NEW WEEKLY FEATURE! Free Flash Friday Presents- Fantasy Online!

Yes that's right, Free Flash Friday Presents- ‘Fantasy Online!’ Or as I like to call it- Fantasy Boreline. Boretasy Online. Fanboresey Boneline. It’s boring.

Obscure Title Tuesday….is DEAD!

And replaced with this much more relevant, accessible, and user friendly weekly article which will review free flash games online that you can play RIGHT NOW!  

http://www.kongregate.com/games/PixelatedGames/fantasy-online 

As opposed to when you had to buy a Nintendo Entertainment System that works along with the corresponding obscure title which wouldn’t be worth it anyway just to play the games in the articles I was talking about. Or, alternatively just easily download an emulator to play the NES games for free.

Given the abundance of free time I have here at Law School, I though it would be a good idea to visit the hallowed internet tubes of places like kongregate.com, newgrounds.com, and armorgames.com, whose only purpose is to bring you sweet, sweet, productivity destroying time wasters, most of which suck. But it’s the thought that counts.

This week’s feature from Kongregate is Fantasy Online a ripoff of Diablo except that this game is a lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot crappier. And suckier!

Where to begin? It’s exactly like Diablo in that you have different classes to start with, you kill endless hoards of bad guys, get gold, use gold to buy better weapons or find unique items that your enemies drop after you kill them, there’s the magic type, the brute-force type, and the archer type, you gain levels by gaining experience through killing bad guys, you get attribute points…..it is literally EXACTLY like Diablo and games of that nature with the only technical difference being that in this game you have to use gold to buy different special abilities for your character to use, whereas in Diablo you got those skills automatically by leveling up.

It just looks so endlessly interesting! Boretasy boreline indeed.

So why does this game suckola? If I had to define the graphics of this game...I would characterize them as being worse than an 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System game that sucks. It’s not charming. I think that’s what they might have been going for, but it didn’t work. You’re a poorly rendered sprite. The earliest version of these types of Diablo-esque games that I know of is Final Fantasy for the NES (The original! As in, the first one. Which I own. Jealous??) and when you’re an online game with 20 years worth of technological advances and a multiplayer mode is easily defeated by one of the FIRST of these types of games, you’ve failed.

There’s no story here. Where’s my story? Cause all I see is random quests to help out endless townspersons here and there; there’s no sweeping narrative where you have to save the world and/or princess and/or your father and/or the future. Sure, you can explore and fight with your friends or strangers, but the sucky aspects of this game far outweigh that. There’s no SOUND! Can I get a freaggin’ theme song in the background please? I would have made one for this game FOR FREE. I STILL WILL! If they ask me, I will make free music and sound for this sucky game. At least something for the damn loading screen... sheesh.

Fighting enemies is underwhelming…you click on them once and the game does the rest unless you use a spell or special ability, but... it just sucks. Sometimes your attacks don't hit or your healing spells don't work because the game is laggy. The leveling-up system is so slow; if more then one enemy attacks you at the same time, then you have to run away or spend quite a few hours leveling up in a lower level area.

There are some attempts at humor thrown in. You start off at ‘Noob Island.’ But for the number of characters and dialogue this game has and given how much the game sucks in general, you’d think they’d have made humor a priority. Most townspeople just explain the quest you have to do. Where’s my context? Where’s my motivation? I’ll be in my trailer. No Blue M&M’s.

Now at first I was going to state, given this game has just under 1.5 million plays, ‘I don’t understand why people play this game’ (because it sucks). But then I realized, I made it all the way to level 12 and that took more hours then I’d like to publicly admit. So I guess there’s just something about games involving leveling up to incrementally improve yourself as the bad guys incrementally improve along with you that just feeds some gamer need in a substantial number of us. Everybody probably already knew that though. Shout out to WoW! And allll my mages! Magi, rather.

See, the fatal flaw with this game is: it’s too in depth and lengthy to be an hour or two time-waster, but not good enough to be something you pour a substantial amount of time into. Not dope, you guys. Not dope.

1.5/5 Paaaaass. 

50th Blog Post Spectacular!!! Obscure Title Tuesday Presents: SuperDopeGaming.com for your PC!!

Yes that’s right, we’re celebrating our 50^th post here at SuperDope, and the time just flew by, didn’t it? I’m writing this post to commemorate this auspicious occasion (look it up) to look back and remember some of the important and defining moments of the site spawning back all the way to its humble beginnings four whole months ago. Who could have guessed that just 1/3 of a year later, we would be celebrating our four month anniversary. Come with me...on a walk down memory lane:

The First Review

And what a review it was! Nostalgia had never run more rampant as Ocarina of Time was reviewed by this sites patriarch. The first, and, to date, only perfect score, a clear 5/5. Few people understand that this review still holds sway over decisions made here at the offices today. For example, I recently became enamored with the series Alice is Dead, however, extraordinary as I thought the game was, it fell just short of a 5 out of 5 receiving only a 4.75 out of 5, out of deference to that first perfect score.

