Today, The Canon Review is going to feature a certain theme, breakfast cereal. In case you don't know, cereal is a food that usually comes in a box and is primarily consumed with milk. According to Wikipedia, cereal was developed in the late 19th century as a vegetarian alternative to the primary breakfast of the time, which was bacon, sausage, eggs, ham, all that good stuff. It eventually became popular due to the fact that no cooking was involved, so a family could have a healthy breakfast without using too much effort. Got that? Good. Anyway, in this review, I will be going on YouTube and watching old commercials for cereals, and then commenting on them. Let us begin, shall we?
Ad #1: Nintendo Cereal System
The great thing about the Nintendo Cereal System is that it's two cereals in one. Unfortunately, both cereals look about as appetizing as a bowl full of gravel. This commercial is kind of out there, as Mario traps a bunch of kids in televisions and leads them through the worlds of Super Mario Bros and Zelda. Why are the kids wearing television sets, exactly? Is that really neccesary. The commercial also has a crummy theme song in which Nintendo is chanted about eight times in thirty seconds. Also, look at the kids as they jump awkardly, especially the kid in the green sweater. That's not normal. Anyway, I never had the pleasure of having Nintendo Cereal System, but I'm sure it wasn't all that great. Maybe I'm wrong, but something tells me I'm not.
Ad #2: Lucky Charms Cereal
This commercial is from 1992. The concept is simple, there's a mountain of marshmallows, and Lucky is using his Irish magic to change them into his Lucky Charms. That's fine, but why doesn't Lucky spend some time on the rest of his cereal, because that's the part that could use some work. I don't know why the people of General Mills won't make Lucky Charms all marshmallow bits, because the only reason people buy the cereal is for the marshmallow, and besides, the rest of the cereal is just awful and barely fit for human consumption. Anyway, the commercial ends with a couple of kids successfully obtaining Lucky's charms, I guess, and there's free Play-Doh inside each box, so at least you have that to look forward to.
Ad 3: Frosted Flakes Cereal:
This commercial is from 1984. Hey look, we're at the beach, and Tony and a girl are eating Frosted Flakes and watching two kids dominate at volleyball. I guess they get cocky, because they challenge Tony and the girl to a game. They accept, but only after they finish their Frosted Flakes because they're GRRREEEAAAT! The other team chuckles at the notion of the girl playing the net, but personally, I would bet my money on the team with the 6 foot tiger playing. Naturally, Tony's teammate, powered by a bunch of sugar coated corn flakes, gets a big spike, impressing her opponents and giving their team a 1-0 advantage. According to the commercial, Frosted Flakes brings out the tiger in you. That's GRRRRRRRRREAT! I've always wondered what could possibly possess a tiger to spend his days traveling the globe eating nothing but Frosted Flakes, but to each their own.
Ad #4: Apple Jacks Cereal
Apple Jacks had some interesting commercials back in the day, and by interesting, I mean they featured a bunch of smart-aleck kids who you wanted to smack upside their heads. This commercial is no different, as four lamebrain boys are sitting around when one of the kids' dads comes around, saying "I thought you were going to clean the garage" One of them says "we're just resting". Some other dummy starts impersonating the man or something, saying hey why do those kids eat Apple Jacks, they don't taste like apples. Another kid says well that's not why we like them. and a third one chimes in "then why?" The dad comes around, says "I know, I know, you just do" and everyone else says "yeah" in agreement. Why Kellogg's decided to advertise Apple Jacks as the cereal that people like but no one knows why, I'm not sure. I guess it worked, because they made like a 100 different types of the same commercial. This commercial is much more annoying than I just described, but your mileage may vary. As for the cereal itself, well, let's just say I'm a big fan.
Ad# 5: Mr. T Cereal
There's not a lot that can be said about this ad, or the cereal which contains nothing but T's. Just watch it once, and the song will be stuck in your head.
Well, that's it for now. Join us later when The Canon Review reviews three different cereals. What cereals are they, you ask? Well log in later to find out.
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Canon Video Game Review: Rollerblade Racer (NES)
First of all, this isn't the review I had in mind. See, I wanted to do a review of Stadium Events for the NES because, if you haven't heard. copies of this game have been selling for a ridiculous amount of money. I tried playing it, but I never could start an event because the controls are just too different than what I have my emulator controller set up for. But that's okay, because instead I played something that was even better. Oh yes, because after digging deep into my ROM Collection, I came up with Rollerblade Racer, a game that originally came out for the Nintendo in February of 1993. I'm sure after people played this game, they decided it was time to trade up systems and get a Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo because man, this game is bad.
First of all, let's look at the cover (photo courtesy of theoldcomputer.com). All I can say is that it definitely is a product of it's time. From the background, to the neon green roller blade straps and pants, to that girl's jacket, it screams early 1990s. This game promises the "most radical race on wheels" which covers a lot of ground. After all, there are many car races, motorcycle races, bicycle races, probably even wheelbarrow races. Do they really have the gall to say that his game is the most radical race on wheels? That's a heck of a boast, one that I feel there's no chance on earth they deliver on.
