Developed by: Nintendo & Released by: Nintendo
Introduction & Bias:
For the first time in this blog's short history I am playing a game that I have not really tried before. I never owned this game and I never fooled around with it during my sweeps through my ROM collection when I was bored. I knew enough about it ahead of time to know that this was one of the light gun games released at the NES's launch.
The upcoming comparisons between this game and Duck Hunt I think are both inevitable and justified since the two games are contemporaries and they fit into the same shooting gallery genre. Duck Hunt has the fortune of having the bias of a lot of previous play time where Hogan's Alley has the fortune of being allowed to give me a first impression.
With that said, let's dive in.
First Impressions & Conveyance:
My first reaction to the title screen is that it looks an awful lot like Duck Hunt's title screen.
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| Pictured: Familiarity |
The player is even presented with three game modes just like Duck Hunt. What does set Hogan's Alley apart from Duck Hunt is an attract mode screen with some instructions. Those instructions are very simple: there are six human-shaped targets. Three of the targets are hostile while three of them are civilians. "SHOOT GANGS ONLY!" OK, game. I can play it your way.
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| Pictured: Mobsters from the 30's, a cop from the 80's and sprite flicker |
With the lack of anything else to do I selected the top of the game's three modes: Game A Hogan's Alley A. This mode is a very simple shooting gallery. Three targets are paraded out slowly in a two dimensional profile and a number above representing the amount of time the player gets to decide who lives and who dies. Other than potentially shooting two of three targets instead of one of three targets and a timer that typically gets shorter as play progresses there are not many wrinkles to this mode. Failing to shoot one of the GANGS or shooting one of the civilians nets the player a miss. Ten misses and it is game over.
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| Pictured: "Miss, see? Nyah!" |
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| Not Pictured: Me hoping that no member of the Policeman's Union reads my blog |
The last game mode is Game C Trick Shot. Trick Shot is the most compelling game mode for me. The player is tasked with juggling cans thrown from the right side of the screen to land in or pass through scoring zones on the left side of the screen. Predictably, juggling is accomplished by shooting. Thanks, physics! Letting a can fall past the bottom of the screen results in a miss. Miss 10 cans and the player is done. Even though this mode requires little explanation I will justify why I think this game mode actually has the most to offer when I break each mode down in the next section.
Experience & Presentation:
Playing each game mode once until I got a game over rewarded me with about ten minutes worth of gameplay which included a prolonged stay at the title screen. I was worried at first that I would do a lot of clock watching as the minutes dragged on but I was surprised when I found myself pretty engaged. I think this represented my experience being tied to learning a new game than simply replaying an old one.
Game A gave me the least amount of enjoyment between all three modes. It’s essentially a quick draw game with the twist of having a chance of picking the wrong target. Calling this a shooting gallery is certainly an apt description since the set dressing for this mode makes the game look like a literal gallery. Dirty Harry did it a little bit better, in my opinion.
Game B was a little bit more engaging. The scrolling background gives a few target layouts rather than the static choice of three. Plus, some targets appear exposed and they must be shot (or not) before they turn sideways rather than the target being presented as an unshootable target first and then targetable. The town scenes are a little more compelling than the stationary gallery but the buildings are very blocky with plain text describing a couple of the buildings instead of graphics doing the storytelling. It's as if it was set up for literal target practice. Dirty Harry still did it better.
Game C has no Clint Eastwood analog I could post here, sorry. While the gameplay here is simple to describe there is a lot more to do. The cans are thrown at random heights and intervals and the player may need to try and land some cans in the scoring zones while other cans are still being introduced in the playing field.
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| Pictured: Dilemmas |
The main reason that I liked this game mode the most is that the player can choose how many points the targets are worth. The targets can be guided to different scoring zones ala a horizontal game of Plinko and that adds a level of agency absent from the other game modes. In game modes A and B the targets are all assigned a point value based on the picture the player is shooting. The ruffian GANG offers 500 points, the grey trench coat GANG is worth 1,000 points, and the sunglasses wearing GANG member is always worth 2,000. The GANGs are presented at random times so the player cannot expect to achieve the same score between two different playings based on skill alone. Duck Hunt's duck shooting modes had fixed score values for the ducks as well but each tier of ducks behaved differently. More effort was rewarded with more points. The player's score at this game is determined quite a bit by what targets the game decides to give to the player at any particular time. Since the targets all behave exactly the same a run of bad luck could reward the player with a low score.
Being able to increase the player's score through skill rather than luck allows the player to make decisions of whether or not to play risky and try to score big or to play it safe and attempt to get a high score by surviving long enough. Cans that are launched into the stratosphere through super aggressive shooting do not yield points. Sorry.
It only took me a few tries before I completed my self imposed challenge of reaching 100,000 points in this game mode so I gave myself another challenge to round out my hour of play time. Each of the game's modes will reward the player with a compliment if they beat a certain level. Sometimes it is merely a "GOOD!" while the satisfying statement of "SHARPSHOOTER!" in staggered ascending text did feel like a nice achievement. Trick shot mode gave me the "SHARPSHOOTER!" pat on the back after level 5 and I got the award of "SUPER SHARPSHOOTER!" after beating level 10. I wanted to get to level 15 to see if my reward would be "SUPER DUPER SHARPSHOOTER!" or something like that. The results?
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| Pictured: Disappointment |
Verdict & Score:
Hogan's Alley is the first time I can make a direct comparison to another game in the Nintendo library as far as this blog is concerned. Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers are apples and oranges gameplay-wise but I can still measure my relative level of enjoyment to scale. For Hogan's Alley and Duck Hunt a more direct comparison is allowed. Each game has their pros and cons but Duck Hunt wins out for me. And it wins out large enough that I am willing to rank it a full level higher than Hogan's Alley. While Hogan's Alley is a fun game I think a lot of that fun was rendered from the fact it was a new experience rather than an old friend. Duck Hunt has a lot more charm than Hogan's Alley. 100% of Duck Hunt's targets are mobile, the game’s characters express more, the music and sound effects complement each other well, and failing in Duck Hunt is much less ugly than Hogan's Alley's blinking red screens of “MISS”.
Overall I give Hogan's Alley a 4/10. It is not a bad game. it’s just sub par.
With that I only have one more light gun game to go in the original 17. Let's round out this three parter with Wild Gunman.
Factoids & Trivia:
So it turns out that Nintendo was clever in their Hogan’s Alley naming scheme. Hogan’s Alley was first inspired by an actual place called Hogan’s Alley established by the National Rifle Association in Camp Perry, Ohio. From there “Hogan’s Alley” has come to be known as a generic term for any shooting range devoted to tactical training. Three years after the game’s release, the FBI opened a training facility in Quantico, Virginia named Hogan’s Alley and is probably the most well-known location that uses that name.
Typically the tactical training refers to law enforcement or military going through routes or using buildings to roleplay through simulated shoot/no shoot situations using fake ammunition. It makes perfect sense that this game earns its moniker from this source. The game is actually representing the shooting galleries presented in these locations. While it is great that this helps give context to the cardboard cutout targets and the non-descript buildings presented in the game it doesn’t earn the game any points back since none of this information is presented in the game itself.
Sources:
NES box art:
Hogan’s Alley (video game) info:
Hogan’s Alley (FBI) info:
Camp Perry info:
Hogan’s Alley arcade footage:
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