(BIRDS CAWING)
"Got him!"
(ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)
MAN: (SINGING) 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 road-killed 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!
I have been dreading this day for a long time.
It's time to play the Zelda CD-i games.
Now the first two, Link: The Faces of Evil, and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon,
were both released on the same day: October 10th, 1993.
You can think of them as brother and sister games.
I'm gonna try out Wand of Gamelon first.
To begin with, I thought this might have been an interesting game, because you actually play as Zelda.
You know, the one who's in the title of every Zelda game?
Also, it's a sidescroller, much like in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.
I've always wondered why Nintendo never made any more Zelda games in this style.
So, going into this game, I couldn't imagine how bad it would be.
Link is seen only in these infamous cartoon cutscenes.
"Link, go to Gamelon, and find my father."
"Great! I can't wait to bomb some Dodongos!"
God, way more corny than the Link from the TV series.
But these scenes are only the icing on the shit cake.
The first thing that I find kinda disappointing is the instruction manual.
Counting the English section, it's only ten pages.
All you get is a very brief storyline and bland descriptions.
If you look at the original Nintendo manual, look at how elaborate and colorful it is!
Let's talk about the controls.
Regardless of which controller you have, it seems the CD-i only uses two buttons,
so to jump, you have to press up.
Being that it's a platform game and a lot of the jumps have to be done with perfect accuracy,
it wears on your thumb real fast.
And sometimes when I'm trying to press left or right, I end up jumping by accident.
The first button is the sword.
The second button is everything else: opening doors, bringing up the status screen, and using an item.
It's a fucking mess, and it causes nothing but problems!
To bring up the status screen, you have to crouch down and hit the button.
To begin with, that's a pain in the ass.
But if you're in front of a door and push the button, you end up going through the door,
regardless of whether you're standing or crouching.
So if you wanna bring up the status screen, you gotta stay away from the doors.
Also, the status screen is the only way you can pause the game.
Sometimes I forget or don't realize I'm in front of a door, so I try to bring up the status screen,
and then I get up to take a piss only to realize that I'm in another room getting my ass handed to me!
The problem also works the other way around.
If you're trying to go in the door, you have to be certain that you're standing right in the middle,
or else you end up using your item.
I've wasted so many bombs just trying to go in the damn doors.
And you know what I fuckin' hate?
To collect Rupees, or anything, you have to stop and hit them with your sword.
And you can't be standing in front of them, either, you have to be in the right position.
There's no other way! You don't have to do that in any other Zelda game!
You see a Rupee, all you need to do is touch it,
but in this piece of shit, every single Rupee slows you down.
Most of the time, I ignore them, but as it turns out, you need Rupees more than ever in this game!
Many of the items that you use take Rupees away when you use them,
and you constantly need to buy bombs, lantern oil, and ropes.
The bombs are for killing tough enemies and blowing your way into certain places you need to go.
Sometimes, just to blow up one boulder it takes ten bombs!
You think that's enough?
The lanterns are for lighting the dark areas, and let me tell you, this game got really carried away with this.
It's common in Zelda games that there's always dark areas,
usually in caves or dungeons, in which you need to light the way,
but in this game, it seems every fuckin' place you go it gets dark!
Even in the treetops in broad daylight, it happens.
And the lantern only lasts for a few seconds, and then it goes dark again! Cut me a break!
So, you're constantly switching back the status screen to keep selecting the lantern oil,
and when it runs out, being stuck in the dark is absolutely miserable.
You can't even see the fuckin' door to find your way back out!
So, finding the door in the dark is a bitch, but other times the problem is
trying to get your ass away from the door.
Watch this situation.
I go in the door. It's dark.
I need the lantern, so I crouch down and try bring up the select screen,
and I exit the door. What the fuck.
So, I go back in. This time I make more of an effort to step away from the door.
I try the status screen again, and what happens? I go out the damn door. Again.
So this time I go back in, I walk to the left,
and finally I'm able to bring up the status screen and select the lantern.
As the room illuminates, you can see how big that door was.
Even if I know that I'm about to step into a dark room and I select the lantern in advance,
it still doesn't make a difference, because if I try to use the lantern
while I'm touching the door, I'll have the same problem.
It would have really helped if all that shit didn't have to be the same button!
I know I'm digging deeper and deeper into the same topic, but it really is a continuous problem.
It can even get you killed!
Say I go into a dark room. I step away from the door, and I fall.
How was I supposed to know there was a crevice there?! All because I can't use the lantern at the door!
(SHOUTING) It's fuckin' bullshit!
But now that I've discussed all the problems with using the lantern in the dark rooms,
let's talk about the ropes.
You use them for climbing all those tough-to reach platforms,
but why you can only use a rope one time makes no sense!
Why does Zelda have to carry around 20 fucking ropes? Why can't she use the same one?
And if you die, you go back to the beginning of the stage, so you're constantly wasting your ropes.
