429 - The Untouchables

The Untouchables live an American legend. And welcome to Nestalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. And I'm Sean. Sean, without Joe here, I'm gonna need to I'm gonna be expecting to see some enthusiasms from you today. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. Are you implying that I don't usually have enthusiasm?

Uh it's it's just a line from the movie of which the game is based on. Uh and I couldn't help but work it in because I have to reward myself for watching the movie. Uh something I probably should have done a long time ago, but um I did watch this movie in advance this episode, mostly because I saw it was a De Palma film and I haven't seen one of those I haven't liked. So I was like, sure, give me more.

Yeah, I I definitely had the thought cross my mind to watch it, and I'll definitely do that someday. I would say it was de i i okay, so I'm I'm not putting it up there in like the pantheon of great movies or anything, but like it was one of those ones where like Forty minutes into the movie was you know, like I'm still not looking at the watch. Like I'm just in I'm enjoying everything has it there's set pieces.

There's a lot of like homages to like classic film stuff. A lot of a lot of you remember in film school we would always have to watch Battleship Potokin?

Potemkin? Yeah, I can never say it right. Uh we have to watch a lot of that. There's actually like an entire scene that's just like an The baby in the thing, right? Yeah, in the his stroller. Yeah, because we'll get to it. Yeah, sure, of course we'll get to it. Um but w whether we're talking about the game or we're talking about the movie

Uh y in the Untouchables uh video game, you are Elliot Ness. In the um film, it's Kevin Costner. And uh Al Capone, who in the film is played by Robert De Niro, runs Chicago. Uh, you have a gun that holds two bullets at a time, and uh good luck. I mean that's that's part of it. Yeah, that's most of it. Um the the film the the film was made in eighty seven. the the game in ninety one. But the film is based on a nineteen fifty-nine TV show, itself based on the nineteen fifty-seven memoir

itself based on of course the actual Prohibition era federal investigation. So by the time this game reached the NES in January of nineteen ninety one, the source material has been adapted, readapted, uh you know, loosely of course too. Like none of this shit shit actually happened. Uh so it's been filtered through so many layers that the question

Really isn't whether the game would be faithful to the real Untouchables, it's just which version of the legend it was even trying to be. Like why why make a game based on a movie that happened four years ago? I mean we we've had this several times already. Like uh we didn't we have jaws like thirteen like maybe not.

But Ja I think Jaws is like iconic enough, right? Like Jaws warrants it. Indiana Jones franchise play, it warrants it, you know? I'm not sure that like we're ever gonna get the Untouchables too. Do you think maybe we just they just thought maybe it was gonna be that? Like it just had enough staying power that it was still like a must see, whereas today it's just like you you've probably seen.

Well uh y uh you know, I usually save this for like sequels and spin-offs, but it's worth mentioning because we're talking about it right now about the delayedness of it all. It this game then also gets a Super Nintendo version in nineteen ninety-three.

That that's insane. Right, like like I just felt the need like where was I bet I'm sure people were waiting for the PlayStation version. Yeah. Right? The N sixty four version of Untouchables. Like it's just supposed to come with every console generation you're supposed to get an Untouchables game. That's pretty wild. And it was developed by Special FX Software and published by Ocean Software. Now, Special FX was formed by ex-Ocean employees.

So, uh, they I guess wanted to become independent and Ocean, knowing the talent that was there, they basically offered them a deal that gave them the publishing rights to anything special effects developed in exchange, I guess, for their uh like licenses. So that's how they wound up making a lot of these movie games like the Untouchables.

So you s you say like just knowing the talent that was there as if like this is uh should should I know ocean? Is this is this like kind of like knowing Oh no, I guess I'm saying like it's just it's just a inside thing, you know, like they know what they're losing so rather than lose the employees they're like, Yeah, you can still make the gains and we'll publish them. Yeah, that's fine so there was like a deal between them. Uh and you know

The the game itself, I mean, this is a game that changes what kind of game it is almost every level. It's a shooting gallery, it's a side scroller. Going back to the uh Ghostbusters slash back to the future philosophy of movie games. Yeah. I mean it's really like it's just an anthology of gameplay styles. Stitched together around these newspaper headlines uh that, you know, call back to the prohibition era. And I think the the that's what we have to talk about first is just

that that genre hopping structure is what makes it so notable. So if we want, we can just kind of go through each game and talk about it a little bit. Ya, sure. All right. So we start on uh they're they're called scenes and uh it's scene one but also scene four are both uh alley shootouts and these are third person shooting galleries.

