Code Name: Viper

Code Name: Viper is one of those games that tries to offer the viewer a bit of everything. In 1990, Capcom built this title about an agent fighting a drug cartel so that its levels alternate between completely different gameplay mechanics – sometimes it's a classic platforming section with shootouts, other times the player finds themselves on a motorcycle in a chase sequence resembling a racing game, and in other segments you hold a gun in a view that approaches an on-rails shooter. The transitions between the individual styles come without warning, so the player can never be sure what kind of challenge awaits around the corner.

It's precisely this inconsistency that players remember most about Code Name: Viper. The game never gives the player time to get used to one control scheme before swapping it for another, which makes it an interesting example of genre experimentation from the late eighties and early nineties. Visually, the title benefits from typical Capcom graphics of the era – clean sprites, readable backgrounds, and smooth animation of the main character, though the pacing itself is uneven and the difficulty spikes sharply in places. The soundtrack keeps pace with the action and shifts noticeably from sequence to sequence depending on which gameplay style is currently in play, helping to distinguish the individual segments from one another.

For collectors and fans of the NES library, Code Name: Viper is interesting above all as evidence of how developers in the early nineties experimented with blending genres within a single game, before console production settled into clearly defined categories. Looking at the game today feels a bit like an archaeology of genre experimentation, from a time when it still wasn't clear exactly what players expected from an action game on a console.

Why play it: for its unusual switching between genres within a single game, something action titles of the time rarely offered.