By Christmas 1987, Nintendo had successfully broken into the video game market in the United States. Thanks to the release of several highly acclaimed games, like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Pro Wrestling, and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, the NES sold around 3 million units that year. This number might sound quaint now, but considering that the home console market was essentially dead in America a mere two years prior, it’s a truly astonishing feat.
Unlike most toy fads that came and went within a year or two, the NES’ momentum only grew. Stores couldn’t keep enough of both the consoles and the hottest games in stock. And because the console was still relatively new, even older titles like Super Mario Bros. were in high demand. So much so that Nintendo would produce the Action Set bundle for the 1988 Christmas season, a now iconic NES package that included the console, the Zapper, two controllers, and the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cart.
But let’s not jump too far ahead.
At the beginning of 1988, the NES had incredible momentum in the United States, capturing over 90% of the home video game market in that territory alone. Nintendo knew (or seemed to know) that they couldn’t just rest on their laurels. They had to keep producing great games themselves and partner with third party developers who could fill out the console’s library in-between Nintendo’s big titles.
So, as we move through 1988 in chronological order, what do we have to look forward to?
1988 Stats and Info
62 NES releases
5 Game and Watch Releases
3 Nintendo Fun Club Newsletters
3 Nintendo Power issues
1988 is the last year that Nintendo would only have one system on the market until 2020, when the 3DS was officially discontinued and the Switch became their main console and handheld.
Nintendo released the Game Boy for the North American market on July 31st, 1989, and for the next three decades, Nintendo produced separate consoles and handhelds.
Now, let’s check out some games!
(The following game summaries may or may not be related to in-game events).
(And hey, sorry about the image cutoff. That’s just how the Substack gallery rolls).
January
Karnov - Russian strongman teleports to the past to stop dinosaurs from destroying New Rome 2055.
Renegade - Buff dude kicks street toughs to the curb for dissing his fly girl.
February
Contra - Bill and Lance destroy xenomorphs and the evil humans who love them.
Gun.Smoke - Sheriff cleans up the Old West with bullets and chutzpah. But mostly bullets.
R.C. Pro-Am - The R.C. cars go round and round, approximately 32 times, give or take your skill level.
T&C Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage - Bedlam and Wackiness: The Game
March
Dragon Power - Karate dude uses sweaty foot to steal the power of a million dragons.
Ice Hockey - Headless hockey player comes back to haunt his teammates and win the championship.
Nintendo Fun Club News Vol. 1, Issue 5, Feb-Mar 1988 - Fun fact, R.C. Pro-Am is the first Nintendo-published, but not developed game to get its own Fun Club News cover.
April
Freedom Force - Rutger Hauer and lady friend try to find Freedom through the barrel of a gun.
Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road - Paul and Vince’s god-like bodies repel the Morlocks thirsting for their rich bronzer blood.
Major League Baseball - Hey look! A baseball game! Bet the NES won’t get anymore of those. This is the only one, so hope it’s a good one.
May
City Connection - a Honda City hatchback just wants to go for a drive and paint the town white, but the oppressive fuzz won’t let her.
Rambo - Stallone’s sick of Contra and Ikari Warriors stealing his sweet sweaty shirtless style.
Nintendo Fun Club News Vol. 2, Issue 6, April-May 1988 - Puberty comes for us all, even Link. Sorry, buddy.
June
Double Dragon - Billy and Jimmy Lee leave their guns at home, preferring instead to clink elbows and hope for the best.
Metal Gear - a young Solid Snake’s tactical swag levels are off the charts.
R.B.I. Baseball - Oh look, another baseball game, and so close to the last one. Well, two baseball games is quite a lot for one system, so this one’s probably the last one.
July
Bases Loaded - Wow, the third baseball game in four months. At least this one has real voices and sounds, which means it’s the best one and we won’t ever need to see another baseball game on the NES, ever.
Defender II - Expensive American fighter jet recklessly flies into portal, and when it doesn’t come back, the government denies they ever spent $700 million on one single fighter jet.
Gauntlet - Conan, She-Ra, Gandalf, and Robin Hood team up for the craziest D&D session ever.
Iron Tank: The Invasion of Normandy - Paul Newman is the Iron Tank in this tearjerker WWII tale.
Legendary Wings - Icarus is back with fresh wings and a desire to take out the sun once and for all.
Nintendo Fun Club News Vol. 2, Issue 7, June-July 1988 - This guy’s clearly playing a different NES than the rest of us. It’s not plugged into the TV and it’s making the TV spit out a hockey puck and a mini RC car.
August
Life Force - Life Force gets August ‘88 all to itself, because it’s just that good.
Nintendo Power Volume 1, July/August 1988 - Nintendo has its own magazine now, complete with incredible clay diorama cover AND a free poster inside.
September
Adventure Island - Master Higgins somehow pissed off the entire jungle with his wayward skateboarding antics.
Galaga: Demons of Death - Evil alien bug ships dive-bomb starfighter just because.
Golgo 13: Top-Secret Episode - Help the kindly hitman shoot his target and “save the world.”
Jackal - Shoot the sky and rescue POWs in your Army “party” Jeep.
Jeopardy! - Answer trivia questions, win money, and tolerate passive aggressive comments towards you from the host.
Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf - Not to be confused with Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge.
