Smash buildings, eat people, and punch helicopters as one of two giant monsters in this NES version of the arcade classic. (Ralph the giant wolf wasn't in the NES version.) I used to love this game—before I ever had a PlayStation or N64 to play the remake, this was all I had, and I treasured it.

It might not have captured the full arcade mayhem of the original or the remake, but it still gave me hours of joy. While probably not my *earliest* NES memory, Rampage was one of the very first games I actually owned myself (since the NES was a “family shared” system in our household.)

A slick, jungle-soaked shooter-platformer where you play a special agent fighting a South American drug syndicate. While the game could be obnoxiously frustrating—with enemies popping out of doors, one-hit deaths, and brutal jumps—it was surprisingly advanced for its time. You could enter rooms to find hostages, grab intel, score power-ups, or different classes of firearms you could select, adding a layer of exploration that most shooters didn’t have.

With tight controls, solid graphics, and a darker tone, it stood out as a gritty little gem in the NES action library… even if it made you want to snap your controller in half.

A rare gem in the NES library, The Punisher was basically the closest thing the system ever had to a first-person shooter—even though it was technically an over-the-shoulder gallery shooter. You played as Frank Castle, mowing down endless waves of criminals in gritty urban settings. Despite the lack of blood, it’s honestly surprising this game made it past Nintendo’s strict anti-violence, pro-family policies at the time.

For an NES title, it was amazing: responsive aiming, a moody comic-book style, and even hidden bonus items you could find by destroying scenery like windows, barrels, and crates. The action was intense, the boss fights were satisfying, and the feeling of being the Punisher on an 8-bit rampage was unmatched. It even had different items, from dual MAC-10s to an M16 and grenades.

Operation Wolf on NES is a clunky, watered-down port of the explosive arcade shooter. The original had you blasting enemies with a mounted Uzi—loud, fast, and awesome.

Now imagine being a kid who loved the arcade version, finding out it’s on NES, getting hyped… and then realizing the port is garbage. Ugly graphics, sluggish controls, no thrill. But hey—you owned it. So you played it to death, because that’s what you had.

It wasn’t good, but it was yours. And yeah… that was my childhood experience with this game.

Rush’n Attack looked like a cool action shooter—military theme, explosions, badass title. As a kid, you popped it in expecting guns blazing mayhem.

Instead? You got a boring side-scrolling stab-fest. No real shooting, just awkward knife-jabbing while desperately trying to avoid swarms of enemies. It felt more like a punishment than a game. You were tricked. Screwed, even.

It pissed me off back then, and honestly? It poisoned platformers for me ever since. I barely played it—and never looked back.

The NES port of Cabal actually holds up better than Operation Wolf—which isn’t saying much, but hey, credit where it’s due. It kept the basic arcade feel: dodge, roll, and shoot everything in sight with your little Rambo-looking guy.

Problem was, it felt kind of awkward. The controls were stiff, aiming was clumsy, and everything moved just a little too weird. It played a lot like The Punisher on NES—same over-the-shoulder shootout vibe—but somehow Cabal felt even more janky.

It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t exactly fun either. A solid “meh” with a side of finger cramps. But hey, at least I didn't have to play it with a weird palm-rolling ball like in the arcade version. (There's two versions: one with the shitty ball you roll in your palm for controls and one with dual joysticks. I've never encountered the joystick one in the wild.)

I’ve never played the arcade version of Jackal, so the NES version was all I knew. It was okay to play with two people if you had nothing else to do—grab a buddy, blow stuff up, pass some time.

But alone? It was just a bullet hell nightmare.

Enemies came from everywhere, your jeep was constantly under fire, and I died a lot. It got frustrating fast, and the fun wore off even faster. Cool idea, but without a second player, it was mostly just pain and cursing.

Commando on NES was basically a low-res version of the arcade game—crappier graphics, sure, but surprisingly accurate overall. You walk forward, shoot everything that moves, and chuck grenades like candy at a parade.

That’s about it.

It was simple, fast-paced, and full of bullets flying everywhere. A classic bullet hell with no frills and no real depth. Not bad if you were in the mood for mindless action, but it didn’t offer much beyond that.

The 1988 RoboCop game on NES was actually… pretty okay. For a movie tie-in game, that’s saying something.

It had decent graphics for the time, solid music, and a nice variety of enemies. You slowly stomped through levels, punched bad guys, shot thugs, and took out ED-209s like a boss. The controls were a bit stiff—just like RoboCop himself—but it kinda worked.

It wasn’t amazing, but compared to most licensed games back then? It was a pleasant surprise. Not great, not awful—just a solid, playable slice of 8-bit justice. Plus, if you were a Game Genie using cheating little shit, you could just do infinite ammo for the Cobra and blast through the whole game.

Spelunker on NES was a weird little game. You could jump, climb ropes, explore caves—it seemed like standard platformer fare… until you fell two inches and died instantly. Seriously, trip over a rock and your guy dies.

And then there’s the weapon. It made machine gun sounds, looked like it had muzzle flash, but apparently—according to the manual—it’s called a “phantom blaster.” What?

The whole thing felt like a fever dream of slippery controls and unforgiving physics. Confusing, frustrating, but somehow still kinda memorable in its own cursed way.