Gumshoe retrospective: Nintendo loves America, America loves shootin' | NES Works
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- We wrap our look at the second wave of Nintendo's Black Box launch titles for the NES with a notable capstone: Gumshoe. Besides being one of the most inventive concepts for a shooter ever, Gumshoe also has the distinction of being the first NES game designed exclusively for the U.S. (and European) market. Too bad it's so punishingly difficult most American kids never saw the ending! Or even stage 2!
I did a double-take when I saw the AVGN Adventures death blocks in this game.
It's now 2022 and I didn't realize that AVGN Adventures got the death blocks from Gumshoe until seeing this video
Can't wait to be a witness
I had this game as a kid and I always thought Stevenson was related to the professor from Gyromite game B because they both walk forward uncontrollably.
Speaking of Gumshoe's legacy, I was made aware of this game after playing Yoshi Touch and Go. Auto scrolling platforming, touch the character to jump and tap to eliminate enemies. Of course Yoshi has more available actions. I figured Gumshoe was perfect for a touch screen re-release or re-imagining.
You're absolutely right! Gumshoe DS could have been, you know, fun.
No wonder this made me think of a DS game but couldn't remember which.
Was that before or after Kirby Canvas Curse?
There's an interview on Wired with Yoshio Sakamoto where he said the design of Mr. Stevenson was based on Gunpei Yokoi. I guess he had a beard back then?
Yeah, I read that while researching this, and I'll be honest... I don't see it at all.
oh my god i am glad i found this series. I was combing through the nes games chronologically (for fun and vague information purposes) and had the thought "wow I really wish there was a series of nice chill videos telling me more about them and helping me formulate my thoughts better" and here it is.
I got this when it came out back in the day. Too tough, unless you break, and just hold the gun up to the TV to aim and you could see the whole game. Loved it. Neat, original concept, and was just cool.
My favorite thing about the game is it's soundtrack.
this is the video game adaptation of Taken
This game is very difficult, but if you aim the zapper at one of the letters in Game Over in the Game Over screen and fire, you will continue.
We would sit right in front of the screen and hold the gun practically against it. Only way to advance through all the levels, at least with our youthful skill set
I love Barker Bill's Trick Shooting! I've held onto my cartridge all these years, despite selling my CRT long ago. I'm finally buying another, because I'm tired of waiting for HDTV tech to catch up my Zapper and ROB ^_^
June 1986 was also the release of the original "Super Mario Bros. 2". (AKA "The Lost Levels") So while our friends across the Pacific were digging into the latest Mario game, America was treated to this.
Vahan Nisanian Poor Mr. Stevenson!
Y'know, even Miyamoto disliked "Lost Levels," and prefers the American SMB2. I don't think Lost Levels would've been a huge hit if it were released back then.
With how crazy the level designs for Super Mario Maker on Super Expert level... the "Lost Levels" may have quite significant fans if it were actually released as Super Mario Bros 2 for non Japanese audiences.
I remember when i was a kid i filed down the end of the gun to get a wider blast radius :)
Great to see Gumshoe getting some love! My favorite lightgun game growing up XD
This game gave me the biggest blister on my finger from all that trigger pulling back in the day!!
Stumbled across your vid. My dad bought this for my brother and I when it came out when the zapper was grey and not orange. Beat it everytime we played it. We'd just hold the zapper directly on the TV to shoot. Incredible memories 👍
Terrific and underrated game! I got to Level 3 recently with a lot of practice ;)
Nice discussion of this game. I've always found it impossibly difficult while still admiring its creativity. Also appreciate the shout out to Barker Bill's Trick Shooting, a game you almost never hear anyone mention.
Replace the gun with touch controls and you have Super Mario Run.
And here I was thinking Balloon Fight's bonus level was the proto Flappy Bird...
Gumshoe can be a very physically taxing game to play, especially at later levels.
