The Jungle Book (1994)

                                                                               
I remember enjoying the Jungle Book quite a bit when I was a youngster, BUT to be fair I remember absolutetly nothing about the movie. Not a single frame of animation, just that I enjoyed it. I'll be rewatching it (and many other Disney classics! and reviewing them!) soon enough, but today we are going to talk about the video game based off of the last movie Walt Disney had anything to do with. And It's not made by Capcom! but the makers of M.C. Kids (and I like M.C. Kids, in fact  I like it more than the game people call it a ripoff off, that's Super Mario Bros 3 if you don't know. Yes, I like a game on the NES more than super mario brothers) Virgin Entertainment!
                               

                                                                              
The Jungle Book was released in the last year of the NES's lifecycle. Well, unless you count Sunday Funday as a new game than the NES died in 1995, but either way, not a single person probably played this game when it originally came out. At least the NES version. I don't think anyone even had a NES in 1994. I mean I can't even recall many games being released in that year, but its a shame because I think some very enjoyable NES titles were released that year, In fact I like every game released for the NES in 1994 (at least I think I do I may be forgetting some) but I'm pretty sure no one knew about the NES version of the Jungle Book in 1994 because they were probably playing the SNES or Genesis versions (which if I recall correctly are all very similar, except I think the NES version is longer)

                                                                                

The game is your usual sidescroller, but it has a neat gimmick, hidden throughout the level are a number of gems (each level has at least one) that you have to find, making you pretty much search the entire level, personally I think that's a pretty neat idea. Another great thing is that this is probably the only Disney game that will actually challenge players older than 7 years old. Well TaleSpin is also pretty hard for a Disney game but the rest were incredibly easy (damn fun to play,  but fucking easy as hell) the game also has some very nice tunes and some decent but not spectacular graphics (remember this is 1994, the few NES games coming out in that year pretty much pushed the NES to its limits) and the game has a pretty good length, coming in at about 10 or so levels and the last one was a motherfucker.

The Jungle Book for the NES pretty much prooves that the NES was still putting out great games until it's dying days. Except for Sunday Funday. I mean seriously. Also despite being a later release it's not a very rare game, I THINK I ended up paying $10 for it, which is I think a pretty fair price for a later era NES title, of course that's just one man's opinion.

Ice Climber (1985)

                                                                            
I return to the "Black Box games" and before I get into todays game I should take back what I said before about their only being 17 Black Box games, I found that there were way more than I thought, after some research (something I didn't do for my Baseball review, but to be fair you shouldn't waste a second of your time learning about a game that shitty) I found out there were 29 of them, but I'm still standing by the fact I don't see what is so amazing about owning them. They aren't very rare. Of course getting the boxes for some of them is impossible, but only NintendoAge losers want the boxes. And  I do still feel that a good amount of the Black Box games suck ass, BUT today's game is different it is one of the better Black Box games. Today I am going to talk to you about Ice Climber.

                                                                                       

I can remember sprites from this game appearing on the website NES Nation back in like 1996 or 1997, when I would have to use my uncles computer to surf the web and loving that site. I just wanted to mention how cool NES sites used to be before they all died out and we are left with terrible terrible blogs that make the internet incredibly unfun to read (Just like this one!). Ice Climber is a pretty simple game to be honest, but to be completely fair, every other Black Box game were simple. Games back then weren't much more than trying to get a high score. The most important thing about Ice Climber is that it's fun. It's no more than reaching the top of the mountain to stop the condor. That's your plot.

Ice Climber has pretty damn good graphics for its time and some good music. The only flaw I feel the game has is that the controls are a bit wonky and it can be sometimes hard to jump, but that's it really, and for a very early release on the NES that's damn good, shit Ice Climber is a better game than most of the games they release NOW, and that's not even a joke. Ice Climber is a better game than most of the bullshit that gets put on the X Box 360 or the Wii. It has one very minor flaw in that I feel the jumping could have been done a bit better and that's it. Seriously. Ice Climber is really worth the money it costs, which is still like 2 or 3 dollars loose, and I don't know how much it is boxed because boxes are for losers.

