The Rocketeer (NES)
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 Even if you aren’t a fan of the character itself, this 8-bit take on the well-known stunt pilot hero will not give you the same thrills as the comics or movie themselves.
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"In short, The Rocketeer might be better than lots of the other games I've reviewed on the NES, but that's actually a sad thing to say. All these years I'm coming to realize that the NES has less games like Contra and more like The Rocketeer, and when you want to add up all the really bad ones, it's a pretty shitty library! You know what? I can't believe that I'm saying this but, the NES sucked!!"
— The Angry Video Game Nerd, episode “The Rocketeer”
The Rocketeer is a 1991 video game developed by Ironwind Software and published by Bandai for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is based on a film of the same name.
Plot
The Rocketeer's true identity, a goofy but endearing stunt pilot Cliff Secord, who after thwarted attempts by mobsters, stumbles upon a pink prototype jetpack created by Howard Hughes. He uses it for heroic deeds but must keep it out of the hands of the nazis who want to use it as a weapon.
Bad Qualities
- This is a game where trying to not get hit is simply too frustrating. Where you have to rely on self-assurance that a heart will show up, which isn't a fun mindset to have when playing an action game.
- The in-game graphics are either hit-or-miss or they can seem busy, like the first stage being the most unappealing where it has a green and pink stylistic choice put into it.
- The controls are mediocre at best, and frustrating to navigate at worst.
- It is practically hard to jump over long gaps. If you miss a platform, you go back to the area you were just at, so you'd have to retread your path over and over until you get it right.
- The way you punch enemies by crouching to do so is pretty awkward since the enemies continuously shoot at you. And the worst of all, when you have to go close to your enemy, you have to make sure you have enough distance because if you are too close to one, your bare fists go through the enemies for some reason.
- Level 2 is a prime example of how defeating enemies with jetpacks and higher elevation that shoot at you is very difficult to do, so you'd have to stop jump, and shoot to hope that it hits them without you taking damage.
- While are given the ability to fly after collecting fuel to power up your rocket, you have to save your gas meter from running out, so it isn't as prominent as you hoped it'd be.
- There are no lives, so if you die, you have to start all the way back to the beginning of the levels you're in.
- The levels are overwhelming in places that shouldn't be as lengthy as it is.
- There are consistently tons of doors placed in the background, yet you can't go in them. Which makes you ask why it was placed there, to begin with.
- The enemies can be flat-out random or poorly thought out, sometimes it seems as if the developers ran out of ideas for what to put as enemies like a miniature tank for example.
- When you approach a couple of little red spaceship enemies in chapter four, you have to go near them to trigger them, yet they shoot two-sided bullets, so after you back away from it, it respawns! Which is tedious to do.
- Speaking of which, you can easily die after being shot either once or twice.
- The boss fights are uninspired and ridiculous. At the end of level 5, you fight the Griffth Observatory.. no we are not making this up!
- The final boss Sinclair looks like a generic enemy and is stupidly easy to defeat.
- Anti-Climactic Ending: You get a half-assed ending with a singular screen of Cliff with his love interest that says "I love you, Cliff!". Where in the movie, the climactic fight took place on the Nazi blimp and it revolved around Cliff and the henchmen.
Good Qualities
- It takes some cues from the movie, so it doesn't try too hard to recreate the exact film story that it was told, so there aren't any tedious cutscenes or lengthy dialogue. Where there are some cutscenes with seemingly lengthy dialogue, you can skip it and move on with starting the level.
- The overall presentation in the cutscenes are both decent, appealing, and very colorful, which is the only thing that is strongly faithful about the movie.
- Speaking of which, later levels after the warehouse looks either pretty detailed or are nice to look at.
- Speaking of detail, the sprites and backgrounds are very detailed and well-made.
- There isn't a lot of music tracks in the game, it sets a good mood for what stage you're in regardless.
- You can hold up to 99 weapons by ammo every time you collect a weapon, which is pretty useful.
- Every time you die, you get a chapter code that can even give you unlimited continues, which is satisfying in a challenging game like this. Also, for every chapter you complete, you always get a chapter code as well.
- With this in mind, where the game is tough, the level 5 password is the most helpful.
- There are some themes in the game like the graphics and text that can remind you of another game such as Dick Tracy, another game published by Bandai that had some good intentions during the production but was butchered by poor decisions.
- This game has something to offer, finding fuel to fly as The Rocketeer will have you intrigued and catching your curiosity most of the time.
- Because of this, it's nowhere near as bad or as cataclysmically atrocious as it's Super Nintendo counterpart.
Videos
Gameplay
Commercial
Reviews
External Links
https://questicle.net/536-rocketeer/ https://comicbookvideogames.com/2015/01/21/review-the-rocketeer-nes/
 "What were they thinking?"
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