Nam 1975

Nam 1975 is the first numbered game in the Neo-Geo library - NGH-001. While Nam carries a lot of clout for being one of the first games out of the gate when the MVS launched in arcades in mid-1990, it's now an all but forgotten relic of a pre-Street Fighter 2 arcade era. Despite the odd choice to make the marquee title on the dazzling new Neo-Geo hardware a gallery shooter where you use a control stick rather than a light-gun, Nam successfully wowed gamers and arcade operators enough in 1990 for people to buy into the idea behind the hardware. Nam was a glistening showcase of 2D graphical sheen that helped to show the strengths of the Neo-Geo to an audience that was quickly becoming luke-warm toward the arcade concept. Nam's legacy doesn't come from it being a timeless game that's super fun to play in the 2020's. Rather, the hype surrounding it in 1990 helped bring attention to the longest lasting arcade hardware of all time and set the stage for the brilliance that was to follow in its wake.

Nam sets up a simple story for the player: an army operative is sent to the "Natorm" base to save Doctor Muckly from an unseen villainous vigilante group set on creating a super weapon that will destroy the world. Nam borrows heavily from 1970's war movie tropes to create the general theme for the game. Masterpiece films like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket were the key movies used as inspiration for the art design - so much so that some scenes and scenarios are blatantly stolen from the films. Despite some questionable use of copyrighted material, Nam does have a solid setting that feels cohesive throughout the 30 minute or so adventure.

The concept behind Nam is simple, make your solider guy run from left to right on the bottom of the screen while using your reticle to aim your gun and take down all manner of Vietnam War era enemies - with a little sci-fi thrown in (as is Japanese tradition). The three action buttons allow you to shoot your machine gun (hold down the button), throw a few varieties of grenades, and perform a run or dodge to get out of sticky situations. 

Because you are always shooting toward the background, all enemy fire comes toward the front of the screen at various angles which makes dodging bullets of a bit of a chore. This is especially hard due to the control stick moving both your aiming reticle and the player character. You often are put in situations where if you move to dodge an oncoming onslaught of bullets, you sacrifice your reticle placement. This can be tedious at first, but once you get the hang of how to manuver around your screen space the game becomes much more fun. Luckily, your quarters aren't on the line these days, so you can spend as much time as you want getting used to how the game plays. 

In each stage you have the opportunity to rescue a hostage (read: white blond woman in the middle of Vietnam). If you successfully take down her captor, she will join you in shooting down baddies until you lose a life. While this is a neat mechanic in and of itself, you die so often that she won't stick around too long unless you are intimately familiar with all the varied enemy patterns. 

Nam 1975 is a difficult game to be sure, and if you're playing on AES you have no option to change the difficulty. Thankfully, if your console is modded with the Unibios, you can put the game in MVS mode to change the difficulty or use a variety of cheats to help make the game more palatable. There is a marked difference between easy and normal, but even on easy the game still becomes very tough once you make it to the end of stage two. A favorite cheat I use is the 2x Shot which gives you two guns to use instead of one. Think of playing a game like Virtua Cop with two guns and you'll get an idea of what it's like. I wouldn't say the difficulty of the game is an overall deterrent, so long as you know what you're in for. 

Some early Neo-Geo games have a rather dark ending, with Nam and Cyber-Lip being two of the darkest. If you make it to the final boss (big IF), and lose all of your lives it is game over - even if you have a continue saved up! In order to get the best ending you must defeat the final boss with your remaining lives. Even the best ending is still a bit dark and doesn't give a lot of hope for the future despite preventing world-wide destruction. 

Environments are surprisingly destructible, which leads to some cool sprite scaling effects that arcade goers didn't often see outside of Sega's expensive super-scaler games like OutRun or Space Harrier. Another great touch is that many environments show bullet holes as you shoot your way around the screen. Huge planes and bosses smoothly scale in and out of the background making for some truly awesome spectacle as you play. Actually, the graphics overall are a treat with some great animation work, well designed sprites, and expert use of bright colors amid a drab setting that really makes the game pop. Today, it looks a little dated. Through a 1990's lens, though, it's easy to see why Nam was so impressive when it came out. 

Sound design is also a strong point with crystal clear voice overs and music samples. The soundtrack is war movie fair, but it gets the job done. You won't be humming these tunes away from the game, but each stage theme adds to the tension in the gameplay - and that's what good sound design is all about. There are plenty of grunts, screams, and gunfire as well that give the player a good sense of place while playing. Despite the clarity of the voice over work, the actual translation and voice over talent is laughably bad - but in that bad/good kind of way. There's a lot of it, though, as the intro and all cut scenes in the game are fully voiced and, for the time, was quite impressive.

As with many arcade games, you can play co-op with a buddy in Nam, but this comes with a few caveats. First, like with many shmups (horizontal or vertical shooters), your character and target reticle can easily get lost in the barage of bullets, enemies, and other effects. Second, having the second player active can make the hardware buckle at points essentially cutting the framerate in half. While the game is still more than playable co-op, I find it a bit more difficult than playing solo due to the issues mentioned above. 

Nam 1975 is a fine game, maybe even a good game if the difficulty was toned down a bit. It is a strong first outing for the Neo-Geo hardware, but it is far, far from being one of the system's best games. As a bit of a relic, modern gamers should go in expecting a rough but playable gallery shooter that can be beat in less than 30 minutes, especially if playing with a friend. 

The Japanese version comes in two different variants - the cardboard box original release and a second print in the more sturdy vinyl case. The second print is more sought after due to the better case, so you can expect to play upwards of $350. The US and European releases can be had between $250-500 depending on condition. A slight caveat for the Western AES variants: the US and European release packaging art was slightly censored by somebody in SNK's warehouse using (I'm not making this up) black permanent marker to cover up some slight skin shown on the blond woman on the box (some cleavage and her leg and arm). It's really quite funny. Many modern collectors complain about this, but this "censorship" is part of the history and legacy of this game. My copy has these marks and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Unfortunately for fans of 16-bit and 8-bit consoles with a penchant for early arcade ports, Nam 1975 was never ported to any home console in its time. In fact, many early Neo-Geo releases were exclusive to the Neo-Geo platform until the modern era aside from emulation. 

If you're curious you can grab the game on modern platforms for $8 on Hamster's Arcade Archives release - and that is how I recommend you play this game. It's a relic of the past, but there is still some fun to be had here...just make sure you get other games in your Neo collection first as this game is far from the best the Neo-Geo library has to offer. Still, there is much to be said for owning the first Neo-Geo game, and for hardcore collectors there is certainly some value in that.