148 · Platoon

• Are you ready for the real thing?
• Introductions
  • War games
  • This also had a movie
• Gameplay
  • The Morale Bar
  • aiming controls
  • Objectives
    • STAGE 1 - The goal of the first stage is to find the explosives buried deep within the jungle and then navigate out and plant the explosives on the bridge
      • Enemies spawn and don’t care. You have to be incredibly careful...but they don’t?
      • Why would trees block the path forward?
      • Trip-wires are a cool touch
    • STAGE 2 - the player is now in a tunnel system and the point of view has changed to a first-person shooter
      • The player must navigate through the tunnel system and collect flares and a compass along the way.
      • THE SIDE BY SIDE WITH MAP IS GREAT
      • THE ACTUAL FPS MODE SUCKS
    • STAGE 3 - the player is stuck in a bunker overnight that is under constant siege by enemy AI.
    • STAGE 4 - The player has 4 minutes to complete this level and must navigate through the jungle while killing enemies as well as avoiding sniper fire.
      • The compass obtained in the tunnel system is used here to help the player navigate through the jungle.
      • At the end of the jungle is the game's boss, Sergeant Barnes, who is held up in a brick bunker and shooting at the player. The player must be able to land five grenade shots to defeat Sergeant Barnes.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Platoon: The 1st Airborne Cavalry Division in Vietnam
    • 2002 RTS game
• EGL
• Next week - Rampage

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Platoon, are you ready for the real thing?

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Do you guys feel like it's false advertising to ask people if they're ready for the real thing referring to war and then just making that like, oh, it's also just a video game? I really don't know what their strategy was with that. Like, it's very vague. It's misleading.

00:49 It could be about any game. Yeah. I wonder how many people didn't buy this game because they thought that it was like enlisting in the military if you buy this game. Pac-Man. It's the real thing. You know? And you're like, all right. It's true. It's the most real Pac-Man experience to date. Yeah. Well, I think that it could probably, I think it could probably be confirmed that Platoon for the NES is the closest to real war that you could possibly get.

01:16 I would say you're right. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been to war, but I imagine it's like that. Yeah. Because it's so realistic. Well, you know what? Let's talk about war games for a minute because obviously that's all the rage in modern gaming. You know, there's plenty of games based on war and stuff like that. But, you know, for the NES, we really only have like a few examples. And I imagine that that's because there's no actual war happening in the United States during this time.

01:48 Yeah. I mean, most of the games that we've played so far have been World War II based, which makes sense. I mean, that's basically what I think like 57% of all video games are based off of. But I was surprised to see that this is a based on Platoon of all things and two based off of Vietnam in general, even though it's like what, like only like 20 years later. Yeah. Maybe even less. Yeah. I it's it's weird.

02:24 Yeah. And you mentioned that it's weird that it's based off of Platoon, the movie, because that's an anti-war movie. Yeah. I doubt they would want a video game where you go around shooting a bunch of people. Yeah. You know, I think it seems strange. I get that it was an action movie, but isn't it? It's sort of like a dark drama. Right. I haven't seen that movie in a while. I've never seen it. But to that, I think it is just probably the case that like most kids would be able to just pick this up and be like, oh, Platoon, it's a game about war and not have any connection to the movie.

03:01 Well, you might think that, Joe. But remember, like, I mean, the title screen for this one is pretty epic and like, you know, has like all the like it. I don't know if that's art from the movie or not, but that's some pretty realistic art on a title screen of like a bunch of guys actually going to war and stuff. So it does feel intense, too, in that regard. So I don't know. It's like there's mixed messaging here between like the anti-war message of the movie and like the playing the game where you just get to act out war.

03:30 All right. All jokes aside, it seems like we probably should talk about the game itself. And maybe, Sean, could you give us a little like, you know, your objective in this game, what you're supposed to be doing? I know I know changes between stages. So just kind of give me the generic overview. The generic overview is sort of the generic overview of the plot of the movie in a way in very like roundabout terms. You're just basically going through a jungle, through a town, an underground bunker. You're just you're basically like on your way to rescue somebody, I think.

04:10 And by in doing that, you go through some you go through a side scrolling stage. You go through a first person stage with lots of mazes. Yes. OK, sure. I buy that. There's also like a, you know, a final boss Ikari Warriors style, you know, type of gameplay where you have like a top down and you got to like, you know, shoot at the enemy and go through like another different world or what have you.

04:45 But the the you know, the overall idea here, I guess, is that or not the overall idea, but just like the switching between objectives in each stage is something that I feel like we haven't had in a in a video game on the NES yet where like stage one is like this clearly defined like action platformer thing. And then stage two is more like a first person shooter navigating tunnels. And then stage three, you have like some games like that.

05:14 Yeah. Go Go 13 comes. Oh, that's true. That's what this reminded me of right away. And like there's definitely been games like, you know, Goonies that sort of had that dichotomy between one stage and another. But no, there were like very like level to level games that did switch it up like that. I think, yeah, Google's, you know, Golgo is the only one that I can think of the name of right now.

05:43 But the the theme for games like that has been sort of that they're all kind of half baked in each of their different sub games. I don't know what we thought about this one. Yeah, I mean, I like thinking back to Go Go 13 and then looking at this, I definitely appreciate the the idea of trying to do something like this. I think it's a really cool idea if you can execute it properly. And with with Go Go 13, I remember thinking that like it wasn't great, but it was really interesting. And this I similarly like I'm interested in the fact they try to do it. I'll admit that I didn't get past the first stage because I was so lost. I ended up just watching a video of stages two, three and four.

06:27 But even from stage one, if the other three stages control the way that stage one controls and feel it, then I don't think I'm into any of this game. I think we're just too early into video game design and development to be taking on like something so broad, like switching up your the idea of your game every single level. You know, like you need more time to actually like flesh out what you are as a game and spend time on polishing that aspect of it. So when you present like four different gameplay modes in each different stage, it's not quite the same, right?

07:04 It's one gets 25 percent. Yeah. It's sort of like a very slow burning WarioWare in a way where that's funny. Now do this for the next however long it takes you to solve this maze. And then it's like, well, don't forget everything about that. Now do this. And I mean, I do appreciate the variety of it.

