Nintend'oh! #2: Jackal!

Jackal
Developer: Konami
Release Date: June 1986 (arcade); September 1988 (NES)
“You've been chosen to be one of the few, the proud, the Jackals.”

Welcome to the second installment of Nintend’oh, the column that provides fresh perspectives on the finest entertainment of yesteryear – The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)!

It’s been 19 months since I reviewed Paperboy and a lot has changed: the name of this blog is considerably better (shorter), the Knicks seem like they may not be totally and unfathomably awful, I’ve moved to a new state, I’ve gotten a new job, I am now a hunter, I wear glasses, I married my beautiful wife Erin over the summer, I have two new nieces Elizabeth and Keira…the list goes on and on. The most notable and important change, however, is that I will be getting a new gaming console, the Xbox 360. But, to quote Cinderella’s Tom Keifer, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Let me put this in perspective for some readers. This is the first time in 10 years that I’ll be getting a new system with new games. New games in that they are actually new; they're currently being made and released in present day. This is a momentous occasion. It’s a daunting task, really, because there is so much out there that I know so little about. I find the unknown simultaneously arousing and frightful. The term “fear-boner” has found itself in regular rotation. I’ve taken to researching various titles for the Xbox and the result is, well…interesting. No matter what game title I enter into Google, no matter what YouTube search query I use, and no matter what Gamespot review I read, I always arrive at the same conclusion. Let’s just say that if I were a character on Lost, Jackal would be my constant. To illustrate my point, here are snippets of my stream of conscious as I search out new games to buy for Xbox:

- Wow! A new Bond game – is it money!? Will it be as money as Goldeneye? It’s a first/third person shooter, but it has some driving levels…Shooter…Driving…JACKAL

- EA’s Madden 2011 looked pretty money. The Jets are stacked in it. Stacked Jets…throwing bombs…Jets and Bombs…War…Wait, doesn’t EA make those Medal of Honor games too? Are those money? I heard the newest one takes place in Afghanistan…Afghanistan borders Iran…Iran Contra…Iran borders Iraq… Saddam…Desert …Kicking ass …Kicking ass in the desert? … JACKAL

- NHL 2011 looks incredible. It’s almost as fun as NHL 94 for Genesis or Blades of Steel for NES. Blades…Of steel. Awesome game…cool graphics…all your friends will want it…JACKAL.

Jackal, or as I like to call it, 特殊部隊ジャッカル, is a fantastic game for the NES. It is the NES port of the popular arcade game Top Gunner (which certainly tried to play off the popularity of Top Gun which also came out in 1986). Jackal is an overhead run and gun game that can be played single player or multiplayer (simultaneous). The player controls an armored jeep with the dual objectives of rescuing POWs and defeating the boss at the end of each of the eight levels. The player is awarded points when POWs are transferred to rescue helicopters at several pick up locations interspersed throughout each level. If a player earns enough points, an extra life will be granted. If the player catches a POW that is blinking, that player's weaponry will be upgraded. Any collision or contact with an enemy will cause the jeep to spontaneously combust and costs a life.

Jackal is a tremendously fun game. For those familiar with the classic game Choplifter, Jackal is essentially Choplifter-in-a-Jeep. Combining rescue missions with a run ‘n gun arcade style game was not only awesome but considerably ahead of its time. There’s something inherently fun about driving games, but driving games that employ fighting and/or shooting are even better (remember Road Rash or Skitchin' for Sega Genesis?) There are several aspects of the game that make it incredibly enjoyable even 22 years later. The mechanics of the game are spot on; players can quickly adapt to the controls of the vehicle and the shooting, but mastery requires repeated play. The pacing of the game is perfect. Like most games, it starts out easy and gets progressively difficult as the player gets further along in the game. However, there is no sudden or drastic shift in difficulty. This makes Jackal uniquely engaging from the beginning of the first level to whenever-it-is-that-your-game-ends. The weaponry in Jackal is extremely fun to play and manipulate. Each weapon brings its own dynamic to the style of play used by the player. Honestly, it’s also just fun to run people over and flatten them. Especially foreign people!

