Let Nigel guide you through this racing season.

World Championship Challenge may be a better name.

To Beat: Win the Championship
Played: 6/1/20 – 6/13/20
Difficulty: 8/10
My Difficulty: 8/10
My Video: Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing Longplay

In a perfect world, I would be able to crank out these reviews roughly in line with when I beat the game.  It turns out I enjoy playing the games more than writing about them, so naturally I’ve fallen behind.  For this game, it may work to my benefit to be behind.  This is the second racing game I have beaten for this project, but between beating the game and writing this review I have already beaten a third racing game.  My struggles with all three games have indicated that I am not good at racing games.  Because of that, in part, I also do not like them very much.  I don’t have to like the game to recognize that this is a solid racing game.

Nigel Mansell had a 15-year career in Formula One racing, active from 1980 through 1995.  His early career started out slow but when he joined the Williams racing team in 1985 he became a real contender for the World Championship.  He finished second overall in both 1986 and 1987 and placed Top 10 for the next several years. After a brief foray with the Ferrari team in 1989 and 1990, he went back to Williams in 1991.  That year he placed second for the third time in his career.  Finally, in 1992, he had his best year and won the World Championship.  Due to some disagreements with his team, he switched over to the CART series for the 1993 season, where he won that as well.  That made him both Formula One and CART champions at the same time, the only racer to ever accomplish this feat.  He returned to Formula One for 1994 and 1995, retiring for good after the 1995 season.

Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing was first released on the Amiga in 1992.  It was developed and published by Gremlin Graphics.  The company changed names to Gremlin Interactive Limited in 1994 and was acquired by Infogrames in 1999 before closing down in 2003.  The game was widely ported to other home computers and game consoles mostly in 1993, including the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis.  The NES version was released in October 1993, developed by Gremlin Graphics and published by Gametek.  The game was also released in Europe in 1993, slightly retitled to Nigel Mansell’s World Championship and published by Gremlin.

Ready. Set. Go!

Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing is a Formula One simulation game.  You have the option to run single races, but the meat of the game is the full season mode.  This is a 16-race season.  Depending on your placement at the end of each race, you are awarded points that are cumulative throughout the season.  To beat the game, you must complete the season as the points leader.

At the title screen, where the game is named Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Challenge for some reason, press Start to advance to name entry.  The game tells you on screen the controls for entering your name, which is nice!   You can enter your name up to 13 characters, then there’s a forced space, and then the final 3 characters for your country.  One thing to note here is that the character entry is extremely touchy.  You can scroll through characters quickly but you have to tap briefly to advance one at a time.  After entering your name, you go to the main menu.  Here you can choose to run a single race or the full season mode, as well as a training mode called “Improve with Mansell.”  You can also toggle the music on and off.

The driving is very straightforward.  The game takes place from behind the wheel.  Use the D-pad Left and Right to steer the car.  For manual transmission, press Up or Down to shift gears.  There are six gears in this engine.  Press and hold A to accelerate, and press B to hit the brakes.  The bottom of the screen shows all the information you need.  On the bottom left, you see the current lap timer as well as how far ahead or how far behind you are in time from first place.  The middle contains the track map as well as your current position ranking and current lap.  The bottom right shows your speedometer and gear setting, as well as a meter denoting the quality of your tires.

Set up your car for peak performance.

The setup of your car is important to how well it will perform during the race.  You can set the transmission, tires, and the angle of the wing on the back of the car.  First up is manual vs automatic transmission.  Manual transmission translates to faster driving because you can more optimally shift gears, but it requires more skill to pull off.  The tire choice determines how they wear out and the amount of grip they have.  Hard tires wear slower, but they have less grip making it harder to turn.  Wet tires are very useful during rainy weather conditions.  With a wet track, the wet tires wear out same as the hard tires and handle turns well.  In dry conditions, the wet tires wear out the fastest and handle the poorest.  For the wings, the angle determines the acceleration and handling of the car.  A low angle of 10% gives the car the best acceleration but poorest cornering.  The angle of 30% is the opposite: The acceleration is degraded but the cornering is the best.  You can also choose in the middle at 20%.

The single race option is good for trying out the game.  You begin with the Track Select screen.  Each track is represented by the flag of the country it is located, and when you hover over the flag you can see the map of the track below.  Choose a track to go to course information.  You’ll see the name of the course and the map, as well as the distance, fastest lap, weather conditions, and number of laps.  After this screen, you’ll have a submenu.  Setup lets you configure your car for the race.  Now you can either qualify for the race or jump straight into the race.  When qualifying, you run a single lap of the course, and the ranking of times from fastest to slowest among the 12 total racers determines everyone’s starting position for the race.  If you go directly to the race without qualifying, you always begin at the very end of the starting lineup.  After the race, you’ll see how you placed, followed by the full leaderboard of all 12 racers.

May the pits be ever in your favor.

The Improve with Mansell mode functions similarly to setting up a single race.  First you go to track selection, then the circuit information screen.  Next you go straight to the setup screen for customizing your car.  Now you are ready to drive.  You will run the full number of laps with Nigel’s floating head in the upper right the entire time, with no other drivers on the track.  There is a race line arrow that shows you generally how you should align yourself throughout this race.  Nigel will give you tips as you drive, from basic stuff like staying on the track and staying in the racing line, to important information like watching your tires so you remember to make a pit stop.  When you finish the laps, you go back to the main menu.  The purpose of this mode is not to go fast, but to drive accurately.  While it is helpful to learn the basics, you will need to learn how to handle the courses at or near top speed to win races.

