Exterminator Rare Retrospective

A conversion of the original yet obscure 1990 coin-op of the same name, Rare’s Exterminator for the NES saw you playing the part of a pest control officer moving from building to building with the task of clearing out all the insects and other foes (animated toys, possessed household objects, you know, the usual sort of thing) to be found in each.
With no actual arcade machine on hand, the conversion team were forced to make do with a video of someone else playing through the original game: in spite of this setback, however, they still managed to get working versions of the first few levels up and running while the project was underway…
The fact that the on-screen player sprite was a floating disembodied hand made the game an obvious candidate for Power Glove compatibility – but ironically this extra touch played a large role in the title’s failure to ever reach the shelves. Poor sales of the Glove accessory itself and, again, the lack of an established market for the game (the coin-op hadn’t achieved a massive profile for itself) made continuing with the project all but pointless, so the team simply dropped it and moved onto whatever was next in line.