Video Game Review: SLAPS n' BEANS

Can't remember the last time I wrote 'bout video games. I don't really play them super often as I did in the oldener and more goldener days of my spring-like youth.

But, I played a game this week that makes me feel like praising it and that game is:

 

Bud Spencer n' Terence Hill: SLAPS AND BEANS!

After the Greatest and Best Actor in Recent History, Bud Spencer, passed away I wrote about him and how much I enjoy watching his and Terence's old films.

(You can read the Bud Spencer article here: https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.ca/2016/06/great-film-icon-bud-spencer-passes-away.html)

(I've also previously written 'about side scrollin' beat 'em ups once too so let's link there too, why not: https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.ca/2014/02/the-super-mammal-side-scroller-of-ages.html)

Basically, Slaps and Beans, is merging two things I like together. It is merging the subtle refined tried-and-tested video game genre of Side-Scrollin' Beat-Em Ups with the funnest and maybe most-likeable tag team in film history.

You know when you have the great idea to mix cereals together? You're thinking, well, I like Frosted Flakes and I like Cap'n Crunch ... what would they taste like the same bowl? Or when you mix soft drinks at the self-serve station at a fast food place? I like Coke and I like Fanta .... what would they taste like in the same cup? You know that feeling? For me, this game, feels like that. It's like taking two things I think are wicked and putting them together in what should be buck wicked when it's all said and done.

Before we praise this game, let's first cover some of the history of Licensed video games. Many of which back in the day were not good.


Licensed Games 

Back in the 80s and 90s .... a lot of companies bought the rights to make video game versions of popular brands/shows/movies. We had video game versions of EVERYTHING back in the day and very few of them were any good at all. You want to play Addams Family the video game? It's there. You want to play Home Improvement the video game? It's there, you could have played that in the day. Home Improvement the video game is probably one of the dumbest ones I can think of actually. I would see this in the game store and look at the back of it and go ... "So Tim Allen is shooting a flame thrower at dinosaurs .... did the Japanese people who made this and owned the license to Home Improvement even know what the frig it was?"

No, thanks. What is this?

Maybe I missed some Very Special Episodes of Home Improvement during its run, and I'll admit I'm not a Home Improvement expert ... but I really don't remember Tim Allen fighting dinosaurs on this show? Do you?

I liked a lot of older re-run style shows when I was a kid, and I remember renting one of the most worst of the "License Anything" wave of titles that came out and that one was ... Gilligan's Island the video game. Hahahahaha, just thinking about this makes me laugh. This barely even qualifies as video game, even. You controlled the Skipper whilst a very mentally challenged Gilligan would follow behind you and constantly get lost and you'd have to back track and find him. Ugh. I watched a video of some person beating this mess recently .... and I'm happy at least someone beat NES Gilligan's Island ... I know I didn't even get to the first boss as a kid when I played it.

Why does this even exist for? 

The only nice thing I can say about Gilligan's Island the game is that the Japanese people who made it at least had SOME idea as to what this show was about and I'll give them credit that it does, in some manner, capture the spirit of the show. Ginger is mysteriously missing from the story, though I've read she took her name off anything Gilligan related after the show ended and apparently there was bad blood between Ginger and the rest of the cast. OMG. Either way, Ginger's not the main focus of this article so let's mosey on, shall we?

My point in this section is that the vast variety of mass produced liscenced games ranged from nonsensically-horrendous to sort-of-sensically-bad. Except for ONE. One game, which falls under the "why would you make a game based on this?" category and that's....

... The Three Stooges for Nintendo (crica 1987)!

Yes!

I don't care what anyone says, this game was GOOD. Five year old me used to play this way more often than you'd think a five year old would want to play a game based on characters from the 1930s. It was THEM though, it wasn't like ... okay, uh, here's Moe and he's got a rail gun and Curly is floppin' behind him falling down and you have to uhhhh get Moe to the zombie's lair .... NO! This game was the stooges doin' Stooge shit like from the actual shorts and movies! It captured the spirit of them 100%.

The Stooges had to save an orphanage that the evil bank wanted to close down and to get the money they embarked on various jobs inspired from their vast lore of comedy films. Sometimes that's all you can ask for from a liscened game is that they at the very least capture the essence of what their source material was.

I would not call it a great game by gamery standards but the Stooges game on NES did what it set out to do and that's give homage to the legends of legends and let you have a little bit of fun along the way. I can attest that many of the levels were fun ... Curly eating those crackers was pretty cool complete with audible nyuk-nyuks, the one where they just stand in an alley and hurt each other is good, there was one where you throw pies at sophisticates .... who doesn't like throwing pies at sophisticates? This game was good. Admit it. It was!

.... and we have now figured out why Three Stooges the game worked, and it wasn't because it was the greatest video game or anything like that at all .... but because it rended homage to its source material properly and let us have some good natured fun as we tried to save those poor ol' orphans. 

Now ... with that in mind of what makes a good homage game let's review the Slaps and the Beans!

SLAPS AND BEANS!

Movin', movin'. movin'. mooovin'. Cruisin', Cruisin', Cruisin', Cruuuisin'! 

Now with the criteria established as to what makes a obscure-source-material licensed video game good (1. Capture the Spirit of the Source Material and 2. Be Fun) ... let's see if Slaps n' Beans meets the criterion as such.

I'll give you a hint ... It does.

