Bubsy: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

That grin never goes away.

Bubsy: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind taught me so many things about life. Unlike most video games that give you a health meter of some kind and let you take a few hits before your untimely demise, Bubsy never disillusions kids about the consequences of their stupid actions. Bubsy teaches everyone that death by drowning, falling, or alien abduction is only a step away.

Bubsy is a bobcat, and he's apparently as hip as they come. Aliens have taken over the world, and he's on a noble quest to bash them and slaughter their queen. The instruction manual said that the aliens chose Earth for its abundant yarn supply. Why they needed the yarn, I've long since forgotten.

Bubsy may not be the best choice for an alien-fighting hero, though. This bobcat can only take a single hit from anything before he dies. If an alien blows its nose in Bubsy's general direction, he keels over as if he suddenly contracted swine flu. Touch a tack, and Bubsy deflates instantly. Dab a toe in the water, and Bubsy drowns.

Danger is everywhere, and Bubsy's only defense is jumping on foes. Unfortunately, if you don't jump on an alien just so, Bubsy dies because the game "thinks" the alien ran into you. Trust me when I say this game is not for the impatient or easily frustrated.

Before I played this game, I didn't know that bobcats could glide. Bubsy spreads his arms and legs when falling from great heights, allowing him to land softly and safely. Of course, you can never see what's too far below you. For all you know, you might be plummeting to your doom. It's fun floating down from the top of a roller coaster or tree until you glide right into a hole or bed of nails.

The music and graphics in the game are actually pretty good; it's just that Bubsy has no concept of fairness since everything can kill you. Lives are pretty hard to find, and if you lose them all (you will), you have to start the world you're in from the beginning. Of course, you can only do that if you bothered to write down the password after beating the last world's boss. And let's be honest; who does that?

As I mentioned earlier, Bubsy has a lot to teach people. Just look at him. Despite all the setbacks and fatal injuries he suffers, Bubsy always has a ridiculous grin plastered on his face. There's a cat who knows how to make lemonade out of lemons. If you made the mistake of buying Bubsy, you can use this game to teach kids how to be grateful for the awesome games they have today. At least you won't feel like you totally wasted your money.

Chuck Rock: Promoting Obesity

Isn't it funny how you don't see too many games about cavemen these days? I think Chuck Rock scared players so much that developers refused to make another caveman game again.

In Chuck Rock, you play as a half-naked, obese caveman who plays in a rock band with his wife and pet dinosaur. The game manual explains that Chuck's cave-neighbor gets jealous of his manliness and overall success at life, so he steals Chuck's wife for himself and runs away to the ends of the earth.

So, Chuck sets out on a journey to rescue her, naturally. This is the stone age, and the dinosaurs here are royally mad at you for being a human. Chuck's belly also looks like a honey-baked ham, so I'm sure that has something to do with their lust to kill him. Chuck's beer belly isn't just for looks, though. He actually uses it as a weapon to slaughter vicious velociraptors and sea monsters. Press the "Attack" button, and Chuck proudly thrusts his belly into the face of his victim as they die an agonizing, fat-smothered death. Chuck has no other attacks, but he can pick up boulders and throw them at dinosaur's heads. He can also use them as ladders and shields. I guess in a game called "Chuck Rock," I'd expect no less.

For a man as hefty as Chuck, it's surprising what can kill him. A tiny frog swam into Chuck in the water, and he died. From a frog attack. Baby birds can easily fell Chuck, too. Perhaps the worst enemy I encountered is the swooping pterodactyl. This thing "caws" at Chuck every half-second, and the caws sound like a prepubescent teen boy having a coughing fit. While I'm on the topic of sound, let's not forget Chuck's rally cry at the beginning of every level: "Unga Bunga!" Very insightful, yes?

Chuck's belly in action.

Your goal is to make it through all the levels, kill some bosses, and find your wife. Levels are all generic, including a prehistoric jungle, cave, swamp, and snowy mountain. Throughout the levels, you can pick up food to increase your score, but I never found a reason to. Maybe you get an extra life after ten million points. I picked up every chicken leg, hot dog, and ham hock I could find, and I got nothing. If you skip picking up any of these goodies, the game will last you about an hour.

I never finished Chuck Rock, but I know it all worked out okay for him in the end. That's because there is actually a sequel out there: Chuck Rock 2: Son of Chuck. So, either Chuck saved his wife and they had a kid, or Chuck gave up, went home, and found a new girlfriend (most likely).

The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare

Imagine a video game where all you ever really do is hop around trying to avoid mailboxes, bouncing basketballs, and flying saxophones. That game is The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare.

The game introduces you to Bart's plight through a 10-second video. Bart, slacker that he is, falls asleep while doing his homework. Naturally, all the pages blow out the window. Bart chases after the pages, but falls into a nightmare world where every person and inanimate object is out to kill him.

