are not that. Airwolf is also slow moving where as the enemy planes are way too much. Place that with weird controls and a map I have no idea how to make work for me and really don’t care to learn and you have a game that is not fun. Apparently this game has parts where you save people but fuck if I could get to that area of the map. Fuck if I want to try again either. Airwolf might be a wonderfully fun TV show that I’ll feel bad that I constantly forget about when I finally watch it but I know that I will probably not be playing this game any time soon.
Here we have it. The first NES game Alphabetically that is a racing game. I will say this right now the NES had a lot of racing games and they were either pretty good and felt fast and furious and you wanted to play it. or they tried to many fancy things when all you wanted was to feel like you were racing past other drivers. OR they were dull as fucking shit and you probably forgot you even played a game after you turned it off, like literally seconds later. Al Unser Jr Turbo Racing feels like the third category. It’s just boring and I do not enjoy playing it. Sure the graphics and all that are decent enough but the whole feeling of GOING FAST is missing. I’d skip this one.
For some reason Mike Elter has the Aladdin Deck Enhancer in the game area. That always bothered me because it’s an accessory. Yeah games come with it but you can’t play them without that accessory. Always felt like that was out of place. It’s like putting the Power Glove or the Power Pad in there. It’s weird and I don’t like it. Speaking of other things I don’t like, the Amiga bothers me. Or at least the good amount of games for it do. They are weird and unappealing and bizarre and really not much fun for me to play. There’s one just one game I like that has Amiga origins and it’s this game. Which may have started on the Amiga but literally was on like every console you could get. The Super NES? Yep. the PS1? Yep. Game Boy? Yep. Game Boy Color? Yep. Okay that’s not every console but it’s way more than you’d expect this obscure character to get on to. The NES version is the only version I like because it feels like a NES game and not a weird Amiga game ported over to the SNES (like so many others. too many) and I enjoy playing it. It’s a platformer game where you have to pick up all the eggs in a given stage and find the exit. It’s very cute and fun and the weirdness is charming instead of off putting like other Amiga related things. Maybe I’m giving it more credit then it deserves because while it does entertain me it also reminds me of the early days of my NES collecting where I’d just play games on an emulator testing them out and reading websites for like every obscure NES game out there. There was even a website mostly dedicated to THIS game. I can’t remember if it talked about the other games in this series (I have only played the SNES game and it’s Amiga-tastic which means I don’t like it) and that probably brings it up a bit in my estitmation. Still I’d give it a shot because if you like NES games these days you either own it or have an everdrive and hey it takes like 5 seconds to load up the rom and like 10 minutes to get a feel for the game to see if you’ll like it or not.
This is what I was refering too as the first Licensed game. Even though there’s Airwolf, and Addams Family. And you could count Al Usner Jr’s name as a license too. I really should be barred from writing when I have had not had enough sleep. It always turns out really bad. The articles are either short and terrible or somehow even longer than usual. Anyway let’s get to Alien 3. I remember finding this game at a local video store in like the 2000s? I have no idea when it was. I really should have kept some kind of journal or something. I dunno. Anyway it even came with the box and was like $10 or something. And I’m sure the person working there was even wondering why I wanted this old game that is old but also not popular. Now the AVGN reviewed it and everyone has an opinion on it even though I doubt most people even gave it a real look. I was one of those people willing to look past the dreaded rainbow of doom and found out that LJN is not the worst publisher on the NES. I’d play every LJN game to completion 25 times before I’d ever even think about playing Cool World by Ocean again. As for Alien 3, I didn’t look up who actually made the game but I always thought it was pretty good to be honest. The game was worth the $10 even if I did end up losing the box. I never really cared that much about the boxes. Should have sold them to someone who did. Anyway it was a much better game than given credit for. You play as Ripley and you shoot aliens and save guys. Then you leave the level. Rinse and repeat. Honestly there is only one really big flaw that I’ve been able to see in this game and that’s the time limit. I don’t want to be rushing trying to remember an entire level and where to go to save the most time trying not to get knocked down because it takes time to get up. I want to be able to enjoy exploring the level and all that. Still I would call this one of the better LJN games and one of the better licensed games on the NES. That’s games based on a license not games that were given the okay by Nintendo. I like to make things more confusing. Also I should probably finally watch Alien 3.
There we have it. Five more games. Time to update the list.
Good Games: 15
Bad Games: 9
Okay Games: 1
No comments:
Post a Comment