♫ 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 roadkilled 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 ♫
Eh, I've done that one. Let's see...
Shitty, shitty... ah, I've done that one too.
Shitty games... eh...
Eh... um...
This one looks pretty shitty!
Yeah... it's shitty.
Just flyin' around, shootin' frogs in bubbles.
In space.
Ugh, that's not enough material to work with. I'm movin' on.
Here's one!
Yay, this sucks! Kid Niki's jumpin' around like he's on the moon...
It's ass, it's ass.
Nah.
Ugh...
Oh, now THIS looks hilarious!
Um...
My mind is a blank.
There's gotta be something...
Oh, Deathbots! How could you go wrong?
Or right, or rightfully wrong.
Shootin' robots.
Okay.
I got it! Mad Max!
It was made by Mindscape, proving that not every NES movie-based game was made by LJN.
See, LJN was like a cat, and the NES library was its litter box.
When the litter box gets too shitty... the cat shits somewhere else.
Now I'm on track!
Well, you drive around, you run around shootin' people,
you drive, shoot, drive, shoot, buy stuff, drive and shoot.
I wish it were LJN, because they would've given me more to talk about!
Call me an explorer, I've been searching for the perfect shitty game,
and I've seen just about everything at this point!
But you know what? I'm gonna do something that I've never done yet,
and that is to review a game on...
... the Turbografx 16.
Holy shit.
The Turbografx 16 was developed by Hudson Soft and NEC.
Its original name in Japan was the PC Engine, which sounds like a computer on a train.
No wonder they changed it.
The games came on cards, which was unique.
It was technically the first 16-bit console, made to compete with the NES,
but it was soon trampled by two titans, the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo.
Yeah, you were either asking your parents for the Genesis or the SNES.
The Turbografx 16 was the one nobody gave a shit about.
It didn't have as many third-party game developers working for it,
but the benefit of that was that it meant less shitty games!
The Turbografx library is less contaminated than the rest.
That's why it's taken me so long to get to it.
There's no major stinkers that stick out.
But I might have found one:
Darkwing Duck, based on the TV show.
I remember the show, but I'm not overly familiar with it, which is a fair spot to be in.
I have no high expectations or low expectations.
By now I've played some of the most horrible games that are humanly possible to make:
Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, Big Rigs, Hong Kong '97,
I think I've set the bar too high, or too low, depending which way you look at it.
So now, let's get into some more sensible territory, let's get serious.
Or should I say... Let's get dangerous!
Urgh! Fuck.
You son a bitch...
You piece of dogshit...
[groaning]
... fuck they thinkin', fuckin' pieces of shit.
It begins with a stage selection screen: You move a magnifying glass over a photograph of the villains.
By selecting a villain, you load their stage.
That's pretty unique, I have to say!
As you can see, it's a standard action side-scroller. Nothing much to explain.
The graphics are satisfactory for this era.
... I guess I'm not supposed to be able to reach that D.
C'mon... c'mon!
Hungh!!
Figured I could get a running start, but that doesn't work!
Great! The game just began and they tease you with an item that you can't get!
There's gotta be a way...
Oh, I see, you bounce on the skateboarding penguins' heads.
How could I be so casual when I say "skateboarding penguins"?
Uh, wait... why didn't it work?
What, was it a fluke the first time?!
Oh, maybe I bounce on this thing?
Nope.
It's not like I have to get the D, I don't even know what it does!
But it pisses me off! I feel like an ass!
I can't let that go! I feel like I've been fooled!
It's like a test from the game programmers, a challenge!
Like, you put that D there, and I'm gonna figure out how you intend I get to it!
I believe this is possible.
All I gotta do is bounce on one of these penguins.
Why would it be so difficult?!
You know why? The penguins don't come when you're anywhere near the D.
No, you gotta walk WAY out there before they start coming,
and at that point they're so fast you lose 'em!
Ah! I'll stun 'em with my gun, then bounce off 'em!
I just gotta get one of them over to the D!
Fuck... fuck!
I give up. There's a whole game ahead of me.
Fuck the D! The D can suck my dick!
I have to mention, the controls are very delayed.
You'd never know just by looking at it, no, you'd have to play it for yourself!
Or how about listen to me hit the button?
[tap]
You hear that?
[tap]
That's how delayed it is.
[tap]
Okay, here's Tuskernini... immune to gunfire, apparently.
I suppose I have to jump on him, or over him.
And that's so convenient when you're going uphill!
Oh, no no no no--
NO NO NO NOOO! NO!
Oh, I have an idea!
Uh, nope.
Gotta admit, it was a pretty smart idea!
I accept that I have to take a hit, can I just get past him?!
Phew! Thank god!
Oooh, noo!!
