May Together Retro: Bad to the Bone!

[prfsnl_gmr]

Ugh. Those games are terrible. Such a blatant attempt to cash in on Sonic the Hedgehog’s popularity made by people who had no grasp of why Sonic appealed to anyone. “WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!”

I admire you determination, Jag, and I am anxious to read what you have to say about them.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I have the first Bubsy on Genesis. It's essentially unplayable. The hit detection, speed, controls, everything is just....... terrible. What a mess. Good luck.

Hit up the Atari again last night for an additional atrocity: Squeeze Box. Another gem by Quaker Oats. You're a guy escaping a room where the walls close in. Walls can be destroyed with a gun. The man's sprite is huge which makes it hard to aim. Gets old in 10 seconds. Looks and plays like crap. I don't even feeling like talking about it anymore. Seems like many of these D-list Atari developers attempted to craft Activision style games (simplistic but addictive score chasers) but failed miserably.

[Nemoide]

I'm really glad to see you playing Bubsy. Suffer like I did.

I beat the original Fist of the North Star tonight! JEEZE, this game was a pain and the last level ESPECIALLY SO. It's super-long, the enemies are largely much harder than earlier stages, and there are TONS of random projectiles flying at all possible directions. To beat this game without save states is to know pain. Hell, even using save states it was pretty rough. The tougher enemies are still pretty easy, but it can be pretty tricky to beat them without taking damage, and of course even if you make it to the boss, dying means restarting the level. @_@
Anyway, after making it to the last boss, Raoh, the trick seems to be "stay by the edge of the screen and just kick like a crazy person." He dies, a woman (Yuria?) comes out and you get one of the lamest ending screens in video game history saying "and... history repeats itself"
Then you get to play through another loop! Maybe it's harder? I don't care, I'm not spending another minute playing this garbage game! I never played the NES sequel but seeing it on YouTube makes it look like a better game (though still far from good). I'm curious about the third game in the series, which is an RPG and is also included on the Shonen Jump Famicom Mini. But I'm not in the mood to play a bad JRPG right now.

Anyway, I'm glad I could cross this game off the backlog! There's still at least one other game I'd like to try out this month, though I'm not going to aim to beat it...

[Jagosaurus]

This is RB quote of the year thus far for me

So far, Double Dragon is pretty much the most realistic beat em up ever in that: (1) you are terrible at fighting; (2) you get your ass kicked in a few seconds; and (3) it isn’t fun at all.

My 4 year old son was with me during a bit of Bubsy today. 3 great quotes after only about 8 minutes...

"Is he supposed to be some kid of wolf!?"
"Um..... can we please play Mario now?"
"Well... water doesn't kill Mario"


What was with those water slides!? What did you talk me into...

Okay... I beat stage 1 goofing around. But.... forgot to save state as we exited for some Mario 3 action. Back to it tomorrow or tonight

[BoneSnapDeez]

Haha, I had a similar experience this evening. Played some Bubsy with my daughter watching. She hated it, and we ending up switching to 2-player Super Mario World.

But holy shit Bubsy is worse than I remembered. What the hell is up with all the random deaths?! The collision detection is so broken that it's incredibly easy to "fall incorrectly" or inadvertently make contact with an enemy.

Even worse is how deaths are rendered ambiguous by the overly lengthy and complex death animations. Like, am I walking right now? Am I controlling the character? Nope! I'm actually "dying" in a really goofy elaborate way. "lol"

What a shitty game.

[Jagosaurus]

Haha, I had a similar experience this evening. Played some Bubsy with my daughter watching. She hated it, and we ending up switching to 2-player Super Mario World.

But holy shit Bubsy is worse than I remembered. What the hell is up with all the random deaths?! The collision detection is so broken that it's incredibly easy to "fall incorrectly" or inadvertently make contact with an enemy.

Even worse is how deaths are rendered ambiguous by the overly lengthy and complex death animations. Like, am I walking right now? Am I controlling the character? Nope! I'm actually "dying" in a really goofy elaborate way. "lol"

What a shitty game.

Our kids are smarter than us!

I just try to use the float mechanic as much as possible. It SEEMS like this kills enemies MOST of the time. If you ever play the 3rd game in the series on the Jaguar, the devs expect it of you. Gets really old floating around. There's really no other way to progress far so I THINK it'll be the same here. Who knows though.

There is one section in the first level where you get rewarded for going down a pipe/lid thing... okay, like Mario. Nope! Later in the same level, going down one killed me...

Yeah, the long animations are rough & I keep thinking I am still walking...

HOL-EE CRAP... there are 16 levels !? Here are the level select PWs if you're on real hardware (from Genesis FAQ). I'll be using save states an end of levels in emu... no way I attempting a straight play-through.

Chapter 2: CKBGMM
Chapter 3: SCTWMN
Chapter 4: MKBRLN
Chapter 5: LBLNRD
Chapter 6: JMDKRK
Chapter 7: STGRTN
Chaper 8: SBBSHC
Chapter 9: DBKRRB
Chapter 10: MSFCTS
Chapter 11: KMGRBS
Chapter 12: SLJMBG
Chapter 13: TGRTVN
Chapter 14: CCLDSL
Chapter 15: BTCLMB
Chapter 16: STCJDH

[prfsnl_gmr]

God bless you both. Bubsy is f*cking awful.

You know what game isn’t actually that bad? Extreme Sports with the Berenstain Bears for the Gameboy Color. The concept is pretty insane, obviously. You play as eithe Brother Bear or Sister Bear, from the Berenstain Bears children’s book series, competing in a series of “extreme” sports. The design is a bit lazy. The game’s four events - sledding, kayaking, mountain biking, and skateboarding - are distinguished primarily by the level background. (PRO-TIP: If the course is blue, you’re kayaking.) The graphics kind of stink. The opening and ending look like they were drawn in MS Paint. Once you learn how to play it, though, the gameplay is actually OK. You go through a course avoiding obstacles and try to reach the end in the least amount of time. Doing a trick when you jump off a ramp, or just whenever in the kayak stage, temporarily stops the timer; so, doing frequent tricks, of which there are one or two per event, is critical to getting a good time. More critical is memorizing the levels so you can avoid obstacles effectively. You can play through all four events quickly enough (i.e., in about five minutes) and it’s hard enough (i.e., I have yet o place above second on the beginner difficulty), that it’s actually pretty addictive once you start getting good at it. It ends up being a perfectly fine racing game/score chaser whose bad reputation is, I think, largely unearned. (Don’t get me wrong...it isn’t great, and since there are so many other, more compelling games out there, I probably won’t put in the time necessary to beat it. It just isn’t complete garbage, like Bubsy.)

[Ack]

You know, I tried once to sit down with Bubsy and beat it, and my one regret is that I sat down with Bubsy and tried to play it.

I have a habit of not going back to games that I've played unless something new has been added, like achievements, because I'm a dork, so unfortunately I've not been doing much with bad games lately. I can point out some utter crap if you like, particularly on the SNES, though you fellas seem pretty well covered on there.

Maybe I'll install some terrible PC games and give them a go.

[Nemoide]

Maybe I'll install some terrible PC games and give them a go.

SOMEONE ought to play Daikatana...

[Ack]

Maybe I'll install some terrible PC games and give them a go.

SOMEONE ought to play Daikatana...

Someone already has beaten it, both on PC and N64. That same someone actually quit a summer challenge over it, because...ooph.

It's not so bad in multiplayer though.