Recommend some good Tengen NES titles to me!

[DigitalSpace]

My "Titles of Tengen" column at Retrogaming Times Monthly will be making a comeback in the November issue as the prototype of Xybots has been drifting around for awhile.

Interesting. I'll be looking forward to it!

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

The only grey cartridge version of tengen tetris that exists is a prototype of it.
nintendo produced the cartrdiges in house so theres no way copies of grey tetris could have made it out since the game never made it through licenecing from them.

Thanks. Must have been a black cart version then (obviously).

[kainemaxwell]

My "Titles of Tengen" column at Retrogaming Times Monthly will be making a comeback in the November issue as the prototype of Xybots has been drifting around for awhile.

Sweet. Since I currently have all the unlicensed Tengen titles I'll have to take a look!

Off the top of my head, the ones I play most are:
Pac-Mania
Ms. Pac-Man
Rolling Thunder
Klax
Tetris

[josekortez]

Call me crazy, but I vote for Alien Syndrome.

[InsaneDavid]

Call me crazy, but I vote for Alien Syndrome.

You're crazy. But Alien Syndrome is still far better than Skull & Crossbones.

[Thrillo]

I'm currently making my way through Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It played it quite a bit when I was a kid, but I never had a serious urge to beat it until now. It's a pretty solid game: it has decent graphics with a unique 3Dish view, unobtrusive music straight from the movie, a nice serving of DPCM sound effects, flexible controls once you figure 'em out, and thrilling, open-ended gameplay.

And now that I think about it, it's as close to GTA as we'll ever get on a NES. What other NES game encourages you to explore big open levels, allows you to repeatedly beat up (whip) anyone you see and kill them if you want, enables you to literally hijack vehicles (minecarts) from unsuspecting people and drive or crash them at dangerous speeds, requires you to collect/use plenty of guns and bombs to pass levels and if you so feel like it to use them for random killing sprees, allows you to perform driveby shootings in a vehicle (minecart) for no good reason but fun, lets you perform silly vehicle tricks (ie. jump out of a speeding cart before it crashes into a victim), or just play the game properly? NES fans who like GTA will love this game .

Now for the bad part: wave 9 almost feels bugged since crossing the gigantic lava pit successfully is literally a matter of luck, and wave 10 was programmed by a sadist. You almost require a map to pass it (which you piece together throughout the game) seeing as how it's a total maze, and you can only see your map once . Luckily, modern technology takes care of that; you gotta love digital cameras . But even then, it's extremely unforgiving and it is quite easy to get stuck in an area. But don't let it scare you away, there's faqs for it if you feel like giving up.

Oh, and it's available on grey and black carts...you can choose between the professional official feel, or the rebel pirate feel .

[InsaneDavid]

I'm currently making my way through Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It played it quite a bit when I was a kid, but I never had a serious urge to beat it until now. It's a pretty solid game: it has decent graphics with a unique 3Dish view, unobtrusive music straight from the movie, a nice serving of DPCM sound effects, flexible controls once you figure 'em out, and thrilling, open-ended gameplay.

And now that I think about it, it's as close to GTA as we'll ever get on a NES. What other NES game encourages you to explore big open levels, allows you to repeatedly beat up (whip) anyone you see and kill them if you want, enables you to literally hijack vehicles (minecarts) from unsuspecting people and drive or crash them at dangerous speeds, requires you to collect/use plenty of guns and bombs to pass levels and if you so feel like it to use them for random killing sprees, allows you to perform driveby shootings in a vehicle (minecart) for no good reason but fun, lets you perform silly vehicle tricks (ie. jump out of a speeding cart before it crashes into a victim), or just play the game properly? NES fans who like GTA will love this game .

You have to be freaking kidding me. The game is HORRIBLE and even worse when you compare it to the arcade game that it was supposed to be a port of.

Oh, and it's available on grey and black carts...you can choose between the professional official feel, or the rebel pirate feel .

The standard grey licensed version was NOT published by Tengen but instead through Mindscape. Same game, yes, but it doesn't count as a licensed Tengen release.

[sav127]

I'm a moderate fan of the Tengen Black carts, as I have about 8 of them.

I like

Super Sprint
Ms. Pac Man
Rbi Baseball 2 (Amazing Game)
Rbi Baseball (great because it has the 86' Mets)
Vindicators

[ubersaurus]

Pac-mania was always my favorite Tengen release. Gauntlet and Klax were pretty awesome too, but Pac-Mania is the one I always go back to first.

[Thrillo]

You have to be freaking kidding me. The game is HORRIBLE and even worse when you compare it to the arcade game that it was supposed to be a port of.

The standard grey licensed version was NOT published by Tengen but instead through Mindscape. Same game, yes, but it doesn't count as a licensed Tengen release.

I don't see how the game is horrible: I'll admit that some parts of it are simplistic, and that it doesn't pull off wonders with the hardware, but the gameplay is good in my eyes. As for being a poor port, well, IIRC the arcade game had odd diagonal viewing angles, which is always a pain to pull off on '80s consoles. They had to adapt to hardware limitations, and I feel that Tengen did it well. I say it's a much better choice than simply recreating it as a generic sidescrolling platformer, which so many TV and movie licensed games were like in those days.

I forgot that the grey cart was published by Mindscape. The title screen indicates that it was developed by Tengen, so I count it as a Tengen game. And you can still play the game on either a grey cart or a black cart...