REVIEW: Popeye

Game: Popeye
Original Launch: June 1986
Relaunch: May 2011
Rating: 8 stars

Son, sit down next to me, as I want to tell you a tale. Once upon a time, many moons ago, there existed magical halls of lights and sounds. These vestibules of joy were filled with flashing colors, loud, eclectic noises, and change dispensers. The walls were lined with cabinets aglow, blaring wondrous light from their cathode-ray tubes. No, I don’t know what a cathode is. Yes, it’s on Wikipedia, but you’re getting off track. OK, OK… A cathode is an electrode through which electric current flows out of a polarized electrical device. There, now may I continue? Thank you. You’re worse than your sister.

Anyways, in these days of yore, within those hallowed bevies, tall boxes of glass, wood and plastic stood, and a miraculous alchemy of silicon and electricity brought forth amazing journeys of the mind; racing against the clock down beach-lined roads, protecting the world from alien invasion, destroying space rocks in a never-ending quasi-limbo, eating pellets. These halls of joy, dear son, were called Arcades. And for a very long time, Arcades were the home of the best possible graphics. Consider! To see the cutting edge of graphics technology, the state-of-the-art, as they say… No, I don’t know who “they” are. A Facebook group? “They” are a Facebook group? Son, we’ll discuss this later… wait, when did you get a Facebook account? You’re 5 weeks old. ANYWAYS, to partake in the era’s high water mark of gaming, one had to LEAVE THEIR HOUSE and GO TO A BRICK AND MORTOR PLACE OF BUSINESS. For some, the journey to the Arcade was an adventure itself. Sometimes it included hitchhiking. Sometimes, favors. Look, all I’m saying is if we ultimately got to the arcade and had money to play, the ends justified the means.

Arcades were the benchmark. The term “Arcade-quality graphics” sent young protonerds into a tizzy. The thought of having such visual candy in one’s own bedroom! Perish it.

This strange device contained only one game. I kid you not.

That is, until a small Japanese playing card company brought that reality to the cusp. The Nintendo Entertainment System, while not the leap to “Arcade-perfect graphics” many pined for, harkened in an age of digital glory, leaving behind the blocky dark ages of the Atari 2600 (although the 2600 really led to a deepening of one’s imagination to compensate for the simpler visuals, but I digress) and heralding “Arcade-close graphics.” Suddenly, the 4th wall disintegrated. The meta became meta-meta. Dogmatic notions crumbled. Arcade games could be played at home, and they almost-just-about-more-than-before resembled their Arcade counterparts! Heavens to Murgatroyd!

And so, my son, I hope you now grasp the importance of my task at hand: to review the Arcade-port of Popeye for the NES.

Popeye volleyball is not a part of the official story arc.

But first, backstory! Popeye is a sailor man. He comes from an age when heroes were ugly, damsels in distress were uglier, and obese men were fast. The premise of the Popeye canon (wow, it pains me to call it “canon”) is that Popeye, when not sailoring, is cyber bullied, back when it was called “bullying”, by the corpulent Bluto, or Brutus, depending on which fanfic you subscribe to. Bluto’s sole purpose in life is to butthurt Popeye’s “girlfriend”, an anorexic bulimic that cannot stay in the kitchen named Olive Oil. Olive Oil is a shrill, cold women that could squeeze blood from a stone just by talking to it. There is another overweight fop named Wimpy. Wimpy is a pan-handler with a meat addiction. There is also a baby involved in this fiasco by the name of Sweet Pea. The parents of this child are unknown, and I can only imagine that the psychological scarring incurred by this infant led to the child entering into the arena of flapper throwback porn in the early 1950’s. Sad, but probably not true.

Popeye was a cartoon star from the 1930’s that some genius felt would be a proper basis for a video game some two generations after he was actually relevant. The name of that genius is none other than Shigeru motherfucking Miyamoto, beeyotch. That’s right. Donkey Kong was supposed to be a Popeye vehicle. Read that line again. Bricks have been shat, your diaper is full, and you just lost The Game. Wikipedia that shit, if you think it’s just another one of my fatherly tall tales. And son, again, Popeye was a sailor. That gives me free reign to cuss like one.

Bluto is now human, your argument is invalid.

Popeye is a fine example of arcade action from the glory days. You play as Popeye (sorry for the spoiler), running around on one of three levels, chasing after shit that Olive Oil drops. These things include hearts, musical notes, and the letters H E L P, although she was clearly asking for it. What? Asking for what? Oh, um, cookies, son. She was asking for cookies. Anyways, you are constantly being chased by Bruto as you scurry to nab Olive’s cries for attention before they land in the drink and sink. If but a single whine drowns before you can get to it, its game over, sailor. This game taught me exactly what the term “anxiety” meant way before adulthood would drive the point home; once in the water, the subtle background music changes to a tune that replays in my head whenever I’m on a deadline. The music says IF YOU MISS THIS YOUR DEATH IS IMMINENT AND YOU DON’T LOVE OLIVE YOU SHIT.