Let me tell you, there's nothing more frustrating than making it to the end of a stage,
then realizing you have no more ropes!
So, it's back to the fucking store.
But damn, I haven't even started talking about how hard it is to maneuver.
First of all, you can't jump straight down.
If you wanna go down, you have to keep following the walkway until you get to an area where you can drop.
This little blue guy? He's too short to hit,
and if I try to jump over him, I end up back at the top.
So, I gotta keep walking side to side just to go down.
The graphics are so convoluted you can't even tell where you can go.
Look at this! What the fuck? I can't go through!
So I gotta go to the right, and then down and then back to the left again.
You just have to jump all around until you find which of the rocks you can land on.
Ah, I found one right here, so I just gotta...there we go.
It's hard to jump over gaps, even when it seems plain obvious.
Oh, come on! You gotta be kidding me!
Sometimes a moving platform or crocodile will get in you way.
What? That little gap?
And sometimes, if you jump on a platform, you fall through!
How in the holy mother of shit did I miss that branch?!
It's also strange to get people to talk, you stab them with your sword.
"I'd give anything for an Arpagos Egg!" [PRONUNCIATION: ɑɹpɛɡoʊ steɪk]
"My cakes will burn!"
Just to hear stupid shit like that.
It's real annoying when your trying to fight enemies and there's someone nearby,
you end up hitting them and making them talk!
Constantly interrupting your fight!
"Oh, my!"
And why is everybody so twisted and scary?
"Bring some fairy dust, and I'll make it a magic cloak!"
Whoa, whoa...
Attacking is awkward.
It seems your sword never hits anything.
Even if you just keep swatting at the air, your enemies always seem to hit you first.
You can only hit what's directly in front of you, but it always seems enemies are coming
from high above you, or from too low.
I swear that more than half the enemies in this game are too short to hit.
You always have to be at the precise altitude.
Look at this, I can't hit him below the branch, and I can't hit him when I'm on the branch.
How do I hit this thing?!
(EXCLAIMS IN FRUSTRATION)
Come on, you motherfucker, come on!
Oh, man.
Seriously, what is it with all these bats? All I'm trying to do is get out of the cave, but the bats keep on coming!
Fuck!
Then there's this part where you walk into a room and there's two assholes throwing spears.
(EXCLAIMS)
I'm gonna try again...
If only I could get close enough...
(EXCLAIMS)
As hard as it is to get close to your enemies,
sometimes the problem is being too close.
Come on, you fucking piece of shit, get off me!
And there's no recovery time. They can drain all your energy in a second.
Come on, jump over--fuck, can't believe that...
And if you're too close to the top of the screen, you can barely jump at all.
Oh. My. God.
Sometimes enemies don't appear until you're right next to them.
Where the fuck did he come from?
Look, you can clearly see that nobody's there,
but as soon as I go up... bam! I'm dead.
"It's awful!"
But as difficult it can be to slay the regular enemies, the boss battles
are ridiculously easy if you know what weapon to use.
They only take one hit!
When you kill them, you get these amusing cutscenes.
(DRAMATICALLY) "You've killed me!"
(SMUGLY) "Good!"
Good! (BEGINS LAUGHING)
"You've killed me! Good!"
(LAUGHING FRANTICALLY)
(LIKE A CHICKEN): Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Gotta calm down...
(INHALES SHARPLY)
Oh, man, I'm going completely insane, but I can't quit because I'm up to Ganon!
"You dare to bring light to my lair? You must die!"
He looks like a joke! He makes the Ganon from the cartoon series look badass!
And it's very surreal coming all this way to fight Ganon,
and then just throwing the Wand of Gamelon at him.
That's it. One hit, he's dead!
"No! You haven't seen the last of me!"
After you've killed him, they still have the nerve to have spikes falling from the ceiling!
Wouldn't that be a shame to kill Ganon, only to have a spike drop on your head?
Then you rescue the king and Link.
"What happened?"
"(LAUGHS) Nothing, Link. We were just about to have a feast!"
"Great!"
-They all yuck it up, and everything's fine. -(BOTH LAUGHING)
Well, in conclusion, some might say that there are redeeming factors to this game.
The music's pretty cool, and the graphics are nice and colorful.
Some might call it a mixed bag.
But let me tell you what kind of mixed bag!
It's a trash bag that's had a bad day.
Like, say your Mom cleans out the cat litter. Fresh and stale doodie pebbles go right in the bottom of the bag.
And then your sister throws out her used tampons, and where do they go? In the same bag!
Then your brother comes home piss-ass drunk, and just upchucks, pukes right into the bag!
Now, I'm not trying to be disgusting, but that is a realistic situation,
and what it all comes down to: that's a nasty bag!
But I'd rather take that shit out to the garbage than deal with this piece of fuck!
Fuck this game! Get outta my face!
And you knpow what the worst part about it is?
I still have two left!
[TIMING AND CORRECTIONS BY DANNY BURKE]