You spend the bulk of the game running around in this excuse for a hub world as you hunt for missing homework pages. Bart can only go left and right, and he never seems to leave the same city street he's on. In this hub world, getting hit by anything drains your "Z" meter. You get more "Z's" by blowing bubbles at them. Even if you manage to hit a "Z" with a bubble, it won't count unless the "Z" floats up and hits your "Z" meter. I've never seen a game make you work so hard for health. Lose all your "Z's" and it's game over.

Sadly, everything in this game hates you. On one side of the road, flying Lisa faires try to turn you into a frog. On the other side, mailboxes tackle you as you pass by. God forbid you try to cross the road, since a school bus passes by every few seconds and it WILL run you over. Eventually, you may luck out and find a homework page drifting by.

You can't just run up and collect your homework, though. Oh, no. You have to earn it. To do that, you have to jump on the floating page. This proves a challenge, since the pages usually move faster than you. If you succeed, you go to a level select screen where you pick between two colored doors. The doors take you to one of several impossible mini-games that you must beat to retrieve your homework. Let's look at the game line-up.

First, we have the Itchy and Scratchy survival game, where Bart has to hammer and shoot the famous cartoon cat and mouse before they obliterate him. This game has the worst collision detection ever. You can shoot your foes at point-blank range, but if you're not in just the right place, too bad. Itchy and Scratchy, though, have perfect aim with their flamethrowers and rocket launchers. I won this game, but I don't know how.

Next up is the Indiana Jones rip-off game. To play, you guide Bart across a series of rocks. A rock may fall beneath your feet, killing you instantly, or Satan himself may appear to pull you down to hell. I think the goal is to reach the other side of the chasm, but I could never do it. This game is rigged for you to lose.

The third game is modeled after Godzilla in Tokyo. You, as Bartzilla, can shoot fire from your mouth and lasers from your eyes. Usually, helicopters and tanks appear on-screen to take you down before you blast them. Should you make it through the first half of the stage, your next goal is to climb to the top of a building while people throw crap out their windows at you. This gets worse as Mothra herself descends to knock you down. Take too many hits, and you're dead.

Next, let's talk about Bart's superhero game. Here, you fly through the skies armed with only a slingshot. You're expected to take down dozens of flying bad guys to earn your homework. One attack knocks off one-fourth, sometimes one-half, of your health. Bosses include a drunk man on a flying, pink elephant and a biplane that you simply cannot dodge. I beat this game once by sheer luck.

Get used to seeing this screen a lot.

The final game (that I know of) lets you play as Bart in his own bloodstream. This is one weird game. All you have to do is blow up germs before they stab you to death or throw grenades at you. Some creepy little guy floats down every now and then, cheerfully saying "Hi there!" Touch the guy enough times (insert perverted joke here) to make the homework page fall down to you.

In the end, I don't know what happens if you collect all the pages, and there is no way I'm going to play this crap long enough to find out.

Home Improvement - SNES

It's Tool Time!

Back in the day, Home Improvement was once a popular show. It featured Tim Allen as Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, who, with his buddies, hosted a TV show about powering up pretty much any machine they could. Throughout the show, Tim would periodically make grunting noises and act like a neanderthal. I can see the premise for this game already, can't you?

Yes, someone thought to make Home Improvement into a game. God help us all. The story goes that you, Tim, and your Tool Time crew, are about to unveil some super awesome new tools from the Binford Company. Only when Tim goes backstage to bring them out, he finds they've been stolen! Oh no!

Fortunately for Tim, a note was left behind telling him to “go back to the stone age.” Bright guy that he is, Tim figures that the tools were taken to some recording studio where a show about dinosaurs is being filmed. His lazy friends decide to stay behind and guard the Tool Time studio while Tim goes to get attacked by vicious dinosaurs.

I'm totally gonna kill this raptor with my staple gun.

Tim's main weapon is a staple gun, which isn't the most accurate thing in the world. He can pick up other weapons, too, but they all equally suck. As you roam around the level, you're supposed to gather the tool crates that are scattered around the place. After falling off a ledge because Tim couldn't stop running in time, I wondered why Binford doesn't just make a new set of tools. You're telling me these are the only ones in the world, and the blueprints have been destroyed?

Anyway, I'm not sure who the tool thief turned out to be, because there are no continues in this game, and I guess I'm just not savvy enough to handle “The Tool Man.” If you see a copy of this game somewhere, I suggest using it as a doorstop instead of playing it. I like to think that Tim, full of creative and ingenious ideas himself, would want it that way.

AAAHH!!! Real Monsters - SNES

The title of this game really should be “AAAHH!!! Real Garbage,” since that's pretty much what this game is. I fortunately don't remember much about the old Nickelodeon cartoon, but I do know it was about three ugly looking monsters that went around scaring people.

