I strap myself in for a white-knuckle adventure. This may be my final mission. I've already kissed my wife and daughter and said my goodbyes. I tell them that I'll be okay, but in my heart of hearts, I know that I shant return. My name is Lar Robideau, and I'm about to play 1942. I try to relax my muscles, as I'll need lightning reflexes very soon. I strap myself in and take a deep breath. I cue up 'Word Up' by Cameo on my music player. I have no idea what they are singing, but I feel the funk. It shall carry me through this mission. Perfect for blowing shit up. 'Simple enough,' I think to myself, 'play a war plane, blowin' up other planes, easy.' I'm a fool.


I boot up the first shmup (shoot em up, for the uninitiated) that I've played in many, many years. I have a feeling of confidence wash over me. I can do this. Not only will I survive more than a minute, I will thrive. I will... BEAT LEVEL ONE! Within 10 seconds, I blow up. Not a healthy start. That's what you get for being cocky. I'm not very schooled in shmups, and to the best of my memory, I've never been good at them. Although my memory is hazy, I think that this is a safe bet, as I suck at most games. But this one is okay so far, I survive a few waves of enemies before getting wasted again. I must be a prodigy. I'm pretty sure this may be taking some creative liberties with the war here though. I don't remember ever seeing attack planes flying one by one by one behind each other so perfectly, not firing, and waiting to be shot down. What is unsurprising to me is that I miss my clear shots, and said planes kamikaze dive me into smithereens.

Within 2 minutes, it's game over for me. I've achieved my first goal, I lasted more than a minute. I celebrate by pausing the game and allowing myself a bathroom break. Sometimes I spoil myself. During my two minute of playing, I noticed that theres a flip button. Your plane does a back flip, and seems to lower itself to another tier. As far as I can figure, it's only use is to leave yourself open to getting blasted. Like taunts in Street Fighter Alpha. What can really be said about a NES shmup? You shoot stuff. Whoop. 'No!' I say to myself, 'Don't get cocky! You have a mission! you must... ...BEAT LEVEL 1!!!' My wife comes over to lend moral support. 'Tylar' she says, 'who are you yelling at?' '1942...' I tell my loving, and mildly confused wife, 'The fucking number 1942!'


So far, I've had to continue twice, lets see if I've learnt enough to beat a level for once. A small plane flies toward me, I seek to cut him off. Instead, he shoots me in the face. So I guess I haven't learnt at all. I come to a new realization as well. This game is boring me silly. So, like a real man, I quit!

HOW FAR I MADE IT: 3 or 4 minutes



PROJECT NES IS LARS NEW TIME WASTING PROJECT: THE CHRONICLES OF A MAN WHO GOES THROUGH AND PLAYS EVERY NES GAME EVER MADE (except probably the games you need the Zapper for, we'll see).

Follow Project NES and more at The New Yawker!

As I start this journey into unknown and exciting territory, I decide to get into a nostalgia vibe by playing the 80's anthem 'Oh Yeah' by Yellow. Good stuff. Chick chickachicka! No? Aw, fuck all of you. Anyway, as I boot up the game, I have no idea what kind of game this will be, no idea of the genre, story, or anything relevant. All I know is the name: 720. Intriguing. Soon I shall unlock it's secrets. With great curiosity, and a little trepidation, I press start.


Aw hell. But my mission must be completed, I must pay this game. God help us all. 720 starts in a skate park, while this on it's own isn't enough to inspire OR annoy me, it DOES leave me with a smidge of confusion as there is no indication of what to do, or where to go. Always the adventurer, I decide to explore my surroundings. So I just skate around, looking for a checkpoint or challenge. before long, I find a map icon. Now we're getting somewhere! A map appears on contact with the icon and shows me... wait for it... nothing of interest. I'm left with little choice but to do some more aimless wandering. I come across a kindred spirit, who, like me, seems lost in this vast, uninteresting wasteland that is 720. He is a bald, punk rocker looking dude, and I wonder how long he has been stuck here. I sense in him a rage, an anger. What tips me off to his temperament is his actions: He is so angry at life, he stands in one spot, kicking into the air, over and over.


He's a bad dude. But I wonder if he's a bad enough dude to save the president? 'No matter,' I think to myself, 'It may be an ill thought out decision, but I must make first contact with the air kicker.' The fact that he promptly knocks me on my ass isn't a surprise at all. What is a bit of a surprise however, is that immediately after I get back on my board, I get blindsided by a tumbleweed going at approximately warp 10. On contact, it turns into a skull and crossbones and knocks me back off my board.


