NES Games No One Played: Letter M

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 M.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 M.

• Letter A can be found here
• Letter B can be found here
• Letter C can be found here
• Letter D can be found here
• Letter E can be found here
• Letter F can be found here
• Letter G can be found here
• Letter H can be found here
• Letter I can be found here
• Letter J can be found here
• Letter K can be found here
• Letter L can be found here

MAGICIAN | 1991

Not to be confused with similar sounding titles like Wizardry I & II, Might and Magic, Magic of Scherezade, etc. And lord o lord I wish it were any of those games. Magician is an “action” RPG pairing elements of the D & D games coupled with side scrolling fighting akin to, well, it’s kinda like if Camerica made Faxanadu mixed with an awkward Prince of Persia. You can learn various spells, collect items, etc, but all the combat is real time. I should say that the graphics and soundtrack are pretty decent, on par with the Wizards and Warriors series. While there are many issues with the gameplay, I like that there’s a ton of different spells, inventory items, and generally a lot of detail. There was clearly a lot of thought and effort put into the overall scope of Magician, it’s just the practical details that seem to have gotten lost.

The first part of the game is just you in a town. You press A and nothing happens. You press B and you use a health item. Whoops! Then you think “Ok, let’s check out some of these buildings.” First door LOCKED. Second door LOCKED. “Ok well maybe I need to talk to people.” Since A & B are both inventory based, how do I talk? Well if you happen to be on the same exact space as a towns-person you can press UP to talk to them, not that they’ll have much of use to tell you. The biggest problem with how they designed these NPCs is that they walk at the same speed you do and they change direction seemingly at random. So you’ll see someone, walk up to them, and right when you’re about to reach them they turn around and walk the other way. However, since you move at the same speed they do, you’ll never catch them. Your best hope is just to wait 15 seconds for them to turn back around. Garbage, is the word I’m looking for here.

Oh sweet Christ. While I was typing that last paragraph I thought I had the game paused but I didn’t. Turns out not only does your guy have health, but he also has thirst and hunger meters, so if you just stand still and do nothing you’ll eventually die. A great idea in the “mirroring reality” mechanics of early games, but how awkward is it to have to keep feeding this motherfucker every few minutes? Imagine pausing Zelda II between every random encounter just so you could give Link a hamburger. DUMB.

There’s a reason most people don’t review bad or random RPG’s: they’re long as shit, it takes forever to see everything they have to offer, and they’re generally obtuse. I could write a review of the entire NES library in the time it would take me to fully cover just Bandits of Ancient China and Pools of Radiance. I could for instance write, film, and edit a thorough review of Snake Rattle N Roll in the time needed to fully grasp just how shitty Magician is. That being said, maybe some of you Magician heads out there found light at the end of the tunnel 10 hours in, but I can safely say that an hour into playing this it’s an awful awful broken game that wastes a lot of cool ideas.

Similar Games: Prince of Persia, Faxanadu, Wizards and Warriors, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

METAL MECH: MAN AND MACHINE | 1991

Everything about that title screams awesomeness. Like there’s just no way you can read that and not think “Oh shit, it’s about to go down!” Well, down it is!

I’m gonna stop right here and say that the Letter M has a ton of awesome NES games most cats don’t play. You better have played Metroid and Mike Tyson’s Punchout (and hopefully also Metal Storm and Monster Party) but seriously you’re missing out if you haven’t played Monster in My Pocket, M.U.L.E, Mighty Final Fight, and Mendel Palace. That’s a 2-player co-op action platformer, a 4-player resource strategy game, a sadly 1-player but still amazing beat-em up, and a Bubble Bobble replacement 2-player co-op arcade action title. Those are four impeccable hidden gems right there and they cover a wide spectrum of gameplay styles, so get to it! Is Metal Mech on par with those bad boys? Hell naw, it’s just another in a long line of clunky action platformers with rad misleading cover art!

The basic premise of Metal Mech is that you’ve got this giant two legged machine that looks a lot like the ED 209 from Robocop. You’re in your basic futuristic setting with robot enemies immediately swarming all around you. You’ve got a gun, and technically it does shoot in four directions, but this ain’t Contra and it’s clunky as hell. For instance, right after the start of this stage you’ll encounter a tank that’s low on the ground. You need to shoot down at an angle to hit it, but when you stop to press Down + Right, instead of firing you’ll duck which won’t work. You need to already be pressing Right, then press Down to hit it, which means that you basically can’t stop moving if you want to shoot anything.

