(AVGN into song)
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.
Remember when everybody was talking about Dick Tracy?
1990, the Warren Beatty film come out. Everybody went from "Who's Dick Tracy?" to "Woah, Dick Tracy's the shit!"
It was like a contemporary film noir. Stylish with colorful, comic book style visuals and an all-star cast.
Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, fuckin' Madonna.
It was alright. But its popularity was short-lived.
I think it was just an excuse for the kids to say "dick."
You know, Dick Van Dyke is in the movie.
You think that's enough dicks?
Like seriously, when this movie came out, I've never said "dick" so much before in my life.
Every kid on the block was running around saying "Dick Tracy!" "Dick Tracy!" dick this" and "dick that!"
My dad said, "Can't you just call him Richard Tracy?"
And I was like, you know...
How is Dick short for Richard? That doesn't even make any sense. It's like
Bill and William or Jim and James.
But at least Bill and Will rhyme and Jim and James both start with a J, but Richard and Dick?
Like nobody ever says Dickard.
But anyway, I'm gonna tell you all about the NES game and boy, is it an experience.
Now I'm just gonna give you my impression of it, and I'm not really gonna go all out and like, dress up like Dickard or anything like that.
I already did that for Halloween when I was 10.
I got a rock!
Yeah, I got a rock. Just like Charlie Brown, that sums the whole thing up.
I was laughing back then, but I'm not fucking laughing now.
I was so obsessed with Dickard, that when the game out I was like
"Oh boy! I gotta play that! Dick Tracy on Nintendo?! That's gotta be a treat! There's no way I could let that pass!"
But it was just a big disappointment. Like a rock landing in my trick-or-treat bag.
It starts in the police department where you can either hit the streets, look at your notepad, or look at your mugshots.
If you look at your notepad, it gives you our first clue right off the bat. There's a fake $20 bill found near Steve the Tramp's flophouse.
So in order to solve the case, you have to find the other four clues.
If you go to your mugshots, it'll tell you where you can find all your suspects.
Since our only lead is Steve the Tramp, we're gonna go to him.
5th & B is what it tells us.
So we hit the streets and we start driving to 5th & B.
Our first problem is trying to steer the car.
It automatically puts you in the right lane with no freedom to move around.
When you come to an intersection you're never sure which direction to push on your D-Pad.
The car sort of like snaps onto the other roads.
It's absolute worst overhead driving control I've ever seen in a game.
Yeah, worse than Roger Rabbit.
Even worse, you take damage when you crash into other cars.
And there's snipers on all the roofs!
Just little, tiny vague shapes that shoot at you, constantly and by constantly, I mean all the fuckin' time.
There's nothing you can do to avoid them! You can shoot straight ahead
But you can't shoot at an angle. There's no way to point the car at the snipers.
There's no enemies ON the road, so your firepower has no purpose whatsoever.
The navigation is also dreadful. You'd assume that you count the street numbers, then travel down 5th street till you hit B
But that only gives you the vague whereabouts.
Every building looks the same and it's hard to tell where you're supposed to go.
And you'd think there'd be a map screen?
Of course not.
Anyway, what's this all about? A fake $20 bill?
Couldn't they have come up with anything better than that?
So you get to 5th & B, you go inside, and then the game goes to a side scroller mode.
What the hell is wrong with Dickard? He looks like he's got a bad suntan.
You can use your gun, but it's more amusing to punch the living shit out of people.
Bam! BAM!
BAAAM!
Oh, look at him go! Down the steps.
He's still going.
What the hell?
Were they really trying to be serious with this?
So you get to Steve the Tramp, whose on-screen character looks nothing like his mugshot.
You have the option to interrogate him or arrest him. If you choose to arrest him, you just get scolded by your superior officer and get sent back to the station.
But if you interrogate him, he'll give you some information, which basically tells you to go to the 9th & F pier.
But once you leave that screen, you'd better remember 9th & F because you're not gonna be told again and Dickard doesn't write it in the notepad!
What kind of detective is that?!
Stupid banana raincoat wearin' Dick!
So, you go to 9th & F where you encounter more bad guys.
But now, your life is starting to diminish.
And to make matters worse, you're not allowed to shoot unarmed men.