The Spectacular Spider Man #13 (Dec. 1977)

                                                                                     

Well I decided that I just couldn't wait and had to share even more of this amazing piece of comic bookery with you people, and that may sound like sarcasm but I actually rather enjoyed re-reading this story and I feel it's better than any of the shit they plop out nowadays (at least thats the case with new spider man stories, for fuck sake he made a deal with the goddamn devil. what. the. hell.) but that's neither here nor there, what we want to see today is the story behind why Sha-Shan is working with this crazy fucker and all about RAZORBACK not Spidey's dumb deal with Mephistphotofofof (goddamn I hate that guy's name so much)

Our story begins just where the last one left of with Razorback and since this is a comic book made back in the 1970s, both of them end up fighting each other (seriously if two heroes appeared in a comic together they had to end up fighting. At least it shows up a lot in Marvel stuff) but after the fight, Razorback is like "all you eastern super-hero types always stomp each other by the way o' introduction" I love it when they make fun of the cliches. Of couse Spiderman freaks out because Sister Sun and Brother Power just could have killed Flash Thompson.

Well seeing as Flash Thompson is a character that's been around since the first issue of the Amazing Spider Man.... he's still safe and sound, except Achmed Korba felt like beating him around a bit. Flash talks about how they looked like they were listening to a voice inside their helmets and how they left, and what a coincidence, their car is speeding away! And Razorback just put a tracking device on it! What a guy. Razorback then shows Flash and Spidey THE BIG PIG which is just his truck , and off they go.  He also mentions that his sister Bobby Sue is now a part of the Legion of Light (Brother Power's cult)

We cut back to Brother Power and Sister Sun talking to their boss, THE HATE MONGER. I must tell you about the Hate Monger because characters like that are why I love comics. So many insane crazy ideas. The Hate Monger first appeared in Fantastic Four #21 in like the early 1960s, and at the end of the issue he was found out to be....Adolf fucking Hitler. I'm not joking, which personally is pretty funny to me, having the Fantastic Four fight Hitler, who the hell wouldn't read that? If you say you wouldn't you can kiss the fattest part of my ass. Sadly, this Hate-Monger is not really Hitler and just another bad guy in disguise, but you'll have to wait for the reveal on who it is, or just check the internet. I'm sure someone out there is just as sad as I am and feels like talking about 30+ year old Spider Man comics.


Now we get a little Flashback, talking about why Sha-Shan decided to join with these other jerks. It turns out that her father had decided to ask her to do this for him, because he sensed the evil within the HATE MONGER (even the name is awesome!) and knows that the HATE MONGER totally doesn't trust Achmed Korba (god damn I so want to say Kobra) even though he has chosen him as his emissary of hate, the HATE MONGER is nobody's fool and decides to make it so that he has to link up with one of Purity and Innocence, which happens to be Sha-Shan.

Well it seems they got to the HATE MONGER'S house and Spidey finds out who Brother Power and Sister Sun were working for, but ends up getting electructed while on a telephone pole (seriously dude you should know better) and ends up getting captupured, and so do his pals Flash and Razorback.  The last page has THE HATE MONGER telling our heroes that they will be killed and that they will be made to look like the bad guys because they were just hurting a bunch of innocent religious wackos. And of course Spidey makes a joke, because he always makes jokes even when his life is on the line because he's crazy.

This is a pretty good issue, it moves the story along. Introduces a  new character (one I'm really sad they didn't use more often, other than this story, Razorback appeared in a few issues of She-Hulk's second series (along with U.S. 1, yes, they met up. MY FANTASY WAS REALIZED. Razorback is a fun character and I wish he was used more) Spider-Man's quips are pretty funny, and the story is pretty good too. Come back whenever I decide to talk about Part 3 (who knows with my weird ass ways of updating it could happen 3 o clock in the morning or in 2 weeks from now) to see who is the REAL mastermind behind it all. Or if you are unresonable ungrateful ASSHOLE I suppose you could just look elsewhere on the internet.

Spectacular Spider Man #12 Part 1!

We'll we are going back in time today. WAY back in time, to a more beautiful time, a healthier time, a happier time, a fucking strange time, the 1970s. The decade of bell bottoms and Saturday Night Live and Gerald Ford, and the most awesome Spider Man stories ever! but first a bit of boring history that no one cares about.. The Spectacular Spider Man was the third comic magazine starring Spider Man, the first being The Amazing Spider Man in 1962. The second being Marvel Team Up in 1972. I think the Spectacular Spider Man series had some of the BEST Spider Man stories ever, maybe it's due to nostalgia (instead of buying one new comic I would buy a few old ones at a old bookstore) but I loved the marvel comics of the 1970s and 1980s. Gerry Conway, Peter David and the writer of today's weird ass story Bill Mantlo all wrote totally awesome stories.

