NES #19: Wayne's World

Developer: Radical Entertainment

Publisher: THQ

Release Date: November 1993

Okay so this game is great, UNTRUE! It’s a classic, TOTAL LIE! Am I remembering that gag correctly? It’s been a while. So I played yet another horrible THQ game and wasn’t going to write about it just yet, but it is already leaving my brain so it’s nor or never. I really don’t want to play through it again so here it goes. I started writing about bad John Hughes movies, and I could probably make another section about bad Mike Meyers games, because there are quite a few for a guy who hasn’t starred in a movie in fifteen years. Wayne’s World is probably the most infamous, and with good reason. It’s one of those “bad in just the way you would expect” kind of games. It has a familiar setup which makes it easy to pick up and play, and it is fully functional from start to finish. However it’s so poorly made that nobody would want to play it. For once I can see why this super rare game is so rare. Nobody was fooled even back then.

Did you hear about the big sale?

THQ fell into the classic licensed trap with this one. They made a game out of something that had no business being a game. Sure Wayne’s World is a fun movie, but it’s not filled with logical video game levels. Because of this they have to cheat and change the story from “the boys get exploited and fight to get their show back” to “the boys wander around killing ninjas and giant inanimate objects until the writers give up and it ends.” The game shares a few of the locations, but very little of the story and only contains about fifteen minutes of gameplay. It’s a very surreal experience where nothing connects logically and story completely falls apart by the end. This is quite an accomplishment for a game with probably twenty lines of text outside of top 10 jokes. I am not even sure what was accomplished because the ending screen is simply Wayne giving a thumbs-up and saying excellent. Yeah this game is excellent, OPPOSITE!

I can't recommend this behavior

Of course a game this poorly put together can’t have very good gameplay. I sure hope you like tiny and ineffective sprites. You alternate between Wayne and Garth, but they are both control poorly. Garth only has a weak gun and Wayne only kicks. Garth is obviously better with his projectile weapon, but I still met my fair share of cheap deaths. Enemies are often badly placed, and environments are hard to distinguish. Sometimes you have to jump but can’t really tell what’s safe and what isn’t. Graphically the worst part has to be the bonus levels. It has one of the guys collecting donuts that look like roller skate wheels from giant shelves that look like they belong in an antique shop. Either those donuts are stacked up twenty feet high, or Wayne and Garth are tiny. Whatever they were going for it’s just one of the thousand tiny cuts that ruins the game.

I would like "to go" to another game now!

I am really trying to get the dregs out of the way early, so I might continue on with THQ and see if there are any worthwhile game. I think there are a couple, but only time will tell. There is also another completely different Wayne’s World game on Super Nintendo which I will also have to rank at some point. It plays a little better but is possibly an even bigger mess than the NES version. Maybe I should do another Zelda or Mario game. My sanity might not be able to take so much shovelware in a row. Wayne’s World is my new #59 which puts it right in the middle of the bottom ten.

 

NES Quality Percentage: 10/19 or 52.63%

 

The bottom ten:

 

1. Birthday Mania

2. Bad Street Brawler

3. Burly Men at Sea

4. Wayne’s World

5. WeakWood Throne

6. X-Men (HyperScan)

7. My Name is Mayo

8. Marvel Heroes

9. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

10. Ben 10

 

 

 

NES #18: Home Alone

Developer: Bethesda Softworks

Publisher: THQ

Release Date: 10-1991

Unique Feature: A Joe Pesci that moves like Barry Sanders

I can't even joke about this cover. It's just too easy

My look into the dark world of John Hughes movie games continues with the gaming equivalent of Stanley Kubrick’s Fear and Desire. Kubrick at the time was a photographer with a couple of short film credits who decided he was ready to make narrative films. He took a tiny crew with a micro budget and did just that. The results were an amateurish art house mess that gives almost no clue of the greatness to come. Home Alone is a similar story. THQ got a small developer to make a game to cash in on the Home Alone movie. There were only five people credited on it so it must not have been much of a priority. The developer would go on to make a few more bad licensed games on the NES. Then they would switch directions and make The Elder Scrolls: Arena. Much like Kubrick’s Paths of Glory it would propel Bethesda into the pantheon of great developers where they would go on to make some of the defining games of their generation. Sometimes you have to get your bad ones out of the way early, and oh my is Home Alone ever a bad one.

