NESquest #8 - Gyromite

(Gyromite, October 1985, Nintendo)

What has two eyes, two arms, an sword sharpener, NES dreidels, one player/two control games, barely functions yet saved an entire industry for it? Once again, we are back to give some love to everyone's favorite Robotic Operating Buddy!

Because that's precisely the name of the game we bought!

Seeing as in the previous review, I went over how R.O.B. in a roundabout way saved gaming by being practically unplayable, this time we'll gloss over some of the more technical aspects. As many of today's collectors who may not have had one as kid have no doubt found out the hard way, R.O.B. is only compatible with the older style CRT (cathode ray tube) television sets. Try to hook this outdated bad boy into a plasma TV and he just does his own thing, including, but not limited to turning around to stare at you like "what the fuck bro?" His movements are the basic four directions and to open and close his hands, making for a grand total of 6 possible things he was capable of. Both games come with a "direct" mode where you could practice just making R.O.B. do whatever you asked of him for the illusion that it was a competent piece of hardware. Optical flashes from the tv screen to his eyes are what communicated the NES's commands. He stood a little over a foot tall and took 4 AA batteries. What noone talks about is that the lifespan of the batteries is somewhere between 2 and 4 hours, so it was by no means cheap to try and master even if you were into that sort of self-inflicting punishment.

The 10NES chip, bane of many that wanted their imported copy of Popeye no Eigo Asobi working and couldn't wait 6 months for the port.

Now then, onto the second and final installment of the R.O.B. series, Gyromite or Robot Gyro in Japan. I previously expained the 10NES lock-out chip and how these carts were pillaged for their converters which explains how even though Gyromite was a pack-in title, it still isn't the easiest game to find. Before any kind of online shopping medium existed, I imagine it was nearly impossible to find a converter on your own, so Gyromite was bought up in the off-chance it was one of the copies containing one.

 As I warned you in the last review, Gyromite's set-up is Rube Goldergesque in its nature.

Gyromite's set-up is out of control. You get two trays attaching to buttons, one red and one blue. When the red button is pressed, the red gates in the game are opened, same for blue. It comes with gyros, a sort of spinning top that are a shit-ton heavier than they look due to metal tips on the bottom. Lastly, a spinner is required, which the gyros are placed on top of when not in use. It takes a D battery and when I say this thing spins, I am not fucking around. This contraption sounds like a sander and if you have anything in the house like a kitchen knife or an axe that needs to be sharpened, you're in luck. The reason for the violent spinning is so the gates R.O.B. opens for you don't always stay accessible. When the gyro is all out of spin, it thuds to the ground and the gate reopens. Sound confusing? You have no idea until you've seen this sad little creation in action.

"I'm on the box so why the hell didn't I get the WAY cooler name of Vector?"

Two modes are given and present alot more variety than Stack-Up. You play as Professor Hector again (Vector if there are two players) and the object is to grab all the dynamite loose in his lab while avoiding these cute dinosaur-like creatures named Smicks. The Smicks were fairy well done and in another game with playable controls might have become alot more popular than they did. You move the professor near a gate and press start causing the screen to flash, thus activating R.O.B. After the robot moves to get the gyros and you read a few chapters of your favorite novel, he eventually drops it onto the button that opens the required gate. The problem is by the time he actually performs the task he was programmed for, the Smicks are standing right by the gate ready to take a chomp out of your ass. Without a jump button or any defense, it is an exercise in futility to make it past the first level. Thankfully, thr music here gets extremely high marks and turns out to be one of my favorites of the early NES tunes. That or I spent so much time humming along to it waiting for R.O.B.'s slow ass to do anything that it became one of those songs you'd never know existed unless you heard it a thousand times against your will.

One rope away from hearing someone sleeping magically scream!

The second mode is more R.O.B.'s speed. In other words, if there is a TV series you're behind on, feel free to get Netflix going in the background while he does his thing because, trust me, you'll have time to spare. Professor Hector is sleepwalking from one house to another, presumably to scare the pants off of some poor unsuspecting soul waking up to an old creepy guy entering their domicile. The object is to drop the gates using the same premise as the main Gyromite game, allowing the professor to make it across safely. The music for this mode was even catchier but as time consuming as this mode is, even it gets old quick. The Smicks are still present but seem like the uneducated, thrice as dumb versions, as they mostly trap themselves into holes where they have no chance to get to the player. Not a horrible game if you could speed it up around 5 times the speed it truly goes, but you can't so to hell with it.

