Tag: Konami

Konami – legends of 8-bit gaming

Konami was one of the best known video game developers of the 8-bit era. Take away Top Gun they made for the NES, and their library is near perfect. Konami was known for the difficulty of their games and kick ass music. Add normally well done graphics, Konami made some of the best NES games out there. They also gave us the most famous cheat code in history. We all know it – Up, up, down, down, left, right, left right, B, A, start.

(Contra, what more needs to be said? This is a video game.)

A friend that lived across the alley from me introduced me to my first Konami game. That game was called Contra. Contra is a military vs alien platforming action game. The game starts with you with three lives and is known for dozens of enemies on screen at once, awesome stage designs and some of the coolest boss battles on the NES. Like most, we somehow heard from a friend who heard it from a friend about the Konami cheat I mentioned before, which gave you 30 lives. Even today, Contra holds up well due to spot on controls and awesome weapons.

Almost around this same time-frame, my now brother-in-law and sister were actually living about six houses down from my parents and me. My brother-in-law was in college at the time and I thought he was one of the coolest guys out there. So when he wasn’t busy, we played video games. He had a Konami game called Jackal. The game was a lot like Contra. Instead of controlling a person however, you controlled a jeep which shot grenades, which could be upgraded for missiles. Like Contra, this game had excellent controls, diverse levels and kick ass boss fights.

Two games I borrowed from friends and rented were Lifeforce and Gradius. Both are space flying fighters. Like Contra, these games are known for their difficulty. But once again, these games have kick ass music, kick ass weapons and level designs. While they fell short for me when compared to Contra, both were fun and enjoyable games I highly recommend for any new retro gamer out there.

Blades of Steel was a game I rented and loved. While not a hockey fan back then or now, Blades of Steel was fun because it was more about fighting than the actual hockey game. Many NES Sports Games top ten lists has this game on it. The game had good graphics, simple but good play control and comical game play. We all spent a few hours beating the hell out of the other team. The score of the game came second to the fighting.

(Castlevania. Masterpiece.)

Castlevania. My God, what more needs to be said? Part one and three are classics. Near perfection in video gaming history. Part two has gotten more popular in recent years. Even if you still hate it just remember the old Meatloaf song states “Two out of three ain’t bad” and Konami made two of the greatest 8-bit masterpieces ever made. Cool graphics. Legendary boss fights. Some of the greatest video game music ever composed. And us kids yelling and tossing our controllers due to the difficulty of these games. I can’t say enough great things about Castlevania. Just talking about it has my nipples hard.

(Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Arcade Game. One of the best “beat em ups” on the NES and another Konami masterpiece.)

Last but not least, let’s talk about the three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. The first one for years was hated for odd enemies never seen in the cartoon and its difficulty. While the game took heat early on, with thanks to online gamers and speed-runners, the game is now seen as somewhat of a classic. While less popular than the other two, this game had awesome music and cool power-ups. TMNT2 the Arcade Game was awesome. The game was a “beat em up” and I would argue one of the best, if not the best on the NES. TMNT3 the Manhattan Project won Nintendo Power Magazine game of the year in 1992. The game is either loved or hated by TMNT fans. I think TMNT3 while not as fun as TMNT2, is still a very good game.

I could go on and on. Konami were masters of the 8-bit. They made other underrated titles such as Goonies 2, which has gained popularity over the past few years. Rush N’ Attack while no Contra, was still a decent game. Double Dribble is a sports classic. Base Wars is an underrated sports title that me and a childhood friend wasted hours on. If you are new to retro gaming, just stay away from the two Top Gun games. I am not sure what Konami was doing during the process of making those two games.

In recent years Konami has taken a lot of shit. Some blame them for ruining the Silent Hill games. Others mock their attempts as they take on FIFA at making soccer games. We can debate this all day long. One thing is carved in stone. Konami were masters during the 8-bit era. If you say you don’t like a Konami game during this era, you are clearly lying or know nothing about video gaming.

LJN – worse than hell

When you hear Rock Star Games, you think fun. Grand Theft Auto and Red Redemption games come to mind. Rock Star has made some of the best-selling and critically acclaimed games in history. If you grew up during the 8 and 16 bit eras, you know and love Capcom. They gave us classics like the Mega Man series, Ducktales and the Street Fighter games. Maybe you were a Konami fanboy. They made the hard games we love such as Contra, Lifeforce and Jackal. Or maybe you loved Sunsoft which gave us the awesome NES Batman game, the arcade classic Spy Hunter and the underrated Gremlins 2.

Then there is LJN. They were the exact opposite of the video game companies I named above. They made disaster after disaster. Failure after failure. And it’s not like they did this with one genre of games. They ruined platforming games, side scrolling games and sports. When you see a LJN logo, you would be better off using meth than playing these games.

Look, every company makes a bad game. Companies have low points during their history. Konami made Top Gun for the NES. It sucks worse than a Pauly Shore movie. You can’t knock them all out of the park. But it’s not like Konami kept making more Top Guns. They made classics with a fuck up there and there. LJN kept dumping out turd after turd. If I ever become an enemy of the state, the FBI or military would not need torture. Just put me in a room and force me to play LJN games. I would find the body of Jimmy Hoffa.

(X-Men for the NES. Your parents might as well bought dog shit with their hard earned money than wasted it on this crap.)
(The infamous LJN Logo. Also known as the video game face of Satan himself.)

I could name a bad game that Rock Star, Capcom and Sunsoft all made like I did with Konami. But their overall body of work outweighs the bad. LJN has a never ending list of shit. Back to the Future, sucks. Beetlejuice, horse shit. MLB (baseball) a broken mess. X-Men, basically unplayable. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, some of the worst video game controls in history. Nightmare on Elm Street, a real life nightmare. Bill and Ted, a disgrace to humanity. You see a pattern here?

We all should be thankful that LJN is no more. Sadly, us children of the 1980’s and much of the 1990’s had to suffer through their games. Our hard-working parents wasted money on these games that we stopped playing within the first hour of owning them. Many of us wasted a weekend renting these terrible games. We broke controllers over these worthless games. I still drink heavily when I hear someone utter the words “LJN”. I picture hell itself being nothing but NES systems with nothing but LJN games to play.