Toobin' (NES) Playthrough
156A playthrough of Tengen's 1989 unlicensed action game for the NES, Toobin'.
Since the game has no ending, I play up through the "Beach Party" stage. The stages repeat at a higher difficulty after that.
Toobin' is a console adaptation of Atari's 1988 arcade game that, according to its promotional flyer, was "totally tubular!"
As Bif or Jet, "the world's baddest party animals on water," you'll be cruising down several hazard-filled rivers on an inner tube. Sharp objects will wreck your inflatable ride, but you can throw cans at them to knock them out the way and reveal bonus items or secret paths to warp zones. (I'm pretty sure those are Budweiser cans, though the game never says as much.) The game looks and feels like a water-themed Paperboy (https://youtu.be/PNOtlDvBVW8), just with the playfield inverted and shown from a more head on perspective.
It also amps up Paperboy's sense of humor with its silly level themes and obstacles. Now, instead of breaking windows and attacking random people hanging out in their yards, you'll have to deal with rabid wildlife, dragons, and Martians across a variety of unlikely environments.
The NES version is a fair representation of the arcade game. It ditches the AI-controlled second player and the presentation has been cut back, but the stages are nicely detailed and fun to look at. The animated water effects are impressively smooth and are effective in communicating the speed of the water and how it will impact the handling of your tube, and the enemies stand out against the backdrops.
This attention to detail does a nice job of mitigating any potential gameplay problems that might've otherwise come with the drop in visual fidelity, and the controls are solid. They feel appropriately loose and floaty, and it's generally easy to steer your character with precision so long as you aren't trying to scream through the stages at top speed.
The game isn't particularly long or challenging, but it's a lot of fun to work your way through the first couple of times. It would've been an ideal weekend rental back in the day, and its rad 80s 'tude still makes for a pretty gnarly experience.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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