07:27 But I mean, I will agree that with Joe that I had a very hard time just starting out this game because it like I'm not just being I'm not just trying to make a point when I say that like they're all mazes. Every level aside from one of them in this game is some variation of a maze. And you can get so lost in the first one that it it may take you like several playthroughs if you I mean, if you're in the 80s playing this game when it just released, like and there may not be a walkthrough available on the internets, you may take several days just to find that find the exit to the first level.

08:08 Right. And I might not really have a place to sit to say this having not played the other stages, but it felt to me based on the first stage that that was the most confusing and like the least likely one that you're going to find your way out of because there's no indication of where to go at all. That's true. And I felt I felt like I mean, had I not been doing this for the podcast, I definitely would have just shut it off after my first, you know, how 45 minutes of playing and not getting anywhere thinking, OK, well, I know this game. But, you know, because I wanted to.

08:38 I would have shut this off before I even knew that there were more stages, you know, and I wonder how many people as kids did that, you know, just like, OK, it's kind of like a not a very great side scrolling shooter game and then shut it off because because the.

08:53 The amount of effort it takes to get to those next stages is like is too much for people to even. Sure, you know, let's break down stage one here for a minute, because, you know, as I said, it's a it's a side scrolling level in the sense that, you know, it's an it's more like a side scrolling action game. And then there are these like similar to what Rambo had. There are like these little paths that you can push up or down on the controller to go further into the jungle. Well, the goal of this first stage is to find these explosives and then find the bridge and plant the explosives on that bridge.

09:33 I have a couple gripes other other than just how hard it is to navigate. Like the the the complex navigation thing could actually be seen as like a really cool thing about how hard it is to like have war in the jungles. And yeah, you're lost in the jungle and everything like that. Like that sounds like a good idea. But there's there's three things that really bothered me here.

09:52 And the first one is that enemies spawn very quickly and and constantly throughout the level as soon as you move across the screen and they don't care. That's the difference. You have to be incredibly careful. And I think that's one thing if it's like, oh, you know, the intensity of war like you've always got to like you got to take it slow and you got to make sure that you're prepared for the next enemy. But if your enemies don't care, there's kind of like this double standard then. Of like what what the message of the of the war is or of the gameplay where you have to be moving, you know, you have to be moving so slowly and cautiously.

10:28 But the enemies can kind of just do whatever they want. And they're just like one pawn in the giant in the giant army going up. Well, Mike, this is a this is an analogy and an allegory representing how how superhuman American soldiers viewed the Viet Cong. And it's it's actually due to their that how how they relate to their surroundings. And we are foreign invaders and we don't know the surroundings.

10:58 Hence, that's why they jump out of trees. And while you're in midair and you have no way to avoid a hit and then you die. And that's fine. You know, I jumping out of trees. I'm sure that happened. I'm sure everybody took advantage of the trees in the jungle. However, you can't fully take advantage of the trees in this jungle. You can't walk around trees. You can't even walk around trees.

11:20 They block your path. Yeah. Why would they do that? Why would a tree block your path? Like I could understand a wall or even. Yeah. A big rock. Like that makes sense. It's on the actual path. The tree, if you actually look at the way that the graphics in the level are designed, the tree isn't in the road. It's actually over to like the side, but it's just so long that it blocks the path that you could see.

11:46 Therefore, you as the player can't go any forward. However, there is actually nothing in front of that path. And that's another part that bothers me. Yeah, it was. It's just like they had so many options of a way to make the jungle a maze. All they had to do was make it like heavy vegetation or the path just ends. And then we just assume it's heavy vegetation or something along those lines. But no, it's such a small thing because all they had to do was switch up the sprite and I would have accepted it.

12:18 But the fact that it's made it a tree makes me angry about it. Right. The funny thing is, yes, the tree is placed slightly differently than other trees that you can walk past. But like you said, it's the same sprite. It's like very hard to even notice like, oh, that's a tree I can't pass. And those are trees I can pass. It's just it feels a little lazy.

12:38 And, you know, the tripwires are a really cool touch because I guarantee you every single every single one of us walked right through those tripwires the first time and died. And then it's like, oh, that's actually like, you know, you got to be careful. You got to always be on the lookout. However, when you combine that with a system where you have no idea where you're going, there's no there's no real map or anything like that. You're just kind of trying to navigate deeper and deeper into the jungle and hope that you're not going to hit a dead end.

13:05 And then you also have these enemies that just kind of come out of nowhere and you have to deal with them immediately. Otherwise, they'll just either, you know, kill you from collision of walking into you or shooting at you, both of which are not fair because you don't have the option to walk into them really hard and kill them. And also because, you know, your bullets require you to, you know, like set up the shot. You have to be prepared for that person to come down and, you know, be in the correct direction and possibly crouch to block their ammo.

13:39 You know, adding an additional thing like a tripwire is a really cool touch if you didn't already have a complicated way of dealing with combat. Real quick, I'm just going to do a quick list of the kinds of enemies. You've got the you've got the standard person that's sort of patrolling and that's just like any enemy that you'd see in a side scroller. And you've got the ones that jump out of the trees and you just sort of have to somehow evade those. But then they also have the ones that come out of a trap door in the ground.

14:11 And is there a trap door there? Yes. I don't I just thought they just I mean, they put their head out of the soil. They planted themselves to grow into a beautiful a beautiful trail breaking tree. But they come out to shoot you.

14:26 And but the the level also has like foliage that will like that's in the foreground. So it covers you'll walk behind it. And sometimes they'll still spawn these trap door enemies right behind a bush that you just land in the bush and you're dead because you didn't see that there's a trap door gunman behind the bush.

14:50 It's and this was like within the first three seconds of me starting the game. I first walked into a trip wire and then I I jumped over the trip wire and and landed on this dude. I'm like, if this is going to be my first experience in the game, I know I'm in for some kind of treat. I don't know. Yeah, I about those those people that pop out of the ground is is also that there's not really a good way to kill them. You can crouch and shoot, but it doesn't matter because you can't hit them when you crouch and shoot for some reason.