I remember borrowing this game when a relative's friend gave me their top-loader NES for a week back in 2012. I found it insanely difficult, even though I played on the old CRT we have. Ever since then I was really hoping NCL would rerelease it on the Wii U VC since it would be beatable then, but alas, it seems their "Japan First" behavior prevented that from happening. One day I hope they rerelease this so I could actually beat it.
Also, I really hope GBW comes back soon. Starting to miss that.
2:23 when Gumshoe was released, the Zapper was not orange. I know because I played it with a grey Zapper.
Are you calling Jesus a liar? Enjoy hell, sinner
@@JeremyParish obviously with all of his powers Jesus could time travel
The music captivated a young me at the time
I always saw Gumshoe as a spin on Joust and Exidy's arcade light gun games, Crossbow and Cheyenne. Definitely felt related to Gyromite, too.
Really? Those strike me as just novel twists on the shooting gallery concept. I considered mentioning Exidy's games (those and Chiller) here, but after reviewing some video footage decided to pass.
I enjoyed Chiller. It's a hell of a thing....
The control/ hit detection is abysmal, however. Talk about video game nasty's, this makes Night Trap seem like something you would let your six-year-old play
[Edit: this comment originally written at 3:26 in the video. Amazing.] I'm reminded of Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures. An already infuriating game that would have been made even worse by requiring precise light gun controls rather than d-pad directed crosshairs. Has its charms though, especially when deliberately messing with Pac-Man.
One missed evolutionary link for endless runners is Antarctic Adventure by Konami. Being of the belief that perspective doesn't really fundamentally change mechanics like that, I'd put it in the same boat as the stuff you listed.
Sure, any time I give a "for example" list, it's not meant to be comprehensive. Antarctic Adventure definitely belongs to that bloodline.
That game is so awesome!
I started watching this video hoping I'd hear jungle beat get mentioned. I was not disappointed!
Poor Gumshoe...
To my knowledge, this is also the first US game to use an actual mapper. GNROM banks both PRG and CHR.
If you shoot at the GAME OVER text after losing you can continue. However, you have to actually aim at the letters, don’t shoot the space between the word GAME and OVER or the game will restart like normal
Pink Panther the NES game without license
This was the first game I beat on N E S at about age 11. Played so much got a blister on my trigger finger and had to use bandaids. Good times.
Looking forward to everything you got, Mr, Parish! Thanks for your efforts.
Always a pleasure.
Boy, he's not kidding about the gun blocking the lower half of the screen. Try holding an imaginary gun and locking down the sights while shooting at the screen to see how bad it would be.
Stevenson looks like Mario after a late night bender.
Always thought this game was Bizarro World Mario Bros. You can't argue that the graphical elements are awfully similar.
Very cool concept.
holy 1980s this brings me back
I wish this game had been rereleased on Wii U when they rereleased Duck Hunt and friends.
Can't forget Mario & Wario
I too agree that Galaxy is the greatest mario game .
Didn't Kemco also have a Gumshoe for the NES? If i remember right, it was like Shadowgate but you were a detective
You're thinking of Nightshade. Great little adventure game
Nightshade is a fairly similar game, but the one he's thinking of is called Deja Vu and it's one of the Macintosh Trilogy release for NES
I watched my brother play through this game some time circa 1989 (he had been on it for some days or perhaps even weeks to be fair). It's kinda stupid for a gun game though in the sense that the only way it's any fair to play this game is to stick your gun right in the screen so it's not at all about aiming
Neon orange OR grey gun
I had this and I loved it but couldn't get very far. I think i lost it before I ever learned
I think Nintendo has always had the US and the west in mind when creating games from the very start so I wouldn't every say Japan was their primary concern. Punch-Out (Starting on Arcade) for example clearly was for a world wide audience, I think the follow up Arm Wrestling for the Arcade was their first exclusive US game (not to mention Super Punch-out on SNES never even had a physical release over there!)
