REVIEW - Chiller | NES | 1990

GENRE(S): Shooter
RELEASED: 1986 (Arcade)
AVAILABLE ON: ARC, NES
DEVELOPER(S): Exidy
PUBLISHER(S): Exidy, American Game Cartridges (NES)

Now here's a game I've wanted to add to the Monster Mash for ages; it's definitely not good, but it fits the usual bill perfectly as it is one of the most intentionally distasteful horror-themed games ever made. Chiller was first released in the arcades in 1986, after several modifications to the very thin "plot". Nobody rightly knew where arcade veterans Exidy were going with this game - some believed they were intentionally rallying for bankruptcy. The early 90's were the golden era of unlicensed NES cartridges, made by a few American companies as inspired by Tengen's success in the field of unlicensed NES games in the 80's. American Game Cartridges was one of the "biggest names" in the field and in 1990, they delivered an 8-bit port of Chiller, which was kinda interesting since it actually supported the Nintendo Zapper despite being an unauthorized release. No one in the right mind would've ever expected Chiller to turn up on the NES as it was in the arcades; even as an unlicensed game, it went through some heavy censorship. ...But it's still quite revolting. Let's have a look: this might not be a long review, but it's something that absolutely has to be done.

The only way to exit is going piece by piece

Here's the plot as described on the box: a medieval castle has been invaded by some evil force which is causing the dead to rise from their graves, and you play the role of a poor man's ghostbuster who's been tasked with collecting the 32 talismans of the castle and stop the undead uprising.

Do not worry, I've come to save you! ...Oh, wait.
No I haven't.

Here's the plot as it really is: you're a sick puppy with a penchant for not just killing zombies, but torturing and slaughtering utterly defenseless people. No use in just simply tearing them limb from limb with your "gun" - whatever that is - as it takes so much time. Time is short, and creativity is "rewarded".

Oh, dear Lord. The title of the game paints a picture of a very standard, somewhat comedic b-horror game - not far apart from the original Castlevania, Monster Party or even Ghoul School. Sorry for mentioning Castlevania in this context, but it did come out around the same time as the original Chiller. The box art for the NES game supports this assumption, looking like a poster for an 80's horror comedy, graced with the tag line "Dead People Are Cool". That tag gets a whole new meaning once you start the game. Let's make it clear at this point that I'm not that disgusted by the game, I'm just wondering what the hell went on in the developers' minds.

In terms of the amount of content, Chiller is a throwback to classic arcade - it only has four levels, looped over and over, and they get harder each time, with more required targets and a tighter time limit. However, unlike other arcade games built like this, you can "beat" Chiller by shooting out special items or just some random bundles of pixels in each of the levels - 32 in all - to gain talismans. You see all the talismans you've gathered and the targets you've missed during the whole game in the level start screen. Now some of these "talismans" are indeed some background details, or some easily missable stuff amidst the "excitement", such as a rat randomly running across the level floor, Some of them are something completely different.

You guys having a party in here? (Notice how
calm they are?)

After the first two levels, you're in the mindset that you're indeed a good guy, some glorious hunter of the supernatural, but the next two levels spill the truth. First off, you're at an underground dungeon with a river of blood running through it. There are no ghosts or zombies around, just three innocent people tied up in torture racks, one guy chained to the floor, one guy hanging from the ceiling and one guy who's apparently come to rescue these people, lurking in the doorway. Yep, you're actually supposed to kill the shit out of these people. Shoot that last guy too, to avoid disturbances. You can't take damage from anything in the game, but the time limit in conjunction with the required targets is very strict. Bonus targets like that wannabe hero over there gain you an advantage over that limit. There are a couple of ways you can do this, you can either use the torture racks to rip those people apart or just simply shoot their bodies to unrecognizable shapes with your... yeah, what is that, really?!

Anyway, the next level, the last one, is even worse in terms of taste, as it brings a few more people into the mix, really close up - including a naked young lady strapped into a full-body gutting device, another into a guillotine, and one guy's literally got his head in a vice. Once again you can just blast your way through this last level, or get creative with your sick mind and get both of those vice and guillotine running for starters. How utterly exciting... not nearly as exciting as being taken back to the beginning of the game to hunt for the missing talismans, though. And the circle goes on and on and on, until you power off. Which is something like ten minutes into the game at the most.

Unlicensed NES games were rarely half decent, and never very creative. If Chiller is one of the most interesting unlicensed titles out there, things were not well in that field - even if my "interest" in Chiller has nothing to do with quality or creativity, it's about testing the limits. I appreciate that in a certain way. It's a fun game to SEE running on an NES, that's all there is to it.

UPS
+ You know, I really can't come up with anything useful

DOWNS
- Same as above; it's obvious how bad the game is

< 2.0 >

REVIEW - Sweet Home | NES | 1989

GENRE(S): Survival horror / RPG
RELEASED: December 15, 1989
AVAILABLE ON: NES
DEVELOPER(S): Capcom
PUBLISHER(S): Capcom

Time to kick off this year's Monster Mash, and there simply ain't no game more suitable for the task than this little Japanese, Capcom-made curiosity considered the very first survival horror game ever made. In early 1989, Japanese film director Kiyoshi Kurosawa - no relation to Akira - made a horror film named Sweet Home. Later that year, he closely collaborated with Capcom, more specifically Ghosts 'n Goblins and Mega Man producer Tokuro Fujiwara to make a video game adaptation of the film. The game was considered ingenious and extremely innovative, no less than one of the best Famicom games made at that time, but a Western release of the game would've required some serious compromises regarding its brutality, which the designers were not willing to make. Sweet Home remained a cult title in Japan and received its first share of international fame seven years after its release, when Shinji Mikami - a huge fan of the game - designed a certain spiritual successor to the game, which went on to popularize survival horror all around the world. How could Sweet Home NOT boggle the interest of a lifelong Resident Evil fan? Well, it is written in Japanese... but of course, that's not much of an obstacle for modern technology. Let's go.

No place like home, huh?

Come on man, it's just a legless zombie.

A film crew consisting of five people travels to an abandoned mansion once owned by the famous, late artist Ichiro Mamiya, in hopes of finding his unreleased paintings and using them to make the best art documentary ever. However, as the crew enters the mansion, the entryway collapses, and it becomes clear that the mansion is quite littered with the undead, including a poltergeist in the guise of Mamiya himself. A boring art documentary turns into something way more exciting as the group struggles to escape this house of death.

The idea for Monster Mash started with Resident Evil. My whole infatuation with survival horror started with Resident Evil, way back when it was released in Europe. Well, since this time there ain't no Resident Evil game to pop into my mind for a review (I'm not that far into Resident Evil: Revelations and the sequel is coming soon anyway, so let's save it for a later date), let's set our sights on a Famicom game that has had its name all over every Internet publication ever made regarding the early history of Resident Evil. 'Til just a brief while back, the game was, and had always been exclusive to Japan. Nearly two years ago, this guy I know bought a highly expensive "redux" retail version of the game from a now-defunct American company that remade all sorts of NES and SNES games note by note, but their most important and popular products were, of course, translated versions of games previously released only in Japan; I got myself a fancy-ass redux of Final Fantasy III just before they closed their doors. Well, I'm not exactly in speaking terms with that guy right now, so I couldn't ask him to borrow the game, but I thought that if there's a translated retail version of Sweet Home out there, there's gotta be a ROM available on the net. I was quite right in my assumption; there is, and it's seamless, unlike many fan-made dejaps I've played thus far. I headed into this book of genesis with my hopes set far too high, and came out with the following conclusion: the user interface of Sweet Home may be severely outdated, but God DAYMNNN, the game has fantastic ideas. Had I "discovered" the game just a decade or so ago, it would've left an even better impression on me.