The main mode in the game is the full season mode.  Since this is a long mode, there are passwords, which are 14 characters long consisting up all consonants, digits, and the period.  The entry screen also has the same finicky character selection as name entry, making passwords frustrating to input.  Upon either continuing a game or starting a new one, the rest of the mode functions the same as a standard race.  You get course information, you can configure your car, and you can optionally run a qualifying lap before starting the race.  You will run all 16 races one at a time until a champion is crowned.

This was my first time playing Nigel Mansell’s Championship Racing.  This is an uncommon, late release, however I’ve been able to find this one locally several times.  My local store had it at one point for pretty cheap, either $5 or $10, and that’s where I got mine.  I know I bought some locally and at least one more on eBay in a lot.  Loose carts of the game sell for $15 or so.  I think my local store sells it for $20 now.

The wide cars can be difficult to pass.

It’s a small sample size so far, but I have learned that racing games such as this one demand a high level of skill to compete against the computer.  Furthermore, this game is biased against you in some unexpected ways.  Take qualifying as an example.  It is common to make a mistake or two in qualifying and end up in last place by many seconds.  To make this worse, you have to navigate around other cars during your lap.  Qualifying is supposed to be just you and the track, nothing else.  When you bump into a car from behind, your car always drops a gear, which is frustrating when driving manual.  That also drives home the importance of figuring out how to qualify on top in as many races as possible.  Other racers are large on the screen, easy to bump into, and usually tricky to pass.  Probably the biggest hurdle in the game is that the other racers never take a pit stop, where you will always have to take one in the middle of the race.  Moreover, the pit stops take anywhere from 5 to 9 seconds, and it is random.  At least you can take as much time as you want to choose your new tires.  This is not an easy game to beat.

Figuring out the car setup was very important.  I went with manual transmission all the way.  I learned that even though the soft tires wear more quickly, you can still run every race with only one required pit stop.  The better handling of the soft tires was the clear winner.  Of course, use the wet tires if it is raining, obvious best choice there.  For the angle I eventually settled on 20 degrees.  Early on in the playthrough I varied a lot, winning some races with hard tires and 10 degrees, and others with soft tires and 30 degrees.

The best way to win races is to get yourself into first place as early as possible.  With no one in front of me, it was much easier to build up a good lead.  Usually this means qualifying in first place, but sometimes I settled for lower than that, especially on difficult tracks.  Many times I qualified lower but worked my way to first before pitting.  You really want to build up a much of a lead as possible since you will lose time during your mandatory pit stop.  You do need to get lucky to get a short pit time since it is random.  It’s very frustrating to get several seconds ahead, then be behind and unable to catch up because you got stuck with a 9 second pit stop.  But that’s the way it goes.

Sweet victory!

My strategy on racing games with a leaderboard is that I always want to be in first place at every point in the season.  In this playthrough, I mostly accomplished that.  I struggled learning the first track and settled for a second place finish after trying over and over.  Then I won the next two races and earned an 8-point lead.  I maintained the lead the rest of the way.  This was the point in the game that I noticed that the other top racers tend to share the leaderboard points.  There is no clear rival in this game, and any racer can win one race and end up fifth or sixth the next race.  The placements tend to be random.  Sometimes this meant I could place lower than I wanted and still feel comfortable proceeding because I only lost a point or two on the leaderboard between me and second place overall.  Over the 16 races my lead varied quite a lot.  I got down to a 4-point lead, then later built up a 20-point lead, and finally finished 5 points ahead.

There’s one final point I want to make.  My longplay video for this game is just stitched together with the final attempts at each race before moving on.  I spent nearly 11 hours of attempts to come up with the 2.5 hour longplay.  Very few times did I place well enough in consecutive attempts.  I absolutely abused the password system, and I expect that most people that play through this game will do the same.  There’s no sense in accepting bad results when you can just input the previous password and try again.  I set up the video to make it look like I did the whole game single segment, but I assure you that I did not.

Nigel Mansell’s World Champion Racing is a pretty good racer.  This is a good looking game.  The cars are well detailed, the scrolling is smooth, and there are some neat effects such as hills when driving and the accurate rear view mirrors from inside your car.  The tunes that play in the menus and leaderboards are pleasing to the ears.  It doesn’t bother me that there are only car noises and sound effects during gameplay.  The controls during driving work great, and they are annoying and tedious when inputting names and passwords.  The racing itself is well done with good track variety.  The races don’t overstay their welcome at 4-6 laps each.  The game is a little long, but not too bad.  The game does things that are unfair, but it is structured in a way where you can mitigate that.  I still don’t enjoy racing games, but I can’t deny that this one is quality.

#159 – Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing

WHEEL!  OF!  FORTUNE!

You get to hear it here, too.

To Beat: Win the Bonus Round
To Complete: Beat the Game on Difficulty 3
What I Did: Completed the Game
Played: 1/6/20
Difficulty: 2/10
My Difficulty: 2/10
My Video: Wheel of Fortune Longplay

Game show games were quite popular on the NES with over a dozen titles on the console.  Looking at the list, I would say there is a good mix of games here.  Some of them are from short-lived game shows that just happened to be airing at the time.  Others were from shows that I suppose were only popular enough to generate exactly one NES game, even though some of them have had the staying power on TV up to the current day.  The bulk of NES game show games come from two juggernauts of TV game shows.  Both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune generated four NES games each, and both series are still running strong as ever.  I have completed one Jeopardy! game to date and now I get to see what Wheel of Fortune on NES has to offer.

