GotGame: “Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie?”
Who wouldn’t look at that question and say, “hell yeah I’m bad enough!”? In 1988 Data East, who was an arcade game kingpin, developed Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja, or simply better known as simply Bad Dudes (from the NES port). The game was a side-scrolling beat’em up that asked you to save President Ronnie, who was obviously based on Ronald Reagan, from ninjas who had kidnapped him right out of Washington, D.C.
This Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of Data East's founding. Take a look back on the legacy this company left behind while it was still with us.
The President has been kidnapped by Ninjas!
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?
Think you can escape politics by playing video games? Take a look back with us at the times where Presidents and candidates popped up in our gaming.
The President of the United States of America has been kidnapped by a gang of evil ninjas, who are you going to call? If you're Data East, you send in the Bad Dudes! Based on the 1988 arcade game Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, this NES port added new enemies and a different ending. These days people remember the ridiculous ending, but was Bad Dudes regarded as a good game? We decided to dig through old issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Raze, Nintendo Power and Nintendo Magazine System to find the answer. See what they said in this episode of Review Crew.
I have the NES version, it's still Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja.... oh, only the EU version got the full title and, yes, I was a bad enough dude to rescue the president.
memories
I remember being like "what the..." when I heard them say "I'm bad!". I thought...damn this thing can talk!