You decide if things are cleared for takeoff.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 11/8/19 – 11/11/19
Difficulty: 3/10
My Difficulty: 3/10
My Video: Space Shuttle Project Longplay

I get a lot of excitement out of playing NES games where I don’t really know what to expect, and much of the time I’m delighted with what I end up playing.  I was very intrigued by this game just by name alone because it doesn’t really give you any indication of exactly what kind of game it is.  Is it a space adventure, a simulation game, or something completely different?  Space Shuttle Project turns out to be a little bit of everything and it is one of the more unique NES games I have played so far.

Space Shuttle Project is an NES game exclusive to North America.  It was developed by Imagineering and published by Absolute Entertainment.  The game was released in November 1991.

The best way to summarize Space Shuttle Project is that it is a mini-game compilation.  You play the role of a recently promoted Shuttle Commander.  Your job is to support six high priority missions vital to the space program.  You are responsible for everything from pre-flight checks to space missions to shuttle launches.  To secure your job for the sake of your country, you must successfully complete all six missions.  Of course, you also win the game if you do all those things.

Beginning the game throws you into your first challenge right away.  You are required to pass the security check.  You are given a 4-digit code as well as the name of a shuttle.  Next you enter your name up to 6 characters.  Use the D-pad to choose a character, A to select, and B to backspace, then select End to lock your name in.  Now the code display is cleared and it is replaced by rotating digits.  Hopefully you remembered your code or wrote it down.  For each digit, wait until the corresponding number in your 4-digit code appears, then press A quickly to lock it in place.  You repeat this for all four digits and the shuttle name.  If your code matches exactly, then you pass, otherwise you have to try again.  You get a few tries before you are locked out completely, losing the game before you even start.

Each mission is broken up into four stages and the first of these is the launch preparation.  This is a side scrolling platformer section where you run around to set up the shuttle for launch.  You begin at the bottom of the long elevator shaft.  Use Left and Right to walk on the platforms and press Up or Down when on the elevator to move it.  First activate the Oxygen pump at the very top.  The lever for the pump is flashing so you know which one it is.  Press A when in front of the pump to activate it.  Now you have to start the Hydrogen pump below it, however activating oxygen now sets a moving obstruction in front of the elevator’s path.  Wait for an opening and try not to bump into the blue piece or you will get briefly stun locked.  The hydrogen pump activates another blocker.  Now you will need to escort each crew member from the bottom of the elevator shaft up to the shuttle door, back and forth for every person.  A message on screen will alert you to when you have brought the last crew member so that you can board the shuttle yourself.  You are on the clock the entire time and if you don’t get everything done you lose a life and have to start over.  The timing for the launch preparation is fairly tight so you need to move quickly while avoiding getting bumped on the elevator as best you can.

The second stage of the mission is shuttle lift off.  You are first presented with a long list of items you will be doing.  Don’t be intimidated by this, you don’t need to memorize this list!  The shuttle launch begins automatically and then you support the different individual steps of the launch via various indicators that play out like tiny mini-games.  In this stage you see a side view of your shuttle, and at the top of the screen is the control panel which shows the different indicators.  Many of these indicator mini-games are simple timing events.  There is a meter shown with a vertical bar that moves left to right.  Press A when the bar is in the white band.  Some operations like thrusting or braking use the thrust indicator.  You control the bottom arrow and you follow the top arrow with Left and Right as it moves back and forth.  These are all you need for the first mission.  Extra steps and different indicators appear in later missions.  During lift off you set your navigation via the tracking indicator.  There is a gray sine wave with a tiny white dot overlaying it.  As the dot slowly passes from left to right, you use Up and Down to keep the dot on top of the sine wave as close as possible.  Valve adjustment is done via the test indicator.  There is a set of six lights that glow in sequence and you have to repeat that order to pass using Left, Right, and A to turn on each light.  Completing this indicator gives you an extra life as a bonus.  Vernier adjustment is done by moving an arrow above and below a bar through a gap that passes back and forth.  The gap moves quickly but eventually does a slow pass which is when you make your move.  The gimbal indicator game is played by bouncing a vertical bar back and forth between two zones on a meter.  When the bar touches the left zone you press B, and when it reaches the zone on the right you press A.

The third stage is the actual mission that is different every time.  The first of these missions is a satellite launch.  Your job is to carry a satellite by hand from the space shuttle up to its orbital path at the top of the area.  You have limited oxygen which acts as your mission timer.  You control your astronaut’s thrust with the D-pad.  Since you are in zero gravity, you will keep drifting along until you thrust in the opposite direction to slow down and change course.  There are other satellites floating past that you must avoid, as colliding with them costs you a life.  Once you get to the top and place the satellite, it needs a little time to open up its panels.  The best way to avoid a collision during this action is by placing the satellite while moving in the direction of orbit.  Along the way, there are round energy panels that sometimes appear in orbit with the moving satellites.  You can touch these safely for an extra life.  You might also see an oxygen tank that refreshes your oxygen levels.

The second mission has you building the space station.  You have to carry panels from the space shuttle to where they are needed on the space station itself.  This stage scrolls from left to right and has the same movement controls as the previous mission.  As you scan the space station you will see background panels that appear darkened.  These are the missing ones that you have to align with carefully to automatically put the new panel in place.  Then you must move carefully back to the shuttle so that you can re-enter it from the hatch on the top to retrieve a new panel.  The shuttle restores your oxygen level.  You can also restore oxygen from permanent tanks that are on the background.  Just fly over them to restore oxygen.  You need to apply four panels total to complete this mission.  This mission is reprised in both Mission 4 and Mission 6.  The difference is you need to fly farther to place the panels and you have to set more of them in subsequent missions.

For the third mission, you are fixing a satellite already in orbit.  Here the space shuttle is in the lower left corner while asteroids are circling Earth.  Among the asteroids is the satellite.  Approach the satellite carefully, grab it, and take it back to the space shuttle.  You enter from the top of the shuttle like in Mission 2 but here it is flipped so you approach from below this time.  Inside the space shuttle you automatically do the repairs, so now you need to go back through the asteroids to place the satellite back into orbit.  Once that’s done, re-enter the shuttle to complete the mission.

In the fifth mission, you are rescuing a stranded cosmonaut.  This is similar to the first mission where you need to go up the screen, though this time it is much further.  You will need to add some oxygen via floating tanks found on your path.  Once you get to the top, go up and around the Russian spacecraft to retrieve the cosmonaut, then proceed carefully back down to the space shuttle.

Finally, the fourth and final stage in every mission is the re-entry back to Earth.  This plays out the same way as the shuttle launch in the second stage, only there is a different order to the mini-games required to land safely.  There are also a couple of new indicators unique to re-entry.  For setting movements like roll and pitch, you use the maneuver indicator.  This is the same as the normal timing mini-game only with pressing a D-pad direction instead of A.  The other new one is the alignment indicator.  You will see an outline of your shuttle and a second outline will separate from it.  You use the D-pad to guide the two outlines back into alignment, then press A to lock them in.

I’ve casually mentioned this already, but this game has lives, in the gaming sense.  Every time you make a mistake on a mini-game, fail to prepare the shuttle for launch, or crash into something in your space suit, you lose a life.  The penalty varies depending on the stage and mission.  Messing up a timing mini-game proceeds normally.  Crashing in your space suit sends you back to the shuttle.  Failing the pre-check means you repeat the entire process.  I think these penalties make sense given the situation.  You begin the game with five lives and remaining lives carry over from any stage or mission.  You can only have up to nine lives even if you go over.  If you run out of lives, you must restart the entire mission all the way back to pre-check.  You can reset your lives by starting a mission using the password.  Your password is the same format of the 4-digit code and space shuttle name as entered in the opening mini-game.  It’s pretty clever to recycle a game mechanic as password entry.

This was my first time playing through Space Shuttle Project.  When testing out my cart I only cleared the first stage of the first mission.  That meant I was aware of code entry and the shuttle setup, but nothing beyond that.  This game is not incredibly common but not too hard to find.  Loose cart copies are selling for around $15.  I got my first copy from a seller back on NintendoAge with three other games for $30 total, if memory serves.  A friend of mine traded with me for a condition upgrade, which I gladly appreciated.

This game was not too difficult for me to beat.  In a way the first mission was the most difficult one because you don’t quite know what to expect over all stages.  The shuttle pre-check stage is a little tricky especially in the later missions.  At best, I finish with about 10 seconds to spare so there’s not much wiggle room for error.  Both the take off and the landing stages were the easiest for me to clear.  The mini-games are easy enough, and you play them so much that they become second nature almost right away.  The space missions are not as varied as they first appear.  You move through obstacles and things in every mission, only the layout changes in the odd numbered missions.  After a few missions I had this game down pat, beating it with passwords over a couple of days.

You can probably guess that this game becomes quite repetitive.  There are cutscenes and animations that are repeated every stage during launch and re-entry.  These scenes are well made and neat to see, but only for the first couple of times through.  After that they feel long and drawn out, which is quickly made apparent during a longplay.  My recording of the whole game took over an hour and it could have been sped up by several minutes with some quicker or skippable cutscenes.  It is a boring video to watch, but it is complete and I played well with only minor mistakes.  I did figure out one little trick to save time.  During the even numbered missions, after you place a panel, you can intentionally crash so that you restart back at the shuttle.  If you are holding anything, you lose it, but for the return trip back to the shuttle, since you aren’t holding anything it becomes a nice time saver.  Over the full game I had plenty of extra lives to burn for this.

There’s one bonus tidbit about this game that I want to share.  I didn’t know about this before I completed the game and I would have showed it off if I did.  It’s really simple.  There is a bad ending to the game triggered when you lose all your lives during the opening mini-game.  At the end of most missions, you see a newspaper with a headline detailing your successful mission.  In the bad ending, since you failed to authenticate at the start, the paper announces your arrest for impersonating the shuttle commander.  It’s a nice Easter egg to find that’s right there for the taking.

Space Shuttle Project was a pleasant surprise for me to play.  This is a simple game that takes multiple, unexpected forms as you go.  The graphics and animations are well drawn and nice to look at.  The music is just okay, nothing notable.  The controls are spot on once you know what to do.  Some of the shuttle mini-games are not immediately intuitive but control correctly when you know how.  The gameplay is on the simplistic side and there’s not much meat to each mission, even the ones in space, though those are the most fun.  I really enjoyed the first few missions and then the game was a bit of a drag, slogging through the same things over and over.  Playing a single mission was quite fun for me, but too much more than that is overkill.  It’s too bad the game overstayed its welcome, since this game made me genuinely happy before I got tired of playing it.  

The game with the hair whip.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 8/5/19
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 2/10
My Video: Kabuki Quantum Fighter Longplay

There aren’t many NES games that have a more interesting title than Kabuki Quantum Fighter. Once you know a little more about the background of the game and a bit of history, the title makes perfect sense. Your main character resembles an ancient Kabuki dancer, complete with elaborate makeup and clothing. The game takes places inside of a large, probably quantum computer. And, of course, in a game you will be doing some fighting. There you have it: Kabuki Quantum Fighter. Beyond the surprisingly accurate name, this is a real gem of a game that I enjoy playing quite a lot.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter was first released on the Famicom under the title Jigoku Gokurakumaru. The game was developed by Human Entertainment. The Japanese release was published by Pack-In Video and came out in December 1990. The NES release shortly followed in North America in January 1991, published by HAL America. The European NES release was in February 1992, published by HAL Laboratory. Sadly, this game has not been re-released digitally and is only available on these older platforms.