Wheel of Fortune has had a somewhat complicated history.  The show was created by Merv Griffin and premiered on NBC daytime TV in 1975, shortly after the first run of Jeopardy! was cancelled.  Chuck Woolery was the original host, Susan Stafford was the original hostess, and Charlie O’Donnell was the original narrator.  The daytime version ran until 1989, switched to CBS until 1991, then back to NBC briefly until it was cancelled for good later in 1991.  Meanwhile, a nighttime syndicated version debuted in 1983 with Pat Sajak as the host and Vanna White as the hostess.  This version of the show is still running with the same two hosts.  Pat Sajak, as of September 2019, is now the longest running host of any game show.

There has been a slew of Wheel of Fortune games based on the familiar syndicated TV version, too many games to list.  The series almost started out on the Atari 2600 in 1983, but that version was cancelled.  The first video game adaptation appeared in 1987 on personal computers, developed by Sharedata and published by Gametek.  This version was ported to the NES by Rare and published by Gametek for release in September 1988.  The NES version is exclusive to North America.  There would be three more NES versions of Wheel of Fortune released between 1989 and 1992.

Samantha and Rachel don’t stand a chance.

Wheel of Fortune is pretty much a game show version of hangman for three contestants.  A word puzzle is placed on the main board with all letters hidden and a clue is provided, such as person, phrase, thing, etc.  Each player on her turn may spin the wheel to determine a potential cash prize value.  When a dollar value is spun, the contestant guesses a consonant.  If the letter is found in the puzzle, she wins that amount of money for each occurrence of that letter as that letter is revealed on the puzzle.  From there, she may spin again, spend some of her winnings to buy a vowel, or choose to solve the puzzle.  Any miss passes control to the next player.  When a puzzle is solved, only the winning player’s money for the round is added to her total.  After several rounds, a speed-up round is played with slightly different rules.  The contestant with the most money goes on to the bonus round, and she wins a fabulous prize if she guesses the final puzzle.  To beat this game, you need to win a single game as one of the contestants, including the bonus round.

First you need to set the options to start the game.  This starts with choosing the number of players from 1 to 3.  Players 1 and 3 share controller 1 while Player 2 gets controller 2.  Computer players will cover any remaining players so that all games are three player games.  In that case, you also choose a difficulty level from 1 to 3 of the computer players.  Next, each human player enters a name up to 8 characters.  Use the D-pad Left or Right to move the cursor and press either A or B to enter a letter.  An arrow at the end of the letter list is the backspace, and you will select End to lock in your choice.  Gameplay starts after all names have been entered and randomly selected names for computer players appear at this time.

Typically, on your turn, you will want to choose spin, which brings up the big wheel on the screen.  A power meter is displayed and you press A or B to spin when it reaches the desired power level.  As the wheel spins there is a box at the top that shows what is on the current space on the wheel.  Most of the time this is a dollar amount ranging from $150 to $1000.  If you land on Miss a Turn, play passes to the next contestant.  The bankrupt space is the same as missing a turn, only you also lose your accrued winnings for the round.  It does not affect any money won in prior rounds.  There is also a Free Spin space.  You can hold your free spin and redeem it any time you lose your turn to try again.  If you spin a dollar value, then you get to choose a consonant.  The list of letters appears along with the puzzle and any letters already chosen for that round are removed from possible selection.  You do have a short time limit to choose your letter, else you forfeit your turn.

Try and aim for the big dollar values.

The other two options on your turn are to buy a vowel or solve the puzzle.  It costs $250 of the current round’s winnings to buy a vowel and you earn nothing no matter how many times the vowel is in the puzzle.  Missing with a vowel also ends your turn.  When solving the puzzle, you get 45 seconds to choose letters filling in all the missing spaces in the puzzle.  Take care to spell everything correctly because it has to be an exact match for you to win.  Choose End when you are confident you solved it correctly.  A correct solving ends the round, while a miss moves play to the next contestant.

While the TV version may play a different number of rounds depending on time, the NES version has set rounds.  Rounds 1 and 2 are handled the same way.  An empty puzzle is displayed and players take turns until the puzzle is solved.  In Round 1, player 1 goes first, and in Round 2, player 2 goes first.  Round 3 is the Speed Up round.  To start, the wheel spins until a dollar amount comes up.  That dollar amount is fixed for the duration of the round for all contestants.  Player 3 starts this round by choosing any letter.  Consonants are awarded money same as normal, and vowels award no money but can be chosen for free.  After selection, the contestant has a few seconds to decide whether or not to solve the puzzle.  As long as the puzzle remains unsolved, play continues immediately to the next player and keeps going until someone gets it right.

The player with the highest total winnings over all three rounds gets to play solo in the bonus round.  Before playing, you get to choose what prize you want to shoot for.  The selection for this is a little strange.  You see the first prize, a sports car, and you decide if you want to choose a different prize or not.  Choose Yes to go to the next prize and choose No to select.  Seems like it should be the reverse.  Anyway, after prize selection, you get a brand new puzzle and you get to choose five consonants and a vowel.  Any of the chosen letters are revealed in the puzzle and you get your one chance to solve the puzzle.  Get it right and you are the big winner!  After some brief fanfare, you go back to the title screen.

I still don’t know who he is.

It’s possible I have beaten Wheel of Fortune before.  I think I played it when I was younger, at least one of the NES versions.  It is a fun enough game and it is also very common.  Due to the ongoing popularity of the show I imagine it sold very well.  I’m pretty sure I have a few extra loose copies of this game around my house that I need to get rid of.

