So many exclamation marks, and yet, I ask why.
PLAYERS: 1
PUBLISHER: LJN
DEVELOPER: Sanritsu
GENRE: Light Gun
RELEASE DATE: November 1987
With a name like Gotcha! and a cover that reeks of failed hopes and dreams, I expected little to nothing from this game. A bunch of grown men playing a hybrid of capture-the-flag and paintball in the woods? I would love to do this in real life, but it sounds like it would be an awful, potentially hilarious gaming mess. Well, shock the monkey: despite its brevity and the relative ease with which the game is completed, Gotcha! stands out from the other Zapper games by offering you more control. Instead of automatically scrolling levels, you must manually scroll the level along with the D-pad, while shooting guys that pop out of random places along the way. It’s surprising what a large difference this makes. The game gives you complete control to go back and forth across the level as you see fit. Granted, you’re going to want to move forward as quickly as possible, due to the time limit. The whole goal is to capture the other team’s flag, then move back to the other side of the screen before time runs out. One can get bogged down in shooting every person that runs on screen, so it’s better to just shoot the guys who aim their weapons at you or guys who carry ammo. Unfortunately, there are only three levels – a forest level, a city level, and a snow level – and while the levels repeat, it still feels like the game is over far too fast. There are three difficulty levels, but even the hardest difficulty is only mildly challenging. If Gotcha! would have accelerated the difficulty across each level, added at least seven more stages, and thrown a couple bosses in the mix, this could be one of the quintessential Zapper games. The fun that’s had in Gotcha! is only eclipsed by the potential that was lost. Shame.
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4 replies on “#266 – Gotcha! – The Sport!”
Haha 🙂 Nice cover and caption for it. This game was fun, at least – I recall it being fun from when I was a kid. The biggest disappointment was realizing that there were only 4 levels if I recall correctly. With the whole capture the flag aspect, it actually felt a bit more involved than a lot of the zapper games from the old NES, even if it was just scrolling from left-to-right and back again once you shot the flag.
My brother and a friend played until level 98 or so and I will forever be blamed for ruining their streak by dying mid-game while they were away. Seemed like a fun game for a few levels, but got very repetitive.
This, to me, is one of those random NES games you find in a Bargain Bin at some used-game store and buy it out of curiosity more than anything else, then…Never play it, despite owning it for more than three years (Yes, I’m talking about myself here lol). However, it’s good to see that the game isn’t the mound of cow dung many ‘unpopular’/obscure NES games often turn out to be. Also, Dylan, just so you know, Public Enemy wasn’t ‘gangster’ or a ‘gangster-rap’ group–They were a politically-charged, hard-hitting Hip-Hop group (Or, in other words, the complete opposite of ALL Mainstream rap music since the ’90s [Minus Flavor Flav, of course]). A simple Google or Wikipedia search could’ve told you that. Anyway, nice review.
@Anonymous:
Yeah, Gotcha! is a random game, worthy of bargain bin status pretty much from day one… but it’s not terrible.
As for the Public Enemy reference, yeah, I know. Paintball Wars aren’t gangster either, though. The entire line is meant to be ridiculous.