History Class

Sometime early in my life, I think it was probably around 1993, my family walked into a second-hand game store. I was probably three at the time, my sister was about 8 and my brother was around 10. My brother had taken some old NES games that he didn't play anymore and was trading them in to get a better game. Unfortunately, he had to contend with me and my sister. Now, I defer to my brother's judgement in hindsight, and I'm sure he was going to get a much better game. But me and my sister were taken in by a game with relatively cutesy cover art and we out-voted him by means of a tantrum. He begrudgingly took home this cart:

This looked awesome to a three year-old.

We plugged it in and enjoyed it for the whole of 10 minutes as frustration set in that we'd been duped into getting this game for $15 (Mine had the price tag on it for years) that none of us could get past the first level. Despite being cleverly marketed to young children, it would take me 18 years to actually beat the game. And that was with an emulator and hacking it so I could have invincibility, unlimited lives, and the best weapon in the game.

I would've used level select codes, but I'm too much of a man for that.

Even with the prospect of never seeing the game over screen (and hearing it's catchy little jingle) completely eradicated, I had to use a lot of save states to ever make it to the end. At this point, I'd go ahead and start telling you the story of Dino Riki and why he's perpetually marching towards the top of the screen, but as far as I know, this game has no story. There's no little tid-bit thrown in by localization talking about how Dino Riki is searching for food, or for shelter, or to get laid. (That would pretty much cover the spectrum for a cave-man, I would imagine.) Nope, just one caveman against the world.

We start off the game in the first (and for the better part of my life the only) level in the game. It's reminiscent of Pocky & Rocky, only this came out before hand. You slowly march onward towards oblivion as random crap comes flying at you at the speed of really really fast. So, it's a shooter. Only you also have to jump.

I have to wonder if video game characters have to go through some sort of therapy to get over aquaphobia.

I don't have to tell you that the water is deadly dangerous. The jumping is a little complicated by the fact that in order to actually go anywhere, you need a running start. While the world somehow scrolls below you. If Dino Riki could stop marching towards his death for one second, I wouldn't have so many problems. But at least here, the lily pads give a larger target than later in the game.

World one is just like this. Desolate jungle prairie with rocks with a few rivers and lakes. Also in the lakes are moving land masses that too roll under Dino Riki's feet. I'm not sure which is more confusing: the moving land masses or the fact that Dino Riki doesn't move with them.

After a few dozen tries I finally got passed the platforming parts and started to make my way to the bosses' chamber.

He's clearly terrified to know what lurks in the shadow of the cave...

 
I think I've made it this far once without any cheats before. But I'm not entirely sure. To be honest, my no cheating policy is past its statute of limitations when it comes to games older than 15 years. Doubly so if I happen to have a cheat device handy...

Which I do.

Other game reviewers tend to try and make it through the game on skill alone. But, one: I don't really review the games, I just write about them, and two: for the games I like to write about, reviewing them would be me just ranting about them. There are tons of more entertaining ranters for that kind of coverage. (For example, Angry Video Game Nerd) In a lot of cases, I've just never actually beaten the game before and I want to see the end.

Back to Dino Riki-

Great, he started fighting the boss without me! In case you can't tell, that's a pterodactyl. Honestly, from that screen-cap it could be a lot of things. The boss is hard if you're not cheating like I am. I am cheating. So the boss was really easy. He just moves back and forth shooting projectiles that you can shoot down. Actually, if you have the torch power-up (which I did) he'd be pretty simple even then.

Soon, you're whisked away to world 2...

Now, this might just be me nit-picking, but where did this architecture come from? The game is clearly the Adventures of Dino Riki. The last boss: a dinosaur. The protagonist: a cave man. Not only is there advanced civilization here, but it's already come and gone! I can't blame the creators for not wanting the game's scenery to get repetitive, but seriously? Ruins? Ancient ruins? In the middle of the Paleozoic? I dunno, Hudson-Soft, you've just lost a lot of respect.

Not that I was brimming with it beforehand.

This level contains quicksand instead of water, which admittedly is more of a real threat than a water hazard would be. Also the introduction of these guys:

Here we see Dino Riki learning that fire is instantly fatal (a fact that I only hitherto suspected). They're weird looking triceratops that breathe fire. Again, Dino Riki is marching slowly to his doom. I can run forward to dodge them, but I have to still wait for the screen to scroll. Making this fire instantly deadly is kind of a shot to the nuts, really. As if it weren't hard enough to dodge all the crap flying at me, you want me to time a dash to the top of the screen (where bad guys come from) only to slowly tap downwards so I'm not hugging the place where I'm sure to die? I'm just going to say it: I hate shooters for this very reason.