I would say that the game Gumshoe was designed very much for the west from the start as after the Zapper was released Nintendo of propably wanted to give consumers more game options for that device but Japan had probably moved on from their version of the Zapper (released earlier). I bought my Zapper in the UK with Gumshoe when it released but it was the only game I had for it as all the other zapper games seemed too primitive to me at the time, Duck Hunt for example in 1988 didn't interest me as it was so simple looking (from an 8 year olds perspective) Anyway I also have the official Hong Kong release my cousins picked when they were out there, it came in a blue box with nicer artwork so it was also out there too! Thanks for the vid.
This was not a popular game in my neighborhood back when it came out. 6 and 7 year olds didn't have the physical dexterity to perform accurate shots with the zapper.
Hi, came to learn more about Gumshoe and saw this 6:37
I just check out about and there info that is based of a cartoon show.
Does anyone know if Nintendo legally owns Barker Bill's Trick Shooting?
More specifically the Barker Bill character?
Until now I thought Barker Bill was the name of the dog!
Back in the days when Nintendo wasn't afraid to try something, you know, different.
Probably the easiest way to play it in verisimilitude if not pure accuracy is to hack a wii and load it in an emulator with pointer/lightgun support.
This game invented the neckbeard. Milady! Dont mind if i dooooooo!!!
The original gumshoe on commodore was the bomb same for motocross
This would likely have been somewhat less punishing if it had been designed for the Super Scope or Wii remote.
In both cases because they have more than one button.
thus it would've meant (if the designers had been inclined to make it that way) that you could aim and shoot at hazards while jumping at the same time using a second button.
If that's what they wanted they could have you play with a controller (buttons only) in one hand and zapper in the other, similar to arcade games like Lucky & Wild. But I think that goes against the whole concept of the game, which is that you don't control the character directly.
I got to play that game it look cool to play. 😀👍🎮
Gumshoe? More like Gunshoe, am I right?
I think I see the first problem with this game.
One-hit KOs.
This guy needs maybe three points of health.
There are power-ups that can get you multiple hit points and immunity to certain obstacles. They're documented in the manual and everything, but still hard to actually execute getting them.
I would've played the living sheeit out of this.
How do you capture footage for Good Nintentions?
Analogue Nt Mini > RGB out to TV/upscaler > HDMI to Elgato HD60
@@JeremyParish
Thank you, sir.
new microphone Jeremy? Sounds a little different.
Yes, apparently I am familiar enough with your voice to notice small modulations in it's timbre.
I think the recording levels were a little off from my mixing board being moved around between locations… a bit too bassy.
I think it might have been my new phone's speaker as well! Love all the work you do on here, keep it up!
2:23
Or if ur old like me, not neon orange, but white and grey ....
Shout out to the 45+ year old, pee'd ur pants as an 8 yr old or whatever at Christmas when u opened that big present and saw NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM, with R.O.B.
😂😂
Doubtful I will get a response from anybody given I'm commenting 7 years later, but both David Sheff and Chris Kohler mention in their respective game history books that Gumshoe was a reskin of a game released exclusively in Japan. According to the authors, the game was changed because audiences in the U.S. would have likely found this offensive as the player was apparently tasked to shoot Native Americans. For the life of me, I cannot find the title of original domestic version of this game that went unreleased outside of Japan. Anybody know what the title of this game was?
Baby Boomer is a more fun version of 'this' game. Of course it's a bitch to control , too....
Ya, this game was a terrible idea lol, why the hell should I be shooting my own character , while trying to shoot enemy projectiles and cars. It would make a way more sense to make the game similar to perhaps CABAL . Or mix Hogan's alley actions parts with a point and click adventure style like Uninvited.
This was definitely a flop. And yes, we somehow got this game back in the day. I thought I was intriguing as a kid. The music was strange. And shooting ur own guy to help him through platforms was simple but interesting , as a KID.
Unfortunately, Gumshoe was anything but a detective game.
One of Nintendo's worst ideas
The only good zapper game.
You don't like Duck Hunt? Give Freedom Force a try, it's like the prototype for Lethal Enforcers