Ice Climber

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Ice Climber (アイスクライマー, Aisu Kuraimā^?) is a climbing platforming video game developed and published by Nintendo as part of the VS. arcade series in 1984. A year later, the slightly different and most well known version was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. In some countries of Europe, the game was bundled with the NES, increasing the game's familiarity outside Japan.

Gameplay

In the game, player 1 controls Popo (ポポ) (a boy dressed in a blue Eskimo parka) while player 2 controls Nana (ナナ) (a girl dressed in a pink Eskimo parka). Their challenge is to venture up an ice-covered mountain and recover their stolen vegetables from a giant condor. The only tool a player has is a hammer to make openings on the ice layer above and to club enemies. Each mountain consists of eight levels of colorful ice and a bonus stage. Standard, dull ice blocks pose no threat other than an easily disposed of barrier. Ice blocks that appear more square and detailed are indestructible forcing the player to take another path. The darker ice with diagonal lines act as a conveyor belt sliding the Eskimo either to the left or right. Finally, many mountains include cloud-shaped, moving platforms as an additional hurdle. The bonus stage takes place at the peak. With a time limit of 40 seconds and no enemies, the Ice Climbers often face trickier jumps and multiple moving platforms. It is also the only place they can snag back their stolen vegetables, most notably eggplants. At the top of the peak, the condor flies overhead. Grabbing its talons before time runs out gives the player a large bonus.

The enemies they encounter on their way up the mountain include Topis, Nitpickers, and polar bears. Topis come in two varieties: the seal featured in the Japanese version and the small yeti seen in western copies. While early U.S. releases featured the seal design, they were redone as a more imaginary creature over concerns of animal cruelty (seal clubbing). Topis are the least threatening of the Ice Climbers' adversaries. Their aim is to keep the duo from reaching further up the peak by filling in gaps in the ice. To do this, Topis scout out places the player has carved through the floor, run back to their cave, and reemerge pushing an icicle to fill in two ice blocks. This process repeats till they find no more openings on their level of the mountain. Topis become increasingly more of a threat with each successful mountain climbed. Not only does their speed increase but with more complex ice platforms to scale, coming in contact with one is all the more likely. The Nitpicker is a small, mountain-dwelling bird that swoops down from icy caves on the edges. Unlike the Topi which is confined to one floor of the mountain, Nitpickers can cross over multiple ice layers. Taking them into account along with moving platforms and sliding ice, timing jumps can be more difficult. The final enemy is the pink-shorts-wearing, sunglass-sporting, upright-walking polar bear. Rarely seen, this enemy can be a big headache if Popo or Nana is hanging too low on the screen and taking too long to advance. Pounding the ice, this enemy forces the screen to move up. If an Eskimo is forced off the screen as well, the player loses a life. Other obstacles include deadly falling icicles. These can form on the bottom of any type of ice or platform.

Read more at Wikipedia.org