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The following videos were all posted in the year 2009 and 2010.
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The following videos were all posted in the year years 2009 and 2010.
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Per how the seasons are officially divided
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The following videos were all posted in the year 2009.
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The following videos were all posted in the year 2009.
2009 and 2010.
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[[folder:''Michael Jackson's Moonwalker'' (GEN)]]
The Nerd introduces ''Michael Jackson's Moonwalker'' as an idea that seems laughable, but in the context of the 80s, when Michael Jackson dominated pop culture, it was only fitting that the King of Pop have his own video game. ''Moonwalker'' on the Genesis (based loosely on the arcade game of the same name, which was based off of the "Smooth Criminal" segment of [[Film/{{Moonwalker}} the movie]]) was a big deal, since few games allowed players to take control of a celebrity, making it a big draw to the Genesis as a launch title (and one of the first Genesis games the Nerd ever played).
The first level opens to Michael entering the speakeasy from the iconic music video of "Smooth Criminal", which also serves as the level's theme song. The objective of each level is to fight off enemies and rescue all of the children. The Nerd finds it confusing that there are so many kidnappers and so many children hidden in doors, windows, and other parts of the scenery. The Nerd finds it frustrating that you cannot proceed through the level until ''every'' child has been found and rescued, made worse by later stages having a non-linear structure, and one stage having both children and deadly respawning bombs hidden in car trunks. Michael's main kicking attack is also ineffective against smaller enemies.
Michael has a slew of other abilities, such as tossing his hat as a projectile, grabbing his crotch, and moonwalking, most of which serve no purpose. Michael has a special attack where he can force all enemies on-screen to dance, defeating them instantly; but using it requires sacrificing half of your health, making it TooAwesomeToUse. The Nerd considers it worth it sometimes to see the enemies (human and otherwise) break into dance.
There is an invincibility power-up in the form of a shooting star. There is no way to know ahead of time when it will appear, and it goes by quickly, so it is very easy to miss. If the player is lucky enough to get it, it will transform Michael into a robot capable of flying, shooting lasers, and lobbing bombs. The only downside is that Michael cannot rescue children as a robot and must wait until his transformation ends to proceed through the level as a result.
Each level seems to have different obtuse rules for how to play. One that proves particularly frustrating is the caverns, where there is no indication that walls in the background can be broken to proceed. Another is the streets, where Michael must open manholes, which requires him to do his spinning move.
After finding all the children, the player must proceed to the boss fight. To get to the boss, players are guided by Bubbles the Monkey, who points in the ''very'' general direction the player must travel. Once the boss is found, he runs away and sends several mooks after Michael. The Nerd finds it frustrating that he has to jump through so many hoops to get to the final fight of a stage, all while there are no enemies to fight until then, which the Nerd compares unfavorably to Dracula's castle from ''Simon's Quest''. The boss can even damage Michael while being invincible himself, screwing the player if they run into him unexpectedly (which is all too possible, since the game is finicky about where you need to stand to initiate the boss fight). Worse still, dying at the boss fight requires players to wall all the way back to where he appears. This proves frustrating for the Nerd in the graveyard level, since the theme used for the stage is '''''not''''' "Thriller", even if the player uses their special attack on the zombies and makes them do the dance from the "Thriller" music video. Rumor has it that only some copies of the game have "Thriller" in them, and the Nerd is unlucky enough to own a copy that instead uses "Another Part of Me" and "Billy Jean". The zombie boss fights are also frustrating, since the zombies come in such large groups that surviving their onslaught is difficult: not even the special attack is very useful, especially since, as previously noted, it drains your health.
It is at this point that the Nerd loses it, wreaking havoc in his room before transforming into a black cat (ala the music video for "Black and White") and walking away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Milon's Secret Castle'' (NES)]]
[[/folder]]
The Nerd introduces ''Michael Jackson's Moonwalker'' as an idea that seems laughable, but in the context of the 80s, when Michael Jackson dominated pop culture, it was only fitting that the King of Pop have his own video game. ''Moonwalker'' on the Genesis (based loosely on the arcade game of the same name, which was based off of the "Smooth Criminal" segment of [[Film/{{Moonwalker}} the movie]]) was a big deal, since few games allowed players to take control of a celebrity, making it a big draw to the Genesis as a launch title (and one of the first Genesis games the Nerd ever played).
