Jeopardy!
PUBLISHER: GameTek
DEVELOPER: Rare
RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1988 (US)
1988 is the year the NES broke through to the mainstream, the year when adults decided to pick up a controller and see what all the fuss was about.
How do we know this? Game show video games, the first of their kind, began to appear en masse.
From 1988-1992, both “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” would receive a whopping four games each for the NES. Yes, these shows were massively popular. Yes, kids would watch them if they were on. But let’s face it. Kids were not asking for “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” games. They either received them as gifts from well-meaning, but ignorant relatives or kids’ parents were purchasing the games for themselves.
I should know. I grew up with Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition. Nobody under the age of 12 asked for this game as far as I could tell, but there it was, right next to the NES, alongside Ninja Gaiden II, Paperboy, and Super Mario Bros. 3. We played it just the same, because, well, it was a video game and it was there. Didn’t matter how it got there.
Jeopardy! is a mostly faithful adaptation of the television game show. You’ve got your six categories per round, your three contestants (possibly aliens disguised as humans, given their eerie misshapen forms), your “Daily Doubles” and the requirement to answer “What is _____?” No Trebek as host, though. He must have cost extra.
The game came out in September 1988, well before many of my readers were born. This means that the categories and subsequent questions are just a little outdated. “Warren Beatty,” a “New Hollywood”-era actor is one of the categories, as is “The Funnies,” an outdated name for newspaper comics, which are themselves all but extinct. The world’s changed a lot in 40 years. Some might say too much.
You can play Jeopardy! with up to three people, and you should. These antiquated game show games are a hoot with real contestants. Single player, though, the game just feels sad. An unintentional relic from a now-dying culture. What is… depression?
1P – C+
2-3P – B
Woah, kind of a downer there! Don’t know what the author was thinking. You’ll feel better if you keep reading and also subscribe and tell all your friends about this Substack, though. Works every time!
Wheel of Fortune
PUBLISHER: GameTek
DEVELOPER: Rare
RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1988 (US)
Wheel of Fortune is Jeopardy!’s less cerebral cousin. You don’t need to have memorized arcane trivia facts about Buddy Holly and 14th century Mongolia to succeed. Just have a strong arm and hope for the best. The wheel’s heavy, don’t cha know!
Like Alex Trebek on Jeopardy!’s NES version, host Pat Sajak and his incorrigible grin are nowhere to be found here. Vanna White is present and accounted for - or at least I think that’s her. She doesn’t look completely ghoulish like the Jeopardy! contestants, but her face does have a bit of an undead glaze about it. Must be the 8-bit curse. Oh well. She still turns letters like nobody’s business.
Like the TV show you’ve watched your whole life, Wheel of Fortune allows three players (computer or real) to spin the wheel, guess letters, win some money, buy vowels, and hopefully, solve the puzzle and move on to the next round.
Unlike NES Jeopardy!, though, playing Wheel of Fortune with computer contestants is a real snore. You watch them spin the wheel, then they pick a letter. If they get one, they get to spin again. If they don’t, on to the next person. The next person spins, then picks a letter. Eventually, it’s your turn again, but it takes so long, you could get a quick nap in. Play the game solo with no computer opponents, with a couple IRL friends, or not at all.
Wheel of Fortune follows the game show’s progression to a tee. Two main rounds, a speed-up round (vowels don’t cost anything!), then at last, the final round, where you can win such glorious prizes as a Dream Kitchen, a Luxury Bedroom Suite, and a Vacation to Hawaii. Presuming, of course, that the five consonants and vowel you choose produce solid results.
Even if you’re able to crack the always difficult final puzzle, you won’t actually win a Dream Kitchen. You just get to stare at a square representing a Dream Kitchen and picture what said Kitchen would have in it. Lavender drapes. Bay windows. An $8,000 high-end gas stove named Randall that talks to you and lets you soak your feet while you bake a pie. Whether you win or lose, these are all figments of your imagination. One of the most depressing endings to any NES game ever.
1P – C
2-3P – B-
Xevious
PUBLISHER: Bandai
DEVELOPER: Namco
RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8th, 1984 (JP), Sept. 1988 (US), Oct. 25th, 1989 (EU)
I don’t care if Xevious pioneered the vertically scrolling shooter in 1983. The game is boring as all hell, and I’m tired of acting like I should enjoy it because it’s influential.
You control Solvalou, a starship equipped with both a rapid-fire gun to take out flying enemies and bombs to destroy bases and ground vehicles. None of the enemies have any personality whatsoever in their design. The flying enemies are a mixture of circles, black orbs that appear and disappear, hospital cafeteria food trays, and what appear to be tiny socks flung at you. The ground enemies are stationary glowing red bases that fire projectiles or the occasional circular vehicle cruising on the game’s many, many dirt roads. Shoot them all, won’t you?
Xevious has no power-ups. No speed upgrade. No weapons upgrade. Just the gun and the bomb, forever and ever, amen. The lone musical theme is a steady drone that makes you feel like you’re at war with the world. Crudely rendered forests, dirt roads, and bodies of water are the only environments, repeated into mind-numbing oblivion. There are no stage markers either, just 16 supposedly connected areas that, once completed, start from the beginning. The better you are at the game, the more difficult it becomes. While faster enemies and more on-screen projectiles do provide Xevious its only measurable pulse, the added difficulty spike doesn’t elevate the game’s overall worth.
If Xevious had been an NES launch title in 1985 or come out in the console’s first full year on the market in 1986, I might be kinder to it. The NES’ inaugural years were filled with endearing simple titles; Xevious might have fit right in. So… why didn’t Bandai or Namco or someone bring it over sooner? Xevious’ Famicom port released in November 1984, only 19 months after the arcade. In other words, the game could have easily shown up on Western shores in late 1985 or 1986; could have even been the first shoot-em-up on the NES and enjoyed some solid sales. But no. Xevious showed up on the NES, unfashionably late, in September 1988, a whopping four years after the Famicom port. At time when kids were already playing and enjoying better shooters like Life Force and Legendary Wings. Bandai shouldn’t have even bothered.
D
I’ll admit I had a soft spot for those gameshow-based NES titles. We have Rare starting to build up their reputation as reliable console developers before becoming one of the biggest names in gaming. And with Xevious, publisher Bandai would eventually merge with developer Namco.
I remember playing Wheel of Fortune and being surprised to see it ask a question about Erich von Stroheim. I expected to see some questions pertaining to decades gone by, but I didn't expect a question about the golden age of Hollywood.