NES Reviews

While he may have gone on to create some of the best cinematic masterpieces out there, such as “Fight Club”, “Se7en”, “Zodiac” and “The Social Network”, David Fincher had to make his career as director by starting with a sequel, the third film in the “Alien” series. Just as he was given a project that he could only do so much with but made it work, so too does Alien 3 come across as a game that had promise, but ultimately left me unfulfilled.

One thing that I miss is the thumb-twitch excitement that some games bring to me. That feeling that this next jump is crucial and important to get just right, otherwise you’ve lost that level, or a whole hour’s worth of work. When a game has good touch sensitivity, something that well made games on the NES were able to achieve, it gives you that sense of urgency. The controls on a game like this – while better than the average promo game that was purely a merchandising add-on – feel a bit ham-fisted.

Even if the thought of those things still terrifies me, the game does not.

The game is very loose in it’s interpretation of the game. I assume that the levels are supposed to resemble the prison planet, though they are just as much an acid trip as your standard NES game. I do question how so many aliens are running around, both the humanoid and the canine ones, as well as a multitude of queens. More curious however is how easily they die. The average one has no sense of where you are, and can be taken out with a single bullet. This is nothing like the unholy horrors of the films that I grew up with, which were seemingly indestructible, heat-seeking killing machines.

Your objective is to rescue all of the cocooned people before time runs out, a task that becomes increasingly more difficult as levels progress. While I don’t recall the aliens cocooning their victims in the film, I still wouldn’t want to rescue them if they did. Not that I don’t feel remorse for a planet full of the worst rapists and murderers in the galaxy, but that if a human host is usually let go to make it seem like everything is normal after being impregnated, I don’t want to think of how many eggs one hung up from the wall must have in them. I mean, those dozens of offspring per person have to come from somewhere, right?

Seriously, just leave it there.

The game itself is fairly easy, and overall leaves you wanting for more, as the film that it is based on did. Overall forgettable in a sea of tie-ins. Thankfully in some of the newer titles this has been fixed, but the Xbox 360 and PS3 are not the NES, so I leave judgment on those to the pros. I will say that I am looking forward to the prequel film, with the return of Ridley Scott at the helm.

Not a screen that you see often unless you fall asleep in front of the TV

Ease of play: 8/10

Enjoyment of play: 6/10

Relation to source material: 5/10

This game you may recognize from the list of rare and valuable games.  Due to being released near the end of the NES lifespan, as well as being a Blockbuster rental release, a boxed copy of Surprise at Dinosaur Peak can go for several hundred to a thousand dollars.  While my copy is not boxed, it’s very clean and in great condition.  One of these days I’ll own a boxed copy, but into then, this’ll suffice

And all this other sweet gear helps

So the game is hard to come by cheaply, sure.  But is it any good?  That is the question that I set out to answer by giving it a dry run.  Admittedly, I’d never played the game until I owned this copy, and even then just to test, before locking it away in that little box for safe-keeping (collecting is not a disease, I swear.)  I pulled out the emulator anyway, so that I could take screenshots for the review.

Well, first cool thing:  at any time during gameplay, you could switch between controlling Fred or Barney, using their different skill sets in a more strategic manner than your average platformer.  You can use Fred to club enemies, and Barney to slingshot the ones that are harder to reach.  You’re basically running around Bedrock collecting items and outrunning an erupting volcano all the while trying to get Bam Bam and Pebbles returned to you.  The little brats went missing, and when you find them, a pterodactyl steals them.  He demands some crystals in return, and rather than doing the logical thing and smashing him on the head like any other dinosaur, you actually give in to the talking beasts’ ransom demands.

Ok, for a cheesy adventure platformer, it is admittedly fun. It’s easy to get drawn in to simple game play and mechanics that work for what they do, without too much else to get in the way of button-mashing pleasure. It got me out of my game-less rut, and now I’m ready to take on the NES library again!

Entertainment: 8/10

Ability to impress nerdy friends with an original cartridge: 9/10

Ability to impress anyone else: 1/10

Batman is pretty much the baddest ass superhero out there.  That can be said with no trace of joking or irony.  Lacking the flight, super strength, xray vision, and other trappings of standard superheroes, he makes up for it in mental acuity, sheer badassery, and billions of dollars worth of gadgets and resources.  It is like this with his game:  no fancy skills needed beyond the ability to time jumps and fire weapons well.

Wrist rocket for batarangs

Firing weapons, however, is one of my gripes.  It totally looks like he’s shooting enemies, which would be ok and make sense in almost any game, but not for Batman.  Batman does not shoot people.  Then again, I’m probably only griping because he doesn’t have the ability to punch them in the face, which is far more satisfying.  Also, it makes me feel like a bit of  a failure when I can’t get the Dark Knight to dodge a couple of shots fired off by random henchmen.

In the game, the Joker has escaped yet-the-hell again from Arkham Asylum, and Batman has to stop him.  It’s still a source of contention for me that the Joker is even allowed to keep escaping.  Sure, Batman has a code of honor that keeps him from killing his enemies that have killed literally thousands, but there’s nothing to say that he can’t break a few limbs to make it a bit harder next time around.  Hell, he shouldn’t even have to worry about it, as the guy is such a repeat offender that there should be no prosecutor that couldn’t get him declared legally sane long enough to get him into the chair.

One well placed shot could take that Hindenburg down. Game over man!

Anyway, you get to collect power up weapons through levels while defeating baddies, blowing crap up, and generally having a “holy crap I am Batman” moment (now I know how Michael Keaton felt).  Thankfully, for those of us who enjoy games in bite-sized pieces, at the end of every level you’re given a password to return to where you left off, the balance between arcade game run-through and dedicated save file that worked rather well for a short period.  I didn’t get to the ending admittedly, so I’m just going to assume that Batman confronts the Joker after dispatching every goon and mini baddie, and breaks his frikkin back.  It’s the only thing that would make sense.

Playability: 8/10

Controls: 8/10

Batawesome: 10/10