It seems like the random number generator I use for this feature really likes giving me licensed games, and it did so once again. This time it’s Predator for the NES. Based on the 1987 film of the same name, Predator is an action platformer where you jump around and punch and shoot things. Most licensed games, especially during this era of games, were garbage, but there were some that were legitimately great games. Which one does Predator turn out to be?

Trying to adapt a movie like Predator into an NES game is a weird idea to begin with. Making it a platformer is in line with what a lot of other licensed games were doing, but I don’t know that it makes a lot of sense here. The story picks up at the point where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character is the last man standing against an alien that has been hunting his paramilitary rescue team. What do you think he needs to do to fight his enemy?

If you said jump over countless bottomless pits and punch or shoot tons of strange alien creatures, you would be right. But you might also be thinking, that’s not at all what the movie was like. In the movie, the Predator is the only alien Arnold encounters. Here there’s weird ghost looking things, giant scorpions, a thing that looks like a ball with bird legs, the Pilsbury Dough Boy, octopus looking things that shoot projectiles in all directions, plus enemy human soldiers who are for some reason still around. I understand that when you’re making a video game, you often need to just make up just random monsters for the protagonist to fight. But in the case of this game, it makes even less sense than most. Like, what are all these aliens? Does the predator just have a bunch of pets that followed him with him to Earth? I don’t know, it’s weird.

But beyond the strangeness of the adaptation, is the game itself any good? Honestly, it’s not that bad. It’s a perfectly serviceable platformer. The idea of Arnold jumping around the jungle is about as weird as all the extra aliens, but it plays just fine. You start each level with just your bare hands, but you can find weapons scattered around. In the very first level, there’s a machine gun hanging from the tree to the left which makes quick work of everything you come across. There’s also grenades, which function like you’d expect, and a laser. The laser can destroy certain blocks and is also the only weapon capable of hurting the Predator.

Speaking of the Predator, your first encounter with him is pretty underwhelming. After jumping through a cave with some really annoying bottomless pits, you come face to face with titular monster. And he’s just kind of a elongated white blob. Every time you shoot him, he jumps up, does a flip and comes right back down. If you just keep shooting, he just keeps flipping and coming right back down to get shot again. Eventually he dies. But he can’t be possibly be dead, I mean, there’s only one Predator in this first movie.

After you defeat him, you get a new type of level called “Big Mode”. Here, it’s no longer a platformer. Instead, you automatically walk to the right. Your sprite is considerably larger than it was in the main mode, thus “Big Mode”. All the random enemies have been replaced with… bubbles? They just kind fly across the screen until you shoot them. Once again, you encounter the Predator at the end of the level. This time, there’s multiple Predator heads that attack you, while the Predator himself is invisible unless you shoot him. So you’re just kind of shooting at nothing. Big Mode is the thing I remember most about this game from when I was a kid. It was just a really silly diversion from the main platforming.

And that’s Predator. Certainly not an amazing game, not one you need to rush out and add to your collection or anything, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having fun revisiting it. It’s a terrible representation of the movie and some of the platforming is annoying, but it’s a perfectly playable NES game. And sometimes that’s good enough.

Hey, quick note from me. I noticed as I was finishing this up that I actually wrote about this game for Random Game Wednesdays like eight years ago already! I’m curious how similar this piece is to the original one I wrote.