I've been playing on Normal mode, I'm changing it to Easy.
Huh. Easy and Normal...
Should be called Hard and Fucking Bullshit!
Is this guy gonna die or what?
Finding ammo isn't that common, and I just wasted it all on one guy!
What a shitload of fuck!
Here's the final showdown with Tuskernini.
Okay, so the idea is to jump on him...
I did it once, why can't I do it again?
Hnnngh!
Huurrgh!!
Huaarggh!!
[fart noise] Huaarggh!!
... uh, sorry, I shit myself.
How did the bags hit me?
I was standing perfectly in between them!
The hit detection in this game seems to be spontaneous.
I can usually adapt to crap,
but this game is a rare breed where I legitimately can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!
It's a type of game designed to make it appear that you're real poorly,
to make you question: Is it really you?
But it's the delayed controls and strange hit detection!
Now all of a sudden, it worked?!
Nothing has any rhyme or reason.
Things go on diagonal slants so you can't tell what part you're allowed to jump on.
Hazardous objects still harm you even when you clearly jump over them,
as if there's some kind of invisible electric barrier around them.
Don't you think there'd be a reason why the window is broken?
Doesn't it look like I can hop down there?
How about hanging on the power lines?
Darkwing is actually reaching up as if he could grab on!
But it never happens! It messes with your mind!
It's a psychological sucker-front! A facade!
It's the equivalent of an open door that you can't go in!
Another brain-teaser they throw at you is this puzzle.
As you progress in the game, you get more pieces of the puzzle to work with.
The annoying part is that they put two characters behind the puzzle,
so sometimes I can't tell if I'm looking at the puzzle or at a piece of the background.
Just have a flat color! Jeez, is it fuckin' rocket science?!
Oh, look at all those goodies up there...
Jump on the bat... jump on the bat!
Urgh!
Mgh! I give up!
Pff.
What a kick in the ass.
What kinda game is this, where you could sometimes jump on things and other times can't?!
So much shit coming at me! So much shit!!
What the fuck just happened?
It's like you make one wrong step, you go to the Dungeon, bitch!!
What is this thing anyway, a pizza that turns into a capybara?
You can't duck and shoot. Great.
Well at least you can duck. You ARE a duck.
I dunno what kinda fucked-up duck can't fuckin' duck.
Get up there... get up there!
GET THE FUCK UP THERE!!
Urggh!
Nrrgh!
Huurrgh!!
With these kinda controls, you should NOT be required to do platform jumping!
Aaand... just about...
... now! Mmgh, fuck!
Let's try again... wait for it...
... n-nope, ugh, not now...
Next time...
Aaand here it comes...
Fffff----
FUUU--!!
UUUUUUU--!
UUUUUUUU--!!
UUUUUUUUUUU--!!
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--!!!
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--!!!!!
If you stand still for too long, a safe drops on you!
Like the game is saying "Fuck you!"
Might as well just be a giant middle finger.
And it should be the only part of the game in 3D!
Put on your 3D glasses!
Get ready! Set!
Fuck you, kids!
This could have been a decent game.
Darkwing Duck is not one of those concepts that's doomed from the start.
The show had elements of action, crime-solving and humor. It's been done well before!
There's an NES version which was basically like Mega Man, but with a duck.
It was made by Capcom, who of course made the Mega Man games, and DuckTales.
Those all turned out great, so what happened here?
The control isn't just bad, it's uniquely bad in an indescribable way!
Every game with bad control has its own feel, its own identity.
Making bad games is an art form, it's a delicate recipe.
Some are worse than others: It might be a massive truckload of elephant shit, or a pellet of bird poop.
To explain exactly how bad it is, I've invented The Shit Scale.
It begins with Games That Are Debatably Bad, somewhat good games with serious flaws.
Not part of the turd crust, but well within smell range.
Then you get to the High Level of Shit Contamination.
Games that are possible to play, but no-one in their right mind would.
Then you get into the Very High Category, which encompasses the majority of LJN games.
This is where you could still survive, but you'd come out traumatized. For life.
Next is the Severe Zone. This is for masochists only.
These are games that could kill a person. Stay away! Don't even think about it!
Then we have Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Enough said.
Finally, at the extreme end of the scale, Major Code Red,
we have games that don't even qualify as games at all!
They shouldn't even be on the scale! But they are.
And that's so you know to beware! Never play them, never talk about them!
So where does Darkwing Duck fall on the scale?
I'd say somewhere around... here.
Of course, that means there are games that are worse,
but from what I've seen so far, Darkwing Duck is the worst game on the Turbografx 16.
Being the worst at something is quite an achievement.
I'm the fuckin' Nerd, I'll see ya next time.
Nrrgh! [glass breaking]