The only mode where R.O.B. does what you ask him to. Sort of.

THE FINAL VERDICT
3/10 As we say goodbye to R.O.B., the reasoning why he never caught on is clear. The games were complete crap, the device moves slow enough that you could probably play a round of chess mid game, and it takes no less than 15 minutes just to set-up. No kid was going to play this more than once and even as an adult, I could barely make it through without wanting to say "Uh, let's just do Pinball instead" for two days. Of the two, Gyromite is the far superior game but works less when R.O.B. is your second player. If you plug in a second controller to move the gates, it becomes alot more coherent of a game and would be at least a 6, but alas, even then you feel like a dumbass with two controllers in your hand to play one game. The higher marks for Gyromite are due to the music being some of the best for the system and the game itself being a tad more fun to play, just not with R.O.B. All in all, more of a nostaligic device that has made cameos in about 8x as many games as Donkey Kong Jr has shockingly. Star Fox, F-Zero, Kirby, and one of the great underappreciated games, Star Tropics, have R.O.B. appearances and judging by his inclusion in Super Smash Bros Brawl recently, he shows no signs of slowing down. Now if those people who say things like "R.O.B. rules!" only got the experience of playing Gyromite or Stack-Up with this cumbersome bastard, their song would change indeed.

All your base are belong to R.O.B.!

Special thanks to Phil Bond for information helping with this review and to TheBenj@VintageGaming for the information containing the lock-out chip, though I didn't want to be the one to e-mail him explaining the reason his Famicom games worked with his top-loading NES wasn't the converter at all, he took it in stride. Top-loaders never were installed with the 10NES, so if you really want that copy of Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti to work, go top-loader!

"Bad time to strike a pose. BURN MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

NESquest #7 - Stack-Up

(Stack-Up, October 1985, Nintendo)

Since 1967, there has been a major event held showcasing the latest in technology called the Consumer Electronics Show (CES for short). It was so popular in fact, that for awhile, the powers that be held two a year, one in the summer and one in the winter. In 1984, Nintendo entered the CES with flyers of a grey box flanked by out-dated looking Atari games boasting the slogan "The evolution of the species is now complete". Inside that grey box was the Famicom, an institution in Japan for over a year at that point. Due to the crash of 1983, they couldn't muster one single order at the event as consumers and retailers had zero to little intrest in risking one cent of hard-earned spending money on video games ever again. 

"Yes, I saved gaming by being unplayable. Suck it Atari!"

Enter R.O.B., the greatest Trojan Horse in gaming history. At a time when noone was willing to part with their funds for a video game system, Nintendo unveiled the Robotic Operating Buddy along with the Zapper the following year and explained to retailers that it wasn't a video game console, and instead marketed it as a toy robot and a toy gun. What kid didn't see this and automatically start erasing shit off their Christmas list? They even went to the lengths of downplaying the televisions in the advertising to focus everything on the accessories. It worked and on October 18, 1985, the Nintendo Entertainment System along with 18 available games were launched in a few markets in New York City. The rest as they say is history. By the end of the first fiscal year, R.O.B. was discontinued and sole focus was put on the gaming aspect of the NES but by then, they had already sold one million units and blew the asses off of people used to Atari's simple graphics and sound. The moment impressionable youth first popped in Super Mario Bros after spending precious and frustrating time trying to figure out the robot's nuances, it was too late. North America was hooked. The following year, 3 million more units were sold and people never spoke of the robot again. The Zapper had legs however, but that's a story for a later review.

But...I thought the game was named...