15:25 And you can the only way I found that you can kill them is with a grenade. But the problem is they come out of the ground so quickly and your animation for throwing a grenade is is legitimately so slow that it's slower than they can come out of the ground and shoot. So the best I could ever do to kill one is to kill them at the same moment that they kill me.

15:45 Oh, man. But like the only way to do that is by predicting the exact frame, at least of what it seems like to me. Predicting the exact frame that you have to like start throwing before they start to pop out of the ground. So you just have to kind of get lucky. Like if you see them popping out of the ground, it's probably too late to throw a grenade, which is the only way to kill them. It just feels like a very like not tested.

16:08 Bit of game design. That morale bar, which I guess is the only way to incorporate the film's anti-war message. But I don't quite understand how this thing works. Do either one of you have a grasp on it? I think that it like I mean, it starts off like half filled for some reason. And it only seems to apply to one small segment in the game of one small segment in the in the level. Right. Of stage one. Right. Yeah. So apparently if you if you kill civilians, which are distinct by the fact that they are not holding guns and instead have big hats. Then I think morale goes down or up or something. Hopefully down. I would. I don't know if the bar fills as like, oh, bad morale or if it's. Oh, I got you. I got you. Yeah.

17:01 But because I never actually shot a civilian, but I don't know why it's a feature. It's a part of the UI in this game, but it only is a part of like a an eighth of the of level one. So I don't I never really understood it. I didn't explore it enough to fully understand it. Yeah. Is is there a way to get morale back? I don't know. I doubt it because I don't think so. From what I from what the manual makes it sound like your morale is directly tied to like how many civilians are still alive. Or like if you if you've killed six civilians, you're out of morale and you lose. So why isn't that number just called civilians?

17:43 Why is it called morale? Why are we translating it to morale? I saw like five. Maybe I saw four or five civilians in the entire game. So I don't. But that would check out right though, Sean, because the morale is only available in the first level anyway. It's no longer a thing after the first stage. So. Yeah, you're right. I don't know. But it is weird, though, that they would have an endless amount of enemies, but only six civilians programmed into the game. Well, there's no civilians left because everyone's fighting in the war. They're not civilians. They're soldiers. They've been drafted. There you go. There's only six people that aren't fighting in the war. They're all grandmas.

18:18 OK, so like where the civilians are is like the town at the end of level one. Like you you you go, you find the explosives, you blow up a bridge doesn't actually blow up, but you you agree that it blows up. And then you continue to the to the town. And this looks like there's a bunch of like empty hearts. You have to walk into the huts.

18:43 It shows like some weird like background stuff. And I just kept walking in and out of these huts. But apparently these these these interactable objects look like they're just part of the background. But you have to you have to like interact with them by pressing up. And I just couldn't understand that for the like, I don't know if this was more if this felt more intuitive to you, Mike. Like what? But I was just stuck in this empty village for like 10 minutes because I didn't understand how to interact with anything.

19:14 Yeah. And you actually have to you have to interact with it in order to get to the next stage to find the tunnel system itself in one of the village huts. But, you know, full disclosure, even though I got through this game, I used a guide. I used a guide, too. I can't imagine how this stuff just like even even just navigating through the mess that is the first jungle level. I can't imagine how that's accessible to any gamer, you know? Yeah. But but, you know, it is what it is.

19:42 And I would say that after all of the hurdles that you had to overcome just to get to that point, you're probably inclined to figure it out, you know, like as a player. Sure. It's not excusable, but it's like, you know, why were you expecting it to be simple in the first place?

19:58 True. I am glad, though, that you mentioned the pressing up there because that reminds me of something, you know, before you get to the huts or even just when you're on the regular side scrolling parts that really bothers me is that up is to jump. And I and I think that that coupled with the weird like frame perfect, not really, but almost frame perfect feeling things you have to do in order to avoid enemies and the weird controls in general makes it feel just uncomfortable and difficult and like not intuitive to move around. Like sometimes I'm trying to jump and go forward, but I guess I'm not holding the forward enough and I just jump and I stay still and I get shot anyways.

20:40 And I don't know. There's something weird to me about using up as jump when you can just use B as jump. I know B is mapped to grenades, but grenades are useless anyways. So just put them on up like it just feels weird. You can't. It's so much harder to hit to like hit to direct hit one direction and jump at the same time when they're on the same deep. Well, Joe, as one of the sociopaths that uses up to jump and smash brothers, I will say that it wasn't as terrible for me. But I do agree that it but when I was just trying to move forward, I would sometimes jump. And when I was trying to jump, I would sometimes just move forward. So I agree that it was bad implementation.

21:22 Right. And I'll say maybe maybe by smash brothers, we've gameplay has gotten smooth enough where it's maybe maybe a little better to use up up as jump than than back in 1988. Joe, it's funny you brought it up, though, because I remember like for some reason having difficulty remembering that the up button is jump as I was playing this game. And and I threw grenades more often than I than I wanted to because I meant to jump.

21:49 And there's something not responsive about that. So I think you're on to something. I don't know exactly why. I'm not I'm not against games having the D pad up button to jump like we've seen that in some other games. And we wish that there would have been like a C button, if you will, so that you could have mapped jump to a button instead. But I'm not against it. For some reason, though, in this game, it just didn't feel appropriate to be like up on the D pad. I think a big part of it for me, I mean, not to harp on this, but I really the more I'm thinking about it, the more I realize that grenades are a completely useless item in this game. It is it is 100 percent of the time.

22:28 Better to just shoot your gun. One, you'll still kill whatever you hit in one hit. It'll shoot straight forward and just hit them. You don't have to aim like in some weird arc. It doesn't take literally two and a half seconds for you to go through your animation to throw the grenade and you don't run out of ammo. Why would you ever throw grenades in this game? And you know what? The up button is also used to navigate throughout the jungle to to the different screens. You know, you have the up and down. So I guess that's another reason why it just doesn't feel quite correct to have it like double mapped to like exploration and jumping because you're not jumping in that particular instance.

