Woah, I forgot that I also review NES Games!!!

 Well I think It’s time to get back to reviewing NES games on this old blog here. I like this group because five out of these six I’ve played enough to know about how I feel about them without even having the fire up an emulator. That’s pretty good because sometimes I’m like “oh how do I actually feel about this game? Haven’t played that one in forever… oh it’s bad” but this time I know these games and I love some of them. Anyway let’s get to blathering about these games.

The other five games I know well enough that I don’t have to play again to review. I did however have to play this one again, just to remember that it’s like that old computer game I played once or twice at a relatives house that was somehow better. It was made in the early 1980s and this was from the late 1980s. Six years, that’s not an amazing amount of time or anything but in the video game sphere. Six years was Atari ass shit to NES goodness. This game however tries to make it a big more bigger and better and fails. You have special hidden areas and I’m just not into that shit any more. I just want to shoot things to entertain myself with these games, not have to find a hidden area that you need to find to get a hostage. However I could probably do that if the fucking play control was shitty as fuck. It’s just so stiff yet somehow loose. I just realized the play control is what ruins so many video games and ruins this one. However I know that the second I hit publish on this post I will have forgotten this video game yet again. Say what you will about the other five games I will be talking about here but they are at least memorable.

This was a game I owned as a child and with pretty much every thing else from when I was a kid I’m always going to have some rose tinted glasses for those things. I’m going to try to be fair and balanced or whatever. I’m going to praise some of this game. The graphics are pretty great. The music is also pretty great (Even Portnoyd will have to agree). The game controls pretty well and it’s pretty neat that a weird racing game is also action packed. I will just say that this game is fucking BRUTALLY HARD. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past the 7th or 8th level. This game starts off easy, like level 1 and 2 are like a carefree walk in the park but by level 6 this game has taken off its pants and is fucking you right in the ass. However, I still like this game but holy shit it’s one of the hardest games on the NES (and one I would still love to beat, along side Adventure Island which is another one of the hardest games on the NES!)

You know sometimes ripoffs can be a lot of fun. In the 1980s Italian movies would ripoff American movies and somehow make every single one of those movies insane (and mostly insanely entertaining). I mention this because Code Name Viper is just Rolling Thunder except this time the guy you play as doesn’t like to wear pants despite going off to kill 102391039109103 people to stop evil crimes. It’s wild. I guess he just likes to feel the fresh air on his dick and ass. I don’t know. Anyway, this game like Rolling Thunder is really quite fun, however it is also pretty damn hard. Not as hard as Rolling Thunder but still pretty good challenge. I should probably not say hard as much seeing as this guy just doesn’t want to wear any pants!!! (seriously play the game and tell me it looks like hes wearing pants!!!)

I should literally refuse to review this game because It’s really not even a game. It’s just a coloring book somehow ported to the NES. Like I hate to even compare this to Mario Paint because Mario Paint did things and you can do some pretty wild stuff with it to this day. Mario Paint can be considered a video game. It can be considered to be fun. This isn’t that. Seriously, spend $5 on a coloring book and color that if you really need too. It’s much better than spending $120 for this game. Seriously, I don’t even need to go into a “Jesus Christ it costs THAT now” spiel because seriously it’s fucking Color a Dinosaur.

If you think I’m just going to say WOW THIS GAME IS A MASTERPIECE AND A CLASSIC just because it’s Capcom then you’re dead fucking wrong. I’m not going to praise something that’s awful just because a video game company/film director/actor/whatever who ususally does good work did it. No this is one of their earliest games and well when you see a Capcom game with the grid look on it, well it’s kind of a crapshoot if it’s gonna be good. This game is not good. I personally feel the Commando character moves way too slowly and you get swamped by 92,000 bad guys so quickly and easily. There’s another Capcom game from this era that is similar but does things so much better. We will get to it soon enough, I hope. I just find this game to be annoying and unpleasant to play.

We now get to one of the fucking worst NES games period. This is bottom ten material here. This also reminds me of a goober from a goober website (Nintendo Age for those who don’t know) who would say this game was better than Mario 3. I don’t like to throw around the term contrarian lightly because people are able to have weird opinions on things but there’s no way BUT to call that guy a contrarian because this game is unplayable horse shit. The controls are frustrating. You have to hold the up thing on the D-Pad to jump up. You have such a poorly thought out levels too. They want you to do so many frustrating things with shitty controls in the levels. Sometimes you get a level that is different is that it’s just really fucking boring to play through! Wonderful. The graphics were AWFUL for the time. Like completely hot garbage shit. The music is also some of the worst. A truly unplayable, indefensible turd of a video game.

That was fun. You will get some more reviews soon. Anyway back to the rankings

Good games: 61

Bad Games: 57

Okay games: 15

This doesn’t even count as a game to me, Sorry: 1

Random Thoughts about YouTube and Maybe Other Things.

 Well, it’s Time for another random grouping of thoughts, this time mostly dedicated to the one social media site I haven’t really talked about, a site called YouTube. It’s really quite great but also really shitty too.

1.) YouTube is probably the best social media site. You really do get tons of people that work their hearts out to create fun and unique content. Also tons of movie and tv show clips (hell even full movies and tv shows). I felt that I should start off positive because I have some really negative as fuck things to say about this website too. It’s not perfect and not even close to it and they really need to do something to fix some of the things I’m going to bitch and moan about.