How are the game themselves? Let's start with Stack-Up, or as it is called in Japan and in the title screen, Robot Block. The reasoning the title on the splash differs from the name on the box is because Nintendo was trying to cut costs and instead of overriding the 10NES lockout chip with new code, they simply created an adapter so basically you had a Famicom game(60 pin circuit board) being converted into a NES(72 pin) game when played. The 10NES chip was the enemy of many collectors who wanted to play games shipped from overseas, so a good deal of R.O.B. games were bought and broken apart for the converter alone, making both titles in the series very collectible. While Gyromite was a pack-in game at first, Stack-Up 
wasn't. Being marketed solely to children at the time would be another reason complete sets are hard to come by as God knows what the fate of many of the required pieces were. 

If you think this is too much extra shit for a gaming controller, wait until Gyromite.

It comes with five pedestals and five "blocks", which resemble nothing close to a block. Think more along the lines of Tonka Truck wheels without treading. So, you turn R.O.B. into a deranged looking electronic star and sit the blocks in a pre-arranged pattern. From there, you control Professor Hector (for some reason they put Professor Vector on the box) and jump onto tiles instructing R.O.B. to place them into the pattern the game asks you to. This would be the earliest example of the NES using a digitized voice in a game as the Professor actualy says "up", "left", and the like. That's where the all fun times end. To start, R.O.B. moves in such a lackadaisical fashion, you'd swear he spent all the time confined to his box hitting on the reefer. It takes about twenty seconds for him to turn right and grab something, not counting the time it takes for him to turn back around and put the blocks where they are supposed to go. That, by the way, NEVER happens because while R.O.B. does an admirable job of picking up the blocks, transporting them with any sort of balance where they need to be is lost on the poor fellow. You're going to spend half your time getting up and picking these damned blocks up and the other half wondering how they thought this game was ever going to be playable. Oh wait, see above, they already knew R.O.B. was a total piece of shit. 

My first walkthrough for GameFAQS will be for Stack-Up and will read like this. "Press start. The end". You read it here first foks!

Parents still bought it for their kids, who all eventually popped in a real game and threw R.O.B. in the closet forever. There is another mode where you play Bingo while trying to instruct R.O.B. what to do by avoiding eneimies and hopping on directional buttons but in all honesty, it's even worse than the original game. With alot of luck, you might be able to get the robot moving once every two minutes or so. The weirdest part of this game isn't even the controller, it's the fact that there is no way for the Nintendo to know what exactly R.O.B. has accomplished so all you have to do is press start and you the level is complete. No bullshit, my 6 month old son beat a level of Stack-Up.

To prove how hardcore R.O.B. was marketed, he is in this old UK advert not once but twice!

THE FINAL VERDICT
2/10 Well, it has barely better controls than my current bar for complete shit, DKJrM, which is saying something for that poor game. However, the game isn't as unplayable and, not meaning to go out of order, R.O.B. is a little easier to use here than with Gyromite. A video game that operates on a trust system is a pretty worthless one indeed when we as gamers look for any and every cheat available to us to see the end. I can see this being played once if only to try out the awesome looking peripheral, trying out say, Kung Fu, or Clu Clu Land, and then never even recalling having owned it until a closet clean-up and an Ebay auction a decade later. No denying the little fellow has a cult following as he has made as many if not more cameos in gaming than just about any other character in the history of NES.

"If my brother, Johnny Five, could see me now..."

NESquest #6 - Baseball

(Baseball, October 1985, Nintendo)

MLB: The Show, Ken Griffey Presents Major League Baseball, MVP Baseball, and Baseball Mogul. Over the years, there have been a few excellent baseball games that have stood the test of time. These revered titles can be popped in to this day and still retain some of the magic that made them a blast. That being said, the first baseball game released for the NES is clearly not one of them. Today, we take a peek at the initial rendition of the Summer Classic to grace us in 8-bits, the creatively named Baseball.

Baseball spelled with it's namesake is pretty sweet. The title screen music is used for about 5 other games as well. Nintendo must've paid their composers per tune and not per usage.

This is normally where I throw some history for the readers to soak in but c'mon folks, it's baseball! Other than MMA, my personal game of choice. 9 players hit the field, 4 balls is a walk, 3 strikes and you're out, 3 outs and you switch sides. The rules are well known to almost anyone and in that regard, it's an easy game to pop in and instantly get going. Did Nintendo faithfully translate "America's Pastime" into an enjoyable experience for kids to lose themselves in? It saddens me to say, not even close.