The first level opens to Michael entering the speakeasy from the iconic music video of "Smooth Criminal", which also serves as the level's theme song. The objective of each level is to fight off enemies and rescue all of the children. The Nerd finds it confusing that there are so many kidnappers and so many children hidden in doors, windows, and other parts of the scenery. The Nerd finds it frustrating that you cannot proceed through the level until ''every'' child has been found and rescued, made worse by later stages having a non-linear structure, and one stage having both children and deadly respawning bombs hidden in car trunks. Michael's main kicking attack is also ineffective against smaller enemies.
Michael has a slew of other abilities, such as tossing his hat as a projectile, grabbing his crotch, and moonwalking, most of which serve no purpose. Michael has a special attack where he can force all enemies on-screen to dance, defeating them instantly; but using it requires sacrificing half of your health, making it TooAwesomeToUse. The Nerd considers it worth it sometimes to see the enemies (human and otherwise) break into dance.
There is an invincibility power-up in the form of a shooting star. There is no way to know ahead of time when it will appear, and it goes by quickly, so it is very easy to miss. If the player is lucky enough to get it, it will transform Michael into a robot capable of flying, shooting lasers, and lobbing bombs. The only downside is that Michael cannot rescue children as a robot and must wait until his transformation ends to proceed through the level as a result.
Each level seems to have different obtuse rules for how to play. One that proves particularly frustrating is the caverns, where there is no indication that walls in the background can be broken to proceed. Another is the streets, where Michael must open manholes, which requires him to do his spinning move.
After finding all the children, the player must proceed to the boss fight. To get to the boss, players are guided by Bubbles the Monkey, who points in the ''very'' general direction the player must travel. Once the boss is found, he runs away and sends several mooks after Michael. The Nerd finds it frustrating that he has to jump through so many hoops to get to the final fight of a stage, all while there are no enemies to fight until then, which the Nerd compares unfavorably to Dracula's castle from ''Simon's Quest''. The boss can even damage Michael while being invincible himself, screwing the player if they run into him unexpectedly (which is all too possible, since the game is finicky about where you need to stand to initiate the boss fight). Worse still, dying at the boss fight requires players to wall all the way back to where he appears. This proves frustrating for the Nerd in the graveyard level, since the theme used for the stage is '''''not''''' "Thriller", even if the player uses their special attack on the zombies and makes them do the dance from the "Thriller" music video. Rumor has it that only some copies of the game have "Thriller" in them, and the Nerd is unlucky enough to own a copy that instead uses "Another Part of Me" and "Billy Jean". The zombie boss fights are also frustrating, since the zombies come in such large groups that surviving their onslaught is difficult: not even the special attack is very useful, especially since, as previously noted, it drains your health.
It is at this point that the Nerd loses it, wreaking havoc in his room before transforming into a black cat (ala the music video for "Black and White") and walking away.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Milon's Secret Castle'' (NES)]]
[[/folder]]
Added DiffLines:
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Street Fighter 2010'']]
[--Featured games: Street Fighter 2010 (NES), Fighting Street (TGCD), Street Fighter the Movie the Game (Sat)--]\\
At the dawn of 2010, the Nerd goes to retrieve his mail, only to find his neighborhood infested with strange enemies, which the Nerd recognizes from one game in his collection: ''Street Fighter 2010''. Released before ''Street Fighter II'', the Nerd is ecstatic at the possibilities of a ''Street Fighter'' game featuring the cast of the series fighting each other in a sci-fi setting.
