{"id":2143,"date":"2013-01-21T18:26:55","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2013-01-21T18:26:55","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:26:55","slug":"my-top-100-31-wrecking-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2143","title":{"rendered":"My Top 100: #31 &#8211; Wrecking Crew"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2148\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?attachment_id=2148\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2148\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2148\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2148\" alt=\"1985 - Nintendo (NES, Virtual Console, 3DS)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wrecking-crew-nes-box-art.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"718\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wrecking-crew-nes-box-art.jpg 500w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/wrecking-crew-nes-box-art-208x300.jpg 208w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2148\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">1985 &#8211; Nintendo (NES, Virtual Console, 3DS)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I consider this to be one of my favourite games of all time, yet somehow, I&#8217;m still learning things about it.\u00a0 Sure, I&#8217;m still learning\u00a0little tidbits\u00a0about the <em>Super Mario Bros.<\/em> games, but <em>Wrecking Crew <\/em>was a pretty early title in the NES&#8217; lifespan.\u00a0 It was one of the &#8220;black box&#8221; games, so that should tell you right\u00a0away how simplistic\u00a0the game\u00a0is.<\/p>\n<p>Mario has taken a break from\u00a0his career as\u00a0a carpenter (<em>Donkey Kong<\/em>) and a plumber (<em>Mario Bros<\/em>.) to take on the daunting task of being a demolition\u00a0expert.\u00a0 Not only does he have to\u00a0carry a massive hammer up and down ladders, destroy brick walls and avoid walking wrenches and fireballs (as well as purple jelly bean guys), but\u00a0his arch nemesis Spike is also out to make life incredibly difficult for him.<\/p>\n<p>The Health and Wellness department of the company\u00a0he works for has\u00a0evidently made the use of steel-toed shoes mandatory, so Mario is unable to jump.\u00a0 He&#8217;s also not able to attack enemies directly, instead using crumbling debris as his only defense against Spike and other foes.\u00a0 Because of this, using strategy\u00a0to avoid possible traps is\u00a0key.<\/p>\n<p>For all its\u00a0action and frantic\u00a0pace, <em>Wrecking Crew<\/em> is essentially\u00a0a dolled-up puzzle game that forces you to strategize on every single level.\u00a0 It can get awfully challenging at times, but that&#8217;s the beauty of it!\u00a0 Besides, you can pick which\u00a0&#8220;Phase&#8221; to start from at the title screen.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re feeling creative, you can\u00a0also make your own levels!<\/p>\n<p>Programmable Series, FTW!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zPYI0ljZ8aQ\" height=\"360\" width=\"480\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The game can get kinda hairy at times.\u00a0 Enemies are coming at you from all angles, and each different kind\u00a0has a distinct behaviour you can sometimes use to your advantage.\u00a0 If the purple jelly bean fellas are coming at you, stand\u00a0behind a ladder, and they&#8217;ll climb it instead of walking towards you!\u00a0 If the wrench guys are nearby,\u00a0try to confuse them with an erratic path.\u00a0 If Spike is being a pain in the arse, try to knock him down between two barrels!<\/p>\n<p>With all that in mind, my goal was to just finish the levels.\u00a0 No fancy stuff, just make it to the end of the game.<\/p>\n<p>During gameplay, a\u00a0snowman or statue of some kind would pop up from one of the pedestals usually reserved for holding bombs.\u00a0 I thought this was a completely random occurrence, and it was\u00a0quite fun\u00a0whenever it happened.\u00a0 Whoo, bonus points!<\/p>\n<p>Of course, like any other video game, it&#8217;s not random at all.\u00a0 If you demolish walls in some levels in a certain order, you can get various bonuses, including a more powerful &#8220;golden hammer&#8221;.\u00a0 I was not aware of this until recently, when the title of an MP3 I was listening to tipped me off.\u00a0 I looked it up, and there it was in all its golden glory.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re precise enough, you can even directly attack enemies with it.\u00a0 Awesome!<\/p>\n<p>Yet another reason to create www.wreckingcrewisbetterthanthis.com&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2152\" style=\"width: 374px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?attachment_id=2152\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2152\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2152\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2152\" alt=\"Not actually a &quot;jelly bean guy&quot; at all...  he's actually Eggplant Man, and helping to prove my point about eggplant being awful.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/eggplantman.jpg\" width=\"364\" height=\"476\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/eggplantman.jpg 364w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/eggplantman-229x300.jpg 229w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 364px) 100vw, 364px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2152\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not actually a &#8220;jelly bean guy&#8221; at all&#8230; he&#8217;s actually Eggplant Man,\u00a0which helps\u00a0prove my point about eggplant being awful.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I consider this to be one of my favourite games of all time, yet somehow, I&#8217;m still learning things about it.\u00a0 Sure, I&#8217;m still learning\u00a0little tidbits\u00a0about the Super Mario Bros. games, but Wrecking Crew was a pretty&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2143\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mario","category-nes","category-top-100"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2155,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}