Gangsters pop out of windows and doorways, you are hiding behind a a brick wall and then come out and you move a crosshair to fire. Sounds great, but Uh one, as I mentioned early on, Ness brings a gun that can only hold two rounds at a time, which in real life, you know, sure, that totally makes sense. But but like in a video game, that's not gonna be very fun. Uh premise is you peek out, peek out of cover, shoot your two shots, go back into cover to reload, but I guess what I'm saying is like

the the cursor moves so slowly yeah and the enemies appear and disappear so quickly that when you're when you're doing all of this, this is the one where it's like, oh, this would have been m so much better if it had light gun compatibility. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I wouldn't say that the whole premise of having two shots per like, I don't know, pop out is in itself bad. I think that if you've found a way to use the uh the light gun

in a better way. Uh no, sorry, just like use a control p uh control scheme in a better way, uh, then that could be pretty cool. Namely in this case would be using a light gun. But no, we get another we get another sort of Cursor Cursor Shooter. Which Yeah, and the cur the cursor shooters are yeah, it's just so tough'cause like I I even find for FPSs in general, which I am ready to completely admit that I am bad at them, like laughably bad if s if I'm in

Uh if I'm playing Doom or Unreal with somebody, uh, they're always gonna get to me first. Like I just I don't have the reflexes for it. Even with a mouse and keyboard I Yeah, I don't have it. But especially with a D pad, I definitely don't have it. And these guys are not like

peeking their head out and being like, Hey, what's going on out here and looking around and then going back inside. They're like peeking out, shooting at you and then right back inside Like every time you see a gunshot, it's hitting you in the chest. Um if if your health bar is to be believed. Hopefully you're wearing a really good bulletproof vest because you ha you can take a crazy amount of shots. Ha ha. Um now we when you did you read the manual first? I did not read the manual first. Why?

Because you don't r realize you can do this if i or it wouldn't just be intuitive to do this unless you read the manual. Um But not only do you have a good amount of health, but you can also like hot swap your character, which isn't really change anything aside from your health bar and a sort of mug shot next to the health bar, but it's a way in which you can sort of spread the pain or spread the love of like just getting shot at point blank rage in a in a in an alleyway

And it doesn't really in this first level it's not that big of a deal, but when they s they like recycle the whole concept in scene four, it's like I think it's kind of impossible. to do this without doing this Right. It was o it wasn't something I realized the the character swapping until um until the third stage on the uh the bridge where you're just like rolling around on the ground and I Yes.

Like they changed the I felt like they changed a little bit of the controls or maybe I took too long of a break between the first stage and the third stage to realize, but like I felt like something about the controls was different than the alley shooting.

Yeah, so I was hitting I was just like hitting buttons to see what they did and I hit select and that was how I like noticed that my character changed, which is great'cause it is the untouchables is not just Ness, it's a group of guys. So it's great that you get all four of them as well. Yeah, did did uh are they all great characters in the movie? You have to tell me about them. My favorite's Wallace'cause he just looks like a very old guy.

Uh y I would say that um The Sean Connery's character who uh what is his name? Is he supposed to be British?'Cause I did watch the trailer and he still sounds very British. He's not he's supposed to be Irish. He's uh yeah. I believe it's Maloney. Uh and um Yeah, he well, you gotta keep in mind too, this is like Sean Connery uh uh embracing his like old age for the first time. Like he was still doing James Bond stuff pretty

like i deep into the eighties. So it's like pretty good that like, you know, this is like a f a role for him where he can be the old man without the toupee. and uh and you know, kind of mentor Kevin Costner into this like leadership role. So I really liked Connery in the film. Uh the other guys are just fine, but really it's like Connery's film to win because uh Costner's He's just not I don't know. Some of the some of his delivery.

