Here’s another accurately named game.

He’s so bad.

To Beat: Reach the ending
My Goal: Beat the game with the Power Glove
What I Did: Beat the game
Played: 7/2/19 – 7/21/19
Difficulty: 8/10
My Difficulty: 8/10
My Video: Bad Street Brawler Longplay

This is another one of those milestone posts. There aren’t too many of them left, so let’s enjoy them while we can! Not only am I going to cover Bad Street Brawler, but we are also going to talk about the Power Glove. While maybe an odd choice for a compatible title, it does bear the label “Power Glove Gaming Series” on the cart. Sadly, it doesn’t play very well as one, leading me to believe this was just tacked on and not specifically designed to work with the peripheral. Still, I made it a point to play this game with the glove and try to make sense of it for you.

Bad Street Brawler was originally named Bop’n Rumble when it released on the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS in 1987. In Australia, the game was renamed Street Hassle. This game was developed by Beam Software and published by Mindscape. The NES version was renamed to Bad Street Brawler when it released as a Power Glove compatible title in September 1989. This port was also developed by Beam Software but published by Mattel, the manufacturer of the Power Glove accessory.

The Power Glove was an officially licensed peripheral for the NES that was made by Mattel, releasing in October 1989, a month after Bad Street Brawler. The Power Glove was heavily inspired by the Dataglove originally created by Thomas Zimmerman. VGL, Zimmerman and Jaron Lanier’s company, partnered with Abrams/Gentile Entertainment to possibly adapt the glove for video games. They pitched the idea to Mattel, who eventually pitched the idea to Nintendo, making it a reality for the holiday season in 1989. The Power Glove ended up selling well but didn’t work very well with Nintendo’s back catalog of games. There were only two NES games released for it before the glove was discontinued the following year. Still, it remains one of the most recognizable gaming peripherals of all time. You could say it laid the framework for motion controls in more modern gaming, such as the Wii and today’s VR headsets. There is a very good documentary from The Gaming Historian that will give you much more information about the glove’s history.

Imparting words of wisdom as you practice.

The Power Glove is a right-handed controller that you wear on your arm attached by Velcro. A wire from the Power Glove connects to a box that has a second wire going to the NES and the third to a set of three sensors that are positioned around the TV screen. The glove contains two ultrasonic speakers that interface with the three ultrasonic microphones on the sensors by the TV. This triangulates the glove’s position so that it can detect both roll and yaw. Conductive ink in the fingers allows the glove to detect finger bends from all fingers aside from the pinky. All these inputs translate into button presses on the NES. A set of lights on the corner TV sensor translates which directions and buttons are held down. The glove comes with 14 built-in programs that you can set with number buttons on the glove. These programs map movements and gestures to NES button presses. Bad Street Brawler comes with its own program along with some special programs that can be used in other NES games. First you initialize the program on Bad Street Brawler, then you turn the game off and quickly insert a new cartridge while the glove briefly “remembers” the program during power down. The Power Glove also has the same buttons as an NES controller so that you can use the glove as a controller itself or get direct inputs while using the glove. Finally, the Center button on the glove resets the positioning in relation to the sensors during a game. The Power Glove came with a couple of detailed manuals that show how the glove can be used and which programs might work best for some games.

Bad Street Brawler doesn’t have much of a story. You play as Duke Davis, a definitive 1980s Cool Guy. He wears big sunglasses with a yellow vest and green shorts. Basically, the streets are filled with criminals and Duke wants to clean up the streets. He will beat up the bad guys and take their weapons, throwing them away in the dumpster after each stage. In this game there are 15 levels and you must clear them all to beat the game.

Cleaning up the streets of short men and dogs.

The controls in this game are simple enough … with a controller that is. Use the D-pad to move around Left or Right. Press Down to duck and press Up to jump. You have three different attacks at your disposal in each stage called Force Moves. One is triggered with A, the second with B, and the third with both A and B pressed together. You can also press Start to pause the game. Controlling the game with the Power Glove is more cumbersome. Your steady arm movements control Duke’s movements. Move the glove up, down, left, or right to move Duke in that direction. The A button move is performed by rotating your wrist left or right. This action both moves Duke in the turned direction while rapidly pressing A. Bend your thumb to do the B button move. Bend the middle finger to perform the A and B button move. (I bend all my fingers aside from the thumb for this.) If you push the glove forward toward the screen, you do a special move once per stage called the Glove Zap. This automatically defeats one enemy. From watching the lights on the sensor, I learned the Glove Zap is actually performed by pressing both Left and Right together, which makes this move impossible to perform on a standard controller and making it ”exclusive” to the Power Glove.

