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December 1st, 2014 
Carl Williams 
Tengen was one of those companies that weren’t afraid to go their own route in life, even if that meant going against the Big N and their, seemingly monopolistic, control of the gaming scene in the 80’s. Gauntlet was one of those titles that every gamer worth their salt knew about, it was big in the arcades, it was big on computers and Tengen controlled the home rights to the game and Tengen.
From the get go, Gauntlet is a “quarter muncher”, a title which is designed to suck money out of gamers pockets as fast as possible through any means necessary (extreme difficulty being rather popular). Viewing the action from overhead offered a much better perspective to the slaughter than a sidescrolling view could ever handle. Enemies come at the player in swarms of bodies on top of bodies coming out of these “monster generators”, sometimes filling a room to the point that there simply cannot be any more monsters in it till the player annihilates a few.
There is an interesting fact about Gauntlet by Tengen on the Nintendo Entertainment System. There are two versions, one is licensed by Nintendo and one is not but both share the same box art. This game was released at about the time that Tengen and Nintendo had a falling out over the licensing agreements that Nintendo had in place.
Gauntlet has hit a ton of systems, too many to list. If it was capable of running a version of the game, it probably received a port.
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Such a stanky port!
I played the Mindscape version of Gauntlet II quite a lot. I only barely touched the Tengen game over the years. Tengen receives WAY too much positive support from retrogamers in my opinion.
In retrospect, sure. But at the time, they were the only way to play many arcade ports.
I wish their version of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were better.
Yeah, as they say- hindsight is 20/20. At the time though, they were pretty cool, if nothing else for being the bad boys going against Nintendo and doing it quite well.
Familiar arcade titles and a unique cartridge shell, often at lower prices … what’s not to love (at the time)?
I remember the thrill of buying Rolling Thunder for $6 at a grocery store.
Nowadays people would think (1) that’s too expensive, (2) arcade ports are stupid, and (3) video game cartridges in a grocery store? and (4) why don’t you just play your dinosaur games on your phone.
I remember buying games at Safeway in Northern California (they often had lower prices than K-Mart or Payless but not as big a selection). Wow, Rolling Thunder for $6? I take it that was around the time it was new?
I am working on an article about how mobile gaming has turned gamers into cheapskates (going to word it nicer than that). It is a shame that people think a quality game is not worth their time because it has a price other than $0.99 for the regular version or $1.99 for the HD one.
Sadly, your other points are probably true. Gamers today just don’t realize how good they have it and how much better we had it with physical controls.