#82 - Big Nose Freaks Out

Big Nose is like your rowdy uncle who only arrives at family gatherings after shooting animals and drinking heavily.

I'm lost. One of my loyal readers should caption this one. Just leave a comment and I'll change it accordingly.

More like Dylan, the noble, intrepid, handsome Nintendo player freaks out. I've never really been much of a partier and hippies who were all about peace, love, and feeling "groovy," have never jived well with me. Then again, this game isn't about "me." It's about Big Nose and what happens to him when his bones - which represent currency in the Cretaceous, apparently - are stolen by a war-mongering dinosaur. I could have told Big Nose this was going to happen: when you wage war against all the dinosaurs, as he did in the last game, of course the last remaining one was going to come after all your treasure! That's just COMMON SENSE. Anyways, hurtful words are exchanged, Big Nose is hit over the head, bones are stolen, and now, it's up to him to destroy the rest of the creatures on his island.

This time, instead of crossing the island by foot (which is so 3,000,000 BC, BTW), you roll across the island on a stone wheel. At first, I was conflicted. Big Nose's controls are a lot more slippery initially, but given some time, I think I prefer it to running around on foot. Alas, despite the convenience of said stone wheel the controls do like to destroy you at times by running you into enemies and not allowing you to jump as high as you think you should. Also, Big Nose often gets turned around simply by hitting walls, which can conjure up mild obscenities here and there. It's not a bad gig, though, and if you keep your club straight and true, it's hard to get hit.

His world is much more open-ended this time, as well. No longer do you just go in a straight line across each level with reckless bludgeoning abandon. The goal - should you desire to get farther in the game - is to collect a certain amount of bones hidden within the level. The more bones you collect, the more bonus items you may receive, such as extra lives or continues or powers. In some areas, the bones are hidden in insane places that you will only find through trial and error. It gives the game some longevity, which is appreciated, but truthfully, I can't see anybody but the most die-hard Big Nose fans wanting to "collect them all." Watch out for the mushrooms within each level: some of them breed extra bones to collect, while others can reverse your controls and cause epileptic seizures (in Freaky Forest level 2, hit the first mushroom you see).

Other gameplay elements remain the same as the first: collect the stones (I called them grapes last time, but they were colored purple for some reason - it's Camerica's fault, not mine!) to earn extra bashing and smashing powers. Otherwise, one-hit kill and you're dead. The game seems a lot more forgiving this time, though, which is good because your rolling stone can get you into trouble if you're not careful. Stones are placed more thoughtfully around the levels, and you're never really in danger of being without them. None of the enemies are that challenging, but the levels can get confusing the farther you progress.

I have to give Camerica credit: this is a slight improvement on the first game. Since the first Big Nose was popular enough that it warranted a sequel, I'm surprised they decided to add any new gameplay elements when they could have just swapped some level palettes, added some different enemies, and called it a day. Is Big Nose's freaking out entirely justified? I don't think so. Surely, there's plenty more bones out there to be had in such a vast prehistoric land; let the last dinosaur on earth have his day. But, from a more realistic, economic standpoint, having the word "freak" in the title probably sold a lot of copies to some children from the early '90s. Big Nose, you've done it again.

C

#81 - Big Nose the Caveman

Happy hour is at 5 pm, not 5 am, Big Nose!

You want to know what really killed the dinosaurs?... that's right, AIDS.

I go on journeys of self-discovery when I play through these games. For example, I discovered I have the attention span of a five-year-old who can spot mediocre send-offs of classic games. It took about ten minutes of playing through Big Nose the Caveman before I realized, "Yup, I know where this is going" and turned it off. Inevitable Mario comparison? Check. Adventure Island comparison? Double check. Your typical side-scrolling platformer starring a cave man? Why, of course! But hey, you're not looking for in-depth analysis when you read these reviews. You're looking for unbridled enthusiastic nonsense, and as this journey continues, I'm sure that's what more and more of these reviews will become.

Big Nose peaks out of his cave one muggy tropical afternoon, and realizes he's hungry. A pterodactyl flies over him, and he thinks to himself, "My goodness, that would make a fine turkey" (seriously, a little roasted turkey thought bubble pops over his head). And so, you begin your quest to track down this lone pterodactyl across all of Big Nose Island. Strangely, any of the enemies you encounter along the way - stegosauri, triceratopses, among other meaty, fleshy dinosaurs - could provide you meat. For some reason, you really desire some cold, stringy pterodactyl that will morph into a turkey the second you learn how to make a fire.