Each level flows the same way. You begin on the left and need to make your way to the right. Enemies will appear two at a time on screen. You can fight them or you can simply run all the way to the right. Each level has three points where the scrolling stops and you are forced to fight a couple of bad guys before continuing. At the bottom of the screen you see your health bar, the active enemy’s health bar, your score, and lives remaining. The top of the screen displays some buildings that indicate how far along you are in the stage. Every three levels there is a stronger encounter, often with a unique enemy, at the end of the stage. The music changes to signal the event. Upon victory, you are rewarded with an extra scene of Duke celebrating his win or chatting with the local media.

At the beginning of each stage, you are placed on a special screen. You can read some encouraging words from Duke as well as practice your moves against a punching bag. The Force Moves change between levels and each stage has its own set of three moves. This gives the game some variety since you can’t get comfortable with any one move. It is helpful to see what moves you get in a safe space before tackling the level itself.

You leap during some attacks which lets you dodge too.

There are fifteen Force Moves in the game broken up in the manual into three groups. The first group is called the Fast-Footwork Force Moves. The Drop Kick is a standard kick. A Sweep Kick is a low kick that knocks the enemy into the air and stuns him briefly. Trip just knocks a guy down by pulling his legs out from under him. While attacking, you duck down and can avoid some attacks. The Roundhouse Kick is a powerful move with a very long windup that leaves you vulnerable. The High Kick is similar to the Drop Kick, only Duke does a tiny hop during this kick. I like this move a lot because the hop also dodges enemy bullets.

The next set of moves are the Fist-To-Fist Force Moves. Punch is just a standard attack. The Pile Driver lifts an enemy over your head before slamming him literally into the ground, stunning him briefly. The Stooge Hit is analogous to the Roundhouse Kick. It has a significant windup but is pretty strong. The Ear Twist is such a goofy move. You grab the guy by his ears and pull on them. You can hold the move down for a little while and increase the damage. The Arm Spin acts similar to the Ear Twist. You grab an attacker by the arm and spin them around. You can hold the move for more damage, then toss the enemy behind you. It’s a nice move for avoiding combat.

The final set is Fancy Force Moves. In the Aeroplane Spin, you lift an enemy overhead, spin him around a while, and then throw him to the ground. The Body Fling is another attack that doubles as a dodge. You jump into the air and slam on top of an enemy, sending him into the ground with a brief stun. The Gut Knee is an amazing move. You grab the enemy slamming your knee into his gut. This knocks the bad guy into the air, putting you in the best position to grab him again while on the way down to land another Gut Knee. The Head Butt causes the enemy to recoil a bit on attack. Lastly, the Bull Ram does a brief dash forward and you toss the enemy into the air.

The Gut Knee is positively overpowered.

There are a few items in the game. An orange spy often appears after forced encounters. Sometimes he will drop a bomb that hurts you if on screen when it blows up. You need to either move forward quickly or hit the bomb with a low attack to disable it. The spy also can drop a heart with wings. Grab it to restore all your health. Some fallen enemies also drop a weapon. You just collect these for points later. At the end of each stage, you see a cutscene where Duke throws each item into a dumpster and gets points for each one.

You start the game with two extra lives. You can earn more lives every 10,000 points. However, you cap off at five lives and any earned beyond that are forfeited. Every death starts the stage over. You can continue twice with a fresh set of lives from the same stage you died. Your score resets to 0, but you do get a chance to enter your initials on the high score list!

This was my first time beating Bad Street Brawler. I first played the game a few years ago for the Nintendo Age contests and reached the final level, only to fail pretty hard when I got there. This is a relatively common game though I do not know if it sold as well as the Power Glove did the first year. I have had a few copies of the game through buying lots. It will only cost you around $5-$7 if you are looking for one.