2.) I think I’m going to start with retro gaming YouTube and stuff. I watch a good amount of the stuff. I even watched retro gaming resellers (which I admit I found interesting because the guys seemed likable enough, it was an interesting look into the other side of retro gaming (how the people who sell games at conventions get those games) and other stuff. However I’ve grown to not be able to watch the content. And no it’s not because they helped raise the prices of games. I mean yeah they have but I felt that I was priced out of retro video games in 20 and fucking 14, not because of the new group of people, but because I’ve been hearing some sleazy things about these guys. Like undercutting people (sometimes even on video. I don’t think I’ve seen every fucking video these guys put out) but what gets me is that they use WhatNot to sell things and that’s a video ebay site thing. A lot of people in this day and age end up having parasocial relationships with YouTubers they will never meet. No I’m not going to make fun of these people because loneliness will make you do weird fucking things and a lot of people these days are lonely. What I’m getting at is I just feel this way of selling things is sleazy as it takes advantage of these people with parasocial relationships. Oh no my friend DifferentStrokes-AvengersFan696969 needs money help, I’ll buy this thing for twice its worth to help him out! It just feels wrong to me. I dunno.

3.) I fucking hate anti-woke YouTubers like Nerdrotic and YellowFlash and Eric July and others. I fucking hate that I watch that stuff to be annoyed (either by inaccuracies about the things they talk about like say comic books or the politics that yes are in the fucking videos. Nerdrotic showed up on Piers Morgan and Prager U. Sorry but you’re political when you join up with those guys) and the main reason I don’t like them is that I believe they help radicalize people using things they love like Transformers or Indiana Jones or Star Wars. I’ve seen this happen thanks to using Twitter and other stuff. It’s very annoying. I’m sorry but Hollywood realizes that they can get money from people who aren’t dudes and they will keep going with this. Do I think every single case of diversity works in new media? No, I’m sure some are just shitty due to all kinds of reasons but I’m not going to get mad over every single attempt. Sorry but they will keep doing this (and hell I’m just going to go here and say I liked that lady character they hated in Indiana Jones and The Hopefully End of This Series because she seemed to care about being in a movie and Harrison Ford clearly wanted to be anywhere else.)

4.) In all fairness I also fucking hate pretty much most of left wing YouTube too (even though I consider myself left wing) I even believe getting into this content due to things like parasocial relationships and other things will help radicalize people to a completely different cause and no one wants to talk to a radicalized political person who won’t step one iota out of their comfort zone to maybe I dunno actually fix any of these problems. Also these guys do the worst thing left wingers do which is expect literal perfection that only Jesus could ever do from every single person. Sorry, I’m not perfect, sometimes I’ll even say conservative things are not completely wrong. One example is that so many of these people will pick some random things made between I dunno 1910 and 2000 and get offended by the fact that this thing was different than 2024. It’s a pointless thing because none of us can change the past. The past does not change ever for anyone. I guess what I’m saying is that both groups seem to forget about the concept of nuance (i’ll bring my point of not getting offended and angry about old movies and TV shows and stuff into here. My parents want to show my nieces Adventures in Babysitting from the 1980s because we all pretty much enjoyed the hell out of that movie when we saw it in 1990s, however it’s a PG-13 rated 1980s movie and those had swearing and cursing and all kinds of stuff and children as young as these probably shouldn’t be seeing it. Probably at an age where you can say “Hey they did things differently back then, you’ll enjoy this movie but I sure as heck don’t want you repeating a ton of words in this movie”) I dunno. I just don’t want radicalization to happen because it just shits up the political system and is no good.

5.) If I hear another half baked comment about capitalism and billionaires in a discussion video about some goofy nerd thing like Power Rangers I will rip the rest of my hair off my head and shove it down the You Tuber’s throat. I don’t even think we gave ourselves (the human race here) a good system of ideals with capitalism I just think that to even change that stuff a little bit we have to be ADULT WITH OUR ARGUMENTS ABOUT IT and not bring in things like Power Rangers or Harry Potter or Webster or Boy Meets World or any of these things into it. I say this as an adult who likes silly goofy crap like Voltron and RoboTech and comic books BUT this is a serious thing that needs to be taken seriously!

6.) back to Nerdrotic and the others of his ilk, the vast majority of them are not actually fascists. A term the internet learned and I don’t think most people know how to use correctly. No, Nerdrotic and all of these people literally would be profusing love for these ideas and movies, every single one of them, if it wasn’t fucking profitable as SHIT to do so but you make more money selling anger to people. Now will I say the fans may end up being fascists? Yeah, I can totally see a fan of Nerdrotic wanting things like everyone who has even a single left wing thought eradicated from the world which IS a fascist ideal. Nerdrotic just doesn’t give a shit because he gets money which is a reason people use YouTube.

7.) It annoys me that someone who clearly puts effort into their research and editing and planning of ideas (and no I’m not talking about my crummy YouTube videos here either) gets less likes then the angry dickhole yelling about Star Wars or Dr. Who or what the fuck ever. An example of this is PopArena, I’m not saying the videos are perfect (He talks about Nickelodeon but brings up politics and weird shit way too often. He talked about the Dennis the Menace show from the 1950s/1960s and went off in random 5 second quote about how Hank Ketchum wanted to actually keep his job at Disney and dared to not join the strike in the fucking 1940s working for a dude that if he could would have fired every single striking person without breaking a sweat. We can argue about unions and all that shit now in 2024 and I’m for them but I’m not going to browbeat a dead man for a reason like that. Sorry, it’s weird and kind of annoying) but they clearly put effort into them and it’s sad that they don’t have even half as many subscribers as the guy who just turns on a microphone and yells KATHLEEN KENNEDY IS THE WORST HUMAN BEING WHO EVER LIVED!!!!!!