Of course if I were Big Nose, I wouldn't go to so much trouble. All the game consists of is jumping over lots and lots of chasms and bopping your former dinosaur friends on the head, all to satisfy your raging blood lust. Along the way, you collect bones and eat grapes. The more grapes you ravenously devour, the more rocks will shoot out of your club, but if you get hit, your rock-chucking ability will disappear and you'll only be left with your club. Your club is ok for regular dinosaur beating, but if you're facing a triceratops boss, watch out: they like to charge and it's next to impossible not to get hit.

Camerica and Codemasters double-teamed for this game, much like they did for the charming day-in-the-life bee simulator, Bee 52. The latter was a far superior game. Even though both Big Nose and Bee 52 are, at their core, simplistic platforming games, the concept behind Bee 52 was unique and interesting for its time. Big Nose is just another me-too platformer in a market already besieged by mediocre platformers. Perhaps instead of haunting a poor pterodactyl, Big Nose's nose should have grown larger and larger throughout the game, until the last few levels are fought with insane booger creatures from the planet Schnoz who have secretly been enlarging his nose for secret alien research. I'm already having fun.

C-

#80 - Bible Buffet

Those are really food demons in disguise. Don't be fooled!

Yes... the game really is this awesome.

 
Was this game made in the Bible Belt? I'm pretty sure it's tradition to gorge one's self after church in the South. You know, fried chicken or Chinese food, or Chinese food consisting of fried chicken. There's limitless possibilities there! This is another Wisdom Tree extravaganza, although this time there's little to no references to the Bible, making the reasoning behind the game's title obscure and strange. I suppose Wisdom Tree can do whatever they want because they're the little man making unlicensed cartridges, while fighting against the evil company Nintendo; if they want to name their game Bible Buffet, they're gonna do it, con sarn it! Sadly, this game was made in 1993, and was nowhere near as successful as Bible Adventures, so whatever battle they were waging against Nintendo was all in vain. I'm making up stuff now to fill space. Gluttony is wrong.

This is a strange hybrid of board game and simplistic platformer. You can play this with up to four players, which is pretty amazing considering there were hardly any licensed games that allowed four players. The board consists of different food-related lands i.e. "Salad Land," "Fast Food Land," etc. You spin a wheel to determine how far your player goes on the board, and each land covers about eight to ten squares. Once you land on the square, you enter a world filled with foodstuffs that desire your soul. Each square has a different world contained within, and there's a good number of worlds and squares within the game, so the replay value is strangely high. As you destroy the various foodstuffs that attack you, you can eat their mangled corpses and gain "pounds," otherwise known as points. There doesn't seem to be a point in gaining weight, but if you're playing with others, it might be nice to see who came out the fattest at the end of the game.

Progressing through the levels is a cinch. Each one takes about thirty seconds to a minute to complete, which is good if you have a decent number of players. Personally, I had fun all by myself. Unlike something like Mario Party which forces you to play with the computer when you're a loner, Bible Buffet allows you to go it alone, and every turn is yours. If all you want to do is explore the levels, this is highly recommended, and truthfully, having more people will only slow the game down. It's every chunky man for himself! Watch out for these so-called "pop quizzes," though. They appear here and there, but the game never gives you the actual questions, just the option to select "true" or "false." It doesn't matter because there's no penalty to getting a question wrong, but it is strange. Perhaps they included a fold-out bib with the game that contains all the questions, or perhaps Wisdom Tree is just a forgetful, spiteful company.

If I had to choose one game with the word "Bible" in it that has nothing to do with the Bible, I'd pick this one. It's infinitely more playable than Bible Adventures, and while the levels are easy, they're strangely compelling. What crazy food is going to attack me next? Baked potatos? Pickles? Excellent. What strange wonders await me in Freezer Land (seriously, I want to know)? Just remember: much like it is in America, the one who is the fattest at the end of the game (or their life, whichever comes first) wins.

C

#79 - Bible Adventures

Heston and David, together at last on the NES!

Before David became king, he was a simple squirrel chucker.


I'll give Wisdom Tree this: there are a lot of adventures in the Bible. I don't think, however, that there are any copyright infringement adventures placed in between David and Goliath and the destruction of Israel by Babylon. I'm not sure what Wisdom Tree's logic was with this game: to give kids a "holy" game with three different stories from the Bible - Noah's Ark, Baby Moses, and David and Goliath - in which to play, but God isn't present in any of these adaptations like he was in the Bible; otherwise, there wouldn't be much of a challenge to speak of, at least from a player's perspective. Also, I'm pretty sure releasing a game on an NES without Nintendo's approval is sinful, regardless of how Wisdom Tree tried to justify it. Truthfully, the biggest sin of all is how little gameplay there actually is within the game. If you're going to release an illegal game based on the Bible, make it interesting!

