#101 - Bubble Bath Babes

That's right... "forplay."

Cropped for your protection

I've never understood the appeal of porn in a game. There's no guy in his right mind out there who would say, "Eh, I don't need to actually watch porn. I'll just get my pixel fix and call it good." Sadly, Bubble Bath Babes isn't even the first porn game ever created, though it's definitely one of the rarest. It's sold for as much as twelve hundred dollars on eBay; to someone who's an NES collector, instead of a virtual perv, no doubt. There were several "nudie" games for the 2600, Custer's Revenge being the most infamous among them (feel free to look up the objective of that game on your own). The trend seemed to die down for awhile, until the early Aughts, when BMX XXX and The Guy Game reared their ugly heads. Ever wanted to see a skank's boobs while she's doing tricks on a bike, whether she's real or not? Yeah, no one did, and games that focus on nudity have gone underground again, though I wouldn't count them out. For some reason, developers are hell bent on believing consumers would rather pay to look at boobs than to get them for free on the Internet; which leads me to say, Activision, if you're throwing money away on a "guy" game, I would happily take a check.

Bubble Bath Babes could have sold many a copy, were it not limited by its own "assets," and I say that in all seriousness. It's a puzzle game that reminds me of an upside-down Tetris combined with hints of Puyo Pop (...Mean Bean Machine, for you crazy mustachioed Americans). Basically, the concept is awesome, despite the lewdness surrounding it. A young naked woman is taking a bath at the bottom of the screen, and the bubbles that float up from her bath are the bubbles you arrange at the top. The bubbles come paired in fours and are in a variety of colors, while the object of the game is to connect four bubbles of the same color. Mix and match colors for combos and more points, a la Puyo Pop. Once you figure out how to rearrange the different colors within the bubble cluster, it becomes more fun than you would expect. One wonders why Parisian Entertainment felt the need to deprive themselves of potential millions of dollars by throwing naked women into a solid puzzle game.

The most ironic part of the game is that, while you're playing, you don't even notice the naked woman at the bottom of the screen. Because the gameplay is actually fun, and the bubbles float away from the image, your focus is never on the nudity. It is true that many of the bubble shapes resemble penises or just appear phallic (because we all know how arousing bubbles can be), but that's the only reminder that, yes, you are playing a Nintendo game that was intended for adult shops only. I've read that the farther you get in the game, the more naked women come out of their bathtub to congratulate you on a bubble well popped. I can't verify that, though, because, well, I don't care about virtual boobies.

I still have two more "questionable" games to play through: Hot Slots and Peek-A-Boo Poker. I know what you, the reader, are thinking and you're right: Hot Slots is a fantastic, hilarious name for a porn gambling game. Why have one vice when you can have two at the same time? Both of those games are worth a mint, by the way, so if you're sitting on them in shame at home, now would be the time to sell them to some other lonely soul. As for Bubble Bath Babes, some enterprising young minstrel should really take the puzzle within the excuse for nudity, fine tune it, lose the bathers, and put it out on Xbox Live. You can call it Tetryo Pop. You're welcome.

B (for game)

F (for attempt at arousal within game)

#100 - BreakThru

  Woops, wrong image!

When cadets get drunk...

 I was really hoping for a more pastel blue on the tank, but you can't win 'em all


So I guess I've finally "broken through" to 100 game reviews!... yes, I'll wait until the two of you stop laughing. It's ok, it really wasn't that funny of a joke, or a joke at all. Moving on... I'd like to thank everyone that's been keeping up with these "daily" bundles of joy! I'm not sure what I had in mind when I first started, but I certainly wouldn't have envisioned getting to the 100th review and still being on the letter "B," that's for sure. For those that are curious, yes, I still love writing these reviews if only because I feel complete freedom to write however I want, depending on my mood. Personally, I feel that real game journalism or criticism is a good thing, but writers do have a tendency to take game reviews too seriously. As a result, the majority of game reviews tend to sound very similar. I wanted to switch it up a little bit, which is why, unless a game is just fantastic and should be addressed as such, I try and give a light-hearted/craptacular feel to each review. It makes me happy and it's different. Not all of my reviews hold together as well as they could, and I don't probably give as much time to games as I should, but that's what makes the reviews special, con sarn it. They're just so darn slapped together! Thanks again for reading, and here's to approx. 665 more reviews!