Enough about the cover, let's talk about the game. Our hero is a boy named Kirk. Kirk just got new roller blades, and he wants to qualify for the Ultimate Rollerblade Challenge or whatever. Kirk has decided that he wants to wear a pink shirt for whatever reason. Well if he can handle it, than so can I. Anyway, Kirk needs your help to qualify, as he needs 5,000 points to qualify for Rollerbladeamania. In order to get points, you have to skate through four areas, Kirk's neighborhood, the city, the beach, and the park. As to who put this challenge together, that is a mystery left to your imagination.
So, the game starts in Kirk's neighborhood, and the game looks an awful lot like Paperboy. The controls are pretty simple, you use the d-pad to go left, right, or up, you jump with a and duck with b. The only reason to duck is so you can maintain speed, or you can duck and then jump to perform a spinning jump that is nearly impossible to land. Kirk lives on a road that needs to be paved and has a lot of dogs and open potholes, but that's okay, because Kirk long jumps like Carl Lewis on steroids. Really, all you have to do is jump a lot and hope you don't land on anything that can impede your progress or cause a fall. If you fall too much, you will have to start over. Qualifying for the Ultimate Challenge is pretty easy, as I did it on more than one occasion after the first bonus stage. But damn it, you have to do all the levels anyway. Well, that sucks. I played it a few times, but never got past the beach stage, even though I had technically fulfilled my end of the bargain by qualifying.
I don't know how much this game cost when it was first released, but I hope it wasn't more than 5 dollars, because anything else would be a ripoff. If your skilled enough, you can get through the entire game in less than 20 minutes, easily. Plus, there's no multiplayer, no hidden secret levels or anything else like that. All there is are the five levels, and the quick "Bonus" levels in between. I know it was a different time, but there were literally hundreds of games that were more in-depth than this, and there are probably a thousand flash games out there today that have more levels and are more replayable than this, and those games are free of charge. The graphics are a lot similar to Paperboy, to the point where I wonder if there was a lawsuit considered. The soundtrack is the same song over and over again, and sounds like a low-rent version of a song that would have been rejected by the makers of Final Fantasy. Overall, I'll give this game a 1.74 out of 10. There's not a lot to this game, and what's in this game isn't all that good.
So, there you have it. Tomorrow I will review Jay Leno's one and only wrestling match, along with the rest of Road Wild 1998. That should be three hours that I'll never get back and would probably be better spent elsewhere, but nevertheless. If you have any future review ideas or whatever, than send them along to me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Until next time, stay rad everyone.
First of all, let's look at the cover (photo courtesy of theoldcomputer.com). All I can say is that it definitely is a product of it's time. From the background, to the neon green roller blade straps and pants, to that girl's jacket, it screams early 1990s. This game promises the "most radical race on wheels" which covers a lot of ground. After all, there are many car races, motorcycle races, bicycle races, probably even wheelbarrow races. Do they really have the gall to say that his game is the most radical race on wheels? That's a heck of a boast, one that I feel there's no chance on earth they deliver on.
Enough about the cover, let's talk about the game. Our hero is a boy named Kirk. Kirk just got new roller blades, and he wants to qualify for the Ultimate Rollerblade Challenge or whatever. Kirk has decided that he wants to wear a pink shirt for whatever reason. Well if he can handle it, than so can I. Anyway, Kirk needs your help to qualify, as he needs 5,000 points to qualify for Rollerbladeamania. In order to get points, you have to skate through four areas, Kirk's neighborhood, the city, the beach, and the park. As to who put this challenge together, that is a mystery left to your imagination.
So, the game starts in Kirk's neighborhood, and the game looks an awful lot like Paperboy. The controls are pretty simple, you use the d-pad to go left, right, or up, you jump with a and duck with b. The only reason to duck is so you can maintain speed, or you can duck and then jump to perform a spinning jump that is nearly impossible to land. Kirk lives on a road that needs to be paved and has a lot of dogs and open potholes, but that's okay, because Kirk long jumps like Carl Lewis on steroids. Really, all you have to do is jump a lot and hope you don't land on anything that can impede your progress or cause a fall. If you fall too much, you will have to start over. Qualifying for the Ultimate Challenge is pretty easy, as I did it on more than one occasion after the first bonus stage. But damn it, you have to do all the levels anyway. Well, that sucks. I played it a few times, but never got past the beach stage, even though I had technically fulfilled my end of the bargain by qualifying.
I don't know how much this game cost when it was first released, but I hope it wasn't more than 5 dollars, because anything else would be a ripoff. If your skilled enough, you can get through the entire game in less than 20 minutes, easily. Plus, there's no multiplayer, no hidden secret levels or anything else like that. All there is are the five levels, and the quick "Bonus" levels in between. I know it was a different time, but there were literally hundreds of games that were more in-depth than this, and there are probably a thousand flash games out there today that have more levels and are more replayable than this, and those games are free of charge. The graphics are a lot similar to Paperboy, to the point where I wonder if there was a lawsuit considered. The soundtrack is the same song over and over again, and sounds like a low-rent version of a song that would have been rejected by the makers of Final Fantasy. Overall, I'll give this game a 1.74 out of 10. There's not a lot to this game, and what's in this game isn't all that good.
So, there you have it. Tomorrow I will review Jay Leno's one and only wrestling match, along with the rest of Road Wild 1998. That should be three hours that I'll never get back and would probably be better spent elsewhere, but nevertheless. If you have any future review ideas or whatever, than send them along to me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Until next time, stay rad everyone.
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