Rocket Ranger (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
119A playthrough of Kemco's 1990 NES game, Rocket Ranger.
Similar in its general stylings to the other Cinemaware NES ports (Defender of the Crown, Ultra and The Three Stooges, Activision), Rocket Ranger is an odd fit on the NES, and I imagine it's quite an acquired taste. There's a lot of exposition given through full screens of text, there are about 3 game types that cycle through that are all pretty easy but fun the first 700 times you play them. After that, they begin to wear a bit thin. The video is a bit on the long side for this game because I did my best to show the different possibilities in the game (well, besides the death scenarios - those tend to get in the way of beating the game). So I played all the different action scenes, get a few of my spies killed and get taunted by Not-Hitler, and save the creepy woman several times from a renegade zeppelin with a jet-pack. Is she the long-lost Lindbergh baby? Who the hell knows? Or cares?
Since the original game was on the Amiga, you really have to temper expectations a bit. Just about all of the original's gloss has been shorn, and no doubt the game suffers for it. The same can be said for the utter lack of anything resembling a tutorial if you haven't read the manual, but for as confusing as it looks, give it a half hour and it'll start to make sense. It's pretty simple after you figure out the general flow.
The biggest issues I have with the game are the controls in the action scenes and the weird perspective that makes lining up shots way more difficult than really is necessary. Everything is wicked loose and floaty, and it's hard to judge distance when half the projectiles go from small-to-big-to-explosion in just three distinct frames. It seems like it all is a contrived setup to milk the playtime for a game that really has little game play at its core.
Still, for all of my gripes, I find it endearing. It's cool that it's actually based on The Rocketeer (the comic, that is. The "official" Rocketeer game came out in 91, iirc, with the movie). For as lousy as the graphics are, the whole thing is worth it for two scenes: the first is the shot of the scientist and his "beautiful daughter". You see it every time they are kidnapped by aliens in a zeppelin. It's absolutely hysterical how f'ing ugly that graphic is. And because of that, I actually lol just about every time I play this.
The other scene stands out in my mind as one of the most memorable things I remember from NES games. At the end, if you've won and not killed the scientist and his daughter in a gas explosion by shooting the zeppelin they were being kidnapped in, you get to make out with her. Now, she's obviously not the same girl that kept getting Princess Toadstooled with her dad, except that she is. Maybe a stunt double? A blow-up doll?
Anyways, the memorable bit - look at the guy's eyes as he's trying to consume her as if she were a Big Mac. Not only does he look right smarmy with his cheeky winks and evilly playful brow, but his eyes go a terrifying shade of red. It scared me as a kid, because I used to think he did the Thriller transformation and he was going to transform. Those contacts were terrifying. Not just the coloring, either. They've got this slit pupil, repitely-thing going on that makes me cringe on the inside to see.
And then there's the last boss, which I won't say anything about, save that I did have nightmares after seeing it the first time when I was 8 or 9.
So, there is obviously some quality to this, if I can work under the assumption that the ability to inspire fear is indeed a quality of sorts. An also that you accept my defiant act of equivocation here.
Bottom-line: It's really so bad, it's good. The game itself is utter garbage, but it has so much off-key at the same time that it ends up becoming a comedy of errors, and one that is quite amusing to bear witness to.
Zeppelins are used by aliens to take over the world in the 1990s. Thanks, Nintendo censorship policies! So, yeah.
____
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Visit for the latest updates!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/NintendoComplete/540091756006560
https://twitter.com/nes_complete