When I saw that Breakthru, a game I had never played or heard of, was to be my number 100, I got out my gamblin' dice, blew on 'em, shook 'em up real good, and threw 'em on my Texas Hold'em Poker Table for some reason. You guessed it: snake eyes. The worst part about snake eyes is, until the dice both land, you think you have a shot at a higher number. Breakthru begins like it's going to be a decent NES adaptation of a game obviously made for arcades. You're a truck, you're plowing through the mountains, you're shooting stuff that comes at you. It appears to be total Eighties greaties, and it complemented my viewing of "Predator" this evening (seriously just watched "Predator" for the first time tonight - my abs grew by thirty percent!). But then, as the amount of cheap deaths grew and grew, the other dice landed and I wept. My one-hundredth review was to be... a crappy game.

Breakthru would be a rip-roarin' good time, if it weren't for the crappy controls. Instead of pressing "A" to accelerate, like every other NES racing game ever, you push right on the "D" pad. This frees up the "A" and the "B" button to be "jump" and "shoot" respectively. A seemingly wise decision, until you realize that going fast is tantamount to instant death, and slowing down is tantamount to a slower death that you can easily see coming, so you're free to shout "NOOOOO!!!!!" as your truck explodes. I'm going to paint a picture of the first level: you're driving fast, shooting stuff, dodging out of the way of trucks and what-have-you, when suddenly, a rainstorm of boulders falls on you and you die. Alright, take it slower. You do this, shoot up the boulders after they fall, and they can't hurt you. Perfect, until you run into an avalanche of rocks that you can only jump over when you're going fast. So after experimenting and finding what I believed to be the perfect mix of precision, speed, and awesome, I propelled my truck forward past the falling boulders, past the rock avalanches (two separate things, trust), and finally, two large missiles came out of the sky and made me explode. And yes, after trying to get past the missiles repeatedly, I cursed the number one-hundred with all my might.

When you "game over," the title screen comes up and the cursor is automatically set to continue. I've seen games do this before, and have been able to turn them off without issues in the past. For some reason, despite my disgust for Breakthru, I couldn't stop playing it; simply because the cursor was set to continue instead of "Player 1." I kept playing it and playing it, and dying and then dying some more, until finally, I set the controller down and realized I had a problem. Why was I playing this masochistic game? I needed something that was less entrancing, addictive, and horrible. With trembling knees, I stood up and saw the poker table where I had rolled the dice. I smiled as I had an epiphany. Enough with these terrible Nintendo games! Gambling shall be my new hobby! So now I'm off to the casino on the senior bus and I don't know if I shall return to these reviews. Let it be proclaimed now and forevermore that, even if I don't make it out of the buffet line alive, Breakthru was a soul-shattering game.

D-

#99 - Break Time: The National Pool Tour

Dennis the Menace: Pool Shark for Hire

Keep thinking, Ed. Just think both of our lives away.

After a hard week's worth of vampire killing, there's no better way to unwind than with a couple games of virtual pool - at least that's what Van Helsing tells me. He should have recommended Lunar Pool. I'm not sure what special type of downers the designers of this game were on when they programmed it, but wow: I've never played a slower, more frustrating game of anything ever; maybe an un-translated mahjong game from a bootlegged 42 'n 1 cartridge, but even that had its good times. I'll write this, and I'm pretty sure I've written it before, but whatever: if you're going to reproduce a "sport" or "game" in the virtual game realm - such as pool or baseball or fly fishing or whatever - make it resemble the actual game in every way, or just make it as cartoony and as goofy as possible; don't try and do both. Break Time fails at life because it tries so hard to be a "serious" pool game, without attempting to fix the mechanics that prevent me from taking it seriously.

I'll give Break Time this: if you're really interested in pool, it gives you a lot of options. You're able to choose from four different types of pool games: eight-ball, nine-ball, rotation, and 14-1 Rack Game (also known as "Straight Pool"). If you're not a pool fan, or just don't know the rules of the game and are curious, I will include this handy link for you if you really want to go that extra mile in learning. Otherwise, just know that all you have to do is sink the balls into the pockets, sometimes in different orders depending on the game. On top of the game options, Break Time also gives you the ability to play through a "National Pool Tour" - which runs through each of the different games listed above as you traverse the country - or simply practice to bone up on your "skillz." For those who want to put a lot of time into their virtual pool game (probably about as productive as virtual bass fishing, but I'm not here to judge much), you may find a lot of rewards, but it will take a lot of slogging through mud to get there.

