Well, our views of what a video game is, are certainly different from what they were 20 years ago.  Hell, it’s different than what it was 10 years ago.  If my grampa couldn’t grasp the idea of a controller 20 years ago that didn’t change the tv channel, I can only imagine the super-stroke he would have trying to grasp the concept of triggers and bumpers.

Gone are the days of the simple NES controller, replaced now with wireless controllers that keep companies like Duracell sporting boners that you can see from space.  As a reward for being able to hook up sound through a receiver, amp and subwoofer, to your Plasma Skynet 1080p 3D tanning booth of a TV, you’re rewarded with gorgeous games that you can beat in a single sitting.  Yippee frigging yay.

I think back to 1988 when I got my very first Nintendo Entertainment System.  I was the coolest kid on my block in Burnaby, BC not because I was white but because I was able to play games like Duck Hunt, Super Mario Brothers and… well, that’s it, because you couldn’t rent sweet fuck all back then.

Nope, you needed friends, and good ones at that, where you could go and borrow, or trade for games just so you could play something new!  This allowed you a hint of variety in your growth into a basement dwelling, sun fearing, Troll of a human being.

Not once did I play a game back in the day that I could sit down and beat in a single sitting, without cheating like a mother fucker. (Except ‘Where’s Waldo’, but he’s such a ball gazer that you win by not looking for him in the first place.)

Back then there was only one cheat, and EVERYONE that knew anyone with a Nintendo Power subscription knew it.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A  was the secret passcode for like 1 in 3 games.  Whether it gave you 30 lives, made you invincible or let you choose your level it still didn’t matter because YOU STILL COULDN’T BEAT THE STUPID THING, BECAUSE YOU WERE TEN!  If you wonder what I’m talking about just look at how a woman plays video games.  Fucking unbearable isn’t it?!

Mind you, it wasn’t like my attention span was anything to write home about back then either.  Just getting through that cheat code was a victory in itself.  Invincibility, or invulnerability for all you scholars out there, was just a perk on top of it.  Up up down down left right left I’M FUCKING BORRRRRRRED!

Let’s face it, at that age some of us NEEDED to cheat.  Despite the praise from my mother at the time who read an article by some fucking idiot in readers digest saying that “Video Games will spawn Surgeons as they develop hand-eye coordination!”

Well, don’t tell my girlfriends, but I’m not actually a surgeon.  If anything I should have been a Major League pitcher given my ability to throw an NES controller at 90 MPH.

Thankfully for that though, as limited as the technology was, game developers, like most manufacturers back then made shit to last!  So when your controller skidded along the floor, into the NES, then into the TV and off the family cat, the only thing that suffered any defect was the cat.

Toys never broke unless you wanted them too.  Cars were as good as you drove them, none of this “Oh it’s a great ride until you hit 60k and then your transmission falls off when you’re going down the highway.”

For the first 15 years or so of video games if a game looked like shit, then chances were it was going to be as tough as shit!

Now finally… my point.  Here’s a list of some of the games that I will NEVER forget, no matter how much medication they shoot into my ass cheek when I go into a fit of Nintend-rage.

So here they are.  The steamiest, dick-suckingly aggravating video games that PTSD hasn’t repressed in my memory.

Be warned that I have been waiting since 1988 to let this out in a way that didn’t involve a ticket to Japan, a tour of Nintendo dressed as a plumber, and a shotgun.

Ghouls ‘n Ghosts.  Or Ghost ‘n Goblins.
Whatever!  They can both blow me!

Ask anyone, that has ever attempted to beat this virtual hernia, how fun it was!  You were given 3 chances to beat this game.  That was it, and that was all.  You had a suit of armor that you lost if you took a hit which revealed you were actually Tom Hanks from Castaway underneath your armor.  Then you were reduced to bones if you should take another hit.  Never fear though, you had two more lives to get it right!

This is the game Jesus tried to beat before he decided it was impossible and walked across a lake.

Now, I was never there to vouch for it, but YouTube says that if you did so happen to be the son of God and manage to make it to the end and beat the boss without removing your own fucking head with a spoon, you’re rewarded with the equivalent of a digital kick in the sack.