If you shoot somebody who doesn't have a gun, you lose half a star.
You switch between the gun and the fists by pushing select.
And you have to keep doing it constantly!
There's time when you're tryin' to shoot someone, when off of a sudden an unarmed man drops down in your line of fire!
That's bullshit!
So, it's supposed to be realistic. By having a good cop that won't shoot unarmed men.
That's fine, but then how about when you punch people they bounce off the damn walls!
That's pretty realistic.
Okay, there's the clue. The first piece of evidence we need.
What the hell's he doing? Get off the rope!
Why the hell would you WANT to climb on the rope?
So then he collects the clue by punching at it.
And it tells you "Footprints in puddle of spilled, green ink."
Footprints on top of a crate, hanging from a rope?
Sure. Whatever.
After you leave the pier, you chase a car down.
Probably the only time the bullets come in handy.
And then you interrogate Shoulders, I think, and he tells you where your next clue is.
4th & D.
Again, Dick doesn't write it down. He just writes down the clue, which tells us nothing.
Shouldn't the clue be in a ziplock bag or something and where I'm supposed to go be written on the notepad?
Besides, you can't even see the notepad unless you go back to the station.
During the gameplay, there's no status screen where you can bring up the clues or anything.
Why wouldn't a detective bring the notepad with him?!
Dumb Dick!
When I play a game, all I want is the NES, the TV, and the controller. Also preferably a couch to sit on.
But what I don't want is a pen and paper to write down fucking clues!
Ugh, the fuckin' snipers got me!
Game over??
Are you kidding me? Just one life??
That's it?! And no continues either?!
No! Look at this! Where's my clue?!
I have to get it again?!
That's insane!
At least you don't have to talk to Steve the Tramp again or Shoulders.
As long as you remember where to find the clues, you can skip the interrogation parts.
So, I get the fucking clue, again, and then I'm off the get the next one.
By the time I get to the second building, my life is already half way drained from the snipers.
Then I go through another barrage of bad guys, shooting at me from every conceivable angle.
I get to the damn clue. I try jumping at it.
But that doesn't work. So I go back onto the ledge.
Can I jump on the ladder?
Nope. Well, I'm gonna keep going back until I find what I AM allowed to jump on.
You can never tell what's a platform and what's just part of the background.
Alright, so I'm working my way back to the right. Jumping on the crate, the platforms, here we go!
What the fuck? Ugh.
Good lord! Now I gotta go back again!
Here we go. Let's try again.
Okay how does this work?
If you jump, you just end up on the platform.
And you can't jump straight down, that's ridiculous!
So, my only way is to just slightly...
UUUUGH!
Your mother.
Fuck.
Fuck!
Fuck!!
FUUUUUUCK!!!
Could they have put this clue in a more unreachable spot?!?
What? I got it?!
I've been jumping at it for five minutes and then finally I get it?!
Like, what did I do different?
Anyway, this time the clue itself tells us where to go next: 1st & H.
So, I'm on my way over...
OH, NOOO!
I gotta do that shit all over again?!
Couldn't they give you any extra lives?!
There's no way you can be expected to find four clues without dying! That's impossible!
So, I'm gonna assume that I don't need to collect all the clues. I just need to figure out which crook I can arrest.
So after skipping most of the clues, I was able to find one clue in particular which pretty much says that Numbers is the culprit.
So, I look at my mugshots and find that Numbers is hiding out at 8th & J.
So I go straight over to 8th & J, and it's swarming with bad guys.
Even going into this place with full health, it's hard to survive to the end.
It's hard as dick.
So I get to Numbers, I arrest him, and then...
...I need more evidence?
You gotta be fucking kidding me!
That's ridiculous!!
Like, WHAT??
Like, you have to travel all around and go to five different buildings
in order to get the clues, and then the last one to arrest Numbers!
All without dying once!!
THAT'S WHORE SHIT!!
And I didn't say "horse shit", I said "WHORE SHIT!"
LIKE A WHORE TAKING A SHIT!!
You know...
Remember, when you were a little kid
It was fuckin' Friday. You did all your homework and you rented a game from the local video store.
And this was it. This was your whole weekend, this one game. You didn't have anything else to do!
