NES Replay: BurgerTime

Kurt Vonnegut, the late, great famous author, told a story about his brief time at Sports Illustrated. His first day at the magazine, he was assigned to write a story about a horse that jumped a fence and tried to run away. He stared at the paper for about a half an hour before finally typing, "The horse jumped over the f---ing fence," then left.

That's how I felt while I was trying to write about BurgerTime. "The cook walked over the f---ing burger."

In BurgerTime, you play a little cook that has to walk over pieces of a hamburger, which drops them down to the lower levels of the screen. Completed burgers earn you points. Meanwhile, food items are following you around the level and trying to kill you, and eliminating them only stops them for a second or two before they come back. It's like Guy Fieri's fever dreams come to life.

NES Replay: Track & Field

The arcade cabinets for Track & Field took a beating.

Track & Field is a collection of small olympic-based minigames, and the way to control several of them is by pounding on the buttons as fast as possible. Players tried to come up with various ways of speeding this up, so they used stuff like golf balls and metal rulers to get an edge. Even when it was a popular game, it was very hard to find working Track & Field machines in the wild.

The NES port retains this gameplay, and that makes Track & Field a game that you can only play for a short time. My family used to play Track & Field II together, and after a while everyone had cramps in their wrists. It's hard to keep up such a furious attack on the controller.

About a year later, Nintendo released something that made these types of games exponentially easier: The NES Max controller with a turbo button. The turbo buttons made the system think that you were pressing the buttons on the controller rapidly. That made games like Track & Field hilariously easy. It was like pressing a button marked, "I win." For example, the world record at the time for the 100 yard dash was a little under 10 seconds. With the turbo button, you can complete it in about 7.5 seconds.

However, there are a few games included in Track & Field that won't work with any turbo controls and actually require skill, like skeet shooting and archery. The skeet shooting is especially notable, since they made a really cool decision.

Most developers would have had you move a pointer around a screen to shoot down the clay pigeons. However, Konami realized that a pointer controlled by the controller would be too slow or inaccurate. They could have had people use the Zapper, but that would have taken up a controller port that would have stopped people from playing two-player games, so that didn't work either.

Instead, they had the system auto aim to some extent while still having the player press the button to fire at the proper time. It's a lot harder than it sounds, as you have to quickly press left or right on the d-pad, then shoot before the clay pigeon moves out of range. I couldn't get the hang of it, despite how absurdly simple it was.

Even with all this, though, Track & Field still felt kind of dull. It was certainly done well, but the presentation was sort of lacking. I didn't feel like there was any overarching goal, just a bunch of events that you could play individually. After a while, I remembered how great Track & Field II was, and fired that up instead. I ended up playing Track & Field II for an hour.

So, while Track & Field was certainly on the right track (wordplay!), it wasn't exactly where it needed to be. For a first attempt, there were some admirable concepts that Konami would later expand and deepen.

NES Replay: Rush'n Attack

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Released: April 1987

For our younger readers, I have a question: Do they still do duck-and-cover drills in school?

If they don't anymore, here's what they were. For years, the US was terrified that the Russians (or Soviets) would destroy us in a nuclear war. For some reason, they decided that the best way to protect kids was by having duck-and-cover drills. We would hear a siren, and all the kids would get underneath our desks and cover our heads so that in the case of a fiery death by nuclear bomb, we would be protected by the nuclear-resistant coating on the school desks [citation needed].

This is what it was like in the US for 50 years. We knew, just KNEW, that the godless communist Soviets were going to blow us up with a nuclear bomb and then launch a full ground invasion so we had to be prepared any way we could. In reality, the vast majority of Russians were just trying to keep their head above water in a horribly corrupt system, but the citizens of the US had no way of knowing this. To us, the Russians were a technical powerhouse and we had to fight them however we could.


So what does this have to do with Rush'N Attack? Read the title of that game again. In Japan and Europe, this game was called Green Beret, but for the US, it was re-titled so that it could play on the fear of the Russians. It's kind of sad looking back on how the US viewed another country, but it's our cultural legacy, and there's not much to do about it except point at it and shake our heads.

In the meantime, how is Rush'N Attack? It's surprisingly good. It's a side-scrolling action game where your main character's only weapon is a knife, and he's faced with wave after wave of bad guys as he infiltrates military bases. Along the way, he can pick up a gun, an RPG, and other momentary powerups.

Rush'N Attack feels like an early draft of Contra. I mean, if they would have replaced the hero's knife with a gun, it would be halfway there. It also feels like an early, early draft of Metal Slug, if you can believe that. I don't know if anyone who worked on Rush'N Attack worked on Metal Slug, but I wouldn't be shocked if there were.

