Who needs Top Gun when you can play CAPTAIN SKYHAWK?

This game definitely was a rip-off of Top Gun, but it’s a major improvement. I remember watching Top Gun in the theater with my Granddad. It was awesome. During the film, he leaned over to tell me that I was sitting next to a fighter pilot. I was a bit confused because I was just seven years old and didn’t understand how you could be a fighter while in the cockpit of a plane but by the time the film was over I understood what he meant. He was a fighter pilot in Vietnam and flew some jets, but the F-14 came after his time and he was in the Air Force.

Top_Gun_NES_game_cover.jpg

After the movie, we went to a store called Best. They went bankrupt in the 90s, but they were the shit back in the 80s. They had a ton of Nintendo Entertainment System games and I wanted to own them all, but since we had just watched Top Gun, he bought the game with the same name for me. I thought the game was going to be like a VR simulation and just as awesome as the movie was. Then we got home and played it. It sucked. It was boring and it was way too hard. It wasn’t fun then and isn’t fun now.

Screenshot_20220423-011131_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

Captain SkyHawk came late in the game for the NES so they had plenty of time to perfect an 8-bit F-14 game.

993px-Nintendo-NES-Advantage-Controller.jpg

I clearly remember playing it on my NES Advantage controller. It had an arcade-style d-pad, turbo A and B buttons, and it could cheat with slow-motion by it pressing the start bottom repeatedly. As long as your game didn’t go into some menu when you pressed the start button you could slow down time. The only problem was it could get mixed up between players one and two or your friend or sibling could switch it on you when you weren’t looking to make you die.

Screenshot_20220423-011329_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

Are you ready for take-off captain? This may look lame now, but before I had a Super NintendoSega GenesisPlayStation, or N64, this was amazing.

Screenshot_20220423-011620_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

I love those memes where they say that you can’t hear a picture, but if you remember this game then you can hear this right?

Screenshot_20220423-011725_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpgScreenshot_20220423-011739_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

It’s time to take out some enemy fighters. You could either try to be an ace and shoot down as many as you could, or you could be a coward and play it safe avoiding their missiles.

Screenshot_20220423-011936_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

How many F-14s were capable of going up to space? Captain Skyhawk’s could. I don’t remember what happened if you failed to dock with the space station. It was pretty easy every time.

Screenshot_20220423-143702_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

Since it was over two decades since I played this game I wasn’t sure which weapon system was the most important to upgrade so I went with maxing out the gun first. I don’t think I used but two or three missiles or bombs this time around, but I eventually maxed them all out too.

Screenshot_20220423-144010_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

I hate playing games on my phone with the stupid non-tactile touchscreen, but playing these old games are worth it now with the ability to play offline ad-free, the save state options, and of course the ability to REWIND time!

Screenshot_20220423-144313_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

This scene probably took a month to create in Microsoft Paint and isn’t very impressive today, but it had a real 3-D let’s fly into space feeling back then.

Screenshot_20220423-144427_NostalgiaNES Lite~3.jpg

It took me forever to figure out how to drop the supplies down to our allies back then and it did again this go around. It also reminds me of the only time my Grandad ever yelled at me. We were performing at an airshow in a Piper Cub dropping “bombs”. They were balloons full of washable paint we had to drop on targets on the runway. He told me to drop the balloon on three. One, two, three! “Do I drop it right when he says three or a second after three or was there a four?” was what I remember thinking when he turned back angrily and growled, “I’ve been doing this for 22 years! When I say 3!, you DROP the bomb!” (We still got first place, so my one bad bomb drop was OK competing against our civilian pilot competitors.)

Screenshot_20220423-144838_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

Playing this again on my phone with the rewind and save state ability was a lot of fun, but I wish my emulator had a slow-motion option like back in the day. When Captain Skyhawk’s F-14 wings go back, things go fast!

Screenshot_20220423-150841_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

Alright! We’ve made it to the alien enemy space station with the big eye. Let’s do this!

Screenshot_20220423-151548_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

I did beat this back in the day, but the slow-motion button was on so the game thought I was pressing the start button over and over again, so I never got to see the ending until now.

Screenshot_20220423-151810_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpgScreenshot_20220423-151814_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpgScreenshot_20220423-151859_NostalgiaNES Lite~2.jpg

What is this? Game of Thrones? It’s like they didn’t care at all about good endings to games back in the day. At least Doom II and Super Mario 64 did a good job. Do you remember this game too? Thanks for reading. Now let’s all go watch Top Gun Maverick! May the need for speed be with you!hiveline.png

NBA Top Shot: My first impressions and ⭐️⭐️ review

If you’re like me then you want to become a whale in the NFT game. I recently sold all of my Splinterlands cards like a total fool. I would’ve been a crypto millionaire right now if I hadn’t gone all APR Defi crazy and let greed and rug pulls destroy my deck. I felt like I had been playing the game for years and nothing happened, then all of a sudden, BOOM! Cards that weren’t worth a food stamp are now over $100. I even see gold cards I’ve sold for a few hundred bucks worth $100,000. I know I’m not the only one. Not wanting to miss out on the next great NFT opportunity, I checked out the list of top NFT projects at https://dappradar.com/nft.

open.png

I felt like most of the projects I looked at were lame and just copycats of Cryptokitties. I bought a kitty back in 2018. Is it worth something now? I think the game is so stupid that I’ve not bothered checking. Plus, I hate working with the Etheruem network. NBA Top Shot works on Etheurum and it shows with its sluggish operations. It costs $9 to get started. Let’s see what I got…

reveal.png

Let’s hope one of these is a $1 million M Jay or LeBron James NFT moment…

set.jpg

No such luck. I paid $9 for these three cards and they can be sold for $3 each so I don’t feel ripped off, but I don’t feel entertained either.

choose.png

NBA Top Shot made it seem that if I chose a favorite team, they’d give me a free pack.

buymore.png

I’m not a BB fan. I quit watching when Jordan retired. I do remember watching the original Dream Team kick ass in the Olympics and collected as many plastic cups from McDonald’s as I could when I was a kid. I liked the movie Space Jam and played a lot of NBA Jam on the Sega Genesis too, but that is all I know or care about BB, so let’s choose the Chicago Bulls.

quest.jpg

It’s true they’ll give you a free pack, but you better bring your credit card on this “quest” because you’ll need to get three more moments from your favorite team to “earn” the pack. The cheapest moment from the Chicago Bulls was $4, so I changed my favorite team who I feel is the least liked team in the NBA, the Salt Lake City Jazz. I mean whoever liked them? You’d get beat up fast wearing their jersey when I was in middle school.

jazz.jpg

Nope. Everything is $4 at the cheapest with the Jazz too. This feels rigged. It’s definitely not a decentralized free market like Splinterlands. They also have strong KYC rules. If you decide to withdraw or earn any seriously valuable moments then get your ID ready and take that selfie holding it straight without breathing standing on one foot and juggling some dates or whatever other nonsense the NBA demands.

Conclusion

I don’t recommend NBA Top Shot, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea either. It’s a centralized cash grab bullshit NFT project of the NBA. I’m not upset that I spent $9, but I will not check or think about it again for several years.

What about you?

I love Splinterlands and have only tried NBA Top ShotWar Riders, and the Upland NFT games. Are there any good NFT gaming gems that have gone under the radar?

Resources:

NBA Top Shot
https://nbatopshot.com/moment/ConversationGaming+1393fdd5-97f5-449a-a44c-98e0ecb5643b?

Dapp Radar
https://dappradar.com/nft