John – Page 10 – Every NES Game

Commando

Year: 1986
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Shmup

While it may well be the first game I have encountered with poor response on the title screen, Commando is a strong proponent of the shmup truism, “You never run out of bullets: just grenades.”

Commando_001 — There will come a day when title screens are interesting. This is not that day.

It’s a respectable title as far as top-scrolling walking shmups go, but, as should be expected of the era, brings very little to the table as far as what we modern folk think of as originality. For its time, it was groundbreaking, of course, because when nothing has been done yet, everything is fresh.

Commando_002 — I don’t remember which stereotypical army wears gray uniforms, and it’s just as well, ’cause I’m not in the mood for ethnic jokes.

John’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0, because it’s kinda fun, but not something you can maintain significant interest in – that is to say, it’s in the video game “friend zone.”

Chubby Cherub

Year: 1986
Publisher: Bandai
Genre: Platform

Bandai, responsible for many of the most beloved brands and toy lines of the 1980’s and 1990’s, was also in the video game business at some point. This was a terrible, terrible mistake.

Trademark AND Copyright! They really wanted to protect the valuable Chubby Cherub IP!

In this game, you’re a worthless stupid baby-angel who flies around like the world’s slowest mosquito trying to avoid being raped to death by dogs. That’s the most charitable description of this game I could write.

It's much worse than it looks. — It’s much worse than it looks.

John’s Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0, because this game is a steaming turd.

Dark JCO’s Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0. How does a game like this even get made? “I have this great idea for a game! You’re this chubby little angel guy who flies around and eats all these foodstuffs, but there are these dogs who try to stop you.” “BRILLIANT! Send it to presses!” “But we’re still in the concept phase…” “No, no, we only have five minutes. Send it to presses!”

Lord Nightmare’s Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0. So it’s a game about a fat angel? A fat angel who flies around eating what appear to be random foodstuffs. Is he naked? And he’s being attacked by… the dog from Duck Hunt? Oh, that dog! if I see that dog one more time…

1942

Year: 1986
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Shmup

This screen has almost as many numbers as letters.

It’s World War II and you’re a U.S. pilot flying a super-plane to Tokyo to destroy the Japanese air force! I have to admit, I initially had some serious misgivings about any game by a Japanese company about destroying the Japanese air force, and had to wonder whether it was the opposite in the original Japanese (and the game was, perhaps, called “Happy Pearl Harbor Fun Time Airstrike!”), but as far as I can tell (and according to Wikipedia) the Japanese just sometimes make games about destroying their own airforce.

Is that a Mitsubishi G4M? Almost certainly not... — Is that a Mitsubishi G4M? Almost certainly not…

John’s Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0 – this game is about as vanilla as a shoot-’em’-up can possibly get. As far as I can tell, there’s exactly one power-up, which basically makes your guns wider, and a grand total of three different enemies (not counting palette swaps).

1985 in closing

Well, to be honest, the Nintendo’s release titles do not, for the most part, stand the test of time. Hell, to be honest, we only played some of them because they were the only video games available for the system, and we sure as hell couldn’t go back to the ATARI 2600 after seeing graphics that consisted of multiple pixels in different colors.

The Nintendo Entertainment System was probably the most important achievement of 1985! Forget Reagan meeting Gorbachev and all that other Cold-war-era BS! The Nintendo was where it’s at!

Going onward from here, we have a lot more games to cover each year, and I intend to give full reviews only to those that deserve it. For most of them (those rated less than 4 and not awful or significant enough to warrant further exposition), I’ll just give a couple sentences and a screencap. For some of them, it’s far, far more than they deserve.

Super Mario Bros.

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Platform

I skipped this in my alphabetical listing because, frankly, I wanted to finish 1985 with a game that did not suck. Super Mario Bros. spawned the most successful video game franchise in history. You noticed I didn’t say, “probably” or “one of” anywhere in that sentence, and it isn’t because I am biased (though I probably am): Mario is, empirically speaking, the greatest video game franchise of all to this day. Though its impressive 40 million units sold is due, in no small part, to it being bundled with the console, many of the sequels continue to be worldwide best-sellers to this day. To this day. When I say “to this day” I mean “it still moves preposterous numbers of units when sold without any changes on virtual console.”

I could go on gushing about this. I could wax eloquent about Mario’s origins, his first appearance, or any of that crap that people talk about when Mario is presented in a blog. In fact, I think I will.

At some point I'll also review the game. — At some point I’ll also review the game.

Continue reading “Super Mario Bros.”