Full-page ad for Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode (click for a larger image). If you zoom in, you can see a figure staring out from the generically named Casino, impassive to the scene before him. Maybe he’s hoping this scuffle doesn’t scratch his Mercedes Benz. Or perhaps he’s wondering if he should hit up Cindy’s or NEBAR to top off the night.
At any rate, an amazing penis I’m going to print this out and mail the coupon to Vic Tokai for my free comic.
Extra Dimension System Highround Action Game: Golgo 13 (click for a larger version of the sumi-e poster).
Though Vic Tokai later used the same artwork for the Japanese cover of The Mafat Conspiracy, this was a rare promotional poster for Golgo 13’s first NES game, Top Secret Episode, that the publisher gave away at the ‘89 Summer Consumer Electronics Show.
I spotted this at Chris Bieniek’s Video Game Ephemera, a neat site full of scanned and uploaded game materials like this — old newsletters, brochures, promo videos, etc. It’s definitely worth wasting your afternoon there!
Guyver (X.B.M.) has released a new “anti-censorship” patch for Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode restoring elements that were altered for the NES game’s U.S. release.
Unlike the Japanese version, our English copies of Golgo 13 pitted the professional assassin against the Drek empire and its leader Smirk, instead of Nazis led by Adolf Hitler. A few references to the Third Reich remain in the American edition, like the clearly Hitler-esque cyborg final boss and the mission document with a swastika icon, but this patch also brings back the Nazi references in the game’s text.
Golgo 13 figure has a smoke and surveys the city from his hotel window after yet another dive in the dark with a lady of the evening. Just as someone felt it was necessary to create a Duke Togo toy with a model rifle you could disassemble and fit into a miniature suitcase, someone thought it perfectly natural to sell a figure of the assassin for hire in his underwear, watching all from his hotel.
You can’t really talk about Golgo 13 and hotels without mentioning this scene from Top Secret Episode:
Golgo 13 survey of positions (click for a larger image). If you’re a female and ever meet Duke Togo, he’s probably going to do you. Then again, if you’re a female and ever meet Duke Togo, you’re probably a prostitute.
I really wish a publisher would bring Golgo 13 Anime Selection 1 Women to the States. I don’t know much about the book other than it’s a collection of stories centered around the lasses the assassin’s bedded, and that it contains the phrase “sex of Golgo 13 is that selfish.”
Golgo 13 Top Secret Episode’s theme. I’m not sure what it is about this NES game that I find so fascinating. It’s not the best game, but it’s a very ambitious game that includes a bunch of different gameplay (all pretty unpolished) and more story than a lot of NES action games.
Honestly, I think the weird elongated sprites are a big part of the appeal for me. And, of course, the music.
Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode ending. I got curious about just who made this stilted, kind of wonderful game, so I watched the credits, then looked up some of the names of the people involved. It turns out that ANGELA, Shoichi Yoshikawa, and Nao Kuramoto all worked together on other games, including the Bonk series starting with 3.
It also turns out, according to this GDRI interview, that they’re all the same person! “Nao Kuramoto is my pen name,” Yoshikawa said. “I’ve been using this name for a long time when I write lyrics and scenarios. ‘Angela’ is also a pen name of mine. I used it when I was working as the director on a project, doing the work I would normally use both names for. In other words, it’s three names for one person.”
While Golgo 13 was made for Seibu Lease, Yoshikawa would go on to work for A.I., which co-developed Bonk 3, along with Bonk games for Super Famicom and Game Boy. All of these games were collaborations between various small developers and publishers, suggesting that the kind of outsourcing done by developers like Platinum and Mistwalker is nothing new.
A.I. also worked on a Bonk game for N64, which ended up being Bomberman Hero!
Golgo-13 for Sega’s SG-1000. I first heard about this game in Chris Kohler’s writeup of the SG-1000 games he purchased in Japan, and, finding the NES Golgo-13 games to be reminiscent of, if not identical to, the cat’s pajamas, I decided to get a closer look.
A hitman driving alongside a train firing into it with a rifle?! That’s pretty heavy stuff for 1984. Although you are just shooting out windows so people can get out. Still, that’s a pretty unique concept even for today, and it was pretty much lost to history due to being on a forgotten Sega system.
I wanted to make some larger point about Sega’s first-party games always being really clever and interesting, and not at all the reason for their consistent second-place position relative to Nintendo, but yeah. No need for a “larger point.” This looks awesome for a 1984 game, and it still looks kind of awesome now.
Marvelous will give away this limited edition 30 cm-tall figure to 13 randomly picked gamers who fill out and send in the postcard surveys accompanying Golgo 13: File G-13 o Oe’s Japanese release for the DS in June.
His assassin’s kit includes a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver and an Armalite M16A3, modified to Golgo 13’s specifications, which brings us to this quote:
G13: I need to be able to hit a target through three inches of glass with no change in trajectory. And don’t let the increased gunpowder affect its accuracy.
Gunsmith: What the hell is your target?
G13: A meat-filled… football
It’s a shame the actual game doesn’t look too exciting, judging by its trailer — too much talking, not enough shooting at meat-filled footballs (or bringing damsels back to your hotel room for a tender night with the Duke).