In actuality, however, the gameplay is divorced from anything resembling Street Fighter, or even any other ''fighting game'': it is an action platformer, more like a cross of ''Mega Man'' 's shooting and ''Ninja Gaiden'' 's platforming, where players control Ken in a high-tech cybersuit fighting off bizarre enemies to draw out the level's target monster. Ken's basic weapon has a fairly short range, and the controls are not the most intuitive: the only way to shoot down is while performing an aerial somersault, and aiming diagonally is accomplished by pressing ''down'' on the D-pad, to the Nerd's chagrin.
The Nerd is perplexed by how this game could possibly tie into the ''Street Fighter'' storyline. According to the in-game intro text, Ken retired from street fighting to become a scientist, when his partner Troy was killed over their invention called "cyboplasm", which turns people into mutants. Aside from Ken, no other cast of the ''Street Fighter'' series appears. Even then, that only applies to the American version of the game; the Japanese version's protagonist is "Kevin Stryker", making it even less connected to ''Street Fighter''. The Nerd reckons that this was back before the series found its calling with ''Street Fighter II'', which eclipsed the original ''Street Fighter'' in popularity and recognition. The only home console release of the original ''Street Fighter'' was ''Fighting Street'' on the Turbografx-16, a console that was released around the same time as the Genesis and SNES but never gained as much notability as its competitors.
Sadly, the original ''Street Fighter'' was mediocre compared to its sequel: the controls were incredibly stiff, and special moves worked very inconsistently.
The Nerd also takes time to mention ''Final Fight'', which was originally intended as a sequel to ''Street Fighter'' entitled "''Street Fighter '89''" before its name was changed to avoid confusion between the two otherwise disparate games. ''Final Fight'' would go on to be its own series, albeit one with ties to ''Street Fighter''. Oddly enough, ''Street Fighter 2010'' has a subtitle: "''The Final Fight''". The fact still remains, however, that ''Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight'' had nothing in common with its namesakes.
The Nerd goes off on another tangent, leading to him exhibiting ''Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game'', a video game adaptation of the Jean-Claude Van Damme ''Street Fighter'' movie, which, itself, was an adaptation of the game series. The Sega Saturn version featured digitize graphics of the movie's actors, not unlike ''Mortal Kombat'', and played like ''Street Fighter II''. Ultimately, it was unremarkable: not terrible, but ''Street Fighter II'' is still better.
After going off on unrelated tangents, the Nerd decides to redouble his focus on ''Street Fighter 2010''. After destroying the target monster, the player must locate and enter a portal that appears in the stage. There is only a very short amount of time to find the portal, though. A time limit is also present during the stages, but the target enemies prove tough to pin down and kill.
Each stage is difficult in its own right, such as one auto-scrolling stage where players have to navigate twisting corridors quickly, lest they get pinned inbetween the edge of the screen and a wall, dying instantly. One similar stage moves in a back-and-forth manner, making it even harder. Vertically auto-scrolling stages are harder still, due to the abundance of flying enemies that are two difficult to kill for a lack of intuitive vertical attacks. Another stage has the player fight a boss while contending with a sand waterfall that slows their descent, making it difficult to attack before they shoot first. One boss takes the form of a giant eye, but you cannot hit it if you don't have enough power-ups. Even then, you need to wait for mucus walls to built up.
Distracting enemies abound throughout the game, forcing players to multitask between platforming, fighting bosses, and avoiding damage from all directions. For its faults, however, the Nerd finds himself enjoying this game, describing it as very stimulating and just difficult enough the piss you off, but not enough to discourage you.
The final stage, however, pushes players to their absolute limits: it is a long endurance stage where players must fight their way to and through three bosses before fighting the final boss, which has two forms, with only one bar of health. Dying means starting the stage over from the beginning. The time limit is also incredibly strict; getting to the final boss does nothing to refill the time the player has left. The Nerd finds this out the hard way when he reaches the final boss with only two seconds to spare.
With unlimited continues, the Nerd presses on, determined to finish the game. As the Nerd describes it, you become good at fighting past the enemies at the expense of time, so you try to rush the stage, but find yourself with little health to spare and dying too soon. The built-up frustration causes the player's concentration and skills to backslide.