8.) Kathleen Kennedy put up money (which is how you become a producer Nerdrotic fans, not get Steven Spielberg coffee) which helped get Gremlins, Gremlins 2, Back to the Future films, Jurassic Park, and a ton of fucking other amazing movies get made (and the Steven Speilberg Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1990s). I don’t even know how I’ll end up feeling about the Star Wars movies she helped get made (because I haven’t seen them) but you really should do some research on the woman because those producing credits is what got her the damn job (and George Lucas trusts her too actually seeking her out for the job before selling it all to Disney I believe). She was a hands on producer for these movies too, but even if all she did was hand out the money she deserves fucking respect for helping to bring those to life.

I’m off to actually watch something on YouTube now but man it was fun getting this shit off my chest. Portnoyd will probably disagree with at least one of these points and we will get into a stupid pointless fight in the comments.

Another group of Random Thoughts

 I’m not having the best of times so it’s time for another group of random thoughts that I just need to get out of my system so let’s do it!

1.) Some interviewer decided to bother Alan Moore and he just pissed all over comics again and comic fans and all that. I get that he got screwed over by DC Comics regarding Watchmen. I’m actually not even going to bother going over his comments but the reaction to his comics. The first thing is interviews stop fucking sending a single fucking question of this manner to the guy. He isn’t going to change his thoughts. Unless you just want to cause a tizzy. and Two.) You do not, ever, have to explain your enjoyment of something to fucking anyone, let alone a human being you will never ever meet. I mean okay maybe if that thing you are enjoying is beating women you’ll have to fucking explain that but comic books. Let people enjoy the fucking things. I mean yeah I think way too many fans of comics are emotionally retarded (his words from the interview subject) but the vast majority of them are not. Or at least a good amount of them aren’t. It doesn’t matter if the person is very talented at making the thing you enjoy or not. Just grab every bit of entertainment and joy you can get out of this wretched life. Seriously, If it’s not hurting another human being do as much of that thing as you fucking can. It’s 10000% more emotionally retarded to care about what a person again you will not ever meet thinks of what you enjoy.

2.) Mama Cass has for 50 years now had a awful rumor over her death. That she choked to death eating a ham sandwich, which isn’t true. She died of a heart attack in her sleep. Just imagine having some guy joke about that and having it somehow become the “truth” for decades. I’m sure I joked about it to my dad because I thought it was the truth. That just sounds incredibly awful to happen. I hope to change that supposed “truth” with the actual truth.

3.) I’ve been re-watching old 80s and 90s cartoons and I really think they mostly hold up. I’ve been laughing and just having a good time. I then talk about them on my YouTube. I really don’t have any idea for this one.

4.) Yes, it’s the obligatory “old internet was better” post that I do a lot of but the old internet will always be better. I’m sorry but message forums are better than social media because these forums had a member that was willing to stop arguments and all things like that. However that’s not my only point about this. My point is it’s so fucking hard to now find the remnants of the old internet, which is still out there. Look up Silver Surfer and you’ll find 820202 pages about some new movie and not a single page from 1997 about some guy making a page about why he likes the Silver Surfer and that’s what I want to see, damnit.

5.) I feel like blathering about video game prices again. For stuff that should never have been more than 3 dollars. Like a mario game. I will never get how a game that has THAT many copies out there STILL go for more than 3 bucks. I don’t get how Pokemon games go for that much. Literally every body in my fucking grade 8 class would talk about that game and that was 13 year olds! What the hell! I do not understand how they go for $80! or more! It’s baffling to me. There has to be more copies of that game out there than anything!

6.) I clearly only had 2 random thoughts and I just pulled the last three out of my ass after spending way too much time looking at a blank screen.

Just random shit I feel like talking about.

 Well I’m back to the blog posting sphere. I’m also back on youtube. I’m getting zero contact from the outside internet with either venture either but I got shit in my brain that I just want out. Just want it out of there. So I’m going to talk about them. I’m going to post them here because again it’s sad that I’ll get one comment from portnoyd going YOUR WRONG WRONG WRONGLY WRONG WRONGAROO WRONG. but it’s also weirdly freeing to be able to say literally anything on the internet without some weirdo coming in and yelling at you for not loving something. Anyway just be blathering on for who knows how long but I just feel like doing it.

1.) Contrarianism is the most fucking annoying thing on this planet: People who hate a popular thing because it’s popular are very very annoying human beings to be around. Saying everything and anything ever popular was terrible is a really shitty personality. It’s also annoying to people who SERIOUSLY don’t end up enjoying something popular. I don’t like the Big Bang Theory but it’s not because it was popular but because it was really annoying television comedy that didn’t work for my sense of humour. It’s one of the main reasons I’ll probably never watch a lot of really popular things because the last thing I want to hear is OH YOU’RE JUST BEING A CONTRARIAN because of that opinion. No, seriously every opinion I have is my honest opinion and you’ll just have to put up with it.

2.) Recently Jerry Seinfeld came out and posted something about wokeness. I don’t want to get into the political part of it but the reaction a lot of people who are way too political have: The second someone says something against their politics that person is now untalented and bad and they never liked their work. This annoys the fucking shit out of me and ot be honest I don’t even think Jerry Seinfeld was the reason his sitcom was a huge hit (that’s Mr. Curb Your Enthusiasm you need to thank for that) I’m going to say something that will be the truest test of how far my reach actually is. I’m going to say that Donald Trump is fucking terrible and it was insane that America gave him the presidency and that some people want him to have a return to that. Literally fucking insane. If I truly have no reach and am stuffed into the smallest hole on the internet no one will comment how im a soy liberal gaywad or something. However there’s an actor called James Woods who clearly still has insane acting talent despite loving Donald Trump. Like I’m not going to trash that man’s acting talent because of that. It’s childish shit and people on both sides of the political isle have to stop doing it.

