Friday, March 30, 2012

Most Frustrating Gaming Memories... (Part 2)


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

The Whole Damn Thing

"Alright... awesome!!! Ninja Turtles!!! It's an awesome cartoon series, the movies rocked, and the arcade game is probably the greatest ever made. Now I can finally enjoy the bliss that is playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the comfort of my own home, without draining quarters upon quarters of my allowance money. This is gonna be awesome!!"
- Childhood Me

How many of us shared that same feeling when bringing this game home for the first time only to get started and see this..............


WHAT?! What is this?! A top-down view TMNT game? That's not like the arcade!! I don't even understand it!! But ok, relax. Give it a chance.

And immediately after...
HOLD UP!!! Is that a steamroller?? Did I just get run over by a STEAMROLLER!?!?! What is that even doing in this game? In all my experience with TMNT, I have never heard the warning: "Whoa dude, make sure you check for steamrollers before you come out from the sewers, don't wanna get flattened up there."

I call foul!! Right from the beginning, it's clear that this game has nothing to do with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.... Nothing. It's like they took a crappy game and threw in the Ninja Turtles to make it sellable (sellable, not necessarily playable). It almost reminds me of Doki Doki Panic; how they threw in the characters from the Mushroom Kingdom and slapped on the "Super Mario Bros. 2" title. I say almost because there is one glaring difference between that and this: Super Mario Bros. 2 was a good and quite enjoyable game. This is... the opposite. Seriously... someone explain to me what exactly this enemy (on right) is supposed to be.

This game just frustrating and disappointing on all fronts. The enemies are all wrong, and even though you can swap in and out between the four different turtles at any point, doing so is completely useless. Raph and Mike have absolutely no range and by the point at which they are close enough to actually hit an enemy, they've already taken damage themselves. If you accidentally move off screen, all of the enemies you just spent all your time killing magically re-spawn. This goes on for countless underground "levels" or "dungeons" (I'm not even sure what to call them), and just when you thought this game couldn't get any worse...

BAM!! Water level!! Sure, try deactivating 4000 bombs in 10 seconds all while navigating through a narrow pathway getting electrocuted by everything. And if the time constraint wasn't already enough, let's throw in electrified seaweed that is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to get past without getting damaged to the point of near death. Who in their right mind would–while making a game designed specifically for kids– see this and say, "yea that looks great. Put it in."

You can't take it slow navigating through this section or you'll run out of time, and you can't rush through or you'll quickly die. Your only option is to continually switch out the turtles when their health gets too low... Frustration thy name is this.

This game will forever stick in my mind as a sore spot. All that built-up excitement completely gone to waste on a less-than-satisfying TMNT experience. This was my first experience with a TMNT console game and simply ruined my expectations for the rest to come. I cannot forgive nor will I ever forget the frustration and utter disappointment that came with the number of times I saw that damn Game Over screen and had to...

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Most Frustrating Gaming Memories From My Childhood That I'll Probably Never Get Over

Let's kick things off with something fun!
Here's a nostalgic look back at those moments that killed me when I was younger and have always left a bad taste in my mouth. I will not be posting these memories in any particular order; rather I will simply provide a smattering of some annoying moments as I remember them. Let's get it started with the one that sticks out verryyy clearly in my mind.


Pilotwings (SNES)

The Final Mission

Falling through rings, then landing (that's Skydiving). Flying through rings, then landing (Light Plane). Using a jetpack to float through rings then landing (jetpack?). I'm starting to sense some sort of pattern here: something involving going through, or at least near, a series of colored dots–which upon said touching turns them to a different color, designating "passed". All this training from increasingly less-forgiving instructors to make sure you're ready for one final... WHAT THE?!? THIS HELICOPTER LEVEL IS SO IMPOSSIBLE!!!!

Is it just me, or did anyone else happen to notice that all of that so-called "training" you went through, in no way whatsoever helped prepare you for this final mission?  Not only do you fly a helicopter (something you had never been trained to use), but you also have about five thousand red dots on the ground trying to shoot you down with their anti-helicopter balls (AHBs), and about 70% of them seem to just shoot up out of the trees!!! And don't even try taking these things out, because if your crosshairs aren't just... perfectly... right over them, you miss and oops, there you go– you got hit and are now plummeting towards the ground (oh yea, did I happen to mention that you die from one hit??).

Ok, so now you're ignoring those things as much as you can and you're finally over the landing sight. Now all you have to do is slowly begin your descent... tilt a little bit to avoid all those AHBs completely surrounding the heli-pad... almost there... 100 ft... BOOM!!! Surprise attack!!! Guess what? You're dead. Time to start over for the fiftieth time. Honestly, I really want to know, how much time did you waste as a kid on this one single mission just so you could finally beat the game and feel a sense of accomplishment? 

Even when you do finally finish the mission. You get this nice achievement: "For recognition of your distinguished deeds, you are awarded Silver Pilot's Wings!" Silver.... SILVER!?!? I should get a freakin' Medal of Honor for the amount of lives I lost trying to complete that mission. If you want the Gold Pilot's Wings, you have to do that thing all over again, except this time it'll be at night. Excellent, even less visibility to see when those AHBs are flying right at you. No thanks. I'm just gonna go skydiving again, see how many flips I can do, and not "Push A to Open"my parachute. That'll take out my frustration, right?

But you know what I always will do when I see that Game Over Screen show up...


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