Fresh New Faces

As out patriarch started to branch out, seeking other respected gamers, he found an eclectic mix of writers to found the basis of the content for the site. While yours truly provided consistent game reviews of the more obscure variety, writer Jason H provided articles that were geared towards the theoretical, philosophical, and psychological nature of games. More followed, and soon the staff here at SuperDope grew to ultimately boast a roster of almost six people.

Controversy

But it wasn’t all roses, was it? Who can forget some of our more colorful controversies over the months? The name change comes to mind as the most prevalent- Superdopegaming was, as some of our hardcore fans may remember, formerly Superdopegamereviews dot com, which some thought had a nice ring to it but whatever. The powers that be ultimately decided that, because this site is more then just reviews, a name change to reflect as such would be more appropriate. It almost tore the site apart. Yet, here we stand, more then 30 consecutive days later, able to enjoy, and reflect.

Also, who could forget that one really really racy picture from that one time:

Here it is! Look at it!

F*cking look at it.

Fortunately, sex and Video Games have always gone hand and hand, tho, the picture did force our offices to institute a 2 and out policy, in which any employee caught wankin it to that picture in his office twice would be fired. Fortunately, most stop at one, tho a court case is pending for one of our employees who was caught furiously masturbating in his office to a different picture for a second time. Ha ha ha, oh KeepinItFresh, you sexual pervert.

Drugs and Writing Don’t Mix…Or Do They?

Village people?? Hah hah hah! Hilarious!

Then there’s my personal favorite, that one time I got doped up on pain meds but decided to write my weekly article anyway. What otherwise would have been a huge error and waste of time for both readers and my editor ended up being a perfect mix of comedy and pity.

Well, that’s it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say, to borrow and paraphrase a phrase: Four more months! Four more months! What more amazing moments will await the gaming community as SuperDope enters its less-than-half-a-year anniversary? Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure: As long as there are Video Games, there will be SuperDopeGaming.com to tell you what you need to know about them.

3.75/5 Solid Video Game Reviews! Reliable! Room for Improvement!

Obscure Title Tuesday: Vegas Dream!

Obscure Title Tuesday presents- Vegas Dream for the NES! Or as I like to call it- I just hab an emergency appendectomy to cure my appendicitis and I’n still high on pain meds.

Ok, so listen you guys…….this is a gambling one. It’s a one where you gamble. I’m not good at gambling, but if I was then I would gamble mor. In this game, you gamble mor.

There are 4 games to choose from- blackjack, slotmachine, and others. You start out with money, and try to win more money. If you loose all money, then you loose, like in real life.

You can loose all your money quickly if you do the slotmachine, but you can win consistently if you do Keno, b[ackjack, or the other one. Wait no, cause the other one is roulette, and that one is like meh. So do the other 2.

Listen, this game is allright. 4 players can play. Videogames are kind of like Appendicitis, in that when you loose, it hurts, like after loosing your appendix. Which would probably make more sense if you had just had 

your appendix out.

Cause it makes perfect sense to me.

There is also many dis-similarities between appendicitis and video games, unless the video games is one of those medical ones where you have to do surgeries on someone who has appendicitis, or something similar. Then it’s remarkably similar in many ways.

village people

This game is allright. 4 players can play. There are 4 ganes to choose form. One of them is blackjack. Do it.

I would rate game this like 80%. But then again, I woud laso rate appendimitus like, 0%. So you have to take it as it comes.

hot chick

black guy

Listen, games can be fun. But don’t do it for real just cause you’re good at the game. That’s how you loose money, unless you win. So you have to take it as it comes.

village people

what?

yaah

85% is what I would rate this game.

Obscure Title Tuesday: Anticipation!

Obscure Title Tuesday presents- Anticipation for the NES! Or, as I like to call it: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

This may be as obscure as it gets! This little ditty, unsurprisingly for the NES, is probably so obscure because it’s just a game of Pictionary. That’s it. There’s a board you go around, and each color space on the board is a different category, like letters, clothing, food, etc. Wooo!

The entire game play is: you see dots on the screen, and then, as time runs out, the game starts connecting the dots with a pen, drawing in lines here and there. When you think you know the answer, buzz in and, one painstaking letter at a time, spell out what you think is being drawn as the picture. (Gah you need to know how to spell. I can’t tell you how many times I yelled at the screen: It’s a Friggan Xylaphone! The thing marching bands have!! Xylafone!!! Xylaphoooone!!!! *timer runs out* *sadly, to self* zylaphone.) Also sometimes the answer is so long it’s hard to spell out the answer before time runs out, given the awkward slippery letter choosing system.

......Those Dippin' Dots Ice Cream?

Once you get all 4 colors, you move up to the next level. There are 3 levels total. Get past the third level and you WIN!!!! There’s a few different difficulty settings for the computer players. *Yawn*

I’m not gonna lie, I’m mailing in this review by doing Anticipation. I always knew I was gonna do it because it’s so obscure, but, there’s absolutely nothing to say about it. No jokes to be made. They made an entire NES game about connect the dots. It’s Meh. The game is Meh.