Wheel of Fortune is an easy clear.  A playthrough takes around 10 minutes depending on how the puzzles go.  Just keep trying until you win.  For my playthrough, I set the difficulty to 3, the highest level.  The game manual doesn’t elude to the difficulty levels at all, but I suspect it means that computer players are more likely to solve puzzles with fewer letters revealed on harder modes.  It took me five attempts to win the game.  Most of the time, I figured out the answer to a puzzle about the same time the computer solved it.  I didn’t win a single puzzle until my third try when I won all three puzzles and lost on the bonus round.  I chose RSTLNE, just like the default letters in the current show, but it didn’t do much help when the answer was Windshield Wiper.  On my winning run I got really lucky.  I knew the answer in the second round without any letters revealed, which was quite an exciting feeling.  In the bonus round I had 7 of 10 letters revealed for an easy finish.

A cousin of mine was on Wheel of Fortune years ago.  I think it was in 2004 or so.  I know I was in college at the time.  Her taping was on air on a Friday night and I stuck around a mostly empty dorm to watch it on TV.  The only place I could watch it was on the common room TV and the signal to the screen was just horrible.  People on the first floor used to splice the cable signal from the common TV to their own rooms, which didn’t help me out at all.  But it was good enough to watch the show.  The best part is that she won the game and the bonus round.  It is something special to watch a game show when the stakes are raised personally because you know the person playing.  I won’t forget it.  We were all very proud for her for being on the show at all and it was icing on the cake when she won.  I talked to my grandparents the next day.  My grandpa taped the show and made a bunch of copies and my grandma said she cried every time she watched it because he had to test out all the tapes.  Good stuff.

Wheel of Fortune on NES is a good adaptation of the show.  The rules and gameplay are mostly unchanged from current day, but there are plenty of new features in the show that obviously wouldn’t have appeared on the NES cart.  It represents a snapshot in time of how the game was played back then and you can see clearly how it has evolved since.  The game itself plays well, it has nice graphics and sound, and it can give you a challenge if you want one.  There are voice samples of the crowd yelling out the title.  You get a power meter to strategize how hard you want to spin.  Even the alerts of consonants only or vowels only are included.  The only downsides I see here are that some of the puzzles are outdated and that you eventually will see repeats among the 1000 or so puzzles in the game.  It’s not a modern way of playing the game, but it still works.

#144 – Wheel of Fortune

It’s an outdated version of the long running TV quiz show!

Includes the iconic theme song!

To Beat: Win a single round
To Complete: Win a single round on the highest difficulty
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 12/1/17 – 12/2/17
Difficulty: 2/10
My Difficulty: 2/10
Video: Jeopardy! Longplay

This is another one of these project milestones, as today I am covering the first game show game on the NES. Well, that’s only true if you don’t count American Gladiators, I suppose. Even at the time of the NES game release, Jeopardy! was already a popular, long-running TV game show. It is still going strong today and I doubt there is an end in sight. This NES game suffers solely because of its age as the questions and answers are now nearly 30 years old, but it holds true to the Jeopardy! formula we are familiar with.

Jeopardy! first appeared on NBC in 1964 as a daytime show. Merv Griffin is the show’s creator. The original version ran until early 1975, which slightly overlapped a brief nighttime syndicated version airing from 1974 to 1975. A new version called The All-New Jeopardy! aired on NBC for a few months during 1978 and 1979. The show would return for good in daily syndication beginning in September 1984. This is the version of the show that is still running today. Art Fleming hosted the first three runs of Jeopardy! with Don Pardo as the announcer for the first two runs and John Harlan for The All-New Jeopardy! The current run of Jeopardy! is hosted by Alex Trebek and announced by Johnny Gilbert. It has won 33 daytime Emmy Awards and is now in its 34th season.

There have been many video game adaptations of the show, ranging from the mid-1980s up to 2017. The first version was the 1987 release on Apple II, Commodore 64, and DOS. The NES has four distinct versions of Jeopardy! with the original release coming in September 1988. Jeopardy! Junior Edition released in October 1989 and Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary Edition followed in June 1990. Super Jeopardy! was the final NES release in September 1991. Rare developed and GameTek published all versions of Jeopardy! on the NES, and all were US exclusives. GameTek published most video game versions of the game show until they filed for bankruptcy in 1998.

The developers got the look and feel right.

Since the NES game follows the same flow as the TV show, it makes sense to cover a basic overview of how Jeopardy! is played. Three contestants play three rounds aiming to earn the most money to win. Clues are given as answers and the contestant must respond with the appropriate question to earn money. The winner, or champion, of the prior game of Jeopardy! returns to play again and can accumulate winnings over multiple shows for as long as he or she keeps winning. The returning champion sits on the left and begins each game by choosing the first clue.

In the first round, the main game board is filled with six categories of five clue each. Each clue is assigned a dollar amount representing a wager. The original run of Jeopardy! had values ranging from $10 to $50, and the current show ranges from $200 to $1000. Typically, the higher the value, the more difficult the clue. One contestant chooses the category and a dollar amount on the board, and the host reads the full answer. Then, contestants can buzz in and provide the question. Correct responses add the dollar amount to that person’s total, while incorrect responses take away the amount. Totals can dip into the negative. The contestant with the correct response may choose the next clue from the board, or if no one answers correctly then the original contestant may choose again. The round ends when all thirty clues have been given.

One clue hides a Daily Double. When a contestant chooses that clue, the Daily Double is announced and only that contestant may give a response. The player must provide a wager of his or her own choosing, ranging from $5 up to their current winnings. If a player doesn’t have any accrued winnings, he or she can choose from any wager remaining on the board. Then the clue is given and the contestant gets a brief time to respond. Dollar amounts are added or deducted just the same as in normal play. Finally, the contestant gets to choose the next clue for everyone to play.

