My retro game

We were asked on Thursday to think of a retro game to review for a 1500 word essay. At first I thought of bomberman and liked the idea of reviewing one of the classic games, i played it again on the internet and loved it. I then saw the 1984 version was nothing like the popular 1987 version which made the game so popular. With this in mind I set out to find an new game to review, there were so many possibilities such as excite bike, duck hunt and the likes, however I picked one of my all time favourite retro games which is still good enough to make it into Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros Brawl which shows it still has some significance in the world of gaming.

This game is Ice Climber which features two characters Popo the boy Eskimo wearing a blue parka and the girl Eskimo wearing a pink parka called Nana. You play as Popo unless you pick 2 players in which case the 2^nd player gets to be Nana. This game has been around since 1984 when it was part of the Nintendo Arcade vs. series. It then got released on the NES/Famicom in January of 1985.

The game’s objective was to reach the top of the ice tower and collect the eggplants or other fruit once you get to the end and then try to get picked up buy the bird flying around right at the top. You had to hit spaces in the ice layer above you so you could jump onto that line and there were usually 6-8 layers. There was also various enemies which harmed you and took away one of your original three lives, these could be destroyed with the famous hammer, Popo and Nana carry. This was the only way to lose a life there is another way to end the level without reaching the ultimate top though, once the bonus stage at the top of the mountain has been reached you can jump up to the top on non-breakable platforms and floating clouds and if you fell and missed one of the plaforms the level would end and the next mountain would load up.

Popo and Nana are still big in terms of Nintendo whether it being that they were made up by the legend Shigeru Miyamoto or just the nature of the game but they made it into the latest release of the Super Smash Bros. This was released on wii. The Characters came in a pair so you could only pick them both together and they used the hammer to attack opponents. When i personally played the game i preferred to play as them due to the fact there was twice the power and i just remember them from the original game.  Well Ice Climber is the game i have chosen and i hope to write in a lot more depth about it in the future and for the essay itself as for now thanks for reading.