3.) Jack Kirby’s super fans are literally the most annoying people in the comics fandom that are not in Comicsgate. Yes, I said that and I’ll stick to it. I’m not talking about the people who clearly love the unique, idiosyncratic work he created during his lifetime, because I’m one of those people. Jack Kirby was one of a kind individual that work got screwed over by the comics company. I even believe that Stan Lee really needed to give that man more credit than he ever did. You wouldn’t have Marvel Comics without Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko. Period, however I’m also one of those people who do not believe that Stan Lee did nothing for 40 years and somehow kept his job because he was related to Martin Goodman. I’ve read the original stories and really even if the one thing Stan Lee did was write the dialogue then he deserves a good amount of Marvel’s early success for that and that alone. Jack Kirby’s stories in New Gods and Kamandi and his later work are wild and creative and still so much fun to me. However his dialogue was weird, wonky, clunky and takes an incredible amount of time to really get used too. I mean I will admit that I’ve grown to enjoy it because Kirby wanted to be able to do EVERYTHING for his comic stories and it’s nice to know that he got to put in his entire voice for his stories, even if it is undeniably weird, wonky and clunky. The man literally wrote SERSI WHAT THE FUNKY CORN or something like that in an Eternals issue. I’m sorry but if that was what was in those 1960s Marvel then I do not think it would have been so popular. I will say this though at least Jack Kirby’s dialogue has some weird charm to it all which makes it 10 times better than Steve Ditko dialogue which is drier than a British Man’s sense of humor and ALWAYS telling you about how Ayn Rand was a beautiful human being who we should all worship and love.

4.) I miss blogs, forums and when the internet wasn’t fucking just Twitter and social media: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but forum posting was saner and more calming and fun than Twitter and social media because you clearly had 1.) less people and 2.) a person coming in to stop fucking arguments. Period.

5.) If you hate Miles Morales for being Spider-Man and think every Spider-Man who isn’t Peter Parker is a lazy rehash yet love Wally West then you probably have a race problem. As in you are probably racist. I mean if you think all legacy heroes that take the mantle of another hero is a lazy concept or something then that’s at least something but being like oh yeah it’s okay for a white guy to replace another white guy hero but freak when a black hero replaces a white hero then you’re a dirthole and I don’t like you.

6.) I hope I really do have weird internet freedom because I do not want to argue with anyone right now.

More NES Games Portnoyd Will Be Wrong About.

 I’m making up for lost time because right now I’m quite bored and feel like talking about some more NES games. I guarantee portnoyd will be wrong about at least 5 of these 6 games because he’s a jerk. Who’s wrong.

Toho made Godzilla movies. And a lot of other movies. Toho also made video games. I was also curious what games they also made. I was going to be like THEY SHOULD JUST MAKE MOVIES AND STAY AWAY FROM THE GAMES but they made the two Godzilla games (and I actually like those games) and that makes complete sense but I had to look at John Riggs shitty video on Toho to find out what games they made. He is without a doubt the most boring asshole to make YouTube videos ever. I do not know how he has a following. He is a horribly boring person and I don’t like to see him show up on my YouTube thing. Anyway Toho’s first game to show up here is a big old piece of shit that is worth nothing and should never be played. It’s not bad because of the gameplay (it’s just jumping and smashing bad guys) or the music, or graphics but because of the SHITTY LEVEL DESIGN and SHITTY CONTROLS. They just threw shit out and didn’t even care about anything! The game is also somehow pretty easy but it’s still annoying and I don’t like it. Fuck this game.

City Connection is a game thats pretty fucking nostaligic for me. I remember picking this up VERY early in my collecting days. I also remember having a ball with it. It’s a simple arcade style game which makes sense because I’m pretty sure it was an arcade game! A very simple game where you have to spill paint all over the ground to escape the police some how. You drive around in your car spilling paint and avoiding cats and it gets harder and harder. The reason this game is more fun to play that say Chubby Cherub is that this game controls fine, the hit detection is a whole lot more fair and entertaining. This is a fun enjoyable game that you can still probably buy for $5. Well, it’s $9 now and I do think this game is worth nine dollars of fun but just buy an everdrive and save the $9 for pizza or a ninja turtle toy from 1989 or something.

This game is also incredibly nostalgic for me too! I remember seeing it when the Internet was actual websites made by people of all ages, from like 13 to 85 about just about every topic you can think of (instead of like 2 shitty social media websites and a video website in YouTube. Yes, I’m bitter. Fuck off). I found about this game on some old website and I played this game on an emulator and it was incredibly rad! This is a game where you gotta go all over the place to find stuff to help you to get to a different area to fight different bosses and this game is QUIRKY AND WEIRD and also pretty funny. I love the character designs and I wish they had made a sequel or something. If this were like 1998 and you could find NES games easily and for cheap prices of like $5 i’d say pick this game up. However this game goes for $20 and as an person whos trying finally to be at least a little bit of a responsible adult that’s money that could go towards a purchase of a MiSTER or a everdrive or something. It’s pointless to spend the money on this stuff when they are so expensive and so unnecessary but damn it was really fun while it lasted.