I hate mincing words: actually playing pool in this game is about as fun as drowning in a vat of hot soup, and not nearly as tasty (depending on the soup, of course). It takes forever to actually get through a full game of pool, no thanks to your opponent who's always "thinking" about his next shot. Line up the cue, try and plunk the ball in, and let's get going, man! This isn't chess here, Ed the Cowboy (my preferred opponent, due to his beginner status). You as the player aren't allowed to go very fast either. First, you place your cursor where you want to hit the ball, then you charge up your shot, and then finally, you hit the ball. If the balls are clustered together, you can kiss any hope for a decent shot goodbye. Even if you charge up your shot to the highest level, the balls will act like they've barely been hit. Only when the balls are separated from each other do you have a chance at actually sinking a shot. Such crappy physics pretty much destroy any chance of this game being fun.

Break Time? More like "Break the Break Time cartridge Time!" Perhaps more patient players than I can find some enjoyment to be had, but regardless, the poor ball physics... there's just no excuse. For a developer to go the extra mile with options and then skimp on the actual game itself is slightly horrifying and mind-boggling. It's the less astute gamers who suffer: they look at themselves, at Break Time, and wonder, "Perhaps I'm the one that's the problem, not the game. Perhaps I just need to practice more in the 'practice mode.'" Don't believe the lies that FCI is trying to sell you. This game deserves to be sunk into the side pockets of hell for its crimes against the virtual pool community.

F

#98 - Bram Stoker's Dracula

I'm not sure what the background is supposed to be. A skeleton in a rocking chair with a Pharoah hat on?

Get the coin, Mario-er, Renfield!


Back in the early 90's, nobody gave a "guldurn" when it came to movie video game adaptations. Who would have thought to adapt Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (heheh) into a video game for EVERY SYSTEM KNOWN TO MAN? The movie has violence, blood, vampire threesomes, so hey, why not make it into a video game played predominantly by prepubescent males? On a side note, remember "Cliffhanger," the thrilling Sylvester Stallone piece? Yup, they adapted it into an NES game, and you better believe I can't wait to play that gem when I get to the letter "C." Anyways, when I play a game that was made for every system, I'm wary. Were developers really so swoll with cash that they were able to make five different versions (NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, Master System?!)? Yeah, I'm pretty sure they would just make one crappy version and swap them around. Having never played the other versions of BSD (that's how I txt the title to my friends, yo), I can't say for sure. All I know is I'm surprised by how much the NES version doesn't suck.

It's your typical side-scroller, which in late 1993, was a played out genre on the NES. Nevertheless, it manages to get the job done. As I romped my way through the relatively easy stages, I thought of the game as "Castlevania-lite." Not only do you fight vampires (each boss battle is a different incarnation of Dracula - which is surprisingly cool), you battle banshees, Hydes, ghosts, disembodied hands, the works. You even hit honest-to-God, lightly glowing, completely-stolen-from-Mario question blocks to get different weapons or items. Most of the time, though, unless you're pining for extra hearts, you're better off with just your sword; the axes have a bizarre range and the mini-orbs only work if your enemy is coming towards you in a straight line. Each world has two different levels and once you reach the end of the second stage, you fight my-first-Dracula. Rinse and repeat for five stages (or eight, if you're on hard mode) and you're done! The game is over in a snap, Drackle, pop.

Perhaps the worst thing I can say about the game is that nothing stands out. The gameplay is serviceable, but unremarkable. The graphics are passable, but nothing here screams "late-gen NES" like Kirby's Adventure or the later Mega Man games; the animations too are subpar. Controls are surprisingly decent, although every so often the main character's becomes unstable from jumping, which can send him flying across the screen into pits of spikes or lava. The most offensive thing in the game would be the music, which tries desperately hard to sound orchestral and imposing, but instead comes off like a third-rate music student's final project.

I know that, back in the day, game companies had movie licenses by the billions, and basically did all they could to ensure that, if a movie was made, a game adaptation wouldn't be far behind (Hudson Hawk, anyone? I'm not kidding. It exists). My question is, who is the NES version of Bram Stoker's Dracula marketed towards? My best guess would be kids who wanted to see all the violence, blood, and sex of the movie, but were too young so they had to settle for the game, in hopes that there might be some 8-bit pixelated "action." Sorry kids: there's not even any poorly rendered cut-scenes. For everyone else who just wants to play a game on a lonely Friday evening, you could do worse. You could also do a lot better (Castlevania III, for starters), hence my very average grade of...

C 

#97 - A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobonia

The rejected name was "Zack Morris and his Melted Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man Misadventures"

 














Even the blob and 4 root beer jellybeans can't save you from the swaying line of white pixels. Trust.



