Friday, October 29, 2010

"Nice Try, Buddy."

I have a bit of a gaming "bucket list" if you will. I'm actually doing quite well with it. I've beaten Battletoads, Outrun, and Hang-on to name a few. I even recently beat Top Gun on the NES a month or so ago, which is a game that's haunted me for many years. There is one game though, that I don't believe I'll ever complete... or even win ONCE in. As irony would have it, another Tom Cruise movie is the initial source of more torturous gaming that I cannot win to this day: "Days of Thunder," on the NES.

First of all, let me make it clear that I'm not going to make movie comparisons. When I played this game as a kid, I knew nothing more than that it had both a "Hardee's" and a "Mello Yello" car on the cover, and they appeared to be leading a pack of racers. In other words, "Sweet, a racing game." Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I was in for an extremely frustrating and boring experience. In its defense, NASCAR isn't exactly a riveting sport, so it's somewhat difficult to complain about doing nothing but turning left, but it still makes for a dull game.

So the boring part is pretty easy to understand. The visuals are dull, with the different tracks looking identical except for the colors of the sky and road changing. The frustration, however, requires a bit more explanation. Before doing any race, you must first do qualifying laps. 4 of them to be exact. You are given a time to beat for first place. The frustration starts as early as the qualifying round. Of those 4 laps, your second lap is really the only one that matters. The first lap is spent getting your car up to speed, and as early as the tail-end of lap 3, your car's right-side tires will deteriorate forcing you to slow down more to avoid sliding right, into the outside wall. So, it's possible that if you have a really terrible lap 2, you could slightly redeem yourself in lap 3 or 4, but if you're trying to qualify 1st, the second lap is really your only chance. This also means that if you do end up doing well and succeed at beating the time in lap 2, YOU'RE DONE. Yet, you still have to waste your time and do 2 more pointless laps. Exciting. The qualifying round really tells you what kind of a game you're in for.

Now you've qualified and you're ready to race. Hell, maybe you've even qualified first. It doesn't matter, because you will start behind 1st and have to overtake him. That's right, even if you qualify for first position, you're still going to need to catch up and overtake 1st place. What a load. Not to mention, that may not sound that tough, but it's insanely difficult. You see, unlike any of the other racers in the game, 1st position will actively try to block you from passing. Due to the crappy perspective of the game, it's very tough to see where you are in relation to the other racer in terms of depth. So, you may think, "Finally, I've squeezed past him, so now I'll bump into his side," when you hear the grinding sound of failure and hit his rear, pushing him slightly forward, forcing you to take another approach at overtaking. It's all right though, you've got 12 laps or more depending on the stage. That gives you time to overtake him, right? Well, sure... but one too many hits to the front end of your car, and your engine will get damaged. Damaged engine= slower vehicle. Slower vehicle= never getting 1st ever. Not to mention, by this point, you're likely starting to run low on your fuel... and your tires will have deteriorated on both sides forcing you to take every turn slower, widening the gap between you and 1st, unless, by some freak accident, you've ended up in 1st, in which case the gap between you and 2nd is closing.

That means, it's time to take your car into the pits. This is possibly even more frustrating than the other portions of this game, although it's tough to say. Before I go into detail, I ask you to think about an entire pit crew. Then I ask you to think about how fast they all work together. Then I ask you to think about how quickly a pit crew would work if only one member could move at a time. See the problem? Plus, I somehow always seem to get stuck on the car when I think I'm past it, losing precious precious seconds as I try to get my pit crew to the right side of the car. Which reminds me, why do I have 4 pit crew members on the left and only 1 on the right? I understand the mechanic stays up front on the right for the engine, and I understand the guy who stands back on the left to fuel the car... so I guess the other 3 on the left kind of makes sense, because you need 3 people to change out the tires on a side of the car: One to use a jack to lift up the car, and the other 2 for the 2 tires. Fine, I guess I answered my question, but couldn't they at least be on the right side? The right side tires ALWAYS go before the left side tires. I suppose that doesn't really matter either since you're going to wait until all the tires have worn some before you do a pit stop.

None of it really matters. It just amounts to one giant pain in the ass. Maybe that's what this game is... training kids for the real-world. It's horribly frustrating, unfair, and you feel as though you'll never win. Also, not unlike many real-life human beings like myself, the game apparently sucks at math. I just finished the first race of the game in 2nd place. That means there has only been one race in the series cup. What position should I be in? If you were to ask any elementary school child this question, if they were old enough to know you were being an ass and trying to trick them, they would tell you that you'd, of course, be in 2nd place (What's 7+ 0?).
Well, not according to this game. According to this game, winning 2nd place in the first race puts you tied with 1st in the series' standings despite the fact that 1st place is, naturally, worth more points than 2nd. Go ahead math wizards, explain to me how that works. IT DOESN'T.
The world according to Days of Thunder on NES.
Before I finish, I'm proud to say, (more ashamed, really) that after playing this game again today, I was able to win one race. Yes, it's possible. However, this was the 2nd race of the game, which is, according to a GUIDE ON DAYS OF THUNDER (Yes! someone really made it, check GameFAQs, I dare you) the easiest track to win. That's right, I put all those other drivers to shame, especially last place driver... wait, seriously? Brian Tumor? I see what you did there... I guess that's better than "Dick Flood," which was used in other versions of the game. C'mon. "It's not a trickle, it's a flood!" OH YOU SO CLEVER.

Anyways, as I said earlier, maybe this game is a symbolic representation of the hardships of life, so I guess if you want an allegory of how shitty life can be, "Days of Thunder" on the NES is a golden title. For the rest of us, we probably should play something else and stay far, far away from this monotonous, irritating NES game.