City Connection (1985)

One of the first female protagonists in video game history can be found in the Pac-Man inspired City Connection. Clarice drives her Honda City hatchback around the globe while being chased by police and avoiding cats as she traverses each city, completing each level by driving on every road. The game's music is notable for being one of the first to feature unique tracks for each stage.

There are 12 different stages:

• New York City
• London
• Paris
• Neuschwanstein Castle
• Netherlands Scenery
• Valley of the Kings
• Taj Mahal
• Beijing
• Mt. Fuji
• Sydney Opera House
• Teotihuacan / Nazca Lines / Moai
• Monument Valley

I really liked this game though the controls weren't clear as I played an embarrassing amount having no idea you could throw oil cans at the police vehicles or change directions and struggled with high jumps. Eventually I figured out the controls and found this simple platformer a lot of fun. The stages are an endless loop so play as long as you can to earn a high score and the game ends when you game over.

Lol! When you hit the cats!

But wow, even with that, the amazing backgrounds and Look overall, tight controls, and great music.... just far too tedious painting every little millimeter. I had already lost interest by the end of the first Level (there's 12!) because there was the tiniest bit not painted at the tip of a platform.

Could be really really great if the paint swaths were a bit wider! Tedious as is tho

This game is super weird, not that fun to play, and kind of fascinating. It made me think of two other classic arcade games: 1) Jump Bug, the first platformer with smooth horizontal and vertical scrolling (and it also starred a small red car hopping around in a city...) and 2) Flicky, which features similar looping platform layouts and enemies that chase you about randomly (and I guess both this and Flicky have cats that end your turn, should you collide with them). You also shoot projectiles the exact same way in both. I love Flicky, but I couldn't get into City Connection (at least, for the NES version of it).

The controls are way too stiff, and it takes way too long for you to be able to jump after turning around. The arc of your jump is ridiculous. Gaps between platforms are in turn too small for that jump arc to actually work. Sprites flicker a lot, and half the time I lose is because the cat was hidden behind a police car. The police cars can also just appear out of nowhere, such as directly in front of you. The cats in Flicky can certainly surprise you, but they never felt unfair like this.

I should mention, the goal of City Connection is to, uh, paint all the roads? (Why? Don't ask.) The platforms are made up of tiles, and as you drive over them they turn white. Your hope will be to go down one platform and then jump to the next one, but if you do, you're most likely not going to paint the final tile of the platform you were on. It is a pain to jump back to the platform to paint that one damn tile, and you're going to probably have to do so for every platform... most likely twice (for the final tile of the platform's other end too).

All in all, a frustrating game! Also, it's lame that the cute blue-haired anime girl driving the car in the Japanese original was replaced with some no-name generic greaser! Though I do find it interesting that the dude smokes... Was the NES cool with cigarettes? I always assumed that was a no-no, since anti-drug campaigns were such a big deal back in the day. Anyways, I might check out the arcade version at some point, if only to see how the car handles in that, compared to the NES version. (And to catch a glimpse of the power of 1985 moé.)

Blue haired girl lights up some tiles in London in her Honda while getting chased by the police.

Yeah, i don't know what's going on either but i guess i kinda like it.

2.3 out of 5, would literally shoot police cars to find a boyfriend again.

(Ps : apparently, her name is Clarice and her measurements are : B78 W56 H84, i'm not sure why that information was given to us but okay.)