This is one of those games I'd imagine would have benefitted from a massive Nintendo Power strategy guide back in the days before GameFAQS. Otherwise, you as a five-to-twelve-year-old would have one lost weekend on your hands. David Crane and his cronies at Absolute Games have created a real noodle-scratcher: on one hand, conceptually interesting, but poorly executed. A Boy and His Blob (as if blobs can ever be owned by any one person, please and no thank you, blobs are by themselves, for themselves, and one day they will rise up agai-) is a sad misconception, and from what I hear, was remade into the game it should have been on the Wii. The sad part is, more people bought the confounding NES version!

I really want to like this charming coming-of-age bromance between a boy and his mound of ooze, but the execution of the game flies way over my head, somewhere between Koei strategy games and sports simulators. You begin in a "run-down back alley" in the evening (cue SF4 announcer - Boy V. Blob go!) with only a white smiling blob and a bag full of twelve "equal-but-differently-flavored" jellybeans. Each of the flavors change the blob into different things, all of which allow you to get around within the game. The fact that the blob can morph into a hummingbird, a ladder, and a rocket among other things is awesome because you, as a boy, are physically challenged and can't jump. That's how you know this is a puzzle game and not a platformer, by the way. You will be spending the majority of your days figuring out when to use what jellybeans. In the end, though, it's all about trial and error.

Personally, I'm a fan of video-game logic. If a wall has cracks in it, shoot it. If there are gaps between platforms, jump over them, not through them. A Boy and His Blob lacks any steady gaming logic that I could find in the brief time that I tangoed with it. In the first area, you venture down into a sewer. The sewer is divided into two sections and it doesn't look as though you'll be able to break through, until ::GASP!:: you feed your blob a punch jelly bean, he turns into a hole, and you can sink to the bottom section. Move all the way to the left, feed your blob a licorice jellybean, he turns into a ladder, collect some monies, bam, you're feeling good about your blob-feeding skills. But then... there's no way to get back up to the surface. I looked up GameFAQS on how to progress through the sewer and you're supposed to turn the blob into a hole again, but there's nothing on screen that would dictate this; other than you can't go back the way you came. Perhaps for some players this wouldn't offend, but it really ruffled my feathers to the point of non-playability.

I understand that non-linear games still existed during the days of the NES, and the concept of non-linearity itself doesn't offend, but I don't take pleasure in random happenstance in games. Castlevania II? Not a fan. Zelda II? Not a fan. Both of those games contain what-do-I-do syndrome, to the point where I no longer cared about either game. A Boy and His Blob reminds me of those games, except for one thing: the concept is so unique, I wish the game worked. I could see myself playing through this game (with an FAQ by my side), just to see where the boy's misadventures with his magical jellybeans would take me. It has the potential to be a charming, esoteric adventure - something the developers at WayForward realized when they "re-imagined" it for the Wii - and this makes its poor design all the more disheartening.

D+

#96 - Boulder Dash

I hate to disappoint, but your character in the game looks nothing like this goofy Australian wannabe.

This is a screenshot of the first level - one of the few levels where mild pleasure can be found.


First of all, the title. Who doesn't love a delicious pun? For those not in the know on their hip Forties slang , the term "balderdash" means nonsense. Old slang is so much more interesting than new slang, I feel. How would anyone ever come up with the term "balderdash"? I can pretty much say that any slang punk kids use today comes from crazy pronunciations of pre-existing words ("brah") or abbreviations via txt (the ubiquitous "OMG"). Yes, "balderdash" is a gem of a word, but Boulder Dash is a rough lickspittle of a game. It tries to go for the cutesy puzzle feel a la Lolo, and instead stumbles upon its own ambitions, limited though they may be.

The game threatens to be good, at least in the first couple levels. You play a driller, just drilling your way through miles of dirt and avoiding the boulders that threaten to fall on you from every which angle. Your main goal is to collect a certain amount of diamonds, and once you've reached that number, find the exit. It's not exactly a puzzle game in the strictest sense, but you do have to be careful how you traverse through the dirt. The boulders have specific ways they will fall. Obviously, you shouldn't go under a boulder, nor should you be to the side of a boulder as you break the dirt around it, because it will roll to the side and kill you. As I progressed, my heart wasn't filled with whimsy, per say, but I'm pretty sure I felt something that slightly resembled amusement.