I think I once saw these gals on Doctor Who.

Ever played any 8-bit role-playing game, like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest? Good, you know exactly how Sweet Home looks like, then. It's just got more blood and gore. The game is generally played from a top-down view, while the random encounters are in 3D, just like in Dragon Quest; however, there are also some random events for the horror's sake which present themselves in 3D, like chandeliers spontaneously falling down from ceilings and previously locked doors slowly opening (very Resident Evil-like, as you will see). It's all quite damn cool, and if you fail to figure it out before, check out the death animations to see why Nintendo of America hated this game.

Back in its time, Sweet Home was probably one of the most complex games ever made - but someone who has played any sort of puzzle-oriented adventure games most of his life will find the basics very accessible, even if the game's obsolete interface is tough on the nerves. More on that later, let's go over the basics first. You play as five different characters, all with their special tools. None of them are considered the "main" character, 'cause absolutely any or all of them may die during the course of the game. A rare case of permadeath, that is; they won't be coming back, or their valuable tools. Not to worry, though; replacements for all tools are found scattered around the mansion, so basically the game cannot conclude in an unwinnable state. Also, anyone can use standard items such as Tonics, it's not prohibited to the "medic" although it looks like it at first; the medic is the only person who can heal status ailments, though, and if she dies, you'll need to find an endless supply of pills to replace her medical kit. Yes, this game was made in 1989. Think about that.

This hallway's almost 1:1 with a certain Resident
Evil hallway. Without dogs, though.

Kazuo is the director, and his tool is the lighter, used to set stuff on fire. Go figure. Emi is his daughter, equipped with a master key of sorts that opens most doors in the mansion. Taro is the photographer, needed for many puzzles due to his "all-revealing" camera, as is Asuka, who's an art restorer equipped with a vacuum cleaner. Finally, Akiko's that medic, although officially she's just the producer, just hanging around the rest of the crew - I guess they needed her to have a specific role in the game, 'cause she was such an important character in the film. You can change the party at any time to a maximum of three; due to there being just five members, one party is always at a disadvantage. Even if you manage to keep the parties close to each other all the time and available for each other's aid in combat, progress in the game turns extremely tough just 15-20 minutes into it. There's that threat of permadeath looming all the time, you can never predict the challenge the enemies in the next room might provide, and there are just that few Tonics to go around towards the end. They are the only way to replenish your health and pray points; in good news, they cure everyone at once. Praying is used for lots of things on the field, in combat it does devastating damage to those unholy beings you're fighting. ...I'll try that the next time I go head to head with my boss.

That's pretty much the game in a nutshell, so let's move on to the crummy interface and other stupidities you will most definitely come across. The good news is that Sweet Home has the quickest battles out of the short array of 8-bit RPG's - the loading times are unnoticeable, command response is extremely quick and provided you're properly equipped, meaning that you have at least SOMETHING equipped, your attacks actually have effect, and missing a hit is very rare. Groups of enemies are considered one, so it's also impossible to miss a hit due to attacking an already fallen enemy (so basically: fuck you, Final Fantasy). Field work, now that's tedious. You can't just pick up items by facing them and pressing a button, or there's not even a screen that comes up for a Yes / No choice like in the successor. Oh, no, in this one you need to face the item you want, very precisely at that, go to the menu and manually assign the item to a party member to a specific slot. If you choose the wrong one, you'll have to do it again. Any item you had there will take the new item's place on the field.

Damn, man, you really got beat up by that lamp.

Forming parties is even more of an annoyance. If you want to make a complete shuffle, as you probably will after getting to know the ins and outs of the game a little, you have to detach members from the group one by one by talking to them, using a specific command, until they've all split up and are free for choosing. After all that other hassle with the menu, you can't do THIS in the menu. It's ridiculous. What's also annoying, let's assume you've just used your "combat party" to work your way through the worst series of hallways and rooms in the whole game, when you suddenly bump into an obstacle that only a member in the weaker group - and probably the lesser group in terms of numbers - can do something about. You then need to conquer the same stretch with that other group. Now that's tough. And you'll probably die. Then again, strategizing your way out of these sorts of situations is seen as one of the game's strengths and innovations. People view the game's features differently - some might even say it's easier once two members of the party are dead, 'cause you don't have to worry about that excess luggage anymore, just the replacement of their tools. One thing the game'll never be is easy, regardless of how you go at it.

Sweet Home's probably the earliest, and for many years, the only console game in which you could save your progress absolutely anywhere on the field. It takes away the usual guilt of using state saving, that makes it even more of a game which I think emulators were created for. And, behind all those annoyances, you'll find a challenging and rewarding game; there are five slightly differing endings, depending on how many of your party members survive the whole trip, but don't expect an "ending" if you fuck it all up besides a "Game Over"; this was 21 years before Heavy Rain. That's still a little hard to grasp; the game has such brilliant ideas behind all that uncomfortable execution that I'm amazed they didn't start working on a follow-up earlier. Well, better late than never; absolutely great, actually. I'm glad this game was made.

I'm extremely disappointed that I didn't familiarize myself with this game years earlier; by "years earlier" I mean the time I had already had some experience in both role-playing and puzzle-oriented adventuring, just not so much of it. I wouldn't have made heads or tails of this game back at the time of its non-release. Even so, I recognize Sweet Home as a curious game extremely recommendable to survival horror fanatics, filled to the brim with great ideas and even greater intentions, just a field interface that was obsolete on arrival and gets worse as years go by.

UPS
+ The origin of some fabulous ideas
+ Cheesy, but effective horror elements, a "few" steps forward from what we had in Castlevania
+ Combat is quick and fun, unlike in most 8-bit RPG's
+ You can save anywhere!
+ A cool plot, quite faithful to the movie; however, as far as presentation goes, the game doesn't feel like a licensed one at all, and unlike the movie, all members of the crew might survive. It just isn't very likely.
+ What we have here is indeed a truly challenging game...

DOWNS
- ...The real challenge in which is however overshadowed by an intolerable user interface; managing everything from the menu is not only hard, but extremely tedious

< 8.2 >

REVIEW - The Punisher | NES | 1990

GENRE(S): Rail shooter
RELEASED: November 1990
AVAILABLE ON: NES
DEVELOPER(S): Beam Software
PUBLISHER(S): LJN

Created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru, and debuting as the main villain of an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in early 1974, Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, is one of the most popular cult characters of the Marvel universe. Armed with no special powers except incredible willpower fueled by pure hatred, Frank thinks that death, perhaps spiced up with a little bit of torture from time to time - if he's in the holiday spirit - is the only true form of justice. Especially after the huge critical and commercial failure of a 1989 feature film starring Dolph Lundgren, The Punisher was one guy you never thought to star in an NES game; enter LJN with their absurd ideas. Absurd and oozing with the usual stupidity or not, The Punisher for the NES is honestly one of LJN's best and positively innovative games.

Punish 'em fools

Driven by the violent deaths of his wife and children, Frank Castle delivers his own brand of shotgun justice on the streets of New York City under the alias of The Punisher, Hitman, Jigsaw, Colonel Kliegg, Sijo Kanaka and Assassin team up with the crime lord Kingpin to drive the city to the ground and take down the dark vigilante in the process.

From a guy who's into contrast and brutality such as me, it should come as no surprise that The Punisher is one of my favourite Marvel characters, and even though the few Punisher games I've got lined up ain't that promising, it's great to have Frank Castle as the last true star of this year and a half long marathon. The character himself and alone paves the way for a good exit before the few ensemble games that'll wrap it all up. Frank firmly believes in justice just as any superhero does - he just has his very own vision of justice, which usually involves a lethal hail of bullets. He's like the polar opposite of just about every other costumed freak out there - doesn't even use a mask, just that black spandex overall with a huge skull on it. It's like he wants his face to be the last thing scumbags see before dying. Poetic. Pointless, but poetic.

