 Phillies… A while back a co-worker was unloading some stuff including some NES cartridges, nothing too fancy, just the usual stuff you'd see anywhere like Mario, Duck Hunt, and that Caesar's Palace game. But, one cartridge was Codename Viper, a 1990 Capcom published game developed by Arc System Works, who usually made games for the Sega Master System like Vigilante, Battle Outrun, and Rolling Thunder. And you're gonna hear about the latter a lot in this video because Codename Viper is essentially Rolling Thunder but slightly more polished. It's got the exact same gameplay structure where your character shoots bad guys and has two distinct planes to jump between. We have the same perspective and viewpoint, the same pace and tempo, the same bad guys who shoot at you the microsecond they appear on the screen, and the same mechanic of going into doors to get power-ups and ammo, rescue hostages, or just to hide from bad guys and dodge enemy fire. So how is Codename Viper different from Rolling Thunder? Well, the latter was made in 1986 by Namco, and it got a ton of ports, including one to the NES that was released in 1989 by Tengen, and it's... okay, it's a completely serviceable port. Despite being a pretty clear clone, though, Codename Viper does do a fine job improving upon certain aspects of Rolling Thunder. For one thing, we got an original story you play as Kenny Smith. No, not that Kenny Smith. A special forces agent who is sent to investigate a massive drug syndicate in South America. You get three lives and three continues to get through eight levels, and there is a password system here, and in order to complete each level, you have to rescue a missing agent who gives you a grenade, which you use to blow up the door, blocking the entrance to the next level. You also slowly uncover clues of the drug syndicate's true leader. You get this sheet of paper which supposedly lays out the cartel's plans, and finishing each level adds more words to it. So yes, this is the rare story-driven action NES game with a twist at the end. Well, you can see the twist coming from about 20,000 light years away, but still, it's nice to see some real effort put into that part of the game. One thing Codename Viper has going for it is that the level layouts are larger than Rolling Thunder, and you have a bit more going on. The game starts out very simple, so you can get your bearings, but after that, you've got wooden crates and shipping containers you gotta hop around and occasionally use for cover. You've got zombie dudes jumping out of cages, you've got conveyor belts to deal with, ugh, those are second only to underwater levels on my pet peeve list, and you gotta explore a bit to find certain doors which may contain a power up or a hostage, and if you collect 16 hostages, you earn an extra continue. The controls are spot on in exactly as you'd expect them to be, it's simply A to fire and B to jump, and hold up while jumping to move to the upper tier, and hold down while jumping to go back down. And when you pick up a weapon upgrade, it automatically equips it for you. So yeah, this game has an easy pickup and play style that has a lot of appeal. That doesn't necessarily mean this game is easy though, there may only be a handful of enemy types in this game, but you really have to have your reflexes dialed in when you play this one. This is the kind of game where enemies appear on screen for a millisecond and immediately start shooting at you, and you have to be constantly on edge since you have a life meter, and it's just three hits and you're dead. And yeah, unfortunately like I said, there's only about seven or eight enemy types through the entire game, and it's just dudes wearing different colors that have different patterns and health meters, so this game can get kind of dull at times because of that. But I do appreciate the door mechanic where you're able to just hide a bit if you need to, and patiently wait for enemies to wander off before popping back out and gunning them down. It's like a proto version of what eventually became a primary game mechanic in titles like Blackthorn and Flashback. But yeah, like I said, this game is basically just rolling thunder with some tiny alterations, like being able to shoot in midair and changing the trajectory of your jump. But Codename Viper is also a lot harder. It's a classic case of NES difficulty, where the balance of speed between your character and enemies and projectiles is just slightly off kilter. Coming in contact with an enemy takes away half your health, but getting shot kills you instantly. It's ruthless. The last section of the game is full of nothing but instant death traps. You get dudes popping up, shuffling in from all over the place, and you get to the point where you stop trying to shoot them all and just try and see if you can get to the boss. As you probably noticed from the footage, this is one of those games where you cannot shoot up or down, only left or right, Turrican style. And that limitation goes a long way to making this game so tough. There's not much sense in memorizing enemy or door locations either, since enemy placements vary throughout each playthrough, and the stuff behind doors is shuffled as well. So this isn't really a pick up and die game, where you just progress a tiny bit at a time while dying every two seconds. Instead, it's a pick up and play and hope you get really lucky, kind of a game. It's a roll of the dice. So yeah, Code Name Viper isn't bad, but it's one of those games where if you want this style of action platformer, then you're way better off with Rolling Thunder 2 for Sega Genesis, or even any of the Rolling Thunder arcade games. They are excellent. To Code Name Viper's credit though, it's at least better than the NES version of Rolling Thunder, and this game is reasonably well made. It's got that Capcom style polish to it, the controls are great, and the visuals and music do their job. In fact, if you really want to get into this game, check out Nintendo Power Volume 12 with Super C on the cover. It's got an eight page feature on this game, complete with maps of every level, and lots of commentary as well. I always love that kind of stuff, so if you decide to play this one, make sure to look up that issue as well. Otherwise, you might as well just stick to the Rolling Thunder series. It's nearly the exact same kind of action, but with better execution. All right, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.