Then the fourth level happened and, try as I might, I could not get past it. Instead of collecting diamonds right from the get-go, you are obliged to kill butterflies that are trapped in these open squares surrounded by sand. Despite the fact that you have a drill and could easily annihilate the world's butterflies with it, you kill them by precariously setting up the boulders so they fall through the sand and kill the butterflies, releasing spurts of diamonds from their crushed corpses. Sounds great, but the butterflies have lightning-fast reflexes and they're not too pleased with your drilling ways. The second they're released, they will kill you, and the boulders take their sweet time rolling down into the open square. You never have a chance. I never had a chance. I tried several times to take the evil level-conquering butterflies down, to no avail. I've decided the game's broken, therefore we're not friends.

It's a shame, too. As I started the game, I thought I had a real sleeper hit on my hands. Collect the diamonds, avoid the boulders, the fifty or so levels get more complex as you progress, boom, instant B- rating. I move on to A Boy and His Blob, everyone's happy (except for me because I'm pretty sure A Boy and His Blob is terrible). But no, they had to mess with the game's already sloppy physics, with the boulders sliding onto insects. It doesn't get better as you progress, either. Weirder enemies come into play, boulders are replaced by giant Easter Island heads, and the diamonds you collect are nowhere to be found, which means you probably have to kill aforementioned weirder enemies with said Easter Island heads. In the end - YES YOU SEE IT COMING - with the exception of the first three levels, this game is...

...wait for it...



... let's all say it together...







BALDERDASH!!!

D+

#95 - Bonk's Adventure

There's nothing a little raw meat can't fix when you're constipated.

Yes, yes... Bonk is indeed "going bonkers."

Bonk is a mascot from the late Eighties and early Nineties that doesn't deserve any hatred, unlike say, Aero the Acrobat, Bubsy, James Pond, etc. With his bulbous head, intelligent eyes, and cutesy grin, Bonk is a simple, well-designed character that transcends his caveman limitations; it also helps that he's not an overcooked furry rodent attempting to be Sonic. His games on the Turbo-Grafx 16 aren't half-bad either, with each addition to the series adding something new to the traditional side-scrolling gameplay. The last of his games, the Air Zonk series, transformed Bonk into a cyborg and placed him in a futuristic shmup world, filled with Japaniacal enemies and over-the-top bosses. Needless to say, he is one of the great unsung mascots who has yet to get his due in the current HD era.

After NEC pulled out of the console race in late 1993, Hudson Soft took their beloved Bonk to the NES and tried to establish him there. It was too little, too late. Not only was Bonk's Adventure released in early 1994, but its simplistic, tried-and-true gameplay ensured that no one outside of diehard fans would play it. For those who have never played a Bonk game, your sole goal is to get through the level “bonking” enemies with your large noggin and collecting yellow smiley faces. Smash flowers to get bits of life or large chunks of meat that can turn you temporarily insane/invincible. In terms of simplicity, the closest comparison I can make to the Bonk series is the Kirby series. Both series really thrive on the charm of their main characters, rather than the actual gameplay. They're fun, quick platformers that make you feel happy for the couple hours you're engaged with them.

Unfortunately, the NES version is far too easy and bland. While the Turbo-Grafx games were as simple as the NES version at their core, they also had challenge and a modicum of depth that made repeat plays worthwhile. I blasted through the five worlds of Bonk's Adventure in forty-five minutes with only one continue, and I was playing pretty sloppily. While the levels aren't poorly designed, there are no secrets to be found or hidden paths to uncover – straight bonkin' all the way. The bonus levels seem like they would be fun if I could complete them. One has you jumping from platform to platform collecting minature chilis, but Bonk is not a jumper like Mario, so I could never make it past the first couple platforms. Despite my ambivalence towards the game, I completed it simply because... I love Bonk and will play anything he's associated with. That being said, if you've never played Bonk, this won't be the game to bring you in.

The only reason this incarnation of Bonk bears mentioning at all today is because of its rarity. Due to the late release date for the game, the cartridge can regularly be found for eighty dollars or more. True story: I bought the game for three dollars in 2004 at a used game store. When I found out how much the game was worth in 2010 – eighty dollars, at the least - I tried to sell it on Craigslist, only to receive numerous low-ball offers (eBay, on the other hand, had too many Bonk's for sale). Finally, I tried taking it back to the same used game store, if only to get a decent amount of trade for it. They wanted to pay me ten bucks in trade. I declined, took the game back, only to be approached by a random stranger within the store. He asked me, “How much were they going to give you for that game?” I told him the store's offer. He said, “I'll buy it right now,” made me an offer of thirty dollars cash and I took it, desperate to get rid of it. The point of the story is, Bonk's Adventure for the NES is anticlimactic, and while you might get some worth out of it, probably should be dealt with as quickly as possible. This has been my poor attempt at ending this entry. Good night.

C