Each game deserves its own hastily written paragraph, so let's hop to it! "Noah's Ark:" even if you've never been to church, you know the story. God deems the world too evil and decides to flood it, but spares Noah and his family, provided they build an enormous ark so they can save two of every animal along with themselves. In the game, your only goal is to collect two of "every animal:" pigs, cows, snakes, monkeys... and that's about it. I think as you finish each level, you move on to collect different kinds of animals, but there is no point. You pick up the animal, place them in the ark, then move on. There is little in the way of challenge: sometimes the animals hurt you, but there's plenty of health to pick up all around. On a 1 to 10 scale of sacrilegious, with "10" signifying a Roman general sacrificing a pig on the Jewish temple altar, I give this segment a 2. There's no telling how Noah rustled up all of the animals, but I doubt he carried them on his head, three at a time. Unless he was really the Hulk in disguise.

I'd rather play "Noah's Ark" for joyless hours on end, then pick up Baby Moses again. At least Noah could subdue the creatures around him. Miriam has to grit her teeth and bear it as her child flies out of her hands time and time again. In the Bible, Pharoah issues an order in Egypt that all Jewish sons shall be killed once they are born. Miriam, Moses' mother, hears this and follows God's order to stick him in a basket and place him down a river. Seems crazy, but the river takes Moses to Pharoah's daughter's house and Moses is raised in the Pharoah's household. In the game, Miriam is trying to make it all the way across Egypt with baby Moses on top of her head. I'm guessing the goal is to take Moses to the basket waiting in the river, but there's a river running throughout the levels of this game. Also, all of God's creatures are out to kill Miriam and baby Moses, including what appears to be Israelite slaves... not sure how that works. At any rate, Miriam is a wuss. She has no attack feature in the game, and the best the game can do is supply her a decent jump. If she gets hit, Baby Moses goes flying. If baby Moses flies too far off screen, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the level, but if you finish the level without Moses, it doesn't matter. You still move on to the next level. On a sacrilegious scale, this definitely rates a 6. No way would God let anything come between Miriam and Moses, and if Moses flew off of his mother's head, he'd be dead. That's just common sense.

Ah, David and Goliath. I feel no need to summarize this story. The triumphant tale of a boy defeating a giant with one stone is truly an epic of biblical proportions. So why then, in the first four levels of this game, am I collecting sheep? I understand that David was a shepherd first before he became a warrior, but if I wanted to collect anything, I'd return to Noah's Ark. After the first four levels, you run through the Philistine Army and do battle against Goliath, but it shouldn't have taken four levels of throwing sheep and avoiding lions to get to that point. They should have done a "David and his Mighty Men" segment, which would consist of David and a bunch of guys running around and doing battle with others. Even if less people have heard of David's exploits, at least it would have made more sense in an action game. On a scale of 1 to Worship, this segment gets a 2 for being a blatant ripoff of another segment featured in the same game.

There was a time back in the 80s and 90s where some children who grew up in religious families could not play with any toys unless they were Christian. Thankfully, I was not one of those kids, but had I been, and I received a NES with Bible Adventures, I wouldn't be super depressed. Unlike many games I review, it is playable. Compared to the other heathen games I review, however, this game is a sad, depressing waste of time. If you're going to combine the stories/morals of the Bible with a secular/neutral entertainment medium, at least make said project entertaining. There's no reason to give the Lord a bad name with yet another crappy Christian product.

D

#78 - Best of the Best: Championship Karate

This ain't no game! It's a VHS tape!

Tsong Po takes little to no guff, so beware.



One probably doesn't remember the movie upon which this game is loosely based, so a refresher: "Best of the Best" is a 1989 Tae Kwon Do film starring Eric Roberts and James Earl Jones. The movie did poorly at the theatres, but became part of the "renting crappy movies because we can" phase at Blockbuster throughout the 90's, and it found a cult following. Best of the Best 2, 3, and 4 followed with Phillip Rhee eventually taking over for Eric Roberts. Even C-list actors need a break sometimes, I suppose. This has little to do with my actual review, except to say that reading this incredibly brief history lesson on a terrible martial-arts series, is better than the game itself.

Electro Brain went all out with this "Eric Roberts" simulator. The game begins on a standard screen showcasing Player 1 and Player 2 ready to duke it out. You have a few options: you can change your player's name, do some training, select different hitting styles, look at rankings of each of the fighters. Believe me when I say, Electro Brain was trying to do their homework and make a no-holds-barred karate championship simulator. But when traditionally "simple" fighting games, like Street Fighter II, can barely be ported over to the NES without them being terrible, I question why a company would attempt to bring over a game that attempts to recreate realistic fighting.