I think game shows are probably the lamest kind of television show ever created. I can name a shit ton of shows I like from all kinds of genres but when it comes to game shows I can name……4. I like Jeopardy, The Weakest Link, Who Wants to be A Millionaire and Supermarket Sweep. Honestly I think I might have only liked two of those shows for the time I got to spend with my parents. We’d watch Millionaire and Weakest Link when those were like THE BIGGEST DEAL EVER. Every other game show has never really been for me. I just don’t get it. So this is another game I don’t know if I ever played it before or not but it’s just seems to be a matching game. Maybe some other games? I dunno. all I know is it’s boring with a capital B. Let’s get to something better (I do like the Jeopardy games on the NES)

You know I respect that Nintendo still tried to keep the NES going years after the SNES showed up. What’s wild is that the NES stayed around until 1995 (I’m counting Sunday Funday as the final game released even if it is just a shitty version of Menace Beach) which was literally two years before the SNES was given up on. Cliffhanger is a pretty good movie. I like it quite a bit. It’s a very well shot, engaging, fun action movie. It even has the guy from Third Rock from the Sun in it! Also years ago I had an insane amount of patience for video games, mostly NES games. I somehow beat this game despite the fact it has some of the cruddiest, crappiest, shittiest, ASSIEST controls you could ever make for a video game. I don’t even know where to begin with them but they just might be the worst controls for a video game on the NES ever. I am not a fan. I do not like it. You do get to ride on the body of a guy though! Also it is better than the SNES game which is somehow the most boring beat em up of all time and that’s pretty wild. This game goes for $85 dollars which somehow feels really low to me because this game is honestly just as not easy to find as a lot of the games people go on about nowadays which just shows how silly the whole thing is now. Shouldn’t like all rare games make money now? Like this game should be worth more than Chubby Cherub. Seriously.

Unpopular Opinion Time! Keep Your Eyes Away from this post if you like this game! Avert them! Because here it comes! This game is a shitty pile of garbage and I fucking hate it. It’s a game that should be simple but they fucked up the shitty ass controls. I do not like the way this game plays and I don’t want to talk about it any more. I really shouldn’t have done two of these posts in a row because at this point I just don’t want to be typing anything at this moment. So I’ll stop. Fuck Clu Clu Land.

Another six games so you get the totals again. Woo.

Good Games: 59

Bad Games: 55

Okay Games: 15

NES Games OH Yeah, NES GAMES!!!!

 I was planning on doing my youtube channel again but I want to put actual effort and all that into that. I mean I think I could make it if that was the case. I need actual editing skills and a better microphone and all kinds of things I just don’t have right now. The lazy lame videos I made just gross me out right now. Is it possible to be really lazy, make shitty work and still somehow be a perfectionist? I don’t know but I do know that I need something to occupy my time in between watching movies and all that. Which means I’m bringing the blog back. To make portnoyd happy. I swear the jerk better watch the youtube video I make that is actually well made.

While I do plan to discuss other things again. Like comics and FINAL EPISODES and other stuff. I just feel the need to discuss another six NES games because well it was the thing I had most fun doing. I also want to get these games out of the way because well this just might be the most boring set of games I somehow came across. Really.

One of like three video game games based on bowling that I can think of. Bowling is probably the hardest sport to turn into a video game that feels satisfying. You can make satisfying Hockey games, Baseball games, Basketball games but Bowling just doesn’t seem to work. It’s weird. I think Super Bowling on the SNES is okay, but none of these games feel as satisfying as actually hitting a bunch of pins with a huge ass ball. So this game is made by ROMStar a company that made a lot of underwhelming games. Games I can’t in any way call good but I also cannot call bad. The worst is probably this game honestly. It’s really quite boring and I don’t like playing it. There is one ROMstar game I like and will consider in the good pile and it WILL annoy portnoyd when it shows up. So That’s good. This game isn’t an awful mess of shit that should never be played but it’s also not very exciting and your better off playing an actual game of bowling. The music is also really pretty shitty and boring too. Yet I cannot hate it.

This game is one of maybe 20 games I still haven’t played before. I’ve been playing NES games, just random NES games since I started collecting games in 1998. I had a collection of at least 600 of the games at one point. I just never played this one. I don’t know if I never owned it (the cover does not look familiar but it also incredibly generic as shit and I don’t want to see it again) or just decided to play something better, including the other three Pool games on the NES. In fact I had forgotten about this terrible, terrible game. This atrocious game. It’s the worst pool game on the NES. The rest of them are at least fun to a degree even if you suck at pool like I do. It’s just those games are honestly easy to figure out and control. This game was weird and hard to get a handle on and even hit any balls. I don’t even know what the hell to do and I just don’t give enough of a shit to try. I’m getting old and all I want is to figure out a game easily. Nothing fancy. Don’t do fancy! I can at least say I have now played Championship Pool, even if it was only for about five minutes. Five minutes I will never get back!

Hey, Can I just be honest for a second and say that I don’t think I’d played THIS game either. I never played Chess. I don’t know how too. To be honest I don’t want to spend my time trying to learn. Maybe when I’m 97 and living in New York Central Park somehow I can learn, but until then I do not want to play chess. It’s weird, it’s confusing, nothing is done with these games to help me figure out what the flying fuck I am doing, Just getting told THAT IS NOT A LEGAL MOVE!!! Fuck chess. I’m going to play Checkers, THE REAL THINKING MAN’S GAME. (also I hope this is the last Chess game I have to talk about. Also the last two games were made by the Software Toolworks. I don’t even remember any of there games that weren’t Mario is Missing and Marios Time Machine!)

Zapper games are a weird weird bunch. Some of them are weirdly simple (and they mostly work. like the black box games), some try to hard and don’t work and some try pretty hard and do end up working. Chiller is not a terrible zapper game but not that amazing. I don’t think I ever worked it but I somehow got working at one point with some emulator and now it wont work to retry it for this blog post. Chiller is sadly a game that really should have been cooler. Look at that cover. You do not get anything that cool looking in the game. It’s kinda like ghoulish shit happening to Fisher Price people in this game which is really funny in its own way. At least to me. Anyway this game isn’t awful.

