Alpha Mission

SNK gets better, I swear.

Publisher: SNK
Year: 1987
Genre: Top-Scroll Shmup

Polygons, polygons everywhere.

Space Shooters are a staple genre of the NES. You might recall me giving Gradius the first perfect score of this blog, so I'm certainly not biased against that. Having said that, there are certain qualities I expect in a space shooter. The first is variety - repetition is a huge game killer for any sort of Shmup, so a large variety of environments and enemies is a must. The second is graphic consistency - if a game takes itself seriously, it should make an effort to do so throughout the entire experience, keeping powerups - for example - looking like part of the environment rather than annexes to the games graphic library. The third is a aesthetic quality - the audio and visual experiences should be unobtrusive if not pleasant. Alpha Mission is a generic space shooter example of not working very hard on any of this.

John's Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0. The only thing that stands out about this game to any meaningful degree is how annoying the music is. Beyond that, it's pure vanilla paste.

The 3D Battles of World Runner

The 3D Battles of
Most Elaborate Title Screen to date

Publisher: Square

Year: 1987

Genre: Action

It might surprise you to know that 3D imagery achieved through stereoscopy dates back to before the American Civil War. Yes, it's true: 3D images have existed for nearly two hundred years now. So while the 3DS has garnered considerable hype, it should come as no surprise to even the youngest most naive reader that it is neither the first 3D Game System, nor the first example of 3D games. The 3D Battles of World Runner might not be the first 3D game (although, to my recollection, it was the first one I had ever heard of and I can't find any predating examples), but it exists as a much-overlooked technical triumph of its time. At any time during gameplay (or even during the opening animation), the player can press select to change the view to a 3D anaglyph view appropriate for use with the old-school cyan/red 3D glasses.

The pink hair-dye of you-can-get-hit-once.

In the 3D Battles of World Runner is about a space cowboy named Jack who fights giant space worms. Given the track record for (almost) all things involving space cowboys, you'd think that I would be thrilled by a game that lets you be one of these brave hombres. To be honest, though, the cool concept and 3D graphics are really all the game has going for it. The gameplay is bland and forgettable, featuring little more than endlessly running forward and jumping over pits until you fight a simple boss so you can progress to a slightly different color scheme. The powerups are simple at best (such as the blaster gun and potion of lets-you-get-hit-a-second-time) and useless or horrible at worst (such as the mushroom of kills-you-instantly-by-exploiting-your-Mario-instilled-assumptions and the molecule of makes-you-invincible-for-all-too-short-a-time). The enemies all looked like they were borrowed from one of Dr. Seuss's more forgettable volumes, which I'll leave open to the reader's interpretation.

John's Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0. The game is playable and technically sound, and I remember renting it as a child and playing it for hours, but it really doesn't stand up to the test of time. Once you get over the novelty of the 3D images, it all runs together into a vanilla bean paste of bland-flavored bland. If you played this game as a child, it might provide a nostalgia injection. If you are a scholar of changing technology, it might be of interest to you as one of the first 3D games.

See you, space cowboy...

1986 in closing

The year 1986 saw some of the worst man-made disasters in world history: the Challenger disaster, the Chernobyl meltdown, the Sumburgh crash, the release of a new Slayer album, Hands Across America and the sudden emergence of awful one-on-one fighting games for the Nintendo.

The world would recover, however, and go on to make 1987 the best year that ever happened!

Urban Champion

Nintendo really raised the bar for this title screen.

Publisher: Nintendo
Year: 1986
Genre: Fighting


In Urban Champion, you play one of two apish street brawlers who punch one another for no readily discernible reason. You have two attacks, a weak on that's quick and a strong one that sends your opponent tumbling like an extra in one of West Side Story's musical numbers. I have heard it said that tragedy is when I stub my toe and comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die. If this is indeed the case, then Urban Champion has one of the funniest endings of all time!

Yeah, Barber Shop made me want to
murder people, too.

John's Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0. It's a fun game for a very short period of time, but it lacks replayability, primarily because if you lose at this game, you probably just suck at video games.

Tag Team Wrestling

A promising title screen.

Publisher: Data East
Year: 1986
Genre: Fighting


I've long held that pro wrestling games would be more realistic if instead of inputting attack combos, each player had to input a "cooperation combo" to perform the moves in such a way that it looks realistic and no one gets seriously hurt. Sure it might not be quite as entertaining as a frantic button-mashing fest, but it would more accurately mirror real professional wrestling. In the case of this game, however, such a system would almost certainly be more entertaining. Frankly, it would be hard-pressed to be less entertaining.

An unforgivably awful game.

John's Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0. This entire game - 100% of it - boils down to who punches who first. Each time you punch your opponent, you get to perform a wrestleman maneuver on them, which automatically does damage. One you damage them enough, you pin them.

Popeye

Year: 1986
Genre: Platform - Static
Publisher: Nintendo

Pope ye, pope ye!

As you should be well aware, Miyamoto made Donkey Kong in 1981 because Nintendo couldn't get the contract to do a Popeye game even though they had already designed it. Shortly thereafter (1982) Nintendo got the rights to do Popeye. In other words, if they had waited just one year to publish, one of two things would happen: either one (or even two) of Nintendo's most popular franchises would have never existed, or Popeye would now be a character in the newest Super Smash Bros. game.

Pictured: Hijinks that would have been
HILARIOUS in 1930.

Thankfully, we have this instead: a game wherein you are a sailor with superpowers, the source of which is eating his veggies. Your ham-fisted foe is Bluto, an engine of pure hatred so mean he had a dream he beat himself up, and if you get that reference, I'm very, very sorry. Anyway, apart from Bluto, and the occasional aggressive bird, the only thing that can kill you is not picking up absolutely everything that your stringbean-y girlfriend Olive Oyl drops from the sky onto you, be it hearts (representing, I dunno, blood for a life-saving transfusion), musical notes (her magnum opus, no doubt) or letters to the word HELP (which can be caught in any order and are used to build some sort of metaphysical ladder of assistance).

John's Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0. There's no variety in the enemies, and the same basic patterns handily confuse the hell out of poor, stupid Bluto time and time again. There's no challenge and nothing to look forward to except the same endless pattern of three levels. And before the obvious argument is made, please try to remember that Donkey Kong at least had little bonus bits your could pick up, more than one variety of enemy and more than one way to beat the levels. That warrants at least a one point boost.

Ninja Kid

Year: 1986
Publisher: Bandai
Genre: Platformer

Before I do a review of a game with "ninja" in the title, I just want to clear the air. I've already been pretty critical about a martial arts title for the NES, so let me just state the following: ninjas are awesome, especially in video games. Having said that, the 80's were a different time. You know how everything is about zombies now, and how for every excellent zombie movie or game, there are about three hundred utterly forgettable crap movies and games that no one will ever watch or play a second time on purpose? That's how ninjas were in the 80's. What I'm really trying to say is, when I came to this game, I knew I had played it before, but simply could not remember which ninja game it had been.

In its defense, this might be the best title
screen yet.