"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.

"Ryu, be always brave..."

Let’s talk a little bit about Ninja Gaiden. It’s pretty popular and almost everyone knows what it is. However, I found motivation to write about these classic games after another bored session of Omegle. I was telling someone about the various games I play, and I said, “Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario Bros, Castlevania... classics.” I figured I should go with famous titles. If I said, “Sparkster, Klonoa, Journey to Silius, and Secret of Mana,” a lot of gamers wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about, especially more modern gamers. However, his response proved his “modern gamer” status all on its own. “I love Ninja Gaiden.” Knowing what was probably coming next, I asked, “On what system?”

“PS3.”

Chances are he didn’t even realize there were old Ninja Gaiden games. While I hear the new games are good, and I really would like to play them, the classic NES trilogy should not be forgotten, as they are some of the finest examples of platforming from their time. There’s one simple thing about these games that stands out for me in terms of excellence and, in my opinion, withstands the test of time. It’s not the cutscenes, as obviously those have done nothing but evolve since their humble beginnings in games like Ninja Gaiden. It’s not the difficulty, though these games still prove to be immensely challenging. Even the excellent soundtracks are not what I would consider the highlight of the series. What is it then that stands out so much in my mind? The control. These games are fast-paced, but thanks to tight controls, there actually are ways to avoid the game’s many seemingly impossible deathtraps. Nothing against Castlevania, but if Ryu controlled like Simon Belmont does, Ninja Gaiden would likely be impossible.

However, you may have noticed that at no point have I said that these games are “fair,” or that “every death feels like it could have been easily prevented.” Oh no, I’m not saying that at all. You will die, and you will die a lot. You have to learn to go around the game’s problems such as infinite respawning of enemies and the pitfalls that are rampant throughout the entire series. A particular section of 5-3 in the first game stands out distinctly in my mind. There’s a pit in front of you and a bat coming at you… what do you do? 1st attempt: Kill the bat and jump! You kill the bat, he respawns over the pit, you hit him, and fall to your death. Care to try again? Wait for the right placement, jump the bat carefully, and BAM! A cheetah comes from nowhere and knocks you back into the pit. While these deaths can and will be prevented once you learn the level, there’s literally NO WAY you could possibly react to these death traps the first time you encounter them. Not to mention 6-2 of the first game, don’t even get me started on that crap.

What’s that, player? You haven’t had enough of this? How about sending you back through the hardest section of the game when you fail the final boss just once? How about creating stage hazards in the second game to trip you up? How about throwing you back multiple sections every time you die, AND limited continues in the third game? You still want to play, player?

If any of that doesn’t sound fun, you might be on to something. These games are excessively hard and they’re going to punish you every chance they get. So am I some crazy masochist for wanting to finish all three of these games? Possibly, but I would have given up long ago if these games didn’t all have such excellent control. Still, these games push the limits of what a hard game should be. They all have to be done in one sitting, no battery backup or passwords, and in the case of Ninja Gaiden III, you get limited continues. It should be noted that both of those problems are remedied in the SNES compilation, "Ninja Gaiden Trilogy," but there the music sounds considerably worse and I'm not fond of the controls. I understand it uses the exact same button scheme as the NES games, but using Y as attack and B as jump would have made more sense on an SNES controller than using B and A. The NES versions are the way to go.

All in all, the Ninja Gaiden series stands out as 3 fast-paced, viciously hard, and immensely satisfying games on the NES. I'm not going to pretend that these games aren't frustrating, because every one of them frustrated the hell out of me, particularly 3 with it's even more punishing difficulty. If you go into them expecting to repeat levels a lot, however, you may find yourself with some masochistic tendencies, and enjoying the games a lot. Or... you could, you know... use an emulator and save states like everyone else. You don't HAVE to be as stubborn/dumb as I am.

(Final note: that line still makes me laugh. "Ryu, u sexist?")