The simple keyboard interface works well.

The second round is called Double Jeopardy! and it plays out the same way as the first round. Six new categories appear but this time the dollar values are doubled. The player with the lowest total from the prior round gets to choose the first clue. This round hides two Daily Doubles. Once all those clues have been given, then Final Jeopardy! is played. Only contestants with a positive score may play this round. Here only the category is given to start and players must wager a dollar amount of his or her choice from $0 up to their current winnings. Then the clue is revealed and each contestant writes down a response within a shared time limit. One at a time, each question is revealed and the wager is added for a correct response or deducted for an incorrect response. The player with the highest total wins the game.

The NES game begins by choosing the number of players. One to three players may compete with computer players filling in any open spots. Use the D-pad to choose and press either A or B to select how many human players will participate. Next, choose the Skill Level 1, 2, or 3. Then, one at a time, each player enters in a name up to six characters long. The D-pad scrolls the cursor and either A or B enters the character. The cursor may wrap around from any edge to the other side. Then a player character is displayed at the stand and the game asks if you want a new character. Choose Yes to swap in a different character as many times as you want, then choose No to lock that character in. The character selection repeats for all human players and is filled in automatically for computer players. Player 2 uses the second controller and Player 3 uses the first controller, if necessary. This holds true for the entire game.

The first round starts with six categories and dollar amounts ranging from $100 to $500. Player 1 gets to pick the first clue. Press Left or Right to select a category and press A or B to lock it in. Then use Up and Down to select the wager and press A or B. Next, the answer appears on screen along with a timer shown in the corner. Players can buzz in at any time. Player 1 must press any key on the D-pad on the first controller to buzz in. Player 2 does the same on the second controller, while Player 3 uses the A or B button on the first controller. I guess you have to set controllers on the floor or on a table when playing with three players.

This was when the match was going well for me.

When a player jumps in, the question entry screen appears. Inputting the question here is the same as entering in your name at the start of the game, but here there is a time limit for submitting your response. This is where the skill level comes into play. Skill level 1 gets 50 seconds, level 2 is 45 seconds, and level 3 is 40 seconds. These aren’t actually full seconds. Unless the skill level also makes computer players buzz in more quickly, the skill level doesn’t mean much at all. Anyway, you will enter in the response and then choose End to submit. You don’t have to phrase your response in the form of the question because the game handles it for you, which is convenient. Other players get a chance to buzz in if the wrong answer is given. Daily Doubles are also handled similarly where you can input the wager you want or choose from one of the preset wagers if you haven’t earned enough money.

Final Jeopardy! is handled a bit differently than the first two rounds. Normally, contestants all submit their wagers and responses at the same time by writing them down. To get around it here, each player submits their response and wager while the other players are asked to look away from the TV. Of course there’s the potential for cheating if players 2 and 3 aren’t honest, but there’s really no other way to do it on the NES. Once the final submissions are resolved and scores are tallied, someone is crowned the winner! The game goes back to the title screen from here.

I’m sure this was not my first time playing Jeopardy! on the NES. I mean, I don’t remember exactly. It’s not a long game and so I may have completed a full round or two just to see what it was like. I imagine this was the first time I won a game. I managed to beat Jeopardy! on my first time playing, though it took me three tries to win. In all games, I had a reasonable score but didn’t have the lead going into the last round. On the first try, I missed the final question, and on the second try I got it right but didn’t wager enough to win. I played better the third game and nailed the Final Jeopardy! round to claim victory.

Maybe you could figure out some of these clues. I couldn’t.

The clear problem with older versions of trivia games like this is that the information is outdated. Sure, there are general questions and answers that are more timeless in nature. It just seems like about half of the categories or clues have to do with musicians, movie stars, or TV personalities of that period, and most of that information isn’t common knowledge anymore. I just had to hope that the computer would miss or ignore the ones I couldn’t answer, while buzzing in quickly on ones I knew I could answer. I also needed to get a good enough mix of categories that catered more to my knowledge. Perhaps I came out a bit lucky to only need three attempts. As an NES game though, it’s an easy one and a relatively quick clear.

If you want to try out NES Jeopardy! for some reason, here are a few tips for success. Both first and last names are required when the clue is about a person. Spaces for multiple word submissions are not required, though spelling is pretty important to get right. For numbers, you can type out the word or just the digits. Be sure to give the plural form of the words if you are responding with “What are” instead of “What is.”

Those are all input related tips and are somewhat useful, but I do have a couple of more helpful trends I noticed about the computer players. Sometimes the computer will buzz in and get the question wrong, and when they do they will enter in gibberish. Their incorrect response is the same as the correct one only with most of the letters replaced by symbols, so from that you know both how long the correct response should be as well as some of the correct letters in the spelling. You can sometimes glean the correct solution from this, and it’s even better because the opponent also loses points from the wrong response that can help you get the right one. It’s also to your benefit to place a full Final Jeopardy! wager unless you have a commanding lead. Most rounds will be decided by Final Jeopardy! anyway and you have nothing to lose but time if it doesn’t pan out. If you have a really big lead, you can simply wager nothing and probably win. I never saw the computer place particularly large wagers anyway.

Jeopardy! on NES is a competently programmed game and a good adaptation of the popular show. You don’t need flashy graphics or presentation here, but what you get is more than good enough. It’s just nothing special, and it’s too bad that the outdated questions and answers make it even less fun to play now. It was an easy clear for me, and for that I am thankful and won’t complain. For anyone else though, I wouldn’t bother with it.