"After carefully considering offers from A, M, G, and X, I've decided to take my talents to H! I can't wait to be a major part in the H vs Y feud and plan to play here at least two long years!"

Let's begin with the team names. Granted, when a publisher doesn't have the license to use real MLB logos and names, they normally run with the city name and the uniform colors. Usually, from that, we automatically gather that if the team's name is "Bos" and the colors they sport are red and white, good money is on them being the Boston Red Sox. Baseball said "fuck all that noise" and gave us the legendary squads of A, C, D, P, R, and Y. Further examination will reveal the teams as the Athletics, Cardinals, Dodgers, Phillies, Royals, and Yankees judging by the color schemes. Nowadays, we equate the Royals to a team that has had one winning season since 1993 and akin to the Pittsburgh Pirates of the NL, sort of a running gag. Seeing as this was launched October 18, 1985, Baseball was two days removed from George Brett and the Royals defeating Ozzie Smith's Cardinals in the World Series, justifying their inclusion in this cart. What I don't understand is if all 6 teams are EXACTLY the same with only uniform swaps, why couldn't we just have all 28 teams at the time and add even one letter to the teams name so we could tell the Astros from the A's? Also of note, did all the black and latino players go on strike before they hit the field? In these days and times, little details like that become rather noticable. One could attempt to argue that the game was made in Japan, however the MVP of the Nippon League in 1984, when Baseball debuted in the arcades, was Greg Wells, a black man.. 

Kansas City Royals, falling flat on our asses since 1993!

There is only one mode so anyone wanting a full season and deep stat tracking just had to make use of their noggin and create a custom schedule as well as track their own stats. One problem, you never knew who was up to bat. Every hitter has the same exact appearance and attributes, so it could be your catcher at the plate or your left fielder. There was no indicator as to who was 0-5 so far in the game or who had 4 homers, nor did it even matter.. Same with pitching as it made zero difference if you got rocked for 10 runs in your first inning, there are no substituions, the poor guy just has to deal with life and continue to get slaughterred trying to lower his 77.00 ERA futilely. Really, there should be a "swallow cyanide" menu option, because if there is anyone I feel for in this game, it's the poor pitcher. 

Throw so much as one pitch right down the middle and this will happen 90% of the time.

Other than frustration, the only other emotion this game can seem to conjure up is a deep sympathy for the pitcher. It truly is like Nolan Ryan on the mound with a gang of stoned sumo wrestlers in the background trying to field. Pitching is tolerable as you have 3 speeds to work with and the only complaint is after you hit A, he throws it pretty much whenever the hell he wants to. At times, it is instantly pitched to the batter and other times, he shakes off a sign and stands there mean-mugging the batter a few seconds before the wind-up, adding more time to an already long as hell game. 

That isn't 3 left fielders, my fucking PITCHER is chasing a ball that far!

The worst part of this game, and the main reason is gets such a low mark is the goddamned fielding. The controls are just anarchy. Any fielder you control moves about the speed of a mudslide and the game has no concept of who is closest to the ball whatsoever. A routine pop-up was missed by my third basemen and instead of the game allowing me to control the left fielder and try to get to the ball, it makes my 3B run (more like freshly twisted ankle hobbling) after the ball all the way to the warning track. As if it could be worse, the fielder and the ball are often moving the same speed meaning you aren't getting to shit until you make it all the way to the wall and pray the ball ricochets in your direction. Three fucking times a simple play was turned into something really damaging to my chances of a fair game. The routine groundball that rolled through my second baseman's legs that turned into an inside the park home run almost costed me a controller.

I tried to exact revenge for the '88 World Series but by the 2nd inning, I was getting spanked. Sorry Oakland, better luck next baseball review.

