#307 - Iron Tank: The Invasion of Normandy

                            James Woods as the Foul-Mouthed Tank Operator

You think those cannons are going to let your iron butt through?! TAKE 'EM OUT!

There's nothing wrong with invading Normandy every now and again, especially if your mode of invasion lies solely within an Iron Tank. But for crying out loud, would it kill the tank manufacturers to increase said Iron Tank's manueverability? I appreciate that it has a large life bar, can hold up to four types of ammunition, including regular bombs and fire bombs, and is an all-around awesome piece of machinery. This is Normandy, though, and to win this war singlehandedly, as the tank operator is prepared to do, it would be nice if you could control the turret manually, like you can the machine gun. By turning the tank, you turn the machine gun, but in order to maneuver the turret, you must press 'B' and hold the directional pad in the direction you wish to inflict the most damage. It sounds simple enough, but while you're operating the tank, it can feel like the turret has a mind of its own at the worst possible time (like being surrounded by the enemy's tanks). Frankly, the machine gun is a waste of time. It can shoot enemy soldiers, but it does little to no damage to other tanks. If you're using the tank properly, you're only going to be shooting from the turret. Thankfully, there is a plethora of ammo on the battlefield, so plunder to your heart's content. Don't worry about shooting every soldier that comes into your line of sight, either. Focus on the tanks. After all, France built Normandy on rock and roll and, according to SNK's version of history, a buttload of tanks. It's your job, as the One and Only Iron Tank, to destroy them all. Then Normandy. Then the world.

B-

#306 - Infiltrator

                                             Helicopter's coming for you, son!

You've interrupted the guard's calisthenics. You shall now pay the ultimate price.

I'm not sure whether I should take this helicopter simulator/spy game seriously. For starters, the lead character's name is Jimbo-Baby McGibbits. Hilarious, yes, but can I trust the man? I may have an issue or two with Infiltrator's intentions, but what really drops this game (like a bad habit) for me is the learning curve. There are two types of missions you can select from the outset: helicopter flying missions and action espionage missions. The former feels more tedious than it need be. Once you get the helicopter in the air, there is no radar to guide you to wherever you need to go. From what I understand, all of the different dials and buttons are meant to tell you something, but, much like the origin of our friend McGibbits, it's all very vague and obscure. What did us poor gamers do before tutorials? Oh that's right, instruction manuals. I checked an FAQ to help my confused self, but all it did was verify what I had already assumed: flying the helicopter properly takes a lot of work and you have to be willing to fail. I was willing to do neither so I moved on to the espionage missions. You're equipped with a few different items, like false papers, gas grenades, explosions, etc. Once you Infiltrate the enemy base, it's all a matter of searching through desks to find random items. This section was the more interesting of the two and held my interest for a longer time. I still had no idea what I was doing, but unlike the helicopter scenario, I didn't really care. Gassing guards is fun. Sometimes, in life, that's all you need.

C

#159/305 - Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat

     Looking at this cover makes me want to mow down on some Red Vines.

This small situation could spell a disaster. Luckily, all those cars spinning around the track is cause for hurrah!

(Let's just ignore that I unintentionally forgot to review this all the way back in 'D,' shall we?)

What if you woke up today and decided, out of the blue, that you wanted to be a NASCAR/F1 champion? Race fast cars, make lots of money, and get kissed by fake women once you win trophies, affectionately referred to as "the life." You could do worse than to subscribe to Danny Sullivan's Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat. Instead of racing down a vertically-scrolling highway, as in most NES racers, Indy Heat gives you a top-down view of the race. By incorporating this view, your cars look like Micro Machines that you can easily lose because they're just so darn micro. Fear not: said smallness actually enhances the game. It's a joy to see six tiny cars travel around a tiny track, all battling for the position of glory, albeit in a tinier way. The controls are spot-on, as they should be for a game that rewards good driving skills; making tight turns feels relatively effortless. Before each race (there are nine races), you have the option of spending money to make your car go faster, brake better, have a quicker pit crew, etc. I recommend lots of turbos and upgrading your speed and pit crew. You don't want to have to hire and train a bunch of new guys, do ya?! Better still: this game has four-player compatibility. Indy Heat needs to be experienced with three other people by your side. Even if you don't make many upgrades to your car, your only real challenge in one-player is the yellow car a.k.a. Danny "The Iron Giant" Sullivan himself. So bust out some brews, a bunch of controllers, and some bountiful bundt cake, and you'll have an amazing alliterative party even your future NASCAR champion self would be proud of.

B

#304 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The only way Spielberg could shut Kate Capshaw up after filming "Temple of Doom" was to marry her. Poor soul.

A lot of effort went into making those children look as soulless as possible.

The film "Temple of Doom" is generally considered the weakest of the original Indiana Jones trilogy, but as a game adaptation, I'm happy to report that Temple of Doom is, hands down, the best of the three Indy NES games. It has a ramshackle, devil-may-care spirit to it that is far superior to the sludgy, murky qualities of the two Last Crusade games. I wouldn't call it a good game necessarily, but it is a game that does whatever the hell it wants and, surprisingly, succeeds on its own terms.