#64 – Jeopardy!

You can sort of get the experience with this lovely home version!

A contestant runs around the copyright page before the title.

To Beat: Reach the Ending
Played: 6/26/17 – 7/2/17
Difficulty: 6/10
My Difficulty: 6/10
Video: American Gladiators Playthrough

It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about Rollergames, and today we have another game based on a 90’s TV show that is right out of the same mold. They were both live-action shows that ran on TV at the same time. Both shows received an NES game to piggyback off the hype. Also, although American Gladiators on NES does a little better in this regard, both NES games deviate somewhat from the source material.

American Gladiators is a US TV show that aired in syndication from 1989 to 1996. It pits two men and also two women against each other in several events culminating in a final obstacle course called the Eliminator. All the events involved the Gladiators, who are recurring athletes that have their own roles in the events to prevent the contestants from scoring. The show eventually featured many different events that came and went through the run of the show, and each episode consisted of different combinations of events. Later, there was a remake of American Gladiators that ran for two seasons, both in 2008.

I’m genuinely disturbed by the concept of lives here.

American Gladiators on NES was released in October 1991 only in the US. It was published by Gametek and developed by Incredible Technologies. This game resembles the show but does not follow its format. There is a different American Gladiators game that is much more faithful to the show. That version was developed by Imagitec Design Inc and also published by Gametek on the Sega Genesis, DOS, and Amiga in 1992. The SNES port was released in 1993.

Similar to the TV show, in the NES game you have to compete in five different events which are modified versions of specific games that appeared on the show. You have to clear all five events within so many “lives.” The events are Joust, The Wall, Human Cannonball, Powerball, and Assault. Once you clear all five events, the game advances to the next level where you get a more challenging set of these same five events. In all, you must clear four different difficulty levels of five events each before moving on to the final event, the Eliminator. If you can clear the Eliminator, then you win the game.

Let’s look at each event. First I will explain how the event is played on the show, and then I will describe how it was converted to the NES game.

Stick and move.

In Joust, a contestant and a gladiator attempt to knock each other off a raised platform with pugel sticks. In the NES version of Joust, you square off against four gladiators one at a time instead of just the single battle featured in the show. During a face-off, you can move around a bit on the platform by tapping Left or Right on the D-Pad. Press A to thrust your pugel stick at the gladiator. You can press B to thrust too but this will also inch you a step toward the gladiator. Just pressing A or B does a middle thrust, and you can also do a high thrust by holding Up or a low thrust by holding Down when you strike. You can also block by holding Left and pressing either A or B. You exchange blows with the gladiator until you knock him off the platform. Then the event briefly switches to a platformer as you must move forward jumping from platform to platform to engage the next gladiator. After you win the third fight, a super pugel stick will fly into play. If you grab it your stick will light up, then if you can land a first strike on the gladiator you will knock him off instantly. If you get hit first then you lose the super pugel stick, so make it count! If you get knocked off or fall off at any time, you lose a life.

Tap it out while making quick decisions.

In The Wall, two contestants race up a climbing wall. After a few seconds, the Gladiators will pursue the contestants attempting to pull them off the wall, preventing them from reaching the top and scoring points. In the NES event, your goal is also to climb to the top of the wall, but this time there are several gladiators that appear at various locations along the wall that you must avoid. The controls for this event are tricky and unlike anything else I’ve ever played. The idea is that the B button moves your left hand and the A button moves your right hand. You combine this button press with a direction to move that hand in all eight directions. There are handholds covering most of the wall and as long as you have at least one hand on one you will stay on the wall. The consequence of this control scheme is that you need to tap buttons quickly to move fast. For instance, to move straight up, you must rapidly alternate between pressing A and B while holding Up. It takes practice to get the hang of it. You can find a glove on the wall that lets you move very fast with just the D-Pad instead of having to tap out A and B, but it only lasts for a few seconds. Each of the four levels is a completely different layout on the wall, and you need to have mastered the control scheme to clear the last wall. If you lose the grip on both hands, or you come in contact with one of the gladiators, then you fall down and lose a life. Plus, you have to start at the very bottom of The Wall.

He doesn’t stand a chance.

The Human Cannonball event begins with a gladiator standing on a small elevated platform holding a foam pad for protection. The contestants swing on a rope from their own platform and try to knock the gladiator down to score points. The NES event requires you to jump from your platform, grab the swinging rope, and then let go at the right time to knock the gladiator down. Like Joust, there is a series of four gladiators that you knock down to finish the event. Both the starting platform and the gladiator’s platform move up and down, making the timing more difficult. At the start, you can walk left or right a bit on the platform, and then press A to jump toward the rope. If you grab onto it, then you automatically swing back and forth and you must press A again to let go and launch yourself. In some levels, during the third gladiator a glove will fly into play, and if you grab it you can move up and down the rope. Normally where you first grab the rope is where you stay until you jump off. The glove comes in handy on the fourth gladiator because there can be a trophy at the top of the rope that gives you an extra life. In this event, it is very easy to lose lives. You can fall off the platform, miss the jump to the rope, miss the gladiator on the launch, or hit the gladiator when he is blocking.

Always score in the center when it is clear.