The game’s story takes place in a futuristic Earth. The planet has a main defense computer that has been affected by a nasty virus. The only way to combat the virus is to go inside the computer and take it out from within. You play the role of the brave Colonel Scott O’Connor who has volunteered to neutralize the threat. To do this, he has to be converted into raw binary data through the untested Image Transfer System in order to fight the virus. The transfer works, but his appearance is altered to that of one of his ancestors who was a Kabuki dancer. To beat the game, just clear the game’s six stages.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter is a platformer with a standard control scheme. You use the D-pad to walk around left or right. The A button jumps and you can control the height of your jump with how long the button is held. The B button attacks, only this game uses Scott’s flowing red locks as a whip to damage enemies. You can crouch down by holding Down. Your attack in the crouched position is a short-range punch. There are hooks scattered throughout the stages than you can hang from by jumping into them from below. While hanging, the B button performs a sweeping kick. You can drop down from hanging by pressing Down or you can jump with A, allowing you to flip up to a higher ledge or to another nearby hook. You can attach to some walls and you can climb them by pressing Up or Down. The Select button switches your weapon, and the Start button pauses the action. You can switch weapons while paused.

Your status bar is at the bottom of the screen. On the left, you see your life bar, your chip meter, and the boss’s health bar. Below that is your score, the number of lives remaining, and the stage timer. The far right contains an icon indicating your currently equipped weapon. Nice and straightforward.

Normal attacks are all short range, so to compensate you can use special weapons. (Of random note: The names in game don’t line up with the ones in the manual, so I’m going with the in-game descriptions for these.) You begin the game with one special weapon and earn others by completing stages, using memory chips for ammo. The first attack is the energy gun, which is a tiny projectile attack. In level 2, you get a larger, upgraded version of the energy gun. In level 3, you get the fusion gun which is a three-way spread attack. Starting in level 4 you can use quantum bombs. These are sticks of dynamite thrown forward in an arc and they have a wide attack splash. Finally, in level 5 you earn the remote control bolo. This is a set of three star-shaped weapons that home in on and wrap around enemies, dealing small damage for as long as they last. Naturally, the better weapons use up more of your chip stash.

Enemies in this game sometimes drop basic items. Hearts refill a segment of your health meter, and flashing hearts refill several segments at once. You can also grab chips as ammo for your special weapons. Flashing chips give you several rounds of ammo. Occasionally, enemies will drop clearly labeled 1up items. There’s enough versatility in the move set that these pickups are enough for this game.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter plays out similarly to Ninja Gaiden but has a few significant differences. Each level is a long scrolling stage. Some levels have more than one of these segments. At the end of each one, you get some bonus points for each bar of health and each chip you have remaining. Then the bars refill back out along with some extra health and ammo. Every level ends in a boss fight. There is a neat mechanic that appears only during these boss encounters. When you pause the game and press either Up or Down, you can exchange your health for chips and vice versa. This gives you some choice during fights. Do you want to sacrifice health so that you can do more long range attacks with your special weapons, or you do you want to give up your special weapons and try to fight close quarters with extra health points? You can mix and match as much as you want as long as you have enough health and ammo to swap. After beating the bosses, you can view cutscenes that progress the story and show you which new weapon you have acquired.

The enemies are quite varied from what you would expect fighting inside of a computer. Sure, there are tiny tanks and some robot-esque enemies. There are also flamethrowing heads, jumping dogs, hovering mouths, and gremlins that throw boomerangs, among others. The designs definitely make the game more interesting. There are also different kinds of traps you contend with. These are things like spike pits, conveyor belts, flowing water, and spike balls. A devious little device you’ll see sometimes is a hanging hook with a tiny conveyor belt on top. I give the designers credit for combining things in interesting ways, even if it’s a little mean in that case.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter is a game I have owned since childhood and have plenty of experience in playing. I’m pretty sure this game was a bargain pickup for brand new back in the 90s. Unfortunately, I don’t think I kept the box and manual for this one unless it somehow turns up at my mom’s house. This is a reasonably affordable game, so I’m not too upset about it. Carts copies sell for around $15 today.

This is a game I have gone back and played many times over the years, so I breezed through it again for this playthrough. I completed the game without dying and I only used special weapons once or twice. I always use weapons on the final boss, but with a little practice I’m sure I could beat it without. (That’s an idea for a future challenge run, deathless and no special weapons!) My longplay video of the game was solid, however there was one omission I’m minorly annoyed about. After you beat the game and get through the credits, you can press B to see the sound test. You see a unique animation of our hero along with some text indicating another future adventure that never came to be. I cut the video before that only to see it come up when I was messing with the controller afterward. Oh well.

It is tough for me to pin a difficulty on a game like this that I know so well, but I decided on average difficulty. For the most part, the action is straightforward enough. There are plenty of item drops and even some places to grind them if necessary. Special weapons help for tricky spots. Being able to trade up for more health on the bosses also makes battling them easier. You also get two continues for when you run out of lives. That’s all the good stuff. Now what really makes this game difficult are the vertical levels. There are a couple of these in the game that you have to climb all the way to the top. By this point, you should have experience with the hanging hooks, and now your skills are put to the test. It is really easy to fall down. So not only do you have to manage your health for longer if you fall and enemies respawn, but also the timer becomes your biggest enemy. You do have plenty of time to complete the level since I can do it with a lot of time left over. These stages are difficulty spikes the first time through.

I played Kabuki Quantum Fighter for high score as part of a weekly contest several years ago, and that gave me with a new way to play the game that I appreciated. The rules were one life only, scoring as many points as possible. It turned the game into a bit of a puzzle. I paid attention to the enemies and how many points I could earn from each one. Then I needed to grind the most lucrative enemies by scrolling back and forth to keep spawning them. I needed to know how much time it took to get from the grind point to the end of the level so that I had as much time to grind points as possible. The other thing I strived for was beating the bosses with normal moves. After I beat the boss, I would swap for as many chips as possible, hopefully up to the max. You trade chips for health at a two for one rate, so more chips mean more bonus points at the end of the level. That also means you might not have that much health for the next stage. I also wanted every extra life I could find since those go for big points at the end of the game. I must have enjoyed doing all that because I know I won the contest that week.

I really like Kabuki Quantum Fighter and I think it is a great platformer on the system. The graphics are well drawn with some good animation, particularly on the player character and the bosses. I think the music in the game is great with several good tunes. The controls work well, giving you many options with the short range standard attacks, long range special weapons, hanging from hooks, and climbing walls. Swinging around is a lot of fun and you have pretty good precision to jump from one hook to the next. The boss encounters are all varied and are pretty good fights in general. Personally, I wish the game were a little bit longer. I think they could have done more with the mechanics to make some additional challenges in the stages. I am a big fan of Kabuki Quantum Fighter and I encourage you to check this game out if you haven’t tried it.

Just your everyday police officer.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 2/27/19 – 3/2/19
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
My Video: Street Cop Longplay

We are dipping back into the world of Power Pad games for this one. Street Cop by name alone would not provide any indication that this is meant for the Power Pad. It seems to me like it would be some kind of action or adventure game instead. It turns out that’s exactly what it is! There is nothing else like this game on the NES and I’m excited to share it with you today.

Family Trainer: Manhattan Police is the sixth game in the Family Trainer series of Power Pad games on the Famicom. The game was developed by Sonata (later known as Human Entertainment) and published by Bandai. The Famicom version came out in August 1987. The NES version, renamed Street Cop, was released in June 1989. The NES versions of the Bandai Power Pad games did not appear in the same order of release as Japan. Super Team Games, for instance, was the next game in the Family Trainer series in Japan but appeared on NES several months before Street Cop debuted.

Street Cop is an action/adventure game that uses the Power Pad controller. You play the role of “Little Ben,” a new police officer fresh out of the academy. He always hoped from a young age to be a detective, and you get to help make his dreams come true. In this game, you take to the streets of Manhattan. There are six stages in the game, each one featuring a bad guy on a wanted poster. You beat the game once you arrest all six main criminals.

Before we get into the game description, let’s recap briefly on the setup for this game. You will plug a standard controller into the first controller port on the NES. Then plug in the Power Pad to the second controller port. This game uses Side B of the Power Pad. In this configuration, there are three rows of four buttons each. All buttons are numbered from 1 to 12. The first row contains buttons 1 to 4, the middle row is 5 through 8, and the last row is 9 to 12.

Here is how you control Little Ben with the Power Pad. The neutral position is standing on buttons 6 and 7, right in the middle of the Power Pad. Alternate presses by either walking or running on those buttons to move forward. There are three different running speeds depending on how quickly you move. If you jump in place, Little Ben will jump, but you need to be standing on both buttons before you jump and sometimes it doesn’t respond like you would expect. You face either left or right and you are locked into that direction. To turn around, step once on either 10 or 11 in the bottom row. To move sideways, step on either 5 or 8 to sidestep one time in that direction. You will move in or out on the screen depending on the direction you are facing. If you need to walk into a building or down an alleyway, turn right by standing on 3 and 7 or turn left by standing on 2 and 6. The idea is you need to turn your body and face in the direction you want Little Ben to turn. The corner buttons are for using items. Thrown items can be tossed by pressing 1. Little Ben wields a baton at the bad guys by stepping on 4. Either 9 or 12 is used for any secondary items you may be holding. You also have the option to use the controller for a couple of options. Press B to use throwing items and press A to swing the baton.

All six levels have similar structure. In each stage, you see a wanted poster with the main bad guy you need to arrest. At the bottom of the wanted poster are images of some cohorts of the criminal along with a count. First you need to track down and capture all the cohorts. Then you will be able to track down the primary baddie. Some levels have two different types of cohorts. Each stage has a different layout you must explore.

The bottom of the screen shows information you need. On the left is the stage timer and Little Ben’s health meter. You get ten minutes to clear each stage. In the middle is the map of the level. Your position is represented as a blue dot, while an X appears where a bad guy is located. The right side shows how many cohorts are left to track down, as well as ammo for any items you find.

Capturing criminals can prove to be a little tricky. You can only go after one at a time. If his or her position shows up on the map, you first have to chase them down. When you catch up and see them, then you have to line yourself up with the criminal. The city streets have three running lanes. You can do the sidestep maneuver to change between those lanes at any time. The bad guys also switch lanes frequently. Once you get lined up with them, then you need to draw close enough to use either your throwing items or your baton. While enemies move relatively slowly, it’s tough sometimes to get everything to line up while navigating the controls. An easier way to catch a criminal is to knock them down by running into them at full speed. It doesn’t always trigger, but it works often enough that I found it to be the preferred method of fighting. Many enemies take more than one hit to defeat. Sometimes it works out where I can run into them once, and when they get up they walk right into me so I can baton them.

Each stage has a unique criminal to capture as well as some minor differences in the gameplay. In Stage 1, you capture Snatcher Joe. This is a basic level with only one strip of street to explore. This is a great introduction to the controls with plenty of time to meet your goal and get acquainted with the movement. As you walk through the city, there will be other pedestrians walking around, but you don’t interact with them and just walk right past them. It should be clear enough who is good and who is bad. Along the way you may find soda cans. Just walk into them to collect them, then press 1 to throw them. This simple stage does have one little trick to it. You might meet up with the enemy on the map but don’t see him walking around. In that case, he is hiding in one of the trash cans on the top row. Go up to the trash can and smack it with the baton to lure the bad guy out. He won’t hide again unless he goes off screen. Once all the cohorts are gone, then track down Snatcher Joe. He takes several hits to capture.

Stage 2 has you looking for Speedy Louis. This stage is more expansive than the first one, with a larger map connected with various alleyways. You will need to learn the turning controls to proceed down those paths. Another thing you need to learn is watching yourself on the map to make sure you are going the way you expect. When on the top row of the map, if you run to the right for example, your position on the map moves left instead. Just something to be aware of. This stage introduces a couple of new elements. There are some sewer entrances as holes on the street. Avoid them. Falling into one is always a setback and there is nothing down there for you to find at all. If you get stuck there, you need to move all the way to the right, jump onto the rightmost step, and then jump again to get out of the sewer. This level also introduces some other powerups. A clock adds one minute to the stage timer, up to the initial ten minutes. Picking up a can with a heart on it refills a portion of your health meter. Specific to this stage, you will find throwable bombs used as projectile weapons. One guy also holds a V-Max Turbo Drink. Just having this in your possession lets you run fast enough to chase down Speedy Louis.