The best aspect of Jackal is the multiplayer option. In my opinion, playing Jackal in two player mode is one of the highlights of the playing the NES altogether. Aside from Contra or Double Dragon II, Jackal is the best tandem two player game ever made for the NES. The ebb and flow of the game is so effortless in Jackal. Jackal’s maps are quite large and don’t fit on one screen (known in inner geek circles as being a “push-scroller”) and this works perfectly. The “push-scroller” nature of the maps and simultaneous management of the increasing difficulty and varying landscapes provides for much strategizing on the part of the players. For example, one player can stick with the original weapons and be aggressive on the front lines, while player two hangs back and retains the upgraded weapons and is more defensive minded to minimize unnecessary deaths and loss of weaponry. This strategizing on two player mode is what makes Jackal one of the top NES games of all time.

Jackal is also awesome because of its unintentional humor. Think about it; you are essentially given a map of different parts of the world (the Middle East, Rome, Europe) and you basically obliterate every area to shreds in the name of saving American POWs, should you so choose. You don’t even have to save anyone. You can just scorch the non-American earth and leave the POWs if you want. There are heat-seeking missiles firing out of moving Medusa busts, you get to run people over with your jeep, you get to mow people down with heavy artillery, you get to ruin the ruins. It’s awesome. Take a look at this story and try to tell me that you’re not fired up about kicking some foreign ass and saving some American tail. By the way, if you aren’t fired up, then you’re either a terrorist or a communist (probably both):

The characters that you can choose from are Colonel Decker, Lieutenant Bob, Sergeant Quint (my personal favorite) and Corporal Grey. Who you choose has no impact on the game play whatsoever.

If you dominate a level you get this screenshot:

If you get dominated on the level you get this screenshot:

Wait a minute. Is that Saddam Hussein? In our jeep? Is he on our side? If not, then why do the bad guys look befuddled when I just had an awful round? What the hell? IS THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN?

All in all, Jackal has everything; fun game-play (especially multiplayer), intuitive controls, funny enough story line, funny characters, challenging maps, awesome music, great weaponry and the replay value is essentially never-ending. The game does not have any glaring flaws.

Look out for the next installment of Nintend’oh coming soon (if by soon I mean 19 months).

A

Dan Baxter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svGkctaM43w (Jackal NES game play)

The Dailies 12/2/10 - Tru(man) Grit

Trailerz

Ed Wood (1994) – B+

- Directed by Tim Burton

- Starring Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette

- Awards: Won – Best Supporting Actor (Landau), Best Makeup

- A touching and revealing look at a perennial optimist who directed some of the worst movies of all time.

L.A. Confidential (1997) – B-

- Directed by Curtis Hanson

- Starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger

- Awards: Won – Best Supporting Actress (Basinger), Best Adapted Screenplay. Nominated – Best Art Direction (Set Decoration), Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Picture

- A slightly rushed and haphazard pseudo-noir film with great performances from Crowe and Spacey.

Jackass 3D (2010) – B+

- Directed by Jeff Tremaine

- Starring Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Steve-O, and the rest

- Jackass is funny.

Stalker (1979) – C

- Directed by Andrey Tarkovskiy

- Starring Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko

- A tremendous idea about an uninhabited mystical no man’s land becomes bogged down with endless metaphorical babbling dialogue and provides no action and little payoff.

Features

True Grit (1969)
Directed by Henry Hathaway
Starring John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Robert Duvall
Awards: Won – Best Actor (Wayne). Nominated – Best Original Song

I had never given John Wayne much thought before. Even after delving into the legendary films of the past and trying to discover for myself the cinematic giants who created and starred in them, John Wayne never struck me as particularly interesting. There seemed to be something about the majority of his films, with their cardboard plots constructed only to showcase him blowing the shit out of Japs, Commies or whoever America’s enemies were at the time, that was childish, vulgar and antiquated. Wayne’s persona superseded his acting; he appeared to me to be a spokesman for thoughtless jingoism. And because I never did much investigation into his body of work, I assumed that he never played a part beyond a “rah-rah” American soldier, which wasn’t very appealing to me. Wayne, it appeared to me, was a relic of an era that I had missed and I was not keen to discover.