Copy-pasted graffiti. Real expressionism.

So, here we have an 8-bit video game called The Punisher, with a fairly large LJN logo in the lower left corner of the front of the box. It reminds me of the days when I was still living in the backwoods burg I once called home, where video games were sold at very few, random stores, and they were considered so valuable they kept 'em in locked glass cabinets, with only the front showing. You couldn't even hold the game in your hand, if you didn't pay for it first. A game like Super Mario Bros. 3 was guaranteed to blow your mind, you saw it up there and paid for it, no questions asked. But, let's pretend that kids of that time were wise when it came to video games. Let's also pretend games were actually reviewed back then, rather than just advertised with more or less volume. That LJN logo would've either been a pulsating warning sign, or a kind of an invisibility necklace. Sure, the cover art was neat and it looked the part - probably ripped straight off the comics. But that logo would've told you the real story. Right? Wrong, actually. Instead of being a stupid platformer, The Punisher is a stupid rail shooter, one of the only ones ever seen on the NES... and it's fairly good at being one!

The graphics are quite good for an NES game, there's enough variety between backgrounds although not that much when it comes to enemies. There's hardly any music at all; just a high-pitched theme song, a boss theme and a... saxophone solo. I'll get to it.

So there's really not much I can say about The Punisher. It's a left-to-right rail shooter with a total of six levels, with two stages and a boss battle each. Your goal is to kill (almost) everything that moves, with your primary weapon assigned to A and a secondary, very limited weapon for boss fights and gang-ups assigned to B. If you get a 100% kill ratio in one stage, you gain a gun upgrade for the next stage, which makes your progress a bit faster and comfier. Enemy bullets are slow and easy to dodge by simply strafing to the opposite direction on the screen. If you get careless and lose all of your lives, it's back to the beginning of the whole game, in the vintage arcade style this whole genre derives from.

Back at the docks!

OK, so first of all, the Nintendo Zapper is not supported, which is kinda weird, and it's generally uncomfortable to use a standard controller for aiming, but then again, the Zapper would eliminate the possibility of a secondary weapon. Besides, the field is quite limited, so there's not that much pain involved with moving the crosshair; it's just that you have to beat the game in one single session and the levels are very lengthy. And boring. I just had to fit that in somewhere. Take away the changing backgrounds and besides the boss fights, you'll feel like you're doing the exact same thing over and over again. But well, that's the usual problem with these sorts of games, especially the early ones - not really LJN's fault. ...But adding in the few civilians is. There are nearly always civilians in these games, usually meant to distract you by running across the screen at the worst possible moment, as if to hand out an invitation to a stray bullet and make you suffer a health penalty. Well, these civilians just stand or sit around; one's playing a saxophone on the street. All that chaos and mayhem around him, bullets flying and people dying, and he just sits on the stairs and plays the fuck out of that sax. Gotta hand it to the man.

The Punisher is not really that difficult, it just takes a lot of dedication I'm guessing only kids can spare - although I can't really see myself allowing a seven-year old to play The Punisher. Of course it's got no blood or any other excessities, it's a very tame game, but they might get so excited they'll go after the 2005 game, which is known to gross out even some adults, there's no telling what it'll do to a kid. That game ain't on the list, though, in case you're wondering - but I might go for it at a later date, it sounds quite interesting in terms of brutality. Now for the final judgement on this one: a surprisingly decent game in a very stale genre, published by a whorehouse that hardly ever got anything right. Deciding on whether that was an insult or a compliment is hard even for myself, but I guess the insulting part's just a reflex. Mild entertainment for the bored masses, which is more than I can say about 99% of LJN's catalog.

UPS
+ The Punisher!
+ It's a rail shooter (simplicity)

DOWNS
- It's a rail shooter (level design)
- There's no point in having civilians just sitting around, plus it's dumb
- Running out of ammo in boss fights forces you to suicide

< 7.0 >

REVIEW - Silver Surfer | NES | 1990

GENRE(S): Shoot 'em up
RELEASED: November 1990
AVAILABLE ON: NES
DEVELOPER(S): Software Creations
PUBLISHER(S): Arcadia Systems

Silver Surfer, the intergalactic herald of destruction, was created by Jack Kirby and made his debut on the pages of The Fantastic Four in 1966, from where he spun off to a series of his own two years later. Silver Surfer never became super-popular, but a cult favourite among Marvel fans; he gained some mainstream fame upon his important, namesake role in the 2007 Fantastic Four film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, in which he was portrayed by contortionist Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne. Long before that, in 1990, someone figured they'd finance the production of a Silver Surfer video game; that someone being someone other than LJN (!). Silver Surfer was developed by Software Creations, who at least got something right every once in a while - their most popular game, Solstice, had been released earlier that year. Well, retro critics' reception to Silver Surfer is, as is well known, extremely negative; but I must say, now that I've finally psyched myself to do it, playing Silver Surfer on the NES isn't quite the horrible experience I imagined it to be... and it's definitely not even the worst NES game of the marathon. It's just very, very, very, very hard.

No quarter

You'll be seeing this a LOT.

Galactus sends the Silver Surfer on a deadly errand to collect the parts of a cosmic device to protect their realm from the invasion of the Magik Domain. These parts are placed in the hands of some of the nastiest of the galaxy: Reptyl, Mephisto, Possessor, Fire Lord and Dorrek VII, with a sixth, anonymous villain calling the shots.

So, Silver Surfer, we meet again. Last December, I took a little dip into the world of the Silver Surfer, literally so as I reviewed the horrible, just horrible DS game based on that Rise of the Silver Surfer film - which in itself was quite abysmal. This game has nothing to do with the Fantastic Four, this is strictly based on the Silver Surfer stand-alone serial, rehashed and rebooted from time to time as if to test worldwide reactions. The Silver Surfer has always been a critics' favourite and a cult favourite among fans, but honestly not the first character to come to my mind if I was making a Marvel game at any point of time, if I wanted to make some money with it. On the other hand, it might've been a stroke of passion for gaming, not money. Or it might've been just be a random idea to disguise a basic 2D shoot 'em up game. Or just simply a random game made for random reasons.

Whatever it is, it's existed for 24 years, and no-one knows why. The game is one of the many "lucky" ones to be chosen for AVGN's shitlist, and when a game makes that list, when James goes to the trouble of shooting a video for a game - can't imagine how long the most complex videos have taken from him to make - you know it's something special, in better or worse, usually worse. That's why they call him "Angry". I have reviewed many games after James; if I don't know a game that well, and he happens to have a video for it, I very often use that video for research. The problem's been that his thoughts on the game have provoked me to pick up the same mistakes a little easier than I probably would've if I'd went cold turkey. Well, in this case, I don't agree with James all that much. While I absolutely do concur that Silver Surfer is an extremely unfair game, I don't think it's totally unplayable. I've seen much worse Marvel games bearing the Seal of Quality.

There are at least 11 ways to die on this one
screen.

Before I go into the game itself, I might as well address one of the critics' more superficial annoyances with Silver Surfer - apparently it doesn't properly support the source material. OK, especially in the case of Batman I've often griped if he's used an excessive amount of projectile weapons (Batman: Return of the Joker) or killed people (many early games, but Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu on the Game Boy Advance comes to mind), and that's because I'm such a huge Batman fan. I'm not a fan of the Silver Surfer. If you're annoyed by this game at such a level, I feel for you, I truly do, it's a bummer, absolutely no sarcasm involved - but I'm not. He's silver(ish), he has that surfboard or whatever, and I recognize some of the villains from another context. Enough for me.