The final boss's weak spot is high in the arena. Ideally, the player can climb onto a wall and shoot the face, but only if they have enough power-ups to increase their attack range. Otherwise, they won't be able to defeat the boss within the time limit. Collecting the power-ups is also time-consuming, so the player must do it quickly without taking too much damage.
Succeed, however, and the final boss will fall, and the feeling of satisfaction from beating ''Street Fighter 2010'' is immeasurable.
With that, the Nerd wishes his viewers a happy new year before realizing [[BrickJoke he forgot his mail]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Hydlide'']]
The Nerd is less than enthused at the prospect of playing ''Hydlide'', considering merely speaking its name to be nauseating. After an opening sequence where a dragon breathes fire on a princess and causes her to explode into fairies, the game begins with the hero in a field. At first blush, the game appears very similar to ''The Legend of Zelda'', even though the game precedes ''Zelda'', having been released on Japanese home computers before being ported to the NES.
First among the Nerd's criticisms is the music, which sounds like a tinny arrangement of the ''Indiana Jones'' theme and loops without end except for the ending, which sounds like a different part of the ''Indiana Jones'' theme.
Combat is a pain: attacking monsters is done by holding A and running into an enemy. Unlike in ''Zelda'', when Link is seen brandishing his sword, there is no visual indication that you are attacking the enemy, which also makes it impossible to tell if you're being attacked while trying to fight; fights are about as random as dice-based board games. Defeating enemies gives the player only a minuscule amount of EXP, requiring ridiculous amounts of grinding to level up. Players can also cast magic, but doing so is convoluted; players must select the spell they wish to cast, press A to enter combat mode, then press B to cast the spell. The process of casting magic is so time-consuming, you're likely to die in the attempt.
Making the difficulty of this game worse is the fact that dying sends you back to the beginning of the game. There is a password system for continuing progress in the game, but the process of using passwords is also heavily convoluted; open the menu, select "Save", then go back into the menu and select "Password". The passwords, themselves, are very long. Writing the password or to entering it into the game is about as long as it takes too much time.
Figuring out what to do in the game is a chore unto itself. Some treasure chests contain treasures, while others won't open. Going into a hole in the ground leads to a cavern, but with the walls hidden, it's practically a death trap where sometimes you can die for what seem to be no reason, likely an invisible enemy hidden in the darkness. To have a chance of surviving, you need a lantern, which you get from killing vampires, which necessitates a cross, which only works when attacking the vampire from behind. Lighting the caverns reveal the only threat to be fireballs which are visible regardless of whether you have the lantern; without it, you're liable to just drop dead without any rhyme or reason.
To win the game, the player needs get a better sword from the cavern, then collect a few key items, find three fairies in random trees, cross a desert, go into a hole in front of a castle that leads into the ocean, go to an island with two wizards, kill the wizards with one blast of wave magic, be taken to another castle by the fairies, burn a bush to get inside, get a grave stone, kill the dragon, take a jewel back to the castle, and kill the final boss.
The game is, overall, very cryptic. This isn't to say ''Zelda'' didn't have its fair share of cryptic puzzles, but they were less difficult in general, and there were hints of how to proceed throughout ''Zelda'', as well as the game being highly discussed among gamers (thus spreading information and hints through word-of-mouth). ''Zelda'' was also a much better-made game than ''Hydlide''. The Nerd concludes that players would be better served playing something they're more familiar with like ''Zelda'', or reaching into a dog's ass than seeking out a new game like ''Hydlide'', because you're only going to get shit either way.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Ninja Gaiden'']]
[--Featured games: Ninja Gaiden (NES), Ninja Gaiden II (NES), Ninja Gaiden III (NES)--]
The Nerd recalls fond memories of ''Ninja Gaiden'' on the NES; while the series began as a mere beat-em-up in arcades, the NES game re-imagined the game as an intense side-scrolling platformer. On top of stellar gameplay, graphics, and sound design, the games also boasted a feature that wouldn't become common in games until much later; animated cutscenes through which the story unfolded, which would become a prominent feature of the NES trilogy. The cutscenes were something of a reward for progressing through the game; clearing a level gave players a cutscene that furthered the story.