23:04 Right. And selecting items in the huts. I mean, we have seen I mean, we have seen up as interact before, even as early as Castlevania. Like that was how you would enter doors and stuff. So, I mean, neither usage is unprecedented, but I guess together it just sort of feels messy. Well, don't forget, like also in Castlevania up plus your attack is how you use your specials attacks, you know, like dagger and stuff. So like that's even weirder. Yeah. But we accept that for some reason. Well, it feels better. I want games to only use the up button. I want there to be a game where the up button does everything. It's like quap, but it's just Q. I just want a controller that's just an up button. Yeah, there you go. I want a controller that's just an up button.

24:26 All right, so that's stage one. Let's now talk about stage two. Remember, a completely different game now, okay? It's no longer this action side-scrolling, not platformer, but action side-scroller that we were talking about just a second ago. Now we're playing a first-person shooter in a tunnel system, and you have to kind of navigate your way through this, and you've got to collect flares and a compass and try to get out of this tunnel. And I will say, to the game's credit,

25:00 this idea of putting the map side-by-side with the gameplay is incredible and also probably a little tricky on their side of a way to use the NES's power because they clearly make the screen that your gameplay is on. They make that smaller so that they're able to probably use more calculus. We've seen that before. Yeah. I mean, I don't really think it's – I don't think it had anything to do with – because when we've seen that in more recent games, you're talking about Doom on Super NES, which is all about conserving processing power because it is a 3D render.

25:39 I think this is just so that it actually has more space on the screen. You didn't think some of those sprites looked really good, though? Like those guys who come out of water with the knives? Oh, yeah. They did look good. Like this is – like of all of the first-person segments in these video games that we've played, I think this is the best executed one because moving is smooth when you're moving.

26:03 You do have that map, so you're not going to get completely lost like in Goonies or whatever else. Just to know what side of the wall you're facing, though, too. Like that is a big thing for people to overcome. You have your kernel directions. I know computer gamers at the time were playing a lot of first-person games like that, and they probably were used to it by now, but you have to also remember that the NES is like a family system,

26:29 probably mostly geared towards young kids. Oh, yeah, very different audiences. It's very hard to understand which wall you're facing for someone even like us, you know, who didn't grow up on those computer games, let alone like an 8-year-old kid. I think having the arrow not even just show you where you are on the map, but also what direction you're facing in is really helpful.

26:49 That was the first thing that stood out to me by far, because again, to call it back to Golgo 13, which had a section like this, which I thought was really cool, but it was very flawed because you have no idea which way you're facing, and if you press an input by mistake one time and you miss it and you don't keep track of it, you're completely lost because every direction you look looks exactly the same. Granted, this every direction you look looks exactly the same, but it looks a little nicer, and you're always glancing over to that arrow, so you're actually navigating and you know where you're going. Yeah, I was actually staring at the arrow until I noticed I wasn't moving forward anymore, and that meant that I had to interact with an enemy,

27:26 and that's where I think the experience gets a little weird because they always put your cursor in a pretty weird spot if you had interacted with the cursor recently, so sometimes you needed super quick reaction just to kill the enemy before it kills you.

27:48 And John, you're talking about the crosshair, right? The crosshair. No, I'm just making sure, because the weird thing is that as you're walking, it swings to the left and right, and I guess it's trying to... Exactly. But that's kind of weird, right? Mm-hmm. As a gameplay design choice, because even in modern games, you know, like Call of Duty, it might move a little bit from the center, right? Like, ever so slightly, but it doesn't swing rapidly as you walk. Yeah, I do think it's an interesting touch because it does at least make it feel like you're a person in a space and not so much just a floating camera going down a corridor. Sure. But it's still an odd choice.

28:36 I assume that the goal of that is because otherwise, all the enemies appear right in the center of the screen, and if your cursor is immediately in the center of the screen, you just got... Yeah, not all of them, but yeah, for most of them, center of the screen. For the most part. Okay, gotcha. I thought it was all of them, but yeah, so even if a lot of them appear in the middle of the screen, that makes a lot of them really easy to just immediately kill, whereas I guess they were trying to make it so you have to still aim. So like, oh, your most weird cursor is going to be when an enemy shows up and then you got to aim it. Maybe a little bit of a... Not the best executed way of doing that, but it's probably better than just always...

29:14 No, for sure. Pretty much like auto-locking. Having some randomization, I guess, in where your default position is makes it a little bit more challenging, but that is also sort of... My other complaint about this segment is that I don't think it's all that well-balanced for...

29:36 So you're going to be... You're in a maze. So, of course, if you know the route of the maze, it's going to be pretty easy, but since we most likely don't know the route of the maze, you're going to be going into a lot of places that you don't need to go, and that means that with your limited ammo supply in this segment, you could just easily fail this just by... You could basically soft-lock yourself if you're too far away from the exit and you get into too many

30:11 fighting segments that you just won't have any ammo and you won't be able to defend yourself and then you're just done. I think that it would have been nicer if maybe... Because I know that in some of these spaces you can pick up more ammo, but if they were a little bit more generous with those,

30:29 this would have been a bit more enjoyable to play through. Yeah, I think it feels weird to all of a sudden add a realism element, like an ammo count here, as opposed to... Because it wasn't in stage one. And also just the fact that... Sure, now you have this limited amount of ammo, but enemies don't stop spawning either. You could go back... You could be like, oh, maybe I was supposed to go back that way, retreat your steps, and then find like, nope, these are just the same... Nothing was there, but I have to deal with the same enemies again.

31:01 And thankfully they are nice with the amount of hits that you're allowed to collect. I feel like... Four. I feel like you could take four and that's pretty good. Yeah. Some games would be like one and you're dead. Well, it's also a situation where I... When I was playing through this, I went to collect a flare because you're looking for flares and a compass in this, and then you can exit through another ladder.

