
	Platform NES Genre Action Publisher Capcom Developer Capcom Released 1989
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Codename: Viper

Capcom released its fair share of games on the NES, but one that frequently pops to mind for me is Codename: Viper. It’s not that the game is some phenomenal masterpiece or anything. I usually think about it because it’s a game my sister bought with her birthday money one year, and I was pleasantly surprised that the game was pretty fun, and a decent pick despite my sister not really being a gamer.

Codename: Viper pits players in the role of a secret agent running around South America performing missions to fight an evil drug cartel. By the end of the game, though, it turned out that the guy giving you orders was working with the enemy all along, and you have to take him down. It's a simple premise during the height of the gun-toting stage of the US war on drugs, but made for a nice change of pace plot-wise that a 12 year old Mr. Nash gasped at.

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The one thing that I noticed almost instantly when playing the game was that it sure looked an awful lot like Namco’s Rolling Thunder. How levels are navigated, walking horizontally along a 2D plane, while popping into doorways to avoid being shot at, and getting more ammo, and that miraculously seem to be every (the doors, not the ammo). Even the visual aesthetic is reminiscent of Rolling Thunder. It was only recently that I

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learned that this was the case because someone working on Codename: Viper was a former Namco employee who left that company on far from pleasant circumstances, and brought his influence to bare on this game. Apparently, even the end boss of the game is a veiled stab at his Namco boss, as they both share the same initials.

One of the major complaints that some leveled against the game was that it was too difficult. Some of the enemies' attacks could be sudden, vicious, and difficult to avoid. Moreover, the game also required players to rescue hostages on their missions. This meant systematically locating each and every one of them, because the level could not be completed before this was accomplished, adding a bit of unnecessary tedium to Viper.

In the end, though, Codename: Viper was a reasonably solid game. It didn’t really bring anything new to action games, but was entertaining enough for running around and shooting at bad guys for a few hours.

Mr. Nash
July 5, 2009