407 · Dirty Harry
You stomp through pixelated alleys, docks, and bizarre sewer mazes as a scowling block of justice with a revolver the size of the screen. Every thug, sniper, and explosive trash can feels like an excuse for Harry to growl a one liner and keep walking. It is clunky, mean, and weird in all the ways an 8 bit cop fantasy probably should be.
We spent a lot of this episode on the films, and by the end on hot dogs. The game was less rewarding. You play Harry in a side-scrolling San Francisco, working through drug gangs to get to a Colombian kingpin called the Anaconda, and the plot has nothing to do with the 1971 movie. Mike, Sean and Joe were on this one.
A few good ideas
- The gun. Press A to draw, press A again to fire, and he aims at several angles. The animation looks adult and swift, and Joe's verdict was the best gun-pointing we've seen on the NES.
- A city you can enter. It is a beat-em-up, but you walk into alleys, doors, manholes and onto power lines. We liked the idea more than the execution.
- Clothes as keys. Jump on the guy in the white suit and you become him, which is how you get past the bouncer. Nobody explains it, so it can look like you just jumped past him correctly.
- The voice clips. "Go ahead, make my day" opens the game and "Do you feel lucky, punk" comes right before the end. We wished they had digitized the whole movie.
Where it goes wrong
- No warm-up. Level one starts with enemies already hitting you. Then you fall into a pitch-black sewer with shocking things and an invisible wall.
- No direction. We never knew whether the goal was a building or the sewers, and it turned out to be the sewers. Level one is about two-thirds of the game, and over half of it is sewers, much duller than the streets.
- Controls. A and B together jump. Pressing up to jump annoyed us more, but the jump itself is stiff. You also jump over a woman in a red dress to get extra lives, which is as strange as it sounds. Pickups flash by too fast to identify, and with no HUD you keep pausing.
- The "ha ha ha" room. Enter it and the door closes behind you. You're soft locked and have to reset, deep into the first level. We called it actively insulting.
- Little Dirty Harry. The sprite is nondescript, and we wanted a gun-draw that scares enemies off, or a morally gray choice.
Worth knowing
You get rockets, a harpoon and explosive RC cars, and hot dogs restore health, which led to a long ketchup debate. The Anaconda looks like Kingpin. Passwords reference Eastwood films: Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose gives infinite lives, and Misty skips to level two. The composers are credited on the back of the box.
The bottom line
Skip it. We all voted no on the Essential Games List. The first vote came after playing in an emulator with cheats on, just to explore. Sean said there is barely any Dirty Harry here beyond the clip and the gun. Joe called the first level a slog. It is more fun to talk about than to play.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- It's an all-out war of good vs. bad. Go ahead. Make your day.
- General Overview
- Quick elevator pitch
Side scrolling action game where you play as Dirty Harry cleaning up San Francisco’s drug trade, moving through city streets, buildings, sewers, docks, and finally Alcatraz. Developed by Gray Matter, published by Mindscape in 1990 as an NES exclusive. Wikipedia+1 - 2. Story & Objective
- Basic plot
A Colombian kingpin called The Anaconda unites San Francisco’s drug gangs and wipes out the previous top criminal “The Dealmaker.” Harry ignores his chief and goes rogue to find and take down Anaconda, culminating in a showdown on Alcatraz. Wikipedia+2Take on the NES Library+2 - Moment to moment objective
In each stage you are basically hunting down gang leaders, recovering drugs and money, and working your way toward information that points you to the next area. Streets, docks, then Alcatraz as the final stronghold. Take on the NES Library+1 - Thing you only know if you played
- The game quietly tracks how thorough you are in searching for drugs and cash. If you do “police work” and sweep everything, you can get a special ending with a medal from the mayor instead of just credits. GameFAQs
- WHO STARTS A GAME LIKE THIS?
- Level immediately starts
- 3 guys beating you up, more on the way
- A+B to jump
- Fall in a manhole
- It’s pitch black
- Things are attacking you and shocking you. There’s an invisible wall in the sewer so you can’t even progress.
- 3. Level Structure & “Where the hell do I go?” Navigation
- Stage breakdown
- City streets: Horizontal streets with doorways, alleys, and building interiors that crawl all over the place.
- Waterfront / docks: More verticality and entrances into warehouses, plus sewer access.
- Alcatraz Island: Feels more like a traditional final gauntlet, still maze like but narrower. Take on the NES Library+1
- Layered navigation
- Streets are not simple left to right. You can walk “into” alleys or through doors to side areas, and go down into sewers that connect parts of the map. It is easy to get totally turned around. It’s an impressive city traversal game if the controls didn’t make getting around so tough
- Interiors add “fake 3D” hallways where foreground and background doors lead to different rooms, so it is more like a light adventure game than a straight brawler. MobyGames+1
- Things you only know if you played
- The infamous “Ha, ha, ha” room: if you enter a certain door, the exit is replaced by giant letters “HA HA HA” on the wall. You are soft locked and have to reset the game. It feels like a literal developer troll. How the fuck did he get in that room?
- You can fall into the sewers from manhole covers and suddenly be dealing with snakes. MobyGames+1
- 4. Core Mechanics & Controls
- Basic move set
- D pad to move. Up/down for ladders, doors, alleys.
- B to punch, Up + B for a higher kick.
- A + B together to jump
- Gun handling
- Press A once to draw and aim the .44 Magnum, then press A again to fire. You can aim in multiple angles
- Ammo is limited enough that you never feel free to just blast. You are always counting bullets in the back of your mind, which sort of fits the character, but also makes the game more stressful.
