REVIEW: Wrecking Crew

Game: Wrecking Crew
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 8 stars


Wrecking Crew in an action puzzle game that pits Mario as a construction (destruction?) worker whose job it is to break stuff.

I encourage you to click play and listen to Wrecking Crew's great tunes while you read the review.

Mario's tool of choice is his trusty hammer, which he apparently stole from the Donkey Kong work site. The objective of the game is to smash all that is smash-able. While attempting to ruin a lot of hard work put in by others, non-jumping Mario must stay one step ahead of those that pursue him: disturbing walking wrenches named Gotchawrenches, which give me nightmares, and guys dressed in Intel clean-room bunny suits named Eggplant Men. Eggplant Men are normally found at constructions sites, so this makes perfect sense. If you think about, these guys are the real heroes of the game, as they are trying to protect some unfortunate developer's financial interests from some Italian asshole with a hammer.

Anyways, dick around too long without breaking anything, and a fireball will manifest and stream across the level at which the dilly-dallying occurred. So move your ass and get to the vandalizing. Once all blocks are busted and breakable ladders are down, the level is complete. There is also an NPC named Spike the Foreman that shows up during bonus levels and on some regular levels to interrupt your flow. I'll expound upon that dumbass in a bit.

I need to point out early on in this review just how much I love the music of Wrecking Crew. When you start a level, you are greeted with a quick little tune as the level is revealed to you from the top to the bottom. The tune says to me, "Do-do do-do-do do do, Here's a construction site, now go and start breaking shit up." (Go ahead, sing that when a level starts, it fits.) Once the level begins, the background tune is the happiest fucking music to break stuff to, ever. It's a cool, flowing melody that I find myself humming while I break stuff in real life. Also, it's a relatively long tune for an NES game, especially a release title. The tune doesn't loop for a while. The music fits this game; it's advantageous of you to stay in motion as much as possible, what with the constant threat of aliens and angry tools, and the music reflects this, while not lending itself to a heightened sense of anxiety. Even the death tune is kind of like, "Oh well, you died, but maybe you'll do better next time" (You can't sing along with that verse.)

Never to be heard from again, it is believed that Spike the Foreman was given a "cement nap" by Mario after level 100.

Wrecking Crew has an interesting twist in the way of Spike The Foreman, an NPC that shows up to break stuff along side you. Initially, you only see him on the bonus levels, but then he shows up on some regular levels. Spike is annoying, because while he increases the challenge, he can ruin a level by smashing a required breakable ladder or by hammering a bomb before you ascend said ladder to take out blocks, forcing a mulligan. Dumb fuck. If you're going to compete with me, don't ruin it for the both of us.

Speaking of annoyances, shouldn't a hammer work as a weapon? Not in this game. An enemy touches you, and you are dead. There are a few ways of dealing with enemies, none of which include direct skull bashing. There are doors on some levels; if opened while an enemy walks toward them, the enemies will automatically enter and roam around behind the scenes. This takes them out of the picture for a little bit. You can also stun enemies buy hammering a bomb while they are on the same level, or by destroying a breakable ladder that they are climbing. There is one other way of managing them, which requires ninja-like gaming reflexes: trap them in a barrel. There are breakable pillars that are not a part of the required breakables, some of which have barrels over them. Although the odds of death are high, time it just right and the pursuing enemy will be trapped within the fallen barrel for the duration of the game. Time it wrong, and you are in the barrel. Pro tip: trap that asshole Spike to prevent his level-ruining shenanigans.

This won't end well. If only I had a hammer... oh, wait.

The game is fun, but not without some minor frustrations. There are occasional dead ends. You can circumstantially ruin a game by falling between two barrels, getting caught in a falling barrel, or destroying a ladder that leads to unbroken breakable objectives. With the exception of being trapped in a barrel, you must either allow an enemy to kill you, or await the Fireball of Impatience to put an end to your futile effort. If you're within a barrel, you're fucked, as you will have to reset the game by pressing select and thus lose your current score. Overall, though, this isn't a big deal.

I think that there is something primal within all human beings that enjoys the act of breaking shit. Go ahead, smash a beer bottle, I'll wait. See? Feel that adrenaline rush? It's a caveman response to thoughtless action that stays with us today. That's the appeal of Wrecking Crew. We love breaking shit. Rawr! HULK SMASH! And while there hasn't been a sequel to Wrecking Crew (outside of Japan, that is,) breaking stuff is a part of most current games. Ever play Burnout? How about Boom Blox? Perhaps a little-known series entitled Grand Theft Auto?

So, you see, even 25 years ago, Nintendo knew to tap into that primal element of humanity through a video game. Add to this some of the catchiest tunes ever and 100 levels of puzzle challenge, and Wrecking Crew holds up. I'm giving Wrecking Crew a solid 8 Stars, the Terrific Tunes stamp, the Praiseworthy Puzzler stamp, as well as the coveted Test of Time stamp.




Review in a Haiku
"Under construction"?
That's just an invitation
to smash everything.

REVIEW: Clu Clu Land

Game:Clu Clu Land
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 5 Stars



When I was a kid, I honestly thought this game was about the dudes with the white pointy hats. I mean it always struck me as kind of odd that they would have their own game, and I kind of assumed they were the bad guys in said game...but I didn’t get the plumber-mushroom-turtle connection with Mario either so I just wrote it off as one of those strange Japanese things. It turns out the hat guys have a slightly different name, and Clu Clu Land is actually about Bubbles the Bubblefish trying to recover the treasure of the sea kingdom from some jerk face sea urchins called the Unira.

Clu Clu review, Mrs. Robinson.

The catch is that the treasure is invisible and you are being chased by the angry sea urchin critters. You run all over the field and trip over the gold bars (which look like Rupees from Zelda) by chance. Typically the treasure is laid out in a symmetrical pattern to make a picture so that once you find enough, you can estimate the rest by anticipating the design. Clu Clu Land plays a bit like a wide open version of Pac Man if all the dots and the occasional obstacles were invisible. You can stun the enemies with your Sound Wave (sea urchin have ears?) and crush them into walls for bonus points.

Avoid the Unira. Which are probably contagious.

The hook to the game play is the directional control. When you change direction, you hang an arm out to grab hold the poles that make up the grid and spin yourself around. You can tap the D Pad to make a quick turn, or hold it down to spin around and around. This is probably the most original feature of the game, and while I found it to be originally quite off-putting, I grew to appreciate the strategy that it added. You can’t just head off to the other side of the screen, you have to plan a path based on obstacle and enemy locations and use careful timing to pull it off successfully. That being said, the control is never quite intuitive and causes more deaths than the enemies do.

Clu Clu Land on cards?! What a deal!

What replay value that Clu Clu Land has comes from trying to top your previous high score. This may be fine for old school gamers, but don’t look for an ending to this one. The game has 22 levels and if you can get that far, it repeats with having to run over each bar twice. There is also some fun to be had with two player mode which is simultaneous. Trying to score higher than player two leads you to take more chances and is generally more fun than playing by yourself, but not by much.

Clu Clu Land is the first NES entry into the maze game genre. However, Pac Man is still the biggest shark in that pond, and when you compare the two games side to side, Clu Clu loses badly. This is one of those times when the designers go out on a limb and try something new and it doesn’t quite pan out. On its own, it was a fun diversion that manages to be briefly amusing despite the handicap of its controls scheme.



Review in a Haiku
Try to play Pac Man
Blindfolded and with your feet.
Behold! Clu Clu Land!