They capture the spirit of the source material very very well. I've been following on social media the makers of the game's trailers and updates on stuff over the last year or so and I know that they made this as a homage more than anything else. They made this game because they loved these movies growing up. This is definitely not some game where they make a generic side scroller and slap some beans on it and put it to market ... this is a video game made with LOVE!

Graphics-wise it's retro SNES-like style graphics that look very nice. I don't think you can make a side-scroller beat 'em up with anything other than sleek retro graphics ... it wouldn't look right otherwise.

The only one problem I had with this game was it was made for controllers and for co-op. I don't have like consoles and controllers. I have a PC, so I gotta use keyboard and it's klunky at first. One set of keys is for Bud and another set is for Terence and in harder modes you have to control both during fights to win it seems. This game is probably a lot more fun gameplay-wise with two people playing on controllers ... but I still beat it in fairly short time using a keyboard and controlling both Bud and Terence (left hand for player 1 and right hand for player 2) ... so it's not a big deal.

Music-wise, ohhhhh wow, they have the music from the movies which are some of the most catchingest albeit silly tunes ever made. I lost at the Dune Buggy race like 5 times in a row (because I thought you had to RACE BOTH CARS at first, Bud's buggy and Terence's buggy at the same time, but you don't, if you let one fall behind it'll catch up automatically). But I didn't care if I lost at that level like even 100 times because they play the dune buggy song during that level! The dune buggy song is so good!

DUNE BUGGY! YA!

In the jungle level they give you the movin' n' cruisin' song for the entirety of the level ... which will be in my head for a pretty elongated amount of time. I'll be singing this song for the next month in my head I think.

Movin' n' Cruisin'!

Beating up endless thugs to this song is just something you need in your life. You probably don't know it or believe me ... but you do. You need to slap some thugs and bonk some punks on the head whilst this song sweetly carries you through a hot jungle.

Conclusion

Alright so, a Bud Spencer and Terence Hill video game in 2018 .... it's a hard note to hit, that's for sure. Did they hit the mark? I think so, 100%.

This game was born after Bud passed away and the people who made it really made it because they love these movies and wanted to show their love for them. The people who made this game really knew the source material inside and out. It's really a nice homage.

It's on Steam today on sale for like under 20 dollars ... so if you are interested in this, even if you're not familiar with the Bud Spencer and Terence Hill films ... it's under 20 dollars so it's not like it's an arm and leg to play this side scrollah.

As a fan of these films I think the game serves its purpose and then some. I wish there was a few more level to it ... I could have kept playing much longer. Since Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies are in the Ernest movie range of quantity (there's a good 20 or so of them) you can't cover all the ground in one game though. 

I'm not sure how many people are like me and who's interests of Bud Spencer/Terence Hill and side-scrolling beat-em-ups overlap but I can recommend this game with my whole heart ... because I can tell when a video game was made with passion for the source material and this one was.

More things need video game homages, I think. There's so many things I can think of that need fan-made homages in video game form. I hope this is the beginning of a whole genre of stuff like this.


(EDIT: You don't have to control both characters, I just set up the game wrong when I played. You can play one player and the CPU will control the other character and you can switch between them. I played the whole game controlling both Terence and Bud for no reason ... it was fun though).

Is there a Market for Competitive Retro Gamin'?

In the wake of Andrew Gardikis's unshatterable Super Mario Bros. 1 world record (which was THE benchmark for gamin' records) being shattered as of last June, it seems like a great time to venture into the world of competitive retro gaming, see if there's a market out there for this spectator sport, and whether or not it would or could be the next big thing that hits society.

Essence of a Spectator Event

It's not always polite to get all philosophical and shit...but one must ask...what is a spectator sport? What are the inherent and ubiquitous requirements for something to be regarded as a spectator sport?

Well, you need a competition and you need spectators. That's about it. In its base form as long as someone is watching a group of somethings or someones engaging in some sort of competition than yessiree that something is a spect sport.

Take this game known as "Pooh Sticks" from the smash hit television show Winnie Da Pooh,

Pooh Sticks Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q0gectxDNQ&t=3m12s

Now, some might question whether racing sticks down a river is really a spect sport...yet in this fictional case the spectators do seem to be enjoying themselves as they watch the sticks race down the river.

F Apple, F Orange. GO BANANA!

Similarly, one might question why on the smash hit television show The Simpsons...Bart, Nelson, and Ralph raced an apple, orange, and banana down the school bus floor. As it passed by all the other human units on the bus they all seemed to cheer the fruit on (well maybe not the banana which found great difficulty in gaining momentum) as they rolled down neck and neck. Some may have rooted for the apple, some for the orange....in the end there could only be one winner of the bus fruit race just like there could only be one winner of Pooh Sticks.

As long as the viewer doesn't know what the end result is...then it's great fun to watch it unfold. Yet, Pooh Sticks and Fruit Racing are just primitive forms of spect sports. To up the enjoyment of the spectators watching the event you need to up some key factors.