- Things you only know if you played
- You can threaten enemies by pulling the gun without firing. It is not a system mechanic like a morality gauge, but it weirdly matches the fantasy of Harry pointing the Magnum first, shooting second
- Jumping and shooting do not mix. The game will punish any attempt to be a run and gun hero. You basically have to stop, aim, and accept that you might eat a knife while lining up a shot.
- 5. Enemies, Hazards, Weapons & Power Ups
- Standard enemies
Endless thugs that punch, shoot, throw dynamite, nets, or use bats. They respawn often, which makes traversal feel like grinding through the same guys over and over. MobyGames+1 - Weirder hazards
- Snakes in the sewer that crawl at your feet while you try to line up stiff jumps.
- Laser floors in building interiors, which feel more sci fi than cop movie.
- Harry’s arsenal
- Beyond the Magnum: rockets, harpoon, and remote controlled explosive cars. All of it feels wildly over the top for a street cop, more like James Bond.
- Health is refilled by eating hot dogs you find on the streets. I hope NOBODY and I MEAN NOBODY put ketchup on those hot dogs.
- Things you only know if you played
- Remote cars are finicky to control and easy to waste. You often blow them up on nothing, then immediately wish you had them for an actual cluster of enemies.
- Enemies sometimes appear right in your face when entering a room, so your “strategy” becomes punching people who spawn on you before they can chip your tiny life bar.
- 6. Difficulty, Cheap Shots & Fail States
- Cheapness
- Instant mistakes like falling into pits or sewers you did not see, entering the trap “Ha Ha Ha” room, or walking into rooms with enemies already mid attack.
- Hidden alternate ending
- If you play like a real cop and search all the streets thoroughly for contraband, you can trigger a different ending where the mayor rewards you. If you just beeline for the boss, you never see it. GameFAQs
- 7. Graphics, Sound & Movie Flavor
- Visuals
- Does that look like Clint Eastwood?
- Audio
- Starts with digitized “Go ahead, make my day” and also uses “Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” at the end of the game after you defeat the guy who looks like Kingpin. The samples are crunchy but it is cool fan service for the time. Wikipedia+1
- Composers Steven Samler and Elliot Delman are credited not just in game and manual, but on the back of the box, which is extremely rare for NES music. Wikipedia
- Password film references
- Infinite lives code CLYDE (Every Which Way But Loose), plus MISTY (Play Misty for Me), BIRD (Bird), and a dummy password GUNNY (Heartbreak Ridge). They are all Clint Eastwood nods, but not Dirty Harry movies, which feels like a subtle dev joke. Wikipedia
- “Does this game feel lucky? Let’s find out as we put Dirty Harry up against the ESSENTIAL GAMES LIST.”
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Dirty Harry, it's an all-out war of good versus bad. Go ahead, make your day.
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. Dirty Harry, forget the video game for a second. Let's talk about the films. Let's talk about the man who is Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood. What are your familiarities with this? I never saw one. Not one of them? Not one of them. Nope. Yeah, up until this, I think I had no exposure to Dirty Harry aside from the clips. And most of my exposure to Clint Eastwood was that gif of his character from Gran Torino kind of looking disapprovingly and sort of looking away.
Like how you would react to the kids doing something you don't approve of. Okay. Then I watched the movie like two nights ago and it's pretty good. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. So you watched the first one. The first one. Dirty Harry. Right, right. Dirty Harry. Yeah. Because there's a ton, obviously.
And not like a ton, I guess I shouldn't say, right? Like- Five is a lot. Five's a lot. But it's like nowadays a ton could be like Fast and the Furious 10, you know? Yeah. But that's- Double that. That's too much. Yes. That's way too much. But the first Dirty Harry wasn't directed by Clint.
And I believe, at least according to my box set thing that I have, he did go on to eventually become the director as well as the actor in the movie, in the movie series. So that's kind of a funny thing. And so my first exposure was not the original Dirty Harry. It was Sudden Impact, which is a Dirty Harry movie, even though it doesn't- See, back then you didn't need the subtitle to tell you the fucking movie you were watching. They would just call the movie Sudden Impact.
And you'd be watching it and you'd be like, wait, it's Dirty Harry? Oh, it's a Dirty Harry movie. Yeah. Yeah, right. You know? It's like you didn't need like Sudden Impact, a Dirty Harry movie. But is that really true? I mean, I feel like most other movies still had like the title, like Die Hard. And like you just thought like the title- I think it was definitely of the time. Like, you know, the sequel to Mad Max wasn't originally Mad Max 2. It was The Road Warrior. It was only retconned to being Mad Max 2 after the fact. Yeah, I guess you got like Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, yeah. And all that before they actually just changed them all to Star Wars. But it's kind of funny because so Dirty Harry is like 1971.
And so Clint's not too far away from the cowboy stuff that I feel like his career is like most known for. Right? Those spaghetti westerns. I definitely omitted my exposure to like, you know, couldn't bad me ugly. Stuff like that. Right, right. For me, Clint Eastwood is mostly just- It's just- What's his name? Marty McFly pretending to be Clint Eastwood in Back to the Future Part 3. Wonderful. Of course.
And yeah, so that trilogy, I think it's called the Man with No Name trilogy, right? I believe so. The spaghetti westerns, yeah. It's kind of interesting. They never reveal his name. He's just Clint Eastwood if you ask me. But obviously, like, I just don't think of it. It's kind of funny that the kind of character he was playing in the cowboy movies would have fucking hated cops.