I can handle the sheer number difference (1 ship vs an entire solar system's worth of star destroyers) and even the one-hit kill policy prevalent in many of these types of games. But I can't stand not being in control of when I go somewhere. Even in Super Mario Bros. 3, the slow moving wall of death in a few of the levels pisses me off. I don't like being forced forward, and when I am being forced forward I don't like some invisible barrier telling me that I can't go any faster. This game suffers from this syndrome far worse than most shooters, though. You'll see why soon enough.

Back to Dino Riki, he's found the boss by now after navigating some primordial ruins.

Holy... Alright, I didn't notice until know but it looks like the T-Rex is shooting fire out of his crotch! Oh man, that's hilarious. I call this boss the Tigersaurus Rex because it looks like it has tiger stripes and I thought it was a clever play on words. He trudges back and forth and sometimes in a swooping motion to the bottom of the screen while shooting fire balls out of... his mouth. Sorry to disappoint you. He's just as easy to beat as the Pterodactyl if you have the upgrade (which I'm certain that you do not). After you shoot him enough times he'll die the same death that all the dinosaurs before him did.

He'll inexplicably explode.

World three is weird because... well... I think you're trudging through the land of the dead to be honest. The world is a sickly shade of green, there are flying skulls and crap, and then you've got fun skeletons that like to bull rush you after looking just like the background.

Okay, no, I've got it, I've traveled to that distant world that the Power Rangers went to in the movie. You know? Billy rides a giant dinosaur skeleton like a cowboy, says, "I've got a bone to pick with you!" and then takes out the load-bearing bone (located somewhere near the base of the neck) and the whole thing collapses? Yeah. That must be where I'm at. But, unfortunately for me, I'm not a Power Ranger, so trying to mount one to remove that bone is instantly fatal as well...

"I've got a bone to-THE PAIN!!!"

After awhile, the enemies call upon their good friend Gaia to try and screw me up.

But little does that titan know that I have save states that allow me to try and retry every pit she opens up for me. I finally make it to the end of the level. Surely with such a hard level, the boss is going to be pretty fantastic. I don't know how they could possibly top the T-Rex though... Maybe they're going to throw a T-Rex with a Pterodactyl on it's back?

Or a snake... Snakes are good, I guess. Though it seemed more or an appropriate boss for the desert world I was just in. The snake would be a little more difficult. It fades in and out, teleporting all around the arena, lobbing off a few fireballs, only to disappear again. He can even appear at the bottom of the screen, which is totally unfair since Riki here can't fire down. I can't fathom why Dino Riki can't fire behind him. I understand the game's reasoning: it was poorly made. But it's Riki's reason that eludes me. Maybe it's some crazy caveman superstition. Presumably the same one that overrules survival instincts and tells him to march forward off a cliff...

World four starts and... well... Remember how I speculated that World two was a ruin because they didn't want to repeat scenery? Scratch that. All three parts of World four are rehashes of the previous three worlds, only shorter and with a boss battle at the end of each section. Also, they're a hell of a lot harder.

Nature has many subtle ways of telling you to **** off.

It was at roughly this point I started wondering what Dino Riki's motives were. What was the drive for all of this suicidal insanity? I imagined the staple cutscene I would see at the end of the game... Would it be him with a girl and a little heart above their heads, assuring me that little Riki was going to become a man that night? Or maybe this was all about getting food. Maybe I'd see him chowing down on a piece of meat. You know, that one bone with a meat cylinder smack dab in the middle that you tend to see in anime and video games. Maybe that would be the whole crux of the game. I wondered if maybe the instruction manual came with a little back story, or if there would be a little cutscene at all. Maybe the ending would have nothing to do with the rest of the game because localization totally dropped the ball. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened, right? Well, I beat the Tigersaurus Rex again and move on... 

Surviving World 4, part 3 practically requires that you're cheating in order to win. Check this out:

All of the places that aren't brightly lit are death. So, you have to jump (with finnicky jump controls, I might remind you) onto little platforms the width of your body, while Riki continues to march slowly upwards and the screen scrolls downwards. Even worse is that the game will send out baddies to intercept you here as well. Lots of them. That shoot. With fire. (Or whatever it is that they shoot, I don't know...) It took me about 50 tries to get past this part... only for this to happen:

The earth rips itself a new one to rip me a new one.