Oh man. You know what this games means! Yes! I get to complain about the prices of Retro games online! You know how I mentioned how I started collecting in 1998! Here’s something I remembered recently. I asked a kid I was sorta friendly with if he had any NES games to sell me and he made fun of me. Yes, back then you would get made fun of for asking a damn question and even offering money! Now it’s like WOW SO COOL! I used to make fun of people who were like MAN THIS BAND THAT ACTUALLY FINALLY GOT A LITTLE BIT OF FAME SOLD OUT but I can honestly kind of understand those people now. At least a little bit. You were there when people thought you were a stupid worthless idiot with a damaged brain for wanting or enjoying this stuff. You were there in the long haul! Just to get thrown out for idiots who had too much money and idiots who somehow got popular on youtube! No I will not ever stop complaining about this. However this game may be rarer than we all think. You remember the Newfoundland rule (for those who do not, it’s the rule that if something shows up in Newfoundland you can no longer call it a rare thing. Only uncommon). Well I saw a LOT of games. Like stuff like Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers 2 and many rare games but I never once saw this. Not for a second. I had to buy this from someone. For five dollars. I remember some YouTube guys (that I liked at the time and still kinda like but I also hold responsible for ruining the shit out of this hobby) going on about how he spent $35 for this game. Or something like that. You could have spent that 35 bucks on so many fucking better things. This game was a waste of the five fucking dollars I spent on it. It’s a buggy, ugly, not enjoyable SHITTY FUCKING PIECE OF GARBAGE. The hit detection in this game is some of the worst garbage shit trash SHIT FUCK I have ever ever EVER seen IN MY LIFE. EVER. Fuck this game. Fuck people who ruined this shit. Fuck people who came in and took a big old messy dump on the floor. Fuck.

I’m probably going to be called a bit contrarian for this but I do not think these are the worst games on the NES. I don’t even know why but something about these games amuse the shit out of me. Like something about these try hard Ninja Turtle ripoffs are kind of amazingly charming to me. I’m not in any way saying this or Action 52 are good games. They are not. They are poor excuses for video games. However, if you were to show up to my house with a super goofy looking 1990s comic book gun and said YOU WILL PLAY ONE OF THESE GAMES FOR FIVE MINUTES OR I WILL SHOOT EVERYONE IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD and gave me this game or Chubby Cherub, well I’d play this game. Yes, I said that. I said I’d play this over a game that the YOUTUBE VIDEO WIZARDS have decreed is rare and worth owning. This game is like a so bad it’s good movie where as Chubby Cherub is a fucking pile of hot shit melting on the sidewalk.

Good Games: 57

Bad Games: 52

Okay Games: 15

NES GAMES I MISS ED ONE!!!!!!!! HAHAHHHHHHHHH

 Yes. I just realized I had missed a game. So I guess we will start the review off with that one game. So let’s do it.

This is the game I missed. It’s a sports game compliation. Woo. You can see why I forgot about this game. I don’t like most sports games and I don’t like most of these compliation games either. Most of them are just too hard for me to get anywhere in. I guess this game has fine graphics and sound for the time and I can see why others enjoy it but I don’t. I’m putting it in the bad category because I just don’;t like it. That’s the review you were sorely missing.

I don’t know what to say about most of the Classic NES games that haven’t been already said. I did this mostly to talk about the more unknown games. The stuff people never seem to discuss, however I felt I might as well talk about all the NES games and that includes the big name stuff that still does well today and Castlevania is fucking awesome. That’s all I can say is to agree with the majority and is a lot of fun to play. The graphics and music still hold up incredibly well. The gameplay has you whipping the shit out of Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster. The game is pretty fucking hard too but it’s more of that “well thought out challenging” hard and not ‘we just didn’t know what the fuck we were doing” hard. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to say anything else other than if you haven’t played this game you should.

This paragraph review will show maybe my hottest hot take when it comes to video games. CastleVania II is the only ‘Metroidvania” game that I like. I have never played Symphony of the Night and I’m not jazzed about ever doing so. I played some of those Castlevania GBA games and I wasn’t wowed by them. If I want to go search around and find things to get to new areas I will play Metroid. When I play Castlevania I want to slap around crazy monsters with a whip. That’s what I want. I much perfer the older Castlevania games that were mostly platformers with some elements of that in it. Keep Metroid and Castlevania apart is what I say. Still I actually like this game and think the only real problem is some of the “How the fuck was I know that I had to do that? You stupid jerk game” but otherwise I enjoy this game. I know all of this was a hot take but I don’t care. Agree with it or don’t.

This is the best Castlevania game on the NES, maybe the best Castlevania game period. It’s a massive improvement on the other two games. You get alternative paths and can one of several helpers to help you beat the game. The graphics, music and challenge factor have all been upped. I’ve beaten the first two Castlevania games but I have NOT beaten this one. It is a tough ass motherfucker of a game. I WILL hopefully do it once sometime soon but man, this is some hard shit. The game is totally worth playing and is highly recommended by me.

Another one of those “sports game compliation” type games that were all over the NES. I believe there’s ONE that I will be giving a good rating too. The rest I am just not a fan of. I don’t know what it is but these games want me to somehow input the craziest button combos EVER and also then do those crazy button combos incredibly quickly to get anywhere. I just don’t find that fun and despite the goofy comedy of this game (which does actually amuse me) I don’t find this game much fun. I do end up playing this one a fair amount hoping against everything that this time I finally get good at it and actually enjoy playing it but it never works out. Sad.