But Dirty Harry's not that kind of cop. No, he's the loose cannon cop that doesn't play by the rules. Right, right. But he's also like maybe the original loose cannon cop who doesn't play by the rules.
Yeah, I think you're right. I couldn't- I can't say that. I'm not a historian. But this isn't like a- at this point in 1971, it's not like a well-established trope of like, I offend everybody and I'm just here to- of course I'm gonna kill that guy. He looks like he's raping that girl. But the law says it's like, you know, it's like now that's like a known thing in movies. But back then, it was kind of like novel of like, oh yeah, he's Dirty Harry because he plays dirty. Yeah. There were a lot more of like the hero, like the Captain America type. Like, I'm gonna do the right thing no matter what it is. You know what I'm about? Yes. Yeah. Follow the rules and, you know.
And to be fair to these movies, I mean, Sean, you could say about the first one, but like, I think that this is a very fun franchise to like kind of- like, obviously, it kind of gets worse as time goes on, just like any good franchise. But like, it's a fun watch and I think it's a- Dirty Harry is a fun character. Not necessarily like, oh, make sure he gets an 8-bit NES game, but like, as a film series, like, definitely holds up. Well, because the Dirty Harry movies were directed at like kids in the 80s, right? Like, that was their main audience. Yeah, yeah, for sure. They were like, definitely wanted to see how many seven-year-olds would grow up to become policemen.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm definitely going to continue watching these. I don't know how often I will, but I definitely got- I did not expect them to be as sort of- I don't know. I feel like they're pretty relevant today as well. And just to confirm, for you, Mike, he did direct Sudden Impact.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That that's the only one of the five. Yeah. Right, right, right. So that was part of my, like, I had my Blu-ray collection of Clint Eastwood directorial things because it was on sale for like 80% off. And I was like, sure, I don't know if I want to watch Invictus, but I'll watch some of this stuff. You don't have to justify why you bought this. Invictus. Okay. There was way worse stuff on there than Invictus for what it's worth. Yeah, exactly. But I'm actually surprised. And I, you know, I remember it being a reference in Zodiac.
But I don't remember this being about the Zodiac killer. Like, this is just some kind of, like, you know, after you've seen Zodiac, everything feels kind of like cartoony after the fact. But it's basically the same setup, except from the police point of view, of the, you know, the 2007 David Fincher classic. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Because it's even referenced in the film, right? Like, he's at the movie theater or something in Zodiac? Yeah, they go, yeah, they end up seeing, oh, they're already making movies about it. Like, yeah. Right. Another funny thing about this movie, which, by the way, even though the movie, the first movie is called Dirty Harry and the game is called Dirty Harry, they don't share a plot. No, nothing about it in the game. Yeah, nothing about them. They just both, obviously, lean on the iconic character. The movie also has, like, a small Mandela effect, where, like, that quote of the do you feel lucky punk, that's not what he says.
It's do I feel lucky? But he's not talking about himself. Yeah, you've got to ask yourself, right? So it's like, do you feel lucky is, like, a good way to, like, re-say the quote. Yeah. Right. Because do I feel lucky sounds like Clint's a gambling man. Well, I mean, I think. Whereas he's really challenging the gambling. They're really just, in this movie, just referencing the Google search option. So, I mean, however you say it, it's basically just. Feeling lucky. Yeah. You're just sort of, it's a remix of a remix.
Sean, that is a great idea. You know, Google always does, like, fun web pages for anniversaries or specific dates and stuff. You should pitch for, like, the 50th anniversary. Probably now it's past that. The 60th anniversary of Dirty Harry. It should have, like, when you press the I'm feeling lucky button, it has, like, a punk option. I wonder, do they already do that?
But you should pitch it anyway. They'll be like, yeah, we did it. Thank you. All right. On to the game. It's a side-scrolling action game where you play as Dirty Harry cleaning up San Francisco. You have to navigate a city. And I mean that for real. It's not, like, stage one, you're in the street. Stage two, you're in an alley. Stage three, you're in a building. You really have to navigate this little city that they have here.
And the basic plot of the game, as I understand it, anybody feel free to. I'm going to chime in and let me know if this isn't true. A Colombian kingpin called the Anaconda has basically created a few, like, he's gathered a few of the San Francisco drug gangs together.
And now Harry has to, like, go and take each one of them down individually first. And then it all leads up to this guy who calls himself the Anaconda as his, like, final showdown. Yeah. It's like, basically, he made a super gang. Yeah. You can't make super gangs. To commit super crimes. Which really, it really worked out because, like, this is, like, the worst city in America. Right. The super gangs won. The police have given up, right? It's just Harry now.
Yeah. There's no, like, assist. There should be assist characters. You should be able to call on the other departments to help you out. But instead, this is the kind of game where it's like, who starts a game like this? The level immediately starts. Three guys are beating you up. There's more on the way. You have to press A and B at the same time to jump. You fall into a manhole.
It's pitch black. Things are attacking you. Things are shocking you. And there's an invisible wall in the sewer. So you can't even progress further. You have to leave the manhole. So having not seen any Dirty Harry movie, I just assumed, based on this, that Dirty Harry was like a Mr. Bean-like. We're always getting into crazy situations. He gets caught in a net. He falls into a manhole. It's all dark. He's stumbling around.