Players assume the role of Ryu Hayabusa, a ninja from Japan whose father, Ken (no relation to ''Street Fighter'''s Ryu or Ken), was killed for a demon statue that could be used to awaken an ancient evil, thus starting Ryu's quest for revenge and to save the world.
The Nerd's chief criticism with the series is that they are among the most punishingly difficult games on the NES. The second game featured environmental hazards such as strong winds that can interfere with platforming, slippery ice, and darkness that can only be illuminated by lightning. The third game is even more difficult on the principal that it had only a limited number of continues (compared to the first two games, which had unlimited continues). The Nerd describes the games as harder than even ''Castlevania'', and he has yet to beat them, but now, he intends to beat the first ''Ninja Gaiden''.
One annoyance in the game is enemies that respawn if the screen scrolls back from where they appear, making platforming difficult. This coincides with a bigger grievance: it is far too easy to be knocked into a bottomless pit. So common are falling deaths that the Nerd even forgets that the game gives players a health meter; you're more likely to die from falling than by depleting your life bar.
At his wit's end, the Nerd travels to the mountains to seek the aid of a ninja master. The ninja master offers advice to the Nerd as he continues to struggle with the game. In particular, respawning flying enemies prove to be the Nerd's bane, returning faster than he can kill them and knocking him into bottomless pits.
The Nerd begins to give up, but the ninja master insists that he persist and give him training to improve the reflex speed and rhythm of his thumbs. The Nerd struggles with his training as well, removes the cartridge from the NES, and chucks it. The ninja master, however, catches the game, throws it back into the NES, and shows the Nerd his prowess at the game, blazing through the segments that others struggle with. Impressed by the ninja master, the Nerd resumes his training and begins to improve, making his way through the game with ever-increasing ease.
Eventually, the Nerd makes it to the final boss battle in stage 6-4, which consists of three battles against different phases of the boss. While the first phase is easy enough once you get the boss's pattern down, the second phase proves to be grueling due to the boss's homing fireballs. To make matters worse, dying against the final boss forces players back to stage 6-1. Stage 6-2, in particular, is a nightmare, made worse by the overall dearth of power-ups and a lack of a stage select code. The only consolation is that players don't need to start back at previous phases of the final boss, but even this is little comfort.
The Nerd finally gives up. The ninja master tries to convince the Nerd to continue, but the Nerd isn't having it. He hands the controller off to the ninja master, but the final stage of the game proves so difficult, it reduces him to curling up in a quivering ball and drowning his sorrows in Rolling Rock as the Nerd concludes that between being forced back in the final stage, environmental hazards, and limited continues, the entire ''Ninja Gaiden'' trilogy is impossible.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Sword Quest'']]
[--Featured Atari 2600 games: ''Sword Quest Earth, Sword Quest Fire'', and ''Sword Quest Water''[[labelnote:*]]''Sword Quest Air'' was never released[[/labelnote]]--]
\\
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Pong'' Consoles]]
\\
[[folder:''Street Fighter 2010'']]
[--Featured games: Street Fighter 2010 (NES), Fighting Street (TGCD), Street Fighter the Movie the Game (Sat)--]\\
At the dawn of 2010, the Nerd goes to retrieve his mail, only to find his neighborhood infested with strange enemies, which the Nerd recognizes from one game in his collection: ''Street Fighter 2010''. Released before ''Street Fighter II'', the Nerd is ecstatic at the possibilities of a ''Street Fighter'' game featuring the cast of the series fighting each other in a sci-fi setting.
In actuality, however, the gameplay is divorced from anything resembling Street Fighter, or even any other ''fighting game'': it is an action platformer, more like a cross of ''Mega Man'' 's shooting and ''Ninja Gaiden'' 's platforming, where players control Ken in a high-tech cybersuit fighting off bizarre enemies to draw out the level's target monster. Ken's basic weapon has a fairly short range, and the controls are not the most intuitive: the only way to shoot down is while performing an aerial somersault, and aiming diagonally is accomplished by pressing ''down'' on the D-pad, to the Nerd's chagrin.
