Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A playthrough of Access Software's 1990 run-and gun action game for PCs running Dos, Crime Wave.
Played on the intermediate level.
Sometime in 1995, agents of a violent crime syndicate kidnap the president's daughter. Hearing the news, "super crime fighter Lucas McCabe" scours his "crime computer" for clues and learns that the cigar-chomping mob boss known as King Pin is pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Armed to the teeth, Lucas takes to the streets, unaware that the guys at King Pin's Command Center are tracking his every move.
That's the setup for Crime Wave, Access Software's tawdry B-movie take on Midway's 1988 arcade hit NARC. Like NARC, Crime Wave is a chaotic 2.5D run-and-gunner packed with explosions, psychotic drug dealers, flying body parts, and digitized sprites. Luke mows through droves of bad guys with his machine gun and rocket launcher, he can duck into buildings to collect bonuses and items, and the best way to survive any situation is to duck walk. The biggest difference is that, unlike his NARC counterparts, Luke can't arrest people.
Crime Wave reads as a low-rent NARC clone, but I suspect that's exactly what Access was aiming for. It's simple and trashy arcade fare, and the experience is largely carried by the quality of its presentation.
No consumer-level platform of the time could match the hardware that powered the arcade version of NARC, a fact made abundantly clear by its home adaptations released in 1990 (including Rare's NES game: youtu.be/YhVpGJsN7NQ). Crime Wave did, however, deliver the arcade-like spectacle better than any of NARC's official conversions. It was part of the first wave of Dos games to take full advantage of the VGA standard, and though it didn't support any dedicated sound cards, it pumped PCM data for digitized music and sound effects through the internal PC speaker. It was also playable on a wide range of hardware specs, and a high-end 286 could run it at a reasonable speed and framerate at max settings.
I don't think anyone nowadays would call Crime Wave an all-time great, but this was wildly impressive stuff for 1990.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
A playthrough of Access Software's 1990 run-and gun action game for PCs running Dos, Crime Wave.
Played on the intermediate level.
Sometime in 1995, agents of a violent crime syndicate kidnap the president's daughter. Hearing the news, "super crime fighter Lucas McCabe" scours his "crime computer" for clues and learns that the cigar-chomping mob boss known as King Pin is pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Armed to the teeth, Lucas takes to the streets, unaware that the guys at King Pin's Command Center are tracking his every move.
That's the setup for Crime Wave, Access Software's tawdry B-movie take on Midway's 1988 arcade hit NARC. Like NARC, Crime Wave is a chaotic 2.5D run-and-gunner packed with explosions, psychotic drug dealers, flying body parts, and digitized sprites. Luke mows through droves of bad guys with his machine gun and rocket launcher, he can duck into buildings to collect bonuses and items, and the best way to survive any situation is to duck walk. The biggest difference is that, unlike his NARC counterparts, Luke can't arrest people.
Crime Wave reads as a low-rent NARC clone, but I suspect that's exactly what Access was aiming for. It's simple and trashy arcade fare, and the experience is largely carried by the quality of its presentation.
No consumer-level platform of the time could match the hardware that powered the arcade version of NARC, a fact made abundantly clear by its home adaptations released in 1990 (including Rare's NES game: youtu.be/YhVpGJsN7NQ). Crime Wave did, however, deliver the arcade-like spectacle better than any of NARC's official conversions. It was part of the first wave of Dos games to take full advantage of the VGA standard, and though it didn't support any dedicated sound cards, it pumped PCM data for digitized music and sound effects through the internal PC speaker. It was also playable on a wide range of hardware specs, and a high-end 286 could run it at a reasonable speed and framerate at max settings.
I don't think anyone nowadays would call Crime Wave an all-time great, but this was wildly impressive stuff for 1990.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
![Pokémon: Blue Version (Game Boy) Playthrough [2 of 2]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n3r6_kMDOV8/mqdefault.jpg "Pokémon: Blue Version (Game Boy) Playthrough [2 of 2]
A playthrough of Nintendos 1998 JRPG for the Nintendo Game Boy, Pokémon Blue Version.
Played on the Super Game Boy.
This is the second part of a two-part playthrough, showing from the Pokémon Tower to the end. After the credits finish (9:32:45), I head over to the post-game dungeon to capture Mewtwo.
You can find part one at https://youtu.be/C0VP4JUkYQg
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!")
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Dragon Warrior II (NES) Playthrough [1 of 2]")