There is music, but this is one of those games where the sound effects and the soundtrack share the same channel which means if a bullet is fired or an explosion happens the music cuts out. Since this is basically a very slow run and gun where you’re constantly firing, get ready to listen to the sounds of generic “pew pew pews” followed by the occasional “boop” of what I’m sure is a film worthy game score (spoiler alert, it’s not, it’s awful). If you press pause there’s a “Music” option which simply mutes the music, a surefire sign that the game designers knew they fucked this up.

Speaking of the pause screen, after you’ve walked right for five minutes you’ll reach a wall and with nowhere to go, you’ll probably press the Start button. There you’ll see three options: the aforementioned “Music” block, “Metal Mech” which shows you the credits for all two developers of this game, and “Eject”. I know it’s crazy, but my first thought was that this would eject the game, to which I yelled “YESSSS!!!” louder than I’d like to admit. But no, “Eject” simply leaves the robot behind and you switch control to this tiny little guy a la Blaster Master. Now you can climb up those ladders you saw above the police station. What’s at the top of them? More boredom.

Similar Games: Robocop, Blaster Master

MOTOR CITY PATROL | 1992

Finally, let’s talk about the grandfather of Grand Theft Auto! Drugs, prostitutes, explosions, driving, random unfeeling murder?!? Yeah, Motor City Patrol is chock full of all of that, minus the everything hold the driving.

Motor City Patrol is the only game ever released by Matchbox and it’s basically a video game commercial for their brand of tiny collectible vehicles. I was more of a Micro Machine man myself, but in truth only certain cool friends had either. My parents bought me a lot of “Battle Beasts” because they were always on sale at Sears and my next door neighbor had M.U.S.C.L.E Men for the same reason. No I will not be discussing the M.U.S.C.L.E Nintendo game, it’s awful nuff said, but now I’m sad that there never was a Battle Beasts NES game. Why did we get Crash Test Dummies and not that?!?

So I wasn’t kidding, MCP looks just like the early top-down style GTA games. You drive around a huge world looking for crimes and apparently trying not to shoot innocent citizens. There’s no music, just the sweet sounds of your engine and your car constantly running into concrete posts. Seriously, I’ve never seen a city with so many bollard lined curbs, they’re everywhere. Oh wait, there is music, WHEN YOU PAUSE THE GAME. Why, why, why would you ever do that? Pause screens are a place of respite, not the place to hide the mediocre composition your cousin came up with on his Casio. Anyway, the graphics are great, the level is massive which is really impressive for the NES, and wow there’s actually a really useful map that points out the locations of your objectives, so this isn’t a game like say Dick Tracy where you’re kinda wandering around aimlessly.

Well, I take that back. Even with the map and clearly highlighted locations, I still cannot tell what you’re supposed to do. You drive to those spots and…I don’t know? Occasionally your lights come on? I tried shooting a car and immediately got a Game Over for roughing up a civilian. I tried watching a walkthrough, and this guy seems even more lost than I am. I don’t get it. Maybe if you can figure it out you’ll have a great time with Motor City Patrol, but I doubt it. There’s a really interesting framework of a game here, it’s just missing tons of gameplay elements. If there were NPCs walking around and you could exit your car and enter buildings, this game would be ten times better. Add in some story or even unique cases for you to work, and this becomes a top 20 NES title. Sadly revisionists reviews do no remake mediocre games into good ones, so Motor City Patrol will probably eternally linger in obscurity.

Similar Games: Dick Tracy

MUPPET ADVENTURE: CHAOS AT THE CARNIVAL | 1990

Muppet Adventure was published by Hi Tech Expressions who put out a ton of educational games like the Sesame Street series and Mickey Mouse in Number/Letterland, but also dropped such super turds as Barbie, Fun House, and Rollerblade Racer. So which one is Muppet Adventure, educational kids game or poorly designed shovelware? Is there a good answer either way?

Muppet Adventure is pretty straight forward: Ms. Piggy’s been kidnapped and so Kermit (along with Animal, Gonzo, and Fozzie) sets out to get her back in the least entertaining way possible: each of deez Muppets have to finish a specific carnival activity. To kick things off, Kermit’s got a Toobin’ style river race. There’s lot’s of (probably three) diverse obstacles like whirlpools and rocks, but since pretty much everything is unavoidable it doesn’t really matter what they look like. Animal’s got a “when will it end” bumper car race where you drive to the right until you’re met by three objects: one gives you points, one slows you down, and one hurts you. Your immediate thought is to go fast and plow right through this, but there’s no time limit so go as slow as you want player. Gonzo’s got the same level as Animal but in space and with Asteroids physics. There’s not much else to say beyond that it’s an incredibly banal shooter. And finally, Fonzie’s got this maze thing where he runs around collecting bow-ties and shit. I say “maze”, but there’s really no mystery about where to go, the objectives are clearly laid out and accessible. It’s honestly closer to a really really really shitty Pacman clone but there’s only one ghost, you can’t eat him, and you’re never in any danger.