In Powerball, there are bins filled with balls on both ends of the playfield, and there are five empty pods guarded by three gladiators. Both contestants play simultaneously by taking a ball and putting it into the pods, if they can get by the gladiators to do so. The players must cross to the opposite end before grabbing a new ball, and the object is to score as many points as possible within a time limit. The NES version of Powerball is mostly faithful to the original event. You grab a ball at either end of the playfield with either A or B. Then you have to run around the gladiators and place the ball into the pod by standing next to it and pressing the button. Just like on the show you must cross to the opposite side to grab a new ball. The difference in the NES game is that you are only allowed to put one ball in each pod. If you score on all five pods, you are awarded an extra life as well as free up all the pods so you can continue scoring anew. If a gladiator touches you, he always knocks the ball out of your hand and you have to go get a new one. This is the only event where you don’t lose a life. Just score as much as you can before the timer runs out!

Weird gladiator scrolling, but a fun game mode at least.

The Assault features a gladiator manning a tennis ball cannon, and there is a target on the wall behind him. The contestants run through the playfield dodging the fired tennis balls and reaching the safe spots. Each safe spot has a weapon used to hit the target. The contestant wins if they hit the target or reach the end of the course before time runs out, and they lose if the gladiator hits them with a tennis ball. The NES version of the game plays a bit differently. The gladiator moves back and forth at the top of the screen with the cannon no matter where you are in the course. You scroll the playfield upward and seek out weapons near a safe spot. Neither you nor the gladiator can shoot through barriers on the field. Grab a weapon by standing on the weapon icon and pressing B, then press A to launch a shot upward. Each icon gives you three shots. The gladiator will fall if you shoot him enough times, and you lose a life if he hits you three times. Alternatively, you clear the event if you reach the top of the course before time runs out. This is the only event that you can lose if the timer expires.

Platforming with random projectiles!

Once you clear all 20 events, then you begin the Eliminator. This is a long, slowly scrolling platforming level essentially. You start out by hopping between balance beams with the A button and advancing to the right. During the event, medicine balls will spray out from the bottom of the screen randomly. If they hit you then you fall, but you can save yourself by pressing Down to duck in time and shield yourself from the hit. Be careful when jumping as you can’t block hits. Eventually you come to the hand bike. Press Left or Right to move along the rail and dodge the balls. Past the hand bike are conveyor belts, and then after that is another hand bike section. Finally, the balls go away and you take a series of zip lines to the end of the course. You must time your jump off each zip line to grab the next one. If you get all the way to the end, congratulations!

Finally, here is some miscellany about American Gladiators. Across all events, there is a scoring system in place. You typically earn points by either getting past a gladiator or redeeming each second left on the timer at the end of the event. Once you clear a level of five events, you get 100 points as well as an extra life for the next level. You can also earn a continue by clearing either Level 1 or 2. When you lose all your lives, you get a password, provided you have already cleared Level 1. The password is eight characters long and the only characters are A and B. You enter the password by pressing the corresponding button, which is super convenient. There are only three passwords, one for each level from two to four. Lastly, the game features a two-player mode, but it is alternating play so it isn’t that useful.

This was my first time playing American Gladiators. I have owned the game since childhood and probably got it from a yard sale. It only took one try playing it to discover I wasn’t all that interested in the gameplay. I’m not sure why that was because I enjoyed watching the TV show on cable whenever I saw it was on, and I played NES often as a kid. I’m glad I’m doing this completion project because it gives me the motivation to play through games such as American Gladiators that I’ve owned for over half my life.

This guy is super tough for some reason.

It took me three or four days over a week to solve American Gladiators. Initially I found Powerball to be the easiest event because I always filled up the pods, only to find out later that it truly is the easiest one since you cannot lose regardless. Assault was the next easiest game for me because I am good at dodging, although that was tested during the final level. The Wall tends to be difficult for people due to the weird, exhausting controls, but I took to it quite well. Joust was the event that gave me so much trouble until I figured out how it worked. Human Cannonball to my surprise ended up being the most difficult event as the later levels had me almost pulling my hair out.

Once I got all those games figured out, it was time for the Eliminator. This event was challenging, but it was even harder to learn because I could only use what lives I had remaining after clearing all the Level 4 events. The best shot I had at the Eliminator came from playing the game from the start and accumulating as many lives as possible along the way. I had a few runs that I almost completed before recording anything, and once I sat down to record I ended up completing the game for the first time. I even beat it without continues. I had close to ten lives starting the Eliminator but I used nearly all of them up to beat it.

You really need to master the controls to solve this one.

Here are some pointers for a few of the events that tripped me up in the game. Spoilers apply here, so if you want to try the game yourself and keep your experience pure, now is the time to look away! As I mentioned earlier, Joust was my first major hang up. That was because I was playing it wrong. The opponents also strike with low, medium, and high thrusts, and you can counter each one. You counter a low strike with a medium one, a medium strike with a high one, and a high strike with a low one. The gladiators also strike in a pattern that loops, so once you see it you can predict and counter every hit. If you are fast and don’t know the pattern, you can also counter by observing his strike and attacking quickly. Moving on to the Human Cannonball event, there are a few gladiators that seem impossible to knock down because they always block you. The only way I figured out how to get past them is to swing on the rope back and forth a few times before launching yourself. In other words, if they block on your first swing, try knocking them down on your second swing. You can stay on the rope for as long as you like once you grab on. I won’t tell you which gladiators or how many swings you need to wait. If you need to know, you can see my strategy in the longplay video. Finally, a couple of basic tips for The Wall. Make sure to spend some time in a clear space learning how to move in all directions. Take it slow. This becomes very important in later levels where each incremental movement is critical. Also, it is best to set the controller in your lap and use your pointer and middle fingers to tap out the A and B buttons. The game manual recommends this since you can move around on The Wall much quicker and with less fatigue in your hand.

