Do you remember Golgo 13 the anime? Well as you all know games scarcely do their movie predecessors justice, but in the case of Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode and its sequel that theory couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only was Golgo the coolest assassin you will ever meet, the game allowed you to become him for a few hours as you set your cross-hairs on more than a few marks to fulfill your contract. Although this first game had dated graphics, it was still a blast to go through and the sniping was quite a challenge. I remember the sequel being a far superior game especially when it came to the sniping but for classic NES, Top Secret Episode is the one people remember.

What people tend to remember the most about the Golgo 13 games is the meeting, greeting and eventual sexing of the beautiful women that your sniper runs into (no pun intended) during the course of his missions. The NES didn’t get explicit on us but seeing the silhouettes by the window in the hotel and the screen fading to black was all the hints we needed. Still the game play was part side-scrolling platform, part fps and the boss fights were you, a cross-hair and a target. Golgo 13 mostly had areas that had you move Golgo around dodging bullets and jumping over obstacles. The look of this part reminded me a lot of the classic game Rolling Thunder but as I’ve stated it’s the sniping that sets this game apart.

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode should not be allowed to be lost in the white noise of games past. It was one of the games I loved for the classic NES and quite a treat for the younger anime fan in me.