Cue the GAME OVER message. Hrnn. I'm already finding myself pissed off at this game, but I'm not one to give up on my first try. Never. I'm a man. I give up on my second. So I crank up Guns N Roses 'There Was A Time', and decide that I'm gonna pwn this bitch game! Look out 720, I'm commin' to get ya! My patience pays off. I manoeuvre my way past the bald guy with the air vendetta, and find a very bored looking girl manning a concession stand. Sneaking past her, I find a half pipe! Alright, now this game has a new lease on life. I attempt 7 tricks, and wipe 6 times. The half pipe controls and looks like a poor mans Skate Or Die, down to the animations. Automatically, my virtual doppleganger hops off the ramp, and I get the following messages. NO RECORDS NO METALS I mentally add a new message: NO U


So fuck this crap. I can't wait till I get to Skate Or Die so I can mock this game more.

HOW FAR I GOT: 3 minutes tops.


PROJECT NES IS LARS NEW TIME WASTING PROJECT: THE CHRONICLES OF A MAN WHO GOES THROUGH AND PLAYS EVERY NES GAME EVER MADE (except probably the games you need the Zapper for, we'll see).

Follow Project NES and more at The New Yawker!

Football. Not the biggest fan, but for gods sake, I WILL TRY. This calls for some Queen. As 'Princes Of The Universe' takes me away to a land of adventure, Christopher Lambert, and wicked guitar riffs, I duck my head, tuck my chin, and prepare to break some bodies in my quest for the almighty TOUCHDOOOWWWWNNNNN!!! Here I am, born to be king, I'm the prince of the universe. I'm given a choice of what difficulty of team to face. The choices are High School, College, Professional, Playoff, and Super Bowl teams. I go with High School for starters (natch), and go from there. HERE WE GO! Whoah... Seeing the intense graphical that the NES is capable of, I decide that this games visuals were created in two 8 hour shifts over a weekend, by two retarded 3 year old chimps. I think that the Intellivision had some games with better graphics than this, and that system was 4 bit.

Obviously, I have no idea how this sport works, because I'm baffled when the team I'm pitted against kicks the ball to me from across the field. But I know how to adapt quickly. With a smirk on my lips and an 'Okie dokie then' on the tip of my tongue, I charge forward... well, I guess up, technically. I'm surrounded by teammates who are there to watch my back. They surround me and run with me, in the grace and coordination that synchronized swimmers strive for. I'm an unstoppable terror of the gridiron. I weave to the right, I weave to the left... wait... wait... okay, I slowly turn to the left instead. But I still have my team watching my back. Within the next ten seconds, I find myself realizing that, like the aforementioned swimmers, my teammates are there for show. This occurs to me as the opposing team passes right through Team Lar and knocks my dick in the dirt.


I get distracted by a rerun of the final episode of the Montel Show, and decide that I'd rather watch a scrawny old guy with MS. And it was good, Montel rocks socks. Back again, this time rocking out to 'Ghost Riders In The Sky', and I try once more. Fuck yes! I get the ball and manoeuvre my ass all over the place, avoiding pixelate tacklers, making them eat shit as I run on by. I'm on a roll, and I make a slow turn to the left and run. A little too far, as it turns out, cuz I run out of bounds. Once again, I wish I knew how this sport worked, other than the dogfighting... oh wait... I keep getting cut off by the rival team, so instead I run backwards. Apparently this isn't a smart move, and they tackle my sorry ass once again. I'm not sure what the hell a first down is, but it just happened. Whatever, I still get the ball, and in a stunning display of Larsomeness, I get a touchdown! My pixilated counterpart celebrates by throwing his hands in the air and jumping wildly. It's a moment right out of those cruddy sports movies, I pulled out from near defeat to score a home run or whatever. My opponents show their dismay by throwing their hands in the air and jumping wildly. But angry.


An arrow all of a sudden shows up in front of the goalpost and i get tackled again. What just happened? Fuck this.

HOW FAR I MADE IT: 'Bout a minute and some change.


PROJECT NES IS LARS NEW TIME WASTING PROJECT: THE CHRONICLES OF A MAN WHO GOES THROUGH AND PLAYS EVERY NES GAME EVER MADE (except probably the games you need the Zapper for, we'll see).

Follow Project NES and more at The New Yawker!

I'm about to play 8 eyes, and I'm thinking that I'll regret it. I crank up some KMFDM tuneage to see me through this dark time. As soon as I boot the game up, I'm given an option of where in the world I want to play. Excellent, multiple beggining levels is always a plus. I attempt to choose Egypt, hoping that I get to whack some mummies or something. Whoops! guess that was just a tease, I can't select them at all, I just get to look at what could be, I suppose. Instead, I'm off to the default first level, Arabia. Whee. I start outside a palace and notice that I have an owl on my shoulders, and if I press attack and up at the same time, he takes off and flies around, and will return by my pressing the same thing again. This has merit. On the downside, I'm at the entrance of an Arabian palace, and have no way to open the gates. I do, however, see what looks like a penis hanging off a nearby wall. I correctly assume that it's a switch, so whack the bastard and the door flies open. I am so fucking smart. About 10 seconds in, I start running into problems. One is that my flying owl does nothing while flying but take damage from other birds. Two, my sword is shorter than my arms, which isn't very convenient since my arms barely leave my side while attacking. Added to this problem is that my enemies scimitars seem to extend about 6 feet. And three, for the life of me, I can figure out how to climb a staircase. Theres no simple jumping onto them, or just, I don't know, simply walking up them. They need to be mounted first. After a few minutes, I smoosh my hands onto the keyboard, which seems to work well in getting on the bastards. Oh hey, I get to kill Jawas. Go fig. And they know kung fu. Whoah.



