#699 – The Untouchables

Too hype, can’t touch this.

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Ocean

DEVELOPER: Special FX

GENRE: Shooter/Action

RELEASE DATE: January 1991

The third mission in The Untouchables places you, as Eliot Ness, on the ground in the middle of a gun fight. The level is short by design, only spanning a couple of screens. Ness’ movements are restricted to shooting and rolling across the level. Your objective is to shoot all the bottles you find to “collect evidence.” Each bottle is worth four percent of evidence, so in total, you’ll have to shoot twenty-five bottles to collect a hundred percent of the evidence and complete the level. As you roll and shoot your way along the level, though, only a couple bottles at most will appear. You have to roll back to the very beginning to make bottles re-appear, then roll through the level back and forth multiple times to shoot them all. Meanwhile, Chicago’s finest goons are raining torrents of lead at you, while your life bar drains downwards like a Depression-era paycheck. If you shoot them, you waste time (four minutes on the clock). Strafing while you roll seems like your best option, but it isn’t possible. If Ness dies, he has his unit, Malone, Stone, and Wallace to back him up (read: three extra lives). But even with assistance, the mission is, dare I say, untouchable. Up until this point, Untouchables was an average licensed game, inspiring little emotion. But after grappling with Chicago’s finest police force over what should have been a simple task (all you had to do was shoot bottles and people, gentlemen, both of which you should excel at), I’m surprised Ness made any head way over Capone and his gang. Who needs a drink.

D