That's just what happens in all these games. Like, they're always just like, oh, was there a scene where he went into the sewer and had to fight RC cars? I mean, I guess there were RC cars. I think was from one of the movies. They are from one of the movies, but they are not in the sewer, and they aren't something that will, like, take three points of health away from you.
There's snakes everywhere. Like, there's just... I don't... Like, was that in the movies, Mike? Was that in Magnum Force? Yeah, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also, like, laser floors.
Yeah, is this 007? So, Joe, if you didn't... Joe, if you didn't... Yeah, I was going to make that shot. If you didn't watch Dirty Harry, you might think he's also like a 007 kind of character. Like a spy, but he doesn't do that stuff. I mean, just from, like... Just from, like, knowing of Dirty Harry through, like, the culture of growing up, you know, in the time that I grew up in, I'm like, I don't think this is what happened in the movies.
But, you know, I couldn't know for sure until I get it confirmed from people who have seen it. I want to say the only thing that makes this character Dirty Harry, because the sprite is pretty nondescript. He could be... I thought, like, it's basically just, like, a more structurally human-like, like, double dragon character in a way.
I don't know. I don't know why I went there with it. But then there's also, like, you could get a... You can get, like, a white suit, which I don't... Again, I don't think Dirty Harry has.
I think the only thing that actually makes it him is the gun and the line at the beginning. Yeah. Well, and... But what a gun it is, though. I mean, this is cool. It is quite the gun. Yeah, I think this is one of the, like, cooler-looking, like, animations for shooting a gun in an NES game we've had, where, like, it looks very adult. It's just, like... It's just, like, a real gun. Like, you are killing someone one hit, no matter what, and he just, like, points it and fires it. There's not, like, a... There's not any, like, video game-y animation.
I don't know if that makes any sense. But, like, it feels like you can aim and fire, and it's, like, very swift and effective. Very masculine. It's the way that you also, like, you press A to draw the gun, and he just kind of, like, holds it out there. But then... Right, which is badass. Then you press A again to fire, you know? And it's, like, you can fire it at multiple angles, too.
So, I agree, especially because they're leaning into, you know, like, that line about the, you know, do you feel lucky, punk, and all that. It makes sense. They say it pretty often. Right, right. It makes sense. But here's the thing, just to go back to the beginning of the game. I don't want to recap everything I said, but there is some kind of cardinal sin about, like, a level starting immediately. Like, that's a jank feeling of, like, why am I just being, like, thrown into something that feels like it was already happening? But why are, like, two enemies literally punching you at the start? Like, are you waking up from something? Are you waking up from the previous game over?
Yeah, it's just, like, this is where, no, this is just, like, where you pick up the story. But, like, moments before was, like, exactly the same part of the story. They're just like, yeah, we'll start you here. Right, right. You could have just started a couple frames over to the left and just started beating them up instead, but they chose you to be in the middle of them. Yeah, if this was a more modern game, maybe it would start with a cutscene of, like, I don't know, something completely unrelated to Dirty Harry because he never got himself into these situations, like, all willy-nilly.
It really is strange. Like, you'd think that, like, if you wanted to at least even add to the fact that maybe this is the character that you remember from in the movies, maybe just have him leave a police station and walk out onto the street. Or is it really that important to immediately say to everyone, like, no, this is an action game. You're going to have to be really good at this. I don't know. It felt like a very strange decision. I agree. Getting around in the city, sometimes it's like, where the hell do I go? But it's because streets are not simple left to right side-scrolling levels. You can not only walk throughout the streets, but you can walk into alleys or through doors to side areas. You can go down into the sewers via the manholes.
It's easy. You can climb power lines. Right. It's easy to kind of get, like, lost in this larger, like, what's my objective? You know, like, you're kind of just exploring, but you don't have, like, a quest thing to be like, well, first you should go into this building and do this. Then you should go into this alleyway. You kind of just have to figure it all out. So while it is a pretty impressive city to walk around in for NES days, like, compared to, I guess, like, we've had some other ones where it's more, like, top down and you're driving around in a city and then you go to levels.
This feels okay, but it's the controls that make it so tough to get around that really, like, limit the amount of exploration you want to do before you're just like, okay, where the hell do I go? Yeah. What's impressive to me about it on paper is that it's not that top down style where you're used to sitting in other games. And it is a side scroller. It's like a beat them up side scroller, like any other one that we've played. But you can go into a bunch of the buildings and you can go into all the buildings. You hear that GTA?
But, like, you can go into all the buildings and you can, like, there is a city, but it's in a side scrolling style. And that is a really cool, like, design idea for me. And I love that idea for games. I just don't know if, like, each of the parts of this work together or, like, if it just gets kind of frustrating, actually, in practice. Or maybe it's just the way this game pulled it off.
The controls really are a mystery. And I think this, I'm going to answer this in two parts. I think that the bigger sin here is, at least specifically in this level, is the lack of direction. Because this is kind of, like, a, it's a huge riddle. You're supposed to, like, progress in this game. Like, are you supposed to go in the sewers? Is that, like, the end goal is to get to the bottom of the sewers? Or is there, like, a, or is there, like, a building you're supposed to gain access to? You end up figuring out that, yes, it's the sewers because you've pressed every other option.
