Canon Video Game Review: Ultimate Basketball (NES)

Sorry for the lack of activity the past couple of days, as I overdosed on Jon Voight movies and spent two days searching for Jon Voight's car. Anyway, today's review is of the first basketball video game that I ever owned and played, Ultimate Basketball. Released in 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Ultimate Basketball was developed and published by American Sammy, which produced various other games for the Nintendo and Super Nintendo over the years, including Jimmy Houston's Bass Tournament U.S.A. I remember playing Ultimate Basketball as a kid, but I also remember not liking it too much. I still have the cartridge around somewhere, but my NES doesn't work, so I must play on an emulator instead. Here's the cover for the game, courtesy of allgame.com:

Well, you can definitely tell that it's a basketball game. Anyway, in Ultimate Basketball, you can play either an exhibition game or a tournament. The game features seven fictional teams with fictional players, each team having different strengths and weaknesses. What they are, I don't know, since they all seem to play the same style of basketball, full-court press on defense and constantly driving to the hoop on offense. The graphics are not anything groundbreaking, and the players look and move like cro-magnon cavemen, but the game does have a horizontal view of the court and you can usually tell what's going on. There are certain plays, such as a dunk, three-pointer and free throw, that will change the view into a close up view of the action going on. When going up for a dunk, there's a meter that shows up, and you have to hit the shoot button at the right time or otherwise, you will miss. The controls are rather straightforward, although you have to hit the jump button twice to shoot, and there's not a button to steal the ball, as steals seem to happen at random. The music in the game is neither memorable or annoying, it's just there. The sound effects are mostly realistic for a basketball game, except the sound of a missed shot sounds nothing like a ball hitting the rim. Instead, it sound like the sound of a small hammer hitting a piece of scrap metal, if that makes any sense.

After playing the game, I suddenly remember why I didn't like this game in the first place. For one, passing the ball inbounds is nearly impossible, as the cpu opponent will steal it if you throw the ball to anyone that is not directly in front of you. It doesn't matter if you throw the ball to the left or the right, the ball will magically appear in the CPUs hands, and he'll go in for the easy dunk unless he misses. Speaking of which, there are way too many times where the cpu will go for the dunk, and the close-up animation will show up, and the computer won't even try for the dunk, instead just floating by the rim. Wouldn't it be more realistic if there was an animation of the player missing the dunk?

From there, it gets worse. Apparently, the CPU has an incredible ability to steal the ball. All he has to do is run up behind the player, get relatively close to him and poof! the ball is in his hands. Even if you're on a fast break, the computer will catch up with you nearly every time. However, if you try to do the same, you more than likely will either fail or get called for a foul. Actually, I got called for a lot of fouls on both ends, as apparently breathing on an opposing player will cause a file. The worst call happened when I had just inbounded the ball and was called for a charge, and all of a sudden, the cpu starts shooting free throws. I guess they changed the rules of basketball while I wasn't looking. Another rule change for this game is that jumpballs don't just occur at the beginning of the game, but rather at the beginning of each quarter. Who knew? One advantage that you have is that 75-foot shots are remarkably easy to make on this game, but that goes for the cpu as well. Even on the easiest level, the CPU' defense is sharp to the point of being unrealistic, while your non-controlled players seem to enjoy standing on the half court line and watching the other team go to the rim. Frustrating does not begin to describe this game. It's like being in a home run derby with Albert Pujols, and you have to use a wiffleball bat.

Overall, I must say that I do not like this game. Sure, there a couple of neat effects, like the dunk closeup shot and mini-game that goes along with it, and the game has decent graphics for an Nintendo basketball game. But the degree of difficulty and the cheapness of the A.I. is such that it makes the game completely unenjoyable, and not worth playing much more than one game. I'll give it a 2.09583 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you any ideas for future posts, or thoughts about this post, than either leave a comment on the blog or send them to me at e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com

Canon Video Game Review: Circus Caper (NES)