31:24 But I realized that there was a flare on the other side of the map, so I went and got the flare. While I was going there, I ran out of ammo, picked up the flare. On my way back, I ran into an enemy. There's nothing you can do about that anymore, so you just let them hit you. Like, okay, I've got one hit. Then it immediately spawned him in front of me again. Two hits. And then immediately spawned him in front of me again. Three hits. And it's... Like, that's where, like, this balance comes in that I'm talking about. Because, like, it doesn't matter how many hits you have if it's just going to keep piling up like that once you run out of ammo. It was very frustrating.

32:10 Doesn't matter性性性性性性性

32:39 !性性性性!! And then night has fallen and you're in a dugout. Be prepared. The enemy suspect your position and will attack. Press fire to continue. I like that there's like a little message, a little more detailed of a message of what's context is happening after you climb up a ladder. Because it's like you went up the ladder and now you're like in the trenches stuck overnight and you're about to be bombarded by enemy attack. So it's nice that they explain that rather than just like I came up the ladder and oh shit, everybody's here and I have to fight for my life.

33:13 Yeah. And it's also it's necessary because this this segment is completely different than the others. Like you're no longer trying to navigate anything. This is more like a just like a light gun shooter now, but without the light gun.

33:30 Well, this section works a little better, though. I would argue for the first person shooter mode than stage two. And it all has to do with the way that the crosshair controls and the size of the enemies. You see, in stage two, most of the enemies were the entire like center of the screen. Correct. They were pretty big. So that's why they I feel like, you know, to Joe's point, they were adding that bit of randomness where you're swinging the crosshair from left to right. So that you're not just dead in the center, because even if they moved you slightly off the center, you're probably still going to hit the enemy.

34:05 That made it really awkward to control, you know, a first person shooter as we know it today versus this game. However, in stage three, you know, the enemies are significantly smaller and they're more spread out across the entirety of the screen in which the screen does not move. So you couldn't control your crosshair better to to move it, you know, to the left when you see something to the right. And I feel like this gets it right, but totally should have been a light gun. Yeah. A version, you know, should zapper should have been supported. And the the other thing about this this level is that you're supposed to be using flares so that you can see the enemy.

34:43 And like that's sort of the twist on the the shooting gallery format that we're seeing here. But I don't know if it's just because I have a modern monitor that like has a bit more of a dynamic range. But I didn't really even need like to shoot at the flares because you can see where the enemies are.

35:05 I mean, they just look like dark balls, but like you can still kill them if you want to. I don't know how you guys how you played through this. Well, well, I was going to ask you guys about this because, like I said, I didn't get to this stage. I just watched it. But in the manual, it says it when it talks about the flares, it says, be careful not to shoot at all of the enemies because the more people you shoot at, the more enemies will notice. Oh, really? Did you did you guys? Yeah, I just don't know what you would do otherwise other than shoot at all of the enemies. I mean, like, so I just kept because I forgot where I was supposed to shoot to set off a flare.

35:39 So I just kept shooting in the dark and then I realized, oh, wait, I have to shoot this thing to get to set off a flare. So I did that and then I shot like two or three more guys and then it said that I won. So I only had to shoot off one flare.

35:53 Yeah, Joe, it's to me anyway, because can you dodge? Attack? Let me find the actual. Yeah, that's true, too. I didn't even think of that. It says what it actually says is be careful not to shoot all the enemies you see because your rifle muzzle flash will give your location to other enemies. I guess. So the flare is supposed to cut down the amount of enemies that spawn.

36:16 So maybe that's like sort of countering like you're supposed to set out flares as often as you shoot. I don't know. It doesn't take very long anyway. Yeah, it's very quick. As you mentioned, Sean. And this is just timed, right? It doesn't matter how many enemies you kill.

36:33 You just have to survive or something. I think it's timed, yeah. I think it's timed as well. One thing I was going to say, Sean, in relation to your first comment, though, about not needing the flares, I will say that I did not have that experience. But you might have better eyes than me because I thought that it was like the appropriate amount of darkness. I'm sure you can tell slight changes in movement and stuff, but it was pretty dark. Yeah, it's definitely pretty dark. I think I have terrible eyes. I think it's just like the gamma on my screen.

37:06 Got it. So if you make it past the overnight bunker raid and you make it to the final stage, stage four, this stage is, I was talking about, it's more like Ikari Warriors style or maybe even like, I guess like certain levels of combat. Tantra, that kind of layout, where the top down, the player has four minutes to complete this level and navigate through the jungle while killing enemies and avoiding sniper fire. Eventually, you come up against Sergeant Barnes, who I guess was also the villain in the movie. I guess, yeah. But yeah, it doesn't really matter. Oh, not rescue, just kill, okay. Yeah, yeah, you're fighting him. I see. Yes.

38:13 So let's talk about it. But this is the one where like, you have to have that compass from the tunnel level. Yeah. Because it comes into use here. I, I, this, this fucking level was a nightmare. Uh, it's supposed to be sort of, yeah, it's supposed to be like that Ikari Warriors, like front on contra thing. But the, it's like a bullet hell if you're playing in fast forward. Like, the, the bullets move too fast. Like, I, I just kept getting shot. I, I could not, I could not play this. And also, that compass, I don't know which one, whether red or blue is the direction that I'm facing. Like, am I going in the right direction? I don't, I don't know. Uh, because I could be going south, I could be going north. I, I don't know.

39:00 Yeah, I, I, I, I assume red is the direction you're going, but I, but I don't know for sure. Um, but one thing that I noticed right away, which harkens back to the last level, why I was a little confused as to whether or not there was a time limit on the last level, is because there's a time limit on the screen in this level. Why would there be a time limit in the last two levels, but only, you only see the time counting down in the final level? Well, I think, I, I don't think the time limit in level three is more like, uh, like, oh, I gotta finish this in time. It, I think it's more just like, it ends at a certain time.

39:35 I, I guess. So it's just like, survive the night, you don't know how long, and like, this is like, there's a, what does this time limit represent in the fourth stage? Like, does your character know how long he has? That I don't know. I mean, that is a nitpick, but it's just, it's just another reason why it feels like this is a little Frankenstein together.