Oh goodie, it’s another Color Dreams game. Actually I should be saying it’s another Sachen game. Sachen I think was a Taiwaniese company that the Red Eye really tried to make a thing. I never saw a game under their actual name ever show up anywhere except for the ones Color Dreams bought and brought over. It’s a good thing too because the games they made were utter hogshit. This game is an annoying shitty pile of garbage that plays and controls poorly. Like “we made this garbage in one day” poorly. The controls are hideous and it just is annoying to play. Play control is probably the most important thing a game should have because you can look and sound good (not that this game does look or sound good) but if the game is annoying to control it’s all for naught. Anyway don’t play this game. It’s poop. it’s PORTNOYD poop.

Good games: 57

Bad Games: 48

Okay games: 14

Yep, we are continuing our fun time reviewing NES games. If you haven’t been reading recently, we’ve gotten to the Cs! That’s right 106 games have been reviewed! This is now the second set of C titles! Not titles graded a C but ones that start with a C! So let’s get to reviewin’!

Man this box art screams “I AM A GRAPHIC DESIGNER FOR REAL MAN” and I think I love it for that. It’s just a random blast of shit that’s related to poker including the word Poker! It’s genuinely hilarious to me. I don’t know why either. It also feels very 1990s too. Anyway the company Sofel is a weird one but I like most of their games and I think that this is a pretty good casino game, probably the best one on the NES. It’s a weird Casino RPG. You have to fight poker players and blackjack players before getting to the final guy. It has pretty good music and pretty good graphics and if you dig Casino shit you should play this one. It’s pretty neat. At least I think so.

Despite adding in Roulette (which is kind of a shitty game honestly. I would never play it if I went to an actual casino. Seems to random for me) this is a downgrade in every manner. Gone is the weird RPG elements, you could I believe choose to just do poker people first and then black jack. You could do it in whatever way you felt was best. This you go through 10 people, playing Roulette, Blackjack and Poker. You also play a whole lot less people in this game, I don’t remember how many people in the original but I know it had to be more than 10 players. It’s also a downgrade in cover art too. The first one was goofy 1990s looking crap but this is just the cast of Dynasty or some soap opera playing poker. Wow! Also because it’s my thing to annoy you all with stories of the ole days before everything went stupid, I think I paid $20 AND got this game in Newfoundland. I’m sorry but that now means Casino Kid 2 is not as rare as you think. Certainly not $130 rare. Still it’s not an awful game or anything it’s just not all that good either. It’s very OKAY. I certainly enjoy the first game a lot more. This feels like “Yeah shove a game onto the old NES” demand from marketing at Sofel Inc.

Oh boy! Here we have a pile of hot shit from the United Kingdom! Steamy, smelly blood pudding filled shit for you all to enjoy. Or not. This game is slow and ugly and very unappealing. You play as this weird looking douchebag monster thing and he has to jump up and get to the top of a castle or some shit. I’ve never beaten the first level of this game I don’t think. It’s because the play controls of this game is the slipperiest shit in the world. It is so hard to control the little monster douchebag. It’s one of my least favorite NES games. I would probably put it in the bottom 75 games on the NES. I don’t even want to talk about it any more.

You think I’d be able to get away from ANOTHER ONE OF THE WORST NES GAMES EVER MADE for at least a few posts right? You’d think that I wouldn’t find a game WORSE THAN CASTELIAN so quickly. But I did. Castle of Deciet was Color Dreams under their Bunch Games name. I don’t know why Color Dreams changed their name because they were unlicensed and all that and didn’t have to play by Nintendo’s rules of THIS IS HOW MANY GAMES YOU CAN PUT ON OUR NINTENDO A YEAR PAY ATTENTION TO IT JERK OR I WILL STAB YOUR ASSHOLE. I would watch a Color Dreams documentary movie. I would not play any of their NES games (actually I probably will because I’m that foolish and sad) This game is a weird mess of garbage. It has the same problem every Color Dreams has which is really shitty play control. It also has the same problem of “Let’s just jam shit into levels all willy nilly without thinking of how players are even supposed to get past this without dying”. Like so many enemies and stuff placement is just thrown all over the place without any care. I would not play this game at all.

This game is pretty weird. It’s a sidescroller where all you do is fight bosses. It’s strange. It’s a lot like Sword Fighter. I think the games are connected somehow. I don’t know or care. This game is pretty enjoyable but also janky as shit. It’s pretty enjoyable to try to find out the right weapon to fight the right boss. It’s also pretty hard. Sometimes it’s fair hard and sometimes it’s hard because the hit detection is weird and shitty and sometimes you’ll just jump into a pit because of kinda crummy play control. It’s a janky ass game that I dunno if I can call GOOD but I like it too much to call it BAD so I guess that means I will end up putting it in the OKAY section.

This is another pretty interesting game that I kinda like but I also can’t really call good. I don’t know if it totally deserves to be considered SHIT like most people do consider it. I’ll put it in the okay section again. Anyway you play as a weird little FANCY DANDY FOP who has to save a princess or some shit from Satan. That’s clearly Satan on the game cover. Anyway, you have to go through a maze like Castle to save everyone. Honestly the only real problem this game has is that if you fall from to high a height you die and that’s bullshit no matter what game. The good guy should be able to jump down 34 stories to the ground and not get hurt. They CERTAINLY should be able to jump off a 1 foot thing and not die. It’s very annoying but I don’t hate this game or anything. I still kinda like this one.

Good Games: 54

Bad Games: 45

Okay games: 14

NES Games? Still! WHAT!?

