Beetlejuice (1990)

                                                                              
I loved Beetlejuice when I was a kid. The movie and the cartoon. Again I can't remember if I played this game as a kid, but I'm pretty sure if I did it would have kicked the shit out of my ass. THE SHIT WOULD HAVE BEEN BEATEN OUT OF MY ASS and I would probably not really have liked it, because I remember not liking it the first time I played it, yes this game like Godzilla is yet another game I kinda like now. I have to admit I do have terrible taste, but its my blog so  eat shit.

                                                                            

Published by LJN, but made by Rare (that's right, if you want to belittle this game you gotta blame it on your precious Battletoads makers) is admittly a pretty flawed game, but I like some of the things they tried. The Scares were a neat idea but they all pretty much do the same thing (except the Bird Man one makes you jump higher, thats the only difference that I've found), and the game doesn't really tell you about the scares so you may end up dying at the first boss. NES games liked to fuck you over so much, and thats one of the reasons why I love them.

                                                                              

The graphics, and music and control are all pretty alright. They do the job. However, the hit detection in this game is god damn terrible. GOD DAMN TERRIBLE. You have two attacks, one attack where you can smush bugs and a jump attack that kills flies and other random enemies. I have never killed any of the bigger eneimes with the jump attack so you mostly have to avoid them. Which is pretty shitty and makes this game harder than it should be. Speaking of the challenge, this game is harder than trying to say something positive about House Party 3. However the bosses are pretty easy (at least the first two are. I can't beat the third level yet!)

There's also this "bonus level" with a Sandworm in it and I'm pretty sure AdamL, Roth and strx of the dead NES Zone couldn't beat it. It's that god damn hard. I don't think it's possible to hit or kill the sandworm, so getting to this room is pretty much death. Which is a total dick move game. Damn.

Anyway, I don't really know why I kinda like this game. I think it's the challenge. I LOVE a good challenge. Hell I LOVE a totally unfair challenge. The feeling after beating a HARD NES game is god damn wonderful. It's one of the best feelings ever. EVER. So I guess if you like a good challlenge, I'd say check out Beetlejuice.

Kid Dracula (????)

                                                                              
Castlevania is probably the best trilogy of games on the NES (not to mention the other great games in the series). All three of them were incredibly fun games, but we are not here to talk about them today (they will be done later on in the month.) we are here to talk about a weird offshoot of the games, Kid Dracula. Kid Dracula is like Parodius... it's just a big goofy version of the original games. Despite being a comedic version of the games, it's still pretty damn fun.

                                                                          
Kid Dracula is your usual NES-era platformer by Konami, so in other words it kicks total ass. You play as Kid Dracula who has to stop some dinosaur named Galamoth (seriously how cool is that you fight a dinosaur!). You start level one with a small fireball, but after you beat the level boss you get a new power. You can even turn into a bat! AWESOME! The game has 6 levels and they are all totally weird and bizarre.

                                                                                   

I think this games weirdness is why I like it a lot. It's got a crazy sense of humor and some of the bosses are really strange. One of them is a Nazi ghost (as seen in the above screenshot.) and another is a Chicken. How many NES games had a chicken for a boss?!!? Totally weird yet totally awesome. I'm still in awe over the Nazi ghost. That's goddamned hilarious, but back to the game itself. It has nice bright graphics. The music is great. The sound effects are great. the play control is great. It's pretty damn fun. It has a fair challenge, as in it starts off pretty easy, and gets harder. The last boss being pretty hard (but beatable) if I recall correctly.

This game should have totally come out in America (the game boy version did!), but sadly along side some other great little games it was kept only in Japan, still there's always ROMs, reproduction cartridges and imports, so get off your (probably) fat ass and play this game you piece of shit. It's totally the best game I've reviewed so far this month!

Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters (1992)

                                                                              
What do you want from a Godzilla game? You want to play as Godzilla and just tear shit up. Beat the shit out of monsters. Wreck shit. At least thats what I want from a goddamn Godzilla game, and thats what the original Godzilla game for the NES tried to do. Love it or hate it, it at least tried to give us what we wanted in a Godzilla game. This dumb piece of shit doesn't even try.

                 

                                                                          
I should also admit before we start that I'm not a very big fan of Sim games, I can get some enjoyment out of Sim City by making a very bad town and laughing at how bad it is, but other than that they really aren't my kinda thing. Still even if I loved Sim games with all my heart, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like this chunk of shit. Because it's a stupid broken game. For stupid jerks.

You get to pick six senarios, however I've only played the first senario where Godzilla and Baragon attack the city. In this game you have to defend the city from Godzilla. (yeah, the people really want to play as the goddamn army when they could be playing as a fucking giant radioactive lizard) and this is where the game gets really fucking terrible, the combat system is broken..

In combat, it's like one of those casino games for the NES or the bonus game in Super Mario Bros. 2 , where you have to link up three symbols, but the thing is, I've never linked up three, which causes me to end up dying. I don't think it's even possible to link up three symbols, and you have to so that you can do maximum damage, or even hit the monster. And the monsters regain health while you don't, making it even harder to enjoy this lump of shit.

If they fixed combat this game would be playable, sure the music sucks, but the graphics are decent for this type of game, and in combat all the monsters look like what they should. It's just the broken fucking combat system ruins the entire game for me. It's not fun. At all.

Also, one last little thing about this game, If wikipedia is to be believed this was originally going to be a Rodan game. Rodan has a special place in my heart because it was one of the first movies I rented from this totally awesome Mom and Pop video store I found as a teenager which had like seventy billion movies, lots of them I had wanted to see for years! So I guess I'm glad Toho didn't fuck Rodan over and I still have the memories. I loved that place!

Zombie Nation (1990)

                                                                                  
NES games could be pretty strange. From Italian Plumbers fighting evil turtle dragons, to a kid going into a hole in his backyard (caused by random radioactive waste in his backyard... what) to rescue his pet frog from a bunch of crazy ass creatures. From a robot fighting for everlasting peace. NES games always had weird out there ideas for games, which is a part of their charm. However this game kicks the shit out of all of them.

                                                                                   

The plot for this game is a meteorite has turned America into zombies, so a giant undead zombie head (who kinda reminds me of my 6th grade french teacher. if he was asian instead of being white) to fight the evil alien who came out of the meteorite, and you have to stop a giant naked man (no joke), the statue of liberty and a bunch of other evil bums.

                                                                                    

I really like shumps, so maybe thats why I like this game where as it seems no one else does, they complain that its too hard but honestly I don't think its that hard. It's actually kindof easy, of course shooters can be pretty easy if you power up your weapons. Sure you can pretty much be killed in one hit if you touch some things (like lighting or smog will knock your health down to one bar) however there are great NES games where you die in one hit FROM ANYTHING. Like Adventure Island or Contra. So man up you fucking wuss.

                                                                                     
                                                                                  
The game has some pretty nice graphics. All the sprites look great. The backgrounds look great. It all looks great. The music is well less than great. It's not bad but to be fair It's not that good, it's not very memorable but I guess it wont make you shove something in your ear to deafen yourself. It has nice simple gameplay, I'm sure everyone here has played a shump before.

I like this game. It's unique, offbeat and best of all pretty dang fun. It's a bit easy (however I'm the kinda person who is actually pretty okay at Silver Surfer and the entire world thinks that game is hard.) and the harder difficutly doesnt seem to be that much harder, only difference is that the character moves a bit faster, that's all I saw that was different anyway. I think this game is worth picking up if you can find it (It's a rare one and goes for like $20 or more on eBay).

