Killing time

I've never been known for my wonderful ideas. There was the catapault I wanted to build on the side of Lake Lanier, for instance. The US Army Corps of Engineers wouldn't have been too happy about that one, I can tell you.

So the other day I'm firing up FCE Ultra to amuse me while my brain rots. And I'm browsing through the list of old nintendo games looking for something to play. I've always got that problem. So many to play, so many I haven't played. So why not play them all, at least long enough to get an idea of what they're like. Even the really bad ones. Even though I know that for every Metroid, Zelda, Megaman or other really good game there are a hundred others that are absolute crap.

So here, my non-existant readers, is my new project. To play every Nintendo/Famicom game produced. Including the majority of hacks/public domains/tweaked/whatever. You'll get running commentary, screenshots, me begging god for a reason why I ever thought this might be a fun idea.

Everything.

I wonder exactly how long this will take? Probably a lot longer than I'd like, seeing as how this gets updated when the stars align and I a) have the time, b) have the interest, and c) feel like I'm enjoying myself just a little too much.

And now for the fine print:

All games, characters, screens, ideas, images and everything else are copywrited by their individual owners. Even the really bad ones.. Any and all opinions ventured herein are the opinions of the poster and do not necessarily reflect truth, reality, or the american way. No sheep were harmed in the making of this page. Except one, but he deserved it. Do not try this at home, we are trained professionals. Friends don't let friends do things like this. There is no spoon.

Bandit Kings of Ancient China

It's been said that happiness is like a butterfly. Chase it and it will elude you. Ignore it and it will land softly on your shoulder, where you can crush it into multicolored goo much more easily. I might say the same about Bandit Kings of Ancient China. If you've wondered where I had gotten to, and I know you have, I've been off trying to write this review. For three months, I've been sitting down, firing up Nestopia and Open Office, and staring at them. Blankly. And occasionally weeping.

I couldn't figure out what to say about this game. I understand that there's some strategy to it, and that I was trying to do something to get somewhere and do something else, but I just. couldn't. do it. I don't even have any decent screenshots for you guys, simply because there wasn't anything even remotely interesting to take a picture of. It was all menus. Nothing but endless sets of endless menus. I've never been faced with a less entertaining waste of an hour and a half (and yes, I did attempt to play it that long). I was sure I was missing something. No. Just menus. And an occasional map with blinking dots.

It was like a slightly more advanced and entertaining Linux installation script.

There was some sort of a plot, but after banging my head against this one for so long, I've quite honestly forgotten what it might be. So I'll make one up for you.

You play Jack Kevorkian, an alchemist who was sent back to the past by a Bandit King, who was really a Time Agent from the far future. As Jack, it becomes your responsibility to destroy the future by making sure that ancient China never grows up to be an economic superpower, thus robbing the world of Wal-Mart.

Or something along those lines.

Bandai Golf - Challenge Pebble Beach

Golf. The art of driving hard, avoiding the rough, surmounting traps and hazards, aiming straight, and arriving on the green at last, only to end up in a hole in the ground before your companions. The favored pastime of businessmen and their cronies, probably without a full appreciation of its metaphorical implications.

In the grand scheme of things there are good ideas and then there are not so good ideas. Then there are ideas like making a video game about golf. That ranks right down there around making a video game that involves competitive paint drying. Still, at least there are no dragons flying around with giant bell peppers on their heads in this one. I've got that to be thankful for.
Bandai has actually done some good things in the entertainment industry, so I guess I can forgive them for putting a lobotomized squirrel in charge of new game development. Actually, I take that back now that I think about it. Bandai brought us the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, so I'm quite prepared to blame them for everything from the extention of the dinosaurs to communism to the continued popularity of Justin Timberlake.
The gameplay on this, if you could call it that, if pretty simple. The game more or less aims for you, so the only real thing that you have to do is press a button to start your swing and then press a button when the cursor is in the right little area. This involves pressing one button. That's all. Terry Schievo could have done that much. If I'm ever in an accident that leaves me paralyzed in every part of my body and I'm only holding onto life by a sliver of hope, I'll have to remember this game as a possibility. Playing this for more than 20 minutes should give that little sliver enough incentive to just go ahead and quit so I can get on to the fiery torments of my eventual reward.I'd prolly score about as well too...

5 years ago

This isn't about the project, but I hope you'll forgive the indulgence of yet another "where was I today" post. I always remember hearing my parents talking about how they still remember exactly where they were when they heard that JFK had been shot. I always remember thinking how strange that seemed. I don't think that way anymore. When you watch events unfolding, and know that this thing, this time will impact you or the world so fiercely that it will divide everything into "before" and "after" - you don't forget that easily. Or at all.

I heard about the first plane while I was driving to work. Like most of us, I didn't think too much of it. Some damn fool's gotten himself plastered, or it's a prank. It's got to be a prank. Then the second plane hit. It wasn't a prank. I didn't have a TV at work, so I was listening to the coverege on internet radio. The thing I remember most clearly about it all, what has stuck in my memory like a barb, is the calls the radio station took from people who were in the building. Panicked calls, and the DJ reassuring them that everything was going to be OK. I didn't believe him either. The towers came down about 10 minutes after that. Whoever the caller was, I doubt they got out.