Here's the thing: I'm not exactly sure what I was supposed to be doing in Temple of Doom. The majority of the game has you collecting kids (dozens, if not hundreds of Short Rounds???) peering out of dark, cavernous holes. Once you collect the children, swords, guns, keys, and any other random item you can think of will pop up in the child's hole for you to collect; the kids have an arsenal with them, in other words. What's confusing is that the pause screen states how many kids you need to collect for the level, but even if you don't collect that number, you can still progress. As far as I could tell, aside from the keys, these items – especially the weapons – are pointless. When you press 'pause' on the menu screen, it will show your arsenal of acquired goods. I tried to equip a sword or a gun to no avail, so I'm not sure what the point of collecting them is other than to get you points. The majority of the levels or "waves" (hearkening back to the arcade games of the early 80s with that term!) involve going between mine cart sections (where you jump from mine cart to platform and back again) and caves surrounded by lava. These environments can grow boring to look at, but they certainly fit in with the movie's theme. As I hinted at earlier, keys are about the only item worth a bullplop. Use them to unlock the wooden doors and move on to the next level. What's the point of collecting kids, if all you need is a key to advance? What's the point of collecting items if they don't do anything other than look pretty and add to your cool factor? Does it matter? It's a Temple of Doom, not a Temple of Personal Accomodation.

C-

#303 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Ubisoft)

Why be creative when you can re-use the exact same background that Taito used for their equally toxic take on "The Last Crusade"?

               Put your mind at ease: Indy can, and does, punch air in this game.

A theory: Ubisoft played Taito's incarnation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and they declared it "bad, but not bad enough." A mere three years later, near the end of the NES, Ubisoft decided that, yes, what the gaming world wanted – nay, needed– was yet another abominable Last Crusade game. How else to explain this nonsensical dreck? And yes, I would love an explanation, Ubisoft. You should have let sleeping dung lie. SLEEPING DUNG!

Simply put, The Last Crusade (1993 Remix) is nigh unplayable. It's not that the controls are bad. In fact, the controls are a marked improvement over the original Last Crusade. No, what ravages this particular game are the monochromatic, bleached graphics; the cheap shots the enemies take; the lunging backwards every time Indy gets hit; the "there for no reason" uber-short time limit; the too-low life bar; the boring, meandering levels; the overblown character model for Indy himself; the way life depletes as you're falling through the air. These are all defining characteristics of the first level, which thanks to those attributes, was also the last level I played.

Perhaps there is no way to explain this game's existence properly. Certainly Ubisoft has moved on to greener pastures, lined with Rayman corpses. Allow me to summarize, then: Last Crusade is a whirlwind of poor developmental choices, undoubtedly rushed to a dying market to satisfy absolutely no one.

F

#302 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Taito)

                                                  Don't think he won't shoot.

Ah yes, the boat level. Beat fifteen guys, pick up a key, and move on. Seriously.

Like an unearthed piece of dinosaur dung that still retains its pungent scent, so too does this twenty-year-old Indiana Jones game maintain the crappiness bestowed upon it by Software Creations. Is it really that hard for action games based on Spielberg movies to be good? I suppose you could brand The Last Crusade an "action-puzzler," but that would imply that the game contains any true action besides overly repetitive beatdowns on regenerating thugs; or that the puzzles presented here indeed have solutions. Just try the level where you have to rescue Indy Sr. from a castle divided into five different, obnoxious sections, and you'll be re-thinking the idea that "The Crystal Skull" was the worst Indiana Jones outing. Tedium and frustration might be endurable if the control scheme didn't feel like it was shoved under a cement mixer. It's been a long time since I've had to rant about the assignment of 'A' as the ever-eternal jump button, but I'll gladly do it again. You shouldn't have to press both 'A' and 'B' to jump in a game. Ever. Nor should a nimble protagonist, like Indy, feel like he's trudging through mud whilst dealing with a painful hemorrhoid problem. If you're smart, you'll whip your enemies instead of beating them with punches or kicks, but the enemies have to be lined up correctly with the whip in order for them to get killed. Actually, if you want to be reallysmart, you could drive out to the New Mexico desert with a shovel, and bury this game in a landfill next to all of the Atari E.T. cartridges. Spielberg would want it that way.

F

#301 - The Incredible Crash Test Dummies

Don't be fooled: the game is actually composed of incredibly serious car crash tests. Fail any of them once, and the cartridge will send a signal to your NES, causing it to explode. Buckle up.

              Or it's your standard platformer, with bouncing tires for enemies.

The 90s was a strange time to be a child. It was a time when any commercial character, whether it be Chester Cheetah, Yo Noid!, or even the innocuous Crash Test Dummies ("Don't be a dummy! Buckle your seatbelt!") could be turned into an action figure line and given their own cartoon show or even video game. Very little time and effort was given to these characters' extracurricular activities. No surprise: a lot of these soulless products are the worst kind of terrible. I mean, a Yo Noid! video game? Could Nostradamus have predicted such a travesty? Strangely, The Incredible Crash Test Dummies, made by LJN out of all companies, is not the expected carwreck it should have been. It can be needlessly frustrating, but it is more than playable.

You (obviously) play as one of the Crash Test Dummies and your quest, your goal, your very being depends on you trudging your way through a series of side-scrolling levels, filled to the brim with platforming, action, and many needless deaths. You alternate between the two dummies, Slick and Spin (whatever happened to Vince and Larry from the commercials?). Slick gets around via his unicycle body, while Spin has two legs, like a normal, er, crash test dummy. The real challenge typically comes from Slick's levels. His unicycle can be hard to navigate around obstacles, and if he gets hit, he can go flying backwards, causing you to repeat a large portion of the level again. There's nothing here that you haven't seen in any other platformer (save for the bloodless limb-severing that comes with your character's death), but it's still, dare I say it, fun. The levels are well-crafted, the controls are solid enough, and because the game isn't based on a beloved franchise or film, there's no real way for LJN to have pissed off a lot of "die-hard" Crash Test Dummy fans. Honestly, the game controls and plays so decently, that I'd be hard-pressed to call it an LJN game, if not for one thing: when you die, sometimes you start near an enemy that can and will attack you. Yes, it wouldn't be LJN without some sort of cheap method that lowers your lifebar. Still, considering the silly source material and the company's track record, I'm surprised that The Incredible Crash Test Dummies doesn't explode more often than it does.

B-