Game #016: Pinball, Released: October 18th, 1985

 

Developed by: Nintendo R&D 1, Published by: Nintendo

Introduction & Bias:

Ahh, pinball. Whenever I visit a classic arcade I always make an effort to see if they have any pinball tables. Arcades with a lot of older cabinets with classic games seem to have a higher chance of having a table compared to modern arcades. Modern arcades make a lot of their money by offering quick games that pay out a ticket reward. Pinball machines have not primarily been known for having any sort of ticket dispensing system so they are often excluded from arcade lineups.

That's too bad because up here in central New York I don't really know of any retro arcades. The ones I loved going to the most are all situated at seaside attraction towns like Seaside Heights in New Jersey. I always get a little misty eyed remembering the combination of the smell of salt water and the excitement of all of their attractions like carousels, mini golf, and, yes, huge arcades.

Nostalgia notwithstanding I got to play the first Pinball title for the NES, simply titled Pinball. This game certainly has pinball in it. Let's dive in.

First Impressions & Presentation:

The title screen this time is nothing really to look at. There is a black screen with the words Pin and Ball on it. Instead of the double layered fake 3-D text, the player simply gets a little highlight on each letter to make them appear round. Maybe they are bubblegum letters or something. Not sure. Other than that, the player just has a choice of game mode to make. The tip here is that there is not much difference between the two modes. They both take place on the same pinball table. The six second theme music is pleasant enough, though.

Pictured: Pinballoon maybe?

The game does have a demonstration to allow the player to preview the table before selecting their game mode. The silent demo does not offer anything amazing other than that preview. Pinball by its nature is pretty easy to understand so there are not a lot of rules to learn. There are two sets of flippers on the table in this game and the object is to keep the ball from falling past the bottom set. The demonstration player quickly loses their ball and it gets reset back to the title screen. Easy enough.

I got the chance to launch the ball once I started the game proper and I did get some ability to finesse how much strength I got to use during the launch. The problem is, practically any strength other than full would not shoot the ball far enough to put it into play so I wonder why the option to have a variable launch strength exists.

Pictured: FULL POWER!

The graphics were inoffensive enough but I was confused as to what the theme of the table actually was. The top half of the pinball table allows the player to interact with trained seals and a set of penguins. The bottom half of the table gives the player a chance to complete a royal flush with playing cards and hatch baby chicks out of eggs.

Don't confuse the term "inoffensive" graphics with "good" graphics, however. Honestly, the whole thing looks pretty dull. Most of the screen is black except for the parts that can be interacted with. On top of that there is no music that plays during the game except for one little victory jingle that sounds if the player completes one of the table's objectives. The sounds are pretty dull as well with a lot of clunks and thuds representing the ball hitting different targets. Overall, the game does not benefit from its style or art direction.

Pictured: Cute penguins and a total lack of character besides

A real pinball table does not tend to have a lot of moving art on the actual playing area so perhaps entertaining gameplay will pull this NES title out of mediocrity. Prepare for disappointment.

Experience & Conveyance:

I have played a fair amount of pinball over the years. The tables I got to experience tended to be products of their times so I started out with tables that only had number displays like old alarm clocks and their associated bells and whistles. Later on, licensed pinball tables would be a pretty big deal with pretty elaborate dot matrix displays, lots of music, and voice samples from their respective medium.

It's unfair to expect an NES game to recreate anything from a modern pinball table. The game is copyrighted in 1983 so it's not like pinball tables of that era had a lot of tricks up their sleeves. To check this I spent about 20 minutes watching YouTube videos of pinball tables and I did manage to find a table that was released the same year as this game: Farfalla.

I have no idea what this game is based on, if anything. I'll look into that more for the trivia section. Based on my research the NES Pinball title represents about as much as one could get out of a pinball table at the time so this game gets a pass in that regard. That said, it really is not a terribly engaging experience. I think the main problem is that playing pinball in real life is the sum total of all of the surrounding experiences. A player rarely gets to put quarters into a pinball machine that is sitting in an empty room. There are other games or at least a pizza parlor next to it to provide other feedback. There is a certain joy of pushing the buttons on a pinball machine or using the plunger to launch the ball. All of that is missing from the NES title.

Not Pictured: An arcade. Or pizza

It's too bad, too, because Nintendo did at least try to do one or two things that would make playing a game of Pinball on the NES familiar and unique. First, the controls are really simple. The left flipper is activated by pressing left on the controller and the right flipper is triggered with the A button. This simulates the usage of the pinball flipper buttons by forcing the player to use the right and leftmost buttons on the NES controller.

