♫He's gonna take you back to the past,
♫To play the shitty games that suck ass.
♫He'd rather have a buffalo
♫Take a diarrhea dump in his ear.
♫He'd rather eat the rotten asshole
♫Of a roadkill skunk and down it with beer.
♫He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard!
♫He's the angry Nintendo nerd!
♫He's the angry Atari, Sega, nerd!
♫He's the Angry Video Game Nerd!
Let me ask a question: what kind of format do you usually play video games on?
Cartridges? CDs? Cards? Floppy disks?
How about an audio cassette? Isn't that just a weird thought, to play a game on a friggin' cassette tape?
This is "Transformers" for the Commodore 64, the computer that is most definitely more than meets the eye.
You start it up and it goes into this flickering hypnotic light show.
Wow. Great game.
Then, like, 5 minutes later the title screen comes up.
Wait a little longer, then you get to pick your key Autobot.
As you can see, there's no Optimus Prime, which is pretty stupid. Instead it's Rodimus Prime.
Then you get the colored light show for another 5 minutes, and all of a sudden, the game starts.
Had it not been for the music, I wouldn't even guess this is Transformers.
Most of the game is played by using key commands to move your Autobots to different locations.
The Autobots are all indicated by numbers. Couldn't they have something a little more... y'know, visual?
When you engage in battle, it goes into this first-person view.
You take the joystick and try to shoot down as many Decepticons as you can.
It gets monotonous pretty quick.
One of the key commands, that is "T" for "Transform," it just... well, makes you transform.
But it doesn't change anything. It's just first-person view so you can't tell if you're transformed or not.
By the way, I'm a a farm with a dinosaur stepping on a space shuttle.
I have no comment.
Look at this game. Yaaay, Transformers!
Fuck this.
Wouldn't you think that a game based on the Transformers would have more an emphasis on ACTION,
rather than this strategic simulation thing?
Well, guess what? There was a Transformers game that was a sidescroller.
But only in Japan.
Let me introduce the Nintendo Famicom. Simply put, this is the Japanese NES.
Very different from that grey box, isn't it? This one's smaller, and it's a top-loader.
It has a nice dust-tray, and the controllers attach to the console, which is efficient,
but the wires are too short, and they're hard-wired into the console, so you can never change them.
The controllers are the same: Select, Start, B, A.
But, the second controller, instead of Select and Start, it has a microphone.
Very few games utilized this.
From what I understand, in the Legend of Zelda, you kill Pols Voice by making a loud noise, into the mic.
Of course, that's only in the Japanese version, but the manual still says that Pols voice hates loud noises,
which only mystified players outside of Japan.
There's also a Disk System, but I need to get a cable for it.
So, maybe we'll get to that later, I'm getting off-track here.
Let's play Transformers.
The question is, why was this game never released outside of Japan?
With the library of games available, it seems most of them, no matter how shitty, would see an international release.
So could it be that this one was just THAT bad?
Let's find out!
Ah!
Piece a' shit.
The title translates to "Mystery of Optimus Prime," and that sums it up just perfectly.
It's a mystery why Optimus Prime isn't in this game, instead it's Ultra Magmus.
If you actually beat the game and collect all the letters, you can become Rodimus Prime.
But the only difference is the color.
So what's the point? They should have just made him the second player, like Mario and Luigi.
Instead we have Ultra Magnus, and Ultra Magnus.
But this is the least of our problems. Check it out:
One hit, and you're dead. Three lives, no continues, no checkpoints.
Duuuhhh-nuh-Nuuuhh-Nuuuh!
You will hear that more often than you hear it in the fuckin' show.
If you're even lucky enough to make it to the second level, you can continue with a simple code.
When you get Game Over, hold A, B, and Start. And let me tell you, you're gonna be doing that every 30 seconds or so.
You'll get to continue forever, but that's STILL not gonna help you get through the levels.
You REALLY gotta buckle the fuck down and get your video game senses going sky high.
Look at this shit. It's almost as bad as Silver Surfer. There's projectiles everywhere!
Whenever you try to dodge something, you only get hit by something else!
How the fuck does this little thing DESTROY a giant robot!?
It's almost insulting how much of an advantage the enemies have!
You take ONE hit, but them? They can sometimes take more. And they're smaller! It doesn't make any fuckin' sense!
They can also pass through solid bricks, but you can't even SHOOT through the bricks!
So if there's an enemy coming at you through the bricks, there's NOTHING you can do about it!
They also camouflage themselves into the background.
(Here's Johnny!)
I can't even see that fuckin' thing! Couldn't they use any more colors?
You can transform, but it's suicide, because it takes fuckin' three seconds.
Really, if you try to transform, you're leaving yourself open to enemy fire.
Only rarely does it come into play where you NEED to transform to pass through a narrow spot,
But if you're not careful with it, transforming is the equivalent of saying, "Here. Kill me."
The hit detection is very biased. To begin with, you're such a big target anyway,
but if something comes anywhere near your perimeter, it counts as a hit.