I’ll say that American Gladiators is an interesting NES game, but I don’t know that I would recommend playing it. It’s a novelty to see how they adapted the show into an NES game, but it’s not quite reminiscent of the show enough to invoke the nostalgia factor. The music is fine, but nothing special, and notably the iconic theme song is not in this game at all. If it is, then it wasn’t recognizable enough for me to notice it. The graphics are decent and every important element is clearly defined. It’s a mish-mash of a game. I had fun with it, but of course I always say that.

#53 – American Gladiators

Can you make all the pieces fit? I sure hope so!

Could this title screen be any more perfect?

To Beat: Complete any round
To Complete: Win a round on the highest difficulty against the computer
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 9/16/16
Difficulty: 1/10
My Difficulty: 1/10

As discussed here on this blog before, there were many companies that wanted to get a piece of the NES pie, including popular toy maker Fisher-Price. Developed for kids, Fisher-Price: Perfect Fit was just the game I needed to check off the list as I have been waiting to balance out all that time spent on mastering Ikari Warriors. Contrary to the title, this game isn’t exactly a good fit for the current NES collector or player unless you want to feel that satisfaction of completing any old NES game.

Fisher-Price was founded in 1930 by Herman Fisher, Irving Price, his wife Margaret Evans Price, and Helen Schelle. They originally made wooden toys but eventually switched to plastic in the 1950s which helped the company continue to grow. The Quaker Oats company bought Fisher-Price in 1969 after Herman Fisher retired. Fisher-Price became an independent company once more in 1991 and was bought in 1993 by Mattel.

In addition to their toy lines, there were a number of PC games bearing the company name. Three of these games were ported to the NES: Perfect Fit, I Can Remember, and Firehouse Rescue. The earliest release of these three was Firehouse Rescue but it turned out to be the last of the NES ports so I will be covering that one last. These three games appear to be the only console releases of any Fisher-Price video game. The early Fisher-Price games are all published by GameTek, and Perfect Fit on NES was developed by Beam Software. This was a US exclusive title.

Nice and simple!

Perfect Fit is a game meant for young children, so the controls and rules are quite simple. The object of the game is to match up pieces with their places on the puzzle. These pieces can be letters, numbers, toys, and other objects like that. One at a time, these pieces will drop down a chute on the left side of the screen. On the puzzle there will be silhouettes of these objects. You have to move the current piece on top of the matching shadow and press A to put the piece down. Get it right and the next piece will come down, but if you get it wrong you will hear a buzz and you get to try again with no further penalty. Place all the pieces correctly and you win! There are three puzzle boards to solve and you win the game when you complete all three.

There are three difficulty levels. Level One has few pieces to solve so this mode is great for a first time young player. Level Two introduces a flip mechanic. In this mode there are two fields below the chute labelled “Flip Image” with arrows. One field is for flipping the piece horizontally and the other is for vertical flips. If you need to flip the piece to get it to match up, simply place the piece over the appropriate field and press A to flip the piece in the direction indicated by the arrow. This difficulty also introduces a time limit and scoring. In Level Two you get six minutes to finish all the three puzzles and for every second left at the end of the game you are awarded 10 points. Difficulty Level Three is the same as Level Two but with a stricter time limit of three minutes and 20 points awarded for each remaining second at the end.

I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it…

This game has a two player mode where players take turns solving their own puzzles and compete for the higher score in the scoring modes. Before starting the game you get to enter your name for display on the level start screen and high score screen. There is also a single player mode versus the computer. The CPU opponent is named Electro. Ultimately this gives no advantage when playing. It’s mildly interesting watching the AI bumble through piece placement. I found while playing that the AI always attempts to place the piece in the correct spot but does not know which way to properly flip the piece, so it will alternate between horizontal flips and vertical flips and test each time to see if the piece actually fits. Despite the slow going it seems to be able to solve all the puzzles in time.

One minor oddity about the scoring system is that the way to get the best scores is through Level Two difficulty. There is a maximum score and points are essentially lost the longer the game goes on. That maximum score is the same for Levels Two and Three but the point loss is twice as fast in Level Three as it is in Level Two. The high score chart is shared between these difficulty levels. I suppose if the game designers really cared about scoring then there would be some kind of point bonus just for playing on the harder level.

His best is not good enough!

This was my first time playing Perfect Fit and there’s a pretty good chance that it will also be my last time playing the game. While playing I completed all difficulty settings both alone and with the CPU player. It was overkill even though the game didn’t take too long. I also played with my daughter in the room to see how interested she would be in the game. She is not quite two years old yet so she’s not really ready for the game yet. She does enjoy holding the controller and pressing buttons for a few minutes, and she also knew what each of the letter and number pieces were. I think the graphics may be a bit too primitive for her to recognize any of the other pieces when I asked her what they were.

There’s really not much else to say about Perfect Fit. It plays well but doesn’t do much to hold your attention. Kids today have much better options for introductory gaming. The only thing perfect about it is that is it a very easy game to clear for the sake of an NES completion project like this one. Perhaps there’s a benefit here for easing a child into using a game controller if he or she is interested in playing NES games. Otherwise there’s really no reason to play Perfect Fit.

I played through Perfect Fit on my NES top loader and not long after that I received my AVS console. Aside from a few exceptions like Zapper and R.O.B. games, going forward I will be playing everything else with my AVS. I also have started capturing footage starting with the next game so there are gameplay videos coming soon. I didn’t make one for Perfect Fit but I don’t think it’s a big loss!

#30 – Fisher-Price: Perfect Fit

#30 – Fisher-Price: Perfect Fit (High Scores)