If there's something critics have praised about the game, it's the music, which is no wonder since brothers Follin are in the house. Tim, of course, is the more famous out of the duo, having composed many classic titles such as Bubble Bobble, Bionic Commando, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and of course, Solstice (thequestforthestaffofdemnos!). Just to pull the rope back a bit here, I don't rightly get why such a limited quantity of tunes would need two composers. Either way, it sounds great; it's magnificently sequenced, high-impact groove. Somehow reminds me of David Wise - which originally led me to believe that this was another Rare/LJN contribution to the pile of Marvel trash.

Silver Surfer is a 2D shoot 'em up, as very basic as they come, overhauled with a distinct comic book theme. The first NES comparison to come to mind is Disney's TaleSpin, perhaps not the most flattering comparison, but the most honest one. It's got similar, sticky controls in a world that needs more, and the side-scrolling's automatic up 'til the boss. Classic shoot 'em ups such as R-Type and Gradius were probably used as templates, but I never had any complaints when it came to the controls. They were hard, sure. Silver Surfer is just way harder, and not for a whole lot of right reasons, as if there are many reasons to go around at all in such a game.

A rubber duck? What the...?

You let your kids play Silver Surfer, you're practically begging for them to learn the ins and outs, and all existing variations of the word "fuck". Not even a kid has patience for all the death stored in this innocent-looking cartridge. It isn't like Ghosts 'n Goblins, Battletoads, Ninja Gaiden or any of the hardest Mega Man games - it isn't as appealing or playable to begin with, not on any level. It's JUST a shoot 'em up and it's just as much of a push as it is a draw. More specifically, a shoot 'em up with sticky controls AND just one hit point to spare, which is less than in any of those games I mentioned (even Ghosts has two). Projectiles, as well as enemies themselves, are flying towards you from every direction. In the start of a new life, you have one-time access to a screen-clearing bomb for an emergency; as you will see, though, the levels are filled with these kind of emergencies. Your bullets - or whatever - can be upgraded in Castlevania style with power-ups gained from shooting up enemies, but the changes aren't that grand. Remember: one hit from anything, and it's over.

There's one checkpoint per stage, but there are no extra lives to be had, and using a password is considered cheating outside the box, as you need two controllers and a simple cheat code in order to use them. You can play the levels in any order you want, but none of them are any easier than the next. One more level is unlocked after you've beaten the first five, and as expected, that one's criminally insane. It's best you just stop trying early.

To turn the tide again on this same subject, how can you be mad at a simple 2D shoot 'em up? How can you claim to actually hate a simple shoot 'em up as a game? Sure, Silver Surfer could present some fashion of slack every once in a while, but we've seen some of the most thoroughly horrible games of all time during this marathon - ones that give you just as little mercy, but are impossible to enjoy from any standpoint. You won't get very far in Silver Surfer, but at least you're eager to try for the first 20 minutes if you got any nose for vintage arcade.

UPS
+ Good music
+ Simple enough

DOWNS
- Kind of a random theme
- Stock enemy designs that don't belong here
- Impossible difficulty
- Sticky controls

< 6.3 >

REVIEW - Wolverine | NES | 1991

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: 1991
AVAILABLE ON: NES
DEVELOPER(S): Software Creations
PUBLISHER(S): LJN

As popular as the X-Men are as a group, take away this guy and you've got a bunch of throwaways who probably would have never made through their first decade. Wolverine - or Logan - is the driving force of the X-Men franchise; an ultra-violent, alcoholic, seemingly immortal powerhouse with severe trust issues and total lack of social discretion... and huge, razor-like claws he can summon at will whenever the going gets too tough. Wolverine has starred as the lead character in every X-Men movie; they couldn't even pass on a Wolverine cameo in the prequel X-Men: First Class which didn't actually involve him in any way. There he was for about ten seconds, played by Hugh Jackman as always, and he made the most out of those few seconds. In addition, he had an origin movie of his own, and one more movie based on a 1982 limited series comic book. Likewise, he has starred in most X-Men games, been involved in most Marvel all-star games, and had a few games of his own, including a few based on his 2009 origin movie. This NES game was the first of its kind in that last category, and I doubt there was much in the developers' minds beyond making a game that bore Wolverine's fine name. Like a real story, or playability. Just the potential, the monetary potential at that. In its defense, I must say Wolverine is better than The Uncanny X-Men. Seeing who produced it, though, reveals the ugly truth behind that compliment.

Keep those claws where we can't see 'em

Logan's been stranded on a desert island after a bad night on the town, it seems. He soon figures out he's been captured by Sabretooth and Magneto, and has to fight his way through nine different trials that put his supernatural being to its limits.

In short, Logan's the man. He was at the very least one of the first in a long line of superheroes to break the mold of the stereotypical superhero; he didn't really care for other people's wellbeing before joining the X-Men and finding a responsible cause to go with his great powers. Someone was getting robbed on the street, he tried his best to avoid the situation, but if they got in HIS face, he cleaned house, to be followed by praises he only found awkward and most likely told whoever he just reluctantly "saved" to go fuck themselves in lack of better social skills and wordsmanship. Even with the X-Men, most of his personality and liking to alcohol and hot women remained intact, so he made for a great polar opposite for every other lead mutant in the franchise, who were practically raised by Professor X, who even as the man with the calmest demeanor in the world has difficulties putting up with Logan's reckless and violent antics. Logan's love/hate relationship with life is one of the keys to his great success and popularity. Whenever there's an X-Men game, we expect to see Wolverine on some sort of personal vendetta. Especially when the game itself is named Wolverine. Capcom was making absolutely fantastic licensed games at the time. Konami was making even better ones. They would've been great nominees for making this game, and both of them did go on to make Marvel games sooner or later. In the end, we got a game that utterly lacked a real story, made it really difficult to enjoy the main character's finest traits, and was conceived by practically decent developers who however were working under the conditions of the shittiest publishers in the business, who were also responsible for The Uncanny X-Men, (possibly) the worst game ever made. Case closed... nearly.

Mega Man vs. Wolverine: Air Man's Revenge.

You see, compared to The Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine hits you like a masterpiece. In every possible way. It's honestly fun to play for a while, just because it is so much better by every measure. You can honestly play it for as long as two minutes before you start to see how much it sucks, ...by every measure, EXCEPT for the music, which is actually really good, quality stuff, might even be some of the best music I've heard in an NES game produced by LJN Toys. I had to look it up, and I found that the music's composed by Geoff Follin (brother of the more famous Tim Follin) whose resume is bloodstained with several licensed games, including the already reviewed T2: Judgment Day (the NES version) and Batman Forever, several versions of that dumb-and-dumber video game adaptation of The Incredible Crash Dummies, and finally, one of the most bashed Marvel games of all time, Silver Surfer, which is coming around soon enough. Good work, bad employers. I know how it feels. The graphics are also pretty good, considering this is an LJN game where even the largest sprites have usual difficulties to look at least normal.

The gameplay's where the fun stops, once again - but! The controls are slightly delayed, but overall quite good, except for the swimming controls. Due to the delay, it's impossible to regain control right away after falling into water, meaning you usually sink like a brick and usually right on top of enemy traps in the bottom. There's no period of invincibility on your back after you take a hit, instead you take constant damage until you can get the fuck away from traps. Even enemy projectiles do the same sort of constant damage as long as they are, sometimes vertically, passing through Wolverine's body. The level design reeks at the very least when it comes to enemy placements. Narrow platforms are melee attackers' favourite spots, and whenever you're trick jumping on platforms on top of utter emptiness, you can be damn sure to bump into a LOT of flying bastards who you don't even have a chance to hit, and whose projectiles you have nearly just as little chance to dodge. Level 3's trial is based on traps, a lot of which are utterly impossible to survive without losing some of your precious health. I guess you were supposed to be able to dodge some pendulums falling on you in a narrow hallway by crawling under them, but it isn't possible. It's so close to possible, however, that I think the developers made a bit of an architectural mistake there.