And I guess, like, the main progression point there is to get, like, a flashlight. But, yeah, the controls are so strange, though, that I would say that, I know that, Mike, I know you don't like up as jump. I'm okay with up as jump. But even you, I think, can agree that up is better as jump than A and B. A hundred percent. Yes. You know what? I'm going to play Crazy Devil's Advocate here. I would have agreed with you when I read the manual of this and I saw A and B was jump. But in practice, in this game, I think I like it better than up. I don't think it's great, but I think up is just more annoying because I can't keep moving forward. Like, it's just not as fluid to me. Okay, Joe, then. But let me just, let me press you there, though.
Okay. Let's say that, like, okay, A and B is jump and you're okay with that. Now, do you think maybe up should be how you interact with people? Or should it be you jump like a weirdo in front of them and that's how you get any kind of, like, pickup from that person?
Because there's nothing weirder to me than, like, finding that room with the girl that gives you the extra lives past, like, the big dude that's bulletproof than having to, like, jump clear over her head and then land again. And that's how you, like, get the lives. It's so goofy. I mean, I don't feel like that's pressing me. I mean, I think that those can be, those are not, like, those are, like, very exclusive two different things where, like, I think A and B is better than up for me, but also what you just described is really stupid and I hate it.
So, like, I don't want both of those things to be true, but, like, I don't think A and B is ideal. But I just, it just didn't bother me as much as I thought when I read it in the manual. I was like, well, that's going to be awful. And then I kind of forgot about it. I got used to it pretty quickly. And even if the control isn't bad, we can agree that the jump itself is just bad. It's just a bad jump. It's very stiff.
Yeah. He's quite, he can gallop, though. He's a good jumper. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, great jumper from no momentum. And I assume he does a lot of acrobatics in the movie and stuff and he climbs and jumps. He does jump from a bridge onto a bus in the first movie. Oh, okay. Then you've got to be a good jumper for that. So that might be based on the movie.
We were talking about getting around in the city. And, you know, I guess in one way they're trying to encourage exploration. But they're really not because that door closes as soon as you enter the ha ha ha room. Did you guys come across this? I heard about it. Yeah. Thankfully, I didn't come across it. Okay. So this room, when you enter it from the door, you're just in a room where the letters ha ha ha are on the wall. And you're soft locked. You have to reset the game. Yeah. Can I do my essential games vote right now, actually? How the hell did he get in that room?
There's no more door? Like, what happened? Yeah. It's a one-time use. There's nothing off screen, you know? Like, if it's on screen, it says exit. And in real life, things will say exit in a place that you can see it.
I don't know. Fourth wall joke. I don't understand. Yeah, fourth wall joke that makes you have to reset your game and just start over. No, it's bad. It's very bad. I don't know what they were thinking. Why they think that this would be an acceptable way to treat the player. Like, it's actually insulting. And it's, like, far into that first level, too. It's not like... Like, if you got there, you made some progress that you lost there. I should go back to the jump, though, because the jump is important for two other things.
Jumping on snakes is how you kill them, just like in real life. That's true. If you want to take care of a snake, just jump on it. You jump on boxes, you jump on snakes. Jumping is also how you change clothes. Yep. Jump. You have to jump on the guy with the white clothes. Specifically in front of Michael Jackson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You jump on the guy with the white clothes, Michael Jackson, and then you become Michael Jackson as a result. But it's also, like, how you interact with other people in the game, too. Like, you just jump in front of them, and there's that woman.
Yeah, the girl in the red dress. That's how you get lives, I guess. Which I'll also, this is, every time you pick up an item by either jumping on a box or kicking a piece of furniture, which, again, I don't remember from the movie as being his main interaction with the environment, but it will just give you the briefest flash of the thing that you supposedly picked up. You're supposed to kind of just understand. Like, sometimes you'll know, oh, that was a crowbar, but then there's just other shapes.
I don't know. Yeah, and there's, like, there aren't all bad ideas. Like, I feel like we're talking a lot about the funny things, but, like, there was that interesting bodyguard thing, even though they won't tell you in the game what you need to do. He's, like, the bouncer who will attack you, and you can't attack him if you're trying to get through the door until you change suits, and then it's like, oh, right this way, come through. I'm not saying that's genius, right? But, like, that is at least, like, they have the idea of gating progress besides just being, like, the door's locked. Go find the key. I did not realize that it was my clothes that made that happen. I thought that I just, I thought I jumped past him in the right way.
But I guess I had the suit on at that point, and I just, I tricked myself. Before we move on, one other thing about just the controls and Harry. So, he's able to draw the gun, but not shoot it. And that, we talked about how that looks cool and all. Shouldn't he have been able to, like, shouldn't there have been, like, something where he can threaten, or the enemies could feel threatened by just him drawing the gun and kind of, like, nope out of the situation? Like, wouldn't that have been interesting?
That would have been more Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry? Right, you know? Like, he's more, like, in your face. Like, is this guy really going to shoot me? He's a cop. He shouldn't shoot me, but he looks kind of crazy. Maybe he will. But they don't give a shit. Like, they're just, like, coming at you. Yeah, I mean, was this game, I mean, not to get ahead of whatever, like, developer notes, but was this game designed to be a Dirty Harry game? Or was this just a game that didn't have anything to do with Dirty Harry? I think that it definitely was.
It had to have been. There's too many, like, just Clint Eastwood references and everything. Well, yeah, but I mean, like, originally, like, you know, they just slapped that stuff in at the end after they were like, all right, yeah, let's just make it Clint Eastwood. Let's make it. To the best of my knowledge, this was always a Dirty Harry game.