If you were paying attention, I sort of gave this away already. Unfortunately, I did not complete this game with the Power Glove. Not even close. I spent about three weeks with this game with the intent of beating it with the Power Glove but the results were too inconsistent. The furthest I reached was Stage 8, which is honestly an achievement in and of itself. Most of my runs ended in Stage 3. The mix of enemies, the available Force Moves, and no healing item until the 2/3 point of the level caused me to crumble up a lot. The first time I cleared Level 3, the game locked up on me and I was forced to reset. Perhaps I should have taken that as a sign to move on, but I kept at it. I had a few runs to Stage 5 and one or two to Stage 6 or 7. There wasn’t even any sign of continual improvement because good attempts were scattered among multiple Stage 3 failures. I do think if I kept at it for a long time, maybe things would have clicked and I would have figured it out. Ultimately, I did not want another Ikari Warriors situation where I spent four months on the same game. Settling on a controller clear for this game sounded just as good. I bought a Power Glove with the intent to use it for both this game and Super Glove Ball, so when I reach that game I will have to make good on clearing it with the glove.

Thank you trench coat man for this helpful healing heart.

This game is still difficult even on controller. Many of the enemies in this game are borderline unfair. A baseball bat wielding punk is a common enemy that normally isn’t hard to deal with. If I let him get close enough to hit me, I normally get whacked a few times before I can counter or escape. Skateboarders telegraph their attacks somewhat, but if you get hit it drops 40% of your health bar in one shot. Good luck if you have to fight two of them at once. Knife-wielding women are hard to approach when they start throwing blades. The worst enemy in the game is the break dancer guy. When he rolls around, he is invincible. You have to get close enough to get him to stand up but stay far enough away to hit him. Then you only get one hit in before his routine loops. Normally I try and jump over him but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I will say most stages are pretty easy. You can run past most of the level and get at least one health refill in the stage. Some Force Moves let you dodge attacks and some let you stun lock enemies where you hit them over and over before they can recover. The levels without these helpful moves are much harder to clear.

My winning run of the game was one of those magical, miracle runs. It started off well enough. Stage 12 is one of those tough levels that typically costs me several lives, but I coasted through everything else. I reached the final stage with 3 lives and both continues but then it all went downhill. The last stage is very hard. It starts off with two break dancers, and then the first forced fight is between a break dancer and a knife thrower. Most of the time I didn’t get past that part. Then you have to pass the next third of the level before you can get a health refill. On one life I scrolled away the health pickup and died shortly thereafter. It was starting to look like a failed run. On my last life of my last continue, I finally broke through. I just barely survived the first section with only two health points left, and I got down to one just before I got the health refill. I had a solid final boss fight to put this game in the books.

Avoidance is good strategy but doesn’t always work.

I would go as far to say that playing with the Power Glove worked out better than I expected. After all, I’ve heard plenty of tales over the years that the Power Glove is unplayable garbage and what have you. Some facets of the Glove worked out better than others. The directional movements were pretty much spot on. The first thing to figure out is how to position your arm in the sweet spot. For me, it was about 5-6 feet away from the TV screen in the center of the three sensors. You will have to center the glove a ton with the Center button, but Bad Street Brawler provides enough opportunities to do that without pausing. Twisting my wrist to the right worked out okay, but to twist left far enough I had to lift my elbow which was very uncomfortable. The finger bends were by far the most inconsistent, or at worst not working at all. The instructions say to make a fist a few times to calibrate the glove. Maybe I wasn’t doing it right, but I had wildly varying results that often changed mid-game. Grabbing with my four fingers worked much of the time, but bending my thumb rarely worked. Losing the thumb control cost me one entire move unless I used the B button on the glove. I only got it to work well once or twice.

I know I have not made a case for the Power Glove being feasible as a controller, but perhaps I am still optimistic. The trick seems to be finding the optimal conditions. Unfortunately, the documentation around this feels incomplete. This is my best guess at what you need to do to set it up properly, at least for Bad Street Brawler. Get your arm into that sweet spot I mentioned above: In the center of the sensor zone about 5-6 feet away from the TV screen. Press Start to get to the menu, hold your glove in position, center it, make 2-3 gentle fists, center it again, then start the game. On the intro screen, test out all your moves. Make more fists and re-center as often as needed. Now, I couldn’t get it to work consistently well so this is still not optimal. I would say, at best, I was operating about 80% as efficiently as I would with a controller. The Glove Zap is quite helpful when used strategically, closing that control gap a tiny amount. If I could get the calibration routine right, really homed in my Power Glove dexterity, and keep the glove from going out of whack randomly in the middle of a level, I could definitely see me beating the game this way. But that’s just too many factors that have to line up to make it happen, in any sensible timeframe at least.

