Eliminator Boat Duel: Machismo AHOY in Silly Fun Nes Romp 🚤

Eliminator Boat Duel on the NES

Getting into the Christmas spirit with wild abandon, we’re reviewing some random 1991 NES game about powerboat racing. Hurray!

We tried out Eliminator Boat Duel randomly last night on the Nintendo Switch’s online catalogue of retro games. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed it, not least thanks to the ridiculous and anachronistic sense of alpha male masculinity the title promotes (which does appear somewhat tongue-in-cheek).

There’s a lot going on in this garish, weird, fun little title. Thus, let’s explore its boat-based Boaty McBoatface and see where this takes us.

Surf’s Up, Dudes!! It’s Eliminator Boat Duel!!!

This was by the now defunct American developer Sculptured Software, launching in November 1991 in North America. Lucky Europe got its hands on this in April 1993.

It takes on more “mature” themes of alpha male machismo and plays out like a 1980s action movie.

That includes beach babes in bikinis prancing about the place holding placards whilst THE MEN do the powerboating racing. HELL YEAH! We did mention quite a bit of that seems tongue-in-cheek now, or maybe its just modern sensibilities make the game appear ludicrous.

Whatever, it is basically the Road Rash concept, which happened to launch in September 1991 on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis), but on BOATS.

And if you’ve no idea what Road Rash is, that means you race powerboats and the better you do… the more cash you get! You use that moolah to power-up your boat and become even more badass and machismo. Take that, inferior weaklings!

Rambling aside, we must say for 1991 NES standards the racing stuff looks really good! It’s also surprisingly good fun and intense, with a lot of boat bashing action as you seek to defeat an opponent.

First up, let’s check out the amazeballs title screen!

Eliminator Boat Duel 's title screen

Stuff like that makes us question the developer’s intent. Was Eliminator Boat Duel supposed to be amusing? A spoof? Or just appealing for juvenile male sensibilities pumped up on one-too-many Big Arnie films?

Even the name is preposterous—Eliminator Boat Duel. Doesn’t roll off the tongue like Road Rash does, eh?

Anyway, we’re going to have to presume it’s just a cheesy take on 1980s social preferences. As there are an unholy amount of digital bikini babes in Eliminator Boat Duel.

Yes, then, the game splits between an overhead, bird’s-eye-view race mode. But then it will, from time to time, shift into a fancy pants third-person tracking mode. Which actually works pretty well and reminds us of that bit in Earthworm Jim (1994) with the race against PsyCrow and the asteroids.

The goal is beat opponents, bag the cash, improve boat. With the ultimate achievement being to beat every single computer character across the game (which takes about 50 minutes).

Yes, so it’s a bit repetitive on that. You just race, win, upgrade ship, race some more, bikini babes etc.

As mindless retro gaming entertainment, this is good! It’s kind of entertaining in its restrictive ways, showing off some impressive game development for 1991 standards.

Apparently, there’s also a typo on the top edge label of the North American cartridge that bears the legend: