NOTE: Before I anger anyone, I do realize that Ralf and Clark originated here and would later become the 'King of Fighters' and ended up in 'Metal Slug' games so don't get your panties too much in a bunch over my short rant. I'm not knocking either of those series.
When I was a kid, I got 'Ikari Warriors' (NES) in a trade for 'Pro Wrestling'. Seeing as I thought 'Pro Wrestling' was an average game and had never played 'Ikari Warriors' (you have enjoy junior high mentality, "I never played it but the arcade is awesome so the NES version has to be, right?") I went ahead and jumped at the trade. I am not going to lie. I loved Ikari Warriors. For awhile I even would put it ahead of some greats as 'Kid Icarus' (don't hate on 'Kid Icarus', haters) and 'Castlevania'. In hindsight, I believe that I was just compensating mentally at the fact that I may have made an inferior trade, but I digress.
That brings me to last night. I was bored and threw 'Ikari Warriors' in. I hadn't played it since the Genesis had come out so I thought I would be in for an evening of nostalgic bliss. Instead I was in for a tear your eyes out and feed them to the dog snore fest. What the hell was this? I couldn't believe that I used to love this mountain of shit. I played through the first two levels and hung it up. I was floored. I went ahead and booted up MAME and played the arcade version, way better so I do realize that my mentality for wanting the game was valid - my youthful opinion of it, not so much. I guess, at the time, I also enjoyed Bon Jovi's 'Slippery When Wet' and thought JAMS were cool so I may have possibly been heavily into drugs and just had blocked that coke snorting era from my memory...or my opinion just wasn't worth much more than my baseball card collection seeing as I never cared for them and bent all the corners (I am a savage).
Anyway, here is my pseudo-review of then and now...
Why I loved it then?
- A-B-B-A...if you don't know what that means don't bother reading on.
- 2-player action.
- The main characters had a Rambo meets Arnie kinda vibe to them (hell the name came from the Japanese title Rambo: First Blood Part II - Rambo: Ikari no Dasshutsu).
- Guns, grenades, tanks, helicopters. Nothing seemed off limits.
- It starts with a plane crash that reminded me of the old Apple II game 'Wings of Fury'.
Why it sucks now?
- Soooooo slllooooowwwww.
- The controls suck. Right off the bat, the first thing I noticed. It was a pain in the ass to control where you are shooting.
- Why does the gun only shoot for a few feet? Even in the tank, with rockets, it doesn't go any farther. So, according to their design, a missile from a tank fires the same distance as a bullet from a gun. Not sure if science will agree with those logistics.
- The enemies when shot just float away. Annoying.
- I cannot comprehend the confusion I felt for the rocks with eyes that shoot arrows.
- There are only four levels and they are the most repetitive, boring, longest four levels in a game. Why not break the game up into eight levels and change the scenery a bit?
Need alcohol and 'Castlevania' immediately.
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