Yeah, he doesn't have quite the charisma that Sean Connery has, even if you know that Sean Connery is a good one. Right. Even if you know he's like barely getting the words out correctly and slur it sounds like he's slurring his speech, it's like you're still just like he's got so much charisma that you have to love it. Yeah. Oh, so we were talking about um the alley shootouts and then that led to the um the bridge raid thing with the bridge raid?

No, you know, okay, yeah. Which shares most of its uh components of like how you actually control the thing with the alley shootouts, except you don't get cover. But what you do get to do, and I'm gonna ask you another m like movie question here, um, what you do get to do is flop like a fish. uh just across sort of a grass field in front of a bunch of people uh that are shooting at you. Um is that sort of how the the is that how the f the scene goes in the movie?

Understand. Yeah, that's what I say. That's the confusing part, is like I totally get it because they did have to essentially um the trucks are halted on the bridge and then they have to like take cover over behind the hill and shoot at them to make sure that they don't take off in the trucks. But sure they do that part on the ground, but like why are they

It was kinda funny th in the game that like they ground you to the floor and you just literally have to roll around the entire time. You look ridiculous, you get nowhere. Yeah. Right. And and you're looking for the evidence, which is just the beer bottles, and the only way to collect them is to shoot them. So you actually look like you're destroying evidence uh in the process. But it's like when did I just don't know

I appreciate the game a as a whole for trying to to basically like take moments from the movie and recreate them as different video game segments. Like that that idea tracks for me Except for the fact that like they they then like built themselves into very strict rules, like like this flopping on the ground thing. Like you have to roll the whole time. It's like, is he on fire? Is he trying to put himself out of fire?

What is going on here? Uh a and it's such a long screen and the bottles seem to spawn randomly. that uh you you know, like if you if you find one piece of evidence, you now have to like flop around the whole screen again just to look for the next bottle, which may very well spawn right next to you, but could also be on the entire opposite side. And that counts as like five percent of evidence. So you have to do this like twenty times.

It takes a very long time. And I I think I would forgive A lot of it's d uh of just how silly it is if it weren't also a massive pain in the ass to control because you are moving and and this also isn't the first time that you have moved and aimed with the same w with with the D pad at the same time, but it was done much better in that other game that we played that I kind of liked. Uh Oh the Punisher?

Punisher, yeah, it was doing much better in the Punisher. Uh whereas in this, uh you can just sort of try and flick a little bit to the right, and instead of aiming that little flick to the right, you then

ro uh roll, which make it means you can't shoot, which means you're just taking damage without any kind of like offensive output and it's just not great. And who taught these guys how to be in the police? Because they have no cover whatsoever. Like they are just out there on the floor. Uh in the field or sorry, in in a sand pit really. Uh and and everybody else, all the enemies have cover. And

Like you just you're just out there in the open and when you roll you can't do anything about like you don't you just lose control of the cursor obviously'cause you're now spinning over. But it's like this whole animation that you have to watch each time before you gain control again.

And the game isn't this part of the game at least isn't about killing all these guys. It's just about finding the evidence. So you're really not incentivized at all to uh to fire back at anyone. Like just find the bottles as quickly as you can and get out of there. Yeah, yeah. I I think that I I started trying to shoot people thinking that I would need to just to reduce the amount of shots coming my way because it was like just taking

Like my uh y your health just melts i i in this scene. So you end up having to change characters. Thankfully, you still have the ability to change characters so that your health pool uh can refill slowly while that character's not uh on the screen, but it was still uh it was I was still cutting it pretty close there.

Uh in between these shooting stages, there is a warehouse raid, which is a side-scrolling action level, uh, where you're finding and shooting men with gray hats who are carrying evidence through Capone's bootlegging warehouse.

It's probably the closest to the conventional NES action game that we've seen. Uh definitely, like mechanically, the most straightforward stage or just kind of running through the um the side scrolling level, shooting at uh the enemies and I don't know, it's like You you're not like the it's not like last week's game, which uh you didn't you weren't here for, Sean, but Oh yeah, no. Joe Joe and I are on speaking terms, right?