I still don't believe what the DJ said. I don't think anybody does.

Banana Prince

In today’s video game flatulence we take a trip to Banana Island, in the Banana Kingdom. Under the rule of King Banana, I suppose. Right from the start Banana Prince gets off to a great start. You see, in a stunning turn of events, their banana symbol is stolen by the Pepper Dragon. Yup. That’s a dragon with a big bell pepper on its head. No, it makes no sense to me either.

Seems like I’m stuck in fruit and vegetable land for this review. That’s a little too close to being stuck in Nutritionist Land for my tastes, though. I’d rather be stuck in Jack and Coke land, but I’ll have to work with what’s in my glass, I guess.

On a personally surprising note, I actually kind of enjoyed this game. Not for any gameplay value, but mainly because I’ve suspended my policy of smashing my penis with a hammer before attempting to play any game. It makes me wonder if I was a vegetable prince in a previous life. Everybody else was Cleopatra or Napoleon. Since I actually played this game voluntarily for more than 15 minutes, I’d be willing to bet that I was a Vegetable Prince. Probably one who got cock-punched to death. That would be just my luck. Cockpunched to death by this evil boss, who seems to be a string bean.

Ok, that’s it, I’m going to quit. Some of you may still have illusions that I can justify my existence. I’d hate to shatter that.

Baltron

After taking a bit of a break from this project, I have to admit that I approached it again with a sincere, deep-seated desire to commit ritual suicide. But then again, that's pretty much my normal response when I'm faced with anything that starts with "A long long time ago..." I used to exclude Star Wars from that, but then Jar Jar happened and now I want to shove toothpicks in George Lucas's eyes.
Through a scrolling intro that was obviously translated by a blind Japanese man that had just been hit in the face with the nearest pay phone, we learn that the Bismark empire, with great power, blah blah, something something, is assembling the most distractive super weapon ever. Yes, my dearest readers, we have our first really good engrish of the project!Now I don't know about you, but if I'm an advanced alien race about to build the most advanced weapon of mass distraction, I'd go less for the whole scary boss spaceship style and more for the whole "Natasha Henstridge posing naked in an H.R. Giger chair" style, personally. And yes, here's proof that god is alive, well, and at least occasionally listening to my prayers.
Now that one's slightly censored, since I do occasionally access this blog from work, but since you and I both want that fucking black bit gone, click on it to get the large uncensored image. Just do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. I will not completely give up any commentary for the rest of these screenshots, as I and 90% of my readers no completely don't care, and will very likely not even bother to read this far. After all, that was a picture of a very naked Natasha Henstridge in an Giger chair. I think my penis just exploded.

Fuck.

I promise I'm still here, and it's not the fact that every post brings me a little closer to having to review Barbie that's causing the recent lack of posts. I'll have more for you soon.

*twitch*

Promise.

Balloon Mario (SMB hack)

While I'll be the first one to say that I certainly appreciate the idea of stapling balloons to Mario, I think that it's starting to get a little out of hand. As in, completely out of hand. As in, please stop. Now. Once again, someone's taken time and effort that could have been much more productively spent plucking nasal hair and used it on a hack of that SMB1 level that I've come to know and love so well. The same Level zero, the same path, the only difference is that Mario's got balloons.

Try to swim up and he tries to float through the ceiling. There are mathematical proofs that this becomes entertaining only after you turn the game off and attempt to recreate the same stunt with local children, but it's almost time to go pour myself a glass of Mr. Smirnoff's pantented liquid xanax so I'm not going to bother now.

Balloon Mario (Balloon Fight hack)

Welp, looks like I spoke far, far too soon. Like some kind of malevolent interdimentional Waldo, the plumber invades another game. That's right. Somebody, somewhere, had enough time of their hands to inject Mario into Balloon Fight.
After all, why not? No reason to be mildly inventive and stick Link or DigDug, or even a block of random pixels into it. No. It's got to be fucking Mario.

Balloon Fight

After spending a potentially unhealthy amount of time yesterday sending Mario spinning helplessly into the sun, I've turned my attention to the next game of the project, the similarly-theamed "Balloon Fight". As with every game in this project, I approached it with the faint sense of hope that I'd press the right combination of buttons or find the right powerup and be presented with a universally acceptable reason for why John Denver was ever allowed to live past his first concert. Once again I was disappointed, but dauntless I pressed on and played the game and took the screenshots. Every once in awhile I notice a returning visitor; I'll do anything to keep those two actual readers coming back. As long as those two visitors arn't from the RIAA. If they are, I hope you die. Painfully. From syphilis.