Now how in the blue hell did you get in here?

The game is unforgivingly hard and many have compared it to Silver Surfer in that sense - I can tell you right now, though, even if the Silver Surfer review is still to come, that it's nowhere near Silver Surfer when it comes to difficulty in any form. There are only nine levels, they can be beaten in just a few minutes each, and every time you die, you are taken to the nearest solid platform to respawn - be warned, though, you only have six lives to spare before it's game over, and enemy placements alone make it so hard to merely survive these levels. I quickly figured out a sure-fire way to survive the game with somewhat better odds, though. You're not going to like it.

Before I tell you what it is, let's talk a bit about the power-ups. Beer is called Power Potion. That's it about the power-ups, I just had to mention that 'cause I found it hilarious. What separates "Power Potion" from the more usual hamburgers - once again, but they kinda fit for once - is that it also regenerates your Berzerker meter. The Berzerker meter is filled whenever you get a long enough winning streak over enemies without taking any damage (yeah, I know: "YOU WISH!"), after which Logan goes into a totally uncontrollable kill 'em all mode, during which he also regenerates all his health. Could be a fun gameplay element, if it wasn't so impossible to achieve, and if you could somehow trigger it yourself. Also, there are hidden pathways in some levels, where your fellow X-Men await and offer you some sort of a permanent perk for the rest of the game. Let's not question the logic how they've found you and why they won't just haul your ass out of there... all right? Let's instead question the logic why mandatory perks such as Jubilee's underwater breathing ability have to be made secrets for you to find, sometimes very illogical ones, and not perks you automatically gain after making a certain amount of progress. Psylocke's Havok-summoning device (don't ask, looks like a remote control) is even noted in the HUD from the start, and while it isn't that hard to find - it's in Level 2 - the "secret" to getting to that "hidden" doorway well out of your jump's reach is behind some illogica maxima (I made that up just now, turned out pretty good).

Water ain't good.

Finally, here's my - and your - favourite part: to survive the game a little better, stop using the claws. I know how it sounds like, but it must be done. Using Wolverine's claws to go with his fists doesn't deal that much more damage to enemies, the claws retract automatically after you take a certain amount of hits, and finally, it's the claws themselves that deal damage to you! No bullshit; every time you hit an enemy with your claws out, you lose health. It's the same thing as in most beat 'em ups, you know, where you get a kinda penalty from using a special attack. The thing is, this ain't no special attack! It's not an act of desperation! It's what Wolverine does, God damn it! Where would Wolverine be without his claws? They're a part of him, they're iconic, and these bastards throw around penalties for using them. The game was made nine years before the first movie, and a year before the animated series which brought the X-Men to wider attention, but just reading one half of any X-Men comic book would've helped the developers to realize that the claws are Wolverine's thing. He is called WOLVERINE. As in an animal with sharp claws. Fuck! ...I'm sorry, what I meant to say was: FUCK!

It's illogical, impossible, uncomfortable, the design reeks, and the presentation ain't all that good, but considering the quality of the last X-Men game on the NES, Wolverine was most definitely a step into a better direction... and, somewhat ironically, the second and last X-Men game on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The 16-bit era gave us some cult titles, let's see what pranks time has pulled on those games.

UPS
+ Decent graphics and genuinely good music
+ It's Wolverine...

DOWNS
- ...Without claws; the claws are there, but they only do harm
- Crappy level design
- The game is near-impossible to beat, let alone master, due to all the wrong reasons
- Illogica maxima (had to say that again... and I'll have to write it down)

< 5.9 >

REVIEW - The Uncanny X-Men | NES | 1988

GENRE(S): Action
RELEASED: 1988
AVAILABLE ON: NES
DEVELOPER(S): -
PUBLISHER(S): LJN

Here's a franchise name which many of you might've been looking forward to since I started this marathon... although the games necessarily are not. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963, the X-Men are the most famous, consistent and popular out of Marvel's three big superhero groups. Although much of their success has depended on one particular character in the group - who has also been the lead star in most serials, movies and games revolving around the group, and had a few of his very own serials, movies and games to boot - the X-Men have also been so persistently popular due to them being outcasts, constantly shunned by society for being different, and still doing everything they can to protect it. 1988 brought us the first X-Men video game - a co-op, top-down, destroy-all action game before the time of Smash T.V.. Sounds quite innovative. Then again, it was published by LJN - and made by an independent developer who didn't want his name associated with the final product. Promising, wouldn't you say? You don't know the half of it. The Uncanny X-Men, Marvel's X-Men, just X-Men, whatever you want to call it, is not just a bad game. It's an all-out failure. A sad, miserable failure.

Mom, someone vomited on my monitor

Magneto's on a rampage, and it's up to six of the X-Men - Cyclops, Storm, Iceman, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and of course, Wolverine - to put an end to his and his henchmen's terrible plot... whichever that may be.

If Fallout was done in the 80's... it would've
looked a hell of a lot better than this.

Three years, five months - I've seen a lot of shit, you've seen a lot of shit. I've written a lot of shit, you've read a lot of shit. From Attack of the Killer Tomatoes to Donkey Kong Jr. Math to Home Alone to my ever-favourite scapegoat (or scapecat?) Bubsy - even if the first game's no longer on the Bottom 40. Make that notion and I'll re-review the game. I dare you. Last September, I was at somewhat of a loss, even though the cause was basically pleasant - Top 60 got a new king. Now I'm at a loss, and the cause definitely ain't pleasant - Bottom 40 gets a new king. My word, this game is horrible. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you a whole bulk of why. In just a moment.

I must admit I didn't know a lot about the X-Men before seeing the first movie. I just knew Wolverine, and Hugh Jackman's brilliant performance which already captivated me when the trailers popped out was the definite highlight of the movie - but the movie presented me with a whole bulk of other characters who were legend in this franchise, but I hadn't really paid attention to them. Suddenly I was fascinated by the unique overall theme of the comic book I had never really noticed before. The X-Men's potential was endless. Sadly that potential went to waste in the rest of the movie series - although First Class was quite good, even (nearly) without Wolverine. I tried watching the animated series they made in the early 90's, but I found it somewhat boring and perhaps, I don't know, too "cheery", for its own good. The comic books were good, but I needed something a bit more fleshed out. So I turned to the games. I must admit that in time, I did find a couple of decent ones, but most X-Men games I ever played were once again good potential gone to waste, carried by the strength of an always solid lead character in Wolverine. Then I got familiar with the first X-Men game ever made - and it doesn't even have good potential on its side. It's horrible from the very first moment you SLAP IT IN. Caps on purpose. Stick around for the purpose.

I was just telling my girl - who's really not that interested in such details but she's overjoyed whenever I'm really enthusiastic about something - how Super Mario Bros. 3, one of the few games she likes and knows by name, was such a phenomenal game in its time, how it squeezed every ounce of strength out of the NES in 1988, sacrificing nothing but a save system to make an everlasting impression of being at the very least five years ahead of its time. What does that have to do with this game, you ask? X-Men was also released in 1988, or 1989, depending on which source of information you choose to believe, but regardless, at the same time as Super Mario Bros. 3 or after it. And they couldn't have done ANY better?! The game looks like a fucking dumpster fire, and the pain this horrible music causes to your ears makes going to get your gums scraped sound like a brilliant random way to spend your day.

AAaaaaAAGHHH, my eyes!!! And no, that
ain't TMNT's Bebop in a vibrant palette of
cum, shit and piss. That's Storm. Yeah.