The second item is a bonus game that is hidden in one of the bonus activators on the table. Shooting the ball up into that activation hole will bring the player to a different screen with a bonus game. The object of this game is to bounce the pinball up, Breakout style, to keep the ball above a certain line on the playing field. The Breakout platform is being held by Mario who carries the platform back and forth over his head to keep the pinball in play. The ball is used to light up different rows and columns of numbers. Doing that enough will slowly destroy pieces of floor that are holding Mario's first girlfriend, Pauline, captive. Once the floor breaks she begins to fall so Mario must catch her so she can escape. Completing this bonus game nets the player a lot of points which, at the end of the day, is the only thing a player can do in a game of pinball.

Pictured: Mario and Pauline are just in it for the paycheck

And that's it. Keep the ball in play, attempt to complete objectives to activate safety bumpers, and score lots of points. The only use of points other than getting the high score is to get an extra ball. An extra ball is awarded at 50,000 points, but like so much of the rest of the game it happens with no ceremony.

Verdict & Score:

Playing this game was a bore. Writing this article got me more nostalgic for a part of my childhood that I thought I had let go so I am grateful for at least that much. Feeling whimsical does not make me feel any softer or more kind toward this NES game, however. If nothing else I do not want to give this title any more credit than it is worth because I know what pinball is capable of.

After mixing my feelings together and spitting them out I will give Pinball a 4(3)/10. The game is disappointing to be sure but I don't think it makes me feel strongly enough to call it a bad title.

Factoids & Trivia:

No, I did not find out anything more about Farfalla or what the voice on that table actually says. The whole thing looks pretty psychedelic. Winners don't do drugs.

While there are a couple of pinball titles on the NES I was curious if Nintendo produced any pinball tables themselves. I did learn that Nintendo partnered with venerable pinball machine producer Gottlieb for at least two pinball tables based on the Mario Brothers series. I remember seeing the second of the two at Seaside Heights though I missed my chance to play it. I am linking a video here to a company that restored the first of the two tables to better-than-factory condition.

To wrap things up I can mention one pinball table that I am oddly proud that I got to play. It is reportedly the largest pinball table ever produced and appropriately it is named after Hercules. This table is massive. I think I got to play this when I was about 7 or 8 years old and I could barely get my arms around the thing. The table does not use a pinball to operate. Instead it uses a cue ball. You know, one that you play pool with? This table is that big. You can watch a video of it here. Now excuse me while I stop crying and get myself back to the present.

Sniff. Ah, OK. I'll be back by the end of the month. I am really excited to get the review after this posted. After this next review I will have played and posted about all 17 US launch titles and I will consider this whole insane project officially off the ground! Join me next time as I knock down some buildings in Wrecking Crew! See you then.

Sources:

NES box art:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/

Pinball Machine Game Listing

http://www.ipdb.org/lists.cgi?anonymously=true&list=games

Super Mario Brothers Pinball

http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_Bros._pinball#445612738299489718

Super Mario Brothers Mushroom World Pinball

http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_Bros._Mushroom_World

NES Pinball on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_%28video_game%29

Game #015: Kung Fu, Released: October 18th, 1985

 

Developed by: Nintendo, Published by: Nintendo

 

Introduction & Bias:

Kung Fu is a title that I did not play until I was an adult. It just wasn't a game that I saw my friends own so I selected the title from the massive list of games I downloaded because, hey, it's Kung Fu. I do like me some martial arts movies sometimes and why not give this game a try? After playing it the first time it triggered some memories of the arcade version of the NES game that I witnessed once but passed up in favor of other arcade machines. It always made more sense to me to play games that looked like Nintendo games on the home console and use the arcade as an opportunity to play games made specifically for those arcade cabinets. They were always more powerful than the home console so they brought something different.

I bring this up because on the surface Kung Fu does not look like anything special but once I started playing the game again in earnest I was really able to peel a couple of layers back and get some good gameplay out of the title. On top of that I found out some pretty interesting details about the history of the game and why it exists. Let's get into the review proper so I can share what I learned.

First Impressions & Presentation:

The title card for Kung Fu continues Nintendo's trend of having the fake 3-D text but the yellow and red of the title's lettering pop out and the perspective is correct so good for them. Add to that the Chinese-style border and some foreshadowing of the dragons and the mode select icon in the shape of a dagger and the player is presented with a pretty solid title screen. If there was music playing I would give it full marks.