Milon’s Secret Castle - A castle so secret, Milon himself has no idea where he put it.
Wheel of Fortune - Spin the wheel, win money, fail the final puzzle, hope your wife won’t divorce you for failing to win that Buick.
Xevious - Blow things up on the ground or in the sky, wherever good times are had.
October
Super Mario Bros. 2 - Mario holds turnip, goes for the gusto, wins at life.
1943: The Battle of Midway - An American fighter jet shoots as many Japanese planes as possible in this WWII-era shoot-em-up.
Ghostbusters - Not afraid of ghosts, perhaps, but terrified of this absurd “Ghostbusters” adaptation.
Joust - That Man You Just Stabbed Off a Bird is Absolutely Drowning in Lava, The Game.
MagMax - Not to be confused with “Mad Max” or a video game you actually want to play.
Mickey Mousecapade - Mickey and Minnie accidentally purchase tickets for the “Imminent Death” ship, one of Disney’s less popular cruise packages.
Millipede - Small man with ow and arrow versus giant-ass bugs with huge pinchers, who will triumph?!
Pac-Man - 1950’s-era Pac-Man gets chased down by ghost hooligans on his way to the office.
Racket Attack - Sentient rackets start lobbing humans over nets, blood on the courts, news at 11.
Seicross - Totally not trying to be Tron, we promise.
Spy Vs. Spy - MAD Magazine duo kill each other with bombs, knives, guns, and whatever other weapons they find lying around.
Nintendo Power Volume 2, September/October 1988 - “14 Pages of Gory Details” is indeed what every parent wants for their child.
November
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest - Simon’s back, and he’s ready to kill Dracula again by heeding Devo’s wise advice.
Anticipation - if your children, for some reason, ever want to know what white middle-class people looked like in the 80s, here ya go.
Blaster Master - So the blue pixel thing is the “master” because the target is on it, which means you need to “blast” it? We’re confused.
Bubble Bobble - Bub and Bob are cute dinosaurs who trap watermelons and magicians in their bubbles of death.
Cobra Command - Helicopter in Arches National Park stumbles into a secret government war zone.
Dr. Chaos - Dr. Chaos’s younger brother Michael fights off the entire underworld, including a caped skeleton with lungs.
Super Team Games - Boys have too much fun jumping over abnormally large logs.
December
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - Link’s all grown up and ready to side-scroll.
Bionic Commando - Only Ladd’s mechano-grapple can save us from all the Nazis!
Blades of Steel - Come for the hockey, stay for the brawls.
Bump ‘n’ Jump - Renegade boyfriend endangers girlfriend with his reckless driving.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Harrison Ford’s sick of the Thuggee cultists’ heart-grabbing nonsense.
Othello - Don’t call it black and white checkers, whatever you do!
Paperboy - A Chuckie-esque paperboy tosses New York Times' wherever he feels like, including your windows, your dogs, and your neighbors.
Platoon - Oliver Stone’s violent Vietnam movie finally gets an NES adaptation, just in time for Christmas.
Rampage - Giant ape and chameleon grimace at each other, fight over women and the right to topple skyscrapers.
RoboWarrior - Saturn and a mini-skull could be RoboWarrior’s undoing!
Skate or Die - Kick-flippin’ the light fantastic.
Superman - Superman’s off to beat up the player for daring to think his game was worth playing.
Xenophobe - Grinning xenomorphs punish unsuspecting life forms, create xenophobia across the galaxy.
Nintendo Power Volume 3, November/December 1988 - Hey, where’s my Platoon cover?!
Thanks for reading all the way to the end! Hope you enjoyed these only somewhat accurate one-line summaries of every 1988 NES game.
Until next time!
DC
1943! I loved that game! I was only born in 2000, but there’s a pizza place I grew up going to that had lots of old arcade machines, and that was one of them. I got 1943 on NES as a teenager when I got into retro games. One of the hardest games I ever played; I was always running out of fuel, and always had to forego the cool power ups just to refill the gas tank.
Little bit of pedantry for you: you don’t pilot a jet plane in that game. You have a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, a twin-engined, twin-boom, propeller-driven heavy fighter. Fast, long-ranged, rugged, decently maneuverable considering their size, and they pack a very serious punch with four nose-mounted .50 machine guns and 20mm autocannon. Charles Lindbergh was a fan of the plane, and the highest-scoring ace in American history, Dick Bong, flew one until his death.
P-38s were land-based, not carrier-based, so the game itself is unrealistic in depicting them. They were effective long-ranged fighters, but had an underperforming turbocharger, so the USAAF withdrew them from the Pacific and sent them to the much less important North African theater. The Germans were terrified of the Lightning, however, and nicknamed it “the fork-tailed devil.” The photoreconnaissance variant, the F-4 Lightning (back then fighters were labeled P for “Pursuit” and recon planes were F for “[F]otography”, silly as that is) was one of the best recon crafts of the entire war.
There are other jet planes in the game that really are jets in real life, like the Nakajima Kikka, an experimental Japanese jet based off the Germans’ Me 262 Schwalbe. 1943 is actually a real treat for fans of Japanese aviation, as the game is littered with tons of obscure experimental planes that you don’t frequently see elsewhere.
A really informative and well-put together timeline of Nintendo's activities in 1988. Nicely done!