In Peter Pan and the Pirates you had to kill every single pirate before you could leave the stage. They didn't do that here at least, and they made it just about again collecting evidence. Yeah, totally know what you mean. Um I do I have I I did play that game. Um I just, you know, for my own reasons couldn't record. But anyway, yeah. Um

I this was also I think this is this felt worse to me than even uh rolling around on the ground. Um And I think is it because they switched like what is supposed to be the jump button and the shoot button? Did they do that? Sure did. I I feel like we've had we've had this complaint in the past, but I I just it I was able to intuit myself into the opposite

like control scheme whereas in this I just could not get it. The entire time I was just jumping at guys and shooting at crates that I meant to jump on. It this was this was me I was really struggling with this. It's also funny because like the the game changes the control layout on you so much that in the manual where there's usually like a picture of the NES controller and it tells you like what the buttons do.

It's just telling you actually like the technical name of each button. Like this is the control pad. This is the B button. Right, right. This is the start button. It's like, what do these things do? It's like, oh well then you gotta go into the individual page for each one and learn. It's like Why? Like just keep it consistent. Have some rhyme or reason to this shit. Uh, I also Just because it's what we're used to, it's n it's not

Maybe that's more boring, right? Like maybe it was more interesting to have like these third person uh duck and cover sequ shootout sequences in stages one and three than it was to like be like, Yeah, and we also know how to just do The bare minimum, guys. We know how to phone it in. know what it is? I think you're absolutely right with that because at least

It's a different art style with a different p perspective. It's just something new to look at, aside from that size sprite on that kind of screen, and it was just like, okay, at least I at least the like characters like the the at least the art is higher resolution than normal.

Scene five, now we're at the train station. Uh w which is uh it listen, in the movie it totally works. Like it's not It it's it's the signature step piece of the film. Uh it's a like nine minute long slow motion uh shootout that involves a baby carriage falling down. Some steps and like, you know, is somebody gonna accidentally shoot the baby? Is Kevin Costner accidentally gonna shoot the baby? Is the baby going to be saved? The baby have a gun.

Right, maybe the baby that would have been like something for like a good parody film to do. Like just all of a sudden the baby shoots everybody. Uh but The game turning that into a like a level Hilarious. Yeah, like it's just kind of hilarious because if I I think like why stop there? In the beginning of this film, a uh like uh I I'm gonna assume her age is like five years old, this little girl uh is in a bar, uh for reasons I can't remember right now at this moment, but she's at a bar.

And somebody leaves their briefcase there and she's like, Mister, Mister, you forgot this. And she's holding the briefcase and of course it's got a fucking bomb in it because the guy who runs the bar wouldn't buy their uh illegal alcohol. So uh so she blows up and it's like, why wasn't that turned into a level? Why wasn't it a level where like you play as a little girl and you gotta get rid of the bomb? So in this level

Uh, which which they you know what? Give'em credit where it's due. It's ambitious. Uh on on a totally different front than mechanically. It's pretty straightforward, but like it's just fun to be like, yeah, how do we take that slow motion shootout scene and turn it into a level? And uh essentially it uh Sean's right. It's in uh the objective is to protect a baby carriage, so it is an escort mission.

And it's just kind of rolling down through a train station for not just one staircase, but uh the entirety of the train station. Multiple times like you a you should have the ability to just grab like if we're to believe

You should be able to stop it, right? For to believe the space that the game the game space that the game gives you, you would think that a c a a person would stop the baby carriage and tuck it into a corner. But

No, you apparently are also playing Edward forty hands and cannot grab anything. All you can do is nudge the carriage while also shooting guns at the people shooting the baby. And you, um And if it touches any surface, the baby carriage falls over, which immediately gives the baby uh exploding brain damage.