Before I start this review of a game I am sure is totally awesome, I would like to first do a mini restaurant review of Quincy's Family Steakhouse of Toccoa, GA, which I dined at yesterday. I went there with a few friends, and since I didn't really know what I wanted, I ordered the buffet which is served there. From my experiences with this establishment, there are some days where that's a good decision and some days where it's not such a good decision. Yesterday was a bit of mixed bag. Although I did like the fresh lettuce in the salad bar and was pleased by the macaroni, it seemed as if some of the food I had eaten had been out there for a while, like the fried chicken, for one. Also, the marinara sauce I topped by spaghetti with was rather bland. However, they were about to close, so I'm sure I did not catch them at an optimal time when it comes to food quality. However, it wasn't too bad, even though it was a little expensive (about 13 bucks a head). I'll give it a 5.5 out of 10, and I would be willing to give it a more thorough review in the future.

Now to the main event of the evening, where I talk about a little game for the Nintendo Entertainment System called Circus Caper. Circus Caper was distributed in 1990 by ToHo Co. Ltd., a company more known for making a whole lot of movies featuring Godzilla. This was ToHo's first foray into the video game industry, and they would only make a few more games before going back to movies, so what does that tell you? Let's take a look at the cover of this game, courtesy of the site nesgames.org:

I have no idea what's going on here, but that is one demented looking clown. In this game, you control a boy named Tim. See, Tim and his sister Judy wanted to go and see the circus, but they didn't have any money. However, a clown at the front gate gives them a chance to win tickets by rolling dice and getting the right number. Well, they do, but the clown says that there's only room for one person to enter. Judy is given the ticket, and Tim is left sitting outside waiting for the end of the circus. Or maybe he goes off to get something to eat or something, who knows? Once Tim returns to pick his sister up, without their parents for some reason. Tim is unable to locate Judy. Instead he finds a creep of a man who calls himself Mr. Magic. Mr. Magic informs Tim that Judy is now in his custody. Well, doesn't that beat all. Tim decides not to take this news lying down, saying "Shucks! You can't have her!" So Tim does what any good brother would do, and goes into the deep dark circus in hopes of rescuing his sister. Now, if you are saying to yourself, "what a creepy plot this is for a game". I'd say you are absolutely right. I wouldn't be surprised that kids playing this game were scared of going to circus in fear of being abducted by some creep named Mr. Magic. Boy, I bet Ringling Bros. were not happy about this game's release. Well, they would be if anybody played it.

The gameplay of Circus Caper sucks, to be blunt about it. Tim has to fight off clowns and things that look like clown faces with wings and elephants and the key to any good circus, crocodiles. Tim attacks with all the speed of a phone booth, leaving yourself open to lose hit points in hand-to-hand combat. Once Tim vanquishes his enemies, the enemies drop items. Some of which can recover hit points, while others are weapons to be used, like a hammer and a soccer ball, which can then be thrown at the enemies. For some reason, some of the clowns Tim fights will stand on their heads and fight you for no good reason. I think that was just lazy programming on somebody's part. There is also a mini game you can play when you enter a door that can be found once every 10 feet or so. In this mini game, you and a bear (huh?) must jump over flames coming at you and avoid getting burned. The good news is that in between regular gameplay and the minigame, Tim has developed the hang time of Michael Jordan. The bad news is that after a few seconds, the flames decide not to mess around and start moving at the speed of sound. Sadly, Tim does not keep his new found hangtime in the regular game, because it really would have helped me.

I must say I didn't get very far in this game. For one, there's a point very early in the first level where Tim must navigate over water by jumping on the crocodiles while they have their mouths closed. If the croc's mouth opens, Tim gets bitten and falls into the water, where he dies because nobody on a Nintendo platform game ever learned how to swim. You get about half a second before the croc's mouth opens, and I really struggled with the timing. There is an item which allows you to put a brick to stand on anywhere you put. But since the controls seemingly respond whenever they damn well please I never could line up the brick in just the right spot. After about nine times of failing to clear this jump that a plumber could make in his sleep, I finally got through to the other side, where more upside down clowns and flying clown faces were there to swarm upon me. There are six levels on this game, and I only got to play one, because I suck and this game did not hold my interest at all. The graphics are merely ok for this time period, but the animation leaves a lot to be desired, as Tim's fist is somehow bigger than his torso. The soundtrack sounds like a mutant hybrid of typical circus music and an 80s cartoon theme song, but it wasn't too annoying, so I'll give it a pass.