Come for the pink, stay for the green.

 

I will give Bethesda credit for at least attempting something different. Instead of the typical side scroller it is a weird arcade influenced chase game. It reminds me of something like Mappy. The ultimate goal of the game is to escape the Wet Bandits for twenty minutes. Excluding the pause screen it takes place in real time. Kevin’s only defense is traps that he picks up along the way. The traps only make the Wet Bandits collapse so don’t expect any entertaining animations. Even if you are unable to complete it you still get a score so that’s something. Unfortunately while it sounds like an interesting in concept, it falls apart in the execution. This game is a chore to play.

I can't even describe what's on those bookshelves

 

The main problem is that there just are not enough gameplay option. The entire game takes place in a small, flat house with only a tiny treehouse and basement to break up the monotony. Kevin can’t attack or interact with the environment. He only picks up traps and drops off traps. The bandits are very quick and don’t show up on the map so it’s hard to come up with a strategy. All you do is blindly wander around your house randomly setting traps hoping that nothing bad happens. It doesn’t help that the entire game is wrapped in one of the ugliest packages on the whole system. It has an ugly color palate with an emphasis on pink and green while the objects themselves are largely abstract. It shouldn’t be that hard to represent common household items on the NES, but the developers fail even at that. So not only do you have baffling gameplay to contend with but you will do so while staring at ugly green blobs. It fails by just about any metric.

 

Back in college I used to play it with my friend Dustin almost every day. It was our bad gaming secret handshake. Some friends share bad movies while we shared bad games. As a consequence I will always have a soft spot for this one. I acknowledge that it is a bad game, but at least it’s bad in an interesting and compelling way. Sure it’s in my bottom ten, but it’s the best game in my bottom ten. THQ was the worst publisher for NES so I wouldn’t be surprised if ends up ranking fairly high for one of their games. I could be ranking Mario games but instead I am going to random bad NES games that nobody has thought about in twenty-five years. All I have to say is you’re welcome, society. I came along just at the right time.

 

The grass looks like a piece of music

NES quality percentage: 10/18 or 55.56%

 

1.  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Todd’s Adventures in Slime World

16. Arc the Lad

17. Clu Clu Land

18. Tails’ Adventures

19. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

20. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

21. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

22. Metro-Cross

23. Double Dragon

24. Panic Restaurant

25. Felix the Cat

26. Ice Climber

27. Gaplus

28. Dragon Spirit

29. Pinball (NES)

30. Ninja Golf

31. Super Soccer

32. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

33. Red Sea Crossing

34. Baraduke

35. Demon’s Crest

36. Evoland

37. Tennis

38. Renegade

39. Beethoven

40. Hogan’s Alley

41. Gamma-Attack

42. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

43. Galaxian

44. Dragon Crystal

45. Cosmic Commuter

46. Hot Pixel

47. PocketBike Racer

48. Wild Gunman

49. Defunct

50. Gyruss (2600)

51. Looney Tunes Racing

52. Squidlit

53. Gordo 106

54. Baseball

55. Home Alone

56. Birthday Mania

57. Bad Street Brawler

58. Burly Men at Sea

59. WeakWood Throne

60. X-Men (HyperScan)

61. My Name is Mayo

62. Marvel Heroes

63. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

64. Ben 10

 

 

Super Nintendo #5 Beetoven: The Ultimate Canine Caper

 Developer: Reidel Software Productions

Publisher: Hi-Tech Expressions

Release Date: December 1993

Unique Feature: A funky Beethoven soundtrack

I don't know about ultimate, but it's not the least essential canine caper either.