Hitting is easy enough. A baseball is hurled towards your batter and you try to hit A at the right time. Simple, yet effective, as is hitting in most baseball games. That is, until you actually reach first base. Even if you get the perfect slicer down the third base line for what should be an easy triple, your player grows fucking roots at first. I beat the everloving piss out of my buttons to no avail attempting to light any kind of fire under my players ass, yet all he could muster was to blankly stare at me and remain planted where he was. This game's rules have no rules. The one time I got my guy to accomplish forward motion, it was by complete accident and I couldn't get him to turn back around nor know why I even tried. Any semblance of strategy that might be thought up is just an exercise in futility. Your choices are pretty much limited to either knocking it out of the park everytime or having your ass handed to you on a silver platter. Good luck with option A.

When I think baseball, I think of these all-time great teams!

As for the sound, most titles of the "Sports Series" work extremely well without any background tunes, but this is one game that sorely needed it. Seeing as this was the only baseball title at the time, the poor consumer had to endure the rousing sound of nothing while the game was droning on. It's as slow moving as it gets and I timed a full game at 58 minutes, far too long for the 6 or so sound effects to keep things intresting or me distracted from what a clump of 8-bit shit this is. As a matter of fact, when you are called out, it is the exact same sound that Punch-Out on NES gives when you press start and the boxing glove breaks through the screen. Noone can blame me for nstantly making me want to pop that classic in when I hear it. The tiny ditty when you hit a home run is also the theme when you win a fight in the arcade version of Punch-Out, giving a strange link to both versions of the greatest boxing game ever created on any console. Later for that one though.

If you're one of those fans who just wish the Yankees lose everytime they hit the field, in this game all you have to do is play as them. Instant gratification!

THE FINAL VERDICT
3/10 Only slightly above Donkey Kong Jr. Math as an unplayable piece of NES history that should stay buried never to see the sun or be touched by civilization again. I spent 3 days mulling it over and trying like hell to give it the benefit of the doubt as the first baseball game and still can't go any higher in good conscience. Nintendo squandered a great opprotunity here as launch day, noone knew what the hell an Ice Climber, a Clu Clu, or a Goomba was. We all knew what baseball was and, sadly, they completely dropped the ball. I'm sure the five superstar outfielders from Team Y is still chasing that bitch to the wall today.

Exactly how I'd have felt if I spent 50 bucks on this title on launch day...

NESquest #5 - Kung Fu

(Kung Fu, October 1985, Nintendo)

Where can you find a game loosely related to Jackie Chan, All Japan Pro Wrestling, every major Neo Geo fighting game, freaky oriental threesomes, and Tiny "Zeus" Lister? Grab your dogi, throw on your favorite slippers, and strap yourselves in because we're in for a wild ride today Nintendo lovers! Who's ready for some good old fashioned Kung Fu?

I'm a sucker for digitized dragons. Game B is just a fraction tougher than A.

Originally released in the arcades as Kung Fu Master, this was one wildly popular game. If you were alive, had a spare quarter, and were able to hold a joystick in the early 80s, you played Kung Fu. Everyone of age who experienced the thrill of kicking three baddies in a row hauling ass towards you never forgot it. The things about this game we DIDN'T know are easily just as intresting to say the least.

Jackie Chan didn't hit it big here until 1995's Rumble In The Bronx but we had unknowingly played a game for years that featured him in it and noone knew!

Launched in Japan as Spartan X, Kung Fu was actually based on the 1984 Jackie Chan film of the same name. Martial arts legend Chan played Thomas, the protagonist of the movie and game, who is attempting to save his girlfriend Sylvia from the most generically named baddie ever, Mr. X. The movie was released here in the U.S. as Wheels On Meals. No, that isn't a typo, they actually thought that title was going to bring movie-goers out in droves. What the goatfuck you ask? Get this, the last two films the Golden Harvest studio shat out were named Megaforce and Menage A Trois. The executives got the oogy boogies about their next venture starting with the letter M, so Meals On Wheels got flipped on its ass and became Wheels On Meals instead. I couldn't make this insipid shit up if I tried.

RIP Mitsuharu Misawa 6/18/62 - 6/13/09. Never forgotten.

Excuse me a moment for an out of character pause. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the main theme for Spartan X was used as the entrance music for Mitsuharu Misawa, one of the greatest professional wrestlers of any era who tragically passed away in the middle of the ring in June 2009. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word and a true ambassador to the sport. Rest in peace Emerald Warrior. I miss you.

