NES Games No One Played: Letter E

I’ve got a pretty extensive NES collection and have for years been writing about the best games for the system while also trying to collect every title. As such, I feel like I’ve spent tons of time playing all the great games while the lesser known titles usually come in the mail and go straight onto the shelf. I wanted to make more of an effort to explore the entire library of the NES, not just the classics, and so I’m trying out some buddies I either popped in and immediately out or never played in the first place. Since I’ve got them organized alphabetically, let’s continue on with the Letter E. There were only three official NES games released in North America that begin with the Letter E, and since only one of them is obscure, I figured “hey, why not just review them all?”

(Letter A can be found here | Letter B can be found here | Letter C can be found here | Letter D can be found here).

ELEVATOR ACTION | 1987

Let me assure you in case you were concerned that the title of this game might possibly be false advertising: there are elevators, there is action, and there is occasionally action in those elevators. However, there are also escalators and that to me reeks of a classic bait and switch.

I think it’s reasonable to divide the NES library chronologically into three eras: the “Black Box” era 1985–1987 (where the games were mostly arcade ports and simple platformers), the “Classics” era of 1987–1991 (which contains Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Mario 2 & 3, Contra, Metroid etc.) and the “Post-Super Nintendo” era of 1991–1994 (where the graphics got extra but most of the good games were being released on the 16-bit system). Elevator Action falls into the “Black Box” era and as such it’s a very simple arcade style title with limited graphics, sound, and gameplay which doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad, it just means it should be judged with a grain of salt. Gumshoe isn’t exactly a masterpiece by today’s standards, but best believe it blew plenty of minds back in the day.

The gameplay of Elevator Action is pretty straight forward: you start at the top of a building, on each floor there are doors that may or may not contain enemy agents trying to shoot you, you can move between floors by taking elevators (which you control) or escalators (which are surprisingly hard to step onto), you’ve got a gun and unlimited bullets, occasionally there’s red doors which contain secret documents, at the bottom there’s a car to get away on. After that? More elevators and more action! It’s pretty fun, and if you like arcade style gameplay like Donkey Kong or Popeye or Mappy Land, I bet you’ll dig Elevator Action. I don’t have any criticisms, just a few notes:

• If you get to the bottom of the screen without the documents, the game sends you slowly back up to the top of the screen. The music during this section is like chip-tune Skrillex.
• You can shoot enemies, which is pretty fun, but crushing them with the elevator? This is the most satisfying murderin’ on any NES title.
• Speaking of escalators, riding them is actually the only area of the game where there is no action. If you’re on one floor and the bad guy is on another but you both get on the escalator at the same time, you cannot hurt each other. I know they’re not well developed characters or anything, but every time this happens I imagine what their exchange must be like: Do they talk shit as they pass? Do they high five? Are they like “Ohhhh you! I’m gonna turn right back around and come down the other way to get ya!”? Or do they pass silently without making eye contact, like when you run into your ex at the grocery store and you can’t really avoid the interaction so you pretend like you didn’t see each other and just walk away? You too can while away the valuable seconds of your life with deep imaginings such as these.

Similar Games: Mappy Land, Ice Climber, Donkey Kong

ELIMINATOR BOAT DUEL | 1990

I’ve been pretty negligent so far in covering sports titles, military simiulators, and racing games because 1) there’s so many of them in the NES library, 2) they’re mostly indistinguishable from each other, and 3) there’s not really a lot to say about them. I have a tradition whenever my buddy comes into town that we play nine innings of baseball but spread out across three NES games. We’ll play Baseball Simulator 1.000, Legends of the Diamond, Bo Jackson’s Baseball etc. At this point we’ve played all of them, and other than Baseball Stars and Basewars I cannot tell you which ones were good, bad, or just 8-bit baseball.

And I say this because if not for the shortage of Letter E games, I would’ve never played Eliminator Boat Duel which would’ve been a real shame as this game kinda rules! Eliminator Boat Duel is like an NES version of Better Off Dead: everyone’s high, hilarity always ensues, and there’s hot bikini babes EVERYWHERE. It does little for me now, but 8 year old me? Whoa boy, I would’ve slept with this game under my pillow.

Eliminator Boat Duel is a speed boat racing game where you take on a collection of colorful characters in one on one competitions. There’s Surfer Bob, Weird Willy, Mangler Mike, and Veronica Alabaster (hubba hubba) who of all the “We Want Slo Mo” ladies represented in this game is apparently the love interest. Although <spoiler alert> when you beat the game and ride off into the sunset with her, you’re on a sail boat. A SAIL BOAT? Sell out!

My favorite character is Aquarius Rex who is just a poorly drawn caricature of Jerry Garcia complete with super hippie quotes like “My groovy guru vibes help my boat skim the waves. So long unenlightened one!!!” and “Oh Wow, man! Your karma is bad. Get your life aligned.” Solid advice shower avoider!

The size of your boat varies within the race from super huge to extra tiny, but the goal is still the same: go faster and avoid more obstacles than your opponent. Along the way you can gain cash and other letter based items I haven’t deciphered and between races you can upgrade various parts of your boat. It’s all very reminiscent of R.C. Pro Am, but considering that’s once of the greatest racing games of all time, a speed boat based imitation of it is not a bad thing. This game has a ton of personality and is totally worth playing, check it out!

Similar Games: Galaxy 5000, Cobra Triangle, R.C. Pro Am

EXCITEBIKE | 1988

Hell fucking yeah! EXCITEBIKE! WHOOO!

Wouldn’t it be funny though if I came on here and just talked shit about how Excitebike? Like that it’s overrated, kinda boring, and completely eclipsed by future racing games (it’s none of those things btw)? Several times in my life I’ve had “super cool” people argue that the Beatles were overrated. And they have lots of tired, contrarian reasons for why they believe this to be true, but come the fuck on. Even if you don’t particularly like their music, their influence on music and history isn’t up for debate. The Godfather isn’t overrated because so many people talk about it as the greatest film of all time. It’s just great, stop taking a “daring” position by questioning if it’s really that groundbreaking. I recently saw the most obnoxious critique of the “Bad Design of NES Games”, and if you haven’t seen it, this is exactly what I’m talking about (Jesus Christ I apologize in advance for linking to that bullshit).

ANYWAY, Excitebike! It’s amazing, for sure a top 20 or at least top 50 NES games of all time. The design is simple but effective, the music and sound is iconic, the controls and physics are perfect, and most of all it’s still so fucking fun to play. And the level creation section? It still blows my mind that something like this exists on an 8-bit game. I’m sure there are other examples of the course building mechanic before Tony Hawk 2, but I’m at a loss so if anyone wants to one-up me, the comments are waiting ;)

I don’t know what else to say about Excitebike. Somehow it’s so much easier to discuss Eliminator Boat Duel, which I’ve played twice, than Excitebike which I’ve played a million times. I think it’s just that “failures” are often so bad they’re interesting and the fact that their ineptitude means less people experience them creates a whole heap of space for us to dissect their flaws. “Classics” on the other hand are harder to analyze without feeling like you’re echoing someone else’s thoughts or jumping on the collective bandwagon. Well, let me do both those things by continuing to reinforce the greatness of this game. Excitebike rules, end of discussion.

Similar Games: Excitebike

OTHER LETTER E GAMES (CLASSICS)

Ummmm….

OTHER LETTER E GAMES WORTH TRYING

Elite (If you can rock the PAL)

OTHER LETTER E GAMES WORTH AVOIDING

Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land (If you can stomach the unlicensed side of the NES library. They ain’t all Micro Machines and Tengen Tetris!)