39:52 Um, because it's like, it just feels like, it feels like two different teams worked on each section, like completely, and didn't communicate with each other. Entirely possible. Um, well, it's true, Joe, because Joe, just real sec, real quick, because you're talking about two different teams working on it. It feels like that just with the compass alone. It's like, it's like, oh yeah, we designed, we designed this like compass that you acquired in stage two.

40:13 Cool. We'll find something to do with that. Right. Yeah. Like, like, like, it's not really all that useful. I, I, I'm sure you'd be fine just also like trying to get through each part of the stage as fast as possible without the compass. I mean, it kind of works like the first level where you don't have a compass. You still have to go in the right direction every time, but.

40:33 Yeah. Well, all right. So then the last thing, this is another, it's just a stupid nitpick. I know it doesn't really matter, but I have to bring it up is that another reason it feels like they didn't communicate with each other is because the fourth stage is called the 3D jungle. Yeah. And, and I don't know what about this is so through, I guess you're walking in what they were trying to consider Z space, but really it's just top down. Yeah. And there's an actual 3D level in this game. That's not called the 3D tunnels.

41:03 Right. There's only been a 3D aspect of the game, but this is 3D. It doesn't matter. But I thought that was really funny that like, it's just. Yeah. It's funny. This is the 3D level when there's an actual 3D level. I mean, I guess it's supposed to be more of like a three fourths, like you're walking into the jungle sort of thing, but it does not, it does not look like that.

41:25 Anyways, I'll let the people now that I've actually played this level talk about real complaints. You know, these are the fastest bullets that we've ever seen. I know Sean mentioned that earlier. And I think what's funny about that is like, that shouldn't be a complaint. Like bullets get shot. And as long as they're in your direction, you're most likely going to get hit by this. In this kind of game, it's not supposed to do that. No, I know, I know. I'm saying like, it's funny to make that nitpick. But because I remember, Joe, maybe you'll remember what game it was, but we were. It was a commando. Commando. And it was like, the guy was shooting at you and you were like, oh, watch out for those bullets.

42:02 Nobody says that in real life. And you actually have like the time to turn around and react and like duck under them. Watch out for the bullets, guys. So, so I kind of appreciate it here. But yeah, that was really challenging.

42:13 Thankfully, they spread like a fan in a particular direction. So as long as you kind of like also like shift to the left and right of the particular screen, as long as you guessed correctly, you're pretty much guaranteed to be saved. But like also like some of the rocks are actually mines. And like if you walk into the, I don't know, like the barbed wire fence or something, that means that you automatically just impaled yourself on it. Like that you have to, it's a very narrow passage that you have to take to get to the top of the screen and go to the next screen. But you also have these really fast bullets.

42:53 So, I mean, whether or not the bullets are too much on their own, that's that's either here nor there because the whole level itself is just designed to kill you if you don't, if you don't navigate it precisely. Yeah. And I almost said, well, you know, that that's not that much of a problem, Sean, because just take out the guy who's shooting at you. But I forgot that they don't give a crap. And they just sent another guy. They sent another guy and the dead guy's bullets still travel. So like you'll be cornered either way for the most part. Yeah, this was this was a rough one. And what's funny is, is like, I think having all these obstacles like the rocks and the barbed wire and the mines and exploding rocks.

43:35 Yeah, the exploding rocks, all the various enemies and everything like that. Like that's a lot to overcome. And then when you finally get to like Sergeant Barnes, there's there's nothing to like there's no rocks. There's no mines or that. That's just his bullets. And and I think like he has one larger bullet, but I guess that's a grenade, right? Yeah, I think this is where he's you only shoot grenades in this one. You should only throw grenades, right? You need five grenades to kill him.

44:02 But like, I guess my point was, is that I think they were trying to make it like a head on conflict between you and Sergeant Barnes and everything. But actually wound up being the easiest part of the entire level because there's nothing to avoid. You just kind of make sure that you're looking where the bullets are being shot, go in the opposite direction, throw a grenade, then shift to the other side. He kind of shoots left, right, left, right, left, right. So it was pretty easy to predict his pattern.

44:28 Compared to how like intense, whether it's like a frustrating, intense or an enjoyable, intense, the most of this level is the the end is just so underwhelming. And like because I didn't even know that that was Barnes. I thought it was just another guy. And the game ended and it gives you some pixelated screen caps from the movie just to show you that this is the ending.

44:56 That was this is probably the most underwhelming final boss I've played so far. Agreed. I think nothing nothing really comes to mind, but there are definitely games later on in my life, you know, that have that have also had pretty. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm not talking about everything else. For sure. Yeah. On the NES. Absolutely.

45:20 Also, just like, I don't know, the game never really built up the idea of like a Sergeant Barnes. Like, not that they should have, but like, there's just something weird about all of a sudden having a boss in a game that was essentially just navigating yourself through a maze.

45:37 Yeah. Well, what I find kind of interesting, not necessarily in a good way, is that the manual really sets up every level in the way that like, I mean, I guess it's more forgivable back then, but like in the way that the game should be setting it up. But like each level has like a little story. Okay. Now that you've done this, this is this happens to you and you fall into here. It's like stuff that you don't see on screen, but it's like, oh, this is why you ended up here.

45:59 And this is, you know, it gives you the context in the manual. I would appreciate that if like, if they did something similar, like for why they, how they explained like, oh, you're in this foxhole and you were trying to sleep and then they start shooting at you. It's really dark out. Like if they did that for every level, just to give you a little bit of context, you don't have to like, like, I remember in platoon, like you were going after this guy. So that's what I'm doing here.

46:22 Like, it would have been nice to have that extra context. So I knew what I was actually doing instead of going forward. Right. And I actually was thinking about this a lot because I, I feel like when we started this, uh, this nostalgia journey, I was, I was very forgiving on like, I just put the story in the manual, just put some things that you have to check the manual to while you're playing.

46:42 And I'm, and I'm kind of like getting a lot less forgiving about that. I'm starting to realize like, oh, it is possible to put some of this information in the games. Like maybe back then I thought, oh, well, NES games couldn't do that, but we've seen it happen now. So now it feels a little like, even if I'm a kid in the eighties, I'm probably not going to want to be like, all right, I finished that level. Let me pause the game and read what's happening next in my, in my physical manual here. Um, granted it's nice to have that extra information, but like they could have probably put like a little something on the screen so you can just kind of keep going. Yeah. I agree.