"Hat."

Ooooh, actually, HERE’S how you know a game’s crappy: The box art has no cartoon character, or recognizable character, or anything extraordinary, or even gripping. The box art for this game is literally real, no-name actors being normal people playing what I can only assume, but I have no guarantee is, this video game.

The 80's

The only other example of a game that is so bad it has a no-name actor doing something normal is that game Razor Scooter 64 for the Nintendo 64. You guys remember thaat? The box art was like, a 12 year old on a razor scooter. That was it! I want my box art to have either a cartoon, or a sword, or a gun, or a Plumber, or a woman in a space suit, or an Italian -- NOT an actor you hired to take a picture of themselves doing something that they can do in their everyday clothes. Even worse, the family in this box art is playing the game itself WHICH YOU CANNOT SEE!!!!

They don't even show the television!

Gah, that’s bad. Can you imagine? Its so bad, they won’t even let you see the television on which they are playing the game; it is so bad, you are to know nothing about the gameplay or nature of this game until after you’ve bought it. It’s a family, looking engaged, gathered round what I’m guessing is a television playing what is impliedly this game. And that could be the box art for ANYTHING. In not showing the product itself, just a happy family doing something you assume is this game, that could be the marketing for any product ever. Certainly any video game or movie or television series… just have someone on the movie box art looking at a television screen happily. But also, for any other product, you could market it this way.  Because the box art doesn’t... you wouldn’t know... it’s not... you could have a microwave, and the art on the box is a smiling family LOOKING like they just ate something.

So wait......which one farted?

I’m not done. The box art has EIGHT FRIGGIN’ PEOPLE ON IT! How many controllers fit in a regular Nintendo Entertainment System? It’s less then 3. The game itself had a max of 4 people! I would be misled, seeing this box art, because I would know nothing about the game itself and therefore would infer the only logical conclusion: 8 people can play this game at the same time. Which is not unreasonable because the tagline is ‘Nintendo’s first video board game’ and many board games, like Monopoly, can have up to 8 players. LIARS!

Liar!

LIAR!

It’s a meh game and that’s all there is to it. The music is meant to be quick, short and catchy, games go by quickly, and the only thing good that I can think of to say about it is that it would be an acceptable way to pass 20 minutes if there was nothing on television because of another writers-strike and the internet hadn't been invented yet. Otherwise, no need. To quote Norm MacDonald: “I Bet ‘Board’ is spelled ‘B-o-r-e-d." Thanks, Norm. If you were a Video Game, you would get a 5.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqeqsBQ0wq0&feature=related

2.5/5 It’s Not That it Sucks, it’s That This Person Wants to Give You a High Five:

Obscure Title Tuesday: WWE With Authority!

No I did not rip-off this image from another site, I just really wanted to name my manager 'GameSpot.'

Obscure Title Tuesday Presents: WWE With Authority! for your PC! Or, as I like to call it - Pokemon for Wrestling Nerds.

For those of you who are unaware, there are a few television shows that air every week by a company called ‘World Wrestling Entertainment.’ In these shows, grown men with varying colorful names and personalities beat the ever loving crap out of each other! And in my youth, I was such a fan… such a huge fan, you guys.

First of all, the Rock was my homeboy. Second of all, everything that happened was totally bad-ass: people would get hit in the face with steel chairs and thrown in the air and then land on a table, and then the table would break, people would insult each other and THEN hit each other in the face with chairs... it was a way for me to let out all my pent up 7^th grade aggression by yelling at the television. Third, don’t even get me started about wrestling today. Why, back in my day, we didn’t have any of this PG nonsense, we walked uphill both ways in the snow. Damnit.

Global Ranks on the left. Wrestling is very popular in Japan and also Mexico. And now you just learned something.

So while I cheered on my favorite "good guy" wrestlers and booed vehemently against my least favorite "bad guy" wrestlers, I found out about an online turn based Card game that I could play for free! I was all over that like something on a fitting analogy.

This is a card game much like Pokemon or Magic the Gathering, with a few key differences. You first select a wrestler, who all have different health (hit points) and a special ability. You create a deck of cards, including which 5 cards you start every match with. Most cards are simply wrestling moves that do damage to your opponents health, like ‘body slam’, clothesline’, or ‘throw over the top ropes’ Only, each move requires a certain amount of momentum, which is a type of card you can play during the game besides a wrestling move. Momentum comes in a few different types, like Strength, Strike, Technical, Agility, and Knowledge. Wrestlers that are fat and known for being strong have limits placed on how much ‘agility’ momentum they can have, etc. Then there are special cards that do different things like increase damage done with moves, make you draw more cards, make your opponent have to ditch a card, whatever. In the game, after each turn you draw a card, and the object is to play wrestling moves to beat up your opponent enough that you can pin him and win the match.