1. The Skill
2. The Drama
3. The Stakes

1. What if the sport in question wasn't a random event between sticks and other inanimate objects? What if two or more humans decided to test their skills at something against each other? It would make the event more enjoyable to watch. The more the skills are of a legendary nature the better. I know I can't hit a 500 foot homerun, so when I saw with my own two eyeballs both Henry Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero do it live...I was like "holy shit, man. He hit that ball really really far." That is The Skill, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

2. I know wrestling is fake but that doesn't mean I still didn't enjoy watching my boy Bob Backlund back in '94 put that pretty boy jabroni Bret "The Pink Boy" Hart in the inescapable Cross-Face Chicken-Wing until Bret's mommy had to throw in the towel so her precious little baby boy wouldn't get his precious little arm broken. I knew it was a shtick but it didn't stop me from cheering on Backlund, laughing at that diaper-baby Bret Hart, and thoroughly enjoying the whole thing. You know what that is? That's The Drama, that's what that is.

3. Sometimes your pride is on the line, sometimes your wallet is on the line, maybe the belt is on the line, even your career might be on the line...or is it something even greater that is on that line? There will come a time where maybe you are traveling through a great wasteland in a post-apocalyptic future and you may stop by at a barter town governed by Tina Turner....and maybe you'll wind up fighting in some manner of a "Thunder Dome" where a midget riding on the shoulders of a giant retarded man will be your opponent. You know what will be on the line in that case scenario? Yeah, your friggin' life, dude. That's what I call...The Stakes.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEHE4E_I5FM)

 Sometimes the stakes are just too high and you gotta back outta the deal...

The Wizard...

There once was a movie which made playing Nintendo into a spectator sport. The Wizard. Anyone of the ages of 25-35 remember this movie? Yeah, I bet you do...and if you said "no" then forgive me if I accuse you at this juncture of being a filthy liar...because everyone knows this movie, everyone.

There's a great divide between how people regard this film. Some look at it as a horrible film which boiled down to being a 2 hour long info-merical for Nintendo to promote some crappy products it was hawking (i.e. The Power Gluv). Other people (me included) view this as the movie which initiated the template for Retro Gaming as a Spectator Sport.

The picture starts out a little slow, but after the scene where Beau Bridges starts smashing up a car with a shovel...the audience gets pretty pumped...and it really starts gettin' goin'.

This movie changed the way I played video games. I used to in pre-1989 days play video games in an area where behind me was a sofa, a table, and some wood paneling on a wall. Yet, when I played Mario 3 after seeing this Masterpiece...I never played to an audience of wood paneling ever again. That wood paneling before my very eyes morphed into 12,000 screaming people...12,000 screaming people watching me play Super Mario Bros. 3 in the depths of my mind. After gettin' 3 stars in row and getting the 5 Up screen...I didn't turn to wood paneling to raise my fist, I didn't turn to the sofa and acknowledge its feverish applause...no way...I turned to the 12,000 screaming people to raise my fist...I got those 5 Ups for the people!

The Wizard changed the game.


Documentaries 

Competitive gaming has had a good spotlight in the form of some very well made documentaries that have been done in the last decade. King of Kong and Ecstasy of Order: The Masters of Tetris are good examples.

Kong features the rivalry between one Steve Wiebe and one Billy Mitchell, while Ecstasy showcases various Tetris legends including Thor Aackerlund.

Now before we get any further, it should be noted that being a movie that wanted a certain formula to itself, The King of Kong obviously shticked it up a bit. The rivalry was intensified as the hero/baby-face/white-cowboyhat (Wiebe) was pitted against the villain/heel/black-cowboyhat (Mitchell) character.

Anyone who knows movies knows that you don't have a movie without a good villain character and Billy Mitchell is one of the best on-screen villains I've ever seen. Even if the fans of the film identify with and root for Steve Wiebe...it was not Wiebe who made this film what it is...Billy Mitchell made this film what it is. I know it'd be weird to give an Oscar to a documentary film actor due to the fact that people don't act in documentaries but the King of Kong to me has so many Spinal Tap elements to it that it's not exactly a straight up documentary....it's a movie. That being said, I was somewhat astonished that Billy Mitchell did not get nominated for any Oscars for his portrayal of "Billy Mitchell" in the King of Kong.

The second example mentioned, Ecstasy of Order: The Masters of Tetris, is a more straight doc than movie. I think they at some point fiddled with the idea of making Thor Aackerland a heel but probably scrapped the idea. Thor looks like he's a good candidate for heel throughout the film by constantly claiming to be able to get to the holy grail of level 30 in Tetris but never offers any proof to these claims. You think he's being worked as the "Billy Mitchell" of Tetris...but then they get into his backstory and you start to really like the guy...and then at the very end of the movie....guess what? I don't wanna spoil it but...ok I will...(SPOILER) at the end of the movie that fucking Thor gets to level 30 in Tetris and your face will be all like "No WAY, he actually can DO IT!!!!!? WOW!"  (/SPOLIER)

Masters of Tetris is still an interesting look at retro gaming and the whole scene and it is great that it gives good screen time to the two female masters of Tetris (one of which is a pretty cute lesbian). Maybe you were thinking that retro gaming is all ugly old male nerds but there's some chicks doin' this too.

Twin Galaxies vs. Speed Demon Archives

In the King of Kong film we are also introduced in to an institution which is dedicated to documenting feats of skill in video game history. What I can't figure out is whether the "Walter Day" character being presented here was actually himself (i.e. a real dude) or not. Was it a shtick? Was that pretentious demeanor all an act? I don't think his character was shticked-out at all to be perfectly honest. The pretentiousness and general oddness of this "video game referee" and self declared "authority" of video game records seems to be the real deal. I don't think it's an act.

