SKY SHARK
Taito
NES
1989
Sky Shark was originally released as an arcade game by Taito in Japan under the name “Flying Shark”. It made its way to the U.S. (with the name change) under Romstar. There were a number of home ports but none of them were released in Japan. The NES port in particular was a North American only release by Taito America.
Source: Nintendo Fun Club News – Issue Number 5 – February/March 1988Â
In 1988, the Nintendo Entertainment System was at the height of its popularity. For all practical purposes, it really had no competition. The following year the Sega Genesis would be released but in 1988 the NES was king of the hill. It’s really amazing how many games were being released for the NES at this time. All despite Nintendo’s relatively restrictive licensing policy.
This ad shows the games available for the NES by LJN around this time. I’ll be honest, I don’t recall playing any of these and they all look like mediocre licenses to me. First up is Gotcha!, a paintball game that you can play with the Zapper light gun. There weren’t too many Zapper games and most of them weren’t all that special. I don’t see how this one changes that. Apparently, it is loosely based on the movie of the same name. I sense a bad 1980s paintball themed movie I need to watch…
Next up is Jaws: The Revenge. This games is based on the fourth and final movie in the Jaws series which was released in 1987. This was one of the first games for the NES announced by LJN and I’m not really sure why they chose it. The movie was bad and the game was worse.
Next up is Major League Baseball. This game had the advantage of being licensed by the MLB so it used the actual team names. However, it didn’t have the Players Associate license so it did not feature real player names. As baseball games of the time went, this one really wasn’t too bad. It didn’t stand out from the competition but it was a decent enough game and there wasn’t much out there that was significantly better.
T&C Surf Designs is the oddest license of the bunch. The game itself is somewhat of a ripoff of California games, particularly in regards to the surfing portion. This one wasn’t a terrible game either but it was pretty mediocre. In addition to the surf competition, it also offered skateboarding.
Finally, there was The Karate Kid. The Karate Kid was an excellent movie (go watch it now if you haven’t seen it) but as games go, like most movie licenses, this one was mediocre at best. It was actually based loosely on the first two Karate Kid movies and features both fighting stages and platform stages as well as two player one-on-one fighting.
The above ad is from the February/March 1988 issue of Nintendo Fun Club News, the predecessor to Nintendo Power.
Duck Hunt 🦆 for the Nintendo NES (1984)
http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/170849756853/nostalgianation-duck-hunt-for-the-nintendo-nes
Duck Hunt was one of the original launch games for the Nintendo Entertainment System and was later included as a pack-in with Super Mario Bros. Duck Hunt was the first light gun game for the NES and the first light gun game most kids of that era probably would have played.
Duck Hunt is a relatively simple game. Ducks appear one or two at a time and you have to try to shoot them. There is also a game mode that lets you shoot clay pigeons but the ducks are more fun. If you shoot the required number of ducks in a given round then you progress to the next round. Otherwise it’s game over. Each round gets harder with a higher number of ducks hit required. The ducks also fly faster and move more erratically as you progress. Your dog will laugh at you when you miss and you will want to shoot him but you can’t.
Duck Hunt doesn’t have a lot of depth to keep you interested but it is fun to pick up and play once in a while, especially if you have someone to play against. Amazingly, it took until 2014 for Duck Hunt to be re-released on a different system. It became available as a Wii U Virtual Console title and was adapted to use the Wii Remote instead of a light gun. If you have an NES you probably already have Duck Hunt either by itself or on a combo cartridge with Super Mario Bros. If for some reason you don’t have one, they are certainly easy to find. Just make sure you have the NES Zapper to play it with.