Ghostbusters II (1990)

                                                                                                                                                                    

Most people don't like Ghostbusters II, for a while I was among them. I remember as a kid I didn't like this movie nearly as much as I liked the aniamted series or the original film. However time has changed my perspective on the movie. I think it's a pretty good film but still not as good as the original movie. the original movie was funnier, more original and had better villians (I mean really Vigo kinda sucked and my god was his henchmen an annoying fucking piece of shit.) but it's still a worthy sequel and it doesn't deserve half of the bad press it gets.

                                                                           

                                                                                  
The games graphics are okay, the backgrounds look pretty good and most of the other sprites look alright, except for the Ghostbusters themselves, my god they look like complete and utter shit. They seriously look like they were picked out of a goddamn atari game. The music and sound effects are also pretty okay. It's just the Ghostbusters theme by Ray Parker Jr, which is a goddamn classic piece of music if I do say so myself.

                                                                                   

The controls are kinda iffy. I think you jump too far which means you can easily hit enemies while trying to jump over another enemy. Other than that they aren't too bad. The level design could have been so much better, you just play through the same non-descript levels except with different backgrounds. However you do get some levels where you drive around in the Ecto-1 (which can jump for some weird reason) which are a little better. There's also one (maybe two) shooter stages that help break up the repetive levels.

The game is also pretty hard. LOTS of enemies on the screen at one time. Some enemies you can't beat without laying down a trap (hit start to do this), also the fact there's no pause button is a dumb, stupid, foolish, idiotic, retarded idea and who ever decided that it should be in a game should be drug out into the street and shot seventeen times.

Despite it all, this game isn't that terrible. It's just a rather bland sidescroller, it's playable but there's a lot better stuff out there for you to enjoy. So go enjoy those better games.                  

Ghostbusters (1988)

                                                                              
The Real Ghostbusters was a kick ass cartoon show. It was also the first thing I was ever obsessed with. I remember being three years old and HAVING to have every single figure. Even the figures that were just the old figures with new paint. Every single god damn one of them. And I'm pretty sure I did have them all until my dumb jerk dog chewed them up. That was probably the saddest day of my young life, but I think if I had played this game as a child, I'm sure I would have ended up hating the Ghostbusters because of how bad it was.  And I'm sure I would have broken my NES. Which would have made that an even sadder day.

Thankfully it was YEARS before I even knew a Ghost Busters game even existed. It was in 1998. I was getting into NES collecting (yes I've been doing this shit for twelve goddamn years.) and among the carts I was given by my mother who had gotten it from a friend was Ghost Busters. (also X-Men. The disappointment I felt that day was so bad) I remember playing it, and being frustrated and incredibly bored (I can honestly say this is the only game that honestly bores me. Like seriously.) and deeming it a pile of shit. In fact I smashed this game with a hammer (along with X-Men) and didn't play it for years later (until I bought another copy because I went insane and had to have every single stupid NES game. I'm close to that goal now... whoopee), I played it again for the first time in years tonight and yeah, I'm going with my thirteen year old self opinion on it, It's a pile of god damn shit.

Another thing I should talk about because it kind of relates to this game, is how I wrote (a very bad) review for this game for groxx of NES Player. And someone who liked this game got all mad because I *gasp* cursed in it. A teenager CURSING. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. OH MY GOD STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES. And yes, he liked the game. (I don't really care that he did give it a positive review. It just proves the Different Strokes theme song right in that "It takes all kinds to move the world") Still, I was pissed that that jerk got my thing taken down. So if you are out there jerklord, eat a dick. eat all of the god damn dicks. (Well it seems my poor memory was wrong. What a surprise. it seemed groxx just put the review there because he was so passionate about the game. I'm still leaving this paragraph up so I can trick people into thinking I wrote more. Also I like that Different Stroke joke. I'm sorry guy who wrote the review!)