To me the fact that the Mario 1 records are not even counted on Twin Galaxies because of "glitches exploited" by the gamers is so silly. The record on Twin Galaxies for Mario 1 is listed as being 5:08....they don't even accept the fact that now TWO human beings have cracked 5 in Mario. What kind of fucking bullshit is this? Twin Galaxies can go fuck itself.

I keep up to date with the masters of retro gaming and the video game heroes of the age with that great site Speed Demon Archives Dot Org.*

Twin Galaxies? I have no respect for your operation...not in the least.

 
* Note: All these years I thought this site was called Speed Demons Archive but it looks like there's no "N" and it's actually Speed Demos Archive which sounds suuuuuuuuuper lame. Whatever though, it's still better than Twin Galaxies.


So This Retro Gamin'...Is It?

Is retro gamin' a Skill? Look, kids these days don't know what we went through. These days the companies make the games at an enjoyable difficulty for all ages so they can get the widest audience range and sell the most units. Back in my day, gamin' was brutal on your eyes, mind, n' brain. Yo, if your kid could beat Mega Man 2 at 10 years old back in the day....you had to get on the phone with Mensa as soon as it occurred to let them know that society had a "prodigy" on its hands and hope to the heavens that the child didn't mature into an evil genius. If you had a kid who could get 500K points in Tetris you were obliged to fill out a government report indicating that you had a "biological weapon" in your premises because many world governments of the era classified a brain of that magnitude as a nuclear threat to civilization.

Fuck, man. Watchin' a dude like Gardikis or the newly crowned Mario King runnin' through a Mario 1 game and seeing all the roll-stoppin', the quick-housin', the back-tubin', the 21n frame masterin', the pirahna clearin', and the threadin' of the the needles. You can see that and pretend that what is happening isn't a skill? I don't think so, pal.

A basketball player who can hit big threes gets into a "zone," a baseball hitter who can in a split milli-second pick up a 96 mile an hour fastball and jack it down the left-field line is in a "zone," what about a Tetris Master who can achieve 290+ lines, a 999,999 MAXIMUM score, and get the level 29 variable to switch over to level 00...is he in the Zone?

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6mvDOKOIqY)

Oh yes, he's in the Zone. He truly is.

What is the Zone? Have you been there? Have you ever got so good at something that your brain became so efficient at it that you actually forget your even doing it while your doing it? That's the Zone. It's like...you just beat Mario 2 in like 10 minutes and you think to yourself afterwards...

"Wow, I just beat Mario 2 in the last 10 minutes but I wasn't even thinking about it. I was thinking about that one time my friend threw a full milk shake all over my other friend and I started to laugh and laugh...I wasn't even thinking about Mario 2 at all whilst I beat it in the last 10 minutes." 

-A theoretical quote from someone that was "in the Zone."

It seems as if your brain has found such an efficient way to accomplish a given task that it deems that the only thing that can get in the way at this point in achieving the task is over-thinking the situation, so naturally the brain distracts itself from thinking unnecessary thoughts and it accomplishes this feat by making itself think of things not related to the matter at hand whilst the matter at hand is efficiently taking care of on auto-pilot. Wow.

Take Exhibit A over here...

Climbing ladders...or something much much more?

Luigi has climbed up a ladder (narrowly avoiding being shot) and now has come to TWO ladders...one on the left and one on the right. Now...whether you chose left or right HAS NO BEARING on the outcome of the situation. Yet, your brain will take a few miliseconds/frames to ponder whether to choose left or right. Why would the brain waste valuable frames deciding on an action on a situation in which both paths lead to the same outcome? Because our brains are stupid, that's why. Yet when you're in The Zone, the brain doesn't deal with that shit...it just bounces up a ladder (ANY LADDER) and gets where it's gotta go.

Damn, when we're not in The Zone...it's almost like we're these victims of some sort of a collision on the open seas as our brains struggle to make routine decisions which ultimately have ZERO bearing on the future. Call it obsessive compulsive disorder, call it fear of choice, call it what you want. It reminds me of that dog who found these two bones this one time in Ancient Rome and he picked at one and then he licked the other...and then he literally went in circles until he dropped dead.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU)

Oh man, Video games are hard work sometimes.

People say video games aren't for real because they are just "games" and games aren't for real. Games can for real too though...like basketball, soccer, baseball...people know those games are for real. If you told a retro master gamer that he or she is just playing a "game," I'd bet they'd disagree with you. When your that good at something it's no longer a game anymore for you to enjoy leisurely. Let legendary relief-pitcher/philosopher John Wetteland expalin this phenomenon,
  

"[Baseball is not a game] for me. It’s something I need to execute. There’s a whole different perspective I have and that’s why maybe I can’t enjoy it the same way. I only watch baseball to learn from it, not to enjoy it."

-John Wetteland

Mario Runners, Tetris Masters, Donkey Kong Experts, Pac Man Wizards, Asteroid Champions...these people don't play these "games" to enjoy them...they play them to find the most effective way to function. They execute functions in a divine flow is what they do, they do not "play" them at all. They find the most efficient series of functions to execute in order to create a Flying Divinity of Mental Togetherness which becomes an awe inspiring event for spectators to see. You better believe it.

Now let me ask you this, does it got The Drama? Yeah, it does.