Pictured: Kung Fu Game!

There is only one demonstration included in this title but it is pretty effective. The demonstration shows the protagonist, Thomas, walking in from off-camera facing to the left. After a brief pause he walks forward and immediately begins to punch and kick enemies who are all taken out in one hit. Thomas has middle, low, and jump attacks and they are all displayed here. Good to know.

Also good to know is how the health system works. Regular pink and grey enemies only damage Thomas when they get right up in his grill. After a moment of awkward staring they are shaken off but Thomas has lost a little bit of health. The other enemy on display is a knife throwing enemy who wears a white headband and gi. Thomas is hit with a knife and while it does significant damage it is far from a one-hit kill. In fact, the player can take quite a bit of abuse based on this introduction. On top of that I learn that Thomas has two extra lives and that there is a timer set to 2,000 Arbitrary Time Units that tick down quickly.

Pictured: Kung Fu Jump!

After educating myself with that demonstration I started playing the game and it plays just like I expected it to based on what I saw. The only thing the demonstration did not convey well was jump momentum. Thomas can jump straight up or lock in for a forward jump and that is easy enough to figure out in the first few minutes of play. Overall the pick up and play aspect of this game is pretty great.

The presentation is pretty simple. Thomas is your Kung Fu hero that looks completely distinct from the pink and blue haired enemies so keeping track of the correct character is easy. Other than that everything is pretty plain with almost nothing to give the player more information or distract them either. The player, enemies, and obstacles all look as flat as a board with only the floor of the fighting plane and its supporting pier-like structure giving the graphics any sense of depth. I will credit the game for taking place on a light blue background which allows the black haired protagonist an easy way to stand out.

There is one other neat detail that I want to point out. The upper portion of the fighting area of the screen contains small banners. The banners have the symbols for 1-5 in Japanese so the player can get a quick idea of how far along each of the game's levels they are. It is a nice little bonus for those players who can at least recognize the characters of Japanese numbers.

Pictured: Kung Fu Counting!

The music is suitable and follows the pattern from Ice Climber of having quick intro themes while taking a back seat to the action during gameplay. The music in this game was provided by Mario composer Koji Kondo. My man. To top off the audio the sound effects offer some punch as Thomas will shout when he attacks and adds to the pleasure the player should get when they knock over some goons. Overall the presentation suits the action without really elevating it to the next level or detracting from it.

Experience & Conveyance:

Up to this point I haven't actually mentioned what type of game this is or the plot. The plot is not revealed immediately but since the game is named after a family of martial arts styles the player should expect this to be some sort of fighting game. Fighting does occur but it functions more as a side scrolling beat-em-up. All enemies other than bosses go down in one or two hits meaning the player's body count is high. The player can proceed left or right at any time which is a nice change from the usual ratchet scrolling found in titles like Super Mario Brothers. Since the progress number banners exist it is hard to forget what the intended direction is supposed to be in case the player gets turned around.

The fighting is very responsive. Pressing the A button throws punches and the B button launches kicks. All of the animations are crisp, fast and can be spammed. The player will routinely be assaulted by three or four enemies at a time and Thomas can attack as quickly as the player can mash buttons. This makes encounters against the normal enemies pretty routine but the knife throwing enemies apply an appropriate amount of pressure to the proceedings as the player may need to duck or jump over thrown knives. After I knocked out over a dozen foes I came across the first boss who has the superpower of using a stick!

Pictured: Kung Fu Tonfa!

The boss is more powerful than the regular enemies by quite a large margin. The player can only get hit by the boss maybe two or three times before dying. To add insult to injury the boss will let out an evil digitized chuckle if they personally defeat the player. The jerk. Making the boss eat his laugh will allow the player to ascend to the next floor. There are five floors in all and the first floor only takes about a minute to complete. This would be a very brief game were it not for one thing: lack of continues.

The player gets three lives to beat all five floors of the tower with additional lives possible if they can score over 50,000 points. I failed to beat the first floor on my first set of lives but then made it to the second floor my next try. The second floor completely schooled me as the obstacles took the form of falling traps and summoned creatures, rather than other martial artists.

Pictured: Kung Fu Trogdor!