I like Rob Van Dam more then I like The Big Show because RVD is not looking at me angrily, a disapproving menacing frown emanating from his core.

There is also the ability to counter moves. Every move, besides requiring certain kinds of momentum like strength or knowledge, also has a type, like ‘in close’, ‘arm extended’, or ‘behind’. Some moves counter other move types, so if you play ‘body slam’, which is an 'in close' move, and your opponent has enough momentum, he can counter your body slam, without getting hurt, by a move like ‘punch’ or ‘push’ or ‘vertical suplex’… moves that counter in close moves. Now the other guy has to respond to the move used to counter, and on and on. Also, each wrestler has 2-4 special moves, like finishers or trademarks, that only he can perform.

There is no single player option for this game. Besides a helpful tutorial, once you create a deck, you go into a chat room, find an opponent, and try to beat the ever-loving bajeesus out of each other. Though this game was marketed as ‘free’ you start out with about 60 cards and each playbook needs a minimum of 50, but if you wanted any one of the thousands of other, better, more helpful cards out there, you could pay a paltry fee of 3 dollars and get 10 or so of those better cards. And that was how they made money. I believe, all in all, I blew about 40 dollars on this game. By the way - worth it. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent man-handling other people with my Rikishi playbook. Also, there were chat rooms to talk about wrestling, or trade cards.

The Rocks real first name is Dwayne. Him and Dwayne Wade make bein' named Dwayne cool.

The game itself did a very excellent job of simulating the entire wrestling experience. The game play area looks like a wrestling ring, complete with fans and flashbulbs in the background. To win, you have to ‘pin’ your opponent when their health gets low, but they could kick out and the game would continue. Some moves, like ‘low blow’ and ‘steel chair to the face’ are illegal, and if you connect with them, the referee would give you ‘warnings.’ Receive too many of these and you would likely, tho not always, get disqualified. Furthermore, throughout how ever many years I played this game, they were always coming out with new cards and wrestlers, as new Wrestlers became popular in the WWE, and new wrestling moves were being performed on the show. This was a nice touch to keep it fresh. They also had weekly tournaments where the winner would face the current ‘champion’ and if he won, he would become the World Heavyweight Championship title holder for that week, until he would have to defend it the next week. It was totally sweet; though, I was never good enough to win a title. I was too cheap to buy the really good cards I would have needed to win. And by that I mean my parents were not willing to blow any more money on this game for me.

I loved this game for a few reasons. The competition was an important aspect, because you’re not playing against a stupid computer AI, you’re going full out against another thinking person who probably spent just as much time perfecting his playbooks as you did, and winning felt really satisfying, every time. Also, everyone could see your rank and how many places, among the thousands who played, you were from being number one. But also, there was a huge amount of strategy in this game. For example, before I even played a game, I would count the number of move type cards I had in my playbook and compare that to the total number of cards I had in my playbook in order to calculate what percentage of my cards would counter certain moves my opponent might play, and also what percentage chance I had to draw a momentum card each turn. I would try to balance it so that I had a higher percentage chance to draw moves that countered the most popular and widely used move types. Various in game strategies include letting your opponent hit you with all his weak moves to save your counters for hurtful moves, or just loading your playbook with only one type of uncommon move type, like leg extended.

'Chair Shot' has yet to be recognized as an official wrestling move by the National Collegiate Wrestling Organization

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Tragically, this game died. Apparently it cost the WWE more money to pay the staff running this game then it did money they made off of online card sales, so they closed down the site hosting this great game. Thus, my totally awesomely ranked Rikishi became a worthless memory, and my 40 dollars worth of online cards were quickly revealed to also be a worthless memory.

However, good things come to those who wait. Don’t get me wrong, the game is still dead, but about four years later I was looking on-line, and for nostalgia, I looked up ‘With Authority.’ Though the game was long gone, a super fan had made it so that he was hosting the game himself, and you could play it online again! Still, there are only about ten people who play nowadays. BUT… I, of course, out of curiosity, went to play a few rounds, and imagine my euphoric surprise when, in order to get the game to work, the guy hosting had to make it so that every new player has access to multiple copies of every single card that had ever been made in the game. So there I was, only five years ago dreaming of obtaining one specific card to improve my one playbook, and now, I had access to every single card they ever made, ever. I made like, 20 playbooks before I even played anyone, instantly remembering my winning formula for playbook by Math and odds calculation. And you know what? That very same day, those ten leftover people, from a time when this game thrived with the pulse of light, hosted a tournament for the WWE With Authority Heavyweight Championship Title. And you know what? I F**king WON that thing, BABY!!! Whooooo!!!! In your FACE, Bitches!!! Don’t you ever tell me I’m not a gamer, I got your strategy right here… in my PANTS!

If you’re just too curious, you can download the game here: http://www.wap2p.com/ Feel free to ask if you’re having trouble figuring stuff out, anyone would happily help you, assuming anyone of the ten people are in the chatroom.