Audiovisual properties aside - how can I set them aside, just look at those shots?! - the game is still one awful mess. OK, so first you choose a mutant. That's not enough, though, you have to choose two of them. That's right, even if you're going at it alone, you'll have to suffer another character with less than functional A.I.. There are five different levels for you to choose from. Now I have no fucking clue how to beat the level labelled "Practice", nor do I have any desire to go out of my way to find out, but apparently it is a real level, with a boss. To me, it's just waves upon waves of enemies, with the most annoying tune in the whole game playing in the background and giving me the headache of a century, and having total invincibility. OK, so how do I get out of this mess? Resetting - no other choice. Well, let's do that. On to the real thing. Maybe it's better than this. Or maybe I should just stop now.

My choices for Player 1 and Retarded Asshole are Wolverine and Cyclops, and the level, well, let's take the first one. For his very first stunt, Cyclops runs straight into an obstacle and dies. Well, how quaint! After figuring I do not have to use Wolverine's very short-ranged, not to mention weird melee attack at all, or any other attack at that, to make progress, I find myself just running through the level, past the enemies. That's not as easy as it might first seem, either. The enemies spawn endlessly, and they're very likely to horde up and trap you in a corner, where your only escape is to step on spikes and die instantly. Actually, you don't even have to think that much, because the game doesn't make dangerous obstacles too clear for you. Bump into a wall and you might die. No health bar, nothing of the sort - so it's pretty much up to the game to decide when it's time to go. Use too much special attacks - which aren't needed - and you die. Dying has been more entertaining. And it has been explained a whole lot better.

Well, after both your characters are dead, you move on to the next pair of your choice - so basically, you have three lives to survive this nauseating chaos. I move on to Iceman and Colossus. At least Iceman doesn't run straight to his death like Cyclops did - he just disappears, after I go down a flight of stairs into another screen. Vanishes, into thin air. Nothing surprises me anymore... I said nothing, so it's not a big surprise that after I go back up, I'm pushed by a couple of whatever-those-black-boobs are, against a wall, and die. Last up, Nightcrawler and Storm. This is a good time to mention the power-ups. Admittedly, I would have no idea what they're supposed to do without outside help. Invincibility is at least presented more than a bit vaguely in practice. So is the "S" icon which is at least supposed to stop time. Health-restoring power-ups? Didn't I just say there's nothing even remotely reminiscent of a health bar?! The one I wanted to tell you about is the magnet, which renders your character immobile for a short time. Now I know this is supposed to reflect on the main villain here, but how come is every character regardless whether they have an ounce of metal in their bodies or not, rendered immobile by that shit? How come it shows up every two seconds to make your life hell amidst regular power-ups? You simply don't have time to take your pick between power-ups. Oh well, let's not question logic here. Let's just play this stupid game. Oh, look, Nightcrawler isn't affected by the magnet in any way. ...WHAT?!

Now this literally, seriously looks like a level in
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Then again,
every shitty NES game has that green
subterranean level.

Soon, I realize that I can actually switch between my two characters at any time. That helps a little to keep the A.I. from killing itself two seconds into the game, but only postpones the inevitable. After a couple of similar scenarios, I'm giving in. But, let's suppose I'm not. The game is still firmly SLAPPED IN the NES. I beat all the levels, including the Practice level which I still can't make heads or tails of in reality, and get ready to face Magneto. All that pain and suffering can't be for nothing. But, nothing's happening. You're still in the level select screen. Well, hope you paid attention after each level, 'cause the end of each level gave you a bit of cryptic code. Try that out. Nothing? Well... shut down the console, take the cartridge out, and check the missing piece of the code from the label. It's there with the legal stuff, at the bottom - the bottom which you won't be able to see without taking the cartridge out if you're playing on a standard NES. Put the cartridge back in, put the power back on, and do it all over again, you X-Men fan you. No? Well, return to the part when you shut down the console and took the cartridge out. Take your shotgun, go to the nearest junkyard, flip the cartridge into the air and blow it to kingdom come. Go home, and play something else. Like Super Mario Bros. 3.

This game is so thoroughly bad and horribly designed, that even if I wanted the most definitive NES collection out of any man or woman alive, I wouldn't stink up my shelf with this piece of absolute shit. LJN outdid themselves here, truly - and after many years of joking about them, always giving them that small benefit of a doubt behind all those prejudiced puns, I must say they've truly deserved their reputation as the shittiest video game publisher ever. It can't get any worse than this. X-Men at the very least can't get any worse than this.

UPS
+ Please, no

DOWNS
- The whole code thing mandatory to access the final level is definitely the most ridiculous "interactive" stunt I've ever heard of
- The rest, you can read above - there's simply nothing right with this game; even Wolverine's a crappy character to use

< 1.0 >

REVIEW - Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six | NES | 1992

GENRE(S): Action
RELEASED: October 1992
AVAILABLE ON: GG, NES, SMS
DEVELOPER(S): B.I.T.S.
PUBLISHER(S): LJN, Flying Edge (GG, SMS)

Spider-Man's NES debut actually came a while before Spider-Man 3: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers - unfortunately - saw daylight on the Game Boy, and like the handheld game, this one was also the work of B.I.T.S. and LJN, and based on a comic book serial released around the same time. Return of the Sinister Six, the serial was called; it resurrected a specific group of great Marvel supervillains from the 60's, who as a group and under their hard-hitting moniker were considered the perfect gallery of bosses for a Spider-Man video game. Yeah, well, no one we've never seen in another game belongs in the Sinister Six, and Venom isn't a member, so what we've got left is a good title and some faint hope for a good game. ...Yeah, well, the title's good.

Return of the sinister d... too predictable.

Why are you pink? Seriously: why are you
pink?

Doctor Octopus has reunited the Sinister Six, a group of supervillains consisting of Electro, Sandman, Mysterio, Vulture, Hobgoblin and himself. Only one man stands between the group and their plot for world domination - you know who.

I'm starting to get really frustrated, here. I know I'm up for some good Marvel games at some point, maybe not great ones, but good games that are authentic comic book fun, and fun to review - or alternatively, games that are absolutely so laughably horrible that they jump the line of being fun to review as well. With the exception of the half decent old DOS game The Amazing Spider-Man, the Spider-Man games I've done thus far have all suffered from the very same problems. It's like time stood still for these games, like they all popped up from the very same pooper at the very same time. There are no developments, no improvements. Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six was a chance for these two fuck-ups to get their acts straight after a couple of failures on the Game Boy, focus on the gameplay mechanics for once and not solely how cool it would look to the undemanding, casual Marvel fan.

The Osborns called. They want their glider back.

Well, to my surprise, Return of the Sinister Six doesn't look all that ugly - although it has some shades of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes to it like in weird palette choices - nor does it sound all that bad. The controls are also quite good; it's no surprise that the web mechanics suck, and it's awkward how the B button is assigned to three different moves which appear to be registered at a total random, and Spidey has some problems clinging on to ropes or any surfaces you can climb, but well, at least the guy jumps properly. All things seem to be somewhat in check, so how can this game possibly be so horrible? Well, the collection of some of the poorest level design ever will take care of your dissatisfaction with this here product.

It's not just that the levels are dull, one tiny mistake - which might not be yours but of the dark side of the control and detection scheme - can send you down into a pit you can't escape from. That's right: it's not hard, it's not tricky, it's not improbable, it's IMPOSSIBLE. There's a block, at the exact height you can't reach by jumping, and it also prevents you from landing a web shot to a higher level. Flipping yourself onto the block by using a web shot is equally impossible. You might think to yourself: that's all right, suicide is always an option since the enemies respawn all the time. Well, in the particular pit I'm speaking of, the only enemies are rats. It takes forever to be killed by a rat or even two of them, especially since you have plenty of health - actually, the game is very easy, since you have so much health and enemies are so easy to attack, including bosses. Or would be, without this fuckery. Well, even if you do manage to kill yourself by abusing those poor rats, keep in mind that you have only one continue. Fall into this particular pit or any other inescapable trap this incomplete piece of crap has in store one more time, and your game's over. Talk about unreasonable, huh? I'm not sure that's the right word.