47:16 Um, but one thing that I want to say about this game and it's sort of like not, not so much a breakdown level by level anymore. Uh, it's, it's something nice about the game is that I think that this game looks and sounds great. Like the, um, the, like the, uh, the, the, the sprite work is, is very, is very nice. The color is good, but I, I think that this is the most unique soundtrack in an NES game that we've played so far.

47:51 Yeah, I think, I think that's a, that's worth mentioning. I think also like thematically, it's a pretty cool like journey to go on too. You know, you're, you're in the jungles, then you have to go through the tunnels. You come up through the tunnels. Now you're stuck in a, in a trench hole and you've got to like fight in the bunker overnight only to then have to go one-on-one against Sergeant Barnes. Like that is a, it's a pretty cool setup. You know, it's no, it's one of the better like ideas of, of a game, you know, that we've seen.

48:21 Uh, we just, you know, we spent a lot of time tearing it apart. Yeah. Uh, instead. And I think it does. I think if the first level didn't exist, you'd have one of the shortest NES games of all time. Probably. You'd probably have like an eight minute game at your hands, but you'd also have something really neat. It's, it's neat.

48:41 I mean, I totally agree. I think that it's, it's, it's something that I appreciate that they're going for it. You know, I want to see a game pull something like this off where you're, where you have these different stages and it feels like you're on this like journey where you're doing. I mean, it almost could feel more like a later game, like a PS2 game where there's like, oh, there's a level where you're flying a helicopter. There's just like set piece after set piece.

49:05 Yeah. It just feels like there's, it's just not really been executed. And it's not like those, those elements exist in the eighties on the NES. Like it's possible for those, for like the Avengers of NES gameplay elements to come together and make a game like this. But it just seems like it's very hard to pull off because like we were talking about earlier, it might be hard for one team to make what is essentially four or five good games in one.

49:30 Yeah. And that's, that's why like after shitting on this game for as long as we did, I just wanted to make sure that I at least shout out, shouted out to the music because like, not, not that it's like the most iconic music on the NES, but most NES music has been like sort of at least the same philosophy of composition of just like, let's just make this very,

49:55 this very dense melody of just like, but like this one has like sweeps and like, it almost sounds like they're trying to emulate strings at times. So I just appreciated like that uniqueness to it. And it's probably the, the, the one thing I'll remember this game for aside from trying to cram four games in one, but the music is definitely, definitely top tier for me.

50:27 Well, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but at least on the music, it doesn't loop. It loops a bunch of times, but it does end. It actually ends and it actually fades out and comes to an end and then starts over. Like it's not a fully loopable track. Oh, does it? I didn't realize that. I've never really, I'm not saying that that's a necessarily a good or a bad thing. I just thought it was interesting because I feel like usually we've seen only tracks that like are designed to loop around on each other infinitely. Yeah. Absolutely. Or itself rather. But yeah, while I was playing, it ended like five or six times and then started over and you hear it like fade out. There's an ending to the track.

51:02 That's weird. You know, this game was developed by Ocean Software and we, this is our first NES game from them, but we had a chance to play some other games from them. We just didn't because here's the funny thing about Ocean. They are the kings of like licensed video games. They license anything you can think of from Adam's family to the WWF, you know, that's their A to Z, if you will.

51:26 But they also made versions of Rambo and Top Gun, two games that we've had on the NES. They just didn't make those versions. So they made a game called Top Gun in 1986 that just never came to the NES. Interesting. And they made a Rambo game for the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64 that just also didn't come to the NES. Huh. Well, I mean, I don't like, were they, were those like well received? Do you know? Uh, no, they weren't. And, uh, you know, also, right. Platoon was not received well either, but, uh, they will make Batman the movie the game.

52:06 And, uh, and I, I think that that is also not the version that we get on the NES again. Okay. So I think it's just funny that we're going to, I don't think we're going to keep running into them. I think this is like a one-off thing of the, one of the few licensed games they managed to push onto the NES. It's perfect strangers meeting, meeting happenstance.

52:27 So, uh, it was nice to developer enter the space. We always welcome them other than, uh, Tengen, who's not welcomed because they make bootleg games. And, uh, one other thing, if you wanted to play other Platoon games, sequels and spinoff section got really weird here because there's this game called Platoon, the first airborne cavalry division in Vietnam. And I have to imagine that that's gotta be a game also based on the movie. Yeah. Right? So, like, because of, you know, Vietnam and Platoon in the same title, whatever. It's a 2002 PC RTS game. Huh. Uh, so maybe, maybe if you're looking for, like, your favorite, uh, movie Platoon, if you're looking for the video game adaptation, maybe try that one first. But that is an adaptation.

53:14 Like, it's based on the movie? Well, see, I, I couldn't really find much info about this, this game. Um, so I'm sure if I looked it up on YouTube, if I looked it up on YouTube right now, which I'm doing, I'm sure I'm gonna find out that, um, no. Again, like, I can't even find gameplay footage. Wow. Huh. Instead, I'm seeing some pretty gruesome stuff. Oof. Yeah, let's just... I'm having some, yeah, this is gruesome stuff on Nom.

53:39 Yeah. Uh, anyway, that's it for the sequels and spinoff section. So do you guys mind if we do a little thing called the Essential Games List? I don't mind. All right, it's time for a little thing we call the Essential Games List. Where if games are essential, and we'll put them on a list. If they are. Uh, we'll note, just, just because, you know, we talked about this pretty recently,

54:03 video game collecting has exploded recently. And, um, sealed video games in particular have exploded in prices in a way that doesn't make sense to anyone who listens to this podcast, I'm sure. But I've taken a look at some of these sealed NES games, and I can't help but notice that the ones that we put on the Essential Games List are the ones that sell for incredibly high prices. And so, I'm worried that if we put Platoon on the Essential Games List, that we're gonna have to, like, you know, we will have to accept our role as the market makers, and maybe... Yeah, exactly. Maybe Platoon will go for $40,000 to $50,000 sealed.

