"I think we're gonna need a helmet."

In the summer of 1991 I knew that everyone in the whole country was finally going to fall in love with Dave Stevens The Rocketeer like I had a few years earlier. That was not to be. It would seem that a little movie called T2 would squash everything around that year. At the very least we fans of the Rocketeer received a sweet and charming movie. Still...I can't help but always wonder what future stories we could have thrilled to on the silver screen if T2 had opened up maybe a month later.

But for fans of Cliff Secord (The Rocketeer) we did get a few things, some 'toys', new collectibles to put on the shelf, and not one but two games to play in our off hours. I've talked about the Super Nintendo/PC version on an earlier post but today my tongue is wagging about the NES offering.

The Rocketeer NES game is a 2-D side scrolling platformer like most games of that time and mostly followed the plot of the movie. It was also a tough game to complete. It probably would have helped if your X-3 jetpack would have handled a little better in the game. It's tough trying to sling some lead at a Nazi or gangster when you have to worry about slamming into every thing above your head with the jetpack engaged.

I was treated to a scene of Cliff Secord being gunned down against a wall many, many times when I played it originally. I remember pretty vividly the quizzical expression upon my face when playing the game at your choice of weapons that the Rocketeer could use:

1) Fist
2) Pistol
3) Tommy Gun (Cool.)
4) Spread Gun (Wait a minute...)
5) Grenades (What?)
6) Bazooka (All right now, Bandai just went crazy when they designed this!)
7) Laser Death Ray
8) Tactical Nuke

Okay...those last two I admit I made up. But you can see how some of these weapon selections do not quite fit into the Rocketeer's universe. So to end this post I have decided to try something a little new and give the game a rating on 1 to 10 scale.

Rocketeer (NES)
7.5

For your viewing pleasure I present the Rocketeer NES game television commercial...which I'm pretty sure I've never seen until today.