The Adventures of Bayou Billy
The Adventures of Bayou Billy | ||||||||||||||
NES - USA - 1st edition. |
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The Adventures of Bayou Billy is a multi-genre action video game developed and published by Konami for the NES on 1988-08-12. The game uses three different game play systems: beat 'em up, racing, and a rail shooter using a light gun.
In the game, Billy's girlfriend Annabelle has been kidnapped by a man named Gordon, so Billy must journey from his home in the Bayou to the city plantation of Gordon to rescue her beating up all of Gordon's henchmen along the way.
Contents
Personal
Own? | NES cartridge only. |
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Won? | No. |
I first played The Adventures of Bayou Billy around 1990 at my friend Chris's house. I think the furthest we ever got was to the second driving stage. At the time, I thought the game was pretty cool, but, as my tastes in gaming have matured, I've come to loathe it. However, the original Japanese version is a bit better.
I have not beaten it, and, considering it's difficulty and monotony, I have no intention of trying.
Review
3 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 3 |
Best Version: Famicom
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- The cut-scenes are drawn quite nicely.
- The intro and ending songs are both pretty good, and the rest of the music is adequate.
- The game makes use of some pretty impressive technical tricks. The warped fade in title screen is really impressive for the NES. The large scrolling text during the intro, and the voice saying "The Adventures of Bayou Billy" is surprisingly clear.
- The background art in the city scenes are pretty good.
Bad
- There are a lot of problems with the sprites in the game. The animation is very poor, and, without a flicker system in place, they frequently fail to draw properly.
- The backgrounds in the bayou areas are poorly drawn. I think they look better in the original Japanese art.
- The driving sections are uninspired and too repetitive.
Ugly
- The American game is far too hard. Getting good at it requires you to find and exploit problems in the AI in the beat-em-up stage, and have extremely fast reflexes in the driving and shooting stages. Strangely, the Japanese release was noticeably easier.
- The player control in the beat-em-up sections is terrible. The player doesn't respond well, enemies don't react to being punched or kicked properly, etc.
- Like most multi-genre games, this one is pretty awful. Not enough work was put into each section so they're all pretty bad resulting in an inferior game. The beat-em-up section is worse than other beat-em-ups, and the driving section is worse than other driving games. The shooting section is actually superior to most shooting games, but that's not saying much.
Media
Box Art
The American and European box uses the gray Konami layout with different artwork by Tom duBois. Billy is more rag-tag and Annabelle is more sleazy, but, overall, it's better art. The logo is really good.
Documentation
Maps
Video
Play Online
Famicom, NES (Europe), NES (USA)
Representation
Strong female character? | Fail | There is only a woman, and she's a damsel in distress and reward. |
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Bechdel test? | Fail | There is only one woman. |
Strong person of color character? | Fail | Everyone is white. |
Queer character? | Fail | There are no queer characters. |
Titles
Language | Native | Transliteration | Translation |
---|---|---|---|
English | The Adventures of Bayou Billy | ||
Japanese | マッド・シティ | Maddo Shiti | Mad City |
Links
- Video Games
- 1988 Video Games
- Video games developed by Konami
- Video games published by Konami
- NES Games
- Video Game Genre - Action
- Video Game Genre - Beat 'em up
- Video Game Genre - Light gun
- Video Game Genre - Multi-genre
- Video Game Genre - Racing
- Media Theme - Action
- Media Theme - Adventure
- Media Theme - Wilderness
- Software Distribution Model - Commercial
- Video Games I Own
- Video Games I Haven't Beaten
- Video Game Rating - 3
- Video Game Graphics Rating - 4
- Video Game Sound Rating - 6
- Video games which can be played online
- Video games without a strong female character
- Video games that fail the Bechdel test
- Video games without a strong person of color character
- Video games without a queer character
- Video Game Prime Order - Action, Adventure, Strategy
- Trope - Damsel In Distress
- Trope - Women As Reward