I guess. Yes. Yeah. I mean no matter what happens, uh if if the baby take if the baby carriage takes too much damage, you fail. If you accidentally push it into a wall, you fail. If you let it run into a wall, you fail. Like there are

The the same problems that we always have with escort missions and games. I I don't know too many people that like them. Uh that they're all present here, and then it's also the absurdness of it all, because you could just grab the baby carriage, right? Like why are the wheels so Uh loose. Why are they able to like just roll on their own like that? It the staircase made sense, you know? In the staircase it was like, okay, it's falling downstairs, like momentum's on its side. Here it's like

Did they build this thing on a giant slant? Like is the whole thing just like on a Degree angle architect. I I would imagine at this point uh they had just They just invented the uh horseless baby carriage. That was a joke. Well done. You can you can laugh at that. You're allowed to laugh at that. And then the very next stage we have the hostage sh uh shootout. And this is one of those weird ones where, like, it is a scene in the movie.

But like the game hasn't given us enough context for anything. Like it it is basically assuming that you Yeah. No the events of the 'Cause it it doesn't tell you like who the gunman like you don't have any reason to b like to know who the gunman is or who the hostage is, like what are the stakes. And if if in the game it kinda just looks like this bad dude that you've been shooting at this whole time since stage one is just holding some random person hostage, but

But actually that person is the bookkeeper who is able to prove that Al Capone is uh, you know, evading his taxes and is actually receiving all this money and because he hasn't filed an income tax in a while. Like, yeah, really interesting stuff. I forgot that this was the that this is the Treasury Department, yeah. Right, right. Another really interesting d you know, like everybody every kid says, uh All right, if I can't be in the Marines, put me in the treasury. Yeah.

Everybody wants to root for the IRS. Right. So well that you know, now that you mention it If I could talk about the movie for one second. That w it is kind of funny and like In twenty twenty six to be watching a movie like this and being like, Man, so many people like died in Chicago over something that should obviously be legal. Like just because we decided that we weren't gonna drink alcohol for like you know, a few years, like so many people died over this.

I think it's that that's also I mean, it's funny because in this movie you're supposed to root for supposed to root for the guys that work for the Treasury Department. But in that's why it's so much easier to watch Boardwalk Empire and root for Nucky Thompson or M Nucky Thom I don't know. Uh Steve Buscemi because

The guy that it like you the the enemy is uh i i is the marshal that wants you to pay taxes on your illegal booze. And so it's just you know what it is? You know what it is? It's just Don't make me Don't make me not drink. That's all we're asking this society. We're just asking for a little booze every now and everyone Now and then. And Steve Boo. Now the prop The problem with this hostage level is that uh it's barely it's not even a level.

Yeah, you you shoot'em the one time, you have one chance, if you fail it's game over, if you hit'em you go to the final stage. had to ask because I did give up uh in the i in the baby carriage level because it there's too many things to to die on. So from now on, you're the only uh authority figure here. Well, I I don't even know what to really what else to say about this, either that depending on which way you look at it, like if your goal is

to to beat this game. This this stage has a lot on the line here, right? Because it it could either be the most intense moment in the game Or the most unfair, depending on how you feel about a game taking away th that much time over, you know, a few pixels. Like basically saying like, Hey, you shot the guy, uh it's game over, go back to the beginning. Like that sucks. The whole big like you can't just continue? I thought I'd give it a little bit.

Oh maybe I was only Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. I know. It's up. So after you shoot the right guy. Right, right. If you do succeed, you get to the rooftop duel, and uh it's still the same guy, believe it or not. So that's uh oh no, wait, wait. Looks like Michael Jackson actually. Right. It's not the same guy, yes. It's uh Capone's uh Uh what a goon? Yeah, he's a goon, okay. Uh the He's gang. Frank Frank Nitty. Uh and uh Frank Nitty's a real person.

He's not Michael Jackson, why does he strike Michael Jackson poses? That's a good question. But maybe that's why they waited to they were like we don't have the tech yet, so we'll make it in nineteen ninety one when we have the tech to make him do Michael Jackson's stuff. That's true, yeah.