                                                                               

Bill Mantlo was born November 9th, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York and wrote one of my all time favorite comic book series, Rom Spaceknight along with seventy billion other stories. Some of them were better than others but honestly they were usually pretty good solid stories that were pretty enjoyable to read. In the mid-1980s he decided to enroll in law school, and by the end of the 1980s he was working full time as a Legal Aid Society public defender in the Bronx. Sadly in 1992 he was struck by a hit and run driver while roller blading and suffered serve head trauma and isn't expected to ever fully recover. Sadly they haven't identified the piece of shit who did it to him.

Our story is a rather fun 4 parter. Yep this is going to be a long fucking review and I wouldn't blame you if you left right now. Seriously I wouldn't. First of this story introduces the greatest character ever. Well, maybe not greatest but I really fucking love this guy, you see during the 1970s and early 1980s there were a popular series of movies intitled Smokey and the Bandit, and I guess Bill Mantlo really liked those movies so he decided to create a character based off of them. He's a trucker who dresses up as a giant pig and calls himself Razorback. AND he has a remote control truck that looks like a pig! AND this story was made several years before U.S. 1!

                                                                                   

Our story starts in Spectacular Spider Man #12 printed in November of 1977 and it starts with Flash Thompson and Peter Parker playing tennis. Flash is wondering about his girlfriend Sha-Shan who was a Vietnamese national who saves Flash's life during the Vietnam war (remember this is the 1970s after all!).
It turns out that she got married! to some bad guy named Achmed Korba. Peter is just complaining about his bruised arm which happened during issue 175 of The Amazing Spider Man IF I recall correctly, I'M actually way too lazy to check so I guess we will say it did happen in that one issue.

                                                                              
So they keep playing the game until Peter Parker's Spider Sense goes haywire and he hears something off in the distance, so he goes off to get his Spider Man costume and Flash goes off to see what is going on (he of course tells Flash he went off to get his camera) and it turns out to be the gathering of a crazy ass cult being ran by two crazy fuckers in costumes and HOLY SHIT WHAT A SHOCKER. one of them turns out to be Sha-Shan (under the name of Sister Sun, her husband is Brother Power! Yep that's right her husband is running a cult and guess what he has superpowers, because every single asshole in the Marvel universe seems to get superpowers). They knock out Flash and fight Spider Man. Then it turns out they have the legal right to be there! BUT YOU CAN TELL HE'S EVIL! DAMN PIGS!

                                                                                  

Peter goes to learn more about Korba and his Krazy Kult (I really like that lame joke don't I?) and he learns that Korba (I mistyped this each time as Kobra) and it turns out he got his crazy powers from a meteor! well it turns out to be someone riding the meteor! (you'll find out who that is soon enough!) and then created a
cult! Peter then goes back to his apartment to find a note from Flash saying he went to find Sha-Shan SO Peter goes as Spider-Man and well he ends up with himself knocked out in an alley way with someone standing on top of him. Who is it?!!?!?! (hint: It's Razorback)

Part one of this story is pretty good, it gets you interested in whats going to happen next, has some nice action and makes you want to pick up the next parts so in other words, I think this is a pretty good issue and I hope you all will come back to my shitty ol' blog to find out what happens in the next 3 parts of the story, and yes I'm ending it here for two reasons 1) I must re-read the other parts of the story and 2) I'm tired of typing.

Hatris (1990)

Tetris may be the greatest game ever made. Seriously. It's easy to play, easy to learn yet challenging. I really think it's something people of all ages can enjoy, it's got memorable music and pretty good graphics and it's so god damn addictive. I really have to hand it to the Ruskies, they did a good job there, and I'm a big Tetris nut (sadly not very good at the game istelf) in the fact NOT only do I love Tetris, but I love every other Tetris style game from Dr. Mario to Yoshi. Tetris is great, Everything that is even remotely CLOSE to Tetris is great. Fuck Karl Marx, Alexey Pajitnov is the world's greatest Russian man.

                                                                                                                              
This game was also made by the same dude who made Tetris, and you can see he really milked that idea for every single cent it was worth, but while not very original (fuck It's just Tetris with HATS) it's really fucking fun to play, and it's got good graphics and decent enough music, and most importatly it's just as fun as Tetris and really who gives a rat shit about originality anyway, that shit is overrated anyway.