3.75/5 Dope! Strategy Will Make You a Winner, Jabroni! Know Your Role and Play This Game! Smell What This Game is Cookin’! Gaming 3:16!!!

Obscure Title Tuesday: Sesame Street ABC & 123!

Obscure Title Tuesday Presents: Sesame Street ABC & 123! Or, as I like to call it, The one that taught me how to count and shit!

Ahhh, Sesame Street. Whether it be fond memories of a childhood learned to read and count from you, or Liberals using scare tactics like "Republicans want to cut funding to Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) so they can kill Big Bird", those Jim Henson creations have a special place in my heart.

That being said, this game is shit. Just Kidding! More like the shit! Though the game will have absolutely zero replay value now to anyone old enough to read this article, rating it in regards to the age range this game was targeted for (the very young that are just learning the different letters, numbers, colors, and shapes), this game is great!

All you favorite Sesame street characters are here (except Snuffleupagus) hosting 4 mini games, each with varying degrees of difficulty that you can set easily from each mini games start screen:

Wait...both 'B' and 'P' work here. What the hell????

Big Birds Letter Go Round: A giant Ferris wheel moves around and around, with each cart being a different letter. You push A to stop the Ferris wheel to select one of the letters. The easiest mode has you matching upper case and lower case letters, while the more difficult levels prompts you to fill in the missing letter for a word, or even to spell out your own word……And don’t you spell out a cuss word you dirty piece of crap, childhood innocence is on the line!

Oh, and if you spell enough words right, Big Bird comes and dances across the screen! And that yellow mutha-sucker is off the hook! He’s all dancing and jumpin’ up and down to this cool music; I learned how to dance from this game.

Ummmmm......yes?

Astro Grover: This is the numbers one. Little aliens come across the screen, and you either count how many there are (1-9) or do simple addition and subtraction (the answers never go above the number 9). Now, I love Math, but for one section of the game, there’s this Moon, and NOT ONLY does the moon, in the normal state of the game, look sad and unconfident in your number identifying ability, but if you get the answer wrong, the moon shakes his disappointed head ‘no’ and this really scary music plays. It’s only for a second, but it scared the crap outta me when I was that young. It was my second biggest surprise Video Game scare ever. The first being the evil music and flashing lights from when you beat world 7 in Super Mario Brothers 3; then you get the letter from the Princess, at least you THINK it’s from the Princess because all 6 other letters were nice, quiet, no background music, peaceful power-up-giving letters from the princess, and you go to look at the similar looking letter then BAM!!!!! The letter is really from Bowser! and scary music plays, and I shit my pants and ran into my Mommy’s room. And she said: ‘I guess we won’t buy you any more Video Games that scare you. And you know what? I manned up, went back and beat that f*cking World 8. Cause that’s how Super Dope Gaming writers be when they’re kids.

I'm Sorry!

Ernie’s Magic Shapes: Match the shapes! And the colors! For example: match a square with a square, but don’t choose the triangle because a triangle is not a square, dumbass. Or, Ernie shows you a red square, and you can select from a blue square, a red square, a green square, etc. Though, for some reason, for the red square, you can not select a triangle again. But why would you, dumbass? The highest difficulty section has a complicated picture like a bird made up of many different shapes, and you have to match several different, similar-but-not-exact shapes to the picture.

Ernie......you're kinda bein' lazy here.

Ernie’s Big Splash: This is a spatial game kind of like snake. No! It’s more like pipes, where you start out in a square as a rubber duckie, and you can go straight, up, left, or right based on different pieces that you can select from, and you keep going until you make a path from your box to Ernie. The harder difficulties have various Sesame Street characters you have to navigate through before you get to Ernie. When you make it to Ernie, you see the rubber duckie go through all the boxes with these little animations and sound effects; when Ernie gets his duckie, he rejoices happily, splashing carefree in his tub in what I presume is all his nude Muppet glory.

The music for this game is good, the dancing Big Birds will blow your mind, and I definitely remember learning several new words from this game. Dope!

3.75/5 Can Teach Current Gamers’ Future Potential Children to Read and Count! Literacy!

Obscure Title Tuesday: MTV's Remote Control!

Remote Control for the Nintendo Entertainment System! Or, as I like to call it…..no, you know what? No. You don’t even get a cutesy little stupid joke here, you piece of crap game! Just No. Gah Remote Control, how do I hate thee…. Let me count the ways:

It’s a quiz/trivia show based on the MTV show ‘Remote Control’ which was a tongue-in-cheek, meant to be stupid humor TV and music trivia show. It could be funny at times, what with the jokingly, overly raucous audience loudly yelling things throughout the show, especially if the three contestants had a good sense of humor. Think of it like Jeopardy, except totally, all-encompassingly laid back with like next to nothing on the line.

We all look like smiling douchebags!