And it's just the shootout on the roof. Um, kinda similar to the shooting gallery stages, except there's only one enemy, uh, and you have to shoot him multiple times. The I g I guess like So here's the here's the interesting thing, is like the movie is the movie and the story in general of the Untouchables is weird because this is a real person who uh they have written this ending for him where essentially he gets

uh thrown off the roof and falls through uh a Ford Model T and dies. And that's just not what happened to him in real life. So it feels like it feels like you can't do that. I feel like if I haven't heard of him, um it's okay to make up how he died. प्राइस Me not having knowledge of him.

I feel like it's okay in like Inglorious Bastards to do that'cause that's like wish fulfillment. I don't know if like Frank Nitty was one of those guys that we were like, Yeah, we're gonna fucking torture him because he's such a bad dude in real life. It's like I I I just don't know where the line ends, right? Like, can we really just be changing how people died in in movies that we're calling true stories? Uh is it but it's based on a true story, Mike.

Yeah, that's true. Right, right, right. Ah, it's based on a true story. Uh and you know, the ending it's the same as the movie though too, where like i y you know, you're not fighting Capone. Capone's not gonna get involved, but he does end up in jail. It's to how the movie works too. Capone goes down for tax evasion, not a gunfight. And uh You just see him i behind uh behind bars and he's uh looking kind of creepy. Like a skin disorder. He doesn't look like uh Robert De Niro at all.

No, not at all. Uh I I guess what I suppose though is that the game just doesn't have the narrative space to make this Capone jail scene thing feel earned because it was you barely s interacted with him at all. Like why wasn't there why wasn't there the big like round table uh fancy restaurant scene from the Oh yeah. Right. And you should be able to play as Capone in that scene, beating uh whoever you choose, like Duck Duck Go style with a baseball bat. Is that what happened?

I can't believe I said duck duck go. I I wasn't gonna say anything. Yeah, duck duck goose, but you know, Really like. My preferred browser of choice. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's actually what happens. Yeah. He's talking about how much he loves baseball and why and you know, a beautiful scene can all relate to it. We all know why we love it. How do you not get romantic about baseball?

Exactly, and he does, and he gets so romantic that it makes him pound the shit out of one guy's head like fourteen times with a baseball bat. That that sounds pretty romantic to me. Every uh in a game where the rules change every stage.

It's weird to have a timer. Like you're being given barely enough time to figure out what you're supposed to do, let alone do it well. Now they're like, you know, hey, you're in a totally new environment, but uh don't forget you only have a hundred seconds to figure it all out. Well at least in this one it It it like mattered. Like I was timing out a lot.

Um I'm not saying that I liked it, but it was sort of in a in opposition of the kind of just there to be there Mario timer, which we kind of ignore. Um but I guess like It is simple enough that you know, I still quit because I found it frustrating, but it's not it's not super difficult. So I guess having one other uh constraint Isn't isn't the worst sin in the world. And then as we mentioned with the newspapers, between uh scenes the game delivers like the results via newspaper front pages.

If you win scene one, it's Elliot Ness wins fight with the mob. If you die in scene two, it's Elliot Ness dies in Warehouse Bust. uh they kind of function just as win lose screens, but I think the framing is maybe the only thing that helps ground the game in its period piece besides the um you know, besides like the fashion uh of the time. The movie goes uh you know, like really, really, really well done with the uh with the set design and uh Yeah, what happens when you game over in the movie?

You know, I don't know what happens because I I won on my first try watching the movie. But uh I was gonna say that the wardrobes were even done by uh Giorgio Armani. So like they you know they really took great care here. Yeah, he shows up. Uh not in the movie himself, but he showed up to work, which is enough. That's all we can ask for.

Uh but I just feel like it's it's the the newspaper thing here is it's like it's one of the few places where the story progresses, it gives weight to your successes and failures, and it grounds the game in its period. So it's like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that that's the kind of stuff that I would uh I'd really be into if I were super young and didn't know bad side scrolling gameplay.

A little closer to the release of the actual movie, uh, the Untouchables was a hit on European home computers first. The ZX Spectrum and the Commodore sixty four versions were pulling in a ninety-six percent positive. Review score from UK magazine. Uh that that's is it basically the same game?