I understand why Bad Street Brawler was selected as the first of the Power Glove Gaming Series. It is an inherently simple game. Simply walk left to right and beat up a few bad guys using rotating move sets. It’s not a great game though. The graphics are okay, but the color choices are garish are unappealing. The music is just okay. It’s a little bit catchy at times but the tunes are short loops that may become grating. The controls work well with a standard controller and poorly with the Power Glove. The gameplay, despite trying to vary things, is essentially repeating the same things. Some of the enemies, even the early ones, can cheap shot you unfairly. While it is fun and encouraged to stun lock enemies, getting stun locked yourself is frustrating. Overall, this is a below average game. It has kind of grown on me though and I do like it a little bit.

#130 – Bad Street Brawler

Maybe this game should have been called Skate or Die instead.

They aren’t even shy about this being a Konami game.

To Beat: Reach the Ending
Played: 12/30/16 – 1/2/17
Difficulty: 6/10
My Difficulty: 6/10
Video: Rollergames Longplay

I used to go roller skating often growing up. The local roller rink was the place to be for young kids on a Friday night, and even though I was not particularly good at skating I still enjoyed being there with my friends. It wasn’t until years later that I learned about the contact sport roller derby, and it just so happens there is also an NES game based on the sport. With a library this vast, I guess I should not be so surprised!

The sport of roller derby originated in the 1930s. The game is played with two teams of skaters who skate laps around a banked track. The object of the game is to score points by having a designated member of the team lap opposing players. The sport grew in popularity during the 1940s and 1950s. As interest started to decline, and as television became more prominent, the sport shifted more toward storylines and theatrics and away from pure competition. Since then the sport has shifted back toward its competitive roots. Roller derby has seen a resurgence beginning in the early 2000s, predominately in all-female leagues.

In the middle of all this is Rollergames, a 1989 TV show that went all in on the theatrical approach to roller derby. There were changes made for Rollergames, such as introducing a figure eight shaped track instead of the traditional banked oval track. Rollergames is like the WWE with a heavy focus on rivalries and storylines. The show was quite popular, but despite that it only ran for one season because some of the show’s producers when bankrupt.

Complete with broadcasters!

There are two video games based on Rollergames. The first is an arcade title of the same name developed by Konami in 1990. The gameplay is modeled closely after the TV show. The second name is the NES version of Rollergames, also developed by Konami and published under the Ultra Games label. This version is also influenced by the show, but it plays more as a classic beat-em-up game. It was released in the US in September 1990 and in Europe in October 1991. It was not released in Japan or ported to any other systems.

Rollergames is a side-scrolling beat-em-up game with some platforming elements included. Members of a criminal organization have corrupted three of the Rollergames teams leading to the capture of the league commissioner, and the only people that can save him are the members of the other three good teams. The introductory cutscenes frame the game as a storyline fitting of the TV show. You must complete all six levels to save the commissioner and win the game.

At the start of each level, one of the sideline reporters asks you which team you would like to choose. You can pick either Ice Box of the Thunderbirds, Rolling Thunder of the Hot Flash, and California Kid of the Rockers. Each character plays differently so that you want to choose the team best suited to clear the current level. Ice Box is the slow but powerful character, while Rolling Thunder is the weak, but speedy character. California Kid is naturally the balanced choice.

You can knock down the bad guys quickly.

The controls are very natural. Use the D-Pad to skate in all eight directions. The A button is for jumping and the B button is used to attack. The standard attack is a basic punch, but you can do a jump kick by pressing B during a jump. You also have a special attack that you trigger by pressing both A and B at the same time. Each character has a slightly different special move. Ice Box does a body slam, Rolling Thunder does a spinning jump kick, and California Kid has a double jump kick. The moves are powerful but you are limited to only three per level, so use them wisely.

The levels all play from a side-scrolling perspective, but there are two different types of levels. The normal levels can scroll in all directions and you progress linearly through the level. There are many slopes to navigate and pits to jump across, as well as other enemies and traps that stand in your way. These can be quite tricky to clear while on roller skates! As you go, you will run into groups of enemy skaters and you must beat them all up before moving forward. Three normal levels revolve around each of the bad teams, which are the Bad Attitude, Maniacs, and Violators, and these levels have two sections each. The final level is in this normal style but it has four parts.