After trying out Circus Caper, I can safely say that I never want to play this game again. I'm just going to assume that Tim was able to rescue Judy by roundhouse kicking Mr. Magic in the groin 19 times. Either that, or Judy started to identify with her captors and while dressed up in clown makeup, turned on Tim and piledrove him. Either way, I just don't care. I'm going to give this game a 1.3 out of 10, because it probably isn't the worst game I've ever played, but it still sucks nonetheless. Thanks for reading, and if you have any comments about this post, or ideas for future posts, than let me know about them either by leaving a comment or by sending me an e-mail at kthec2001@gmail.com. Now, here's a video of some other poor sap playing this game:

Canon Video Game Reviews: Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure (Part 2: Bill and Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure)

I would have done this sooner, but today was the start of the NCAA Tournament, and what a start it was. Plenty of close games, a couple of buzzer beaters, and quite a few upsets. Who would have thought that Ohio would beat Georgetown? or that Robert Morris would have beaten Villanova had the referees not bailed the Wildcats out? All in all, it was a great day of basketball. I wish I could say that it was a great day of video gaming for me, but it wasn't. In the previous post, I reviewed Back to the Future and how much it sucked. Now it's time for Bill and Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure. Here's the video game cover, courtesy of theoldcomputer.com

It's Bill and Ted on top of their telephone booth time machine, with Rufus in a moon for some reason. Looks like they are in outer space, which is odd because they never went to outer space in the first movie, nor do they in the game. Well, whatever. The game was published by LJN and released in 1991, around the time the Bill and Ted sequel was released. The game starts out promising enough, as Rufus appears on screen to inform both Ted and Bill separately that space-time rebels have kidnapped historical figures and placed them in different times. To save the world, Bill and Ted must go back in time, collect the historical figures and put them in their actual time. They must do this before their concert, which according to Rufus is the one where the Wyld Stallyns get discovered and start on their road to become the most influential band in the universe. The story picks up right where the movie left off, which is more than you can say about the previous game. There are 12 historical figures to collect in all, ranging from King Arthur to Elvis, and each person has a number which the guys have to dial in order to go back to the proper time. You play as either Bill and Ted, depending on whose turn it is, as Ted starts, then Bill goes, and so on. In order to get the person to follow you, you must find a piece of "historical bait" hidden in the game, as well as being able to find the person.

Sounds simple enough, right? Well it is not that simple. For one thing, the levels are huge for an NES game. Which would be fine, except a lot of it is a bunch of empty space. There are certain parts where your character can walk, and other parts where your character can't walk and is forced to jump towards an area where he can walk. You can get hints from guards standing still, but a lot of it is contradictory, and really you have no idea what direction is east or north or anything. The guards are easily pissed off, though. If you run into them while moving, they will either take one of your coins or send you to jail. Other guards are so angry that they will chase you down and if they catch you, they send you to jail no matter what. Yet if they're standing still, most of them will give you stuff like keys and firecrackers and other stuff to defend yourself against the very guards giving you these gifts. Go figure.

There are also a few houses you can into, a lot of them have people in them and many of them won't be too helpful and won't be happy to see your slacker self at all. Often times, when you leave a house, there will be a gang of guards around trying to catch you, so get your firecrackers and dangerous textbooks (weapons you can use) ready. This game is rather tedious, as most of it is your character either walking or jumping and trying to avoid guards. Plus, you're given so many dang keys to get out of jail that you are rarely in danger of losing the game. Maybe it would help if I were better at video games, I don't know, but ultimately, I got so bored that I quit after about an hour or so, without finding Thomas Edison or any other historical figure, for that matter.