 Yep, It’s another post on NES games. I do it for three reasons. 1) trying to spend as much time possible away from Twitter. 2) right now they are the easiest thing to discuss and the one I really want to discuss 3) anything that keeps me from freaking out about the weird issue with my ear. I don’t know if its sinus stuff from when I was sick or not because it’s some kind of blockage but I can easily put a q-tip in there and nada. It’s annoying and I’m not a fan. Anyway we have finally gotten to the C’s in our NES Game Reviews! That’s pretty wild. 100 games in! There are 48 games that start with C here! So let’s get to the first six!

One thing that is very easy about these games is that I’ve been playing NES games like the vast majority of them since I found emulation in 1997. That is closer to 30 years ago than I would like to admit. That’s a long time to play games. I don’t need to read or reread a comic or research a TV show. I can just tell you what I feel about the game because trust me I’ve played most NES games a lot. I remember Cabal being a game I got pretty soon after I bought my second NES (actually I believe it was given to me. I don’t know) and I think Cabal might even have been one of the games I got with it. I know I had it because it’s a game that was everywhere and I liked playing it. I still like playing it. I mean those early games I was just given were a weird bunch. X-Men, Ghostbusters, like 3 copies of Mario, Cabal and Snow Brothers (yes that Snow Brothers was given to me free of charge because someone wanted it out of there house.) Anyway, Cabal is a game where you just shoot stuff in a first person view. It’s kinda like those levels in the original Contra. I think Cabal does want it sets out to incredibly well and I enjoy playing it. It has a good fair challenge and I enjoyed beating it. I have fond memories of this game and if you are still stupid enough to collect NES games in 2023 (almost 2024) this one should still only be under $5, wait according to price charting people want $11 for this? Wow. I wish I had kept my collection to resell at TODAYS prices because I’d be fucking rich.

I complained to DISCORD earlier that the next set of games weren’t great and I mean that in two ways. Two of these upcoming games are very not good. one is at best okay and one I can’t really say much about. Caesars Palace is the game I can’t say much about. You know how I was like “if you like fishing and video games you’ll probably enjoy Blue Marlin”? Yeah you can easily say this about Caesar’s Palace too, except replace fishing with gambling games. I like gambling games. I think they brought that stuff to the NES fairly well. Is this the most exciting game to discuss? No, is it worth picking up if you like me enjoy poker and blackjack and all that shit? Sure is. So with that said I’m going to get to the next game.

I honestly believe that with a bit more effort this game could have been amazing instead of just okay. I don’t hate this game but I really want to LOVE this game and there’s just not enough to love. The game is weird in that it’s a side scroller that has some RPG elements. Like you have to pick up jems (not the truly outrageous rocker) to level up Captain America and Hawkeye and that’s really all it. Maybe like not do that or put more effort into the whole concept there? It seems weirdly pointless. Whatever it doesn’t really ruin anything. What brings this game down is that in 1991, yes 1991 they just decided to make 4 level layouts and repeat them several times. This is not something I can say is okay for a game in 1991. So many games had so many different level layouts in that game. This game just repeats the same mostly not very interesting level layouts. I also do not like how you can’t play as Iron Man or the Vision. I think if this had been like Bucky O Hare where you had four (or more) characters to play as would have been really neat. Despite those issues I don’t hate this game. I still play it a fair amount. I just can’t rate it anything past an OKAY.

Is this my first Color Dreams game? I actually couldn’t tell but I looked and no it isn’t that was Baby Boomer. I can’t really get angry at myself for forgetting about Baby Boomer. Color Dreams games were at BEST forgetable and at worst some of the worst garbage put out on the NES. Sorry but I’d play several LJN games over say Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu or whatever. Color Dreams made their own games and brought over some Sachen games. Sachen reminds me of the Red Eye and how he used to be a cool guy instead of kissing Wata’s ass to be able to save a prototype rom that he can never actually show anyone. Anyway Captain Comic is mostly in the forgettable realm but it has a lot of stuff I don’t like. The controls are weird and I also seem to get stuck in the floors of some levels. Not a fan of this game and I don’t care enough to play the 1980s PC game (sorry Damien)

I am a fan of goofy old 1990s cartoon shows so I am a fan of Captain Planet. It’s cheesy, it’s silly, it’s hokey, but it’s heart is in the right place and is still a lot of fun to watch. I even liked it enough to buy Captain Planet action figures as a cool adult that other adults want to spend time with! That was a joke son. No one wants to spend time with me. Uh, anyway Captain Planet the NES game is not good. I know people really hate this one and I’ve kinda grown to like it. I still cannot in good conscious call it a good game. It’s pretty shitty. I just don’t think it’s one of the worst games on the NES shitty. This games biggest problem is when you play as the Planeteers you get hit once you die and your flying Planeteer mobile (I don’t remember the actual name for it) is a BIG target. Add in the fact the game wants you to shove this BIG TARGET in between some REALLY TIGHT AREAS and you got some very annoying shit. The game gets much better when you get to play as Captain Planet. the levels are mostly designed a bit better and you get to use all the Planeteer’s powers. If this game was just the Captain Planet stuff I think the game would be thought of a bit more positively or maybe I’ve just gone nuts. I don’t know and I don’t care.

Portnoyd is going to have a field day with this one as it’s a Rare (as in the company because you can easily find this game everywhere. You could probably pop open a grave in a fucking graveyard and find a copy of a this game in the casket. It is everywhere) I remember buying this for like $5 maybe? I don’t know but I do believe I found it early in my NES buying back in the late 1990s/early 00s. I can’t believe that was almost 25 years ago. God I’m old. Anyway this game hurts my eyes. Just something about it all just hurts my old eyes. I don’t know if it hurt my eyes back then also or not. I just find it hard to focus on this games style and I always end up dying quickly. I do not enjoy playing this game and I will leave it there.

Good Games: 53

Bad Games: 43

Okay games: 11