Let me narrate what you're looking at: My death. While trying to leap from the top left platform over to the solid ground on the left, Riki didn't make it. Of course, that was a good thing because as the screen scrolled a little further after my death, a new whole appeared, meaning that my leap of faith came with a 50/50 chance of survival anyways. I'd need to jump to the right in order to progress and after that, still land on a tiny island of safety to jump to the entrance of the boss' room. It's at times like these, I wish that game designers would be straight up honest.

Level 4 in its entirety

World five is just like World 2 only harder with more instant death-traps and an insane amount of baddies swooping at me. At least the boss shakes things up a bit:

Mario Paint eat your heart out.

I giant fly that shoots out smaller giant flies. This boss would be seriously hard without cheats. Not impossible, probably, but I know I couldn't do it. After a few hits, the fly will split into two and bounce around the top of the stage, impervious to your shots until the two become one again. After a few good hits, the fly explodes into nothing. I can't wait to see what the ending will bring! Maybe a "Conglaturation! You are win!" screen or something like I wrote above. Maybe just little Dino Riki walking in place with a little jingle that was sometimes the only reward you got for beating a game. Or maybe-

... Really? Not even a little victory, "Hey you just beat the last boss, good for you" jingle? I know that cutscenes, real cutscenes, were not often seen back then, but even Mario got him and the Princess standing together and a big ol' "Thank You". So, I went ahead and took the liberty of making a ending screen for the game.

... This game is mean to me....

The Hero We Deserve?

THEY can use super powered rings, why can't you?

Those of us who survived the early nineties knew that there were loads of dangers. Maybe it was getting hooked on crack and ending up a burn out that needed help from Kirmit the Frog and the Ninja Turtles in order to break the destructive cycle. Maybe it the possibility of getting kidnapped because you trusted a man you'd never met before. Or maybe it was just because of your Cabbage Patch doll who wanted to eat your head. But there was one thing that we were certain about: the ecology of earth was in danger... Or, at least, that's what Captain Planet and the Planeteers would have us believe.

The premise of the show was simple. Gaia, the Spirit of Earth, gets 5 teenagers to help preserve nature with the aid of 5 magic rings, each representing an element. Earth, fire, wind, water, and heart. Although the heart is definately more of a vital organ than an element, we're going to let that slide for now. Now, as a stand-alone, these powers were pretty awesome. Fire could conjure up flames at any moment. Earth could make you an Earthbender. Water would give you dominion over all water. Wind could... well... blow wind... And Heart would allow you to talk to animals. When these powers combined, however, we got a green-mulleted, shiny super hero named Captain Planet who would be the embodiment of all of these powers.

There are a couple of flaws in this show that maybe got overlooked. The first and most shocking to me is that they gave the troubled, inner-city youth dominion over fire. This just screams attempted arson. Even if he's not that troubled, giving a boy the ability to conjure up flames at his beck and whim is terribly irresponsible. Every boy goes through something of a pyromaniac stage, burning all sorts of crap just because it's there to burn. Another thing that I'd want to point out is that it seems like if anyone in any cartoon gets the ability to talk to animals, it's always the Indian kid, right? And finally, I'd just like to point out for anyone else interested that the voice of Linka was also the voice of Sally Acorn from the Adventure of Sonic the Hedgehog and is also the voice of female undead in World of Warcraft. (Kath Soucie)

Only two of these had disturbing fan art when I image searched the names. Try and guess which ones!

The show, understandably, got some parents in a fervor. I had friends whose parents wouldn't let them watch the show. The problem is that all of the villians are usually big-wigs in corporations. So, in the Captain Planet world, all corporate heads are terrible villians. There isn't a single company in this show that is eco-friendly. So, it gives something of a weighted view for young viewers. They grow up thinking the same thing. How much of that is steeped in truth and how much of it I just made up is anyone's guess. But I think that's the same reason why there's so much hooha about the new Lorax movie...

ANYWAYS, this series spawned a game with 10 levels of eco-friendly awesome.

HE'S HEADING RIGHT FOR US!!!

I had the opportunity to play this game all the way through, but to be fair, I only made it to level two with insane amounts of save states and then after that I hacked for lives and health. The main design flaw is that your attacks use energy. This is the same energy that you use as life. While this is not that important while flying in the helicopter (as one hit will kill you dead), this is terribly unfair when you're playing as Captain Planet. Understand that while Captain Planet only exists to fight things like pollution and toxic waste, the very thing he battles renders him weaker than a heart-attack patient. Blow some smoke in his face and he's on the ground. The game makes sure you remember this by coating the walls in any sort of slime that is very fatal to our beloved blue captain.

