Weirdo shooter Gumshoe represented an end and a beginning for the NES

Jeremy Parish March 21, 2017 12:40 PM Read + Mission control for ; former EIC of http://1UP.com and http://USgamer.net ; taking dapper (and frogs) back from the Nazis.

This week's Video Chronicles project casts its gaze back to what may well be the most unconventional light gun game ever to appear on NES: Gumshoe.

I really love this game in principle, although I am super terrible at it. It's such an odd and unusual concept for a Zapper title: An attempt to marry side-scrolling platform game design with a shooting gallery. It almost works, but for its absolutely brutal difficulty level. A little kindness (like, say, removing instant deaths and giving poor Mr. Stevenson a few hit points to soak up unhappy collisions) would have gone a long way. Maybe someday I'll make it past the first stage... but more likely I'll go to my grave never having seen level two in the flesh. Alas!

This does bring us, at last, to the end of the NES launch rollout in America, which Nintendo staggered across two phases (October 1985 and June 1986). From here on out, Nintendo will no longer be the only publisher on NES games. And, as denoted by Gumshoe, not every game going forward will necessarily have appeared in Japan first. Unlike the first 25 games for Good Nintentions, Gumshoe never had a Japanese release. Things are a-changin' in NES land.

But before we get to the arrival of NES third party releases, I think Game Boy World is feeling a little lonely...

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