The Challenge: 1

So at work we've come up with a new thing to do. Once a week, my cubemates will dig up some random-ass game (which one of them is very good at doing) and I have to play it to completion.

The Rules:
1. The game has to be free (or "free" as the case may be).
2. It has to be short enough to be completable in one sitting.
3. I have to take screenshots of the beginning title screen and the end credits to show that I finished it.
4. I am allowed (and in fact encouraged) to drink heavily the entire time.

Rule 4 was my idea.

Anyway, today's challenge was the truly awful NES game Total Recall. Not the cool computer version(s) developed by Ocean, oh no. The assbag version by Interplay that was apparently hewn from the corpses of a hundred thousand dead puppies.

Awesome. Here we goooo!



So the title screen is already scaring the shit out of me here. Acclaim? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised they were involved in this abortion somehow.

---




Wow.

Y'know, I remember trying to piece together the plot to Robocop when I was kid by playing the NES game, which is like trying to figure out quantum physics by staring directly at the sun. It would randomly throw you around various sets from the movie, occasionally deliver non-sequitur lines of dialogue from the movie taken completely out of context, and the ending amounted to an animation of a guy telling some other guy he was fired and then Robocop shooting him.

So I guess taking that into consideration, this is at least a halfway decent summation of Total Recall crammed into 45 words.

---




This took about 5 seconds to pop up. What the hell.

---




Okay. Jesus. So the instant you start the game, you take 3 steps and are pulled into an alley, I think, and forced to fight like 3 guys at once. Arnold's arm reaches about as far as his nose does in this game, so punching guys is like trying to beat someone up with your shoulders. Meanwhile these guys, who look like 8-bit versions of Jesus from The Big Lebowski, are doing ninja flips all over the place and kicking you in the shins.

This isn't even a picture of that happening. This is a picture of what happens next, where you walk by a fence with holes in it which fists randomly pop out of to punch you. While this is going on police jump out of the window a story above you(!) and then land, apparently unharmed from their weird decision to not take the stairs, and begin attacking you.

You do this for like 4 screens.

---




I'm starting to think maybe the reason people hate this game so much is because the beginning part just up and jams a streetcone up your asshole right from the get go rather than easing it in gently, because this boss fight actually shows some measure of...Well, not exactly competency, but at least some semblance of creativity.

You show up in the room and suddenly bullets fly in and break your television and knock some holes in the wall. Then your wife/girlfriend/whatever barges in and you have to fight her here. After 3 hits, she drops her gun, which you can then pick up. As this is going on, the two smaller, unbroken screens show someone entering the elevator on the ground floor and then emerging near the top. Take too long to kill the chick in red and the main antagonist from the film shows up and begins to hose you down with bullets.

---




Then shit like this will happen. I killed the girlfriend, but didn't run for the exit in time and now the Big Bad Guy just stands there firing an endless stream of bullets at me. I can crouch all I want, but apparently the roadie run is beyond my capabilities here since I can't move. So my options are Squat Here Forever or Stand Up and Get Shot in the Face.

Awesome.

---



Down to my last life but I think I cleared the first level!

God dammit.

---




The subway!

---




Oh hey, I kinda remember this from the movie! The scanner thing that showed people's skeletons and highlighted guns in red. So I have to fight a bunch of guys in here.

---




Okay very little life, no gun, and no more extra lives. You'll also notice I've moved like a whopping one inch since the last screenshot. This isn't looking good.

---




I like how they just reuse the same graphic they had before. At least that subway level was short. My life apparently doesn't refill in between stages though. Unless the game suddenly gets really easy I'm pretty sure I'm screwed.

---




Wow hey that took like 1.3 seconds. I started the next stage and instantly a dog ran in and chewed my feet off. Rad.

Aaaand I'm out of lives and have to start over. God dammit.