Riddle me this, if King of Kong was about just Steve Wiebe beating Donkey Kong and getting the highest score ever would you have watched it to the end? I wouldn't have. I watched that movie because of Billy Mitchell. Why did I watch it because of Billy Mitchell? Because he's Billy Mitchell.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok6kiLK0Idc)

 "...Because I'm Billy Mitchell." -Billy Mitchell

All that's left is The Stakes. Some compete for the money, some for the fame, some for the thrill...but some just compete to be the best....the best that there never even was. There can only be one "The Best" and you're either it or your not. You're either Thor Aackerlund or you're not. What are the stakes in retro-gaming? What do you think?

It's about being the fucking greatest.


Conclusion

We know retro-gamin' has the skillz, the drama, and the stakes. All its missing is a venue and some media attention. It needs a place to compete, some camera people, some key grips, some dolly grips, and a handful of announcers and play-by-play people. That's it.

Years ago, a man named Chairman Kaga went through gallons of blood, sweat and tears to build his one-of-a-kind Kitchen Stadium to give a venue for his Iron Chefs to compete against all challengers this World had to offer.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TdA_yP8sV8)

Retro Gamers of all corners of this World of Worlds are asking themselves at this very moment...where's our Chairman Kaga? Where's our Video Game Stadium? When will I get to show the world my ability? When is it my turn to shine on the global stage?

When will the 7 Iron Gamers assemble on Television in the famed Retro Gamin' Stadium and do battle? That's the question on everyone's mind.

The Super Mammal Side-Scroller of the Ages!

I've wroted blog articles (bloticles?) on all sorts of shit. The ones that get most of the hits are the silly ones about video games though. So, here's one 'bout video games.

Well, I must say I do enjoy a nice video game every now and then. A nice warm cup of tea, a relaxing arm or wing chair...and a good old fashioned side-scroller or two. Sometimes I feel like a nice Super Mammal Side Scroller if I find the fancy. If I must say, at times, I do indeed find the fancy. Without any further meaningless set-up, I would like to now present the award for Super Mammal Side-Scroller of the Ages.

The finalists for this prestigious award are: 

- Cheetah Men 2 (by Active Enterprises)

- Bio Force Ape (by SETA)

Obvious Omission

I'm a let me finish, but yo, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had some of the best damn sides-crollers of all time.

 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f49OKDTQZwk)

Da Da Du-Da-Du Da DA! 

Ok, yes it is true that the TMNT games on NES were the shit (the motherfucking shit) but the fact remains that Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey are not mammals...those guys are reptiles, dude. Reptiles have cold blood, but mammals have warm blood....and, I think reptiles stalk their prey with heat vision.

Either way, no Ninja Turtle side scrollahs can be considered for Super Mammal Side-Scroller of the Ages due to them not being mammals. Thus they are obviously omitted from consideration for that sole reason.

Moving on,

Cheetah Men 2

Listen to this good ass shit right here,

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkmbbZZOgKg)

Neer-Neer--Na-Na-NEEEER! Neer-Neer-Na-Na-NEEEER!

Yeah, that's the beats right there. That makes me feel like dancin' on the jack groove (maybe even the jack move n' groove). Hold up check this out...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7b0pp9O4Ec)
REMIX !!!

Those Cheetah Mans know how to get down. Anyways, who are the Cheetah Men?

Oh fuck you, Morbis.

Story Synopsis: The unrelentlessly evil Dr. Morbis murders a cheetah whilst vacationing in the vast Serengeti region of Africa. The dastardly mad scientist proceeds to kidnap her three cheetah cubs and keep them as prisoners in his lab.

Dr. Morbis preforms terrible genetic experiments on the poor defenseless cheetah cubs. By the time they reach adolescence they became fully cognizant cheetah-men (half-cheetah / half-man men).

Realizing the evil intent of Dr. Morbis our three protagonists Aries, Apollo, and Hercules break out of the lab and vow revenge on Dr. Morbis. In defense Morbis creates dozens of evil genetic monstrosities to kill the Cheetah Men ranging from half-man/half-hyenas to half-man/half-rhinos...to the dreaded Ape-Man.

Is this game good? NO.

It was only released on something called "action-52" which sold 52 games on one cartridge. The reason this cartridged had 52 games on it but cost the same price as a cartridge with one game on it is because all 52 games sucked ass and were bad.

It sucks, man. Like things don't even blow up when you kill them or anything...they just disappear. What kind of side-scroller doesn't make the things you kill blow up or explode? A stupid side scroller that's what kind.

Cheetah Men 2 has good music for a DJ to spin at one of those drug-people rave-parties...but it's not a good video game. No way, Jose.

Final Score: -34/100

Bio Force Ape

Intense Mine Cart Level

Story Synopsis: BFA is a pretty crazy dude, man. He was once the pet monkey of a brilliant non-mad scientist yet when a rival science gang kidnaps the non-mad scientist and his family...the monkey gets super pissed off and drinks a vial of serum from the research lab and undergoes a mass transmogrification into a roided up testerone-ridden Super Ape Man hellbent on all sorts of crazy revenge.

BFA has to track down the kidnapped individuals through 3 levels and obstacles aplenty stand in his way. Henchmens, half-man / half-bees, half-man / half-crocodiles, and all sorts of shit don't want BFA to achieve his goal.