It's it's basically the same game, but it is develop it's um I th that other version was developed by Ocean's in-house team, and it's unclear to me if that was also just special effects before they had turned into that, you know, like before they left. I feel like it's gone.

like if yeah, that's what I'm saying. So it's functionally the same game, which is true of the Super Nintendo version too. The Super Nintendo version is still the same idea of like switching, you know, to to these various different uh Uh yeah. Man mini games in in it, but it's also like

i it's way higher fidelity. Like it i i they have changed a bit about the games as well and so it's like it's not just like a lazy port where they just were like, hey, we can put this on the Super Nintendo in sixteen bit. Like they did change enough that it was kinda like, huh? This is a weird one. Because I get it. Like the Super Nintendo is um is coming out in ninety-one, so like

They're we're gonna start seeing that where there are NES games and there are Super Nintendo games. And I thought even like, wow, is this the first example? But it's not because this one comes out in ninety three. So that's like kinda weird. That's a weird lag. Yeah. We're not ready for the games that come out like dual release though on NES and Super Nintendo at the same time because we have to review the NES one. Uh Oh no.

Any other like um thinking about uh Dick Tracy, which was a totally different kind of game, but it was another prohibition error crime film turned NES game. Uh so like Is this is there anything like this? Like is there any like that was a pretty niche genre and yet I managed to think of two entries. I suppose you could even include Hogan's Alley into this, depending on if you wanted to put a time period to that. Uh that that cartoon live action movie that happened? Who frame Roger Rabbit?

Of course. I that's a I was about to say that. Yeah yeah. Mm-hmm. That's true, but how is that similar to this? Uh they got like a guy with uh there's a little bit of like a vag vaguely vaguely noir influences uh OK, cool Cool. Yep. All right. So I agree. And you know what? Uh can you also explain to me how this is like the hunt for Red October? Uh

It's got Sean Connery in it. That also doesn't really have Sean Connery in it because it and the only time that you can play a Sean Connery is in a really bad side scrolling section. Yeah, that's worth mentioning. You swap through the characters in this game, but you don't sw swap sprites. Yeah. Yeah, you're just sort of nondescript back of dude's head number one the whole time. Right. It's like well or maybe that's like some kind of like robot or um or power ranger. He's the avatar.

Put their right and then they put their IDs into into the driver's seat and then they control that that cop. Yeah, this is actually a pretty cyberpunk adjacent thing. Yeah. Uh Cyberpunk or um Steampunk or Magipunk. All the punks. Just punk it up. Um, and you know what? We're gonna finish this episode, punk, with the essential games list.

Now, Sean, you gave Joe the right to go first in all future episodes in nineteen ninety-one to the Essential Games list, but he's not here today, so I will s allow you to once again go first. Well I think that we should still hold a moment of silence just uh for the uh the rating that Joe would give. Joe would have loved this game. Can we we're gonna count Joe as one essential vote. So that so that that yeah, so now it's out of three and he gives one yes. So Sean, your vote please.

I'm gonna give it. Uh simply because uh most of it is just uh shooting gallery. Some of it is a less than a replacement level side scroller, um and it has one of the worst escort missions in video game history. So I I still think, you know, it it looks nice and if you really love untouchables, like it sounds like Mike Mike does, uh it's a cool companion piece, um, but not not a good game.

Yeah, the Untouchables tries to make every uh major scene at least from the film into a different type of game. Seven levels, at least four distinct gameplay styles in nineteen ninety one. Is that kind of admission admirable or is it just misguided? We've talked about this before, if a game does five things at a C plus, does that make it more interesting than a game that does one thing at an A?

And I guess in the broader context of movie to NES adaptations uh which is uh a genre currently that's filled almost entirely by disappointment. Does the Untouchables deserve credit for at least trying to match the film's scope and including uh almo almost all the major characters? Uh, even if it couldn't match the film's quality? No.

None of those things are gonna put it on the essential games list. They are good questions to ask yourself as you're playing the game, but they I think you will come to the same conclusion we are in that this is not an essential game. But we have a chance next week for an essential game with the great one, Wayne Gretzky, and his hockey. Okay.