If Electro Brain was serious about such a venture, they should have rescued the unresponsive controls from the chunky soupy abyss that the buttons are immersed in. Controlling your character is about as easy as wading through a vat of syrup, and not nearly as tasty. Ultimately, the controls and the questionable "move" list - where you essentially just mash buttons until your character does something - destroy whatever chance of playability the game has. If you are a NES masochist who likes to sweat and bleed through every game in the NES library, please, for your sake, stay away from this. You'll likely be stuck on the same first fight for years to come.

Well... maybe someone would enjoy this game, somewhere, but it's hard for me to get any pleasure out of a fighting simulator with just two buttons that barely respond. The character animations are nice, but it doesn't matter when my player's actions take forever to connect with my opponent. And I could never tell if I was hitting the other player or not. The only move I could do repeatedly was to trip my opponent, but doing so would always make the match stop for a couple seconds. Idunno: if I'm looking for hardcore fighting action, I'll mosey over to one of the newer Virtua Fighters. Those have more moves and they're still not very fun, so all in all, the lesson learned here is, it's better to be Eric Roberts than Phillip Rhee. Roberts escaped.

F

 

#77 - Beetlejuice

::sigh::

This is as far as sane people get.


It astounds me that LJN ever made enough money to purchase movie licenses so that they could make crappy movie games time and time again. Who bought these monstrosities more than once?! Who didn't learn their lesson after the first fifty or sixty dollars of lawnmower money was spent? I suppose with as little effort that went into their games, even if the games sold modestly, they would still make a fortune. The team probably consists of one demented designer who, by day, scribbles furiously on pages of dinosaur coloring books, then makes the game in a single night fueled by coffee and Del Taco. How else to describe the rage I feel deep within my bowels every time I see the letters LJN lurking in front of a cautiously optimistic rainbow?

I love the movie "Beetlejuice," but it's one of those beloved childhood classics that never needed to be made into a game. "Back to the Future?" Difficult, but I could see it. "Roger Rabbit"? A little avant-garde, perhaps, but if it was made into a good murder mystery a la Deja Vu, it might be worthwhile. Both are sacred movie cows of the Eighties and LJN, true to form, has desecrated them. As far as "Beetlejuice," the potential game adaptation is concerned, nobody wants to play as the Maitlands, two well-meaning boring ghosts who are trying to scare the more-interesting yuppies, the Deets, out of their house. Everybody would want to play as Beetlejuice, but he's hardly in the movie at all. Luckily, LJN doesn't know what the plot of the movie is, and forges along with Beetlejuice as the main character anyway.

I'm not sure what the goal of the game is, nor am I sure if the last paragraph was one cohesive thought or a couple jumbled thoughts mixed together. But hey! It's almost midnight and I feel like pumping out a couple of these reviews just because I can... we're all friends here, right? Anyways, the game: Beetlejuice is running around outside in the day time attacking bugs. Just about anything can kill him, and if you get hit three times, you're dead. The control is remarkably decent, but it doesn't matter when you can't figure out where to go. That's the thing with LJN games: besides being astoundingly crap, they don't know what genre they fit into. Is it an action game, an RPG, a puzzle, an insect-squashing sim, like Bee 52's older, maniacal cousin?!

I didn't get very far in the game because the game told me it hated me with several meaningless deaths. I can't handle those kinds of relationships, so I promptly turned the bastard off. It will rot in ROM hell, as far as I am concerned. May this be a warning to you and those you love: do NOT do LJN or its one-eyed, soulless developer any justice by downloading this or, God forbid, using actual cash dollars to purchase it at a used game store. Play it once, play it twice, play it three times, Beetlejuice will come out of the screen and force you to beat the game a la Clockwork Orange. You have been warned.

F

#76 - Bee 52

Don't be fooled: the bee looks nothing like Ernest Borgnine in the game.

I've never been one for insect simulation games, nor have I ever wondered what life would be like if I were a bee. Does anyone remember Sim Ant back in the day when adding the prefix "Sim" to anything guaranteed it to sell a billion copies? I never played it because I was pretty sure it was awful, but if all insect sims are as entertaining as Bee 52 (not to mention, pun-tastic), then perhaps I should track down/illegally download a copy.

