Do you remember that time that Mario tried his hand at construction? Well, it was back in 1984, and it was in the game Wrecking Crew. I can only assume that Mario was trying to find himself after his brief attempt at being a carpenter and then trying plumbing. This was before he pretended to be a doctor.
This guy has had a lot of jobs, and always manages to make enemies everywhere he goes. Sometimes, he even drags poor Luigi into his petty disputes with his coworkers. If you can’t tell, I’m just stalling for time because there isn’t too much to actually say.
I had no idea this game existed until the 2010s. None of my friends rented it for the NES, and I never saw the arcade game in the few places I remember seeing them. If I grew up near an arcade, then I might’ve seen it at some point.
TLDR: A good arcade game that didn’t stick around as long as other games from Nintendo.
Narrative
Mario is a construction worker now, and he’s forced his brother Luigi to work with him. You’ve been tasked with destroying some random objects. In an odd twist, the foreman, Spike or Blackie, depending on the version of the game, is trying to stop you.
Why is the foreman trying to stop you from doing the work he’s assigned you? Did Mario go crazy and decide to destroy things he wasn’t supposed to? Is Mario even employed here? These are some of the many questions that we’ll never get the answers to.
For a game like this, the story is fine. It is paper-thin, but that is really all you need. After all, you’re just trying to get a high score.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very simple. You control Mario, or Luigi if you’re playing two player. All you have to do is wander about the construction site and destroy things with a hammer.
Now, you might assume that Mario can jump, and you’d be wrong. It is explained that Mario’s hammer is too heavy for him to jump, which is a level of storytelling that I wasn’t expecting in a game like this.
There are a few enemies that are trying to stop you. So, while you’re trying to smash everything you can, you’ll have to avoid stuff. It is exactly what you should expect from an arcade game. This worked for a game in the 1980s quite well.
Overall, the gameplay is perfectly fine. It isn’t amazing, but the game is competently made. While this isn’t a game that is really remembered, it is fun for what it is. I’m sure that if I played this game back in the late 1980s, I would have a better opinion of it.
Visuals
I think the game looks okay. The character looks decent, and the level design is fine for the time this game was released. The NES version of the game looks like an average game on the system for the time it was released.
Mario, Luigi, Spike, and the other characters in the game look perfectly fine. They aren’t amazingly detailed, but at the time, they looked very good. This is one of the Black Box NES games, and it looks about average when compared with those games.
The level design is one of the things that is lacking a bit. It isn’t too bad for a game in 1984. The other games in the arcades look pretty much the same. It kind of blends in with the other single screen arcade games I’ve seen from the same time.
Overall, the graphics are okay. They don’t stand out from the other games on the system or in the arcade. Everything looks good enough, but nothing really wows me or really stands out.
6/10. I think this is a good game. When I compare it to the other early NES games, it is a pretty good one. As better games that got released, this one largely got forgotten. Nintendo seemingly moved on to other games as well. It has decent graphics and gameplay, but it isn’t all that great.
Pros
- It can be fun for a little bit
- Decent Graphics
- Decent Controls
Cons
- Repetitive
- Not a lot of game modes
- Overshadowed by better games
Conclusion
This is one of those games that I didn’t know about, but I’m glad that I played. There isn’t too much to it, and I can see why Nintendo didn’t do much with this property. It just blends in with all the other arcade games.
Wrecking Crew was really a product of its time. Companies were doing these quick turnaround games because the life of an arcade game was only 6 to 9 months. They were coming out so fast that companies cranked these out at a rapid pace.
There was a sequel to this game. It was a Super Famicom exclusive, and it came out in 1998. Spike/Blackie came back a few times over the years. He isn’t a big part of Mario’s history, but he managed to stick around for a while.
After revisiting this game, I’m probably going to forget it again. It isn’t a bad game, but it isn’t the most memorable game in the NES library. It is one of those things that you’ll play, and then move on to something else.
If you liked this post, check out some of my other NES reviews. Such as PaperBoy and X-Men.