Rush'n Attack

I'm finishing the month of January with the Nintendo Entertainment System by playing the run and gun Rush'n Attack.  Developed and published by Konami, Rush'n Attack was released on the Nintendo in April 1987.  While the game is technically a run and gun game, you don't actually get to use a gun (there is a bazooka you can grab) as you use mostly your knife. 

The game is based in the Cold War (the name itself is a play on Russian Attack) and you take the spot of a green beret who is sent into enemy bases to destroy their secret weapon.  You start off each level by jumping out of a plane and parachuting to the base.  It's that simple, you just drop in and start running through with your knife. 

So the enemies themselves are not that different, there are three different types of enemies in the first level: the green soldier, the yellow soldier and the red soldier.  None are all too complicated, they just do their best to out number you and catch you off guard.  The green soldier just runs at you from either in front or behind you, straight at you without jumping or anything.  They just love to take your knife to the face.  The yellow soldiers are a bit smarter, they start lying down, then jump up as you get close and try and run into you.  They're specialty is dying and giving you the bazooka.  The red soldiers are the most dangerous as they jump kick at you as they approach, making them the most difficult to not be defeated by. 

So moving onto the actual level: it, as well, is very straight forwards.  You run across a section with some ladders to climb onto a higher platform and continue until the platform ends.  And then you continue running.  You jump over a few landmines and then get to a second section with an upper level.  The second upper level is a group of missile trucks and you race across the missiles up top until you get to the "boss". 

Now the boss of the first level isn't much of an actual boss, but more of a trap.  As you reach the final section, an alarm goes off and a bunch of red soldiers swarm the screen charging at you, about four at a time.  There are only four groups of them, so the optimum strategy is to use the bazooka and blast as they enter the screen and take them all down.  That being said, if you wasted bazooka shots before then or have a trigger finger then you can try to stab them all, it's not too difficult.  So after defeating them, you finish the level and climb the fence to escape to the second level. 

And so I've played another game and finished another day and finished my first month of games.  It's been 31 days and I'm sort of amazed I've kept it up this long, but it's been fun.  Tomorrow February starts, so I'll be playing another system, moving upwards and onwards.  I'll definently have to come back to the NES before the end of the year (I haven't even played some of my favorite games yet) but I'll start playing some more recent games soon.  Adios for today though.