Total Recall - NES - Quick Review
Well since last week I did a couple of SNES Quick Reviews, I decided to make this week a vote toss-up between NES and Sega Week. The vote ended up being tied so I leaned in favor of NES. So the first stop for this week is Total Recall. It's loosely based on the movie of the same name, where you control Douglas Quaid who has suffered memory loss after a virtual trip to Mars, and he goes after Rekall Inc to get to the bottom of everything.
The controls are simple here, with minimal options due to the limited NES controller. The D-Pad moves you and lets you duck, B attacks with either your fists or whichever gun you have equipped, and A jumps. You get to drag yourself through eight levels of this game, featuring various scenes and locations from the movie, so let's get down to it and see what was good and bad about this one, and if it's worth it.
The Good
- Level designs. The levels are really good looking for NES standards. They feature a decent amount of locations from cities, alleyways, Quaid's apartment, and a few locations on Mars in addition to others. For the 8-bit era, they stand out as some of the best looking for what I've played on the console.
- "Cutscenes". While they're not cutscenes by todays standards, they're better looking then a lot of games of the time. Most NES games will feature a still image of a character with text scrolling on the screen, but in Total Recall they actually pulled animated faces with moving mouths into these between-level clips.
The Bad
- Controls. They're horrible and slow. Quaid's punch is minimally effective and you have to find this awkward sweet spot to be able to hit an enemy. If you're too far you miss, but if you're too close you essentially punch through your enemy and only hit the air behind them. Meanwhile, they can attack you from pretty much anywhere. Most enemies come in carrying guns which can be fired (obviously) from anywhere, but it seems like they're saved from having to find the punching sweet spot and can damage you even when they're in your face.
- Overpowered enemies. Some areas in this game will put you up against a wall with almost no way out. For instance, the first "boss" fight occurs in Quaid's apartment where you face off against his ex-wife. After killing her you're supposed to leave the apartment, but an enemy will spawn in the doorway with a machine gun and constantly fire into the room. It ends up being impossible to escape if you end up having just a smidge of help left, as you can't make it to the exit without taking some damage.
- No saves/passwords. No matter how far you get, if you die you'll be brought all the way back to the beginning to do it all over again. And in a game this tough, you need those passwords because getting past just the first level is going to be a serious test. The closest thing to a "checkpoint" in this game is in the first level you can enter a movie theater to watch a scroll of credits, and if you hold down both the A and B buttons, you'll be flashed forward to the first Mars level with an extra life. However, to be able to do this you must first make it to Mars before losing all your lives, and on your next play you can take advantage of this cheat.
Is it Worth it?
This one is definitely okay to skip past. Normally video games based on movies are known for being bad, but most are still enjoyable. Total Recall falls into the category of being just plain bad. It is way too tough and doesn't offer a lot of help to the player. If anything it tries to stop you from beating it. In the first level there's a section of a fence with holes in it and you can get punched through the fence.
Total Recall goes for around $5 and even that's too much, unless you're a fan of just plain bad games (or you're trying to go for a complete NES library, but if that's the case just leave this one on the shelf after you pick it up).
The controls are simple here, with minimal options due to the limited NES controller. The D-Pad moves you and lets you duck, B attacks with either your fists or whichever gun you have equipped, and A jumps. You get to drag yourself through eight levels of this game, featuring various scenes and locations from the movie, so let's get down to it and see what was good and bad about this one, and if it's worth it.
The Good
- Level designs. The levels are really good looking for NES standards. They feature a decent amount of locations from cities, alleyways, Quaid's apartment, and a few locations on Mars in addition to others. For the 8-bit era, they stand out as some of the best looking for what I've played on the console.
- "Cutscenes". While they're not cutscenes by todays standards, they're better looking then a lot of games of the time. Most NES games will feature a still image of a character with text scrolling on the screen, but in Total Recall they actually pulled animated faces with moving mouths into these between-level clips.
The Bad
- Controls. They're horrible and slow. Quaid's punch is minimally effective and you have to find this awkward sweet spot to be able to hit an enemy. If you're too far you miss, but if you're too close you essentially punch through your enemy and only hit the air behind them. Meanwhile, they can attack you from pretty much anywhere. Most enemies come in carrying guns which can be fired (obviously) from anywhere, but it seems like they're saved from having to find the punching sweet spot and can damage you even when they're in your face.
- Overpowered enemies. Some areas in this game will put you up against a wall with almost no way out. For instance, the first "boss" fight occurs in Quaid's apartment where you face off against his ex-wife. After killing her you're supposed to leave the apartment, but an enemy will spawn in the doorway with a machine gun and constantly fire into the room. It ends up being impossible to escape if you end up having just a smidge of help left, as you can't make it to the exit without taking some damage.
- No saves/passwords. No matter how far you get, if you die you'll be brought all the way back to the beginning to do it all over again. And in a game this tough, you need those passwords because getting past just the first level is going to be a serious test. The closest thing to a "checkpoint" in this game is in the first level you can enter a movie theater to watch a scroll of credits, and if you hold down both the A and B buttons, you'll be flashed forward to the first Mars level with an extra life. However, to be able to do this you must first make it to Mars before losing all your lives, and on your next play you can take advantage of this cheat.
Is it Worth it?
This one is definitely okay to skip past. Normally video games based on movies are known for being bad, but most are still enjoyable. Total Recall falls into the category of being just plain bad. It is way too tough and doesn't offer a lot of help to the player. If anything it tries to stop you from beating it. In the first level there's a section of a fence with holes in it and you can get punched through the fence.
Total Recall goes for around $5 and even that's too much, unless you're a fan of just plain bad games (or you're trying to go for a complete NES library, but if that's the case just leave this one on the shelf after you pick it up).