Guys you kill in this game don't blow up either though...but at least they fly off the screen pretty ceremoniously. If it's a sub-boss or a boss, they get reversed german-suplexed, piledrived, or perfect-plexed...and THEN fly off the screen ceremoniously. So it's all good.

Is this game good? Yeah, I guess.

It's not as bad as Cheetah Men 2 but it's certainly no Turtles in Time that's for god damned friggin' sure. It's by no stretch a Metal Slug and that's a fact jack. Yet, this game has some pretty fluid (6?)-frames-per-second animations and at least BFA is a fucking bad ass dude who knows a heckuva lot of wrestling moves. Plus, a lotta games have minecart levels but not many are as intense as the BFA minecart level, son.

Final Score: 39/100 

Well it looks like Bio Force Ape by SETA is the Super Mammal Side Scroller of the....wait...hold the phone....

A CHALLENGER APPEARS

Yester-damn-day, someone got tired of Super Mammal Side Scrollers sucking and released what appears to be a genuine Super Mammal Side-Scroller and it might very well give these Cheetah Mens and Bio Force Apes a run for their money when it comes to crowning a SMSS of the Ages.

This game was made by the same great people who made Abobo's Big Adventure so you know this game is on the up-and-up right off the bat. 

Story Synopsis: A gorilla was chilling way down in the jungle deep, doing his thing and not bothering nobody when an evil corporation happened upon him and straight up kidnapped him. 

The mad scientists brought the poor gorilla to the corporation's lab where they routinely test products on poor defenseless animals. They had a new line of chainsaws and pogo sticks coming to market and they decided to test them out on their new gorilla specimen. Naturally they removed his arms and replaced them with chainsaws and then obviously removed his legs and replaced them with a pogo stick. For good measure they hot wired his frame to an internal super computer which gave him advanced bionic six-million-dollar-man-esque capabilities.

Turns out this wasn't a good idea as the Bionic Chainsaw Pogo Gorilla escaped from the lab and now has to navigate his way through various sub-basements of the facility in order to reach the top and exact revenge...BIONIC CHAINSAW POGO REVENGE !!!

Is this game good? Yeah.

Yo, when you kill stuff in this game it blows up, that's for damn sure. Even christmas trees and vending machines were blowing up into bloody messes of blood and explosions. Man, I was holding down the pogo button, the chainsaw-spin button, and the extendo-chainsaw-spin button all at the same time and rushing through the levels...everything in those levels was getting blowed up, exploding, and bleeding, and dying around me...I was like..."holy, shit."

I thought I had a seizure...but I didn't. I think my brain was just trying to tell me that this is The Super Mammal Side-Scroller of the Ages that it had for so long been seeking.

Man alive. Man alive. Some of the power-ups in this game are vicious and awesome, and they are all yelled at you when you get them by Roger Barr's iconic voice-over voice. MEGA-SAWS! EXTENDO-SAWS! MASSIVE DAMAGE! DEATH SPIKE! SHADOW CLONES! PROJECTILES! INVINCIBLE! 

Dang, that cat Roger Barr really seems to enjoy yelling...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhmeElUNjbw)
 
He has a legitimate qualm with the Goonies, I must say.

Anyways, like Abobo's Big Adventure this game is FREE, bro. So yeah, play it...

Here: http://games.adultswim.com/bionic-chainsaw-pogo-gorilla-action-online-game.html

Conclusion

Over the vast intertwining years in the calendar of life there has no doubt been many Super Mammal Side-Scrollers yet only one game can be Of the Ages and that game without any regret, second guessing, or further deliberation can be declared...

Bionic Chainsaw Pogo Gorilla.

Young Humans and the Art of Coping

Coping means (as stated by the Wikipedia) "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing" or "exceeding the resources of the person."

Coping is how you take all your troubles and worries, and deal with 'em. That's coping.

Every month there's a new story somewhere about some troubled asshole coward loser who can't cope with life and goes and kills people or themselves (or both). We then all collectively wonder how some fucked up maniac could do such a thing, and we wonder how we can prevent it in the future from happening again.

In terms of preventive measures, some point at measures like outlawing guns, some point to censoring violent video games. Those topics are well covered, but the one I think that is most important, in my opinion, to stop this from happening again is to teach kids the art of coping.

Whenever I see a story where some maniac like that loser in Connecticut has lost it and went on a shooting rampage, I have to wonder what could have possibly made this kid go over the edge. These kids aren't living in a famine-ridden third world country with no way out. They are always regular healthy looking rich enough kids, what was possibly so bad about their lives that they had to lose their fragile minds?

Whenever there are reasons provided behind the stories in all cases the reasons are absurd. Sometimes a kid shoots up his school over being unpopular, or because someone called him a name, or some pointless thing. People are going on shooting sprees for the smallest of first world problems.

There's stories about kids killing themselves because their parents took their X-box away, or a story about a kid who killed himself because he lost his Iphone, or a story about a lady killing herself because some Australians made a joke about the queen of England. People are killing themselves over the silliest of issues.

To me, it all seems to boil down to the ability to cope.

How to do Coping

This is all you have to do to cope, when problems arise, this is how you should mentally respond to them:

When someone calls you a mean name: "Who cares?"

When someone makes fun of you: "Who cares?"

When you lose your Iphone: "Who cares? Fuck that I-Phone. Steve Jobs was a shitstain anyway. What does that billionaire need my money for?"