Level one has you trying to stop Hoggish Greedly as he's tapping oil reserves or drilling for oil or whatever. The point is that he's got an army of helicopters ready to shoot down a bunch of teenagers because he's violating every EPA law and code that has ever existed. After a seemingly never ending side shooter that's horribly redundant and insanely difficult, you land and the Planeteers summon Captain Planet. The ritual is simple: you draw a pentagram on the floor in chicken's blood and get someone to start reading from the 6th chapter of the Necronomicon. While you've got someone chanting, you sacrifice any sort of small animal in the center with the sacrificial knife. What's that? You only remember having to combine the power of the Planeteer's rings to summon him? Well... sure... I guess that would work too...

Captain Planet infiltrates the base. Here he can punch and fly. Also, he can kind of do this Sonic Spin-Dash attack which turns him into whatever element you have chosen. Now, it's at this point that I must point out that in order to change the element you have selected, you must press Start. To pause the game, you must press Select. Now, maybe it's just me, but it seems like they broke like, the only real law there is to video games: Start button pauses the game. You never mess that up. It might bring up a menu screen, but the game will be stopped after pressing Start. This led to many unnecessary deaths on my part when I tried to either pause the game or tried to switch out what power I had equipped.

Now, using these powers drains your health bar. Getting hit drains your health bar. Staying in one place probably drains your health bar. When you get to the end of the level, you fight Hoggish Greedly as he stands in a control room controlling two robotic arms that will keep grabbing you. The battle was interesting until I realized that attacking the arms does nothing, and instead I had to fly to the blind spot for the arms and bullets which is right in front of the glass to the room Hoggish is standing in. You punch through the glass and beat the level.

The next level you're back in the helicopter. The wicked Dr. Blight wants to dump toxic waste into the water! Why, you might ask? Because screw you, that's why! That toxic waste isn't going to dump itself into the water! This level requires you to use the power of earth to throw a rock in front of three different trucks to stop them from dropping the sludge into the water. I was able to thwart the first one just fine. The second... well...

Damn you nature!

The second truck is nigh impossible to catch up to before it reaches the next dump point. (Your helicopter inexplicably explodes when it starts to dump the sludge) After watching my helicopter blow up half a billion times, I decided that this level was broken, on account of the truck perpetually going faster than you helicopter, and used a password to skip it. (637511, in case you were wondering...)

Another level as Captain Planet. These are ridiculously easy if you're cheating. If you're not cheating... well, if you're not cheating or using billions of save states, then you're probably still on level one. I beat the boss. Praise is had.

"Well done in stepping back and letting me get all the glory! Couldn't have done it without you!"

Level 5 has you playing underwater. Hoggish Greedly is now poaching sea creatures. (Hoggish is kind of a dick, in case you hadn't noticed.) This is a really hard level, since you move so slowly and you'll have these homing mines that make you explode. There are also these missiles that launch up and will make you explode. And these walls... that... make you explode... I think maybe the submarine is made of nitroglycerin? Well, there are other boats of better structrual integrity that are poaching the sea creatures. You use the power of heart to command the animals to attack the boats for you. Or fall in love with them.

The yellow squid, romantically entangled with a boat... Nature is beautiful...

Jokes about squids copulating with watercraft aside, this level really is a beast. But it pays off as you dock in Hoggish Greedly's base and have Captain Planet stop him before any fish get really hurt.

Oops... Well, better late then never, right?

The showdown with Hoggish is even easier this time around. You just need to get to him. There's a hallway of vacuum pipes that feed into meat grinders (like the one above) that you have to dodge and then once you get near Hoggish he gives up and Captain Planet blows up the base, because looting and polluting is wrong, but terrorism is hunky dory.

The next level is rather interesting. Looten Plunder is hunting the African Elephant for its tusks. Ivory is a big deal, even today. Of course, this is wrong. We must stop it. What we do here is... It's easier to show you, actually...

Not shown: Using the elephant to take out anti-air missile bases... Seriously...

The power of heart apparently can be used as some sort of flesh magnet to pick up and elephant. You then drop him off right before an anti-air missile silo for it to trample it to smithereens and then it trundles off into a wildlife preserve. Of course, in reality, an elephant can't survive a fall much larger than a foot, much less three to four times its height. But we couldn't have the Planeteers be killing off the elephants while trying to save them, could we?