In Stage 3, you must locate and capture Animal S. This stage consists of two long streets connected by a warehouse. If the enemy shows up on the other side of the street, then you need to cross through the warehouse. That section is a pure side-scrolling area with a single lane through to the other side. You’ll have to jump over boxes to get across. This stage has oranges you can pick up for throwing weapons. You also find a hyper drink useful for capturing Animal S. Animal S is one tough character. He has a charge attack that knocks you down on contact. He is very tough in a straight up fight. Here you will want to press 9 or 12 to use the hyper drink. You will turn red for a short time and Animal S can’t hurt you. Throwing items are also effective, especially when the drink effects wear off.

In Stage 4, you go after Big Burger. He can be found at the top of a skyscraper under construction and you will need to climb up after him one floor at a time. This level features stores that you can enter. Go inside and look for useful items. Mustard is the throwing item of choice in this stage. You can also find dog whistles in pet stores. Pressing one of the rear corner buttons blows the dog whistle, calling a dog on screen that attacks any bad guy in sight.

Stage 5 features Bloody Betty. She likes to shop so you will find her in one of the stores. You’ll need to explore all the doors here looking for items and her cohorts. The special items in this stage are throwing bombs and dog whistles. This level also features the subway. If you find Bloody Betty but let her get away, she will escape to another town. In that case, you will use the subway to travel over there, but you’ll have to search for her and defeat more cohorts all over again.

The final stage squares you off against Don Mayonecheese. This level is a tricky one. There are three separate towns in this stage connected by the subway. Each town has a hideout where you might find the final boss. First you need to defeat the baddie that holds the key to the hideout. Then you can enter the hideout and search for Don. Of course, you have to defeat all the cohorts first per usual, both on the streets and in the hideout. You’ll be able to find bullets for your gun in case of a shootout as well as dog whistles in the stores. However, neither of those are effective against Don Mayonecheese. You’ll have to use all of your skills plus a little luck to finish the game.

There are no passwords, saving, or lives in this game. You can run out of health or run out of time, and then it’s Game Over. The good news is that you have unlimited continues. The bad news is that, if you are like me, you will need a rest break in between attempts. This is a more cerebral game than the other Power Pad games I’ve played so far, but it can still wear you out with all the footwork needed.

This was my first time playing through Street Cop. I didn’t bother testing out any of the Power Pad games beyond making sure they booted to the title screen. I remember watching TheMexicanRunner play this game so I already had an idea of how it works. This is an uncommon game that sells for around $20-$25. The only copy I’ve ever seen in person was the one I bought. I think I snagged it for around $8. This was at a game store where the owner didn’t yet understand how to value games using the Internet, so I ended up buying several uncommon games there for great prices before he caught on.

I am glad that this ended up being a Power Pad game that I didn’t have to completely exhaust myself to play. I can’t help but break a sweat playing these games, but Street Cop took longer for me to get to that point. I even played it while I was a little bit sick and that seemed to have no effect on me. Once you get a handle on the controls, this game isn’t too difficult. You are free to pause with Start at any time to take a quick break. The enemies move slower to compensate for your lack of reaction time. The only real danger was running out of time, which happened a few times. I only had to continue at most twice per level before I cleared it. When I recorded my video longplay, I didn’t need to use any continues and only took small pause breaks in between levels. The only blemish on the run was skipping a cohort in the fourth stage. I was able to find the final boss in the second building I tried. Quite a solid run overall. I noticed I have the best completion time for this game (I can’t imagine that many people would try speedrunning it) so I have submitted it to speedrun.com as a new world record! I wonder how many more accidental speedruns I am going to get out of this project.

Street Cop is a basic action game. The graphics are simplistic but carry the idea well. The music is fine, nothing special. The controls work well and are more responsive than I would have guessed. The only tricky move is jumping which doesn’t always trigger. The gameplay is simplistic, but that’s what you want when playing a game with your feet. This is a notable game because this is the only game on the NES, and maybe one of the only games ever, with this kind of control scheme and gameplay merged together. There is strategy and exploration in what amounts to a fitness game. I think the developers did a great job of varying your goals and designing the stages. Sure, combat is usually the same, repetitive action, but there’s just enough variance and some clever boss encounters to make this game worthwhile. Good on the developers to try something different while getting it to work well. While it is tough to recommend any of the Power Pad games today, if you happen to own one and are looking for something that’s a little bit different, I think you might have fun with this game.

Big money! Big prizes! I love it!

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 1/2/19 – 1/4/19
Difficulty: 8/10
My Difficulty: 5/10
My Video: Smash TV Longplay

I had Super Smash TV on the SNES growing up. I probably got it from a yard sale or something, but I remember spending a lot of time playing the game. I wasn’t really that good at the game though. Maybe that version is really tough to beat. I didn’t know the NES had a port of the game until I started digging deeper into the library. With as frantic and sprite heavy as the SNES version is, it blows my mind that they even tried to replicate this style of game on the NES, let alone pull it off. Even though I still can’t believe this game exists on the NES, I’m glad it does.

Smash TV is a 1990 arcade game both developed and published by Williams. The game creators are Eugene Jarvis and Mark Turmell. The game was ported to several home consoles under the title Super Smash TV. The home computer versions, as well as the NES version, retained the Smash TV name. The NES version was released in September 1991. It was developed by Beam Software and published by Acclaim Entertainment. The game also had a PAL release in 1991.

Smash TV takes place in 1999. Thankfully, we didn’t get this timeline where TV has become ultra-violent. Game shows have turned into life-or-death competitions with huge prizes at stake for the survivors. Smash TV is the biggest hit show at the time where one or two contestants fend off hundreds of opponents in the arena in hopes of becoming grand champions. You play the role of one of these contestants as you try to survive over four levels.

This game is a top-down twin-stick shooter game. Hordes of enemies appear from the four doors on each side of the room. Your job is to shoot down all of the threats that appear before you can move on to the next room. Of course, since it’s a game show, you also want to pick up as much cash or prizes as you can carry. Clearing each room opens at least one exit to an adjacent room. There is a map that shows which rooms connect so that you can plan your way to the boss room at the other end of the stage.

The basic controls are simple enough but tricky to use. Use the D-pad to move in all eight directions. The A button fires your weapons in the direction you are moving. The B button lets you focus your firepower in the last direction you shot so that you can shoot and move in different directions at the same time. This is a far cry from the arcade version where you had two joysticks for independent walking and firing at all times. The SNES version with the four face buttons on the controller worked well for a twin-stick setup. Fortunately, there’s a much better way. Smash TV on NES features a two-controller setup. Plug two controllers in and hold one in each hand with the D-pad at the top. The controller 1 D-pad moves the player while the controller 2 D-pad controls shooting. Smash TV has a two-player mode and supports four controllers so that both players can enjoy the two-controller setup. I highly recommend playing this game with the dual-controller option.

Your standard weapon is a pea shooter with unlimited ammo. While sufficient, you will do better with different weapons. Pickups appear on the ground as square icons while you fight. There are three special weapons. First is the scatter gun. This gives you three-way shooting which clears up a lot of space. Next are the missiles. These are powerful, piercing shots that can take out a row of enemies or even some stronger ones in just one hit. The spew weapon looks like a grenade and fires a swarm of short-range projectiles out in front of you. Each of these three weapons has limited ammo. Underneath your score is a green bar that indicates how much ammo you have. Grab a new weapon to change weapons or grab the same one to top off your ammo.

There are other helpful pickups too. Cash, gold bars, and presents are just for points, so while not necessary for survival, this is kind of your goal and you might as well grab some. The shoes increase your walking speed, but it seems to last just for your current screen and you lose it if you die. A circular ring icon is the shield, which makes you invincible so you can defeat enemies by running into them. This is given to you by default when you begin a new life. The icon with triangles gives you ninja blades. These are five blades that circle around you and wipe out enemies. Individual blades eventually go away after hitting so many targets. This powerup stops you from moving all the way to the edge of the screen, so that’s something to keep in mind. A little person icon gives you an extra life.

There are several types of enemies to deal with. Most of the enemies are standard grunts that always move toward you. Others take more effort to defeat. Orbs bounce around the playfield and shoot lasers. Shrapnel bombs walk the perimeter before exploding into shards that kill you. Tanks absorb a lot of firepower before going down. Wall gunners are very resistant to firepower and repeatedly shoot at you. Huge robot snakes slide around the screen and you have to destroy each piece of it to put it down. Red swarmers are many little red dots that clump together and fly around the screen. There are also stationary mines that kill you if you take a wrong step.

After the first screen of each stage is completed, a map is displayed. This shows the end level boss room as well as any treasure rooms. These rooms provide you with a bunch of cash and prizes from the moment you step inside. The rooms then get filled with enemies and tend to be more difficult than other rooms. These are good places to go if you want a high score.

Each stage ends in a boss battle. The arcade version has huge bosses that weren’t possible on the NES hardware. On the NES, they are smaller in size and seem to be easier fights than on other platforms. The cobra boss takes on a different form than the arcade version so that fight is the most different from the others. No matter what, you have to use a lot of firepower to put them out of their misery.

You begin each stage with five lives. Extra life pickups appear at random, but they tend to show up often. Due to the nature of the game and all the constant enemies, death is common. This is a problem for a few reasons. There are no continues in the game so you have to start all over if you run out of lives. You are capped at nine lives and can’t pick up any more beyond that. Also, each new stage after the boss puts you back at the default number of lives, so there’s no benefit to stockpiling lives in early levels since they don’t carry over to later stages.

I beat Smash TV once before back in 2014 as part of the NA weekly contest. I got 4th place that week with a score over 12 million points. I don’t remember where I picked this game up. It’s not very common but not too expensive when you do find a copy. Carts cost around $10. An interesting side note on collectibility is that Acclaim at one point manufactured their own carts. This matters because their carts have poorer quality labels where the glue bleeds through the white part of the label and the label fold starts to chip a little bit. My copy of Smash TV looks really good all things considered, but some of my other Acclaim games are not so hot.

While Super Smash TV is challenging enough that I haven’t yet finished it on my own, the NES port of Smash TV is easier. That’s not to say the game is easy at all. I didn’t have a lot of trouble with the game playing it for myself. There’s a bit of luck involved if you happen to run into more extra lives than usual, but skill is king and what will push you through. To that end, using the two-controller setup is essential for succeeding in this game. I tried out the normal control setup for a level or so and managed okay, but that would become a problem in the later levels where the enemies get tougher and the screens take longer. There’s no substitute for having separate movement and shooting controls in all directions.

This game was tough to pin a difficulty on. I’m not so sure my past experience beating the game helped me that much. It was more my skill with this style of game. I don’t hear about people playing and beating this game very much. In the contest I played in 2014, only four people beat the game, and there were a lot of skilled gamers playing then. I don’t think this is an undesirable game that people are avoiding because they don’t think it’s fun to play. My gut tells me that this is an above-average game in difficulty that I happen to be good at. Having no continues bumps it up a notch too.

One thing I noticed playing this time was that my ending score was significantly lower than what I scored back in 2014. I played through all levels taking the top route just because I like consistency. The first stage has only one treasure room that is located on the top route so I just stuck with that path in the other levels too. Based on my 2014 score and forum posts from that week, I am pretty sure the lower routes in the other two stages are more lucrative for scoring. Points in this game are highly correlated with the number of enemies defeated. This leads me to believe that in general the upper routes have fewer enemies and therefore are easier than the lower routes. The ending doesn’t change on score or route or anything like that, and there’s no difficulty setting, so just pick whichever way you want.

There’s one more interesting tidbit about this game. The arcade version and at least the SNES version from my experience feature keys as item pickups. After the third stage boss, there are key rooms that unlock depending on if you hold enough keys. The manual for the NES game briefly mentions both key rooms and keys. However, there are no keys to pick up in the NES version at all. You still get to play the key rooms anyway between the third boss and the final boss which is often considered the fourth and final level of the game. It’s just a small, weird oversight of the NES port.

Smash TV is a really fun action game and the NES port is a great one to play. The gameplay and controls are both excellent. Movement is responsive and enemies get blasted constantly. The graphics are on the simplistic side, but the sheer number of enemies and bullets rendered on screen at the same time is awfully impressive for the NES. There is some sprite flickering which is to be expected, but there is either infrequent or no slowdown. The music is okay but gets repetitive and takes a backseat to the action anyway. The game is also repetitive and lengthy and will wear out your thumbs after some time. Smash TV on NES is an admirable port and worth playing for NES fans, even though I like the SNES version much better.

