NARC (1990)
Developed by: Rare
Published by: Acclaim
Released in: NA
One slice of 80’s pop culture that has been largely left in the decade is the avalanche of anti-drug media the public was buried under. Countless commercials, after school specials, educational campaigns, and video games all chimed in to do their part against the war on drugs. Did you know that the reason the now iconic “WINNER’S DONT USE DRUGS” slogan was inescapable because a law was passed that made it compulsory for all imported arcade games to slot it into their attract modes? You do now!
Riding the wave of this media blitz was 1988’s NARC; an arcade title with an anti-drug sentiment that garnered a lot of attention for anything but its message. NARC feels more like a demented parody of video games than the real deal, like something Beavis and Butthead would feed quarters into while mumbling about how cool it is. Sporting an early example of digitised actors and clear voice clips, NARC used these technically impressive techniques to render realistic characters being blown to pieces in shockingly gory detail for its day. Bags of crack, used needles and pot leaves were shown in all of their unedited glory. And that’s not even getting into the prostitutes! It was one of the first video games that concerned parents clutched their pearls over, while kids ate up its hyperviolence with a spoon.
80s-era Nintendo was infamous for its strict censorship policies, with blood and drug use being at the top of its list of don’ts. When the time came to make home console ports, how did something as crazy as NARC manage to blast its way onto the NES?
Not counting the obvious downgrade of graphics and sound, the NES port of NARC is surprisingly faithful to the arcade original. The bloody limbs and severed heads somehow squeaked past Nintendo’s censors, as did running over crackheads with your Porsche as you do 100 down the freeway. Direct references to drugs have technically been scrubbed, but even with these changes, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what a hippie themed greenhouse full of nondescript green plants is supposed to be. Most surprising has to be the fourth level, in which buildings that say things like “TOPLESS” and “ADULT BOOKS XXX” set the scene for being stabbed to death by Kinky Pinky the Clown. The prostitutes didn’t make the cut, though. So it goes.
The game itself is a decently fun run ‘n’ gun romp through a downtown American wasteland. Gang members, pimps and Rambo wannabes hopped up on drugs throw themselves at you in droves, and you have a limited amount of ammo to do away with ’em. The controls can be irritating to commit to memory, with tapping and holding the A and B buttons having separate functions; getting a hang of them is crucial if you want the WAR ON DRUGS™ to be over sooner rather than later.
The difficulty of NARC is as mean as the streets it takes place on. The player is given three lives, no continues (without using codes at least), and no way to refill health during gameplay. If not for taking the time to farm extra lives, I don’t think I would have come anywhere close to finishing the game. It was commonplace for arcade conversions to be as unforgiving as their quarter munching counterparts, but with this design choice often comes the pitfall of a game becoming tedious and frustrating, which I would personally say was the case for NES NARC.
I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the schlocky 1980’s exploitation film-style debauchery it had going for it. The NES edition definitely doesn’t stack up to the sleazy juggernaut that was the arcade game, but all the same, I was entertained by it. I always found myself wondering what the next crazy enemy was going to be, or what sort of outrageous setting the next level was going to have, what in the hell they managed to sneak past the censors next.
If you like a tricky run ‘n’ gun, or difficult games in general, NARC is worth a shake. Likewise, if you’re the kind of person who gravitates towards crazy violent video games, NARC is an interesting landmark to see where the likes of Grand Theft Auto had their roots…though I’d recommend the arcade game over the okay NES version any day of the week.
Final rating:
NESJunk 