Ice Climber

"Beware the dangerous UPSCROLL!"

There have been questions on ''What is the first game'' ever made for the NES? Well Donkey Kong was one of the first Nintendo games ever, but not for the NES (First release was for arcade) According to a history of video games book I thumbed through, There were actually 18 first games. This is one of them. Super Smash Bros Melee will probably fuel a revival to seek out this old classic that has more than likely been forgotten by the majority of gamers everywhere. If you manage to find a copy you'll find it's quite a good game for it's generation. And what is Upscroll? It's when the screen scrolls up, causing the floor down below to disappear. When you fall to the bottom, you lose a life, plain and simple. Now, the game.

Gameplay-7
How basic can you get? You scale a mountain, avoiding Topis and polar bears, by breaking the rows of ice blocking you ascent. As you go up you'll find that you must not fall to the bottom, or you'll lose a life. Keep in mind that you must dodge swooping birds, falling icicles, and navigate moving platforms with your highly limited jumping ability. Each ending with a 40 second bonus round, which gives you better and better scores for collecting the bonus food by number of consecutive level clears. You keep doing this until you finally lose all the lives given to you. If you want to, you can press B to select any of the mountains in the game. There are 32 mountains to scale.

Graphics-7
Pretty well done for their simplicity. Take the time to notice the differences between the Super Smash Bros Melee Version and the NES version and appreciate how far video games have moved along.

Sound-9
The sound for this game is quite good. Also compare the SSBM and the NES versions and see the difference/similarities between the two.

Replay Value-4
Granted it's pretty monochrome in objective, you can add to the fun by playing this game with a friend. You'll have to co-operate so you don't end up killing each other. Although you don't have the team jump, you can bounce off each other's heads and cover the other's back to scale the mountains.

Playability-8
You got no real problems affecting this area of gameplay. Just plug in the controller and get going! Fun for anyone.

Control-6
The jump controls are highly limited and tricky at first. It's definitely not as smooth as any jump you can perform in Super Mario Brothers. I'm sure if you have any problems scaling the mountain, it's because of the jumping. I guess it adds to the challenge. Practice!

Buy? Rent? Borrow...ah forget it!
Definitely worth a rent, but if you got a little spare cash, go for a copy of this NES classic

Player Info
1 or 2 player simultaneous

Saving
Sorry, no can do here. Just write down your high scores on a sheet of paper

Company info
Nintendo

Overall-8
Simple, yet addictive, Ice climbers will keep the old school game coming back for more. But those who prefer the newer games, this game might not last more than 5 minutes. If you have played SSBM, you have some idea of what this game is like. That's how I found out about this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/14/03, Updated 03/14/03