I’ll be back.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 12/17/18 – 12/19/18
Difficulty: 7/10
My Difficulty: 7/10
My Video: The Terminator Longplay

I wasn’t actually supposed to play The Terminator yet.  I had a different game scheduled for this slot that I could not get running on my AVS.  It was a weird case where I could get the game to play on a stock console but not the AVS.  That’s what I use to help record my longplays, so not having it playable there was a temporary dealbreaker.  I skipped ahead one game to The Terminator, which conveniently puts it right next to RoboCop, another 1980’s gritty action film franchise that is tied together through the RoboCop vs. the Terminator series.  RoboCop did well enough in its conversion to the NES, so let’s see how The Terminator fared.

The Terminator film was released in 1984.  It was the first major film both directed and written by James Cameron.  The movie is about a cyborg sent from 2029 back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor.  The future intelligence network known as Skynet plans to initiate a nuclear holocaust but would be foiled by John Connor, Sarah’s son.  A Resistance soldier, Kyle Reese, also goes back to 1984 to save Sarah from the Terminator so that John can be born and eventually lead the Resistance to victory.  The movie was made on a small budget with little hope for success, but the reception was positive and the film was a financial success.  The Terminator became a franchise, spawning five feature films with a sixth movie slated for 2019, many comic books, and a television series.  Of course, there have been many video games based on the series and franchise.

There were several games based on the first Terminator movie.  Sunsoft was set to create the first Terminator video game for the NES, but the license expired before the game was finished.  Sunsoft would go on to retool and release the game anyway as Journey to Silius.  The first Terminator video game was an action-adventure game on DOS in 1991.  There were later games on the SNES, Sega Genesis, and Sega CD.  The NES version was released in December 1992, created by Radical Entertainment and published by Mindscape.  The game had a PAL release also in 1992.

The Terminator on NES more or less follows the plot of the movie.  You play as Kyle Reese, the resistance soldier from 2029 on a mission to save Sarah Connor from the Terminator.  You go through several missions.  You start in 2029, then you go back to 1984 and find Sarah, then you escape from the Terminator, and finally head into a factory where The Terminator is destroyed.  There are six missions total and you beat the game once all are finished.

The Terminator is a side-scrolling action platformer, mostly.  There are a couple different modes of play that appear periodically in the game, so the controls vary as well.  The platforming sections where you play as Kyle usually have the same controls.  You use the D-pad to move around.  This is a game where the B button is used for jumping.  When standing still you do a taller jump than when you are moving, and there is also a slight animation that occurs before you go airborne.  The A button uses weapons, which are typically either punches or kicks but can be guns, grenades, etc.  You can press Select to switch between weapons.  There is an icon at the top that shows which weapon is active, along with any required ammo.  The Start button pauses the game.

Sometimes there are items on the ground that you can pick up.  Just like in RoboCop, you have to stand over them and press Down to duck and pick them up.  Mostly you will find hearts that restore some of your health.  You can also find pickups like grenades or other special items that are stage specific.  Enemies don’t drop these so you have to keep an eye out in the stages.

The first stage has some unique considerations from most of the other stages.  Kyle Reese starts out with a machine gun when he is in 2029.  Press and hold A to fire the gun.  You will automatically squat down before letting off firepower, so like with jumping you have to allow time for the animation to complete.  Bullets are unlimited.  While holding A to fire, you can press Up or Down to aim your gun at a different angle.  You also get grenades for use on distant targets.  First Select the grenades, then press A to lob them.  The longer you hold A, the farther you throw.

Near the end of the level, you have to hop in a pickup truck and avoid attacks from Skynet as you approach the base to time travel.  This is an auto-scrolling segment moving to the left.  Press Left to speed up and Right to slow down.  The truck is equipped with a gun and you can adjust its angle by pressing Up and Down.  The A button fires the gun.

The second level puts you in 1984 without any of your equipment you had in 2029.  You have to rely on punches and kicks to make it through, in fact you are stuck without a gun or grenades for the rest of the game.  Press Select to choose which weapon you want and press A to attack.  You also find baseballs in this stage alone that you can throw to ward off enemy dogs.  They don’t do damage but act as a distraction.

In Levels 3 and 5, instead of traveling on foot you drive vehicles.  Unlike the truck section in Stage 1, these are top-down driving sections.  You use the D-pad to steer your vehicle Left and Right.  Press Up to speed up and press Down to slow down.  These are looping stages and all you have to do is travel far enough to eventually end the stage.  There is a counter on screen that shows how much further you have to go.  When it reaches zero, the level is complete.  Of course, you will be pursued by the Terminator in a vehicle of his own.  You take damage when he bumps you or shoots you.  You can fire back if you want for points, even though I don’t think it slows him down any.  Press B to fire to the left and press A to fire to the right.

You begin the game with two extra lives.  Falling off the stage or running out of health costs you a life.  When you run out of lives, it’s Game Over and there are no continues to bail you out.  The only way to earn extra lives is through scoring.  You get a new life every 50,000 points.  Scoring is slow enough where you will only gain a life or two through casual play.  Every little bit helps with this one.

This was my first time playing through The Terminator.  I didn’t mention it up above, but this is one movie I have actually seen.  I haven’t watched all of The Terminator films but I think I have seen the first three or four.  This was one of the first NES games I picked up in the summer of 2013 when I decided to get back into NES collecting for good.  It was in the same lot of games where I got Alien 3.  Each game averaged out to $5 in that purchase, which is much better than the $20-$25 a Terminator cart will cost today.

This game has a reputation for being difficult.  One review I read said the game is impossible.  It is a difficult game but not nearly as bad as it was made out to be.  After all, I completed it for the first time after three days of playing.  I can see where that impression comes from just from the first level alone.  I’m confident that the first stage is the hardest part of the whole game.  First things first, you have to cope with the jumping.  The collision detection is pretty bad.  You have a large character sprite and the exact bottom-center pixel of the character is where you need to touch a ledge in order to land on it.  Inevitably you will miss ledges and fall to your death.  Furthermore, you are pursued by enemies that appear at random and can knock you down or drain your health fast.  You have to allow time to get your gun out, and the grenades are both limited and difficult to aim properly.  Early in the stage you have to navigate some small conveyor belts with these enemies, and you can fall off into the pit while you have your gun out firing.

All that is just the first half of the stage.  The rest of it is even worse.  At the top level, you first need to jump across moving platforms that inhibit and influence your jumping in unexpected ways depending on which direction they are moving.  Later are these ankle-biting turrets.  Some you can duck under and fire, while others are too low to handle that way.  You can take them out with grenades and the tricky aiming.  Or you can go toe-to-toe with them with your gun and lose a bunch of health in the process.  If you survive that, then you have to do the truck section.  I can’t for the life of me figure out how to dodge the attacks from above.  Since you can’t jump here, you have to rely on changing speeds to dodge.  The terrain is hilly and you are always bouncing around and can’t reliably aim your gun.  It’s really tough and I got stopped here my first day after many tries.  Survive that part, and you have to outrun another machine with the truck.  I don’t believe it is possible to dodge this at all; I survived through attrition.  You would think that would be the end of the stage, but nope, there is one more platforming section.  This features retractable spikes and platforming across single tile ledges with pits underneath.  This is where the collision detection flaws are most evident.  This game was not designed for precision jumping but you have to do it anyway several times over.  You are also limited on lives since you’ll probably lose at least one life just getting this far.  While not super easy, the game lets up a lot after beating this stage.

There’s one trick that really helped me figure out this game.  I learned it from the Angry Video Game Nerd in his The Terminator review.  There’s a great spot in the first stage where you can camp out with your gun and defeat unlimited enemies without suffering any damage.  Get set up properly and hold down the A button to rack up the points and lives.  I know this was deliberate and I don’t know why, but you max out at only six extra lives.  It takes about two to three minutes per extra life and it gets tiring to hold the button down for the ten or fifteen minutes needed to grind.  The Nerd used a monkey wrench and clamped down the A button on his controller instead.  I am not a handy guy at all, but I do have a monkey wrench, though I have no idea where I left it.  I improvised by finding something heavy and stable enough to set down on top of the controller to keep the button pressed.  Having six lives each attempt gave me the leeway I needed to learn the rest of the game quickly.

By the time I beat the game initially, at best I could get through the whole game with only losing two lives.  I spent one in the truck part of Stage 1 and another in the driving portion of Stage 5.  Playing normally without grinding gave me enough points for two extra lives, so I had a couple extra to spare anywhere else just in case.  While recording my longplay video, I died both in Stage 1 and Stage 5 as expected.  I burned one spare life in the final stage, giving me a somewhat comfortable win.  Once you know what to do, the game is short.  I finished my playthrough in about 20 minutes, which is about half the time it would take if I needed to grind for lives.

The Terminator is a lackluster NES game.  The character graphics in-game are kind of dopey looking.  The environments look just okay.  The best graphics are the digitized character portraits between the stages.  The music and sound effects are bland where they exist at all.  The controls are okay and you can get used to the floaty jumping.  However, the poor collision detection makes the already loose controls much more difficult to manage.  The vehicle sections, while a nice break from the platforming, are not that interesting or involved.  The high level of difficulty right out of the gate is a big turn off as well, and no continues and few lives mean you may not be spending much time with this game.  As far as Robocop vs. Terminator is concerned, on the NES, Robocop wins in a landslide.

This game is not so bodacious, dudes!

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 11/5/18 – 11/28/18
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 5/10
My Video: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure Final Level

Another day, another video game adaptation of a movie I haven’t seen.  In this case, I have at least played the game before.  Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure seems like a strange choice for a tie-in video game.  It could make for a decent educational game with all the historical figures from different time periods.  Instead, we ended up with a game that’s not much educational but has all the fun of an educational game, meaning it’s not that exciting.  Kudos to the developers for trying, at least.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a comedy from 1989.  In the movie, two high school students from San Dimas, California get access to a time machine that allows them to collect various historical figures to help them complete a history project.  Stephen Herek directed the film which stars Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, and George Carlin.  While not a critical success, it performed well at the box office.  A sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, was released in 1991.  A third installment is reported to be in the works as of May 2018.

The movie spawned several video games that are all unique from each other.  The NES game, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure, was released in August 1991.  It was developed by Rocket Science Games and was published by Acclaim Entertainment under the LJN label.  This wasn’t the first game based on the movie.  The PC version from 1989 was a graphical adventure game.  The Game Boy game, aptly title Bill & Ted’s Excellent Game Boy Adventure, was a puzzle platformer.  Finally, the Atari Lynx version also from 1991 is a top-down adventure game.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure on the NES is an isometric adventure game with a plot loosely based on the movie.  Rufus from the movie summons both Bill and Ted to help on an important mission.  Space-time rebels have used the time machine to take historical figures and put them in the wrong time periods.  Both Bill and Ted must work separately to find each person and return him or her to the correct time period.  They need to do this because if history isn’t made right again, our heroes will miss the big concert that will launch the career of their band the Wyld Stallyns.  Unfortunately, they only have access to a pay phone that requires coins before they can time travel.  Your job as Bill or Ted is to find both the historical figure and a specific item that you can use to lure them back home.  You beat the game once you finish all six levels.

After finishing or skipping the introductory story segments, you are presented with a phone book of sixteen historical figures.  (Interestingly, none of these people played a part in the film from what I’ve read.)  The last page in the phone book is your password, which is a seven-digit telephone number that always starts with the fictitious prefix 555.  As you thumb through the phone book, you will come across a second telephone number on one of the pages that blinks red.  This is the number for the person you need to locate in the wrong period.  Press Select at any time to bring up the telephone.  Press A to dial digits and press B to undo them if you make a mistake.  When you have the blinking red number entered correctly, press A to connect the call.  You also use this same telephone screen to enter passwords.