Tell me this screenshot doesn't make you just want to pop this fucker in

Beat 'em ups seemed to be released every week in the late 80s/early 90s with some legendary titles like Golden Axe, Double Dragon, Streets Of Rage, and Final Fight at the forefront. These and every game like it owe everything they are to Kung Fu. The first of it's kind, they made it count (unlike Dk Jr Math) and it spawned more games that ate quarters than can be mentioned in one review. The lead programmer, Takashi Nishiyama, went on to Capcom where he was the head of a little game named Street Fighter. He could've been quite content with his legacy left at that but the guy went on to even greater heights when he was hired by SNK and designed a cutting edge contraption called the Neo-Geo System Board. This mad professor of gaming could've stopped THERE but what did this underappreciated genius do as an encore? He created every major SNK fighting IP as he went along. Yes, the head programmer on Kung Fu is responsible for all-time heavyweights Fatal Fury, Art Of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, & the epic King Of Fighters franchises. Quite the fucking résumé no?

"What you got on my 40 homie?"

Onto the game itself, this is definately one of the better Black Box games. By today's standards, it would seem pedestrian but if you look at it in the same vein you'd hear a garage band's first album before they refined their sound, there isn't alot to complain about. You play as Thomas, going from floor to floor kicking and punching your way to the level boss. The true innovation here was that no two bosses were the same, a feat even Mario didn't pull off. They aren't just lazy palette swaps either as one throws a boomerang, another resembles Deebo from Friday, and Mr. X himself looks like Deadpool unmasked to reveal an 8-bit Owen Wilson. Even more awesome is the way they will laugh in your face if you grind through the level only to be defeated at the end. Oh, will it ever piss you off proper until you have the sweet joy of handing them their ass. In my opinion, alot of games today are missing that type of motivation to move ahead. Could be just me, but I'll lose sleep to beat you if you laugh at me for failure digitized or not. 

"Hmm, then again, I've been trying to dump her for a month now..."

Some may cavetch the game is too short but it's in the vein of quite a bit of the older NES games in that when you see the ending, it'll just throw you back onto level 1, ramping up the difficulty until you can't handle it anymore. Sure, it's possible to save the girl within a day of first playing but try to save her 5 times and watch controllers explode through windows. There is only one music track as you plow through the level but it is note for note faithful to the arcade version and doesn't distract from the hectic action. Only negative I can think of is the unevenness of the challenge. Stage 2 is twice as hard as any of the other levels. If you can survive the falling snakes that take a third of your life and disco balls that explode into a 5 way spread shot the 2nd floor offers, this game is your bitch.

The, um, intimidating Mr. X

THE FINAL VERDICT
8/10 All beat 'em ups should look up at Kung Fu as their granddaddy and shower it with the respect it deserves. Hell of a challenge (bite me stage 2), original bosses, and a fun factor that forces you to get that much further each time you play. There was a sequel released only in Japan as Spartan X 2, but it didn't capture very much of what made the original so special. One measure of a game to me is the ability to pick it up and play it without having to memorize a moveset, read a long-winded manual, or spend hours learning the controls a la Clu Clu Land. You moved forward and fucked shit up until the stairs, climbed up, and commenced to fucking more shit up, which sometimes, is all the good dumb fun you need. After all, it's meant to be a game, not a college course, and this one hit the new concept it brought out of the park.

Only disappointment follows this here title screen.

This one was for one of the coolest cats I've ever had the honor of working with. Good luck in your upcoming future endeavors Chivo!

NESquest #4 - Donkey Kong Jr. Math

(Donkey Kong Jr. Math, October 1985, Nintendo)

Well, it was bound to happen. Time to review a stinker. Not just a stinker, mind you, but a post-Taco Bell chased by black coffee with a side of Taco Bell for dessert type of stinker. Light a candle and say a prayer because here is the unwashed skidmark of the Black Box games, Donkey Kong Jr. Math. Heaven help us.

"I can either play this or a math game like it? Kiss my Huggies!"