Konami demonstrated that they understood completely how controls had to work in a game. The controls are responsive, and there's never a sequence where I felt that I died because the system didn't respond in time. I died for many other reasons, like getting shot or kicked in the head, but it was almost always my fault.

I also have to give a special shoutout to the ladders in Rush'N Attack. Yes, the ladders. When your player jumps at a ladder, he automatically grabs the ladder in mid-air, which can save you a second or two. In other words, you don't have to be standing on solid ground in order to climb, or jump and press the up key on the D-pad, but just jump at the ladder. It was a way to rethink controls and limit the complexity at such an early juncture, and it deserved some special praise in my book.

If there's a flaw in Rush'N Attack, it's that there isn't a whole lot to do but run from right to left and kill people. Sometimes, that's all you need in a game, but as later games would show, there was a way to do that without veering into repetitive territory. Still, Rush'N Attack really works, both as a time capsule into a strange period in our history and as, you know, a game.

Final Rating:

NES Replay: Volleyball

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: March 1987

I love playing volleyball in certain environments. Basically, if no one's keeping score and all of my friends are just having a good, relaxed time, it's the best game in the world.

Something happens every single time I play volleyball: Someone starts keeping score. Then, that person starts trash talking, and then someone else does, then my old, familiar competitiveness kicks in, and then I have to quit because I get too angry. Even just thinking about it makes me mad.

Why do I get so frustrated? Because volleyball is meant to be fun. It's played in sunny places, on the beach, with people throwing frisbees nearby. It's not supposed to be a hyper-competitive trash-talking game. If you're playing volleyball and you don't have a Corona with a lime wedged into the rim of the bottle waiting for you on the sideline, you're playing it wrong.

Understanding this about volleyball is key to understanding why Volleyball is such a waste. Volleyball is supposed to be fun! Getting hit in the face with a volleyball while someone screams through a net at you isn't fun.

Volleyball forgets this. You get three game modes: Men's volleyball, women's volleyball and practice. Men's volleyball is much more difficult that women's, which is insulting and sexist in and of itself. The computer team will routinely spike balls right into your player's faces, giving you no opportunity to block them. Playing against the women's team is easier. Even still, whomever you play as, Volleyball is horribly difficult to control.

Playing the practice mode shows why the controls are so bad. Whenever your opponent hits the ball to you, some, but not all of your players can go get the ball. In the practice mode, the players that are eligible to hit the ball light up so you can easily tell who's supposed to get it. You'll see that the players you can control are, frankly, a little random. At least in this mode, though, you can make the right decision as to who you can move and when.

However, in the regular mode, the players don't light up to show that they're eligible. You might think that one player is eligible, but when you try and move them you find that it was the opposite player who was eligible, and now you've made a huge mistake. In a game where a split second makes a huge difference, it's a pretty big oversight.

The weirdest thing with Volleyball, though, is the title screen. In a first for a Nintendo game, a person named "T. Hashishita" is credited alongside Nintendo. That's really odd, isn't it? Not even Miyamoto gets that sort of credit. Who is "T. Hashishita"?

With a big hat tip to the forms at lostlevels.org, Tomoshige Hashishita was a programmer. He also programmed Ice Hockey and worked on Time Twist, a game only released in Japan. How did he get on the title screen for a Nintendo release? It's really hard to say. Did he just insert his name in there? Did Nintendo agree to credit him? If so, why? It's one of those weird quirks that have been lost to history.

However, with the way Volleyball turned out, if I were Mr. Hashishita I wouldn't really want to take credit for it. Even if someone would master the controls, I don't see how it could be fun for more than five minutes. It's not as laid-back as a volleyball game should be, and it's impossible to play on any higher difficulty levels without reenacting the pool scene from Meet The Parents over and over.

Final Rating:

NES Replay: Soccer

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: March 1987

They say that soccer is the Beautiful Game. Being raised as a 'Murican, I was disinclined to agree for a long time. How can a soccer match that ends 1-0 be more interesting than a football game that ends 24-17?

Now that I play soccer more, though, I get it. Playing a game of soccer requires outstanding stamina and balletic skill. Unlike sports like football, baseball or basketball, soccer doesn't stop. Everyone is always running at all times. Your footwork has to be impeccable or you'll end up looking stupid out there, so hours of practice has to go into flexibility and movement so that you can apply those skills when the time comes. Also, because goals aren't as common, each one is either amazing or devastating, depending on which team you root for.