This is it: the hole of doom.

Well, I guess it's not the worst waste of time from the B.I.T.S. library of Spider-Man games... wait. Yes, it is - it's literally a waste of time if it's virtually impossible to beat, and only due to lackluster design and seemingly the total lack of testing. Even so, it shows some potential; up 'til the first killing point, I even liked it to some extent. That's an accomplishment, I guess.

UPS
+ Semi-functional controls
+ Not as bad as I thought from an audiovisual standpoint

DOWNS
- Like I said, SEMI-functional controls
- Unbelievably poor, incomplete level design, which at its worst might prevent you from completing the game - and which also provides the only true challenge within this game
- Lots of health, but only one continue to go with the previous flaw

< 5.0 >

REVIEW - Captain America and The Avengers | NES | 1991

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: December 1991
AVAILABLE ON: NES
DEVELOPER(S): Data East
PUBLISHER(S): Data East

Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1941, and he became Marvel's first lead character in a series of his own. The ongoing World War II and Captain America's inspirational themes based around that war made him an extremely popular superhero for a time, right up 'til the war ended. Almost two decades and many tries later, "the Cap" was finally successfully revived as a member and occasional leader of the Marvel ensemble known as The Avengers. Captain America was not the first Marvel superhero to make a break in video games, nor was he ever a very popular choice for a lead character among game developers. Still, a few games with Captain America in a central role have emerged through the years. Probably the most known game in the bunch is Data East's 1991 arcade beat 'em up game Captain America and The Avengers, which got ported to the Sega Genesis, the SNES, Game Boy and the Game Gear. Oh, but before that, Data East also made a whole different game of the same title for the NES. And it ain't good - the little light at the end of the tunnel fades very quick.

Captain America - The Worst Avenger

The Mandarin manages to incapacitate and abduct both Iron Man and The Vision. Captain America and Hawkeye go on a cross-country rescue mission, assisted by Wasp.

First, about my relationship with Captain America. It's easily explained, as there is none. I might dislike DC's Superman, I most definitely dislike Green Lantern, but Marvel has their own rotten egg in Cap U.S.A.. I think that by far the only reason they made that ridiculous Captain America: The First Avenger flick was that they couldn't have an Avengers flick without Cap, and everyone else in that ensemble movie had had their own namesakes made. I think that the original Captain America backstory of a frail young man being shot full of super-serum and becoming a war hero was quite inspirational, especially at those times, but ever since that backstory was somewhat forgotten, Captain America became a waste of perfectly good crayon in my view. Let's not beat around the bush: he's ridiculous. And about that suit Chris Evans wears in the movies... Adam West as Batman, anyone?

In the jungles of Tampa. Yep.

Then, on to some facts. Or at least one. Captain America's popularity as a stand-alone character had pretty much hit rock bottom in the early 90's, not least thanks to the horrible film - not just ridiculous, but horrible - which premiered in late 1990 and has since been forgotten in the mists of time, right up 'til I reminded you of it. Sorry. Despite making his debut game appearance on his own in 1987 in a home computer game called Captain America in the Doom Tube of Dr. Megalomann, it was clear that Captain America had seen better days as far as his popularity went, so they put him in life support by the much more relevant characters of the time. First, there was the ensemble game Spider-Man and Captain America in Doctor Doom's Revenge!, which featured a lot of Marvel's finest in addition to the three draws of the title, and then came the series of games called Captain America and The Avengers, released between 1991 and 1994. Although these games starred Captain America, it was the "Avengers" part of the title and the moderately large cast of characters in the original arcade game which made the sale. Which brings us to the NES game, which pretty much has nothing to celebrate about.

First of all, the game's version of The Avengers consists of five members - Cap, Hawkeye, Wasp, The Vision and Iron Man. The Vision and Iron Man are knocked out in the game's beginning, never to be seen in action - that's two of the best assets in this bunch, gone right away. Wasp only appears between levels, providing some extremely generic advice, and if you didn't know your Marvel Comics, you'd think she's just a frail, little secretary instead of one of the feistiest heroines in the Marvel universe, who could've easily fit in is a third playable character. That leaves us Cap and Hawkeye - the latter overshadows the namesake in both theory AND practice, but isn't nearly enough to save this boring, confusing fuckfest from almost total oblivion.

The graphics are of the basic NES fare of the time. Nothing too special, but colourful and satisfying enough. Something like three or four songs repeat all the time, and they're not good at all.

The green tinted sewers from just about every
third NES game ever made.

Captain America and The Avengers has shades of many popular 8-bit platformers all over it, but the first game I found myself thinking of was RoboCop. It's no wonder, since both games were made by Data East. Even though Cap and Hawkeye can most definitely jump unlike Murphy in the first RoboCop game, and have many moves in their respective arsenals, the game suffers from some of the exact same stiff control quirks as RoboCop, and even Cap's basic stance looks the same as Murphy's aiming stance. And when it comes to those many moves - such as a dash attack, somersault, shield block and whatnot - rest assured, they have no use. Even if they did, they don't work. It's a run-of-the-mill, incomplete platformer if there ever was one, with bad controls as its greatest challenge. Oh, and annoying ambushes by annoying enemies that just don't seem to die - against annoying, confusing, nauseating backgrounds.

What really makes the game confusing on top of being boring and annoying is the way a loss of life always seems to put you in a really random situation. You might switch characters without any good reason between deaths, ambushes which haven't been cleared yet suddenly have, or they've switched places, and you've magically made it through cities you haven't even visited yet - while after another failure, you might be back at the very root of the map, forced to start over. It's all very confusing and inconsistent. At some point, you'll stop caring, and hoping that the next death will bring you to the final threshold of the whole game. I don't know it it's possible, but I wouldn't be surprised. I sincerely don't know if this is a huge error in programming or if there's some ill logic to all of this. Or if I'm just missing something out of boredom.

There's not really much more to say about Captain America and the Avengers for the NES. It's easily summarized as boring trash that rides on the wind of a fairly popular arcade game, a true port of which I'll be taking on next and expecting a more entertaining experience - perhaps not by much, but I think a side-scrolling 16-bit beat 'em up theoretically fits the bill a bit more better than another stiff 8-bit platformer with stock level design. We'll see. Perhaps this one has the potential to please the most hardest of hardcore Marvel fans, but them only and only by its somewhat rare theme.

UPS
+ The better shades of better games, such as Bionic Commando
+ Hawkeye's inclusion as a playable character; he's cooler than Cap, he has a better moveset, and finally, a moveset that actually has some use

DOWNS
- Having Captain America as the star of the show ain't a huge draw for me
- The best characters are taken out of the fray right off the bat, and we're left with "Captain America and No Avengers"
- The randomness of death, and the random consequences
- Stiff controls

< 5.3 >

REVIEW - James Bond Jr | NES | 1992

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: 1992
AVAILABLE ON: NES
DEVELOPER(S): Eurocom Developments
PUBLISHER(S): THQ

The James Bond franchise has suffered through a lot of lows, but nothing quite as low as James Bond Jr, a syndicated cartoon that ran for a glorious six months until its much-expected (and -anticipated) cancellation. One of the most horrible cartoons ever made starred 007's nephew James Bond Jr, a high school student, and his friends - graced with supposedly clever names like IQ and Gordo Leiter - fighting against a criminal organization named SCUM, led by who else but a guy called "Scumlord". What makes the whole abomination slightly interesting nowadays is its cavalcade of voice actors, who have since made lasting marks in the video game scene, including Corey Burton and Simon Templeman. While I'm at it, there were actually two different games carved off the back of that cartoon - one for the NES, and one for the SNES. Both games were published by THQ - who were also responsible for the release of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. An 8-bit game based on one of the worst cartoons in history, versus another game of the exact same description, one that has held the #1 spot in the VGMania Bottom 40 for ages. It's on - which game will emerge as the less nauseating experience? Here's James Bond Jr - the NES version.