Frustration quickly set in for me as I would run until I hit a brick wall, get forced to reset at a game over, and then make incremental progress on following attempts. The process was slow but relatively steady as I learned from mistakes and encountered new obstacles. I fought my way through snakes and dragon summons on the second level along with floating confetti bombs. My reflexes got sharper as I waited out falling obstacles and dodged the boomerangs of the second boss to beat that level and proceed to the third. I was stopped only briefly to get all of the information I needed about Thomas' motivation.

Pictured: Kung Fu Plot!

The last three stages each had their own challenges. Floor 3 added small enemies that needed to be dispatched with low attacks. The boss was a hulking dark-skinned man whose main advantage was having long reach and crushing damage. The fourth floor forced me to dodge and kick poisonous moths out of the air and to defeat a magician who would literally lose their head when kicked in the face only to reappear unharmed to throw more spells.

The final stage gets rid of all the gimmicks and challenges the player to a gauntlet of all three human enemy types until they finally encounter Mr. X himself. Mr. X is a tough customer as he fights with a similar style to Thomas and can actually block some of the player's attacks to mitigate damage. Upon finally beating Mr. X with a jump kick to the face I was allowed to finally free Sylvia so we could share all of our hearts.

Pictured: Kung Fu Romance!

Verdict & Score:

Kung Fu represents a rarity for me as I actually completed the game within my hour of play time. It really taxed me as I tend to have a low amount of willpower and patience when it comes to full-game resets. I managed to smack my head against the brick wall that was the moderate challenge to the game until I got a clean run and achieved my victory. I felt good about the whole thing but beating the game just forced me back to Floor 1 with some heightened challenge. I was satisfied with the game at that point.

Overall the game is crisp, fun, and concise. It may be hard to get a good one-hour bite out of this game, especially when a skilled player can beat it in a matter of minutes. A player new to this title should get a kick or punch or two of fun out of several short sittings of Kung Fu.

With all that in mind I will give Kung Fu a 6/10. Hi-ya!

Factoids & Trivia:

All right. Ready for some trivia? Get this.

Kung Fu was originally developed as a tie-in to the 1976 Bruce Lee movie Game of Death, hence the five levels of the game which ties in well with the so-called plot of that movie. During development the game was renamed Spartan X for its Japanese release. Spartan X was the Japanese name of the movie Wheels on Meals, a classic Jackie Chan flick that was more contemporary to the game's release.

To avoid needing to license the game to the movie studio upon the game's international release the title was changed again to either Kung-Fu Master or Kung Fu depending on the system. To that end, the characters Thomas and Sylvia are the names of Jackie Chan's and Lola Forner's characters from Wheels on Meals. That means in a roundabout way, Jackie Chan unofficially starred in one of the launch titles for the NES. Neat, huh?

In case you were wondering why the movie was titled Wheels on Meals instead of Meals on Wheels which makes more sense; the executives at Golden Harvest, the producers of the movie, got nervous about the movie's title because the last two movies they released that began with the letter M were flops so they meddled and changed the name of the movie. Never bet against Jackie.

Here, have a fight scene from this movie:

It seems that this game can be picked up for less than $10. Have at it!

Next up, something with just slightly less Kung Fu action: Pinball! See you then.

Sources:

NES box art:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/

Kung Fu on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung-Fu_Master

Wheels on Meals on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_on_Meals

Kung Fu prices researched on eBay on March 27th, 2016.

Game #014: Ice Climber, Released: October 18th, 1985

 

Developed by: Nintendo R&D 1, Published by: Nintendo

Introduction & Bias:

Ice Climber is a pretty interesting piece of Nintendo history. It's not so much that I think the game is some legendary classic as I have a whole article to prove that idea, but I think that this game, more than most, is proof that Nintendo is excellent at making sure they get as many eyeballs and dollars out of its old content to obfuscate how little they output today. I don't think that Nintendo drags its feet in the present but it is the nature of the video game industry beast that any new ideas or old ideas made new takes so much more effort to product that we don't get the days of ten to seventeen simultaneous game release gluts anymore. Case in point, I did not know this first party existed until Super Smash Brothers Melee was released for the GameCube in 2000.

Through SSBM I learned that the Ice Climbers were a pair of short, parka wearing people who acted well in tandem and had a lot of old-school charm. Their jumps made old noises, they shot a basic themed projectile (ice, instead of Mario's fire), and used those easy-to-draw, classic video game weapons: hammers. And so, of course, thanks to the creativity of SSBM's interpretation of the Ice Climbers I needed to go back and see what I had missed. My familiarity with Ice Climber makes writing about this game both easy and difficult because I do have a fair amount of experience playing this title. But since my hour of play time was not used for gameplay discovery it was difficult to make that time compelling.