Well, then, weird decisions. Yeah. Weird decisions all around because, keep in mind, the Dirty Harry series ended in 1988. So it's not, like, it's not gone, like, real old news or whatever, but there's not, like, in promotion of some new movie. Yeah, but all things considered, it's this being, like, ending in 1988 is, like, that's, like, pretty good compared to, like, half the other games. Like, that's just happening right now. Like, we've had games that were, like, from properties from, like, the 60s only. Yeah, this isn't, like, three stooges in Jaws. Like, this is much more in vogue than I expected it to be.
I didn't realize that it was up to 1988, actually. That's pretty recent. Yeah, you think about 71 to 88, but it's five films. So it's, like, they really knew how to draw them out back then. And going through, probably, like, I'm just going to skip through, like, most of the rest of this game.
Harry's arsenal expands. Obviously, we get more enemies and everything. We go to two different stages. We have the docks, and we have Alcatraz Island as our final stages. So there's only three stages, and the game does make that clear. They just don't make it clear, like, how big those things are. They make it seem like it's just level one, level two, level three. But they ask you for that when you start the game. Do you want to, like, do you put in a password for level two or three? And you're kind of like, only three levels? Like, that's kind of interesting.
Level one is pretty huge, though. But, like, you think that with the whole sort of, I guess, the big city. Like, the big, like, complex city arrangement. You expect that to be the norm. And it really isn't that. Like, the city is only, like, half of level one. And then the other, I want to say, like, 55% of it is in the sewers, which is much less fun and much less interesting. I mean, not to say that the city was perfect execution on everything. But at least, like, it felt more like an interesting environment to explore.
Whereas the sewers are just, you know, another video game sewer. I don't know. But does it ever feel like the stakes are getting larger as the game goes on? As you're taking down this larger super gang that we discussed? You do have access to some pretty cool stuff as the game goes on. You get the, there's rockets. There's a harpoon. And the RC cars.
Yes, the RC cars. No better way to raise the stakes. Yeah. The RC explosive cars, keep in mind. It's like, did he go to queue for those? Like, what's happening? Health, though, is refilled by eating hot dogs that you find on the streets. And I hope nobody, and I mean nobody, put ketchup on those hot dogs.
Okay. Is this, are you trying to make a statement right now? Like, it's a reference from the film. Wait, from the first one? I don't actually know if it's from the first one. I can't say. I just know he does indeed eat a hot dog in the first movie. He, he, he has, there are hot dog references, but the one I think specifically that they're going for is he sees another police officer eating a hot dog. And he says, nobody, and I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog.
Well, that's one thing that me and Clint disagree because. It's also, yeah. I mean, cause like I've, I've really never heard of ketchup on a hot dog. It is a weird thing. What are you talking about?
Ketchup on a hot dog? I've never heard of ketchup on a hot dog. You're just, you're really, you really just fuck with me right now. Yeah, of course I'm fucking with you. Of course I've heard of ketchup on a hot dog.
Um, but I have heard the opinion only mustard on a hot dog, which I think is a, is a little like a little bit of a hot take. And personally, if you only got, if you only got mustard, I'm okay with having only mustard on a hot dog. Uh, yeah, sure. I like it, but also there's nothing wrong with ketchup on a hot dog. I am sorry to say that it took me 32 years.
I am 33 years old. So I found out last year that ketchup is like the lowest of the lows on a hot dog. Like there are so many better things. Like I will, I almost never put ketchup on a hot dog now. It's like, I, if there's only ketchup, I'll do it. But I have like so many other options before I go to. Well, yeah, but most of the other things I put on it go with ketchup. I would put ketchup, mustard.
You know, I would put Cram Rangoon on there before I put, before I put ketchup back on. Oh, just like cream cheese on your hot dog. No, I never said cream cheese. Get the Cram Rangoon has cream cheese in it. Right, but there's, but there's other ingredients. You said it, Mike. Right, that's true. But there's other ingredients. It wasn't implied.
There still is cream cheese on your hot dog. You know, what's actually a really good thing for a hot dog? And you guys are going to probably say that this isn't a problem and you're just going to agree. So I don't know why I'm making it a big deal, but it's really, really good. It's really good to put a sliced pickle in the hot dog bun with your hot dog. Yeah, welcome to the 21st century, Mike. Yeah, that's like, it's just as normal as putting ketchup on a hot dog.
I didn't know about like the sliced pickle. I know about relish, obviously, but I'm talking about like just a nice sliced pickle. Yeah. Do you guys know of Piccolilly or is it? Well, Sean, you might. It's like a Western New York thing, maybe, or maybe it's outside of Western New York, but I feel like it might be a local thing. I don't know about Piccolilly. It's like a hot, pickly, peppery relish, but it's just the perfect combination. That's my favorite thing on a hot dog. Oh, I've definitely had that. I don't remember the brand name, though. But yeah, it's good. It's good.
I feel like, you know, the full dill pickle is more of like a Chicago thing, but I think we just all accepted it in the last 10 years, you know? Yeah. It's kind of like the chili dog thing, too. At first, I was like, well, that's just a mess. But then I like, you have one, and you're like, well, this is fucking delicious.
It is a mess, though. It can be both. Nobody puts ketchup on a hot dog happened in Sudden Impact, so that's why I remember it. That was the one that Clint directed. So clearly, Clint feels very strongly about the anti-ketchup measures. Oh, yeah, about a lot of things. Does he? You want to get into that? No. Okay. Coming up. Coming up next. Are we doing part two of the episode? To be continued in the next Dirty Harry movie.
