Paperboy
I have alot of memories playing this game as a youth, due to the fact that I was never suckered into having a REAL paper route. I'm not sure what neighborhood this game actually is supposed to take place in, but apparently every one and every thing is out to kill you for some reason. Why would someone pay for a newspaper subscription and then try to kill the person delivering it on sight? And why does the Paperboy get rewarded for breaking other people's shit? Sure, this cozy neighborhood looks middle-class, but there's all kinds of terrible shit waiting for you: there are lawnmowers that come after you, tornadoes, people coming out of the sewer, the same VW Beetle tries to run you down whenever you are forced to ride in the street, the damn Grim Reaper is walking around, dogs attack you and worst of all... every single house on the block is inhabited by the same angry man in a red bath robe. And this is one of those classic NES games where you get his ONCE and you're dead. And as if the poor kid's life wasn't already terrifying enough, if you do manage to make it to the end of the most dangerous road in the world, there's a damn obstacle course in the end! Horray! My absolute favorite part of this game is when you eventually get a Game Over.
Wow, it's like "Fuck you, you suck kid. We kicked your ass and you lost... and now you're giving up because you are weak. Oh and it's going on the front page of the paper for everyone to see." And NES even toned their Game Over screen DOWN. Look at the Atari version...
What kind of awful fucking paper is the Daily Sun? Could you imagine going to school for Journalism and getting a job at a big time newspaper company and your get handed this as your first big story. That's right, humiliate this poor local kid. Put his stupid picture on the front page and make EVERY SINGLE article about how he sucks at life. Don't stop until the poor kid is scarred for life.
Maniac Mansion
Sure, I'm cracking on every game on this post, but let me be clear when I say this game is absolute genius. Alot of NES games are hilarious because of how bad they are, this one is actually demented on purpose. It's one of the first Turn-Based games I can remember on such a scale. You take turns controlling an entire group of teens who are trying to rescue some 80's bimbo cheerleader from a house full of demented, mutant family members. You break and enter into their house, take their stuff, feed weird shit to their giant pet Tentacle, ring the doorbell and run... yeah, as you can probably tell, I never got far in this game. Apparently a meteor of some sort crashed near this family's house and turned them into brain-eating kidnappers. Many say that the mansion in this game was designed after Skywalker Ranch. Which makes sense since that place is filled with freaks and flesh-eating George Lucas.
Monster Party
My half-black friend showed me this game in 1st grade, so I assume Monster Party held some kind of street cred at the time... (kidding!) One day a boy named Mark is walking home from playing baseball (unlike the lazy bum kids sitting on their asses playing NES!), when he is approached by a gargoyle-dragon thing named Bert. Yes, fucking Bert... this game's already off to a hell of a start with that right there. Apparently, Bert's world is under attack by weird monsters... errm, OTHER weird monsters. Since Bert, a flying monster who can shoot stuff out of his eyes, isn't able to defend his world, he decides to seek the aid of the ONE person capable of destroying thousand of evil monsters - some grade-schooler with nothing but a wooden baseball bat. Hey Bert, while you're at it why don't you ask an amputee for a handjob? The greatness of this game starts in the very first level when Mark crosses in front of a big, spooky tree that proceeds to turn the entire world and all the creatures within it into piles of bones and guts and waterfalls of blood. Wooo! The idea is, you fight a bunch of hilariously stupid boss-monsters until Mark gets the key to the next level. Occasionally when killed, an enemy will drop a giant Pill. If Marks takes the pill, he temporarily turns into Bert, who can fly and shoot lasers. That's right, because taking drugs makes you better at everything. Then again, you'd have to be on drugs to actually play this game nowadays. All bashing aside, the element of comedy is a big part of this game - which is where the bosses come in. The first monster you encounter in level one is just a big dead guy who says "Sorry, I'm dead." And that's it. You fight giant pieces of deep-fried food in one level. There's another boss later in the game who dances himself to death over the course of 5-10 minutes - and there's no way to kill him yourelf, you just friggin' wait until he dies. A boss that requires the player to do nothing except wait... could you imagine some kid today playing a game where he has to wait 10 minutes and just do nothing? Kids would explode today. The moral of the story is simple for the kids: always talk to strangers late at night on your way home, especially drug-pushing Gargoyles. Every one of life's problems can be beaten to death by the wooden bat of Truth.
NARC
This game was probably the biggest reason they started putting age-restrictions on video games. This game is just rotten to the core... but everyone remembers it. I wish I could have been there for the conversation between the guy pitching the idea for NARC to his boss and his boss actually giving him the green light to make this game.
"Hey so we thought of this new game for kids, its called NARC... ya know, 'cuz kids should have Police as role models. You walk through the streets, which for some reason are only inhabited by bums throwing needles at you, stray animals, dope-dealers and other colorful child-friendly characters. Instead of making arrests or conducting an investigation, the NARCs just shoot all the hood rats and drug addicts with some kind of giant-needle shooting gun or run them down with your company car. The end boss will be a typical pimp-type character named Mr. Bigg, a great original name... and when I say 'typical' I mean he's actually just a giant head that spits out moving tongues at you. Because he has unlimited tongues... a Pimp's true wealth is counted ultimately in giant, slithery tongues."
Legendary Wings
When I got this weird ass game as a kid, it must have been one of the games on clearance because literally none of my other friends had it... and the ones that played it with me usually hated it. But honestly, The game itself was actually pretty diverse for an NES game; switching from side-scroll to over-head view frequently (it sounds stupid now, but back then...). Alot of shooting and dropping bombs and dodging shit flying everywhere. The gameplay was good... but the actual *things* in the game are fucking WEIRD! The premise of the game is this: the world is totally run by a giant master computer called "Dark," which malfunctions and causes war or some shit like that. The god "Ares" sends down two winged soldiers to go shoot a bunch of flying crap, fight giant white dragons and get inhaled into the mouths of giant monster-faces on the ground... none of which actually seems to have anything to do with computers.
The end-stage bosses are giant half-flesh half-mechanical ships that shoot eyeballs and pieces of skin?! Huh? Not only did the Japanese makers come up with a completely wack storyline but also (surprise surprise) the English translations are... less than good. Instead of calling the main enemy "Dark," the game calls him "The Devil." The fucking Devil? That's a BIG difference. I had a friend whose Christian parents wouldn't let him play Legendary Wings because of this mistranslation... literally. The DEVIL... yeah. Anhow, when you finally do get to the end of the game, "The Devil" actually just turns out to be a weird green disappearing eye-robot that shoots diamonds or some shit like that.. Check out this epic final showdown...
"You have saved Human Race from extinction. Thank you for playing"
SO SATISFYING!!!!
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