Each game lasts around 15 minutes, and by 15 minutes, it is 15 minutes too long. The theme song is catchy, but it runs through the entire game non-stop and gets tiresome after about 2 minutes and annoying as all hell after 7 minutes (I timed it). Whoever wins gets a nice, short speech from the host ‘I am honored to be your video game’ and their face (you can select from 9 different faces, who smile or frown in different ways when you answer a question right or wrong) appears smiling on the main title screen. That’s it.

It works like a standard trivia game -- you select a category (just a number on a television, you don’t know what category you’re getting), they ask you a question, you buzz in, and select from 1 of 3 answers. If you get it right, points. Some time into the game, the person with the lowest number of points gets eliminated, then at the end you have a rapid fire round which has you complete the song, television show, or movie title from a list of 15 words. Just go down the list spamming the A and B button as fast as you can.

Insert humorous remark on photo here

With no raucous audience, no contestants, and hysterical quips from the 8-bit host like ‘Who do you think you are, Einstein?’ ‘Nice answer. And nice hair.’ And ‘If fish is brain food, I’m guessing you grew up in Nebraska!!” I don’t even F*cking get that one. This video game pretty much has nothing going for it for 3 reasons:

1) There’s no essence of the show in this game and/or a sense of humor. Sure, they tried. I’m sure someone, somewhere, at some point on the game developer staff thought that if, when a contestant got an answer right, the host said ‘Who do you think you are, Einstein????’ kids would bust out laughing so hard they’d pee their pants. And that makes me want to find that person and tell him to his face that he is not funny. And then break a light bulb over his head and say ‘Who do you think you are, Einstein?’ and then if he says ‘Einstein didn’t invent the light bulb, Thomas Edison did.’ Then I would say: ‘Who do you think you are, Einstein!!!!????’

Insert humorous remark on photo of crappy crap game here

2) The trivia is noticeably not for the target audience that would play this Video game. I cannot stress enough what a ridiculously obviously huge flaw that is! If anyone reading this were making a trivia game about television specifically geared for our generation (born around the late 80’s) you would probably put in plenty of references to those late 80’s/early 90’s Sunday morning cartoons and television shows we all watched, like Batman, Spiderman, Reboot, the one with the turtles, the one with the alien, the one with the Dinosaurs, the one with all the transforming, the purple one, the gay one, you know…. Television shows that we could have conceivably watched and known about. Almost every question here is about shows from primarily the 60’s and very early 70’s. You’d have to have been born around that time to get ‘em. I, then and now, often do not recognize all 3 of the actors or televisions shows listed as potential answers. Categories include ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ ‘Odd Couple’ and ‘Hogan’s Heroes.’ Yeah I’ve heard of these shows, but I don’t know enough about them to answer a trivia question based on one specific episode. The only categories I ever even recognized the answers to were the questions under ‘The Cartoon Show,’ ‘Gilligan’s Island’ and ‘The Bat Channel’ And even then it didn’t matter because you just raced to buzz in first and guess any random answer because you’re not gonna know it anyway and there’s no penalty for a wrong answer.

3) It’s boring. Gah, it’s soooo booooooring. It’s so boring, writing this article about it was boring. And that theme song WILL NOT STOP! I’m not even gonna link to it to give you a little taste because why put you through that? And there’s typos in the questions. GAH I hate this game!

I’m considering giving it the lowest score possible: A negative 12 out of 5. No seriously, there’s no replay value, it’s really annoying, and there’s nothing redeeming about it-………..ladies and gentleman, we have a winner. For the first time ever on superdopegaming dot com, I present you with: a straight up goose egg:

0/5 ZERO OUT OF 5!! EPIC VIDEO GAME FAAAIIL!!! GO TO HELL MTV!!!!!

Obscure Title Tuesday: Yoshi!

Fresh from the egg, just hatched. If this is the face of your child when they are literally just born-they will either be a winner or a huge arrogant prick.

Did you know? Did you know that Loveable Yoshi, who has helped you out so many times in the past, with not only your surviving Mario adventures but also your fun level, not only appeared in a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System but even appeared in his VERY OWN GAME EVEN! Did you know that just like the box art indicates, a smug looking Yoshi looks on smugly as screaming ‘Boo’ ghosts and confused goombas fall away in the distance as a newly smugly hatched Yoshi adventures forth, battling all your favorite Mario bad guys without the aid of Mario in a jumping and flying fire-breathing goomba-busting fun adventure?

That’s right you DON’T know about this game, not because this epic sweeping side scrolling Final Fantasy-esque side scroller simply sold poorly, no, you don’t know about this game because rather than being any of the things I just mentioned- It’s a shitty puzzle game.

To start with, you would think that this game is a thing for Yoshi fans to be really excited about. Yoshi is in his very own game, without the aid of Mario in any way. And the game developers at Nintendo were so confident in their product that they didn’t even put their flagship character, Mario, on the box art as decoration or as a reminder of the Yoshi-Mario relation.