No. So at the end of the game, the anaconda guy, like, and I'm, am I the only person that thinks he looks like Kingpin? You know, you're the only one that got here, so just to scrap him to us. Yeah. I'm frantically scrubbing the YouTube video to the end of the game right now so I can act like I know what you're talking about. I could barely get out of the first level, Mike. He's absolutely gigantic. Dick wears that white suit with the white shoes, has a big gun. He's bald. It's like we just saw this sprite in the Punisher. Really? Oh, wow. I see it. Yeah. This is Kingpin. Yeah. So I just think that's funny.
And then after that, that's when you get the other infamous quote. The first one is, go ahead, make my day at the beginning of the game. And then there's another digitized, do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? The first one is, I think, is the first one. Right before the end of the game. So they got both in there.
And that's pretty cool. They should have, honestly, if they could get those two, they should have got more. They should have had the ketchup on a hot dog line digitized. The whole movie. Why not? Why stop there? This is a 32 cartridge melodrama. The whole movie.
The composers of the game, Stephen Samler and Elliot Delmon, are credited, and this is why I listed them, not just in the game or on the manual. They're on the back of the box. When have you ever seen a composer get that kind of like, who are they?
Well, one thing I was going to note, and I'm not even saying that I like the music, because I think a lot of the music is just sort of cacophonous and not really that interesting. But there's a lot of music. Like, I feel like there's different variations of each track based on how, at least in level one. I'll say this because that's my most exposure. But there's like different variations of the same track depending on like how far into the level you are.
I might be wrong. There's a lot of resetting of the music. So whether you go like into a building or if you're just outside. So maybe that isn't the case. And I was just tricking myself. But it seems like there was more like of a connection between progress and what track you're listening to. But I could be hallucinating.
And then for the password screen, there are a lot of fun passwords that you can put in that are references to other Clint Eastwood movies that will give you different rewards. If you put in Clyde, which was his character in Every Which Way But Loose, you get the Infinite Lives code.
I think that there was Misty. Play Misty for me. That gets to level two, right? Yep. Is there one that's a reference to Space Cowboys? There is no reference to Space Cowboys. But I have it on Blu-ray. Thanks to playing that box set. You got the classics Invictus in Space Cowboys. Yep. And Jay Edgar. A movie I fell asleep like seven times trying to watch in film class. Love it. Well, I guess it's time to find out whether this game feels lucky. Let's find out as we put Dirty Harry up against the Essential Games list.
I know what you're thinking. He voted no the last five, maybe six games. Maybe he's out. Maybe he's not going to vote no again. I ask you, do you feel lucky? Do you, punk? You shouldn't because I'm obviously putting this no.
This game can't go on the Essential Games list. There's so much wrong with it. It's really fun to talk about. And I don't even know how much we talked about it. Probably talked more about hot dogs. But I think that this game hit all sorts of frustration points where I basically had to play the game in an emulator with cheats activated to just basically take infinite hits so that I could explore the freaking thing. I feel like if you want to commit enough time to learn it, probably not that bad. But why? There's so many games that control better than this. This is a mess. Sean? Much like a Texas Red Hot with chili and cheese on it. Sorry, this is not a hot dog episode.
This is Dirty Harry. Yeah, I still don't think there's, aside from the beginning sound clip and the way that he holds his gun, I guess. There really isn't a lot of Dirty Harry here, at least from watching the one movies. And I think if we're talking about inexplicable video game adaptations of movies that probably don't need an NES game. Because this is a kid's system that has a very rated R game or movie port happening right now. I don't know. I don't know why the game was made. It didn't really feel very Dirty Harry. It didn't really feel like an action video game. The controls are so inexplicable as to, like, just, you could have an entire podcast about that. It's not essential. I did not capture Anaconda. I did not save San Francisco.
But, hey, you know, the more you can talk about hot dogs, the better. Joe? Well, this was definitely going on my essential gun points list, where the way he points his gun is probably the best of any that we've played or that we've seen on the NES.
But outside of that, I didn't find too much to be impressed with with this game. I think you guys kind of said it all. It was a little bit of a slog for me to try and even get through the first level, which shockingly takes up, like, two-thirds of the game. And then there's only two more levels left. Kind of weird. But, yeah. Did not have a good time with this. Did not control super well.
And one thing we didn't talk about, there's, like, no heads-up display at all. You have to, like, keep pausing the game. Cinematic, Joe. And all that. It's cinematic. Yeah, I guess it is, like, it really is very immersive that way. But, yeah, just another little annoyance to add to the many others. Not essential for Joe.
I feel like the game needed more, like, morally gray objectives. You know, like, just things that, like, are badass to do, but you're like, huh, he's kind of a piece of shit for doing that. You know? He should be more confused after however many years on the force that, like, all these things that he did completely excludes all of that from evidence. Yeah, or- Like, he should know less about the idea of due process. Right. Having worked that long. Or just even the idea that, like, he did five films worth of work and it led to the creation of a super gang. Like, maybe he should stand down. Like, whatever he's doing isn't fucking working.
You got me there.
Well, before we go, I know we talked a lot about, uh, catch-up this game, but, uh, I've been trying to catch up on my, on my missed games in the past. And, uh, I know it's been, uh, several weeks since I, I did this the first time where I, I revisited some games that I missed. But, uh, I did not forget. I, this week played, um, Mighty Bomb Jack. Do you guys remember this game? Mighty Bomb Jack? That is a very old one. Of course I do. Uh, all right. Sean remembers it. Confirmed. And I'll ask for more evidence than that. Yeah, why don't you- Why don't you describe your experience with it? I'm so, I'm so interested.