The Nerd is perplexed by how this game could possibly tie into the ''Street Fighter'' storyline. According to the in-game intro text, Ken retired from street fighting to become a scientist, when his partner Troy was killed over their invention called "cyboplasm", which turns people into mutants. Aside from Ken, no other cast of the ''Street Fighter'' series appears. Even then, that only applies to the American version of the game; the Japanese version's protagonist is "Kevin Stryker", making it even less connected to ''Street Fighter''. The Nerd reckons that this was back before the series found its calling with ''Street Fighter II'', which eclipsed the original ''Street Fighter'' in popularity and recognition. The only home console release of the original ''Street Fighter'' was ''Fighting Street'' on the Turbografx-16, a console that was released around the same time as the Genesis and SNES but never gained as much notability as its competitors.
Sadly, the original ''Street Fighter'' was mediocre compared to its sequel: the controls were incredibly stiff, and special moves worked very inconsistently.
The Nerd also takes time to mention ''Final Fight'', which was originally intended as a sequel to ''Street Fighter'' entitled "''Street Fighter '89''" before its name was changed to avoid confusion between the two otherwise disparate games. ''Final Fight'' would go on to be its own series, albeit one with ties to ''Street Fighter''. Oddly enough, ''Street Fighter 2010'' has a subtitle: "''The Final Fight''". The fact still remains, however, that ''Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight'' had nothing in common with its namesakes.
The Nerd goes off on another tangent, leading to him exhibiting ''Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game'', a video game adaptation of the Jean-Claude Van Damme ''Street Fighter'' movie, which, itself, was an adaptation of the game series. The Sega Saturn version featured digitize graphics of the movie's actors, not unlike ''Mortal Kombat'', and played like ''Street Fighter II''. Ultimately, it was unremarkable: not terrible, but ''Street Fighter II'' is still better.
After going off on unrelated tangents, the Nerd decides to redouble his focus on ''Street Fighter 2010''. After destroying the target monster, the player must locate and enter a portal that appears in the stage. There is only a very short amount of time to find the portal, though. A time limit is also present during the stages, but the target enemies prove tough to pin down and kill.
Each stage is difficult in its own right, such as one auto-scrolling stage where players have to navigate twisting corridors quickly, lest they get pinned inbetween the edge of the screen and a wall, dying instantly. One similar stage moves in a back-and-forth manner, making it even harder. Vertically auto-scrolling stages are harder still, due to the abundance of flying enemies that are two difficult to kill for a lack of intuitive vertical attacks. Another stage has the player fight a boss while contending with a sand waterfall that slows their descent, making it difficult to attack before they shoot first. One boss takes the form of a giant eye, but you cannot hit it if you don't have enough power-ups. Even then, you need to wait for mucus walls to built up.
Distracting enemies abound throughout the game, forcing players to multitask between platforming, fighting bosses, and avoiding damage from all directions. For its faults, however, the Nerd finds himself enjoying this game, describing it as very stimulating and just difficult enough the piss you off, but not enough to discourage you.
The final stage, however, pushes players to their absolute limits: it is a long endurance stage where players must fight their way to and through three bosses before fighting the final boss, which has two forms, with only one bar of health. Dying means starting the stage over from the beginning. The time limit is also incredibly strict; getting to the final boss does nothing to refill the time the player has left. The Nerd finds this out the hard way when he reaches the final boss with only two seconds to spare.
With unlimited continues, the Nerd presses on, determined to finish the game. As the Nerd describes it, you become good at fighting past the enemies at the expense of time, so you try to rush the stage, but find yourself with little health to spare and dying too soon. The built-up frustration causes the player's concentration and skills to backslide.
The final boss's weak spot is high in the arena. Ideally, the player can climb onto a wall and shoot the face, but only if they have enough power-ups to increase their attack range. Otherwise, they won't be able to defeat the boss within the time limit. Collecting the power-ups is also time-consuming, so the player must do it quickly without taking too much damage.