Placing a call puts you in the Circuits of Time.  This is a mini-game that allows you to complete the call.  There are circuits in the background along with circled junctions, one of which contains a spinning phone booth.  Most of the junctions contain one digit of the call you are placing.  The idea is to move to the right from junction to junction until you get to the junction with the last digit of the phone number.  If you don’t do anything on this screen for too long, you will automatically transfer the phone booth to the next junction along the circuits.  You want to avoid this if possible because each automatic transfer costs two coins.  You start out with 15 coins but they get spent very fast this way.  What you can do is press A to launch the phone booth out of its junction in the direction it is facing.  This costs no coins and lets you skip ahead digits if you aim properly.  There is also a red floating junction that you can control with the D-pad used to catch the phone booth if it goes in the wrong direction.  Some junctions contain skulls which both deduct a coin and fire off the phone booth in a random direction, often setting back your progress.  When you reach the last digit, you will have to leave things alone and let the call finish.  The circuit ends in a three-way fork, and as the call is finishing you can take the top fork by holding Up, the bottom fork by holding Down, or the center fork without touching the D-pad.  This determines where you land in the next area.

The main part of the game takes place on the ground in one of five time periods: Medieval World, Western World, U.S. Revolutionary World, Modern World, and Ancient World.  These levels are in the isometric perspective and you can walk around freely.  Use the D-pad to walk around.  Pressing Up moves you to the upper-right and all the other directions follow from that same angle.  It acts just like the default movement in Q*bert.  Press the A button to jump.  You take pretty large jumps and you can leap over some areas you can’t normally walk on.  However, if you land in a non-walkable area you will fall down and get temporarily stuck.  The only way out is to jump your way out, and sometimes it can take several jumps to get back on the path.  Use the B button to toss out your Good Stuff to help ward off some of the angrier locals.

Pressing either Start or Select during gameplay brings up a menu screen where you can see and do a few things.  The upper left shows where you place another call, should you so choose.  Hold Up and press A to bring up the touch pad to place a call.  In the upper right are the keys you need to get you out of jail.  Your Good Stuff is in the middle, along with a red selection box that you can move to choose which item you want to use with the B button during play.  You also see your coin count and which historical items you have collected so far.

As you are exploring the worlds, there are locals also moving around.  There are three types of locals who are distinguished by how they behave.  One type is the standing local.  You can walk up to them and talk to them.  They can give you items, coins, or hints on where items or historical figures might be found.  They also might tell you to leave them alone.  After speaking with them, they turn into the second kind of local which is the walking local.  They move slowly and mind their own business.  Don’t try to talk to them or even walk up to them.  When they are on the move they get angry and standing in their way will cost you a coin.  If you don’t have any coins left, then you get thrown in jail instead.  The third kind of local is the angry local.  They will pursue you directly with arms outstretched.  If you get caught by one of them, you get thrown directly in jail.

When locals are causing you trouble, you can use your Good Stuff.  These are four different disposable items that affect the locals.  Press the B button to throw them.  You can throw different distances depending on how long you hold the button.  Pudding cups draw all locals toward them.  You normally want to throw them in the opposite direction you want to go.  Should a local grab the pudding off the ground, all the locals will go back to their original state except for the one who got the pudding.  That person mellows down.  Firecrackers have the opposite effect; when you throw one everyone runs away.  You can also throw a firecracker close enough to someone to blow them up.  Harsh!  Highly dangerous textbooks are smart bombs that clear the screen of locals.  Finally, cassette tapes start up some music that makes everyone dance.  Now you can go freely for a little while, but you still need to keep from running into a dancer or you’ll get tossed in jail.  Also, when the music runs out, any local on screen will switch to angry mode.

At the start, you are dropped off in a world you don’t know while trying to find someone without knowing their location.  You are going to need some assistance from the locals.  Occasionally, a standing local will provide some information on where you might look for items or which direction you should go to find the historical figure.  You will have better luck holding conversations with people indoors, but they aren’t always easy to find.  Throughout the worlds there are several buildings or houses with open doors.  Sometimes the door is locked and you can’t get in.  Other times you come into an empty room.  These rooms often act as warp rooms where you can jump to a different building across the map by leaving through the other door in the room.  Other rooms will have someone standing inside that you can talk with.

You can engage in conversation with a person within their home or building.  Walk up to them to start talking, then press A to advance the dialog.  When it is your turn to respond, you will see some possible numbered responses.  Press A to cycle through the different options, then press B on the one you want to say.  Each person has at least one possible conversation where they will be persuaded to help you out by giving you a hint on where you can find something outside.  Say the wrong thing and you will either anger all the locals outside or even get thrown directly in jail.  You get to learn which things to say to help get what you want.  After you leave, you can’t go back into the building you just left until you enter another one first.

The historical figures will always be located inside one of the buildings, however either they won’t be in the room or the outside door will stay locked until you first hold their historical item to lure them out.  There are both sixteen historical figures and sixteen historical items in the game, and it’s up to you to figure out which item belongs to which person.  All the people and items are listed out in the manual, so I did some pre-work to try and match them up beforehand.  Some pairs make sense right away, like King Arthur and the Holy Grail.  Some of them are silly matchups based on jokes, like Julius Caesar and Salad Dressing.  A few of them had an unexpected match.  For instance, I assumed Elvis would like the CD Player but that’s not the right pairing.

Finding the items is one of the biggest challenges in the game.  The items are located outside in very specific locations.  These are all off the main walking path and you have to reach them by jumping on top of them.  Did I mention they are invisible?  The hints you get for their locations are generally unclear, like “check the last fence” or “there’s something near a rock in the north.”  What helped me the most were the maps listed in the manual.  They give you the general structure of the world as well as a few specific locations marked.  They show you where the jail is, as well as the lower, middle, and upper portals, which correspond to which branch you took entering the world through the Circuits of Time.  The unmarked dots on the map represent either a building you can enter, a hidden stash of Good Stuff, or one of the historical items.  (I deduced that after playing for a while.)  The specific location of those dots on the map are not accurate, but they do help determine how many things you should be looking for between intersections.  You will still have to comb over areas well enough to find the item spots.  When do you find one, write the location down so that you can better find it again later.

The maps also indicate horse paths and canoeing sections.  You can take a canoe or ride a horse by approaching the path from the southmost entrance and hopping on.  Both generally function the same way.  Use Left or Right to steer, press Up to move faster and press Down to move slower.  On horseback you can jump over obstacles with A.  In the canoe you can find items on bubbling spots in the water.  If you make it all the way to the end, you earn some coins.  If you crash, then you don’t get anything.  Falling in the water pushes you all the way upstream, while if you fall of the horse you have to walk from where you landed.  I had a bad habit of missing the jump to the canoe at the start of the path, which also pushes you all the way upstream with no rewards.

When you find both the item and historical figure, you get a chance at sending them back to their own time.  You speak with the person and select the item the same way you handle conversation dialogs.  Pick the wrong item and you get thrown in jail, plus you have to locate the historical figure all over again.  Choose the right one and they will call a phone booth over so that you can complete the call through the Circuits of Time.  Completing the call returns the person, but if you run out of coins you get returned to the world and must collect enough coins to try again.

I’ve mentioned jail a lot and all the different ways you get sent there.  The concept is simple enough.  You can get out of jail by using one of your skeleton keys and walking right out the door.  It’s weird that the jailer doesn’t confiscate your things.  If you run out of keys, you are stuck there and it’s Game Over.  The worst part of jail is that it’s often located far away from where you need to go.

There are six levels in the game.  In Levels 1 and 2, you only have to return one person.  In Levels 3 and 4 you need to find two people, and in Levels 5 and 6 you get to return three people.  Each historical figure is in a separate world along with his or her corresponding item, so thankfully there are no crossing time periods to match an item up with its historical figure, at least that I noticed.  After completing each stage, you get to see the Wyld Stallyns in concert.  While not great musicians, they do progressively get better the further you get in the game.

I’m not sure how I ended up with this game, but I had just the loose cart in my childhood game collection.  I do remember spending some significant time with the game, but I have no idea how far I got or what I accomplished.  With no manual I had to go at it truly alone.  When you’re a kid who likes video games, you will spend a lot of time playing just about anything.  A loose cart is cheap, but in my experience, it was one I didn’t see much.  I believe my childhood copy is the only one I’ve owned.

It took me some time to get going on this game.  I managed to clear a couple of levels in the first week mostly by dumb luck.  A few days in I figured out what kind of information I could glean from the maps, so then I started mapping everything I could find.  Most of my time spent playing the game was doing the mapping and carefully examining every stretch of land.  I figured out most if not all of the possible landing spots for the historical figure in each world as well as all item locations but one.  Each world has four historical items but I only located three in the U.S. Revolutionary World.  The last level turned out to be pretty challenging and I just barely finished it in my video.  I ran out of keys after returning two of the three people and had to play super carefully.  The last person was in the U.S. Revolutionary World and the item I needed was found in the third and final position I documented, so I almost got stuck not knowing where the item would be.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure is always perceived as an undesirable NES game.  My view is that the game is essentially video game busy work.  The recipe for success in this game is having a good sense of direction and taking notes all the time, with a side of endless perseverance.  I made progress just about every time I played, no matter how little time I spent.  Every element on the map marked, every conversation I figured out, and every historical item properly associated with its owner helped the next time I played go a little bit smoother.  This makes the game tedious to play, but not necessarily difficult.  The number of angry locals increases in the final stages, but by then you know how to handle them with items or getting yourself off the main path where they can’t reach you.  The person’s location and items are always randomized, but there are only so many places they could be and you will narrow things down.  Sometimes you just get lucky and find what you need right away.  I imagine few people have beaten the game due to the time it takes to build up a knowledge base and catch a lucky streak, while stretching that out over several levels.  I feel comfortable saying it’s an average difficulty game with an above average amount of time and effort needed to see it through.

I will say that Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure is mostly a technically solid game.  There aren’t that many NES games with isometric viewpoints, and this game manages that along with a jumping mechanic for veering off the path occasionally.  The graphics are nice, particularly the character sprites and some of the background elements.  The music is pretty good but they didn’t loop any of the tracks, while eventually results in silence a lot of the time.  The controls work well.  The only sticking point is that jumping when off the path only works if you allow Bill or Ted time to stand up first.  The music issue is kind of bad, but other than that the game works well enough.  It’s just that the gameplay is dull, repetitive, and dragging.  It’s like filling out a spreadsheet where the cursor repositions itself at random.  One wrong step and you get thrown in jail, and now you have to backtrack or try a different way.  You are asked to do this history hunting too many times over.  I’m not sure what they could have done to make the game more varied.  Maybe you already knew about this game and just thought maybe you misunderstood it.  I’m here to tell you all your assumptions were true.  I don’t hate this game, but I wouldn’t recommend playing it.

Whatcha gonna do brother when Hulkamania runs wild on you?

To Beat: Win the Tournament
Played: 8/6/18 – 8/8/18
Difficulty: 6/10
My Difficulty: 6/10
My Video: WWF WrestleMania Longplay

I was a teenage boy and for a season I was really into professional wrestling. I happened to get interested in WCW during the time when it overtook WWF in popularity, and then I unceremoniously got out of it sometime before WWF acquired it. The NES wrestling games vastly favored the WWF license over WCW with four NES titles to one. I am familiar with many of the WWF stars from this period as they eventually crossed over into WCW. Hulk Hogan on the cover of NES WWF WrestleMania, for instance, was a huge part of the nWo and his entry into that group was very shocking for me as a young fan. Playing this NES game rekindled a lot of nostalgia for that period in my life. Of course what matters now, nostalgia aside, is if the game is any good.

The current WWE began in 1952 as Capitol Wrestling Corporation and was created by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt. It was part of the broader National Wrestling Alliance, or NWA. The owners at that time, Mondt and Jess’s son Vincent, withdrew from NWA in 1963 over a dispute and created the WWWF, which eventually rejoined in NWA in 1971 and was renamed to the World Wrestling Federation, or WWF, in 1979. Vincent McMahon Jr. created Titan Sports in 1980 and bought Capitol from his father in 1982. Vince Jr. helped usher in the WWF Golden Age in the 1980s. WWF acquired its main competitor, WCW, in 2001. In 2002, WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, after a dispute with the World Wildlife Fund. WWE is currently the biggest professional wrestling promotion in the world.

