2013 POS Games Special- Year's Top 10 Worst

RGN Presents POS Games 011- Adventures in the Magic Kingdom NES

Rad Racer for the NES

One of the hottest things during the 70s and 80s were red sports cars- and the young Square didn't disappoint in releasing a racer featuring such a car. Developed two years after Super Mario Bros. in 1987, Rad Racer was a very popular game in the United States that featured a Ferrari and a F1 racer that the player could choose between.

The gameplay mechanics are very simple. The player races down the track as fast as they can before the timer runs out. If the timer runs out, your engine is shut off and you are forced to coast until you hit a checkpoint. Hitting a checkpoint allots you more time to race. Many times you will simply coast right into the checkpoint, breathe a sigh of relief and keep going. However- if you are a millisecond too slow or crash too often before hitting the flag points, you will stop short- and it can get very annoying when that happens.

While well designed, if you run off the road, hit a sign or another car your vehicle immediately changes its coefficient of friction. For non-scientists, that means touching anything makes your car perform as if it were on a road of ice, lubricant and gravy. You can pretty much kiss the run goodbye after two collisions.

As much as I would like to discuss this game in detail- that is pretty much it. I think the checkpoints are too thinned out- but some people like sitting here all day making sure that the game doesn't get the best of them. While fun for an hour or so of gaming, there are a couple of other games for the NES I would rather be playing. Still, Rad Racer is a cult classic that some would say that my words are criminal. Rad Racer gets a 8.54/10, placing it at #84 on my best games of all time.

Rad Racer is copyright Square, 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

2 Minute Drill: Snow Bros. for the NES

Snow Bros. is a platform game made for the NES back in 1990. The NES version of this game is very rare; and I’ve heard similar for the Famicom version. This is a standard platformer, but it does the genre a service. The object of the game, and I didn’t really care for the story anyways- is to rescue the damsel in distress. Common stuff. So you ascend a couple of levels of this weird mix of Buddhist/Hindu levels to fight bosses and free the princess. This game is a lot like a mix of Dig Dug and Bubble Bobble- both very good games in their respective genres and generations.

There are a certain amount of enemies on each floor, and the objective is to snowball them to death. Yeah, snow ball ‘em. You can then push the snow ball or ride it back to the bottom. You can even knock other monsters out, and when you do, a potion appears. These are different powerups, and sometimes you will get candy pieces for additional points.

The music gets redundant after a while, but they do change the theme up on you across the board, which is nice. The controls are solid for an NES title- very rarely do you see an NES game master the controls of the basic pad- dare I say better than Super Mario Bros. I cheated and used a turbo controller, but it’s just as easy to use the normal controls. What sets this game apart is not only the good variety of enemies with special abilities, but the layout of each level. The ramps and platforms are different slants and shapes along with the art.

The enemies…. Look weird. If you’ve ever seen the medieval Latin pictures of Satan and his minions… yeah they look like something out of that. They are slightly creepy, but the tone of the game is light. The bosses are somewhat challenging, to my surprise. In a quick run through of the game I was able to get through about 40 floors. You get only 2 lives, but 9 credits- so about 18 lives or so. The annoying resets, or we can just call them resets- are tolerable; something rare for an average NES title, but this game is far from average.

As said before, this game is rare. In the box it can command up to $400 US dollars. Loose, around $150-$200. It’s expensive; so pick it up if you find it in a bargain bin somewhere. I give Snow Bros. an 84/100. Good job guys- it’s too bad this game was under the radar for a while.

2 Minute Drill: Faxanadu for the NES

I was pleasantly surprised when I popped Faxanadu in. The majority of NES games I pop into the system are crap and it was refreshing to see a game that may lead somewhere. I’ll call it Fax for short- this game is an action adventure RPG combined with a 2D sidescroller that has you on a quest to fill up some elven fountain. I can excuse some of the generic dialogue and plot lines because this game was made in 1987, but the fact that it had any of these things, including dialogue menus, even if they were crude, is amazing.

The controls are actually solid. It can be a little difficult sometimes to jump up on ladders or across platforms, but when I tell my guy to do something- he does it.

The first and biggest problem is the annoying resets. This game is HARD. If you die, it warps you all the way back to the beginning. I don’t know whether games did this because of design or because they wanted to do it on purpose, but it is a game breaker for me. You can cheat and use tool assists through emulators, but that will only take you so far. Some of these enemies, although unique and well done, hit you for so much health that one hit means you’re dead. I mean come on- I had to quasi glitch the first boss in order to kill it- I would have died otherwise. Another fun trick is if you kill an enemy and he provides life, you can go off the screen, the immediately come back and kill him again for exp and health. I never got to level, but the idea that there is experience in a game from 1987 is a radically new concept.