Well, unfortunately for your hopes and dreams, Mario IS in this game. In fact, in this game, you control Mario. Wow. I will admit to never playing ‘Luigi’s Mansion’, but if I or any Luigi fan ever picked up a copy of ‘Luigi’s Mansion’ and the whole time the only character I could play as was Mario, I’d flip a shit. Well Yoshi fans- Your shit is thoroughly flipped now, because Nintendo hates your green Dinosaur Love.

You control Mario controlling his enemies. You control everything BUT Yoshi.

“But wait!” You say. “I am a more than average educated gamer, and I know that Yoshi’s debut was in fact for the SUPER Nintendo in the game ‘Super Mario World.’ What the Fu*k?” Yes knowledgeable gamer, while I don’t approve of your cussing, in giving Yoshi his very own special amazing title in which you don’t even control Yoshi at all, Nintendo decided to go DOWN a console from the Super Nintendo to the Nintendo Entertainment System for this Yoshi adventure. Did I say adventure? Cause I meant shitty puzzle.

You control Mario in a Tetris-esque game screen, with 2 blocks of Nintendo bad guy characters falling from the top of the screen. Unlike Tetris, you don’t control the falling blocks, you control the blocks that have already fallen, by moving Mario, with 2 outstretched hands, to switch the fallen stationary blocks to try to get them to match the ones that are falling. When 2 bad guys on top of each other match, they disappear. That’s it. There are only 4 columns total, so the game play isn’t challenging at all, even when the blocks are falling fast.

The only thing to break up the aforementioned monotony is that sometimes an up facing half-egg appears- if you put a down facing half-egg on top of it, you get points and a little baby Yoshi pops out. Awww. Also, you can pile bad guys on top of the up facing egg, so when you put the down facing egg on top of the bad guys the egg will eat all the bad guys before getting to its matching shell and hatching bigger sized Yoshis. If you risk it and go all the way to the very top most part of the screen with bad guys on top of an egg and then land with the down egg, it makes a cool sound effect and a really Fat Yoshi comes out, and it’s kind of awesome. But other than those cute baby and Fat Yoshi’s, that’s it. I imagine anyone reading this column could already master this game without even having played it once, and within 15-30 minutes (honestly depending upon how much you like baby and fat Yoshi’s) anyone would get bored with it. You would need a very young child for this game to be entertaining, for then it would be somewhat challenging to them and perhaps very young children don’t mind endless monotony in place of dashed expectations. So, basically it’s like a mix between Tetris and Dr. Mario, except unlike Tetris and Dr. Mario, this game is much shittier.

See, the background in now Green instead of Red, so that gives the game depth.

Before you start a game you can change the difficulty level and choose from 1 of 3 songs; this screen is similar to the customize-the-start-of-your-game screen from ‘Dr. Mario’, except this one has way less options. Probably because they wanted to stick it to Yoshi fans for not liking Mario more. Oh, and in the 2 player mode, the person holding and switching the blocks on the other side of the screen is Luigi. He left his mansion to be in this shitty game.

Hmmmmmmmm……OK, then again, maybe I’m ragging on this game too much…it’s an all right puzzle game, it doesn’t glitch, moving the blocks instead of the falling pieces is a unique variation of Tetris, Fat Yoshis are fun, you can recognize all the characters clearly and this game definitely sucks. I’m sorry, I can’t- I can’t not compare this to the side scrolling Mario adventure featuring Yoshi that I thought this game was gonna be when I first popped this cartridge into old NESsy. To be fair the box art does say ‘un casse-tete paniquant avec Yoshi et ses amis!’ Wait…OK, It also says ‘Pure Puzzle Panic’ but I mean……not having read that small blurb, or speak French, anyone would expect this to be a side scrolling adventure! Also I was probably too young to read at the age I got this game anyway. But I still wasn’t so young that I thought it was good or anything other then monotonous and boring! Fat Baby Yoshis be damned!! F Minus!!! Crippling Disappointment!!!!

Except for the title music and 3 song choices which are catchy, the graphics are fine, the young’uns might like it and……Fat Yoshi undamned.

1.5/5 Play Tetris or Dr. Mario or Outside or 52 Card Pick-Up Instead

Obscure Title Tuesday: Monopoly!

Monopoly for the Nintendo Entertainment System! Or, as I like to call it: Insert Joke Here!

Monopoly is, of course, the insanely popular property trading bankruptcy game by Milton Bradley that, by some fluke, is not too complicated for the average American to play. You go around a board buying property, when you own all the property of a certain color you can buy houses and hotels for that property, and when your friends (or enemies!) land on these properties they must pay you major bank, or ‘rent.’ The object is to bankrupt everyone else, leaving them penniless and you Scrooge McDuck.

I should stop walking because this road is about to end

When playing this NES game with others the game functions exactly as a normal game of Monopoly, though there are 3 key ‘differences’ you have to get used to. Many people play Monopoly using house rules, which is pretty much any rule other then the official rules to make the game more fun. A common house rule is if you land on the free parking space then you get 500 dollars (or some other amount of money, like the money you lost from chance cards and landing on that damn ‘Luxury Tax’ space RIGHT in between Boardwalk and Park Place! THAT space should be the free parking! If I come that close to Boardwalk and not land on it I should be consoled with parking that is free, not a 75 dollar diamond ring….heh heh heh, crazy 1933.) Since that’s not an option for this game, landing on free parking gets you nothing but the animation of your game piece chillaxing on free parking.