WWF WrestleMania is the first of four WWF licensed NES games. The other three games are WWF WrestleMania Challenge, WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge, and WWF King of the Ring. WWF WrestleMania was developed by Rare and published by Acclaim Entertainment. It was released in January 1989 on the NES in North America only.

WWF Wrestlemania is a straightforward professional wrestling game. There are six characters to choose from: “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, Bam Bam Bigelow, The Honky Tonk Man, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, and Hulk Hogan. Matches take place between two wrestlers in the ring until one of them wins by pinfall. The game supports up to six players though only two may play at one time. One or two players can play a standard match, or one to six players may compete in a Tournament format. To beat the game, you have to win the Tournament mode in single player.

At the start of the game you will choose the number of players and the corresponding mode. A name entry screen appears for each player after the mode is chosen. Use the D-pad to move the cursor and press A to make selections. Names are up to six characters long. For multiple players, odd numbered players use the first controller and even numbered players use the second controller. After name entry, choose from one of the six wrestlers. Press Up or Down to choose. You will see his profile picture and some short stats. Press A on the one you want. After all selections are made, you will see the Pre-Bout screen with the participants of the next match. Now the fun begins!

Fights take place on a single screen with the stats on top and the match on the bottom. On each side of the top of the screen are the character portraits and the vertical energy bars for each player. In the center is the match timer and the bell that rings at the end of the match.

The controls are a little more complex than they first appear. You walk around the ring with the D-pad and you can walk in all directions. You can press either A or B to do some basic strikes against your opponent. From here it gets more complicated as some wrestlers can’t perform certain moves. I won’t go into all these details, but the manual has a couple of charts detailing all this and I suggest you look that up before trying this game. One more thing all wrestlers have in common is running mode. Press and hold either Left or Right, and then hold A to engage running mode. You can let go of the D-pad, and then let go of the A button to stay locked into running mode without touching any of the buttons. You will rebound back and forth between the ropes until you press a button to get out of the mode or your opponent gets in the way.

The remaining moves can only be performed by some wrestlers. While in running mode, you can press A or B to do a running attack. You can do a different move by pressing either A or B while holding Up or Down. One of these, usually with the B button, is how you pin your opponent when they are laid out on the mat. If you have your back to the opponent and press A and B at the same time, you will do a strong back move. If you are facing your opponent and press A and B together, you can do a bodyslam. However, you need to have more energy than your opponent to pull off the bodyslam, otherwise you will default to the back move. Finally, some wrestlers can do a move off the turnbuckle. To climb up on the turnbuckle, you need to engage running mode while all the way at the bottom of the screen. Just as your approach the corner, press B. If your timing is good, you will climb onto the turnbuckle and then dive off all in one move. Even though there are turnbuckles at the top of the screen, you can’t climb on those. Weird, I know.

To win a match, first you need to drain all of the energy from your opponent. When he’s down, you need to pin him. Stand next to him and press either Up or Down combined with either A or B depending on your wrestler to pin. A three-count will start, and if your opponent is still down at three, the bell rings and you win the match. Often, just getting the energy bar emptied is not quite enough to keep him pinned down. Sometimes he will get up right away and other times he will stay down for quite some time. You can get a feel for when he will stay down longer than usual with some experience. On the flip side, your opponent is also trying to drain your energy and pin you too. You will rise automatically if you are knocked down with energy remaining, but if you don’t, mash the Up button on the D-pad to get up as quickly as you can.

There are a few additional mechanics and things to look out for in the game. Energy meters slowly grow over time. You have to keep up the offensive or your opponent can get back into the game. There is an additional way to earn back some energy in the form of a powerup. That’s right, this game has a powerup called the energizer. Each wrestler has his own energizer listed in the game manual. Energizers appear from the top left of the screen, go across the top of the ring, and then exit on the right side. You want to collect your energizer if you are near it, and likewise you want to keep your opponent away from his. There is also an anger mechanic. If someone gets hit a bunch, his skin will change color from pink to red. Moves do more damage while in this angered state.

The timer is of some importance as well. There is no timer in a standard match, either single player or two-player. In fact, a two-player match with one person is a great environment for practicing moves and timing, all without worrying about the timer. The timer runs in tournament mode only. It counts up to three minutes, and if there isn’t a winner to that point, the match is considered a draw. You will get an instant rematch, and these will continue until there is a clear winner.

To win single-player Tournament mode, you pick a wrestler and then you have to win against all other wrestlers in order. You can tie via the timer as many times as necessary, but lose once and you’re out. A multi-player tournament functions more like an actual tournament. The computer controls the remaining wrestlers and everyone plays each other once for a total of fifteen matches. Whoever wins the most matches wins the tournament, and the tiebreaker is whoever has the quickest average match time over matches won.

This was my first time playing WWF Wrestlemania. This game was originally on my deferred list, but I can’t remember why I put it there other than my general disinterest in sports games. This is one of the most common NES games out there. Right now, I have four extra copies I haven’t bothered to sell yet. It only costs a few dollars if you want a cart.

I did not have the easiest time beating this game. I decided to go with “Macho Man” Randy Savage (RIP) as he was one of my favorite wrestlers growing up. Taking the wrestlers in order means The Million Dollar Man is the first wrestler, and he really is a pushover for the most part. For a while I couldn’t beat anybody else. I found trying to beat anyone else in a fist fight is useless. Those guys can rifle off back moves quickly before I could barely get out one. Running attacks are more useful especially if you can knock the guy down with them. You can go right into another running attack and knock him down as soon as he gets up. This strategy doesn’t work on the heavier wrestlers. My path to victory was abusing turnbuckle moves. The problem then is getting the opponent into the corner with you to get in range for the move. I try to get the opponent to run after me into the corner so I can climb the turnbuckle. Knocking him down gives me enough room to back up and run again. I tried to time it so that I was climbing up when he got up. That way he will chase me into the corner, trying to take advantage of having my back to him. I can get into a loop, but it doesn’t always last. Your timing has to be really good too so that you don’t miss the turnbuckle climb. I think the presence of the timer, combined with energy regeneration, encourages repeating powerful moves over and over to win. It might be a cheap way to win but it worked for me. I can win most of the time with this strategy, but even then, winning all five matches was a little harder than it seemed.

Take this opinion with a grain of salt because I haven’t played any other wrestling games on NES, but I don’t think WWF Wrestlemania is all that good. Rare usually makes fun games but not this time. The level of presentation and polish from a Rare game is still there. There are some nice graphical effects on display. The character portraits look pretty good on the NES. Everything up to the gameplay is solid, and then the annoyances begin. I had a tough time lining up properly with the other wrestler, and when I did I would get beat down before I could get enough hits in. Movement around the ring is cumbersome and slow. It’s easy to get trapped in the corner and hard to get back out. The act of pinning a wrestler is a lot harder to perform than it should be. The timer gets in the way of a more thoughtful match, resulting in exploiting moves just to win in time. These control and balancing issues add up to a more frustrating experience than a fun one. I hope later games are better than this one.

Candy is dandy, and jelly beans are really keen.

To Beat: Reach the ending
To Complete: Reach the ending with all treasures
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 4/7/18 – 4/11/18
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 3/10
Video: A Boy and His Blob 100% Longplay

Today we are dipping back into the NES library to play another weird game. A Boy and His Blob: Trouble in Blobolonia is an adventure game that doesn’t have a parallel I can think of to any other game of its time. I’ve talked about what I consider weird or quirky games before, specifically Ghoul School and Mendel Palace come to mind, that have a unique personality or feel to them. A Boy and His Blob certainly fits that bill, and I believe it is a more accessible game that has a wider appeal than those other two games I covered. Let’s take a deeper look and see what we are getting into.

A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia was released on the NES in North America in January 1990. It was developed by Imagineering and published by Absolute Entertainment. This was one of the first NES releases for both companies. The Famicom version, named Fushigi na Blobby: Blobania no Kiki, was published by Jaleco in November 1990. The name translates to Mysterious Blobby: The Crisis of Blobania. The PAL version was released in 1991. The game is attributed to David Crane, who was lead designer and developer on the game. A Game Boy sequel, The Rescue of Princess Blobette, was first released in Japan also in November 1990. This sequel predates the original in Japan by a few weeks, while the other versions released in 1991. WayForward Technologies developed the Wii remake of A Boy and His Blob in 2009, the same year the NES game appeared on Wii Virtual Console.

A Boy and His Blob has a simple story that is nearly summed up in the title alone. You play the role of the boy who makes friends with a blob from outer space. According to the manual, the blob’s name is Blobert. He is from Blobolonia and he is looking for help in defeating his evil emperor, who makes everyone eat marshmallows and chocolate instead of health-promoting vitamins. To defeat the emperor, you need vitamins. (Those are harmful to the emperor, you see.) To get vitamins, you need money, and you get money by finding treasures in the underground cave. The blob can turn into various objects by feeding him certain flavors of jelly beans, and you will need the blob’s abilities to achieve your goal of defeating the emperor.

The starting controls are simple. You control the boy directly and the blob will follow after you. Press Left or Right to walk around. The boy has significant inertia, so he is slow to start moving and slides around a lot. Press the A button to toss a jelly bean. I suppose you could call it jelly bean inertia because he takes a little while to pluck the jelly bean out of the bag and toss it. You can move while tossing to throw the jelly bean farther ahead. If you throw a jelly bean off screen, the camera will follow it until it hits the ground. This is helpful when you don’t know what’s below you, for instance. The B button causes the boy to let out a loud whistle. This calls the blob toward you, and it transforms the blob from any object back to normal blob form. Press Select to change the flavor of jelly bean you wish to throw. You can cycle through the list in reverse by holding Down and pressing Select.

The top and bottom of the screen contain all the information you need to play. The top displays the current score, the number of treasures remaining, and how many lives you have left. The bottom of the screen shows which jelly bean you have selected along with how many of that flavor you have remaining.

The fun of the game is making use of the blob’s many transformations. You need to feed the blob a certain way. First, stand a step or so away and make sure he is facing you. You can use the whistle to help guide him. Then simply press A to toss the jelly bean. It should fall right into his mouth, and then he shrinks down into a ball before transforming. If a jelly bean hits the ground, it’s gone forever. If you throw a jelly bean near the blob that he doesn’t reach, he makes a sad face. Try not to do that!

Let’s take a look at what each jelly bean does:

Licorice is for Ladder. You can press Up and Down to climb the ladder to reach ledges about half a screen in height. Sometimes the ladder will go through a ledge above it, and sometimes it doesn’t. You have plenty of licorice jelly beans to use if one ladder doesn’t pan out.

Strawberry is for Bridge. Position the blob next to the edge of a ledge and feed him a jelly bean. He will stretch out horizontally to the opposite ledge so you can safely cross.

Coconut is for Coconut. This transformation is the most direct, for sure. You can pick up the blob in coconut form. Press A to drop the coconut blob or press B to throw him ahead. He will roll for awhile and usually the camera will follow him so you can see what’s ahead.

Cola is for Bubble. The blob turns into a large bubble just your size. You can walk into the bubble and bounce along. While inside, you will fall slowly and you can even breathe underwater.

Cinnamon is for Blow Torch. This is another transformation you can pick up. This time B doesn’t do anything when held. The blow torch is active while you are holding it.

Apple is for Jack. Haha, it’s a cereal joke. This is just like a jack that lifts up a car. You can’t pick it up either.

Vanilla is for Umbrella. This is a useful one. This is grabbable like the coconut and blow torch, only the boy holds the umbrella up over his head. You can use this to fall slowly and also protect your head from falling objects.

Tangerine is for Trampoline. This lets you jump super high, though it is tricky to use. Walk up to the trampoline to start bouncing. Hold Up to bounce higher and hold Down to bounce lower. You stay locked in place above the trampoline until you reach the top of your bounce. Then you can hold Left or Right to get out from above the trampoline, hopefully to a nearby ledge so you don’t fall to your death.