First Impressions & Presentation:

If nothing else, Ice Climber certainly knows how to get the party started. In spite of the black background of the title screen the title card itself actually makes clever use of the faux 3-D text layer with dark blue letters that looked carved into a lighter blue block of ice. Good theming there, Nintendo.

Pictured: An easy high score to beat

Couple the good theming with a jaunty intro screen music tune and I am looking at a game that does a good job at setting my expectation meter to "fun". There are three selectable options, 1-player, 2-player, and Mountain. Since I don't have any friends I only played the 1-player mode but I do know that 2-player mode does feature simultaneous gameplay and that's pretty neat. The Mountain choice is a stage select that lets the player pick amongst the game's 32 different stages. For as notorious Nintendo is for making very difficult games it seems that a lot of these early titles were nice enough to give options to pick up from where the player left off without needing to have a save function. That is a pretty clever design decision.

Letting the game go through its attract mode introductions does allow the player to get a feel for the rules and objectives of the game. The goal is simple: climb the mountain. This is achieved by jumping up all of the numbered platform levels of the stage to reach the top. Aiding the player character is the ability to jump high and swing a hammer at the same time. The first demonstration shows that the player is protected from above when they jump as the hammer swats flying dinosaur enemies directly above them. Jumping also lets the player break blocks to allow passage up to the next level. Opposing the player are the aforementioned airborne dinosaur enemies, small yetis that fill in broken floor tiles with icicles, and unbreakable blocks which have a distinct look compared to destructible bricks.

The introduction to each stage shows a preview of the whole mountain as the player will watch a quick fly-through of the level. They will witness a pterodactyl fly straight up the mountain carrying an eggplant in its talons. I wish I was making that up. The preview of the level only shows permanent features of the mountain which apparently includes 40 second timers embedded into the icy peak and the words "BONUS STAGE" literally floating in the air.

Not pictured: My speculation that if this naturally occurred on mountains we'd have fewer mountain climbers and more mountain-based casinos

Other game rules I learned is that the player can wrap their position left-to-right on the screen. So if the player walks off the screen to the right they will appear on the left. This is an important lesson I missed and I only discovered that on accident later in my play time. I also learned that the player can use their hammer to attack foes to the side and that the player dies in one hit. Of course. I would expect more durability from even small humans if they were capable of climbing mountains.

The demonstrations play to complete silence but the sound design is pretty good overall during actual play time. There are two main themes in the game: the first being the title music that is also repeated during the bonus stages and the second is a more subdued version of the theme that plays during the main climbing portion of the levels. There are plenty of sound effects for jumping and hammering and the simple graphics do a good enough job of warning of danger and keeping all of the objectives clear enough against the contrast of the black background.

Pictured: Basic gameplay at its most clear

Unlike some other titles I have reviewed so far Ice Climber actually does develop new layers of challenge as levels progress which is to its credit and detriment.

Experience & Conveyance:

Stage one of Ice Climber is a pretty straight forward affair. The only obstacles the player needs to overcome are the challenges I outlined earlier. All I needed to do was break through the platforms and proceed up to the top of floor 8 to get to the bonus stage. It is a good thing that the first mountain was such a warm up as there is a decent amount of subtlety to the game's jumping mechanics that need to be mastered quickly.

Like in real life there is little the player can do to influence the trajectory of a jump once they are airborne. The player can move maybe one or two small brick's worth of distance to the right or left if a standing jump is performed. The real way to get anywhere is to make a running jump. The run does not have to be that long; maybe only two or three brick lengths to get the full horizontal distance from a jump. This forces the player to be pretty methodical and plan ahead for a lot of jumps to ascend to higher levels as the option to simply jump in place to proceed is not often a viable one.

Pictured: Fire Mario would have a much easier time in this game

Things get tricky starting in level 2 as a new element gets introduced: scrolling clouds. Some floors of a mountain will have no permanent platform to stand on so the player must wait for a cloud to float by which is, of course, solid both on the top and bottom. In some stages the cloud floats by at breakneck speeds so the player needs to anticipate its arrival, jump to break blocks on a higher floor, and then finally ascend. Usually the cloud scrolls by so quickly that the player will need to wait for three or four different clouds to pass by to finally get to the next floor. Once that level of play gets reached all hell starts to break loose.