Curiously, even tho this game was made in the 90's no one has been named 'Gertrude' since the 1800's

There are two other ‘differences’ (which are really just the original rules of Monopoly that some don’t use) that may frustrate some. Whenever you land on a property, if you choose to not buy that property, it MUST be auctioned off, with the property going to the highest bidder. Though auctioning of a property is quick and easy in the game, it makes the rich get even richer as they can abuse people with less money by getting properties cheap whenever anyone lands on a property that they can’t afford. Finally, there are a limited number of houses and hotels that can be bought in this game, whereas most home games will find some pennies and use those when they run out of houses in the box. This doesn’t matter too much, though, as there are 32 houses; more than enough to bust your opponents. Other then that, the board is the same, everything costs the same, you can offer trades to people who can accept, offer counter trades, or just flat our refuse, you got your chance and community chest cards, game play is quick, and, with the addition of video technology, all the game pieces have little movement animations during significant events like moving around the board, going to jail, buying houses or hotels, and each chance and community chest card.

Gertrude buyin' a railroad. Because that was the main mode of transportation in her day.

The music for the intro is catchy, though there’s no music during gameplay; just sound effects and snippets of music during things like the rolling of the dice, trading, going to jail, or whenever you land on Boardwalk and Park Place and no one has purchased them yet. There are enough sound effects to make the absence of a general background song not noticeable. Also, when you win the game it shows you, triumphant on top of a giant dollar bill sign with your name and how much all your money and property is worth combined displayed, along with a totally bitchin’ song in the background that makes you feel like a winner and forget all about the recession.

Donnie would later fall and sue the giant golden dollar bill manufacturer for another $12,125.

The area in which this game shines is the computer AI. You can play with up to 7 computer players and……they don’t suck! The AI in this game plays an effective game of monopoly and is even able to hold up against your many, repeated attempts at trying to trick it into making a stupid trade. Trading with these computer players is like playing Monopoly with a friend of yours who is really tight fisted with his property, but not unreasonable. When you choose to play with a computer player the game brings you to an art gallery showcasing 4 pictures of high society with their names underneath, collectively called the ‘top four.’ You can also click on the ‘bottom four’ to see the crappier, noticeably poorer and more homely computer players. Though they are billed as the ‘top four’ and ‘bottom four’, I find that there’s nothing really that much different about how they actually play or go about trading. Interestingly, I think the bottom four are just less lucky when it comes to dice rolling. Or, more accurately, they land less on unowned property. Specifically, and I don’t mean to accuse Milton Bradley of blatant racism, but, most racistly, the worst and most G-d awful bottom four computer player is ‘Ollie’, who is Hispanic, and I have seen him play multiple games where he rolls so poorly he only buys 2 properties for the entire game before he goes bankrupt…curiously, during these times the property he buys is a green property and a Railroad……other then that, however, I’ve played many games and never noticed a predictable pattern in rolling tendencies. Oh, and at the beginning of each game a person is randomly chosen to go first, and Ollie always goes last. In FACT, you can’t even feel bad for him and just give him free money because if you try to trade him and offer him like, 20 dollars for nothing in return, he won’t simply refuse the trade, he will literally move your cursor to the ‘quit trade’ button. I like to think of it as, he’s too proud to take your pity hand me down charity. To be fair to Milton Bradley and Nintendo, this would be a lot more racist if there wasn’t another Hispanic guy in the top four named ‘Erwin’ who will destroy you. If you let him.

I know from memory that Ollie just landed on Park Place with 4 houses. I love Monopoly.

There are some options to customize your game before you start, like properties being randomly assigned, timed matches, or you can literally just choose who owns what property and how much starting money each player has. I find it’s more fun to either play the classic game of monopoly, or, make yourself start with as much money as you possibly can, then, when you land on that ‘Income Tax- Pay $200 or 10%‘ space, (four spaces from ‘Go’) click ‘B’ to pay 10%, and watch that little cash register guy eat like….$99,999 in taxes…he only eats one bill at a time, so it takes like 5 minutes!

Also, the computers play at a medium pace, but there is an option to make them play quickly so that they don’t watch any of the animations and perform no brainer decisions quickly (like buying properties).

All in all, besides poor prideful Ollie, this is a fine substitute for the board game and as long as you can get past the auctioning of property and the no free money for landing on free parking, this is a great fun game that can be played with friends or alone! Of course, I really enjoy the game ‘Monopoly’. So I guess if you don’t like the board game you would probably think this game sucks. Oh well!

3.75/5 Computer Players That Don’t Suck! No Missing Pieces! Only a Teensy Bit Racist!!