Thus starts the game's ominous intro, largely responsible for the cult following of the game.
After saving the President, Ronnie appears in the Oval Office and delivers the following line:
The game is a scrolling fighter typical of the genre and era, with up to two heroes featured at once. It was seen by many, at the time, as Data East's answer to the Technos Japan hit Double Dragon. The player uses a combination of kicks, punches and jumping to defeat the enemies (a single hit of any kind is enough to defeat most common enemies).
Along the way, the player will come across several power-ups. Some are weapons, such as nunchaku and knives, some recharge a player's health, such as a soda, yet others add a few seconds to the remaining time. The soda cans were red in the Japanese version, however, due to the possibility of perhaps being sued by the Coca Cola company, they were modified to grey colored cans in the American version.
There were only two types of weapons, a knife and a nunchaku, and both had their advantages and disadvantages. The knife offered faster hit time, but was smaller in reach, whereas the nunchuk offered the ability to hit enemies from further away, although was slower. Obtaining either of the weapons also enabled the player to turn quicker, noticeably removing the transition frame when the player character would turn around.
The various types of enemies encountered in the game, including ninja women and attack dogs, have their own means of attack. The normal ninja directly charge the player, while some leap with their swords, or throw makibishi caltrops.
Each level contains a boss that needs to be defeated to progress to the next level. The level bosses also have special attacks (Karnov, for example, can breathe fire at the player). At the successful completion of each level, the dude(s) strike a "bad" pose and proclaim, "I'm bad!"
Ports
The game was ported to several home systems for personal use. Bad Dudes was ported to the Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX and MS-DOS in 1988. On July 14, 1989 a NES port was released in Japan by Namco; a North American release followed later in the same year, and the game was released in Europe in 1990.
The 8-bit versions (including the NES one) lacked the 2-player cooperative mode; if the players started a 2-player game, both players would take turns playing, switching when one lost a life.
The NES introduction to the game was phrased slightly differently: "The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?" Also, in that version, the President bears a resemblance to George H. W. Bush, who was president when the NES version was released.
The 8-bit home computer versions lacked the intro from either the arcade or the NES versions.
Licensing
G-Mode currently owns the intellectual rights to Bad Dudes and licenses these games globally.
External links
- Bad Dudes at the Killer List of Videogames
- Bad Dudes at GameFAQs (Arcade)
- Bad Dudes at GameFAQs (NES)
- Bad Dudes at MobyGames
- Dragon Ninja at World of Spectrum
- Official Home of Bad Dudes