Succeed, however, and the final boss will fall, and the feeling of satisfaction from beating ''Street Fighter 2010'' is immeasurable.
With that, the Nerd wishes his viewers a happy new year before realizing [[BrickJoke he forgot his mail]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Hydlide'']]
The Nerd is less than enthused at the prospect of playing ''Hydlide'', considering merely speaking its name to be nauseating. After an opening sequence where a dragon breathes fire on a princess and causes her to explode into fairies, the game begins with the hero in a field. At first blush, the game appears very similar to ''The Legend of Zelda'', even though the game precedes ''Zelda'', having been released on Japanese home computers before being ported to the NES.
First among the Nerd's criticisms is the music, which sounds like a tinny arrangement of the ''Indiana Jones'' theme and loops without end except for the ending, which sounds like a different part of the ''Indiana Jones'' theme.
Combat is a pain: attacking monsters is done by holding A and running into an enemy. Unlike in ''Zelda'', when Link is seen brandishing his sword, there is no visual indication that you are attacking the enemy, which also makes it impossible to tell if you're being attacked while trying to fight; fights are about as random as dice-based board games. Defeating enemies gives the player only a minuscule amount of EXP, requiring ridiculous amounts of grinding to level up. Players can also cast magic, but doing so is convoluted; players must select the spell they wish to cast, press A to enter combat mode, then press B to cast the spell. The process of casting magic is so time-consuming, you're likely to die in the attempt.
Making the difficulty of this game worse is the fact that dying sends you back to the beginning of the game. There is a password system for continuing progress in the game, but the process of using passwords is also heavily convoluted; open the menu, select "Save", then go back into the menu and select "Password". The passwords, themselves, are very long. Writing the password or to entering it into the game is about as long as it takes too much time.
Figuring out what to do in the game is a chore unto itself. Some treasure chests contain treasures, while others won't open. Going into a hole in the ground leads to a cavern, but with the walls hidden, it's practically a death trap where sometimes you can die for what seem to be no reason, likely an invisible enemy hidden in the darkness. To have a chance of surviving, you need a lantern, which you get from killing vampires, which necessitates a cross, which only works when attacking the vampire from behind. Lighting the caverns reveal the only threat to be fireballs which are visible regardless of whether you have the lantern; without it, you're liable to just drop dead without any rhyme or reason.
To win the game, the player needs get a better sword from the cavern, then collect a few key items, find three fairies in random trees, cross a desert, go into a hole in front of a castle that leads into the ocean, go to an island with two wizards, kill the wizards with one blast of wave magic, be taken to another castle by the fairies, burn a bush to get inside, get a grave stone, kill the dragon, take a jewel back to the castle, and kill the final boss.
The game is, overall, very cryptic. This isn't to say ''Zelda'' didn't have its fair share of cryptic puzzles, but they were less difficult in general, and there were hints of how to proceed throughout ''Zelda'', as well as the game being highly discussed among gamers (thus spreading information and hints through word-of-mouth). ''Zelda'' was also a much better-made game than ''Hydlide''. The Nerd concludes that players would be better served playing something they're more familiar with like ''Zelda'', or reaching into a dog's ass than seeking out a new game like ''Hydlide'', because you're only going to get shit either way.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Ninja Gaiden'']]
[--Featured games: Ninja Gaiden (NES), Ninja Gaiden II (NES), Ninja Gaiden III (NES)--]
The Nerd recalls fond memories of ''Ninja Gaiden'' on the NES; while the series began as a mere beat-em-up in arcades, the NES game re-imagined the game as an intense side-scrolling platformer. On top of stellar gameplay, graphics, and sound design, the games also boasted a feature that wouldn't become common in games until much later; animated cutscenes through which the story unfolded, which would become a prominent feature of the NES trilogy. The cutscenes were something of a reward for progressing through the game; clearing a level gave players a cutscene that furthered the story.