When your parents take away your x-box: "Fuck X-Box. Bill Gates is a shitstain anyway. What does that billionaire need my money for?"

When someone pokes fun at Royals: "Hahaha, good one!"

There, that is how you cope. That's it. When these problems arise, you don't need to start terminating lives (either yourself or others)...you just need to cope a bit, that's all.

I Love Coping

I've been a mellow person my whole life, and the trick is hardcore coping. I actually personally don't care about anything...AND IT'S GREAT!

If you want my secrets to coping, well, I'll give them to you. Because it seems so many young people can't cope with even pointlessly meaningless problems. If you are a young human and you are reading this, please listen to these following three videos...they may save your life. They are mantras to play in your brain when worries take over.

Firstly, when I was six (young age) my parents showed me the movie Meatballs and it was real funny. There's a part in Meatballs where Mr. Bill Murray teaches young campers how to cope with shit:

The Mantra of "It Just Doesn't Matter" stuck in my young brain forever. "It" really doesn't matter at all. Whatever "It" is that is bothering you...Bill is right...it does not even matter. Are you worried about something? Some stupid thing? Well guess what....It Just Doesn't Matter, bro/sis. This is some of the truest shit anyone ever said, and I'm not even exaggerating...it really is. This shit is TRUE.

Nextly, when I became a greasy teenager-style human, I found some coping potential in this song sung by crooner Robert Wright,

Forget Your Life is pretty true too. What is it that you are worried about? It's Nothing. It not only just doesn't matter at all... but it's actually Nothing. Your worries and troubles are Nothing. It's similar to Just Doesn't Matter but thinking your troubles are Nothing is an even stronger dose of mental cognitive coping.

Finally here's the greateast song I ever heard, it is called "I Don't Care,"

Oh man, this song is so true it's not even funny...and there's only like 10 words in the song so it's really easy to turn into a Mantra that can play in your brain endlessly (I might even be playing this song 24 hours a day subconscoiously in the back of my brain for all I know). It's so simple man...but it's SO TRUE.

Lyrics by Joey Ramone:

I don't care
I don't care
I don't care
About this world
I don't care
About that girl
I don't care
I don't care
I don't care
About these words
I don't care

Conclusion

So, in closing, please youth...don't lose your shit over pointless fucking things anymore. When life is getting you down just cope a bit. Life is easy, it really is...there's never a point to buy guns and go do that sort of thing. Life is a pretty sweet fruit...when you don't care about shit.

6 Particularly Obscure Video Games that are Odd and Cool.

I am a big geek and sometimes I like to scour the internet for rare or obscure things. In the case of video games, there's some diamonds in the rough out there. Games that weren't released because they were so strange and odd and original that they were deemed bad. The following are a selection of truly odd (but good) games that not many folks (other than weird internet geeks know about).

1. Taito's Hit the Ice

 Roaming the wastelands lookin' fer beers eh!

Hit the Ice boggles my mind. It's basically what you'd get if you threw Ice Hockey, Dragon Quest, and Slapshot into a blender. You are a Canadian tough guy hockey player who is told by his coach to go out into the wastelands of Canada and win the VHL championship. As a Canadian, I'm interested in how a Japanese company would portray the great game of Hockey and also wonder how it would translate into an RPG genre of game. Basically, Japan perceived us Canadian types as neanderthal gorillas who wander around a giant wasteland searching for hamburgers, chicks, hockey games, and fistfights. I think they hit the nail right on the head with this one. 

All the elements of an RPG are there, you travel the worldmap getting into random encounters (except you don't fight gremlins and shit, instead you are attacked by rival hockey teams who you play 2-on-2 hockey matches against).The trick to winning these battles is to score one goal, then pick-a-fight and punch your opponent in the face until the clock runs out, then hot chicks come out and you celebrate gaining 5 EXP points.

Secret Tips:

1. Do not go into the arenas until you're good, the opposing teams are as fast as fuck and can literally uppercut you across the ice.

2. Eat Hamburgers all the time. Burgers give you vital nutrients and EXP points.

3. Watch out for rowdy arenas in opposing cities where rowdy rednecks will pelt you with beer bottles.

4. Cherry pick. There's no two-line passes or offsides so while your goalie holds the puck skate into the opposing zone then pass it across the entire ice surface and shoot.

5. Use "Dicky" Fontaine cause he has the best name in the game.

 

6. You can't swim so you have to buy an apple to give to an old man who has the life saving inner tube which you can use to cross rivers and streams at will!

2. Enix's Wonder Project 

Wonder Project was an SNES game that tells the story of a guy who makes a robot kid and introduces him into the world of humans. Blind to the ways of mankind this modern day Pinocchio must adjust to the world around him. You don't even control the character you just reward him and punish him depending on what he does. Each stage of the game has different situations and obstacles that require him to react in certain ways, and in order to get him to react in certain ways you must teach him through painstaking repetition and drills. 

For example for some levels of the game he needs to be nice and tame in order to help an old lady or something...while at other times in the game you have to beat the nice out of your son/robot in order to make him aggressive in order to compete in a fighting or athletics competition. It's a strange concept and you really have to play it to understand what I'm talking about. Some behaviors that you taught him at the start of the game have to be washed out of his mind to get him to interact with an object differently for a later stage in the game, it's really difficult to know what you have to do in a lot of cases. He has to be smart at times (make him read the encyclopedia all day), and other times really stupid (make him read comic books all day) in order to progress the game.

