NES Obscurity Quicky!
permalinkLast week we talked about the experience of playing Rolling Thunder (which is kind of choppy), but this week, we'll do...
A Rolling Thunder rogue's gallery roll-call:
Red Basic Goons
No gun, no special powers; just your basic walking cannon fodder, hoping that you'll accidentally bump into them and lose 1 of your 2 hitpoints.
Orange-and-Blue Diving Helmet Goons
The general rule of thumb is, if they've got a diving helmet instead of a hood, you need to shoot them twice to put them down. Because enemies fly backwards when shot, and these guys spend a while recouperating after their first hit,
...you'll spend a lot the game shooting them once, then ducking and shooting them a second time.
Pistol Goons - regular and extra diving-helmet-y!
Whether they take 1 hit or two, these guys either wander and shoot, or sometimes just dig in behind cover and blast away.
Grenades-a-Poppin'!
These grenadiers are often found on the 2nd tier of the level, where they repeatedly drop bombs below. Sometimes they have the diving-helmet of extra armor, sometimes not, but generally they can be walked by if your timing is good.
Beware if you get on the same level as they are, though; they'll start flinging grenades your way. You'll also suffer from the game's off-screen glitch:
if you can't see them, you can't shoot them...but they can still chuck things at you.
Leapin' Beastmen!
After a few levels of multi-colored hooded and helmeted goons, you think that's all you have to face. Then THESE hopping demi-humans run at you! Unlike the rest of the enemies, they move quickly, and their small stature and high jumps make them hard to hit. Oddly enough, the game goes to all the trouble of including them, then only uses them in a few spots...and speaking of which,
Gray Pumas
Yet again, they've introduced a totally different and interesting beast, and only have them show up once or twice.
Well, we've seen goons, goons, more goons, and some animals; what's left?
Why, none other than the most dangerous and terrifying enemy in the entire game -- the one who generally only shows up once every few levels, but has Rolled more of my Thundering agents to their death than any other enemy...I'm of course talking about...
THIS GUY!
You might say, "what's so terrifying about that guy? He looks just like any other hooded goon, right?"
And while that might be true, he has an ability almost unheard of amongst NES game enemies: more terrifying than only being vulnerable in his giant eyeball, more dangerous than firing a constant stream of laser beams, this enemy can...
SHOOT WHILE DUCKING!!
Yes, while you've spent the whole rest of the game being able to avoid any gunfire by just falling to your knees, the Nacho-Cheese-Yellow and Lime Green enemy represents the next stage level step in enemy evolution: an enemy that can fire at LESS THAN SHOULDER HEIGHT!
A chilling prospect, indeed!
Well, there's a few other enemies kicking around the game -- some very Rygar-ish owls, and some All-One-Color guys who materialize from thin air/fall from the skies, and sometimes shoot and/or take multiple hits to kill,
but nothing is quite as terrifying as Shoots-While-Ducking man, so I think that's quite enough Rolling Thunder for any one website.
"Huzzah!"
— carlmarksguy, 2015-06-12
0 Comments:
add a comment?