Hogan's Alley (NES) Review
System NES (Wii U Virtual Console)
Developer Nintendo Publisher Nintendo Genre Shooter # of Players 1 Release Date October 18th, 1985 (Original) January 7th, 2016 (Wii U Virtual Console) |
Pros
Good transition to using a Wii Remote Cons Game play gets repetitive quickly. |
Review
by Thonos
3/11/2016
(REVIEW NOTE: This is based on the Wii U Virtual Console version)
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a fan of rail shooter games. While I always talk about my joy of them from the arcades, the fun started much earlier. The NES Zapper was my first experience with using a light gun to play a game. While these games are not technically rail shooter games, you can not move and you only shoot. One of my earliest light gun games was Hogan's Alley. While not the best game out there, it was still something different from using a standard controller. While you may need a old tube TV to play the original game, the Wii U Virtual Console version only requires a Wii Remote.
Gameplay in Hogan's Alley is straight forward. There are three types of enemies and three types of innocent people. When the enemies appear you shoot them, if you miss or take too long you get a miss. Hitting a civilian also counts as a miss. Your window to shoot varies from 1 to 2 seconds. Once you get 10 misses the game is over.
There are three game modes. The first one looks like a lineup scene. Three people show up on the screen and you have a limited amount of time before they disappear. This repeats over and over with variable times to shoot until you get 10 misses. The second one is similar except it take place in a urban city setting where the enemies/innocents show up randomly. The scene rotates to the right every so often and eventually does repeat itself. The final mode is trick shooting, which is you shooting cans that come from the right of the screen and and keeping them in the air so they land on the right side of the screen.
Since this is a virtual console version, you use a wii remote as your zapper. The game has an aiming cursor on the screen which moves where you point the Wii remote to. I found this to work very well, almost as good as using a real zapper. You can also save your progress if you want to take a break and come back to it later, however most games of Hogan's Alley do not last that long. For me an average game lasted between 7-10 minutes.
Graphically there is not much to talk about. The backgrounds are bland and the characters look just as bland. The audio fares better, but still is nothing great. One thing I will say is that the Wii remote makes the same sound as the NES Zapper makes when you pull its trigger. Might sound stupid to some but I found that to be a nice throwback.
Overall I had fun with this version of the game. The big draw for me was that I could play the game without me having to go dig out my old tube TV. While all three game modes have there perks, I always found the city setting the be the most fun. This one is mostly for the people who grew up playing these types of games and want to take a trip down memory lane.
by Thonos
3/11/2016
(REVIEW NOTE: This is based on the Wii U Virtual Console version)
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a fan of rail shooter games. While I always talk about my joy of them from the arcades, the fun started much earlier. The NES Zapper was my first experience with using a light gun to play a game. While these games are not technically rail shooter games, you can not move and you only shoot. One of my earliest light gun games was Hogan's Alley. While not the best game out there, it was still something different from using a standard controller. While you may need a old tube TV to play the original game, the Wii U Virtual Console version only requires a Wii Remote.
Gameplay in Hogan's Alley is straight forward. There are three types of enemies and three types of innocent people. When the enemies appear you shoot them, if you miss or take too long you get a miss. Hitting a civilian also counts as a miss. Your window to shoot varies from 1 to 2 seconds. Once you get 10 misses the game is over.
There are three game modes. The first one looks like a lineup scene. Three people show up on the screen and you have a limited amount of time before they disappear. This repeats over and over with variable times to shoot until you get 10 misses. The second one is similar except it take place in a urban city setting where the enemies/innocents show up randomly. The scene rotates to the right every so often and eventually does repeat itself. The final mode is trick shooting, which is you shooting cans that come from the right of the screen and and keeping them in the air so they land on the right side of the screen.
Since this is a virtual console version, you use a wii remote as your zapper. The game has an aiming cursor on the screen which moves where you point the Wii remote to. I found this to work very well, almost as good as using a real zapper. You can also save your progress if you want to take a break and come back to it later, however most games of Hogan's Alley do not last that long. For me an average game lasted between 7-10 minutes.
Graphically there is not much to talk about. The backgrounds are bland and the characters look just as bland. The audio fares better, but still is nothing great. One thing I will say is that the Wii remote makes the same sound as the NES Zapper makes when you pull its trigger. Might sound stupid to some but I found that to be a nice throwback.
Overall I had fun with this version of the game. The big draw for me was that I could play the game without me having to go dig out my old tube TV. While all three game modes have there perks, I always found the city setting the be the most fun. This one is mostly for the people who grew up playing these types of games and want to take a trip down memory lane.