So you had no choice but to keep playing that first part of the game over and over and over again!
And it's like you know what?
It's like I wanna see the rest of the game! You can't just let the game fuckin' win like that!!
So THAT'S, why you don't give up!
I also noticed on the startup screen that there's a continue option where you can put in a code.
So apparently the whole thing with the fake money is only the first case.
If you can somehow make it through, then you might actually get a code.
Alright, gettin' the clues, gettin' the clues...
FUCK!
You know, with some practice, I can get through the fighting parts without getting hit once.
But the problem, IS THE FUCKING SNIPERS!!
I CAN'T STOP GETTING HIT!!
Driving fast doesn't help, so I'm really gonna take my time here.
FUUUCK!!
You can't even sneak up on 'em! They'll shoot ya as soon as you come close!
I found out that the only way to kill them is to get out of the car and shoot 'em.
But they're such small targets and you're never gonna shoot them before they shoot you.
You have to stop the car, get out, you end up wasting more time and just delaying the inevitable. They're gonna shoot you!
And why does Dick Tracy take damage from the police car anyway?!
Couldn't it have its own energy meter?
Some people have asked, "Why not just abandon the car and go around on foot?"
That way you can shoot the snipers faster.
Well guess what? You can't.
In order to move to the next screen, you gotta be in the car.
You know what also sucks?! If by accident you go back into one of the same buildings you've already been in,
You can't just go back out!
You gotta go through the whole building again, just to get to the exit!
What a cruel punishment for a simple mistake!
This game offers no forgiveness!
Sometimes, you can't even get into the building unless you park the car the right way, like if you block the entrance, you try to go in the building,
But you end up just going back into the car!
Man, could this game get any shittier?
Well, I've tried really hard and I've concluded that it's completely impossible to go to all five places without dying.
I planned the shortest route from each building since it doesn't matter what order you do, as long as you arrest Numbers after you've gotten the four remaining clues.
So my main idea was to spend as little time on the road as possible.
But even that, you'll never survive the snipers!
It begs the question:
Are there ANY health powerups?
And to tell you the truth, I've heard that there is.
But I haven't found any. Not one! I actually found a heart.
Ya, a fuckin' heart, but it did absolutely nothing at all.
Ya, a fuckin' heart that did fuckin' nothing!
So where the powerups are, I have no idea but they're definitely not in any of the main buildings.
They're probably in some other obscure building that you wouldn't think to go in anyway and the roof is probably covered with snipers, which defeats the whole purpose of going there.
I have another update:
I've been informed countless times that the hearts ARE the powerups.
So if the hearts are the powerups, why don't they do anything?
Well here's how it works:
You have to select the fuckin' thing.
It's called a first aid kit. And then you use it by pressing B, right?
No, it still doesn't do jack shit.
You have to hold down select, and press B at the same time.
But that doesn't work either because as soon as you press select, it goes to the next item.
The trick is that you have to select the item that comes before the first aid,
And then, hold down select, so now the first aid should be selected,
While you're still holding select.
Then you press B, and there you go!
How the fuck was I supposed to know that?!
Why couldn't you just push B like all the other items?
What kind of stupid fucking dick-brained idiot programmed it like that?!
This is the reason why Game Genie was invented!!
I've been playing this game for almost twenty fucking years and I still can't get past the FIRST STAGE!!
So, why am I still trying?
I don't know, I'm just a sucker for Dick Tracy!
Sucker for Dick? That didn't sound good.
I'm gonna tell you right now, that anybody would've given up on this game had it not been for the name!
They made one of the most frustrating games of all time, they took the name Dick Tracy and slapped it on the cover just like slapping their own gritty dick!
Well if this game is Dick,
Then we were the balls!
And you know, I really wanted to give it a chance because
I KIND OF LIKED the idea of finding clues,
and figuring out where to go, like it made you think like a detective!
But, one guy?!
No continues?!
Like, seriously, give me a reason why there's no continues!
Why are there no continues?!
WHY ARE THERE NO FUCKING CONTINUES?!?!
WHYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?!
AAAHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCKING! FUCKING! FUUUCK! FUCKING! FUUUCK!
FUUUUUUCK!!!!