"Why My Childhood Sucked", Chapter I

Several renowned scientists have gone missing, and official reports from the government mention Scumlord's possible involvement. Time for Bond, James Bond, Junior, to rise up to his mysterious arch nemesis, and time for me to put a bullet in my head.

"...and falls straight into a volcano. Problems
of the world solved. Thank you for playing."

Unlike all the times before that I've done a number on the source of a licensed game, I won't bore you with lots of details on James Bond Jr, 'cause I'm simply not interested. I don't want to return to "that place". I have often thought of the series, even played with the thought of watching one episode for the sake of masochism, but I found just watching the intro to the show on YouTube quite enough, so I won't go there ever again. It was a horrible, horrible show, and it didn't run too far from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, another show that went on to give me nightmares. More than ever in the last couple of years, that one. Last year I reviewed Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, the NES video game, and slaughtered it, as it well deserved, and because the game was so bad, not just because of my personal disgust with the source material. With James Bond Jr, I'm going to have to push any personal beefs aside for two whole reviews, and view these two games as just games. I was pretty sure I was not going to like what I was about to see - hell, I was positive of that - and I certainly didn't. James Bond Jr for the NES is a ridiculously bad game. As bad as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes? Sadly, not quite - "sadly" meaning that I actually have to talk sensically about it. Oh well, it was me who took a shit on a plate by starting this marathon, now I have to eat it. Let's see what specific type of manure we have here. Can I have some fries with this...?

Let's start with the graphics, as per usual. I'm picturing Nick Nack's naked ass here, and actually considering which is more of a sight to behold. From afar, this game looks a lot like the NES game The Terminator - to make a "positive" statement, closer up it looks a whole lot better than The Terminator, which is weird considering the nearly parallel releases of the two titles. You should remember, though, that The Terminator is one of the ugliest NES games ever made, so calling James Bond Jr's graphics "a whole lot better" doesn't mean much. It also kind of reminds me of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but in turn, that game looked the best out of the three. It was also the best game in the bunch. Horrible, but notably better than The Terminator or James Bond Jr. The music's stock - I guess. If the lead tune was indeed an adaptation of the James Bond Jr theme song, it's completely unrecognizable. Ironically, the tune's quite all right - and I hated the original theme song as much as I hated the cartoon, so I don't find myself missing it. Rest of it could be worse, I guess, but the alert accompanying the so-called puzzles are loud and forcible, and will drive you insane if you don't have a mute button handy.

This is supposed to be an entertaining, somewhat innovative puzzle platformer. There's a total of four levels, each with a time limit measured in minutes instead of seconds, ranging from 25 to a whopping 45 minutes. Your ammo replenishes automatically, and all the enemies are easy enough to kill once you find the right spot to blast at 'em, albeit extremely enduring - each enemy seriously takes a million hits before going down. Sounds easy, right? I thought so too, but I knew what to expect. Enter the invisible, but all the more sensible enemy: horrible gameplay. Whew-ee, have we got a story to tell.

Who's that supposed to be, Blofeld with a jet pack?

First of all, the level design is by retards, for retards. Secondly, the controls are extremely floaty. Thirdly, there are all sorts of problems which ultimately lead to one single conclusion, that being the reset button. As a light example, your lives are very easily drained by simply falling into any type of liquid, and that happens often when you're up in the air balancing between some slim, bouncy platforms. Once you fall in, there's no way to get out. There's no invincibility window for you to benefit from, or anything like that - you're just forced to watch as your dorky James BLAND suffers a slow death from... yeah, what? From getting his sneakers wet? Even if the water/etc. level is parallel to solid ground, James' idiotic bouncing around never leads him to it - as a matter of fact, it seems like he's avoiding the safety of solid ground at all costs. The bottom line is, he doesn't die instantly - it's like the game is telling you there's a way out for you to find. There isn't. As another light example, you can get stuck in narrow hallways with enemies or mines with no way to escape but a harmful breakaway - the jumps are so out of control and completely inadjustable from a Super Mario Bros. 2 Luigi mode, and just one enemy is sure to cap your ass multiple times before you empty enough clips into 'em. To present a very heavy example of the unavoidable reset call, the levels branch quite a lot, and you can actually get completely stuck in bogus pathways or rooms. Usually, this happens when there's no way for you to drop dead, and even if there was, you always respawn at the very same spot as long as you have lives left for the game to drain.

You have other weapons besides your pistol, and using them's a blur. How about equipment change in the pause menu? The dynamic Castlevania trick for secondary weapons which should be familiar to all NES players, Up + B? Pressing Select? No? Well, what's left? Degrees of stupidity are what's left. Instead of just assigning changing equipment to the otherwise useless Select button, the shitters of this heap decided to assign changing equipment to Select, AND the Down button on the D-Pad, pressed simultaneously (just imagine how it feels with an NES controller). Also, what you might fail to notice is that you can actually enter some doors in the background by pressing Down. The funny thing is, James turns towards the door if you press the more obvious Up, but does not enter, making believe the doors are just for show.

...Really?!

If you've the interest enough to clash through one level of the game - which I highly doubt - I'm sure you'll hit a brick wall sooner or later. The first time's when the puzzles kick in. The puzzles in the game are extremely confusing and disorienting slide puzzles, and I guess they're exactly why the time limits are so long - I'm not entirely sure if the developers actually aimed at pissing players off this much. I can't really describe them in a way that would give an idea of why I hate them so much; you have to organize eight separate columns of different-coloured blocks into the order which is pictured on the margin. Doesn't sound that awful, I know. Some of the most twisted puzzle fanatics might actually enjoy these bits of the game - but if someone came up to me and said this game's generally as much as all right, I think I'd laugh my fucking balls off. I understand some people's need to be different, but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Now here's a true challenge: bear the game to the end to witness one of the most stupifying prompts I've ever heard in any game. Remember games like Ghosts 'n Goblins, or The Legend of Zelda? Games that didn't actually end once you "finished" them - there was a second quest, and only by conquering that quest you could claim to have beaten the game. After you've finished with the four levels, Scumlord - who, for some odd reason, looks like a jazz upstart straight from Harlem - escapes, and the Colonel tells you that you've done well, but failed to capture Scumlord. Before even catching a glimpse of what comes next, the voices in my head are telling me to shut the system down, NOW. "If you want to bring him to justice, you must complete all the missions again!" .......Really? I mean, REALLY?! A second playthrough with the exact same puzzles, at the exact same difficulty level, with the exact same tight bundle of butt pudding they call this game's design and gameplay? The exact SAME GAME? Uh, no thanks. Let that scum run free!

I'd be so delighted to announce being done with this dark period in the history of the James Bond franchise, but there was indeed also a 16-bit adaptation of this horrible spin-off. Although this game was not quite horrible enough to beat Attack of the Killer Tomatoes in the clash for the title of the worst game I've ever touched (not by a long shot), I'm still reserving the spot for another rotten apple from the same rotten tree; next up, James Bond Jr for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

UPS
+ The music is surprisingly all right

DOWNS
- TONS of issues with the gameplay, ranging from the obvious (bad controls, idiotic level design) to more unique problems (inescapable and often unavoidable water hazards, other miscellaneous traps to which the only working solution is pressing the reset button, an "interesting" control scheme)
- A horrible license, with inevitably horrible presentation
- Some extremely twisted minds might get off on the puzzles, but I find them simply confusing and frustrating

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