The developers of the game did a good job scaring me, at least, because it's difficult to describe the fear that you get when you realize you've just wasted 10 minutes of your life playing it. You get to control all three of the monsters: a short and stubby red thing with bunny ears, a fat, hairy midget who can throw his eyeballs at stuff, and some kind of black and white candy cane creature with ginormous red lips.

You would think that with three playable monsters in the game, it had to be at least somewhat fun, but no. Each monster attacks in exactly the same way, by throwing garbage at enemies. Enemies, by the way, like rats, bats and pit bulls. If these are monsters, why don't they just eat these helpless creatures and be on their way? Oh, wait, they're monsters-in-training, I forgot.

This really is a nightmare.

The monsters are on some kind of scavenger hunt for school in every single level, in which they must prove their worth by collecting a sneaker. To do so, they'll need to make use of their astounding monster powers. Two of the powers involve either making the monsters stand on top of each other or flinging them across pits. The final power lets you throw midget monster's eyeball, letting you get a look at the nightmare around you.

Sure, you might get through the first level in the dump, and collect that sneaker in the process. But when your teacher just tells you to basically go do the same thing again, only in another dump, it's then time to rip the game out of your Super Nintendo, burn it, and find something not crappy to play.

Dennis the Menace - SNES

If you've ever gone on a scavenger hunt to collect a bunch of useless, hidden items, then didn't get rewarded for your efforts, don't even bother playing “Dennis the Menace.” You've done this all before.

How do I get out of this house?

The game, loosely based on the characters from the crappy movie, is all about gathering four large gold coins in every level, then trying desperately to find the exit before getting mauled by a purple cat or a pigeon. Sure, you can collect some little gold coins, too, but they're worthless. There's nothing to buy, you don't earn a life when you collecting 100 of them, nothing.

So, Dennis goes off on an epic quest to gather these coins, while putting himself in extreme peril. In the first level, for example, he scrounges through Mr. Wilson's house, which is infested with endlessly respawning purple cats, mice, and possessed dishes. If Dennis walks too far to the end of house, Mr. Wilson chases him and throws him out. Mr. Wilson should mind his own business and go call an exterminator, as well as an exorcist, if you ask me.

Later levels have Dennis traipsing through a park in the middle of the night, then into a boiler room, all in an effort to find those gold coins. And that kid needs all the luck he can get. He's equipped with an utterly useless water pistol, a slow shooting sling shot, and a pea shooter. And you have to find the pea shooter before using it, so good luck with that.

Once Dennis gets attacked by enough wild animals, his courage meter empties, and it's back to the beginning of the level for you. No checkpoints, of course, because obviously you love coin collecting so much, that you want to do it over and over again, right? Lose all your lives, and it's game over. You don't get any continues, and there's no password feature. It's like Ocean, the company who made this trash, is laughing in your face at your failure. This means that they expect you to play this awful game for hours until you beat it, with no breaks whatsoever.

I've got news for you, Ocean: I do believe that's torture, and last I checked, torture is illegal in this country. Expect a call from my lawyers. I know once they play this game, it'll be lawsuit time.

Barbie Vacation Adventure - SNES

What could little girls possibly love more than Barbie? I mean, look at her sparkling personality and impressive intelligence. Or not. The fact is, this game is about Barbie taking a vacation around the country. I can't think of anything more exciting!

Before you take Barbie out on her vacation, you have the privilege of dressing her up. All you can really do is change the color of her skimpy outfit. Let's see. Do I want to dress Barbie in the hot pink mini skirt, or the green one? Choices, choices.

You can take Barbie to a few different states, doing boring things in every single one. My favorite had to be the camping trip in Wyoming. Barbie's got to hop across some tree stumps to get to the other side of a pond. If you fall off the stumps, which is a given, Barbie lands in some ankle deep water and starts complaining about how she needs to go back and dry off. Way to teach girls how to be all spoiled and high-maintenance, Barbie.

Next, Barbie heads to Iowa to attend a carnival run by hicks. As soon as you enter, you run into a pig, which proceeds to follow you. Barbie says, “Now I can play the carnival games!” Why the pig is a requirement to play a game, I'll never know. She should have turned the pig into a ham sandwich and went home, 'cause these carnival games suck.

Where are my %*$* presents?!

If Barbie does go home, she finds out her studly boyfriend, Ken, has thrown her a surprise party and hidden all of her presents around the house. You'll spend time in a mansion where everything is pink, looking for these crappy presents. If you find one, you'll have to guess what it is. There's not a penalty for guessing wrong, so what's the point?

I could go on about the rest of Barbie's vacation, but I really can't take anymore. All this pink is making my eyes bleed.