The player in the later levels can eventually find themselves in this situation: The player stands on about two or three bricks trying to jump on a cloud. The cloud moves fast so landing on it happens almost by accident. The player then needs to jump up immediately to break through to the higher floor. Failing to jump back down to the tiny platform means death because somehow the lower floors have disappeared due to the ratchet scrolling. On top of this, a yeti works on the floor above to undo the players progress, birds swoop in from above, and oh, yes, the floor the player is trying to jump on to is a conveyor belt so there is a good chance they will slip off the higher platform anyway. To compound the troubles the player may be hit with the soft time limit of the game: a standing polar bear wearing pink swimming trunks and sunglasses (still not making this up) will walk out, jump, and scroll the entire screen down to apply pressure if the player is not making quick enough progress. All of this is handed to the player while they still need to somehow make a running jump to finesse their ascent. The game gets brutally hard in the middle and later stages.

Pictured: Hell frozen over!

The player gets three whole lives to work with and only a single chance to earn more. Even though the player can manually select the mountain they died on last to restart their progress, the three life total can be chewed through in a just a few seconds if they end up respawning on some impossible platform over and over again. At the end of the day the different levels end up turning more into puzzle games than platforming games. The would not necessarily be a bad thing if it wasn't for the fact that the mechanics of jumping require the game to move at one speed while the game itself insists on moving about twice as fast as needed.

Verdict & Score:

Ice Climber was not a game that got brought up as a title that the cool kids owned from the early NES library. There were many copies of Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, and Excitebike but I was ignorant to this game existing until Smash Brothers brought the Ice Climbers out of the archives. I can see why this game might not have caught on. The pick-up-and-play features of the other games does not really apply to Ice Climber. The overall goal is simple but the difficulty curve ramps up far too quickly to be user friendly. 30 years later I think the title can be played well by more experienced gamers and offers a more entertaining experiences than titles like Clu Clu Land but I think Ice Climber fails to ascend to a level higher than average.

As foreshadowed just one sentence ago I will give Ice Climber a 5(6) out of ten. It may be able to break the mold of an average Nintendo game but only barely.

Factoids & Trivia:

To me, Ice Climber doesn't feel like it has its own trivia (though it does have some) as much as Ice Climber feels like Nintendo trivia. I predict that this game really wouldn't be well known at all if the characters had not been revived for Smash Brothers. The imagery of the Ice Climbers were used here and there besides Smash Brothers, most notably in a couple of Kirby games. The titular character would wear an Ice Climber inspired parka when he has a freeze based powerup. Even then, the Kirby games where this happens were released after Smash Brothers so it stands to reason that if the Ice Climbers were not used then the reference in the Kirby games would not exist.

I think the most interesting trivia item I found regarding the differences between the Japanese and North American versions of the game is that the yeti creatures in the NA version were actually seals in the Japanese game. I guess Nintendo of America did not want to have any seal clubbing in their games. Exploding bubble fish are OK, but seal clubbing is just a bridge too far.

It is also clear that development of this game was one of Nintendo's earlier efforts as the game's director considered this a warm up to later efforts. Like Super Mario Brothers.

Probably due to the name recognition alone the game is fetching $15-$20 on eBay.

Not a lot of trivia this time so I will share an Ice Climber remix that I like. Enjoy!

That's it for me today. Check out the next article where I will present a game I like and actually has one trivia fact I only learned about recently: Kung-Fu.

Sources:

NES box art:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/

Ice Climber on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Climber

Ebay prices researched on March 25th, 2016.

Remix selected from:

www.ocremix.org

Game #013: Excitebike, Released: October 18th, 1985

Developed by: Nintendo R&D 1, Published by: Nintendo

Introduction & Bias:

Game unlucky number 13 brings us to a title that I have actually played for several hours: Excitebike. I did not own this game as a kid but I did pick up a copy much later on. This game presented something different and, well, exciting to me as a kid. It's a racing game! I remember playing each of the game's modes to death and different friend's houses since having access to any game meant I needed to play it a lot to make up for the lack of variety in my own gaming library.

Here I am as a 31-year-old picking the game up again and I remember the good feelings I had playing the game when I was younger. I looked forward to playing this one with a bit more of a critical mindset. I wanted to see if all of my knowledge of other games and my mastery of this one would make Excitebike shine a little less after all this time. Let's find out.