There’s a reason why if I had the type of friends who gave me funny nicknames they might very well call me “Sir Likes-A-Lot.” I will play just about any game, and it usually doesn’t take much for me to have a good time. I will acknowledge right up front that Beethoven is not a very good game. At the same time I had a good time playing it. Perhaps it’s because I hadn’t played through a Super Nintendo game on the original hardware in so long that just about any game would feel entertaining. Perhaps it’s just that 16-bit gaming is my comfort food, and I need some comfort these days. So I did have fun, but it’s not a very good game.

 (This is one of those title screen doesn't match cover art games)

If you have any knowledge of movie based games you probably already know what kind of game this is going to be. Yep it’s a lazy side scroller. I did at least like the premise. Despite the name on the box it’s actually based on the second movie so Beethoven has to save his kids. In the first level of the stage he finds his wayward pup, and in the second level he returns the pup to his wife. I have not seen the movie so I’m guessing her name is either Beetovina, Beetovette, or Sheetoven. Am I anywhere close? I have to say as a father myself it was fun playing a game that cared about family so much. Of course that leads to a major flaw of the game. You spend a good portion of the second stages with your pup in your mouth, and when you do this you can’t attack. This leads poor Beethoven to experience too many cheap hits. He’s a big target too. However, the pup is able to locate traps so it is mitigated somewhat. Still I like the overall setup, and at least they were trying to make it slightly different.

(Are there fat dog hunters in the movie? At least those are only tranquilizer darts)

This is one of those games that is both way too easy and too hard at the same time, and that’s its biggest flaw. It only has eight levels, and there aren’t any bosses so if you are good the whole thing can take less than thirty minutes. However, Beethoven is very big and a bit difficult to control. It’s very easy to miss jumps because he hadn’t gained enough speed. There are also plenty of blind jumps and sudden falling platforms. There are only three continues, and damage from previous levels carries over, so this could add some urgency to the gameplay. However, almost every level has an extra life which is usually near the beginning and respawns after death which ruins the whole point of having limited continues. Also, the levels don’t have any checkpoints in them so you have to complete them in one go which gets annoying on the later, more difficult levels. There is also a timer, but even when being extra careful I never had to worry about it much. It seems like it was just there because games were supposed to have one. It’s a shame because with some more care this could’ve been a good game. The same team got much better results a year later with their Tom and Jerry game. I suppose they had better source material to work with for that one though.

By 1993 John Hughes was in the final stage of his career. He had gone from comedy writer to 80s teen movie auteur to reclusive screenwriter of weak family fare. It’s in this third stage that we are going to also see a lot of weak games. Beethoven certainly fits the bill as it’s a somewhat weak game based on a weak movie franchise that had a lot more shelf life than it should’ve. The game is a textbook case of lazy movie cash in, but it’s one made competently enough that I was still able to get some enjoyment out of it. I’ll put it in the upper portion of the purple section making it one of those games that if you see for a couple bucks at a used store you won’t regret buying it. I am putting it at number 39 just above Hogan’s Alley which isn’t too bad. Maybe I’ll do a deep dive into John Hughes games someday and see if any of them were worth playing.

 

SNES Quality Percentage: 3/5 or 60%

 

1. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Todd’s Adventures in Slime World

16. Arc the Lad

17. Clu Clu Land

18. Tails’ Adventures

19. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

20. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

21. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

22. Metro-Cross

23. Double Dragon

24. Panic Restaurant

25. Felix the Cat

26. Ice Climber

27. Gaplus

28. Dragon Spirit

29. Pinball (NES)

30. Ninja Golf

31. Super Soccer

32. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

33. Red Sea Crossing

34. Baraduke

35. Demon’s Crest

36. Evoland

37. Tennis

38. Renegade

39. Beethoven

40. Hogan’s Alley

41. Gamma-Attack

42. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

43. Galaxian

44. Dragon Crystal

45. Cosmic Commuter

46. Hot Pixel

47. PocketBike Racer

48. Wild Gunman

49. Defunct

50. Gyruss (2600)

51. Looney Tunes Racing

52. Squidlit

53. Gordo 106

54. Baseball

55. Birthday Mania

56. Bad Street Brawler

57. Burly Men at Sea

58. WeakWood Throne

59. X-Men (HyperScan)

60. My Name is Mayo

61. Marvel Heroes

62. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

63. Ben 10

Atari Lynx #3: Todd's Adventures in Slime World

Developer: Epyx

Publisher: Atari

Release Date: October 1990

Unique Feature: A monster slime beard

A rare case where the main character looks dorkier on the cover than in the game

 