Honestly, this may be one of the worst officially released NES games out there. It is fundamentally poor in every aspect that an 8-bit game can be. If this were one of those multi-colored bootleg carts made by Color Dreams, it would still be one of the worst unlicensed games out there. Bland to the point of being offensive, completely devoid of any fun or replay value, totally uninspired in both design and gameplay, just an all around terror for the eyes, ears, and sense of self worth. Not to mention a waste of a great pop culture franchise. If this was like Tiny Toons Adventures we’d be in business!

I suggest that everyone avoid Muppet Adventure at all costs. And you may say “I don’t know, I love bad games and as such I have to say it’s not THAT bad”. Cool brah good for you. All I can really say is that all the worst games aren’t THAT bad, they didn’t commit genocide or anything, but they were sold in stores for $50-$60 bucks sans inflation. It’s fun to shit on Muppet Adventure now when it costs $20 (or $2.40 according to this amazing listing) but if you bought this in 1990 at full price you were straight up scammed. Like class action lawsuit against the developers.

Similar Games: Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, Tiny Toons Adventures 2

MUTANT VIRUS: CRISIS IN A COMPUTER WORLD | 1992

I gotta say, I’m a huge fan of subtitles, it just makes everything sound way more epic. If I were to call this series “Reviewing NES Games: An Unforgiving Journey of Redemption”, you might say to yourself “Damn, this guy is really putting his life on the line for his Nintendo obsession!” I’m not, no one is, but just for a second I might getcha!

Mutant Virus follows one of those 80s and early 90s tropes about computers where we imagine that instead of microchips and code language, the inside of these machines is a real place that we can interact with. Tron, ReBoot, Lawnmower Man, Hackers, etc. all imagined this interior computer world as three dimensional and Mutant Virus takes it a step further by making the term computer virus to literally mean a growing organic looking menace. And how do you combat a computer virus that’s mutating? McAfee? Nope, shrink yourself down to microscopic size and blast that bad boy into oblivion!

Once inside the computer, your astronaut looking character can float around with Asteroids style gravity across the grid layout, one screen at a time. There, you’ll likely find the virus which is represented by the color pink (or green) and some occasionally moving black balls. If you shoot the tiles or the virus, it turns blue. If you don’t shoot anything, the virus spreads pink everywhere, but if you shoot a virus section it’ll also spread blue everywhere (which is good I think). Randomly floating and firing everywhere will do most of the job needed to clear a screen, but you always have to shoot these tiny sections last and the hit detection makes no sense. You can be right next to it and just blast away every side of that virus and it won’t turn. It’s seemingly pure luck before you accidentally neutralize it and get to movie on to the next level.

From there, the game opens up and you can choose multiple paths until every room in disinfected. At first you’re probably thinking “Hmmm, I don’t see the challenge here. Nothing can hurt me and the enemy is stupidly easy.” and at first you’d be right. Once you reach the later levels though, not only is the virus much more difficult to convert, but there’s projectiles flying at you that kill instantly. At this point, the game becomes pretty tedious and unless I missed some vital power-ups, your weapon just doesn’t seem strong enough to accomplish anything. Like I think this is more of a puzzle game than a shooter, but I can’t really figure out what the solution is. Overall though it’s a pretty interesting concept, think Solar Jetman mixed with Othello, but the satisfaction of playing may not be very high on the ol’ excitement meter.

Similar Games: Solar Jetman, Othello

OTHER LETTER M GAMES (CLASSICS)

Metroid, Mega Man I-VI, Metal Storm, Maniac Mansion, Marble Madness, Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Monster Party

OTHER LETTER M GAMES WORTH TRYING

Monster in My Pocket, M.U.L.E, Mighty Final Fight, Mendel Palace, Mafat Conspiracy, Mach Rider, Magic of Scherezade

OTHER LETTER M GAMES WORTH AVOIDING

Mario is Missing, Mario’s Time Machine, Major League Baseball, M.U.S.C.L.E