Namco made a wise decision when they passed over Pac-Land in favor of its 1980 predecessor Pac-Man for the NES. I expect Pac-Land attracted a fair amount of attention when it appeared in arcades in 1984. Not only did it feature one of the most popular video-game characters ever, but it introduced an entirely-new and exciting style of gameplay: side-scrolling platforming! Instead of navigating the same maze endlessly while gobbling up pellets, Pac-Man now has arms, legs, and a jaunty little hat! His new, anthropomorphic form was based on the Saturday morning cartoon . The ghosts, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, are still around, only now they employ cars, pogo sticks, airplanes, helicopters, and flying saucers in their quest to capture our yellow protagonist. Sue (from Ms. Pac-Man) slowly pursues Pac-Man, acting as a kind of timer. Gameplay is straightforward: Pac-Man runs and jumps over obstacles and ditches, while avoiding ghosts and grabbing fruit for bonus points. The occasional Po...

Battle City was a Famicom sequel to a 1981 arcade game called Tank Battalion. I don't know why it wasn't brought to the US because it's super fun! The gameplay is simple: you control a tank and have to destroy the enemy tanks while protecting your base. There are 35 levels, which loop if completed. There's good variety in the levels; there are forest tiles that obscure tanks, brick walls that can be destroyed, water, and unbreakable walls. As a fun Easter Egg, a few of the maps form an image. Recognize this guy ? To clear a screen, you must destroy twenty tanks, up to four of which appear at a time. Some can be destroyed with a single shot, whereas others are heavily armored. They move around more or less randomly, while making toward your base, which has only a brick wall for protection. If your base is destroyed, it's an instant Game Over, so you have to keep one eye on it constantly. You can only shoot one shot at a time (like in Galaxian ), so the best strategy ...

Being an RPG fan, I tried hard to like The Tower of Druaga. A hit in Japanese arcades, it flopped in the U.S. and thus never got an NES version of the Famicom port. I can understand why: playing this game is an exercise in repetitive frustration.  The Tower of Druaga is what you get when you turn Pac-Man into an RPG dungeon-crawler. There are sixty mazes through which you must navigate the mythical hero Gilgamesh while slaying or avoiding enemies. Each stage has a locked exit and a key. Gil can kill enemies with his sword by holding A, but when doing so he puts to one side his shield, which normally protects his front from the projectiles of Magicians and Ghosts. Unlike later RPGs, there are no experience or hit points, so it's a steady stream of one-hit kills. I can only imagine how many 100-yen coins this game devoured. As with  Mappy and Dig Dug , the switch to a horizontal aspect ratio required the Famicom port of The Tower of Druaga to decrease the height of the levels. ...

Now here's a famous one! I played Dig Dug in an arcade in the 2000's, and I'm sure there are still more than a few out there, bringing in the occasional quarter. You can even pick up a modern Dig Dug + Dig Dug II "counter-cade" (arcade machine that sits on your counter) for about $150! Dig Dug debuted in 1982, and Japan got a Famicom port in 1985. Like other early Namco games (save Pac-Man ), it was passed over in the States in favor of its sequel. In hindsight, this was a mistake, as Dig Dug is far more popular. The Famicom cartridge Dig Dug's charm comes from its quirkiness. You control a little guy who digs rapidly through the ground, searching for fire-breathing dragons (called Fygars) and goggle-wearing Pookas to inflate with a pump until they pop like balloons! You can also undermine rocks so that they fall onto enemies (or yourself, if you're not quick!). There are twelve similar levels, which loop continuously. The world record was set by Donald H...

Next up in my list of Famicom games is Mappy, a cat-and-mouse game. Mappy first landed in American arcades in 1983. It must not have been very popular, as few people today seem to remember it. Mappy is similar to Pac-Man in that you move through a maze-like structure (a house), collecting items (stolen goods), and avoiding enemies (cats called Meowkies). Even though Mappy is a police officer, it kind of feels like you're the one robbing houses, taking electronics, paintings, and safes! The most distinctive part of the game is that Mappy can't jump, but instead bounces off trampolines. These function like elevators and are how you get to the different floors. While bouncing, Mappy is immune to enemies, even if they are bouncing with him. Avoiding the enemies thus involves strategic use of the trampolines. The goal, of course, is to get as many points as possible. One way to do is this is to take out enemies by opening flashing doors. This releases a pulse that moves along that f...

Galaxian is an improved take on Space Invaders that hit American arcades in 1980. By all accounts it was a success, yet it was destined to be surpassed by its sequel, Galaga, the next year. Ports of arcade games didn't arrive on the NES until 1986, at which point games like Galaxian looked dated. For this reason Namco wisely skipped Galaxian and went straight to the superior  Galaga . But in Japan the Family Computer received a number of arcade ports before the NES even existed. Galaxian came to the Famicom in the fall of '84. It at last found its way to these shores less than a year ago as part of Namco's Museum Archives . The Famicom version is very faithful to the original. The only major change was necessitated by the fact that early arcade games used vertical monitors (3:4), so the screen layout needed to be adapted for TVs (4:3). As a result, the distance between your ship (the Galaxip) and the enemy is shortened. Perhaps to compensate for this, they move a little mor...

I remember seeing pictures of Wrecking Crew as a child and finding it hard to believe there was this janky-looking Mario game that my friends and I had never seen. Now that I've played it, it's still hard to believe. Wrecking Crew reminds me of Clu-Clu Land  in that it's kind of irritating but can suck you in, if you play it long enough. It's addictive, not because it's especially fun, but because you always want to solve the next stage. The game it most reminds me of is The Adventures of Lolo , except that game is cute and this game is, well, not . Not the most beautiful game ever created The goal of each stage is to smash all the breakable walls. They are in the background, so breaking them doesn't open any paths. Sometimes you have to destroy ladder-like walls, too. This is where the puzzle elements come in, because Mario may need some of those wall-ladders to move up or down platforms. Levels generally have to be solved from top to bottom since if Mario fall...

Wild Gunman is a Light Gun game best remembered for appearing in the movie Back to the Future 2. The movie shows four gunmen on screen at once. The real Wild Gunman doesn't quite live up. Comparison: Left is movie version, right is real thing The game is like a worse version of Hogan's Alley . It's a reflex game more than a target-practice game like Duck Hunt . In mode A, the game doesn't even check the gun's position, only measuring how long it takes you to pull the trigger after the gunman says "Draw!" Shoot prematurely or too slowly, and you lose. Mode B has two gunmen, and you do have to aim somewhat, as the two figures are on opposite sides of the screen. This mode is comparable to mode A of Hogan's Alley, except the enemies' positions are static. Sometimes one of the gunmen doesn't draws. You're penalized if you shoot him, like a bystander in Hogan's Alley. Mode C is exactly like the building screen from mode B of Hogan's Alle...