Root Beer is for Rocket. Blast off to the skies! More on this one later.

Honey is for Hummingbird. The blob will fly toward you and travels through any solid ground with ease. It’s useful for getting the blob back to you if you leave him behind as a trampoline.

The ketchup jelly bean is the one flavor the blob doesn’t like. He will flat out reject them. What it does instead is instantly teleports the blob to wherever it hits the ground. This is your failsafe to get the blob back if you become so separated that you can’t reunite by normal means.

Punch is for Hole. Yes, the blob can turn himself into the absence of material. If the ledge is thin enough, you can place a hole and fall through it. There’s a trick to use the same hole more than once. If you fall through and whistle without moving, the hole will fall to you. As soon as it hits the ground, you will fall through it again. Otherwise, the blob goes back to normal.

Lime is for Key. This is yet another grabbable form. Certainly, it is useful for something.

Orange is for the Vitablaster. You might be able to guess what this one does by name alone. More on this one later.

A Boy and His Blob is divided into two clear halves. The first half of the game is the treasure hunt. You will try out all the different transformations and explore the caves below the city subway. There are many treasures here, as well as different traps and things to avoid. Bouncing worms show up in several places and you die if you touch them. Spikes and falling rocks defeat you, as well as entering water without the bubble. You also die if you fall from a height greater than roughly a screen and a half tall. Caves are dangerous for a young boy!

While there are a finite number of treasures, you don’t need them to find them all to finish the game. Two of the treasures are bags of extra jelly beans. One of those bags holds both the Lime and Orange jelly beans among others. These are the only two kinds you don’t begin the game with, and you need them to beat the game. Once you are satisfied with your underground excursion, make your way back up to the surface. On the far right is a health food shop. Depending on how many treasures you found, you will get a predefined assortment of Vitamins A, B, and C upon entering the store and spending your hard-earned treasure. Now’s the time to use the Root Beer jelly bean to create a rocket taking you to Blobolonia.

Seeking the emperor in Blobolonia is the second half of the game. There’s no real exploration here, rather it’s a gauntlet of enemies and traps. This is where the Orange jelly beans and the Vitablaster come in handy. You can pick up the Vitablaster like other carryable forms. Hold the Vitablaster and press Select to cycle between Vitamins A, B, and C. You also see the ammo count next to the selected type. Press B to fire a vitamin, and the type of vitamin determines its flight path. Vitamin A fires in a long arc. Vitamin B travels a short distance and bounces straight up when it hits the ground. Vitamin C is a completely straight shot. You can also press Up or Down while holding the Vitablaster to aim either straight ahead, at a 45-degree angle, or straight up. There are marshmallows, cherry bombs, popcorn, and chocolate kisses you can shoot with the Vitablaster to clear the path ahead. On Blobolonia you can also collect peppermints. These are displayed on the top of the screen once you get one, and you earn an extra life for every five peppermints you collect. Hopefully you saved up enough lives for this part of the game.

You begin each game with five lives. The boy is pretty fragile so they can go fast. There are no continues in the game either, and there’s no way to earn extra lives until you get to the latter half of the game. Fortunately, the game is on the shorter side and you can try again quickly.

A Boy and His Blob is a game I had growing up and I’ve beaten it many times before. I’m not sure how I ended up with the game in the first place, but it was probably through a yard sale or game store or something. I seem to remember either renting it or playing it at a friend’s house before that.

Even though I knew how to beat the game, I haven’t played it in many years. I forgot the path I used to take through the cave to get all the treasures. It only took a few tries for it to all come back to me. I remembered all the transformations and what to do with them too. I spent a few attempts over a couple of days to hone my skills back in, and then set out to record a full run. I’m pleased with how my video longplay turned out. I only died one time in a pretty tricky spot, and I feel I played well for the rest of the game. After I finished playing the game, I looked at a map of the caves and discovered that it is all a lot smaller than I remembered. This is probably why I didn’t have much trouble finding all the treasures again.

A Boy and His Blob was a game I fondly remembered from my youth, and from my experience I believe it’s an NES game that more people remember than you might think. Overall, it’s a solid game with a unique, quirky hook to it that keeps you coming back. The graphics go for a lifelike look which doesn’t hold up as well today but is fine for playing. The detailed character animation does hold up well. The music is awfully catchy and suits the game well. The blob has a lot of charisma and character as he can transform into so many different things and even shows emotion at times. The main downside to the game is a lack of precision. The boy’s movement is very slippery, and sometimes you can’t get the blob to cooperate with you either. You end up using extra jelly beans to help position the blob just so, which slows the game down. Some transformations don’t quite work right in specific situations. Also, precise jumping with the trampoline is often an exercise in frustration. Some players would appreciate a map of the game too, though it’s not as bad as it first appears. The fun of the game will likely override those concerns. It’s a fun adventure to take if you are trying to beat the game, and it’s also enjoyable just to tinker around with.

Great, another exhausting Power Pad game!

To Beat: Win all four events in single player
To Complete: Win all events on the highest difficulty
What I Did: Beat all events on the lowest difficulty
Played: 12/21/17 – 12/28/17
Difficulty: 7/10
My Difficulty: 7/10
Video: Super Team Games – All Events

Another Power Pad game already? I just finished World Class Track Meet not even a week before this. There are only a handful of Power Pad games that reached the NES, and it is just dumb luck that we get two such games almost back to back. This may have been a good thing here since my Power Pad muscle memory from the previous game carried over to this one. I needed that because Super Team Games is significantly more challenging than World Class Track Meet.

Super Team Games was developed by Sonata (who would later become Human Entertainment) for release in Japan in November 1987. It was originally published by Bandai, and it was the seventh game in their Family Trainer series. Nintendo published the NES release in November 1988, branded as a Power Pad game. It did not include any Family Trainer or Family Fun Fitness branding, just like World Class Track Meet. This was the final game of the Famicom’s Family Trainer series to reach North America.

Super Team Games is a running race game where you compete in different types of events and try to beat your opponent. There are several smaller events that are arranged into larger obstacle courses. There are several different modes for single player, two players, and two teams of players. Since multiplayer modes are competitions against each other, only the single player modes count for beating Super Team Games. There are four different obstacle courses in single player mode, and when you win all of them you have won the game.

This Power Pad game uses Side B, which contains blue buttons on the left and red buttons on the right, all individually numbered from 1 to 12. In single player, we are only concerned with the blue buttons. The top row buttons are 1 and 2, the middle row buttons are 5 and 6, and the bottom row buttons are 9 and 10. Multiplayer games use the red buttons, so just add two to each button number to get the same mappings for the second player.

The menu controls are the same as World Class Track Meet. On the title screen, press Select to move the cursor and press Start to go to name entry. In the tournament mode, you first select how many teams you want between three and six. Use the D-Pad to move the cursor at the bottom and press Select to lock in your choice. You then move to name entry which is identical for all modes. The blinking cursor at the top part of the screen determines which character in the name you want to choose, and you move that cursor by pressing B to move it left and A to move it right. Use the D-Pad to move the letter selection cursor at the bottom part of the screen. Press Select to write the selected character in the name field. When all names have been entered, press Start to begin.

Now you move to the event screen. There are flags displayed with the names of all the events. Press Select to choose the event and press Start. In 1 Player and 2 Player modes, the events are Super Obstacle Course, Obstacle Course A, Obstacle Course B, and Skateboard Race. The 2 Team Play and Tournament mode events are 6 Legged Race, Tug of War, and Relay Race. More on these modes later. The next screen is the versus screen showing who is competing in the race. If you are playing Tournament mode, you will see a screen in between showing the bracket setup. In single player, the versus screen lets you decide which computer character you want to race against. Press Select to choose from either Ollie, Jimmy, or Jack, and press Start to go to the race. Ollie is easy mode, Jimmy is medium difficulty, and Jack is the fastest.

The gameplay screen has the same structure in all events. The left runner, designed as the White team, is displayed on the top part of the screen and the right runner, or Red team, is below. At the bottom of the screen is a minimap that shows how far each player or team has reached in the current race. You also see times for each runner. This timer freezes briefly during checkpoints so you get a better glimpse of how you are doing as you compete. To begin the race, all active participants must be standing on the Power Pad in their designated spots. For single player, stand on 5 and 6. A whistle is blown and soon the referee fires the starting gun.

Let’s look at each of the events first. Then I will explain how they combine into the different courses.

The Log Hop is exactly how it sounds; you run and jump over stationary logs. This introduces the standard controls that apply to many events in the game. Run on 5 and 6 in the middle row to move forward. Take a step back and run on 9 and 10 to back up a little bit if you need to. You can run right up to the log and then jump in the air so that your character jumps as well. The logs are medium height so they aren’t too tough to jump over. You can even land on top of the log and run right off.

The Belly Bump Ball has the same controls as the Log Hop. Here a giant beach ball is in the middle of the track and you have to bump it forward by running into it. The faster you run into it, the farther down the track it goes. Ideally you want to get into a good rhythm of bouncing it far ahead and then running fast to knock the ball ahead again. If you come at it slow, the ball won’t go very far and then you don’t have the distance necessary to build up speed unless you take a few steps back and give yourself some running room.

Water Cross is similar to the Log Hop. There are pools of water on the track that you want to jump completely over if you can. Run up to the edge and jump to hopefully get across. More than likely you will fall into the water. You can swim by running on 5 and 6, but you will cross very slowly and use up a lot of time.

In the Crab Walk, I guess you wear a crab outfit? It’s weird. You want to put your left foot on the 1 and your right foot on the 9 and then run in place to inch ahead. It’s different than the other events since your feet are much further apart. I could move forward but really couldn’t get the hang of this one like I should have.

The Wall Jump is exactly like the Log Hop. The walls are thin and much taller than the logs. You really need to jump high to get to the top of the wall. Not only that, but there are two different heights of walls just to make things more exhausting.

In Bubble Run, you first approach an air pump and must blow up your bubble. Hit 1 and 2 in the first row to inflate your balloon. The manual says to hit the buttons with your hands, which makes sense since you are working an air pump. You can run on it if you want, but my legs needed a break! Once the bubble is filled, then run on 5 and 6 and take the bubble to the end.

These are all the basic events that combine to form the larger events that you choose from the menu before play. In the Super Obstacle Course, you run all six of the above events in that exact order. In Obstacle Course A, you do the Log Hop, Water Cross, and Wall Jump, and in Obstacle Course B you do the Belly Bump Ball, Crab Walk, and Bubble Run. The Relay Race in the team play modes is the same as the Super Obstacle Course. Instead of running the whole thing alone, you pass the baton and substitute team members after each pair of events.

That’s not all! There are also three other unique special events:

The Skateboard Race is for one or two players. In this mode you don’t have to run, which is quite the relief! Your front foot position will either be on the 5 or 6, and your back foot position is either 9 or 10. First, stand on 5 and 6 to start with the whistle blow, then put your front foot on 5 and your back foot on 9. I like to face right while on the mat. This will position you in the top row in your course. Move your front foot to the 6 and then move your back foot to the 10 to move your character to the bottom row in the course. You can switch positions one step at a time to slide your skateboarder. You may rhythmically step between positions to slalom and that lets you move faster down the course. You also need to sidestep to dodge obstacles on the course. Some obstacles block both lanes and you must jump to get past them. If it sounds complicated, I’m sure you will get it once you finish the course once or twice.

The 6 Legged Race is a team event only. You need six players for this event! Each team of three stands back to back on the respective spaces on the Power Pad so that there is a foot on every button. Each team must take left and right steps together as if their feet are tied together. If someone is out of step the racers will fall over and make it harder for the team to continue to walk. There’s no feasible way for me to play this event, but I bet it would be hilarious!

The Tug of War is another team event that can be done with either two, four, or six players against each other. Within a team, the first player stands on 5 and 6, the second player stands on 1 and 2, and the third player stands on 9 and 10. The other team takes the respective positions on the right side of the Power Pad. When the firing gun starts, everyone runs as fast as they can. Whichever side has pulled more of the rope after 30 seconds wins the Tug of War.