                                                                             

Okay finally getting into this game. It's kind of weird. First off you have to buy your weapons (yes buy them. I'm pretty sure Egon and Ray MADE the goddamn weapons in the movie and didn't have to fucking buy them) then go around the town getting to buildings that flash red. Then drive around on the dullest god damn street ever. I swear I fell asleep looking at this stupid street. So much grey that it hurt my poor eyes. Then you catch ghosts, to get money to buy more stuff before the ZUUL building opens up so you can get into there. This is a big flaw in the stupid game. You will get hit by the cars and lose money. You will run out of gas and have to start all over. That's not fucking fun. At all.

                                                                                

I've never had the patience to even get inside the Zuul building but according to people, it gets worse, mostly because your Ghostbusters are slow ass motherfuckers. Still I can't believe it somehow gets worse. That boggles my mind.

If you couldn't guess, I'm not a fan of this game, I put it on my top ten worst games for the console, probably at 8 or 9. If my thirteen year old self had known there were games worse than this I'm pretty sure he would have commited harikari. So I'm glad he didn't, because I'm, you know, glad to be alive.

Avoid this god damn game. At all costs.

Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular (1990)

                                                                              
Today, October 2nd, 2010 is the 60th Anniversary of Peanuts. You know Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and the gang? 60 years of Charlie Brown goodness. Personally I love Peanuts (also did you know the creator of Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz, hated the title Peanuts and it was forced on him by newspapers. Wild stuff!) I've loved Peanuts since I was a child. I would collect the old books with strips in em. (along with Garfield, B.C., Wizard of Id, Calvin and Hobbes, and Bloom County. I even had a few Hagar the Horrible books for some reason [even as a kid I could tell Hagar was dire shit] and I loved them) So I decided why not celebrate this occasion by reviewing one of my favorite games from my childhood, Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular.

First I think you should all know about some trivia related to this game. In Japan this was a Donald Duck game. Yep, Instead of Snoopy, his pal Woodstock and his brother Spike. You had Donald and Daisy. Crazy huh? Kemco had the rights for a short time in Japan for the Disney characters (these rights would end up going to Capcom, and even though I like a lot of Kemco games I gotta say they are not even half as good as Capcom was) Since Capcom had the rights in America, Kemco had to get the rights to Peanuts and make graphical changes. WILD STUFF AIN'T IT?

                                                                              
This is a sports game (well duh) but the sports in it are pretty weird. Sock Race , Boot Toss, Pogo Jump, Overboard, Pile of Pizza, and River Jump (which seems to be random if you win it or not. or maybe I don't know what to do. Who knows?). This game is kind of comparable to those terrible Track and Field games, except in this game you can actually beat an event. Maybe even the game itself (I got the Bronze Medal... woo) where as I've never be able to beat a single event in either Track N Field games. I say this because all three games (Track N Field 1-2 and this game) have different events and are button mashers, however I can actually get somewhere in Snoopy Silly Sports Spectacular (I fucking love that title, too).

                                                                              

The graphics are pretty damn nice to be honest. The characters look like their comic strip counterparts. The backgrounds are nice. The music, MAN I fucking love the music in this game. the opening theme. GOD DAMN, I love it. I also love the rest of the music in this game. Very catchy stuff. The game is pretty fun, however the River Jump can be a damn pain in the ass. I mentioned above that it seems to be random if you win or lose, or maybe it isn't and I just don't know how to do it correctly, but I think it could have been made a tad easier to figure out. Also maybe a few more events would have been nice, but the game is pretty fun, although it probably wont take you too long to beat it. (and by beat it I mean get any metal after crossing 10,000 points. I plan to try to get Gold)

I bet some people would be surprised that Snoopy was in a NES game, but that's not it. He was in two PC games (one for the Commodore 64. and one for the PC) He was probably in another PC game starring Charlie Brown. He was in this rather fun puzzle game for the Gameboy called Snoopy's Magic Show. He was in Snoopy's Tennis. And even on the PS2 and XBOX. I was honestly surprised to find out that he was in that many games, but then again the characters are pretty damn popular.