For an NES game, the graphics aren't too bad. I wish there was more details put into the levels, but what there is does look sharp. The audio is, rather interesting. With each level, there's a theme song. However, it only last about 25 seconds and after that there is nothing but silence. Then, once you exit a house, the theme starts again. I will say the one theme I heard wasn't terrible, I just found it odd that most of the game is played without background music.

In conclusion, as far as how this game relates to the film its based on, I would say that Bill and Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure at least gets that right by keeping the main theme of the movie while coming up with an original concept based on that theme. So as far as that goes, I'll give it a 8.4 out of 10. As for the actual game, well, at least it's better than Back to the Future, but that's like saying being kicked by a horse is better than being forced to swallow a bowling ball. Out of 10, I'll give this game a 2.5 out of 10, as it had potential, but ended up falling way short. Thanks for reading, and I hope you found it interesting. If you have any ideas for future posts, or would like to contribute something to The Canon Review, then let me know either by leaving a comment on this blog or by email at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Posts can be about anything, even something as simple as a bottle of soda. Tomorrow, I'll be reviewing a movie, although I really don't know which one yet, or even if I'll do one or two, so stay tuned.

Canon Video Game Reviews: Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure (Part 1: Back to the Future)

This review is due to an idea by reader Sonny V. His idea was simple, play both Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure for the Nintendo, and then compare the games to the film and see which one represents its movie more accurately, or something like that. Anyway, thanks to the wonder of emulation, I am able to play both of those games right here on my computer. So let's dive right in, shall we? In the first part of a two part series, we have Back to the Future.

Hey, the cover looks good at least. That's the only positive thing I'm going to say about Back to the Future, the game. Released in September 1989, four years after the movie and the same year Back to the Future 2 was released, Back to the Future was designed by a herd of buffalo with collaboration from two six-month old twins. Even if that were true, I'd still say they underachieved. Back to the Future features one song that is super annoying and repeats over and over and over again. I know you want to hear it, so hear it you shall.



Wasn't that wonderful? The gameplay of this game is simple enough, but not what I would call good. You control Marty McFly, adonred in a sleeveless black T-shirt, and you try to get out of the town of Hill Valley in enough time to beat the level. There are clocks everywhere for you to collect, which will give you about an extra tenth of a second back on the clock. Also, there's a picture of Marty and his siblings, and once it fades out or you run out of time, you lose a life. The screen is always moving forward, so you better be ready to move as soon as the time starts, plus, you can go backwards some, but not too far. To make things worse, apparently Marty has cheesed out the whole town, as anyone as everyone is out to get him. There's the pink-shirted bully who will come right after you, there's hula hoop girls who throw balls at you (Funny, I don't remember that being in the movie). There's multiple duos of movers moving a plane of glass from left to right. Also, there are a ton of giant bees whose sole purpose in life is to knock over Marty McFly. If any of these things hit Marty, he falls down. If Marty runs into a trash can, slips in an oil puddle, or even bumps against the wall, he falls down. If Marty trips over an open manhole, not only does he fall down, but he defies gravity by hovering over the manhole without falling into the sewers below.

There are a couple of pickups in the game available to help Marty. One is what others call a bowling ball, because that was such a big part of the movie, but I highly doubt that Marty McFly or many other humans can throw a bowling ball with the velocity and control of a Roger Clemens fastball. The other is a skateboard, which will help you go faster, but it is also hard to control. There are 15 levels like this, although I only got through the first two or three because I'm not very good at video games. There are also a few mini games, which relate to the movie a lot more than the regular game does. In the mini games, you get to throw pies at bullies, reject your mother's advances (just like in the movie, you're in 1955, so she has no idea that your her future son), rip off Chuck Berry in a guitar playing level (where you don't play guitar, you just move left and right to catch music notes), and finally you get to drive the Delorean with Doc Brown where you must get the car up to 88 miles an hour, just like the movie.

