As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #26, July 2006.

Tengen may have ported a lot of popular arcade games over to the NES however they published only a small portion of arcade conversions that make up a healthy amount of the NES game library.  With the jump in graphics and sound over the joystick era consoles, the NES was able to bring home even more arcade realism than ever before.  That is no more apparent than in the dozens upon dozens of arcade ports that Nintendo and many third party publishers released over the course of the Nintendo Entertainment System's unusually long lifespan.  With all the choices available concerning arcade favorites on the NES, the gaming world got one step closer to having an arcade at home.  Yet how would these home versions compare to their arcade counterparts?  That's what NES'cade is all about.

Although City Connection was a very rare sight in American arcades, Jaleco saw fit to release the Famicom recreation on the NES.  Game play is deceptively simple to begin with but as play time progresses things become increasingly complex.  The player controls a small car that has the ability to jump up and turn on a dime, a nimble set of wheels designed for high speed maneuvering.  Race around on a tour of the world, marking the highway as you proceed on your transworld excursion, to prove to the world you're the master of the road.  However things aren't that simple.  Local law enforcement and traffic is a constant burden, blocking the roadway and holding up your progress at every turn.  Your only weapon against said traffic are cans of oil that are picked up during your journeys.  Tossing one at an enemy vehicle will cause it to spin out, allowing you to bump it off the road and out of the way.  A bigger threat to your adventure lies in the form of cats that sit on the road, these cannot be harmed with oil cans and must be avoided at all costs.  Once all roads on a specific level have been driven then it's off to the next world locale.

City Connection on the NES is a prime example of what a port of an arcade game to the NES hardware should be, accurate to the technology of the time.  Everything is recreated as closely as possible given the limitations of the NES platform.  A solid effort was put in place to bring over the sights, sounds, and most importantly the feel of the arcade game.  Of course there are limitations when it comes to visuals and sound however the basics of each stage are wonderfully represented.  The world city backdrops of each stage have been recreated very nicely, they're not as graphically detailed as the original arcade backgrounds, but are still good looking and nicely detailed for the NES hardware.  A couple stages have a slightly obnoxious sky color but it's as close to the original arcade shades as possible using the NES pallet.  This quality is the same for the jazzy music in each stage.  Although not as full sounding as the arcade version, a real attempt has been put forward to incorporate as much of the original music as possible.  Game play is dead on with tight controls and frenzied action from the moment the game starts.  The spikes that pop up if the player car remains on the same level have been carried over as well, a nice touch that keeps things authentic.  The only real difference between the arcade and NES versions is how the roadway is marked.  In the arcade the roadway is smoothly marked off in exacting relation to where the car is located.  On the NES the roadway is divided into blocks that are filled in as the car passes over each.  This makes the NES version slightly easier than the arcade version as road sections are clearly marked off.  Due to this it's very easy to keep track of where you've been and where you need to go, rather than spending extra time driving around looking for the sliver of road surface left to cover which happens a lot with the original.

Controls are solid and very intuitive.  With a little practice, covering the edges of each level and reacting to a cat or a stray enemy vehicle become second nature.  One very interesting difference between the Famicom and NES versions of the game I noticed has to do with the cutscenes.  The Famicom version stays true to the cutscenes of the arcade original, portraying the driver of the player car as female and replicating the end of stage scene as it was in the arcade.  For one reason or another these things were changed for the NES version, beginning with a new title screen showing a male driver.  All the end of stage scenes have been replaced, now each one is different instead of the same screen over and over again.  However what I found most interesting was the image shown after completion of the first stage.  The driver is shown smoking a cigarette, which isn't a big deal per se, except that Nintendo was notorious in cracking down on smoking, drinking, and religious images in the US releases of their games.  This image isn't something that happened to slip through localization, it's only present in the NES version, in other words it was added for the NES release!

Most that have played this game, even those that really enjoy it, usually aren't aware of the arcade original.  Once discovering the origins of City Connection it just goes to reinforce the care that was taken when bringing it to the NES platform.  It is, without a doubt, one of the finest examples of how an arcade to home conversion should be done.  A super accurate recreation that brings home the challenge and fun of a game born in the arcade.  Personally I've always felt that it's one of the unsung and nearly forgotten classics of the NES.  This is understandable as the arcade version was pretty much nonexistent outside of Japan but if given a chance, City Connection is a very entertaining and worthwhile game play experience.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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