Top 100 NES Review: #100 – Abadox: The Deadly Inner War (1989)

A Magic School Bus Tour of the Intestines.

This game made me ponder: what’s inside my bowels?
Sydlexia’s Ranking: #100/100
My Rating:

You know if you stretched out your small intestines, they would be as long as 22 feet. While Abadox is only a measly six levels, it’s going to feel like it is much longer, just like your jejunum and ileum. That’s because during the space invasion through the gut of an alien, you will die many times by its angry inhabitants. I haven’t seen a GI system this upset since I ate a whole pizza and half a chicken in one sitting.

[STORY]

Your planet has been swallowed whole by an alien. The only thing left to do is chase after it and escape the colon before nature calls.

[ANALYSIS]

This game is only slightly above what could be programmed on a TI-83. Actually, I shouldn’t say that: Texas Instruments have probably far exceeded what we had when I was in Trigonometry class and can probably now emulate Xbox360 games. Be thankful you didn’t have to Sohcahtoa your way through class with only Drug Wars. 

This is a standard space invasion game where you die with only one hit and there are more objects on the screen than can be accounted for. It has a rating of “tough” on GameFAQs, and that’s probably too generous. Everything is fine and dandy when you have multiple power ups, firing lasers in multiple directions with home-seeking missiles. It is quite another when all you have is a pathetic single fire against a wave of shrapnel and targets. At least you have endless continues, so no forced restarts.

The game harkens back to a simpler time when you didn’t need a tutorial to understand how to play and could eat a box of bagel bites without gastric distress.

[CONCLUSION]

When you body wants a siesta,
but your butt has a fiesta…
DIARREHEA!

Other People’s Takes:

• Twentieth Century Gamer: “If you’ve ever wanted to fly out of a space monster’s colon with a princess in tow…well, you’re one freaky individual. I guess you could try Abadox, though.”
• Retro Digital Nomad: “Abadox is also known to be difficult, since it takes one hit from an enemy projectile to be killed.”
• Black Falcon Games: “While indeed it is quite hard, the game isn’t overly long; when I beat the game, it only took a few hours to finish.”