To remind you in case you have some gray areas in your memory, Sean, uh, you're playing as this little, like, superhero-looking character, this little caped, masked guy. That jumps really, really high and collects bombs.
Um, and- It does do that. And your, your whole, like, the whole level is kind of collecting bombs and opening chests by jumping on them, like, and jumping off of them. But you get all these little power-ups and, uh, it's, it's, in my opinion, I think it's a pretty charming arcade experience where, um, I, I think, like, the, the jump is a little off-putting at first because you, you cannot control the height of your jump. You're just gonna jump, like, basically to the top of the screen. You're pretty small, Sprite 2, every time you jump.
But after a while, it's like, oh, this is kind of unique and, uh, make, you know, kind of puts Jumpman to shame because of, uh, of how much he jumps. But there's some interesting quirks about it that I don't know if you guys remember that I, I, I found, I found kind of neat. One being that, uh, there are these rooms at the end of each level. Instead of a boss, you, you, you jump through these levels and then you go to a room where you have to collect a bunch of bombs in a space where, like, you have no attack in this whole game.
You have to collect a bunch of bombs in a space with a bunch of enemies and all, you have to just, your whole name of the game is dodging the enemies. If you die, you go back to the beginning of the whole level, not just this room you're in, but, like, the whole level. But if you collect the bombs in a certain order, you skip the entire next level.
So there's, like, this really high risk, high reward element to it that I found kind of interesting. Is this ringing any bells to- It is, but I can't remember how you figure out the order. Do you? So you, you select the first bomb and then based on which first bomb you picked, another bomb starts, uh, sparking. Like, the, the, the wick starts going off. And you want to follow that one. Now I say, oh yeah, not as somebody that remembers, but as someone that's currently watching it happen. Okay, yes. But now you remember the video you're watching.
Yes, yes. Um, but I thought that was, like, a really, like, we'd never seen anything like that where it's like, yeah, you can just skip a whole, whole level. And I, I didn't experiment enough with it, but it feels like you can, like, chain this together and skip, like, most of the game or a lot of the game if you keep doing this properly. Um, which is, like, a little bit of a ballsy thing for a developer to do, but, uh, I mean, I guess Mario does that too. Yeah, Mario did it. Yeah, you used to skip, yeah, your whole game.
Um. Now what I'm interested in, uh, Joe, is that this is, this is an episode that you missed in our 1987 season. Yeah. It's funny because when I was mentioning this to Mike earlier too, he was surprised at that too because that was so long ago. But the first three episodes, the first three, um, games that I replayed, you know, several weeks ago were all from before this game. Wow. Those felt so much more recent. I am right. Um, but this game also just feels like a 1987 game.
Yeah. You know, and, and last week we played, it's funny because last week, um, when we played Digger T Rock, um, that kind of felt like one of these games. Like, it felt like a game that we were too, we were too far ahead of. Or, you know, like that, like we've, it felt like we got past that style of game, which this kind of feels like it's in the same vein, even though it's like totally opposite where you, this is all about jumping in height where the other one was about digging.
Um, but, you know, I don't think I would have voted this essential, but I, it stands out to me. Um, one other interesting thing that I noticed is that if you, you know, you get all these coins that you can then like use as power-ups that give you like these kind of lackluster powers, but, um, there's a few powers you can cycle through. But if you get too many of the coin power-ups, you get like a message that says too greedy to the torture chamber and you die.
Or like, I remember you die or you get punished though. Um, kind of, kind of a strange decision. Wow, so that's, uh, it, I feel like this is on the same, this is in the same vein as the ha-ha-ha room in a way. Yeah, like you couldn't know this was coming. Yeah, what are you doing playing a game if we're not going to try and do that? Yeah, exactly. And now that I'm thinking, I'm not sure that you actually die, but something that you could hurt, you know, you lose a life or something. I much prefer the simplicity of games like Mighty Bomb Jack where it's like, you very clearly just have to do like a specific thing in a room with specific controls, whether they're good or not. Like those are the controls.
And, and then you just keep doing that stage after stage after stage. Like it's, like you said, it's clearly 1987. Like they needed to move on from this kind of thing by 1990. But we're seeing a lot more like failed games as a result because the develop, the developers just aren't there yet. You know, whereas like this kind of thing is, it was like more achievable because arcade games had been around for seven plus years by that point. Right. But yeah, that's, you know, I just wanted to share my progress and trying to slowly catch up with all the games I missed so that by the end of this, I will also, along with you guys, have played every NES game released in North America. Tease what's next. Let me look.
All right. So next time in the next couple of times, because I don't know how many I'll play per episode is kind of just depends. But I'll be playing Ring King next, followed by Rad Racer and Cobra Command. Oh, yeah. It's funny because all three of those sound like games that I feel like I played, but I must just remember not being on those episodes.
And some of them I might play and find out, oh, I did play and then like something came up and I couldn't make the recording. But most of them I probably didn't play. I remember Rad Racer. What are your thoughts? Spoil it for me. No, you wouldn't like me to say that. You should probably play by yourself. But it looked better than most racing games back then. Yeah, get the 3D glasses, Joe. I'll pull them out of my drawer. Move out of my drawer.