There are also magic spells in this game- though I didn’t get to access them. The menus are very crude and it can be very difficult to learn how to use items properly- partly due to the NES controller’s design. I constantly had to save states because something around the bend was going to kill me. I had to constantly load states too- because a death means you are stripped of your gold and experience- and you start WAY BACK at the beginning.

There is a password system to start where you left off, but it’s one of those 30-40 character long password systems called a “mantra”. I never bothered with it because I used tool assists. I’ll give it a 72.8 out of 100- it could have done so much better. I’m disappointed.

Xenophobe for the NES

Xenophobe… a person who dislikes foreigners. Maybe dislike is too nice- let’s try hate. This game was made by Sunsoft, so already we need to be cautious. I’m not sure what alternate universe we’re in here, but there’s a duck man, a guy I can’t even describe and Captain Ahab’s reject cousin. There is no real goal to the game… you just shoot at stuff supposedly before the base self-destructs. I like the intro music, but it is only 5 or 6 seconds long- and after you hear the repetitiveness of it all, it gets boring real fast. There’s no music in game either. A lack of music; a lack of originality.

I’m not sure why the developers thought it was necessary to blank out one half of the entire screen- making the game window much smaller than it needs to be. Second, the controls are effing awful. You can’t jump and then move over like in a normal platformer- you have to move to the left or right then jump- otherwise you are locked laterally. You can’t turn quickly to fire in the other direction, and turning is sluggish. You can kneel your character, but it does no good.

You can move through each door, but if you aren’t careful the blue metapod will kick you back into the other room, where everything resets. I’m not sure what the green alien/jaguar is supposed to be, but other than darth vader probes and leeches-this game seems to not have any more enemies. In fact, why hurry? The base is supposed to self-destruct but I see no timer anywhere. Speaking of ducks, did you know there is a phobia for them? Dedalophobia? It’s a fear of a duck always watching you. If this is a Japanese game translated and refitted to appeal to Americans, anthropomorphizing ducks and old war heroes combined with bad controls and near impossible barriers isn’t going to coat the icing on the cake, catch my drift?

What I mean is this. If I’d rather play Duck Hunt and Mario Bros. over your game, you’ve failed. This was 1987- a time when we should have learned from 85’s Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda- even Metroid even? But no. I can think of many things to do, alone by myself than play this game. This isn’t fun, it isn’t cool- and there are a ton of other games that I would rather be playing. Why bother with this hunk of junk, and why bother putting a chick on the intro cover? At least the spaceship was kind of cool. I’d give it a 23/100. Stay away from it. It’s not enough to piss you off if you dabble with it for 20 minutes- but any longer than that can cause hair to grow on your palms- and insanity.

God Awful Games: The 15 Worst Games of All Time; 2013 Edition [Part 1 of 3]

Some games should have never seen the light of the day. Some are so bad that they reserve a special place at the bottom of the shit barrel. I'm digging into the game vault to see what games are the best and the worst of a culture that spans close to 40 years now. Few can top the best, Few can do worse than the absolute worst. So, let's get our hands deep down into the warm, steaming manure to see what we have.

15th worst game of all time- Bible Adventures (NES)
Guilty Party: Wisdom Tree

This game shouldn't have existed. Back when the NES came out in 1985- you needed to pay a royalty to Nintendo in order to sell games. Wisdom Tree got around this and sold unlicensed copies as a "Christian" game company. These games were meant to keep kids occupied for 5 fucking minutes during Sunday School and feature some of the worst controls, indoctrination schemes and horribly sounding music I have ever heard in my life. It's worth checking out if you get the ROM or a copy of the game- but you're a sadist to even play this pile of shit.

14th worst game of all time-  Lester the Unlikely (Super Nintendo)
Guilty Party: Visual Concepts

I had the unfortunate misfortune to play this half assed game. It's a sloppy platformer that literally takes control of the character from the player- inputs won't work and Lester does stuff on his own. The controls are sloppy, gameplay is cryptic, horrible and downright boring. Not to mention it tries to enshrine a common stereotype of the programming 'computer nerd'.

13th worst game of all time- Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle (NES)
Guilty Party: KEMCO (Warner Bros.)

When I was three years old in 1991, my parents got me an NES. I played Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt a ton, but my parents thought it would be cool if they bought a game for me with the Looney Toons on it. The controls are horrible. If you don't preplan for glitches and piss controls- you're fucked in a corner. There are no attacks and no way to save yourself. Do it wrong and you start all over. Fuck that.

12th worst game of all time- Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em (Atari 2600)
Guilty Party: Mystique

Seriously. You've fucked up as a human being if you're game is any worse than this. It's exactly like what it sounds- if you don't know the intracacies of adult jokes... don't worry about it. It's a poorly made atari porn game designed to make a quick buck off of horny perverts. Something is definitely "beat" and "eated" alright.He beats em, she eats em.