You get to do it ALL over again.  Yup.  The end boss breaks the news to you saying that the first play through was all a big ruse and he was just kidding, so now go and do it again.  Careful though.  If you got hit, game the fuck over.

X-MEN “I’ve repressed what it was actually called”
Yes, this piece of horse shit damn near ruined me before anything else.

Now this was a game I worked, saved, begged, pleaded and did just about ALL I could do to get my hands on.  I loved the X-men and anything superhero related.  To finally get the chance to control them was an elementary school kids dream come true!  The funny thing about dreams though, is that they aren’t always good, and this game certainly was about as euphoric as a roofing-nail enema.

Tell me this.  Who the fuck wants to play a game about a superhero with no powers?  That’s like playing a racing game with no gas in your car!

Despite its short coming’s I still managed to sit through a few levels, ultimately wasting days upon days trying to fumble my way through this piece of silicone shit.

Eventually, I made it to level 5, where I was told with no message or prompt that I had to reset the computer, which meant reset the Sega Genesis console; because that makes complete fucking sense!  All this entailed was touching the reset button, and the game screen would fill with binary code, and voilà, off to level 6. At least it would be had I not been a complete and obvious ignorant ten year old and held the button for half a second, and not the required 1/10^th.  Gee, what was I thinking?

This game was horseshit!  Wait, no, it doesn’t even qualify as shit!  It’s a much too low grade to fit that bill, in fact I can’t even begin to describe how I truly feel about this game because of this ONE part!  Oh wait, yes I can describe it.  It was probably like the time I got wasted and shaved my gooch and balls with my roommate’s beard trimmer, then got drunk again a month later and thought it would be funny to tell him about it.

Burn in Hell X-men!

Now… even after all of this bullshit I was able to pick up the piece’s (of these games) and make it through life to play bigger, and better games.  Gone were the days of 8-bit bullshit, and born were the days of the super systems, namely the Xbox, Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Wii!

Yup, Microsoft decided it wanted to first date rape anything and everything competitive, so Bill threw his hat into the pile and thus was born the Xbox.

Now if anyone had played games like Ninja Gaiden for the original Nintendo, you were excited as all hell to learn that they were remaking it for the Xbox!  It was a classic, so really, how could better graphics, better sound, and a super in-depth story be a bad thing?  Like, how could it possibly be bad?  Easy, it wasn’t!  Not at all and everyone ate this game up, as did I.  Video game sites blew their proverbial nerd all over their xbox’s when they reviewed this gem, as it was damn near a home run!

So after all this praise what on earth could my gripe be with it?  Well, remember how I said back in the day “If we can’t make it good, we will make it hard!”  With Ninja Gaiden, they decided to do both.  They made this game so fucking hard that after I beat it, I felt like that chick from Star Wars 3.

Ninja Gaiden ate my soul and my will to fucking live.  Every inch of this game was designed to be so hard that the true test for gamers was not to commit suicide when they died repeatedly!

Whoever made this game should have their heart ripped out of their asses and shown to them before they die so they can see how cold it is!  This game was like No Man’s Land for nerds.

Just when I thought my trials and tribulations were near an end I found that in order to beat the game, I had to perform a slight miracle to do so.  Now, I won’t expect any of you to understand exactly what I am talking about, or how frustrating it was to have to fight three bosses with half health, nor any way to replenish it or why I am known on the forums as Smashicus: “Destroyer of Controllers.”

Now when we do something in life, we technically call it practice.  The more we do it the better we get at it.  Right?  RIGHT?!  Wrong!  The more I died, and the more times I repeated this last stretch of virtual shit, the worse I got at it.  It’s like a woman, the more you try your hand at making them content or understand them, the worse you get at it.

But hey, I CARE about my video games, but enjoying this is like trying to get a horse to wipe it’s ass with an eagle!

Now it’s time for a Haiku:

Suck my fucking dick
You piece of Nintendo shit!
I need therapy
—-RLLD

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