NES Reviews I-L

Unlike most Indiana Jones fans, my favorite film of the trilogy is the dark, brooding Temple of Doom. So you can imagine my disappointment when I sat down to play this ill-conceived crock of [expletive]. The stages are a series of underground caves full of platforms, conveyer belts, mine carts, and lava pits. Equipped with his trusty whip, Indy fights the bad guys, rescues kids, and tries frantically to locate an exit. It's mildly amusing to ride mine carts and swing between ledges using your whip, but the fun ends there. The controls are abysmal. When you jump up or down, you never quite know where you're going to land, but it's usually red and rhymes with java. Indy's movements are so slippery that even climbing a frickin' ladder without falling off is hard! Your primarily objective is to free enslaved kids, but your escape route is usually a mystery. Sometimes you'll appear to have stumbled across the exit, only to discover you've returned to the previous stage! Ugh! Temple of Doom's graphics are butt-ugly, with repulsive color schemes and pitiful animation. The Michael Jackson-impersonating thugs mindlessly fall from platform to platform, and often hurl themselves directly into the lava. The fighting aspect of the game feels like a complete afterthought. Switching weapons is awkward (hold select while moving the directional pad?!), and firing your gun will instantly kill a bad guy anywhere on the screen! I also find it odd how you can grab the same item over and over again to rack up points. Indiana Jones Temple of Doom is so bad that it made me want to rip someone's heart out, tie them to a metal rack, and lower them into a lava pit. But wouldn't you know it - it turns out that's illegal in Maryland! Temple of Doom's only saving grace is the horrible Last Crusade game for the NES, which makes this look almost respectable by comparison. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

How hard could it be to program a half-way decent Indiana Jones game?! This is one of two Last Crusade games for the NES, and I prefer this one only because it doesn't suck quite as much as the other. The structure of this game is good, with selectable stages that combine elements of fighting, racing, and puzzle solving. You'll trade punches with thugs in a German castle, on a freighter at sea, and on a moving tank in the desert. The graphics look very sharp and detailed, but the animation stinks. Indy's movements are erratic, and you'll struggle to escape from regenerating thugs just because you can't get up the frickin' ladder! Indy can punch, kick, or jump-kick, but these moves look unintentionally hilarious. If Indy's jacket were red instead of brown, he'd look just like Michael Jackson doing a dance number. The enemy soldiers are hard to fight because they tend to hop around like fleas! Also amusing is how Indy's little legs wiggle as he scurries up and down ladders. The German castle stage is particularly painful, with its never-ending maze of hallways and doors that all look the same! I can't tell you how long I languished in this stage, but it felt like days. The most bizarre stage is the catacombs, which amounts to one of those "slide the square" puzzles. I was never any good at those, so I really hated this stage. Last Crusade's highlight is the motorcycle chase stage. As you zoom up a vertically-scrolling road, you'll need to carefully adjust your speed to avoid hazards and leap over chasms. Best of all, you can whip soldiers that pull up alongside you. The final stage is pretty good too, taking you through the three challenges of the grail. Intermissions are displayed between stages with nice illustrations and text dialogue from the movie. In terms of audio, the suspenseful music that plays in the castle scene is good, but the rendition of the Indiana Jones theme sounds totally off-key. The less said about the techno music in the ship stage, the better. Last Crusade has a lot of issues, but at least it makes an effort. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

The title here is a bit misleading. Unlike the co-op arcade game this Joe & Mac is two-player alternating. I should have been tipped off by the box cover which only shows Joe! Otherwise this is a pretty solid prehistoric platformer. You're a little axe-tossing caveman dealing with dinosaurs, man-eating plants, and leaping electric fish. The whimsical stages call to mind Bonk's Adventure (Turbografx-16, 1990), especially when scampering over the bodies of snoozing dinosaurs. Creatures attack from all angles but that's okay because your life meter is about 15 ticks long! You'll be hounded relentlessly by pterodactyls but they're not a problem once you get used to the controls. Pressing up lets you jump substantially higher - we're talking Michael Jordan high - and pounding the button in the air lets you rain down axes. Better yet, while on the ground you can toss weapons straight up, knocking down anything flying overhead. But wouldn't those axes harm Joe when they came back down? Wow, you ask way too many questions! My favorite weapons are the stone wheels (which look like Cheerios) because they roll along the contours of the landscape. Joe & Mac features impressively large bosses including a T-Rex, Pterodactyl, and a man-eating plant that chews you up and spits out your bones. While fighting these behemoths you'll need to stay "high and away", but mashing the directional pad is hell on your thumb. Once again my Nintendo Advantage joystick comes to the rescue. How did I ever live without this thing? Defeat a boss and a lovely cave-girl comes dashing out, running right past poor Joe! Joe & Mac is a likeable NES platformer with charm and personality. Nobody ever said life was easy in prehistoric times but it sure was a lot of fun. © Copyright 2020 The Video Game Critic.

I can't recall my friends snickering at the title of a game this much since Sword Fight (Atari 2600, 1983). This new NES homebrew has a lot going for it starting with its green translucent cartridge shell. It's mesmerizing! Log Jammer's gameplay pits two players running on spinning logs in head-to-head hammer-throwing action. The character selection includes three humans and three freaky monsters. The playing field is divided into an upper and lower area, with the idea to hurl a hammer at targets behind your opponent. Your opponent can intercept the hammer by touching it in flight. This is definitely a twitch game as you try to catch your opponent leaning the wrong way. I find it odd how the corners are worth more points considering the middle sections are a lot harder to hit. The matches are short and sweet. The graphics are remarkably sharp and well-defined, and the frenetic music isn't bad either. Log Jammer's gameplay might seem original to a garden variety critic, but I instantly recognized it a vertical variation of Windjammers (Neo Geo, 1994). Random items add spice (including signature shots) but frankly these tend to get lost in the noise. I love the wide variety of stages ranging from shimmering blue pools to racid sewers to icy glaciers. You could play this game any time of the year and still be seasonally correct. It's hard to advance far in the single-player tournament mode but going toe-to-toe with a friend is always a blast. Like most modern games, this one records "achievements" which are saved to cart. Log Jammers isn't the kind of game you play for hours on end, but I've yet to find someone who didn't like it. © Copyright 2018 The Video Game Critic.