It's the world's most popular sport, so naturally developers have been trying to make soccer video games almost from the beginning. One of the earliest attempts was on the Atari 2600, with Pele's Soccer. Pele's Soccer showed the field from a top-down view, and all the players sort of looked like blobs. Next, the seminal Football Manager games came out for the PC starting in 1982, and it was very popular. (It has no relation to the current Football Manager series.) However, the player couldn't control the match while it was in progress.

So, yes, in the early years there were soccer games available, but none that really approximated what the actual game of soccer was like. Understanding this is key, because if you compare Soccer to modern games it feels really bare-bones. For its time, though, it was the best soccer game available for consoles.


In Soccer, you can pick from one of seven teams that all play identically, then play a match against a computer player of varying difficulty. There's also a two-player mode which seems like it would be a ton of fun.

For an early game, they did a lot right. It's not full 11-on-11, with just five men to a side and a goalie. but the field is small enough that you barely notice. There's an offsides rule, annoyingly enough, but offsides is a part of soccer so whatever. You can also aim your shots on goal, which is kind of a huge leap forward.

So what's missing? Well, there's no tackling. (For those who don't know soccer, that's not a joke. "Tackling" in soccer is when you dive, feet-first, towards the ball. It's a tricky skill to learn, since you have to avoid hitting the opposing player instead.) I understand why they maybe couldn't put it in to Soccer, but it's such a big part of the game that it should probably have been there.

Another problem is that the player you control changes depending on where the ball is, but it almost seems like you control two players sometimes without your knowledge. Like, you'll pass the ball while running downfield, and then you'll find that your offscreen player who was supposed to be receiving your pass is also running downfield, away from the ball. Once you realize what's happening it's easy enough to correct, but still, the first couple of times it's really annoying.

Finally, when you finish a match, that's it. There's no additional modes, no additional fields, no season mode, nothing. All that's in Soccer is the ability to play a single-player or two-player match and that's it. As I mentioned before, though, the two-player mode seems like it would be both a hoot and also a holler.

All that being said, Soccer was probably the best soccer game available at the time. Considering what was released beforehand, Nintendo did an outstanding job of bringing soccer to the NES. They would improve upon it later, but that's an article for a different day.

Final Rating:

Review: Yoshi's New Island

Developer: Arzest
Publisher: Nintendo

Nintendo keeps on crapping on the Yoshi's Island series, and it bothers me.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was one of the most innovative games to come out of the SNES years. The music was great, the levels were smart, it had a totally unique aesthetic that no other game could quite copy, and it was fun.

Nintendo handed off the series to Artoon for 2006's Yoshi's Island DS, and the results were disappointing. It looked like Yoshi's Island, certainly, and the controls were lifted wholesale from Yoshi's Island, but it didn't feel like Yoshi's Island. The bosses were rehashes of the first game, the levels weren't as innovative, and it just felt... off. It wasn’t a terrible game, just limp.

Fortunately, Nintendo cut ties with Artoon, so Yoshi's New Island wasn't going to end up in their hands. A new developer, Arzest, turned out to be the developer of Yoshi's New Island.

But wait, where did Arzest come from?

They're old developers from Artoon.

Crap.

Arzest threw out the unique style of the first two Yoshi's Island games and switched to a more watercolor-esque look that more closely resembled the N64 game Yoshi's Story. Yoshi's Story was the worst Yoshi game, so I don't understand why they would consciously try and emulate its look, but the look of Yoshi's New Island is actually the least objectionable part of it. Most of the time, Yoshi’s New Island looks good, if not great.

No, the art style isn’t what hurts Yoshi’s New Island. What makes Yoshi's New Island problematic is that it brings nothing new to the table. Nothing at all. For example, the worlds follow the same progression: World 1 is a grass land, World 2 introduces Koopa Troops, World 3 is a wet jungle with monkeys, World 4 is in a sunset landscape, World 5 is a snow world, and World 6 is going to the castle. This is the same progression from the first two games. The final boss is even an enormous Bowser, for goodness sake! I mean, the first time you fight him in the original Yoshi's Island, it's amazing. After that? Much less so.

A few other quibbles that add up to a big deal:

1. Yoshi delays for a split second before throwing an egg. In the first two games, he didn't have to "grab" an egg, he would just have it immediately in hand when you pressed the button. In this one, he has to grab an egg and then throw it. That little delay throws off the timing of experienced players, which makes it that much harder to line up shots.
2. You don't get a score at the end of a level anymore. Instead, the game tells you if you got all the coins, stars and flowers and checks them off for you on the map screen. This is a big, big deal. For example, if you only get 86/100 on a level or 46/100 on a level, the world map shows both level as looking the same. Granted, in the grand scheme of things the most important thing with each level is, "Did you get all the coins, stars and flowers?" Still, knowing the difference between a level you juuuuuust missed and one you were way off on is huge, and they excised that for no good reason.
3. Yoshi’s New Island's big addition is "giant eggs," and they do nothing important. At certain points, Yoshi can pick up really large eggs that he can throw and break barriers. They only can be used once, and just in those specific areas. In other words, they're not a new gameplay mechanic or a new idea, just another thing that the original Yoshi's Island did better.
4. The "transformations" are pointless. In the original Yoshi's Island, there were times where Yoshi would transform into a helicopter, submarine or car for a bit. They weren't that exciting, but they changed up the gameplay for just a bit. The transformations in Yoshi's New Island, though, are pretty drab. You go into a door, change into something like a jackhammer and then drill your way through a maze. It's a race against time to get to the end of the transformation area, which means that important stuff gets missed unless you want to go back through the level, which you won't. You also have to tilt your 3DS to get through these areas, which is ridiculous and makes something frustrating even more so.

These complaints, taken individually, aren’t a big deal. When you add them all up, it just underscores the fact that Arzest has gotten further away from what made Yoshi's Island great. Yoshi's Island was a wild experiment from a mad scientist that just happened to work.

I mean, none of the original game should have worked. Yoshi’s Island had a weirdo art style that was widely panned before release, a strange egg-throwing mechanic that could have been too complicated, a baby that would cry like nails on a chalkboard if you got hit by an enemy, and bosses that were way beyond what people were used to. Somehow, it all came together.

The Yoshi's Island series has lost that experimental edge, preferring just to run over the same territory laid down by Miyamoto all those years ago with minor changes that just ruin it. So why would Nintendo willingly allow Arzest to rehash Yoshi's Island while still calling it "new?" Beats me. Maybe they assume that most people haven't played the original, but the people who are interested in a new Yoshi's Island game are interested because the original generated so much goodwill. By pointlessly redoing Yoshi's Island over and over, they ruin what made the first one so good.

So, if you've never played a Yoshi's Island game before, maybe you'll like Yoshi's New Island. If you've played the original, though, and you're wondering if you should play Yoshi's New Island, you might enjoy it if you lower your expectations. Like, way lower.

Final Rating: D

NES Replay: Pro Wrestling

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: March 1987

The last thing I wanted to do after the twin terrors of M.U.S.C.L.E. and Tag Team Wrestling was play yet another wrestling game. Yet, there was Pro Wrestling, standing in my way. Something happened, though: I found that Pro Wrestling is really, really fun.

So what's the difference between Pro Wrestling and those other, terrible games? Controls, controls, controls.

When someone first picks up a fighting game, the controls are unknown. Oh, sure, you can look in a manual and read the buttons to press, but the timing necessary to pull off moves can only be learned by playing the game. It takes a little bit of training to figure out the timing, but in the meantime a novice player can "button-mash." By doing things that they think might work, they're usually able to pull off some moves and be mildly successful.

Some "hardcore" players think that fighting games shouldn't allow players to button-mash, but this period is crucial. Without a brief window where a player can get used to the controls and achieve a little bit of success, they give up. Having novice players quit on you is great if you want your favorite genre to die out due to lack of interest. A regular, fresh influx of players is the only way to keep a genre afloat.


Now that the player's interest is piqued, they're going to dig a little deeper. That's when they find out how they were doing those moves, how to counter moves with other moves, and then they're hooked. The fighting genre has another devotee.

Pro Wrestling was designed by the late Masato Masuda, who later worked on the "Fire Pro Wrestling" series of games. He died recently at the young age of 48, but he left behind a legacy of some of the best wrestling games available, no mean feat for the young NES and the nascent fighting game genre. You can clearly see the bones of future games in Pro Wrestling. It's easy to pick up and play, with a lot of depth for players who want to dig deeper. It looks excellent to boot. Bear in mind, he was only 20 at the time that this game was developed, which really should impress upon everyone what a great natural developer he really was.

Another great thing that Pro Wrestling does? The players actually play different from each other. This sounds really basic to us now, but early fighting games weren't this way. I remember an early boxing game for the Colecovision where you could select from nine different characters. We randomly selected one that we called "Sheepherder" for some strange reason, and no one used him. I decided to play as Sheepherder and found, to my dismay, that he was exactly the same as everyone else.

But here, in Pro Wrestling, there was variance. Each character has a unique special move that they can activate in a certain situation. Some took a little more skill than others, but they were all slightly different. That was a huge step forward.

So I guess I was wrong. In a previous article, I complained that there were no good fighting games on the NES. Well, here's one, and it's a doozy. Pro Wrestling holds up remarkably well all these years later, so I guess a winner is it. Thanks, Masuda-san.

Final Rating: