Thanks! This is a fun one that's not too well known. It sort of plays like the side scrolling segments of Dick Tracy (with the addition of a rocket pack). I'd say it's worth a play
Kyle Justin: (singing) He's the Angry... Video Game... Nerd! The Nerd: You ever have to take a shit so bad, it twisted your ankle? I suppose I should explain that. It's when you're holdin' in for so long, the shit's pressing against your sacrum and to counteract it, you push your hips out, turning your leg in this awkward position! It feels like getting fisted in the ass, except you're getting fisted out the ass, and it's a fist full of shit, but there's no fist. That's what this game reminds me of! So, to HELL with it! WATCH IT GO! (The Nerd smashes the Rocketeer NES cartridge with the hammer.) The Nerd: Oh... damn. The review didn't even begin, and I already broke the game. Oops. I guess I can't play it then! What a genius idea. I should've been doin' that all along. Well, we have some extra time now. I dunno, what do you wanna talk about? How 'bout my shirt? That sounds real interesting, doesn't it? I started wearing it in 2020. That seemed like a good time for a fresh shirt for a new decade and new generation, like how they always updated the Star Trek uniforms. But some say I should go back to the old shirt. Okay, no problem. (The Nerd is seen doing the top button on his old shirt.) The Nerd: Alright. Here we go. It's missing some buttons here. It's a little baggy, uh, it's got some blood stains and shit stains on it, so it is old. And you know what? I'm also wearing my old underwear right now too. I'm just playin' around. But, I do agree, this old shirt is very comfy, and, when you wear somethin' for a long time, it becomes part of you. Y'know what? I'm also gonna try my old glasses. (He switches his current glasses for an old pair.) The Nerd: Yeah, here we go. (squints) I can't see shit. (The Nerd notices that the Rocketeer cartridge is whole again.) The Nerd: Huh? Wha...? (He switches out his old glasses for his current pair, and he notices a leprechaun.) The Nerd: Ahhh! It's that magic leprechaun that always put my games back together. Well, guess I'm not gettin' outta this one. The Nerd: The Rocketeer for NES was based on the 1991 film about the biggest jetpacking flyer since Boba Fett. It was based on a 1982 comic, which was a throwback to 1930s comics, and film serials. As a kid, I loved the movie, and as an adult, I now appreciate how it celebrates old time heroes and golden age Hollywood. It's a little bit like Indiana Jones and a little bit like the Michael Keaton Batman. Y'know, the one where Batman wears a new suit. But I think they should've wore the old Adam West suit. I'm just kiddin'. The Nerd: The Rocketeer's true identity is stunt pilot, goofy but endearing Cliff Secord, who, after a thwarted attempt by mobsters, stumbles upon a prototype jetpack created by Howard Hughes. Wait a minute. What's this odd-looking contraption? Hmmm. This right here, is... a pink jetpack. So he uses it for heroic deeds, but must keep it out of the hands of the Nazis, who wanna use it as a weapon. The film ambitiously tried to be the next big superhero franchise, but fell short like Socket the Duck after Sonic the Hedgehog. But that didn't stop it from landing on the NES. (The scene switches to Cliff Secord from the Rocketeer movie, who is holding the NES game.) Cliff Secord: He has gotta be kidding. The Nerd: The only thing faithful to the movie are the colorful and appealing cutscenes. But once you get into the gameplay, it's a clusterfuck of infuriating mazes and backgrounds that look like throw-up. There's something about the overall look. The graphics and the text, especially during the cutscenes, that in some way, reminds me of another game I've reviewed: Dick Tracy, which had good intentions, but was butchered by poor decisions. And not at all coincidentally, both these games were published by Bandai. Well, they also published that other one, but let's not get into that. The Nerd: It's a basic self-explanatory game, made up of six side-scrolling stages, where you walk around dodging bullets and punching people in the dick in awkward crouching positions. You collect weapons, and ammo is maxed at 99, which you can cycle through and use whenever necessary. So, nothing terribly unusual, until you get to these long jumps. If you miss the platform, you fall back to the area you were just at, so you have to retread your path over and over 'til ya get it right. Get OVER there! FUCK! Get over there! (grunts) MMMMGH! Ahhhhh! They give you just barely enough distance for it to even be possible! Who likes having to be at the tippy toe edge? Why do so many games force ya to do that? Don't you just wanna...? (The Nerd gets up, goes into the game and throws the Rocketeer over the large gap.) Get OVER THERE! The Nerd: It also really bugs me that all throughout the game, there's tons of open doors, but you can't go inside any of them. At least they're consistent, so you learn pretty quickly not to try goin' in them. But it just begs the question: why do they have to be there? And what's supposed to be on the other side? A bathroom? A closet? People bangin' in an alley? And they REALLY ran out of ideas for enemies. Miniature tanks? Really now. Are they remote controlled toys? Did they run astray from a Godzilla movie set? What are the standards here? The Nerd: The enemies are throwing more advanced tech at me than the actual jetpack. Like this shit. It's like a dildo had a baby with a Transformer. And guess what else? Really. Take a wild guess. Bats. Bats! It's easy to get numb to it, but stop and actually think about it. Somebody, somewhere in the world, thought, "Hey, you know what the Rocketeer game needs? Bats". I'm startin' to think Top Gun actually had bats and I missed it. The funny part, is when you punch the bats, they explode in what seems like a splash of blood! Long before the Mortal Kombat censorship, the Rocketeer was fuckin' shit up. No, this game does not need bats. I'll tell ya what it needs: the rocket jetpack. Lothar: Where is it? Cliff: Where's what? Lothar: (Slamming Cliff into the ceiling) The rocket! The Nerd: Ya do get the rocket, but in order to use it, ya have to collect gas. Oh look, there it is, there's the gas! There's the gas... Ahhh, dead! Game over? ONE life?! NO CONTINUES?! Oh, you get a code? Unlimited continues? Okay - my bad, I got a little too bent outta shape there. So there I am, almost about to get the rocket. Yeah! Yea... FUUUUUCK! Well, I flew for a couple seconds. So finally, I start flying! But the thing is, ya have to keep that gas meter from running out. So ya only wanna use the rocket sparingly. So, while the rocket was included, it's not as prominent as you'd hope. The Nerd: One of the biggest failures of any game, is when it's not fun to fight the enemies. To punch them, you have to get close (naturally), but if you get TOO close, the punch goes through them! (Appears in the game punching at the henchman) Daaarr! Punch 'im! Punch 'im! Urrrr! Urrrr! (Back to the game) And it's REAL fair that the enemies can shoot through the walls, but you can't. Classic. Do they have some kinda special ghost bullets or somethin'? Ohhhhhh, that's just... PISS! Then there's these little red spaceship things. Ya have to go near them to trigger them, but they shoot shit, so ya have to get away... and then they RESPAWN! Oh, come on! What it boils down to is that this is a game, where trying not to get hit is too frustrating. So a more tolerable strategy, is to just run through and hope you don't get hit too much. (Deep, funky voice) Better hope you don't get BEAT UP too much! Fedora Man (from Rocky): Let's hope that if I get beat up to naggin' all. The Nerd: And rely on the confidence that a heart will show up. Is that a fun mindset? No. Take a good game for example, like Contra. Doing a flying somersault through a bunch of bullets and successfully avoiding them, feels rewarding and satisfying. But not here! (The Rocketeer falls off and dies in the game, which is usually used as a Game Over screen.) The Nerd: The boss fights are uninspired and flat-out absurd. At the end of level five, you actually fight Griffith Observatory. Wow. What next, do ya fight Bronson Cave? The final boss is Sinclair, the main villain, played by James Bond Timothy Dalton, who honestly carried the whole movie. But he looks just like one of the generic enemies, and he's stupidly easy. Then ya get this half-ass ending, with just one screen. It says "I love you, Cliff!", and that's it. In the movie, the climactic fight takes place on top of the Nazi blimp, and it's between Cliff and the henchman, whose look was actually based on actor Rondo Hatton, who appeared in Universal's Sherlock Holmes and Monster series. How does this not seem like a stage for a video game? The Nerd: In short, The Rocketeer might be better than lots of the games I reviewed on the NES, but that's actually a sad thing to say. All these years, I'm comin' to realize, the NES has less games like Contra and more like The Rocketeer, and when you wanna add up all the really bad ones, it's a pretty shitty library! Y'know what? I can't believe I'm sayin' this, but... the NES SUCKED!