Yeah, that's all I really have to say about Hatris. It's a good Tetris clone, It's not exactly easy to find but it still won't cost you too much money.

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode (1988)

                                                                                     
Golgo 13: Top Secret Mission is a rather popular NES title, I feel it has a very nice small little cult of gamers who enjoy it and its sequel, and yes I do put myself in that cult of people who like DUKE TOGO. First off, I never read the Japanese comic books that the character first appeared in, although I would like too. It actually looks awesome unlike well most every other Japanese comic book. I mean seriously that shit blows. Also he was in a live action movie and two anime movies I never saw and a arcade game I never played, and he's really damn popular in Japan where he was created. Which is one of the few cool things to come from that country. like Sailor Moon.............er I mean Godzilla.... yeah thats it.

                                                                             

OK, terrible attempts at comedy aside. Golgo 13 Top Secret Episode is actually a very neat game. First off it's one of the few NES games, with drugs in it (it's only cigarettes) sex (no joke) and violence, which really makes it feel pretty realistic, a assassin would get himself into that kinda shit every single day. The game has a pretty good plot too, admittedly I don't care too much about plots but this one I actually wanted to see to the end, so that's pretty fucking good for a NES game. Another thing is this game is pretty neat and it has several different modes of play, kind of like The Adventures of Bayou Billy except better done (not to be totally unfair to Billy as I'm one of the few people who like that game but FUCK they could have made it a bit easier!)

                                                                          

The different types of game play are as follows, really neat first person shooting sections, side scrolling sections, a SHUMP like stage (or is it two I forget) and 3D Mazes. Those god damn fucking 3D mazes. Everything else about this game I really like but not those fucking annoying shitty ass hell 3D Mazes that came from Lucifer's asshole. Seriously, they may look cool, I will admit, but I ALWAYS GET STUCK IN THEM. No matter what game they are in, I always get stuck, making them a very annoying part of the game. Luckily, the rest of the game shines. Although I will say that the graphics are rather drab, but that music is ROCKIN', and to be fair you get enough continues so that you can beat the game, and it's not THAT hard, even with those annoying mazes, although the last boss does give me trouble and I still haven't beaten him.

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode is a game worth getting AND the best thing about it, is that it's pretty damn cheap. I'm sure this game isn't going to cost more than $3 or 4 dollars, 5 dollars at the most, and  I think it's worth that much money. It's pretty much the only licensed nes game where you get laid!!

Family Feud (1990)

                                                                                   
I'm not a very big game show fan, for one big reason, it's not that some of them can't be interesting. Some have some very interesting and enjoyable gimmicks. The reason I don't watch too many game shows is because the host usually suck ass, they seem to enjoy getting the worst people to host game shows. FOR FUCK SAKE LOUIE GOD DAMN ANDERSON hosted a game show. Who the fuck wants to see that? Seriously, WHO? With that said when it's a good host, the show can be enjoyable, like Family Feud's Richard Dawson. He's a charming fellow. Oddly enough Family Feud was also the show Louie Anderson hosted. How can you go from Richard to Louie? Either way, There is no Louie Anderson in the NES Family Feud game.

                                                                          
I find it pretty weird that more people don't talk about the game show games on the NES. I really think they did a good job with most of them and yet you rarely hear a peep about them. Strange. Family Feud stays very very close to the show it's based on and is a pretty fun game. Sure the graphics suck and the families look really fucking weird and goofy, and the music isn't very good either. BUT the game IS a fun game. I've said before music and graphics don't make a game good. It's the gameplay and the gameplay is solid. The gameplay is pretty much what it would be like to be on Family Feud in where you answer questions for money and whoever gets the most money at the end can go on to Fast Money. It's pretty much that easy. The only real problem I have is that it seems the X takes it sweet ass time getting up on the screen when I got something wrong. I know I'm a moron, you don't have to rub it in.

                                                                                  

Yep, I figure you should give Family Feud for the NES a shot if you are a fan of the tv show. Even if you aren't a fan of the show the game can still be pretty fun. I don't think it's one of the better game show games and to be fair  they are all a lot more fun with a second player than they are when you are alone, still It's worth the price you'll pay for a copy of the game. It really can't be more than $5.