A playthrough of Nintendo's 1986 light gun shooter for the NES, Gumshoe.
Being part of Nintendo's black box lineup, Gumshoe was one of four Zapper games to hit store shelves in the NES's first year on the North American market. Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman, and Hogan's Alley all went on to become 80s pop culture icons, but what about Gumshoe?
Indeed, what about Gumshoe? What about it turned people off? What prevented Gumshoe from resonating with gamers the way its contemporaries did? Was it one of Nintendo's rare misfires, or was it just misunderstood?
Nearly forty years on from its release, it's hard to say, but I imagine many people didn't know what to make of Gumshoe. The premise of the story, the quacking music, the fact that it's a platformer that's played with a Zapper... everything about it is so damned strange!
A young girl named Jennifer has been kidnapped by "King Dom," a lowlife who's holding her for a hefty ransom. Mr. Stevenson, the titular private dick, has been given twenty-four hours to deliver five "Black Panther Diamonds" in exchange for his daughter's life.
It's your job to shoot down enemies and to steer Mr. Stevenson through four obstacle course-style stages, but you don't have direct control over his movements. Instead, you fire at him to make him leap, and when he's in the air, you can manipulate his trajectory with carefully timed strings of consecutive jumps to guide him through tight spots. It often feels similar to how flying does in Balloon Fight, or swimming in a Mario game.
Collecting balloons nets you extra ammo (and a 1-up if you manage to grab every balloon in a stage) and birds drop plenty of point and power-up items, but the diamonds are the priority. You can't win the game unless you've collected all five.
Gumshoe might lack the universal appeal of a game like Duck Hunt, and its unique gameplay concept isn't one that can be neatly summed up in a capsule preview or a snappy slogan, but it's a quality game. Nintendo R&D1's didn't hold back in bringing Sakamoto's creative vision to life (yes, it was designed by the Metroid guy!), and in the end, they created something that's really quite remarkable.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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29 май 2024