While collecting Olive’s droppings, you face even more anxiety in the form of Blutus. Bruti chases you around each level, throwing beer cans whenever he gets a bead on you. Add to this a Sea Hag on the later levels, vultures that hate you, and Popeye’s inability to swim (he’s a fucking sailor!) and you begin to realize that you’re trapped in a looping limbo. Ahh, arcade games! Popeye does experience some respite, in the form of cans of spinach. The cans will phase in and out of reality, and if Popeye is lucky enough to punch one while its on our plane of existence, he will acquire the strength to kill the Blutos. Apparently, Popeye has a spinach allergy; once a can is punched, he turns all red. The allergic reaction (and the strange coincidental occurrence of his theme music) lets Broto know to high-tail it the fuck out of there. God help you if the allergy ends moments before knocking Brulo out; Popeye will be within ass-whipping distance of that massive load.

You caught all of my hearts! Now do it again, and mean it this time.

In this reviewer’s humble opinion, my dear son, the arcade experience did not come home until Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System. While the NES didn’t have the high resolution to be found within arcade cabinets, the gameplay was smoother and closer to their arcade counterparts than ever before. Popeye for the NES, a vehicle surprisingly made by Mr. Mario himself, is a fine example of this. It’s an entertaining pick-up-and-play arcade game. It provides a descent difficulty curve, throwing more obstacles your way as you progress through the game. The game also provides some tactical elements when it comes to manipulating Brotus to go a certain way. And with the erratic way the objects float down, the game never plays the same twice.

I bestow upon ye 8 stars, Popeye der Matrose Menschen.

Oh, dear Dream Machine, how I miss thee.

Review in a Haiku

Olive Oil’s hearts.

She makes Popeye go get them;

It’s never enough.

REVIEW: Gumshoe

Game: Gumshoe
Original Launch: June 1986
Relaunch: February 2011
Rating: 8 Stars


If you want space ships, commandos, or dragon slaying, the NES has you covered. You’ve got tons of sports games, jet fighters out the wazoo and more ninja than you can shake a wakizashi at. But the NES didn’t get many gritty noir thrillers and if we are being honest, this isn’t one of them. What we have here is a light gun platformer that offers something lacking in a lot of NES games, originality.

Where am I going to find a 5 inch Black Panther?

You play a P.I. named Stevenson who runs constantly to the right. Bottles, rocks, gangsters and all sorts of enemies will fly at Stevenson and it is the player’s job to keep him safe. Shoot the enemies before they can hit you and shoot Stevenson to make him jump. You can keep shooting Stevenson to effectively make him fly but often you have to divide your attention between his jumping and eliminating enemies. You don’t have a life bar so one hit kills you and sends you back to the checkpoint. And unless you are using the continue trick you only have a few lives to beat the game. Did I mention that you have limited ammo and have to keep picking up balloons to add ammo? Running out of ammo means you can’t shoot or jump and leaves you dead within seconds. And don't forget about the time limit.

Not pictured: Unceasing death and aggravation.

Stevenson is out to save his daughter who was kidnapped by King Dom and to do this he needs to find 5 black diamonds. These diamonds may not appear unless you pick the right path through a level (over or under specific platforms) and missing a diamond means having to repeat levels 1 through 5 all over again. The enemies are a strange and random mix of the obvious to the bizarre. I can see why mobsters want you dead, but why do armadillos hate you? If you make it to the end of level 5 with all of the diamonds you get to fight the one-eyed fireball spitting demon in charge of the mob. They should have ended Godfather 3 the same way.

The important part here is that this game is fiercely difficult. Without using the continue trick (shooting like mad at the Game Over screen) I could barely make it to level 2. The levels get progressively tougher so expect to wear out a Zapper or two if you intend to beat the game. The enemies are typically tiny and fast and most of the time a miss means death. The game is packed with cheap kills and frustration. The game play experience is comparable to playing a blisteringly difficult gun game (“To The Earth” comes to mind) and Balloon Fight at the same time. I remember beating this game back in the day and I remember the last boss fight being pretty slick. However I couldn’t come close now so either I must really suck in my old age or I must have been sitting right on top of the TV back then. The road to hell is paved with broken controllers.

Diverse environments and a wide variety of enemies will all dance on your grave.

It might sound like I didn’t enjoy Gumshoe but the fact is that it is one of my favorite NES light gun games. Gumshoe was the first light gun platformer for the NES and this is a light gun sub-genre that isn’t particularly well represented. The game is teaming with strangeness and the bizarre mix of themes keep things fresh right up to the end. And then there is the difficulty. This game is old school hard and it doesn’t apologize. If you can’t hack it, go back to Duck Hunt. But this game rewards the player for time invested in it and fans of light gun games will find themselves coming back again and again. It is by far the most robust and complete game experience of the first generation NES gun games and if you can deal with the difficulty you will have fun.




Review in a Haiku
Kicking like Luigi
Sam Spade dies a thousand deaths
Noir bullet hell.