But through all that personal garbage, I didn’t realize that Wayne was more than a bygone icon. He could legitimately act. I watched the classic, John Ford-directed Stagecoach (1939), and thoroughly enjoyed both the film and Wayne’s performance. With the forthcoming True Grit remake coming this month, I thought it would be an appropriate time to watch the original film (for which Wayne won that year’s Best Actor Oscar) as preparation.

Wayne stars as Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed, cantankerous marshal of the old West intimately familiar with the mostly lawless nearby Indian territories. He is hired by a teenage girl named Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), who pays Cogburn to enter the Indian territory and hunt down and capture the man who killed her father. Famed country singer Glen Campbell accompanies the two on their mission as a Texas Ranger who is tracking the very same outlaw. Other famous and familiar faces appear throughout the film, such as Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall.

True Grit works because of the interaction between Wayne and Darby. Darby’s character is smart and resourceful, refusing to be pushed around by the male-dominated old West. Because of her attitude, she proves a worthy foil for Wayne, a hard-drinking old-timer who initially seems to care more about money (and himself) than justice. Their back and forth needling eventually gives way to a close friendship, one that is believable due to the quality acting involved. Wayne called one particular scene, in which he discusses his ex-wife with the girl, the best scene he ever did.

Wayne carries an appropriate balance of tenderness and menace in True Grit. We know because of what other characters say about him and how he conducts himself that he is a man to be feared. But Wayne plays the old gunfighter not so much grizzled as mellowed by his hard life, and his spitfire female companion finally gives him cause to come out of his shell.

Pieces of True Grit are a tad hokey. The film is rated G, so the standard western gunfights and killings are subdued and tame. The music and some dialogue lend themselves toward an aura of comedy, which works well for the film, though I wonder how the Coen Brothers will choose to play the material with their remake. True Grit is a fun, enjoyable film with great performances; a film that has caused me to rethink my stance on John Wayne and investigate some of his other films.

B+

The Truman Show (1998)
Directed by Peter Weir
Starring Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich
Awards: Nominated – Best Supporting Actor (Harris), Best Director, Best Original Screenplay

Jim Carrey’s career has followed an interesting trajectory. After a few years on the sketch comedy show In Living Color, he burst onto the national scene in the early 1990s and immediately became one of the biggest stars in the world. After several smash comedy hits, he branched out into “legitimate, dramatic acting” with films like The Truman Show and later Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). He carried these films to critical and commercial success despite their lack of fart noises or other scatological humor, proving that audiences would pay to watch him in more challenging and less juvenile roles. From there, unfortunately, he largely disappeared, coming out of hiding once a year or so to voice a computer-animated Ebenezer Scrooge or appear in some children’s schlock. Carrey is still a big name, but it seems he hasn’t appeared in anything anyone has cared about in close to a decade.

The Truman Show was Carrey’s first foray into a more dramatic film, though it is more appropriately termed a comedy with some dashes of humanity and drama. As you most likely know, Carrey stars as Truman Burbank, the star of a reality television series that follows him around 24 hours a day. Truman has no idea he is on television; the producers of the show have created a domed world that contains Truman and the other citizens (re: actors) of his town.

The Truman Show is fascinating in its exhibition and description of Truman’s artificial world and how everything works within it, and the best parts of the film are scenes where Truman is growing suspicious of exactly what is happening around him and starts testing his surroundings to try and figure things out. Indeed, much of The Truman Show can be considered a science-fiction caper, with Truman coming to realize his situation and seeing what wacky things he can get away with.

The film does miss some golden opportunities and does not delve into areas I would have liked to see explored. Truman has no existential crisis when he finds out everything and everyone he has ever known were manufactured. He doesn’t question how he came to adopt his constant cheery disposition and whether that’s who he really is or whether he’s been engineered to be that way. There are no meaningful confrontations with his wife, mother, or best friend, the three closest people to him. These conversations would have made the film a little more human and would have helped bring us down from the high-level concept and technical mumbo-jumbo we are bombarded with throughout. The Truman Show proved Carrey had the capacity for a true dramatic role and lends hope that he has another great act left within his career.

B

John Lacey