NES Works #066: Kid Niki - Radical Ninja & Gotcha! The Sport

Data East (finally) serves up a pretty solid game in the form of Irem's Kid Niki: Radical Ninja, but the real story here is Gotcha!: The Sport. Not only is it the debut release from one of the NES's most questionable publishers, it also very much represents a specific moment in popular and political culture. Gotcha! was based on a movie and a toy line, and its publisher's fortunes were impacted by poor toy sales right as the national conversation began to focus on some unfortunate results from America's gun culture and the early days of the the police's move toward militarization. That's quite a lot to tie to a simple NES Zapper game...

Thanks to Steve Lin for lending the Kid Niki packaging to this endeavor!