NARC
1988 · Run and Gun · Arcade
Overview
NARC (1988) is Eugene Jarvis's Williams run and gun about arresting or shooting drug dealers, the first arcade game on Texas Instruments' TMS34010 processor and one of the first "ultra-violent" games.
Deep Dive
Max Force and Hit Man arrest or shoot drug users and dealers on the way to Mr. Big, head of the K.R.A.K. organisation. Arrests are counted at the end of each level and score more than kills. Its enemies were played by costumed actors whose movements were recorded on a treadmill.
Developer Story
Jarvis designed it and programmed it with George N. Petro and Todd Allen. The TMS34010 was too slow for what he wanted, so Williams engineer Mark Loffredo built a custom blitter chip. The same digitising technique was later used in Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam.
Did You Know?
- The NES version, made by Rare and sold as anti-drug, removed the blood and renamed K.R.A.K. to K.W.A.K.
- The Pixies recorded Brian L. Schmidt's main theme as a B-side in 1990.
Sources & further reading
- Narc (video game) — Wikipedia