54:41 Right, and it's obviously... It's obviously not the case that, like, that we put these on the Essential Games List because they're good games and would go for that money anyways. It's clearly the case that they go for that money because we've put... People consider them good games because we've put them on the Essential Games List. Before that, people probably never even heard of it. We are definitely, like, as Mike said, we are the market makers, and, like, it's our burden to bear. Like, we have to be the ones that set the prices. Otherwise, who will? Like, just some schmuck? And we can hold games hostage. We can set these prices really high unless we get more subscribers.

55:20 Which we might do. We might do. And, Joe, I just want to cover because you said that we don't put games on the Essential Games List. You know, like, we make them good in a way. We also don't put games on the Essential Games List because they're expensive. Like, we don't look at the price tag and say, Oh, well, that's a $55,000 sealed NES game. It's got to be on our... Please tell us how much Platoon is worth to you and also how much it's worth to you monetarily. Well, yeah, the price is not listed until we review them.

55:52 Okay. So, as much as I like the music of this game, just because it's different, and as much as I hate the general design of a lot of segments in this game, I'm not going to say this is one of the worst games we've played because it's not, but I will say that it is not essential.

56:18 So, monetarily, I'd say, like, a sealed copy of this game should only go for, like, $6,000, $7,000. Like, tops. Tops. Okay. That's quite a price tag. And then, Joe, the same questions to you.

56:38 So, this is... Maybe I also wouldn't say it's one of the... Depending on how many of the worst we're saying, it might be in there, though. I thought this was a pretty bad game. Granted, it's a little unfair. I didn't play the whole game. But there's not really much of a chance that I would put this on the Essential Games list. So, I'm not going... I don't know why I said it that way, but I'm not going to put this on the Essential Games list. And as far as the price tag, I'm going... I did just Google it, but my computer's being really slow, so I can't even pretend I happen to know the name, or the exact price. So, I'm just going to say I will value this at $4. That's preposterous. It's sealed. Preposterous. It's preposterous.

57:21 Well, if only I could have... If Google was working for me right now, I would know the exact... I could keep this shtick going. It's sealed. It's collectible. Did I say if it was sealed and graded, though? Because if it's graded, that means more, and means less to me. If something is graded, I want it a lot less.

57:40 Anyway, for the final vote here, let me just say that I know I can't put this on the Essential Games list, but when I think of Platoon, you know, things like Doctor Chaos, MagMax, City Connection, Cobra Command, Defender 2, those are NES titles that come to mind. And those are in, like, the bottom 50 of the NES games that we've played so far. And that's exactly where Platoon fits in.

58:07 Again, really cool thematic game with a lot of, like, interesting ideas. But when you can only give, like, 20% out of 100, keep in mind. I'm only asking for 100%. When you can only give 20% to each particular stage, you're going to run into a lot of problems, like we discussed on the show.

58:25 And so, therefore, it's not worth the Essential Games list time. And it's also probably worth, sealed, but not graded, I would say, in the ballpark of $555. All right, so what I'm saying is I'm not saying this because I own the game and I'm looking to sell it. I would never say that. But I'm saying that it's probably worth, like, $5,000 to $6,000. And as somebody that owns the game, like, I'm going to sell it to whoever wants it. But that's not why you're saying this. I would never use that as a reason to price a game on this show.

59:03 And then, since we took our guesses, I just want to say that we were all pretty far off. And that the most recently graded copy of Platoon, sealed, went for $199. So nobody cares. So was I the closest? Yeah, $4. You were the closest. Nobody cares about this game. If you have it sealed, nobody wants it. They'd rather just have the loose cart, which I know, Joe, you guessed was $6. It's $4. You said $4.

59:32 I said $4, yeah. It's important to note for anybody who was listening to this episode and really confused, we've been talking about Platoon on the NES. Oh, not Splatoon? Not Splatoon on the Nintendo Switch. I think that's just, like, it was worth mentioning because we were talking about first-person shooter at one point and stuff. So just in case anybody was confused, not talking about the game where you transform into a squid and have color wars, like, in camp. In camp. So my question is, now that we finally got into the Platoon episode, and Sean was finally able to list that price. Are we going to keep doing the podcast? I mean, it wasn't the whole reason we started this podcast, but Sean can list the price for Platoon.

1:00:10 That's right. I remember that. In 2016, you contacted me online saying, let's pretend we've been friends for a very long time. I have a copy of Platoon that I think will grow handsomely in value if we start a podcast. And then, Mike, you disguise your voice to sound like me, to make it sound like there's a third person on here. Yeah, that's actually me right now. It's funny. It's like, that person who just said that was also me. Whoa. Yeah, I agree. Which is me. Agreeing with myself.

1:00:42 Sean? Yeah. Anything you want to say? Sound like you wanted to say something. Um, I mean, I would just say that I, like, I will decide whether or not I want to continue the podcast by next week, Friday, I'd say. And we will put a link to Sean's auction on eBay for the sealed copy of Platoon. We will put that link in the show notes. Starting bid is only $4,000. So if you get there early and nobody else goes, you might get a deal. You might get a deal. Um, and that's why this, this whole podcast, that's why we call it, let's make a deal with Wayne Brady.

1:01:24 Uh, I don't know what we're doing anymore. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think, I don't think I should. Is it over? Yeah. Um, I marked it. I think this whole thing is funny. This is a good bit. Us talking right now, listeners completely confused, probably turned it off. Yeah. But if they didn't turn it off, they would tweet us at NostalgiaCast with the keyword sausage. That's S-A-U-S-A-G-E.

1:01:52 Sausage. Sposito Film on Twitter. Don't tweet that to me. I will have no idea what you're talking about. But the Nostalgia Twitter will. And remember, next week, we'll be back to normal. We'll be on a rampage. Because that's the game we're playing. We'll be very angry in that episode. That's all I can say. And then don't forget, the 153rd episode spectacular is right around the corner. And I'm keeping that game a secret. So we'll talk to you then. Bye.