But I digress. Balloon Fight opens with no hint as to what I'm in for, aside from the faint possibility that it has something to do with balloons. Look carefully and you'll see what clued me in. The trained eye can notice the balloon being used as a cursor. Well, there's that and the big fucking "BALLOON" scrawled across the top.
Being a balloon fight, I immediately thought back to my somewhat misspent youth, in which I participated in many balloon fights. Those balloon fights were actually fought with really big sticks, but if you pretended they were balloons then the doctors wouldn't press charges. Alas, I was not to relive my youth today (unless you count all the grasshoppers in my pocket, but that's pretty usual). Balloon Fight is actually some strange Joust knock off, using balloons instead of ostriches.
For one frightened moment I thought that Mario had somehow infiltrated this game too. After all, it's gotten to the point where he talks to me from the toilet. Fucking plumber. I was completely prepared to grab my really big stick and have a balloon fight with my monitor when I noticed that, thankfully, it was just somebody in red coveralls. Attached to balloons. Thankfully that was where the resemblance ended.
Speaking of red coveralls, I think I've found the body models used by Nintendo for roughly 98.all of their games. The fact that they're in biohazard suits should probably say something about Japanese, but I haven't quite decided what.

Anyway, the game itself is actually fairly fun. You fly around attached to your balloons and pop the balloons attached to the other ... the other .... um ... things, who parachute down to the ground where you run up and deliver the final coup-de-kick-in-the-nuts to get them off the screen.Also, just in case you were missing one, there is occasionally a large fish that will pop out of the water and eat you alive if you get too close. This is a heathy lesson if you ever decide to float across the Atlantic with balloons strapped to your back. Don't get too close to the water. Hyre theyre be monsters.

Balloon Bros (SMB1 Hack)

Somebody, somewhere, must have read my mind when they were creating this hack. Well, not really, as there is a complete, total, and depressing lack of authentic photos of Gillian Anderson wrapped around me like a nymphomaniacal gymnast, but this is a somewhat agreeable runner up. Imagine Mario, that moustache wearing kick in my groin, tied to two hundred and sixty helium balloons. Tethered to the earth by a disintegrating willpower, with nothing but blue skies and death by asphyxiation above him. Nice picture, isn't it? Now temper that with a healthy dose of mediocrity and you've got Balloon Bros.
Oh yea. Even without those Gillian Anderson photos, it still warms my cold dead heart to see that rancid plumber deal with his greatest asset turned against him. The only thing that could possibly make me happier is to go megaman style and put fucking spikes on the ceiling. Still, if you hold down jump long enough, it just flies up and up and up and although you never get the joy of seeing it, I hope he ends up in space where his eyes explode in the vacuum of space.Where's my "Event Horizon" SMB1 Hack, that's what I want to know.

Ballnana

There's a certain sense of dread that washes over me when I see a hack like this. I imagine it's the same feeling I'd get if I were given a choice between bobbing for apples in the New York sewer system or bobbing for crabs in Paris Hiltons crotch. It's not the prospect of playing yet another insipid hack that makes me want to slap a homeless person with a 2 week old steak. I've gotten used to that. It's the fact that "Ballnana" is misspelled on the title screen.
This hack of Banana (review to come later, much to my regret) offers two main differences than the original. Instead of a shortsighted mole collecting fruit to impress a girl mole and take her to the wonderful far-away land of moletopia, you're a mole with his dick hanging out of his pants who's collecting spam.This is being done to try to impress some sort of blue-haired, winged naked mole thing who is apparently your moles object of lust.
"Your moles object of lust." I never thought I'd hear those words anywhere but on a Discovery channel blooper. And then only if I held a gun to David Attenborough's head and made him say it.

Bald Mario

Um. Yea. That's all there is to this one. I'm starting to have to look twice to tell if that mushroom is a mushroom or a penis. These hacks are starting to get to me.

Bakuchu Mondai (Mickey Mousecapade Hack)

This review shall be
done entirely in haiku.
Why not? It's my blog.

Bakuchu Mondai
Freaky Japanese mice men
Twisting Asian kids.

Why do they smile so?
My bowels curdle at the sight.
What drugs are they on?


Some insane hacker
hates Mario like I do.
Sent these nuts to kill.
Forget Survivor.
This is a good plot to have.
Stab Mario dead.
Face of a killer.
Digital Charlie Manson.
Never trust a mouse.

Fighting Mario
Koopas and turtles and bugs.
Death to the plumber!
Jellyfish take flight
Like gooey, slimy mousetraps.
Our heros can't swim
Their nemesis stands
His moustache dripping with blood
Murder in his eyes

Will the plumber die?
His plumbers-crack rule to end?
Smells like New York crap.
I've come to the end
Of yet another game's pain.
Vodka cures all ills.

Drinking shall commence
Tired of counting syllables.
It's time for a nap.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the project. Nothing at all. It does, however, describe quite a few people that I've had the misfortune of knowing, along with every emo kid on myspace and all goths in existance. Since, dear readers, the only reason I can think that you keep up with this project is because you derive some twisted enjoyment from my bitter ramblings, I thought you might enjoy it too (clickinate for large version).

I think that's going to be my new wallpaper.