The other type of level is an auto-scrolling level. The skater of your choice is always moving forward here and the goal is to survive to the end. These levels follow along a broken highway so there are many gaps to cross. Of course, there are also various obstacles, traps, and enemies to contend with. These levels also feature boss-like encounters, but all you need to focus on is dodging the attacks until they go away, ending the stage.

Roads are always under construction!

At the top of the screen, there is a timer in the middle. This countdown only applies to the normal stages where you have to move ahead on your own pace. At the lower left is a vertical health bar. Your skater can suffer several hits before losing a life, though falling down a pit or landing on spikes results in immediate, swift death. The lower right area shows markers that indicate how many special attacks are remaining for the stage. There is a separate screen at the start of each stage that displays your score, high score, current level, and number of lives remaining. There are no powerups in the game for replenishing any of these elements. However, you can earn an extra life when reaching either 20,000, 50,000, or 80,000 points.

The obvious gimmick to Rollergames is that you play the entire game while on roller skates. As a result, your character controls in a fitting manner. It’s akin to playing a game with nothing but ice levels and ice physics. The skaters are generally slow to accelerate and slow to come to a stop. Often, I found myself making quick turns in a different direction than where I was moving to keep myself from falling. The game has various sections of platforming where you need clear gaps of different sizes. Not only that, but there are falling platforms, moving platforms, and crumbling floors to deal with. It’s a tough combination to work with and there is much trial and error involved to learn the right moves.

Slopes and tiny jumps on roller skates don’t mix.

The game balances this difficulty out in several ways. The levels tend to be reasonably short with checkpoints after every sublevel. The hand-to-hand combat is simple and the enemies themselves don’t pose much of a threat. Lastly, there are infinite continues in the game, so you can keep banging away at each level until you clear it. You always start at the beginning of each sublevel if you die, so once you reach the checkpoint you don’t have to play past sections again.

Seeing as it’s a Konami game in the middle of the NES lifespan, Rollergames is a quality title. Not only do the controls make sense, but the game has good graphics and some excellent music. It’s the soundtrack that really stands out overall. In my mind, it has a similar sound to TMNT II and III. Maybe that is because both games are beat-em-ups, but regardless it sounds good and it suits the game well.

I first played Rollergames last year for the NintendoAge weekly contest. Unfortunately, I did not have much time to play that week and I only reached Stage 2. That was barely any experience so this was the first time I seriously played Rollergames. This was one of those filler titles that I acquired in a random NES game lot that I purchased back in my collecting heyday. When it showed up on the list, I knew that Rollergames was a pretty good game that is easily overlooked, so I was happy to play through it.

This part is particularly devilish.

I beat Rollergames over two days and those two days just happened to fall on either side of New Years, making this the first game I have played for the project over two separate years. On the first attempt, I reached Stage 5-1 and this is where I got stuck. The first part of level isn’t all that bad, but the section right before the checkpoint is pretty nasty. You have to cross along the edge of a cliff where the ground periodically crumbles away in front of you. It forces you to move slowly to reveal the hidden gaps, and then you must back up enough to get the momentum to leap to the other side. But you must be careful not to go too far past the hole or you will fall into the next one. It wouldn’t be so bad if the controls weren’t slippery, but here it’s a pretty evil little section under the game’s ground rules. After several attempts at Stage 5-1 I turned the game off for the night.

The next time I sat down to play, I performed decently up to 5-1. After many new attempts, I reached 5-2 and from there I pushed my way through to the very end. I recorded my playthrough on video, but it was the ugliest playthrough I have recorded so far. There are several sections that must be practiced, and without any of that experience I died a bunch of times until I made it through. There are enough problem spots that I would have to beat the game a few times just to record a decent run. However, a game finish doesn’t have to be pretty to count, so I’ll accept this one and move on!

Rollergames is a fun game that I enjoyed playing. It’s got that Konami standard level of polish to it with solid controls, good gameplay, nice graphics, and catchy music. The one problem with the game is that there’s a significant amount of platforming that doesn’t properly fit the game’s slippery physics. It makes this game less accessible than other NES games of similar style right off the bat. If you can get by the initial hurdles, I think you would enjoy playing the game. It’s also an inexpensive cart for the collector or player insisting on the original cart. It’s too bad that it is overlooked because I think it deserves more recognition than it receives.

#45 – Rollergames