First Impressions & Presentation:

Turning on Excitebike is a treat. The player is presented with a bright theme tune for a couple of seconds while they think about which of the game's three modes they should play. The screen itself is also blue instead of black with a brighter blue title written on it and a racing inspired checkered flag border. Overall it's a pretty neat design.

Not Pictured: Me wanting to say "On your marks, get set, go!" but that just gets me thinking of Double Dare

There is only one demonstration in the game to watch but it took me a couple of replays of it to realize that. The demonstration shows a lone motocross racer at the starting gate. Once it starts it avoids a rough patch of terrain on the ground and goes over several sets of jumps before finally wiping out. There is a temperature gauge that stays flat in the middle of its TEMP reading. Finally, there are a couple of other terrain features that are avoided. If the player is astute they will see that the racer tries to land flat on the ground to maintain its speed. It only wipes out when it tries to land flat on a rising jump.

Pictured: Ahahahahaha, wipeout! *surf music*

Playing the game was just as intuitive as ever and I like a lot of the nice touches in the graphics. As the player speeds down the track there are several types of people such as coaches and cameramen the will actually reverse positions when the player passes by them. There are Nintendo logos and the track's time record on the wall in front of the stadium seating. The racers themselves animate well with a lot of different sprites depending on whether the bikes are tilted forward and backwards. Finally, the player racer gives a signature thumbs up while making a wheelie whenever they cross the finishing jump. The music tracks, while brief, also add to the tension of starting races, offer a nice victory tune and an encouraging title piece.

Not everything about the graphics are perfect. The game relies quite a bit on palette swapping to give the illusion of different stadiums and the colors picked for the track and the surrounding stadium are not always attractive. Plus, the audience in attendance is made up of kind of a smeared repeating tile to simulate a packed crowd. It works fine when the player is moving at full speed but it looks kind of ugly when standing still. Overall the presentation works well with some good charm but the graphics betray the simplicity of design necessary in early NES games.

Pictured: Considering the noodle appendages of the racers they must have all skipped arm day

In the end, a racing game needs to be about the race and hopefully the speed. The experience is where the game starts to deliver for real.

Experience & Conveyance:

There are many things that Excitebike does right and it's the same things that make me want to come back to play the game even years later. First, there is a good amount of anticipation to the game. The title screen for Excitebike is actually the most effective screen at illustrating the excitement for the game out of the thirteen titles I've played so far. It beats out Super Mario Brothers because the SMB title plays out to total silence which is a little bit creepy. While Excitebike's intro jingle is short it certainly is sweet and looking at the checkered flag border honestly does make me want to get into the race.

Picking the "Selection A" mode and a track number quickly gets me to the starting gate while the whole time the music plays an upbeat "ready to race" music that immediately leads to the three tone start signal. After that it is all about the speed. Here is where my complaints about the graphics begin to matter less.

Pictured: "Dun, dun, DUN!"

Movement in the game is pretty simple on paper but there is a fair amount of nuance to the controls. The up and down arrows make the racer switch to and from one of the four racing lanes. The A button makes the player go and the B button makes the player go faster. Holding the B button will cause the bike's radiator to overheat if it is pressed too long and the really stressful engine noise gives the player plenty of warning about a potential overheat. As the player speeds up all of the graphics begin to make sense. The ugly smear graphic for the fans in attendance becomes a blur. The roadside markers pass by in a streak. The track hashmarks become single lines. The game really does a lot to feel fast. Then the player must deal with the obstacles.

Spicing up each of the game's five tracks are lots of bumps, jumps, dirt patches, and engine cooldown strips (just roll with it). This is where the left and right arrow get their exercise. At any time the player can shift the racer's weight forward or backward. If this is done on flat ground the racer will do wheelies and this is not just for showing off. Certain obstacles can only be passed over safely if the player lifts their front wheel off the ground. Also, every single jump will give the player a ton of air if their speed is high. To maintain speed, the player needs to land with both wheels flat on the ground or they will bounce and slow down. The trick is that the player may be landing on another ramp. If the player's front wheel is less steep than the slope of the ramp they will spend the next few seconds cartwheeling over and over until they clear the obstacle and finally get thrown off their bike onto the side of the track. Then begins the walk of shame...

Pictured: Mashing A to get on the bike faster!