First, a quick history lesson in what I mean by "Black Box" since there has been a question or two on the definition. The Nintendo Entertainment System launched in small quantities on October 18, 1985 in selected areas of New York City. Due to the video game crash of 1983 (thanks Atari!), noone was willing to entertain the thought of selling home game consoles ever again. Therefore, Nintendo, steadfast in their resolve, changed the name of the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom) instead to an "entertainment system". How this actually worked when it is obviously a game console, I'll never understand. Anyway, on the day of the initial launch, there were 18 titles ready to go. They all came in a black box and in the lower left hand corner, they were marked with te type of game it was. If you look at the Clu Clu Land and Super Mario boxes in my prior reviews, you'll notice the symbol for the "Action Series" and "Light Gun Series" with Hogan's Alley and so forth. Hence, "Black Box". The NES had a true launch in February of 1986 with more titles and after that is when the third party publishers started releasing games and didn't want to conform to the labels of their games, so the idea was scrapped. Hindsight 20/20, it was a good move, because what the hell could you label something with multiple genres in it like a Battletoads or Guardian Legend? One of the categories was "Education Series" and while it probably had good intentions and may have had some legs in future titles, it only had one game ever attached to it. Why? It sucked so fucking bad that it killed off the idea completely.

"I warned him if he starred in that goddamned math game, I'd disown his ass for Diddy Kong. Junior is dead to me. There is no Junior"

Which brings us to Donkey Kong Jr, Math. Seriously, all I want to type here is what a pile of shit it is, journalistic integrity be damned. But with heavy heart and mind, there is no choice but to roll my sleeves up and stick my hands deep into the doo-doo and pray I come out of it with a filth that can be washed away.

More like calculate how long before this game gets thrown into traffic.

The game sure looks like DK Jr. from the arcades but that's where the similarity ends. There are 3 modes to "play" but the only difference between A and B are that B uses negative numbers. The gist of it is that Papa Kong gives you a number and you have to jump to a vine with a number (you can only hit one at a time), then travel to the mathematic symbol you want, then hop to another number, etc, until you have the total Donkey asks for. Example, Papa gives me the number 77, you have to jump to 9, then the times symbol, then 8, then hop your baby gorilla ass back to the plus sign, then back to the 5 and you "win". That is IT. The game booklet never lets on that it is 2 player only so you have this poor, pathetic looking pink DK Jr. off to the right who dies when you complete a problem. What the shit is that? Be great at math so you can slaughter your own kind ruthlessly? Wait, maybe this game did teach a 1%er a thing or two growing up.

The unnamed pink twin of DK Jr tugs at my heartstrings. Math = genocide

The final game mode makes zero sense from any sane perspective. You choose the type of problem you want to do and then Kong presents you with one. Sort of. To solve it, all you need to do is push a block up past the Nitpickers who never seem to touch you and that's the game! This mode can be beaten within 5 minutes and I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is supposed to accomplish. If I watch numbers be added for me, it will instill a photographic memory strong enough to always remember what these two numbers added up equal to? 

No bullshit, this took me about 2 seconds to beat.

THE FINAL VERDICT
1/10 Widely regarded as one of the worst launch titles ever. Probably started out as a decent concept, but something seriously got fucked up in the development process. That or Nintendo had no beta testers at the time because this game just feels rushed and broken. It killed Donkey Kong Jr so dead that the only other appearance he made was in 1992's Super Mario Kart for the SNES. The 1 point is for the decent graphic port but to go higher than that simply isn't possible. The idea was for kids to want to mix games and learning, but who is going to pop this shit in when you have ANY other game laying around? Brain Age this isn't. They couldn't give this craptastic cart away. Now if you'll excuse me, I need a shower. I feel violated having played this...

WHOOHOOO!!! MY FIRST PAYCHECK IN 7 YEARS!!! 

NESquest #3 - Hogan's Alley

(Hogan's Alley, October 1985, Nintendo)

Now these are the exact moments that make me glad I began this project. I went into this thinking there was no way this game was going to have any kind of history other than being a memorable Black Box title and left my research blown away. Ladies and germs, I present to you a game steeped in more links from the past than just about any out there, Hogan's Alley.

Nice touch with the bullet in the logo.