Finally, after all (read: 3) elephants are safe from captivity, Captain Planet is summoned to stop the slaughter of the elephants. This is where things get messed up for a kids game...

Captain Planet is channeling fire power, in case you were wondering. Pictured above is an elephant's skeleton (tusks intact, interestingly enough) at the bottom of a pool of blood. Watered down blood, perhaps, but you are in a slaughterhouse after all. That's definitely not Kool-Ade.

After navigating the slaughterhouse maze and freeing a bunch of elephants along the way, you get to fight the boss. It's actually more of a chase that requires luck and memorizing the path that you run along. You just need to get close enough to punch the ship and then it disappears.

Now we're in the home stretch. The last two levels are facing off against none other than Duke Nukem!

He's here to radiate and chew gum... and he's all outta gum...

Not who you were expecting, huh? The creators of the Duke Nukem we know and love actually changed his name to Duke Nukum for a little while to avoid a potential lawsuit until they found out that Captain Planet's Duke Nukem wasn't actually copyrighted, so they changed the name back. And Gaia looks totally hot right there. Kind of like Storm's long lost sister or something. Mmmm.... Nature....

This is the most infuriating level of the game, aside from level 3. I used a billion save states to get to the end, because you're forced into little tiny pathways that always include a fatal trap at the end, while enemies are shooting at you from every which direction. Also, touch anything and you'll explode. That's why I didn't get any screen caps until the very end.

I never thought that I'd see the radioactive monster's evil lair as a sanctuary until now.

The last level of the game is kind of like Contra. Everything makes sense up until then. The last level is a myriad of colored balls and radioactive isotopes. All of which hurt you. The end fight is actually a puzzle. Duke Nukem will shoot some sort of laser at you. All around the room are little mirrors that you have to position correctly in order reflect the beam at the energy core that Duke is standing under. After three self-inflicted blows, Duke is susceptible to a single punch. And like that, Captain Planet has saved the day! Roll ending sequence!

YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

...Unless you didn't make it that far...

Great Odin's beard! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!!

Wally Bear and the No Gang: How I Learned to Defeat Druggies and Bullies

I walk down the street with my cool new Ninja Turtles T-shirt, talking about the local sports team with my best buddy Jack. As we pass an open alley, a drug dealer would come out from the shadows. I know he's a drug dealer because he's got a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a slicked back hairstyle that makes him really cool. 

He might also have the ability to transform.

 He slinks out of the shadows to me and my friend and with a cool smirk on his face says, "Hey kid. Do you want to try some illegal drugs?" My friend Jack is scared witless. These are the very drugs that could kill someone. The drug dealer knows he's got us cornered. He's offered something free, we resist... But, thinking quickly, I react with the only way to defeat a drug dealer.
 "NO!" I say firmly, holding my hand out in a firm, 'no' kind of posture.
The drug dealer reels, cupping himself. He hisses and turns into a puff of smoke and slime, leaving behind nothing but a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a small ziploc baggy of pills that look a lot like aspirin.
 I gain 43 experience points (Jack gains the same) and 21 gil.

While D.A.R.E. taught me how to defend against drug solicitations, I found that in reality, most people offering me drugs were either friends or my uncle. And in any case, they were doing it more of a courtesy. Like eating in front of someone. No one has ever offered me drugs on the street and if they did, I'm sure it wouldn't be for free. Nor would I, being 8 years old in the example, be a target consumer, since I don't have a source of income and I'm too small to be able to steal much to feed this addiction.

While D.A.R.E. gave us mixed signals when it came to drugs (i.e. all the cool people were doing them, but you don't want to be cool like them?) it also gave us more focus in our young lives. It may or may not have been responsible for this:

A bear riding a skateboard is the kind of cool thing you can experience only while sober.

 While I know that Angry Video Game Nerd has done a review on this (Check it out here if you haven't seen it. NSFW: Language) Me and my good friend Jack, just like we stumbled upon Kid Chameleon trying to sell us drugs, stumbled upon this game while sifting through some NES roms I had stored on my laptop.

The game was released in 1992 and wasn't a licensed game. (You'll notice the lack of shiny gold Nintendo sticker on the box up there) It was rejected by Nintendo's licensing department likely for drug references. Back then Nintendo was the No Gang.

We rejected your game concept because f*** you, that's why.