Players assume the role of Ryu Hayabusa, a ninja from Japan whose father, Ken (no relation to ''Street Fighter'''s Ryu or Ken), was killed for a demon statue that could be used to awaken an ancient evil, thus starting Ryu's quest for revenge and to save the world.
The Nerd's chief criticism with the series is that they are among the most punishingly difficult games on the NES. The second game featured environmental hazards such as strong winds that can interfere with platforming, slippery ice, and darkness that can only be illuminated by lightning. The third game is even more difficult on the principal that it had only a limited number of continues (compared to the first two games, which had unlimited continues). The Nerd describes the games as harder than even ''Castlevania'', and he has yet to beat them, but now, he intends to beat the first ''Ninja Gaiden''.
One annoyance in the game is enemies that respawn if the screen scrolls back from where they appear, making platforming difficult. This coincides with a bigger grievance: it is far too easy to be knocked into a bottomless pit. So common are falling deaths that the Nerd even forgets that the game gives players a health meter; you're more likely to die from falling than by depleting your life bar.
At his wit's end, the Nerd travels to the mountains to seek the aid of a ninja master. The ninja master offers advice to the Nerd as he continues to struggle with the game. In particular, respawning flying enemies prove to be the Nerd's bane, returning faster than he can kill them and knocking him into bottomless pits.
The Nerd begins to give up, but the ninja master insists that he persist and give him training to improve the reflex speed and rhythm of his thumbs. The Nerd struggles with his training as well, removes the cartridge from the NES, and chucks it. The ninja master, however, catches the game, throws it back into the NES, and shows the Nerd his prowess at the game, blazing through the segments that others struggle with. Impressed by the ninja master, the Nerd resumes his training and begins to improve, making his way through the game with ever-increasing ease.
Eventually, the Nerd makes it to the final boss battle in stage 6-4, which consists of three battles against different phases of the boss. While the first phase is easy enough once you get the boss's pattern down, the second phase proves to be grueling due to the boss's homing fireballs. To make matters worse, dying against the final boss forces players back to stage 6-1. Stage 6-2, in particular, is a nightmare, made worse by the overall dearth of power-ups and a lack of a stage select code. The only consolation is that players don't need to start back at previous phases of the final boss, but even this is little comfort.
The Nerd finally gives up. The ninja master tries to convince the Nerd to continue, but the Nerd isn't having it. He hands the controller off to the ninja master, but the final stage of the game proves so difficult, it reduces him to curling up in a quivering ball and drowning his sorrows in Rolling Rock as the Nerd concludes that between being forced back in the final stage, environmental hazards, and limited continues, the entire ''Ninja Gaiden'' trilogy is impossible.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Sword Quest'']]
[--Featured Atari 2600 games: ''Sword Quest Earth, Sword Quest Fire'', and ''Sword Quest Water''[[labelnote:*]]''Sword Quest Air'' was never released[[/labelnote]]--]
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[[/folder]]
[[folder:''Pong'' Consoles]]
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The correct form is "bald-faced".
Changed line(s) 98,99 (click to see context) from:
The game continues as the player is introduced to Jane, whose father harps on her for being single and demands she finds someone to settle down with. Afterwards is an overly long montage of John and Jane getting ready to face the day, taking showers (with long-nosed censors blocking the nudity, which can be removed with a cheat code), getting dressed, and partaking in other miscellanious activities. John, in particular, is seen playing air guitar with a plunger, suggesting that he is the eponymous plumber, but is later seen wearing a tie, making the game's title "''Plumbers Don't Wear Ties''" a bold-faced lie.
to:
The game continues as the player is introduced to Jane, whose father harps on her for being single and demands she finds someone to settle down with. Afterwards is an overly long montage of John and Jane getting ready to face the day, taking showers (with long-nosed censors blocking the nudity, which can be removed with a cheat code), getting dressed, and partaking in other miscellanious activities. John, in particular, is seen playing air guitar with a plunger, suggesting that he is the eponymous plumber, but is later seen wearing a tie, making the game's title "''Plumbers Don't Wear Ties''" a bold-faced bald-faced lie.