However, if you're trying to hit an enemy and your bullet goes anywhere other than dead center, it passes through.
And everything's so small, so fast and moves at such irregular patterns,
hitting your mark is like trying to piss into a shot glass that's spinning on a record player that's strapped to a running cheetah's back
while you're riding a unicycle on a tightrope blindfolded.
(Sounds easy)
There is absolutely NO fuckin' around with this game, so we gotta get serious.
You're familiar with Billy Mitchell? The world video game champion?
(No)
HE could probably do it! So, I've gotta find a way to harness his power, and I think I've found a way:
THIS is his hot sauce.
You want something that'll kick you in the ass and heighten your senses? This'll do it.
(We are here today to celebrate the life of the Angry Video Game Nerd who died by drinking Billy Mitchell's hot sauce may he rest in peace... HOLY CRAP HE' STILL ALIVE!
(coughs) Alright!
Now I'm ready!
God, this game is so crazy. The screen keeps flashing and makes me feel like I'm gonna have a seizure!
(Reminds me of Atari)
What the fuck?
Ah, get up there, goddammit! Get up there!
Get UP there!
Ah, no shitty game is complete without hard-to-reach jumps.
What the fuck was that shit!? You can't even see what's up there until it's too late!
Oh, fuck you! I can't even touch that... little sideways ice-cream cone?
Come on, come on! NGH! UUNNNGHH!!
Oh, that's real creative, having the Decepticon logo as a boss.
That's like with the Ghostbusters game. That is so cheap. The logo belongs on the fuckin' cover.
Oh, man, shoot 'em. Shoot 'em! I can't fuckin' shoot these things!
DAAAAAHHH!
Oh, these jets, they just keep comin', oh no!
AAAAAAHHHH, you fff-scum-fucker!
It's too narrow to jump, and it's not the right elevation to shoot 'em! So it's just a fuckin' death trap!
Gotta jump on the platform, AAAAAAAAHHHH!!
A jet, how am I supposed to ever predict when something's going to fly into the screen and kill me?
But lemme tell you about stage nine. It's one of the cheapest, most unfair,
most cryptic and fucked-up levels in the history of games.
You keep going to the right, only to play through the same stage again and again in an endless loop.
There's nothing in the game explaining what you're supposed to do. You have to read up on the internet to find out.
Turns out you're supposed to get a key. But that's not enough.
You also have to follow a specific pattern, almost like a secret maze. Who is supposed to figure that out on their own!?
It's a lot like in Super Mario Bros. where you're going through the castle.
You have to go up, over and under the platforms in the correct way, or else the stage repeats.
But in Mario, it's much easier to guess. It's a whole lot shorter for one thing, but also...
THERE'S NOT A MILLION THINGS TRYING TO KILL YOU!
It's hard to SURVIVE let alone figure out the right pattern.
And on top of that, the route that it makes you take is more difficult than the more common-sense way!
I need some more hot sauce...
It's the end of the road Megatron! UUNNNHH!
HUUAAH! HUNNNGGHH!!
C'mon, c'mon, DIE!
Hugh, BOOOOOOM, yeeeaaahh!
Now that's some intense shit right there!
In conclusion, all I can say about this game--
Stage ten!?
I fuckin' beat Megatron, who the hell could be next!?
Fuckin' stage ten my ass!
I'm guessing if Megatron's not the final boss, it's gotta be Galvatron, or maybe Unicron, or Fuckitron, who knows?
Oh, it's Mecha-Godzilla. Of course! I should've known.
Whoo! Man, that was the hardest game I've ever beat!
And all that trouble for an end screen that I can't even read.
I can now conclude that the game barely has anything to do with Transformers.
It doesn't even have the music, with the exception of that part.
Even the Commodore version had the fuckin' theme!
In this one, the same bland music plays through the whole game. The bosses have their own music, but that's about it.
Speaking of the bosses, it makes you wonder if the creators of this game even knew anything about Transformers.
Did they have to resort to using the Decepticon logo three times?
That's right! The same boss three times!
And twice, the boss is, like, a nuclear macadamia nut inside of a moon.
Like, they didn't have enough Decepticon characters to choose from? Did they ever fuckin' watch the show?
As for the Autobots, even the Commodore version had a lot to choose from!
Sure they existed mostly in text, but at least it acknowledged them!
But Transformers or not, it's just a fuckin' shit hole of a bad game.
Most of the levels are the same thing over and over, just modified slightly.
And stage ten is just stage eight backwards!
But the big problem is the difficulty. Who was this game intended for!?
Certainly not gamers who wanted a reasonable challenge, OR fans of Transformers!
It disappoints in both ways.
So now, is it any wonder why this game was never released outside of Japan?
Because nobody else wants to play this fuckin' shit!
Well, I gotta do what I gotta do.
One shall stand, one shall--
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Who are you!?
My name is Optimus Prime.
Wh-- You don't look anything like--
Uh!
I thought you were made of sterner stuff.