It has a fairly straightforward story. Wally Bear has a party to attend. He needs to get there before dark. His mother is kind enough to remind him to say, "No." and be smart and not to start. She never actually says what he should be smart not to start, so we're left to fill in the blanks. It seems like a very odd thing to say to your kid as he's heading out the door. My mom usually says, "I love you" or "Be safe". I don't think she's once just said, "Okay, say 'no'. Be smart, don't start." But maybe I've just got a weird family.

So the game is afoot. Wally sets out on his skate board to... right. Right is apparently the direction that Uncle Grizzly lives, since left is not an option. Maybe Wally's mom was telling him to say no to going to the left? We may never know...  The controls are interesting enough. Wally can jump and he can move, building up momentum on his skateboard. He cannot attack. And landing on a dog on your skateboard will only hurt you, not the dog. So, they get half-credit on realism there.

Enemies include:

Evil Seagull

Hell Hound

Ricky Rat

 There is some debate on whether or not Ricky there is throwing a rock or drugs. Either one would suck getting hit with. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that later in the game that he throws bombs. Someone should tell these guys that blowing up potential customers is bad for business...

At the end of stage one Wally enters a subway. There he meets with a rabbit who informs him that Toby Turtle (Aren't turtles always named Toby?) was trying to join Ricky Rat's gang. In order to join, Toby would have to take some pills! This may be for Toby's benefit. Maybe Toby is hyperactive (for a turtle) and needs to take his ridilin? Maybe it's blood-pressure medication? We don't know. But Wally is now hell-bent on stopping Toby. So he rides his skateboard on the subway (which I'm sure is worth at least a $100 fine in some parts of New York) to stop Ricky Rat... Who is apparently more than one rat... Maybe it's the name of the gang? Here we see some actual product placement. We get repeated billboards of "Crossbow" and "Shock Wave". While me and Jack figured that these were plugs for the frisbee weapon and skateboard respectively, deeper research says that they were actually titles of "blockbuster" games coming out soon. But AGCI went belly up before they were finished. Tough luck.

Wally finds Toby and tells him that any friend that won't take, "No" for an answer isn't really your friend. Wally then continues on into another neighborhood and another subway. There he meets Priscilla the Mouse (Because guys are rats, girls are mice, if Secret of NIMH taught me anything) who has had her radio stolen by Ricky Rat. Another subway stage and Priscilla has her radio back.

This is where things start getting kind of trippy. Up until now, the game has been fairly straightforward and child-friendly. Steeped in over-generalizing statements and innocent obstacles. Suddenly, it's getting on towards dusk, you're in the inner-city. Luckily in the inner city in Wally Bear's world, you don't have to worry about drug dealers. You have to worry about terrorists.

Apparently, bombs will still hurt you no matter how much No you fling at them.

Now, it's one thing to be getting into gang trouble in your grade school. But if you're wandering into gang territory after dark, then you're just asking for trouble. You learn this lesson the hard way, since these levels are no piece of cake. It was around here that I just said, "Screw it" and hacked the game for infinite lives.

Now for more after-school special drama. Larry the Lizard was spotted walking into a parking garage drinking from "a funny looking bottle". Wally reminds us that even grownups shouldn't drink and drive. The implication is that kids shouldn't drink and drive either. Which is strictly true.

Bet you can't guess how drunk I am!

Wally is now in a parking garage. He must find an exit out of all the possible exits. Also, Larry the Lizard is apparently more than one person, too. The exit to the parking garage leads into the sewers. Suddenly I'm realizing what Wally's parents were talking about. Just say No to go to this party. What kind of parents send their kid off into a world of gangs and drug dealers that requires two subways (that are frequented by gangsters and thieves) a trip through the inner-city and then past a parking garage and through the sewers. But it gets worse. Later on we find a castle hidden in the sewers with creepy faces that shoot... something at you. This eventually leads to more sewers, another castle, and then back to the surface of the inner-city (strangely enough with a sign indicating that you were in the subway?) until Wally finally arrives at the party.

The most ironic thing about this game is that it would probably be much better if you were stoned while playing it...

But, the weirdest thing about this entire shindig is that up until October 15, 2007 a hotline for Wally Bear and the No Gang was still active at 1-800-HI-WALLY. You could call up and Wally the Bear would tell you all about being smart and not starting and how you could just say no. For the life of me, I don't know how or why the hotline would be open for 15 years.

And since I can't think of a more fitting way to end this entry, I'm going to include this song that would make Wally Bear proud.