All of these elements leads to a pretty technical racing experience on top of the speed. Bouncing too much off of ramps, falling too much, not boosting enough and boosting too much may cause the player to not get a third place finish. The objective for the player is to beat a time attack. The top score is posted on the wall of the stadium while the third place time is on the HUD. Getting a better time than third place advances the player to the next race and anything slower than that earns the player a game over. There are only five tracks in the game but the player can pick "Selection B" and add in some challenge: other racers.

Pictured: Who invited you?

In spite of the competition, Selection B is still a time attack mode. This time the player must contend with an unlimited number of opponents. While the player witnesses three other racers at the starting line more will spawn in front of and behind the controlled racer, though only four racers can be present on the track at a time. The player should quickly find out that the rear wheel of their dirtbike is the most powerful weapon in the world. Contact with the rear of any bike, player or computer, will send the bike in the rear tumbling to their next fall. On top of that the computer cheats. Like, a lot. The computer gets to move at speeds very different from the player and can create some nigh-impossible roadblocks to navigate.

Pictured: No way out

Fortunately since this is still a time attack and not a race for first place, the other racers just provide more obstacles rather than competition. Besides, the worst obstacle in the game is the player itself. Enter: "Design" mode. Yes, the player can make a track with their own editor. Mario Maker it ain't but it was pretty unique for its day. Essentially the player can drive along the side of the track and pick places to leave different obstacles by selecting their corresponding letter from the menu. If the player doesn't like their selection they can go back and redraw it as long as they don't move forward. Trying to drive past the most recent obstacle will force the player to pass the whole thing so there is no doubling stacking of turbo jumps or anything like that. This can lead to some really chaotic and poorly designed tracks but it can lead to something *magical. More on that in the Trivia section. The player can, in theory, save and load a track for further editing but this is all that happens when the player loads a track.

Pictured: "I can't even put my mouse on the progress bar to see if it is doing anything!"

Excitebike is a game that is really easy to figure out. The controller only has 6 buttons, after all. The feedback the player gets when using the boost will prevent excessive overheating. Interacting with other racers is simple and navigating the obstacles is pretty intuitive. The only things that are not clear on the track are the engine cooldown arrows and the wheelie speed bumps but a little experimentation can yield quick results. The design mode is a little obtuse and doesn't completely work but overall the game is very easy to pick up and play.

Verdict & Score:

Excitebike is one of the games today seen by many as a classic and one of the best games on the system. Don't get me wrong, I had quite a bit of fun racing through a few rounds of this game but it was hard to enjoy my whole hour. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I did not have to re-master the controls since I was so familiar with this title but I don't think that's the whole story. The game is short. I mean, really short. With 5 tracks and two modes to play it really does not have a lot of staying power. Also, while the graphics and sound design are effective they are still pretty basic which does leave a lot to be desired, especially since no music plays during the races. If I played Mario Kart today with no background music I would probably find that to be less entertaining, too.

All things considered I am going to give Excitebike a 6(7)/10. I am willing to call this game one of the fair ones but my optimism for the NES library makes me think that I am going to have plenty of games to fill out the 7, 8, and 9 spaces. Besides, as far as this review column is concerned, a 6/10 is still a worthwhile play. Check it out if you have never given Excitebike a spin.

Factoids & Trivia:

Several versions of Excitebike exist as this was still the era of Nintendo arcade games. It seems that Japan kept a lot of the neat toys for themselves as the arcade version of the game had more levels and an actual difficulty mode. On top of that another version of the game was released on the Famicom Disk System in 1988. That version actually allowed saving and loading of custom tracks. The jerks.

One of the most amusing things to do besides causing fatal injuries to opposing racers is to go as fast as possible. It is possible on a custom track to lay out engine cooling strips and the short turbo jumps in a way that the player can break the normal speed cap. Using the boost over a turbo jump increases the player's speed but if another turbo jump can be landed on and chained together then the game never slows the player down. Eventually relative causality breaks down and the player's engine noises will end, the game can't draw its sprites fast enough to keep up and the player will jump so high that they will break through the bottom of the screen and on to the track again. Watch it in this video!

The game still has many copies in circulation and it seems like it is easy enough to get a copy for $15 or less. Not a terrible price. I'd rather pay less than $10.

Coming up next is a game I hadn't heard about until Smash Brothers Melee: Ice Climber. Until then, stay frosty.

Sources:

NES box art:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/

Ebay prices researched on March 9th, 2016

Obligatory wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitebike

Gamesradar puts this game at #28 of all time. It's a bit lower on my list:

http://www.gamesradar.com/best-nes-games-all-time/