Bee 52 is the name of your little bee, and while he's not nearly as powerful as the plane from which his name was taken, he's got a lot of spunk in him! Unfortunately, he's a one-hit wonder kind of guy, and everything in this universe is out to kill him. Worms, spiders, grasshoppers, and more all decide you're the only creature in the backyard/swamp/side of the house worth eating. All you have to protect you is some gooey projectile you spit from your mouth, and your stinger. Unfortunately, some creatures - like certain spiders or ants - can only be taken out with your stinger. This is annoying because if any other part of your bee behind touches a creature, you're dead. Other than that, be on the lookout for a smaller insect named Junior who circles around you, giving you extra fire power and allowing you to take another hit.

Unlike a lot of one-hit kill games, Bee 52 doesn't feel cheap. The goal is to dive into flowers throughout the level and collect honey. You have a honey jar at the bottom right hand corner of the screen that you're supposed to fill up, lest the queen devour you. The only problem is, you can only pollinate three flowers at a time before you have to go back to the hive and drop off the honey you've accumulated. Enemies, of course, regenerate, so as you traverse back to your hive, you're constantly on the lookout for bugs and sprinkler systems and all manner of evil. The controls are top-notch, so there's really no excuse to die a lot until the later levels start to pound you into submission. If you can hold on to your little buddy Junior, it makes the game that much easier, but even without him, the game's definitely beatable.

The game contains twenty-four levels, split up into two twelve-level sections for maximum pollinating greatness. Seriously, I'm shocked that this game entertained me. It's simple, addictive fun in short bursts, and it controls well: two of the elements to look for in every NES game. Not surprisingly, it hasn't gone down in the NES annals as one of the greats, but it's certainly worthy of your time. Not since Dino Riki have I been as pleasantly surprised with a potentially crap game.

Bee +

Sorry guys, there are ZERO screencaps of this game on the Internet. I could take some myself, I suppose, but... eh.

#75 - Battletoads & Double Dragon

Even the cover bears great potential...

... but with great potential comes great responsibility.

 
How is this not a good idea? Two of the best brawlers for the NES team up in an epic showdown to see who can out BA the other! Here's my opinion: instead of making this a cooperative effort against evil, Rare should have taken this opportunity to pit the two groups against each other. Billy and Jimmy could think the Toads are an invading alien force come to earth, and the Toads could mistakenly view the Dragon duo as working for the Dark Queen. In 1P mode, you switch off between the two groups, and in 2P mode, each person takes control of the different team. How wicked awesome would that be! Yes, it's high time for a "re-imagining" of this series. Rare, if you ever feel like making decent games again, shoot me an e-mail.

The bulk of this game is sadly sub-par brawler fare, which is to say, it's at its best with two-players. Unlike the first Battletoads where two players strangely worked against each other, this game is only made fun with another person. Again, unlike the first Battletoads, the majority of the action is brawling, which is fine if that's all you want. It's a definite step backwards for the Battletoads series, though, as the first game prided itself on variety within its thirteen levels. In B&DD, any variety feels forced and most of the gaming mechanics - rappelling down a long corridor - are recycled from the first game. Some outer-space shooting sequences in level 4 are particularly uninspired, boring, and hard - the three adjectives you don't want assigned to a game.

The game's difficulty is lessened a bit compared with its predecessor. The five-lives code - so crucial to completing the first game, according to many hardcore Toads fans - makes its triumphant return, along with a new code that gives the player ten-lives and allows them to warp between stages. The latter is probably a cop-out to the aforementioned players, but to those who don't desire to play through the same monotonous levels, it was a godsend. And anyway, they are codes. You don't need to use them, you crazy toad lovers. Even without these codes, the game isn't as face-smashingly hard as its predecessor, but it is a lot more dull.

Do you see a pattern in how I'm describing this game? I'm calling it a Battletoads game instead of a Double Dragon game. This is the sad, complete truth. Battletoads & Double Dragon is a Battletoads game with Double Dragon characters and enemies haphazardly placed inside. Besides the straight-up brawling segments, nowhere does this ever feel like a normal Double Dragon game. I understand that Rare developed the game and that their focus are the Toads, but c'mon: at least attempt to combine the two awesome at-the-time franchises in some relevant, interesting way (see first paragraph). I'm not sure how the SNES and Genesis versions play, but this NES version reeks of being phoned-in (see release date: 1993, near the NES's death).

Some of the fighting animations on the characters are cool, but I can't not recommend this game enough. It's the sophomore slump of a promising series on one hand, and the all-too-obvious death of another series on the other. Yes, this game should have been made, but more time, effort, talent, and time (yes, even more time) should have been placed into considering the game's potential for totally awesome righteousness to the max. Rare, I'm serious: get off Microsoft's payroll and bail your Toads out of gaming purgatory.

D