While some of the mini games are heavily inspired by the movie, it seems as if the rest of the game is not. Basically, it's just a lousy scrolling platform game with very few elements from the movie thrown in, like clocks and the fading picture. The rest of the aspects of the game have little or no relation to the movie at all. So, as far as relation to the actual film goes, I'll give it a 2.5 out of 10. As far as the game itself, well, you can play it if you want to, but there are at least 1,000 video and computer games better than this one. You could pick a random game from any system, and chances are it would be better than this one. I was shocked, SHOCKED,  that a video game company would con an unsuspecting public into buying a crappy game by slapping the name of a popular movie franchise on it. And here I was thinking that all video game publishers are good, honest people who care more about making a good game than making a easy buck (end sarcasm). Well, the only thing left to do for this game is score it, so I'll be generous and give it a 1.92013049528 out of 10. Stay tuned for part 2, where I review Bill and Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure.

Canon Video Game Review: Ninja Kid (NES)

It's a sad day here at The Canon Review, as Merlin Olsen, the man that played Benton the butler in Mitchell, has passed away. Sure, Olsen was a Hall of Fame defensive lineman in the NFL, who went on to have some success acting, but to me, he'll always be the butler that served cold coffee to his boss and got impaled on a boat hook by Joe Don Baker. RIP Merlin, you were not a lousy butler.

But while we mourn the loss of Benton, we must move on. Perhaps later today I will watch Mitchell, but I'm not sure yet. However, I did have the pleasure of playing the 1986 video game classic known as Ninja Kid. Released in 1986 for the Nintendo, Ninja Kid was developed and produced by Bandai. According to Wikipedia, Ninja Kid was based on a popular Japanese manga series at the time called GeGeGe No Kitaro, which is about a boy born in a graveyard who has one eye and has lived over 350 years, fighting the forces of evil with many weapons and powers. However, the developers decided to make this game more generic, as the game's main character is nameless and the levels are pretty generic. Here is the cover for Ninja Kid, courtesy of theoldcomputer.com

That kid has some interesting looking cheeks. Also, his shoes don't match, and he is shooting lightning. In the game, he doesn't shoot lightning so I think that's false advertising. It would have been a whole different ballgame if I could zap my opponents with a bolt of electricity, that's for sure, but I digress. The game starts with the lead character on a map, there are a few buildings up, but he can only go to the one closest to him, which is where the action begins. There are four different levels, and each level is random. The levels are each side scrolling affairs, and depending on the levels, you must complete a certain task in order to advance. For example, there's one level where you must collect 10 ghosts, and another level where you have to kill 10 enemies. The controls are rather simple, A jumps, B fires your weapon, and you move using the d-pad.

This game is rather difficult, because only one hit by any of your enemies will cause you to lose a life, and you only have three lives. Also, whereas your character can only shoot horizontally, your enemies can shoot vertically, horizontally, and diagonally, putting you at a great disadvantage. It would have helped if I had done some research on this game before playing it, as I just dove right in without any clue, and oftentimes I kept running around like a headless chicken because I was unaware of the different objectives required by the game. Also, this game cheats. At one point I was on an upper platform, when a skeleton comes from the ground, somehow flies up to right where I was standing and killed me. I didn't know ground dwelling skeletons could soar through the air like a bald eagle. Stupid game.

The graphics are what you would expect from a 1986 Nintendo side-scrolling platform game, they're not great, but I'd say the graphics were pretty good considering the game's timeframe. The audio kind of stinks, as they play this annoying song non-stop throughout the game, unless you get to a boss level, in which the music becomes only slightly less annoying.

Overall, this game is better than the last game I reviewed, but there's not a whole lot that makes me want to play it again. The story is bland, the levels change slightly, but not a whole lot, and the only real variety is the tasks you have to do to pass the levels. Plus, from what I read, this game never ends, as once you pass all the levels and bosses, it just starts over at a harder level. That kind of stinks. I'll give this a 4.12 out of 10, as the game is inoffensive enough (if a little difficult) but to me, it doesn't seem to have a lot of replay value. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future reviews or posts, or you would like to review something for The Canon Review (it can literally be anything you want to talk about), than e-mail me your ideas and or complaints at KtheC2001@gmail.com. I'll try to post something later tonight, to make up for yesterday's activity, so for the 4 to 7 people that read this blog, be prepared.