To my knowledge there is only one Lynx game that allows you to acquire a ZZ-Top styled slime beard. That game is Todd’s Adventures in Slime World. It’s a game that positively revels in its own weirdness. It was a smart way to go, because if you are buying a game with such an odd name you want something weird. Slime World is one of the most unique and interesting games I have played from the early handheld era, and even though there is also a Genesis version it feels the ultimate Lynx game. It’s strange, funny, big, and not quite like anything else. It also has one of the most honest titles in gaming. It has multiple adventures and there is a ridiculous amount of slime. Even Guillermo Del Toro would find this level of slime excessive.

Todd’s Adventures in Slime World is an interesting action/adventure hybrid that is mainly focused on exploration. There are six different adventures to chose from, but the main goal of all of them is to find the exit and get away from all that slime. Even more impressive is that each adventure has a different map. The developers really crammed a lot of game into their tiny cart. Also each adventure is different enough to not become monotonous. There are a couple that are very mazelike, one that is more action based, a version with no weapons, and even an arcade adventure where one death ends the game. In all the other adventures there are ample checkpoints and passwords, so it manages to be a great handheld game while still being big. That wasn’t always an easy task back in the day. It also manages to progress in a way that kept me from having to backtrack that much. I wish every handheld game from the early 90s played so well.

 

The game is also the right kind of difficult. I’ve already talked about the slime, and there is truly slime everywhere. If Todd gets too much of it oh him he will explode as one covered in slime does. The cure is to find a pool of water and get clean. Slime comes from enemies, pools in the ground, drips from the ceiling, and of course who knows where. There are plenty of powerups, but if you die in most modes you will lose them which encourages you not to save them up for too long. It might annoy some, but it never got me into any unwinable situations thanks to the good design. If you really needed a certain item in a certain place there was always more than one around. Sometimes it felt a little unfair, like getting eaten by the evil plants that can’t be seen until it’s too late, but none of the unfairness hurt the experience. It’s supposed to be a creepy death planet so I expected some cheap deaths.

 

Todd’s Adventures is Slime World is easily the best handheld game I have played for this blog so far. I am putting it all the way up at #15 between Drakkhen and Arc the Lad. I am happy to know that it will stay in the top 20 at least for the next five entries. Of course this is only Lynx game number three so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an even better game for it out there. I think there are 76 Lynx games, so if the number of good games reaches 38 than it will be a majority good system. I really think it has a chance, and I hope I’m not the only one who is excited about finding out.  

 

Lynx quality percentage: 2/3 or 66%

 

1. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Todd’s Adventures in Slime World

16. Arc the Lad

17. Clu Clu Land

18. Tails’ Adventures

19. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

20. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

21. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

22. Metro-Cross

23. Double Dragon

24. Panic Restaurant

25. Felix the Cat

26. Ice Climber

27. Gaplus

28. Dragon Spirit

29. Pinball (NES)

30. Ninja Golf

31. Super Soccer

32. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

33. Red Sea Crossing

34. Baraduke

35. Demon’s Crest

36. Evoland

37. Tennis

38. Renegade

39. Hogan’s Alley

40. Gamma-Attack

41. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

42. Galaxian

43. Dragon Crystal

44. Cosmic Commuter

45. Hot Pixel

46. PocketBike Racer

47. Wild Gunman

48. Defunct

49. Gyruss (2600)

50. Looney Tunes Racing

51. Squidlit

52. Gordo 106

53. Baseball

54. Birthday Mania

55. Bad Street Brawler

56. Burly Men at Sea

57. WeakWood Throne

58. X-Men (HyperScan)

59. My Name is Mayo

60. Marvel Heroes

61. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

62. Ben 10

(Images courtesy of mobygames.com)