Let's dig into the history for a moment because it's so damned captivating to me. The original Hogan's Alley was presented back in the 1890's and starred one of the country's earliest comic strip stars, The Yellow Kid. The strip was written and drawn by the famed Richard F. Oucault and featured in the pages of New York World, owned by publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who is presently more well known for the Pultizer Prize, an award for journalistic excellence. Hogan's Alley was popular enough to be on billboards and a ton of merchandise for the time but quite a bit of legal wrangling between Pulitzer and another famous publisher, William Randolph Hearst caused the Kid to quietly fade away. 

An early strip feautring the original Hogan's Alley. How many video games do you know with roots dating back to the 1890s?

Fast forward to 1920, two years removed from the World War I, and the FBI learned through a survey conducted throughout the major police departments at the time that marksmanship was becoming a lost art. Out of the all cities surveyed with over 25, 000 residents, only THIRTEEN had marksmanship programs. Obviously, this needed work so Hogan's Alley was established at Ohio's Camp Perry by the Army and the NRA. 

Have a nice day indeed!

Beginning in 1924, there were national contests held at the camp for sharpshooters and the like. There was no blank ammunition laying around so instead they opted to use real live ammo on cardboard cutouts set up around their virtual city, hence why the game's targets are presented as they are. World War II brought an end to the contest but in 1954, the camp re-opened and in 1987, they took it a set further and went absolutely batshit with the idea, creating an actual small town for simulated combat.

No. Fucking. Way.

But yes, there IS a game to discuss isn't there? Hogan's Alley was one of the first Light Gun games (or "Zapper" if you will) to be released and like most Black Boxers, was released to the arcades prior to the NES launch date. There are 3 modes you can get your Elliott Ness on with, which seems to be par for the course for the Zapper series, but who's going to bitch when they could've easily put out one mode and called it good? 

Shirtless gangsters on what appears to be the surface of Mars. MISS!

Game A is your standard 3 target shooter. This would be one of the rare times I enjoy no kind of musical track because if you're an FBI agent trying to concentrate, the last thing you want is bouncy chiptunes blasting in your ear. There are 3 types of townsfolk in the sim you can shoot and 3 you can't or else it registers as a "MISS!" and your game is over at ten. The tricky part is that the professor is colored just like a baddie and the grunt with the shotgun is colored like the stand-alone 'stache sporting policeman, so it does take a bit of skill not to accidentally send Professor Sad-Shit to hell. 

Seriously, look at the sour puss on that professor. Should we shoot out of mercy or not? Or do we shoot because he looks like Walter White and we really don't know what a criminal looks like always?

My favorite was always Game B. It takes you right into Hogan's Alley and feels trickier and better paced. Still a lack of music except for a groovy little number in between rounds which is fine by me. If you've ever played this mode, the words "fuck!" and "shit!" will enter even the cleanest vernacular after you just pumped poor Miss Nobody full of lead. Second verse, same as the verse, 10 misses and it's ce la vie!

Game B FTW

The third option is lame compared to the rest of the awesome goings on. You simply try and bounce tin cans into a side wall with point values. Not too easy but not impossible either. When compared to the other 2 modes, this will be the one most likely to collect virtual dust.

About as fun as it looks. A solid 15 seconds of entertainment.

THE FINAL VERDICT
8/10 A really great launch title and on a personal level, I always enjoyed Hogan's Alley more than Duck Hunt. Not the popular opinion, but three very distinct modes when DH only adds an extra duck and some clay pigeons make this one rise above. The controls seem a bit sharper here as well as there aren't as many cases of "OH BULLSHIT, I SHOT THAT FOR SURE!" going on. Pile those onto a fascinating history and Hogan's Alley is a title that shouldn't have been looked over.

Nintendo and FBI mash-up!

For more information about the Yellow Kid and the origins of Hogan's Alley, check out Brian Cronin's INCREDIBLE blog at CBR here:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/05/28/comic-book-legends-revealed-209/

And for the most surreal site I've seen in awhile here is an actual link to the FBI's real life Hogan's Alley. It exists to this day as a training facility and I'd sell my soul to Zarathos to walk through here one good time:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/training/hogans-alley