The ending is surprisingly terribly heartwrenchingly sad (unless you got 100% in each of the stages).

3. Tomcat's Photoboy 

Photoboy is the fucking best game, whoever made this is a great, reliable, and trustworthy member of the human race. You play as this deranged-faced golden haired youngster who's parents died in a horrible plane crash and now makes a living by taking pictures of fucked up shit for a local newspaper (whacky premise). The gameplay is really addictive and by the time you beat it...you'll look back and wonder what the heck just happened, but you'll know you are a better person for having played it. 

Secret tips: 

1. There's a really rare occurrence in each level that will net you a shitload of points, they are really brief and hard to capture but keep your eyes peeled for EXTRA insane nonsense going on around you (such as the Back to the Future Dolorean going back in time or the Terminator attacking some kid).

2. You can rapid fire at a lot of occurrences and catch them more than once, which is so cheap but once you master it the game is actually quite easy.

3. In the boss stage where your editor is popping up in random boxes and taunting you to take pictures of him you can cheat by clicking the button nonstop which slows the game down to a virtual halt.

Photoboy always reminds me of my childhood dog "Cubby". When I played the boss and didn't know about the slow down trick, I was going at such a pell-mell rate to keep up with the editor that I knocked a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch off the desk and all over the poor dog. He didn't consider either the milk or cereal as real food and didn't seem to care at all that he was covered in it.

4. Seta's Bio Force Ape

Bio Force Ape is quick little 3-level side scroller with slick animations and a great story. It's about this monkey who's friends get kidnapped so he drinks this solution that renders him into a testosterone-ridden, enhanced, super ape who suplexes the hell out of any anthropomorphic bee-humans or crocodile-legged sub-bosses that stand in his way. I love the way he tries to wrestle his way out of any elevator he accidentally goes in, and how he reverse face plants the dinosaur guys.

This game developed a myth around itself between collectors and NES folklorists who knew it existed and knew it was awesome. As questions of how cool it was grew and grew, someone fanned the flames tenfold by releasing ficticious photos of the game which painted it as being too awesome and too hilarious for it's own good.

Bio Force Ape is what Cheetamen 2 aspired to be but failed...the super-mammal side scroller of the ages.

5. Itoi's Mother ZERO

Shigesato Itoi's Mother series has developed a cult following over the years, the games are satirical of the RPG genre yet are very deep and very well written. It's as if the spoof is actually of higher quality than the spoofed you might say. The complete story of how this was ported and translated is available at lostlevels.org.

What makes the Mother series good? It's hard to say, the graphics suck, the gameplay of an RPG in general is repetitive and boring, it tries at times to be annoying on purpose, and the characters are bland. How is it good? It makes no sense...but it just is. 

Tim Rogers from Large Prime Numbers wrote the best review of Mother 2 that I've found and I think he may have figured out why this stupid nonsense is good. He states,

"Shigesato Itoi, producer of Mother 2 and two other games, says in a recent interview that videogames are, at their best, like prostitutes. A prostitute, he is quick to distinguish, is a lot like a lover, only that it requires no emotional input from its momentary significant other.

[Mother 2] is a prostitute that's missing one tooth somewhere you won't discover unless you look at her really hard, and she has this shitty grin on her face for some reason or another. She does nothing to provoke you to be cruel to her. And between the time she takes her stockings off and the time she puts them back on, she's going to tell you a story so creepy you will never be able to forget it. Your time with her will not be entirely comfortable, nor will it be entirely enjoyable." 

- Rogers, T. Literature of the Moment (a critique of Mother 2)

Video games are prostitutes? I think maybe what makes this series fascinating is that its creator is a very odd yet intelligent fellow himself and that his oddness and intelligence carries itself very well from his head into his work. I think Rogers may be right in his assessment of Mother 2, that quote might be the best way to describe the game.

Mother ZERO might fit that description even better, it is unique from start to finish. My favorite character in the game is a lonely soul who helps you out of your own mind as you finish up journeying through it. I don't know how he did it but with just two colors, a handful of pixels, and some words...Itoi managed to make me feel complete empathy for a character in a really silly video game. You can't escape your own mind unless you answer this guy's questions correctly and how are you supposed to know which answers are correct? I have to try and figure out what this guy wants? He wants me to ignore him? Okay, if it will let me get out of my own mind I will gladly ignore you I guess...jeez...what is this game up to? What kind of shtick is this Itoi brother pulling? The whole game is like this too. It's an interesting one that's for sure.

7. Square's Live A Live

Squaresoft used to make SNES games that were really good, it made one or two good Final Fantasy games (VI & VII) and that really great effin' game Chrono Trigger which has a well written story and beautiful music score. Right before they made Chrono Trigger they made a strange game called Live a Live which is sort of hard to describe. It tries to cover a lot of different genres, from western to sci-fi to kung fu...and it makes for an interesting thing. See this site for a more in depth summary.

The Western and Kung Fu chapters are particularly good, I think the key is that it doesn't take itself too seriously which has made recent Square games (anything past 1997) totally awful and dangerously emo.

If you make anything creative, whether it's a song, a story, a video game (etc.), you really have to make sure you don't take it too seriously. A video game is supposed to be fun above all other things. The games they make these days take themselves too serious.

True

"If I were a little weaker, I may have died more easily.."

true brother, true.