11th worst game of all time- Giggolo (Atari 2600)
Guilty Party: Mystique

Jiggolo is actually urban slang (old school) for a pimp. This game has you going around and fucking a bunch of women. Be careful- the po-po are out to get you as well as a criminal! Like breaking and entering for a good fuck wasn't a crime enough, this game... doesn't suck. It's FUCKING HORRIBLE.

How To Clean a Nintendo Entertainment System

Before I left for home, I ordered a new 72 pin connector for my NES (I will explain what this is). I got home yesterday, and today I replaced the old part with the new one. Today, I am going to show you how to become a NES brain surgeon. You won't actually need to modify the motherboard, but you will be taking off the preverbial skull of the thing...

About the NES
The NES was released in the mid 1980s as Nintendos first home console in the USA. It featured 8-bit games and eventually, around 600+ titles were released for the system. Classics such as Mario, Zelda, and Metriod made their debut here. The Japanese equivalent is the Famicom (Family Computer).

Legal
Open at your own risk. I am not responsible for what you do to your NES, or the results of your actions. You know the deal... don't sue me.

Opening Your NES
I don't have pictures at the moment, and likely I will come back and add them. You will need a phillips head screwdriver, and something to put all the screws in. I used a plate because it was all that I had at the time. Flip your NES over- you will see six screw holes and two screws near where the controllers plug in. You will not have to mess with those two stubby screws- leave them alone. Unscrew all six screws and set them aside. Carefully (grab the NES like a sammich) flip the NES over and lift the top of the plastic closure.

Before you gawk in amazement, we have not gotten to the belly of the beast yet. This large clunk of sheet metal is an RF Shield. To my technical knowledge (someone correct me if I am wrong), it prevents interference coming in or going out. I choose to always screw this guy back in at the end. You will need to locate all of the screws holding this guy down, and lift him up carefully.

Now we are in the belly of the beast. You will see an assortment of wires, electrical components, and other things. Let's get to the elephant in the room- that black tray allows the cartridge to slide into something known as the 72 pin connector. We'll just call him "the connector" for now. When you insert an NES cartridge into this sled, it makes an electrical connection with the connector, which is connected to the motherboard. The motherboard processes the load's information, and voila, you have a game.

NES games are very picky. If they are not cleaned regularly, they will cause connection problems, resulting in the infamous blinking red light. As to what flickers on your screen- that varies from NES to NES. I get a puke green screen. These pin connectors, after 5 years of frequent use, will need repair or replacing. I opted to replace mine, but there are guides out there that show you how to fix them. I didn't want to bother this time around. The last time I opened my NES, I fixed the connectors, and got a good 1-2 years of normal operation.

Unscrew the screws holding down the sled. Remember that, at the connection of the pin connector and the sled are two unique screws that are not like the other ones you have been pulling out. Set them aside with that in mind. At this point, if you are crafty, you can slide the sled right off. For the sake of completion, unscrew any remaining screws keeping the motherboard down and place them aside.

Wiggling the Pin Connector

The Pin connector has a very tight fit to the motherboard. They did this on purpose. To get it off, you need to patiently, and gently, but firmly, wiggle it off. I like to seesaw it- push it up on one side, then up on the other. Eventually that guy will come off. This is the part that connects the video game and the motherboard (i.e., the most critical part of the NES).

If you have a new connector piece, put it on the opposite way you took the old one off. But first, if you have never opened this NES before, or cleaned it, go grab some rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Dab the Q-tip in the solution (not too damp) and clean the motherboard connection, where the pin connector will fit over. If you see black dirt coming up on your q-tips, this is good, and your NES is on its way to being happy and healthy. Clean that up, let it dry for five minutes, and then slide your new connector on.

From here, putting the sled back on is like balancing on a pogo stick with one foot. Try and slide it in there (which is why I had you loosen the motherboard) and make sure the fit is snug. Secure the motherboard (screw screws back in), secure the sled, then the RF sheild. Sammich the NES back together, and insert the six screws from the beginning. Voila!

For a detailed cleaning, you can wash the PLASTIC PARTS and make sure they are FULLY DRY before inserting again. The plastic enclosure can also be cleaned, then reassembled. I have not tested my NES yet, but I am sure I will enjoy a few years of hassle free classic gaming (no more puke green!).

If you are the creative, floaty kind, you can find a seperate enclosure and modify it to take NES games, drilling holes for inputs and outputs (like the A/V stereo plugs, etc). Heck, if you know the voltage rating of the power LED, you can replace the color. For authenticity, I like to keep it the same color, if preferable. Many people have gutted their plastic enclosures and made nintoasters. I am not brave enough to attempt it. As for the old shell... people have turned NES shells into DVD players, SNES consoles, alarm clocks, and many other neat gadgets. I'll keep my NES intact, thanks.