I’ve never been a Power Pad player, so this was my first time playing through Super Team Games. All of the Power Pad games tend to teeter between common and uncommon, but they are neither difficult nor expensive to track down if you really want them. Well, aside from Stadium Events that is. I got my original copy in a lot on eBay early on when I had made my big push to collect the other half of the NES licensed set. I remember seeing it and getting pretty excited since I had never seen the game before and thought it might have been worth something. I quickly found out that it was cheap because no one wants it. I’ve had a few different copies come through my possession.

Super Team Games is a significant step up in difficulty from World Class Track Meet. Naturally, I learned this the hard way. My first time playing I picked the Super Obstacle Course against the fastest computer runner Jack. He completely blew me away. He completed the entire course in under three minutes while I hadn’t even reached the halfway point yet. I had to stop and step away in the middle of the race for a little while to catch my breath. I kept at it just to get through it, but I never did finish the race. After 10 minutes have elapsed, the race just ends. I was at the very end of the course with the finish line in sight when this happened. So annoying. I’m calling it impossible for me to beat this on the hardest difficulty and immediately accepted the idea of beating it on Easy and stopping there.

I moved on to the Skateboard Race next which is the easiest mode and much less strenuous. It still took me two attempts to beat easy difficulty Ollie. The first attempt was learning the course and the controls, and then the second try was enough to win the race. I then switched over to trying Obstacle Course A and managed to win that race too. The only problem is I forgot to hit the record button on my PC. That really upset me and I knew I wouldn’t be happy unless I completed it again. I was completely spent from playing this game to the point where I had to rest for a couple of days before trying again.

I finished all of the modes over the next three play sessions. The Super Obstacle Course took me two tries to win against Ollie. He finishes the race in around six minutes. I was about twenty seconds behind the first try and then I won by more than that the next try. It also took me two tries to beat the Obstacle Course A again. The first try I quit part way because I was too far behind and exhausted from winning the Super Obstacle Course just before. The next try I won the race by just barely passing Ollie on the final stretch. That was way too close for comfort. Obstacle Course B is quite a bit easier than the other two obstacle courses, but I think that took a couple of tries as well. I used the Skateboard Race as a warm up exercise and finished it a couple more times for good measure. I learned from my mistakes and recorded everything the way I wanted.

I think Super Team Games requires more consistency and better form than World Class Track Meet. You can be successful by stepping on the Power Pad as quickly as possible, since that’s more or less what I did. However, it does seem that you are rewarded for having proper form in your steps and jumps. I will caution that I cannot be entirely sure about this. The manual tells you what to do, but not how to do it well. It’s not really feasible for me to test any hypotheses either because I can only play a little bit at a time before wearing out. My theories will have to do. I was able to do a really long jump a few times and I never understood how it happened. I’m sure it has to do with the timing of my jump while running with some speed, maybe even by jumping off of one foot and landing on the other. I also noticed that I accelerated sometimes while jogging for some distance. There does seem to be some momentum inherent in the game physics as long as you keep going without slowing down too much or missing any steps on the buttons. Again, these are just theories. I assume there has to be some kind of technique that I didn’t understand that could help me perform at a higher level.

I do have a few observations about racing Ollie that might be helpful if you want to play this game single player. I found that I was about on par with Ollie in all events but two. Ollie does the Crab Walk well, but does the Belly Bump Ball terribly. I have no idea what the secret is to crab walking and I always lost ground during that event. The Belly Bump Ball is best way to take a big lead. Ollie gets no momentum at all and only pushes the ball a short distance while never backing up to get a better shot at it. If you run fast, pause briefly just after you bump the ball, and repeat, you should clear the event quickly. This was the key for me completing the Super Obstacle Course and Obstacle Course B, leaving only Obstacle Course A without an easy exploit. The sad thing is that the game manual tries to make you feel bad for even coming close in a match with Ollie. From the manual: “Ollie: A push over. Shame on you if you lose!” Let me tell you, there is no shame in losing to Ollie. This really is a tough game.

Super Team Games is not fun to play in my opinion, but it is a competent title. The graphics are simple and clean. The music, while not notable, is decent. The controls work well once you learn how to navigate the menu. There is a wide variety of events, especially when you include many players. The real fun of Super Team Games lies in playing this game with someone else. Racing against another player or coordinating large groups for team events are the kind of activities that form memories and build bonds, even in the heart of strenuous competition. Super Team Games is also a good exercise tool for Power Pad owners, so long as you take it easy and don’t worry about trying to outrun the computer players. Trying to beat the game in single player mode is too tedious and exhausting to be fun, and I missed out on everything in the other modes that would have made it enjoyable. I think the best part of Super Team Games was the feeling of relief to check it off the list and move on to the next game.

Another day, another overthrown terrorist regime.

To Beat: Finish Level 4
To Complete: Beat three loops
What I Did: Beat two loops
Played: 10/19/17 – 10/20/17
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
Video: Tiger-Heli Longplay

I have seen so many copies of Tiger-Heli in my life. It seems like every time I have seen someone’s NES collection, there is Tiger-Heli. Okay, maybe in a more curated collection you won’t see it, but as far as random NES games go it might as well be ubiquitous. I really wonder why there are so many copies of this game around. It’s not a flashy title, and not one that everyone has fond memories of. Maybe I am seeing the same set of copies passed around all the time. I will get to the bottom of it and see how Tiger-Heli plays on the NES. Then maybe these answers and more will be revealed!

Tiger-Heli was first released in arcades in 1985. The game was developed by Toaplan and published by Taito. In December 1986, the game was ported to Famicom. This port was developed by Micronics and published by Pony Canyon. The NES version came in September 1987 and was published in North America by Acclaim Entertainment. The NES box and manual also point to Taito, though they were not involved with the NES version. The European version of Tiger-Heli was delayed until early 1990. A spiritual sequel, Twin Cobra, was released in the arcades in 1987 and on the NES in 1990, and Twin Cobra II is its direct sequel that came out in arcades in 1996. That same year, both Tiger-Heli and Twin Cobra were released on a single disk for Playstation in Japan only named Toaplan Shooting Battle 1.

Tiger-Heli is a vertical scrolling shooter where you take control of an advanced “jetcopter” of the same name. This game has a typical shooter plot of one man attempting to defeat a terrorist regime. This time it is the fictitious country of Cantun with designs of taking over the world. The Tiger-Heli was specifically constructed as the ultimate stealth helicopter and is the only attack vessel that can sneak in to Cantun and destroy everything. The game takes place over four levels and if you can survive that long you have beaten Tiger-Heli.

The controls are simple. Use the D-pad to move Tiger-Heli in all eight directions. The B button fires missiles which are your standard unlimited weapon. Each shot is four tiny missiles wide and they only travel about half the height of the screen, but you can fire several shots at one time. The A button drops bombs which deal splash damage to a large area below Tiger-Heli. You can only hold two bombs at once and you can see them flanked on either side of your helicopter. If an enemy bullet hits a bomb, it will deploy automatically. This acts as a shield and it is typically worth the cost of a lost bomb. On screen, you see your score at the top, your remaining lives on the lower-left, and the number of bonus blocks you have destroyed on the lower-right. You begin the game with two extra lives and both bombs.

There are crosses on the ground that give you powerups when destroyed. They cycle between three different colors and the color determines what you get. Destroying either a red or gray cross generates a support helicopter at the top of the screen that drifts down slowly. Pick this up and now you have a small helicopter on your left that gives you extra firepower. The red support copter shoots to the side and the gray one fires straight ahead. You can collect a second one that flies to your right for triple firepower, and you can have both a red and a gray one at the same time. Support copters can be destroyed by enemy bullets, so you have to manage having a much larger hitbox to maintain full power. The green crosses generate a B powerup that restores a bomb when it’s collected. Acquiring another support helicopter or bomb when you are maxed out gives you bonus points.

There are also red bonus blocks in the stages. These are red diamonds that fade in and out and you can shoot them when they are visible. They give you points and add to the counter at the bottom. After you destroy ten bonus blocks you get an extra life. You also earn extra lives by reaching score milestones. You get your first extra life by reaching 20,000 points, and then you earn another life for every additional 80,000 points after that.

Enemies in the game are turrets, tanks, and boats. Turrets don’t move, tanks may or may not move, and boats always move. What they all have in common is their firing capability. Each enemy shoots at a steady pace and can only fire in eight directions. There is also a large tank that takes many bullets to destroy, and you get points for each shot landed so you can really rack up the score. There are many types of non-violent structures that you can blow up for points just because, such as cars, buildings, train cars, etc.

There are four levels in Tiger-Heli, and each one ends by landing automatically on a helipad. Here you are awarded 5000 bonus points for each support helicopter and bomb you have. At the start of the next stage, you get your bombs replenished. You also get your bombs back after you take a death. Sadly, there is no ending to the game and you may keep looping over the game until you lose all your lives. Just like with Sky Shark, loops begin at Stage 2.

This was my first time trying to beat Tiger-Heli. I was one of those weird kids that did not own a copy of the game until adulthood. I had friends who owned the game and I did get to play it some, but it wasn’t a game that we played very much. I was familiar with the first stage or so, but that’s all.

I had some free time after lunch one day and decided to try out Tiger-Heli just to see what I was up against. Turns out that wasn’t much, for I beat all four levels on my first try. I don’t think Tiger-Heli is exactly an easy game, but I picked up on it quickly. The next day I played a practice run, and then right after that I recorded my video. On the practice run I reached the beginning of the third loop, but I didn’t quite make it that far on video. The first loop is not that bad, but the difficulty picks up fast the second time around. The enemy’s rate of fire is much faster and therefore it is harder to avoid bullets and line up a shot. The little bit I played of the third loop was even faster. I suspect the third loop is the difficulty cap and if you can complete that you have mastered Tiger-Heli. I could have pushed myself to beat that third loop, but I’m satisfied with completing two loops and moving on to the next game on my enormous list.

The basic strategy for Tiger-Heli takes advantage of the enemies’ poor aiming capabilities. Enemies fire toward you but only in eight directions, so the idea is to sit inside the areas where they are unable to hurt you. Once they fire and miss, you then have a brief window to line up and destroy them. I found the red support helicopters quite useful because they fire sideways and then you can approach the bad guys from either the sides or below. The quicker you can take out enemies, the easier time you have dodging other attacks.

Here’s a fun little side note. As I mentioned earlier, Toaplan created the “Tiger” trilogy of Tiger-Heli, Twin Cobra, and Twin Cobra II, and the first two games received NES ports. I discovered this while I was writing up my review on Sky Shark a little while ago. One of my quirks of this project is that I switched games around on the master list so that sequels always come after I have played the previous installments. In this case, I had no idea Tiger-Heli and Twin Cobra were related at all. I normally avoid looking at the full list as much as possible, but here I had to see where both games landed on the list and swap them if necessary. Of course, Twin Cobra originally slotted here at Game #62 instead, so I had to switch them. I ended up with a free peek just a few slots ahead by coincidence. I also know now where Twin Cobra will appear on my list. I won’t spoil when that will be, but let’s just say it will be a very long time before I get around to it.

Micronics has a reputation for creating poor ports of NES games, but I think Tiger-Heli is one of their better ones. Now it’s not a great game, but it plays just fine. The gameplay seems to resemble the arcade version close enough. The graphics are a step down from the arcade version, but are passable on the NES. The music is neither notable nor annoying. Gameplay is on the slower side, but there are no performance issues like slowdown. There is a massive amount of flickering whenever there’s a lot going on, but they seemed to work around it about as well as they could without some of the more advanced techniques programmed into later NES games. I may sound a little down on Tiger-Heli, but the fact is that it is a simple game that is competent on the one hand and unexciting on the other. According to Steve Kent’s book The Ultimate History of Video Games, Tiger-Heli on NES sold over a million copies. That’s astounding to me. It also answers why I’ve seen the game so frequently. Today, it’s nothing more than a filler NES title, but you could do much worse than playing Tiger-Heli. Besides, you probably already own it!