I start to think I'm clever when I attack an unarmed Arab thats walking aimlessly around by stabbing him as he walks away. Nope, my sword goes right through him, so instead I wait for him to turn around to face me. your time is at hand, unarmed Arab! Wait, nope, my sword still passes through him still, and as soon as he walks into me, it causes massive damage. We'll meet again... I wonder if there is a hidden message here. Every time you kill an Arab, you have to collect a Christian cross that floats from his heathen corpse. I die shortly after finding the second room, having found another wall mounted penis to stab. Not too worried, I'm sure I have a few more lives, so I... Wait, wha...? GAME OVER?!? ONE LIFE ONLY??? I must proceed with caution.


Nope, caution doesn't do any good. The unarmed Arab pwns me again. Good god, I still can't figure out the stairs. I kind of run and jump and smoosh the d-pad at the base, and I start up them eventually. I look forward to playing an NES game that I can survive more than a minute. Another note, this game is ugly as sin. HAHA!! I master the stairs after all. Attack and up. WHY??? I keep dying, and start to hate my owl for leaving my corpse behind every time. One more time into the breach! After stabbing several dongs, I make it to the much anticipated third screen, and am confronted by a skeletal warrior. He promptly beats me down like a red headed stepchild.



I give up.

HOW FAR I MADE IT: about a minute and a half.

PROJECT NES IS LARS NEW TIME WASTING PROJECT: THE CHRONICLES OF A MAN WHO GOES THROUGH AND PLAYS EVERY NES GAME EVER MADE (except probably the games you need the Zapper for, we'll see).

Follow Project NES and more at The New Yawker!

So I open up my music player and start with William Shatner's 'Has Been', for my epic journey has begun. 3D Runny Guy Something. It's a game where you run around on a '3d' grid and, as far as I can figure, avoid a bevy of random poles sticking out of the ground. YES! So after expertly avoiding said menacing poles, I get hit with a frightening wave of... things. Little green balls with eyes floating back and forth. That may not sound like much, but in this jaggy as hell 3d world of excellence, it's a seizure inducing experience of Pokemon cartoon proportions. After a couple of deaths, I can manoeuvrer by these epic obstacles with relative ease. The poles were never a problem, but those damn green... things, they haunt me. As relief washes over me for surviving the first two seconds of gameplay, I'm blindsided by an immense horror. Rushing toward me comes what I'm assuming is a bottomless pit, about two feet wide. With adrenaline pumping through my veins, I hit the jump button. I fall to my death immediately.


In my haste, I picked the wrong button to press. I pressed the shoot button instead. If my 3d running guy could shoot. But it did nothing. A wave of fright washes over me. I'm in a strange land, surrounded by evil random poles, and green balls that move back and forth. With those eyes... I may have well been staring into the eyes of the devil itself. Now I have two missions, get ammo, if it even exists in this land of terror, and don't fall down holes anymore. NOW this is getting intense. I die several times. With the power of Danny Elfmans Batman theme blaring through my headphones, I dare to continue. Back to life once more, I expertly avoid more poles. This time, I use the jump button at the pit from hell and am shocked when I nearly jump off the top of the screen. Mr. 3d Running Guy soars with an ease that would turn Superman green with envy. Green like those devil balls with eyes. Connection? Must remember to investigate further. Amazed at 3d running guys jumping skill, and inspired by Bobby Browns 'On Our Own', I decide to run around testing just how far this little bastard can jump. After run jumping a hole roughly the size of two football fields with little effort, I lose interest. I feel defeat in this success however, because after roughly five deaths, I've played about four seconds of the actual game.



I run around avoiding everything, wondering what the point of this game is, when I accidentally hit one of the numerous polls. I bounce off and a missile icon pops out. I pick it up and can now shoot. My life suddenly has meaning once more. 'Ahhhh, so thats what those poles are for,' I think to myself, 'Time to whoop some ass! LOOK OUT... THINGS WITH EYES!!!' I immediately discover that aiming is impossible I and am one-shotted by a green ball monster, with little effort on his part, beyond 'go left..... now right....'. So back to it, I hit a pole again, only this time a big Mario mushroom pops out. I get it right away. I hope for a free life, or a significant power-up. GURK! Okay, so I guess those things KILL you. God dammit! Nothing is normal here. Up is down, left is right, and 1up shrooms kill me. After several more deaths, and a brush with some spinning Kirby wannabes, I make my first kill. YES! I wish I could say it was skill, but instead, it was a result of my hitting the fire button like some crazed, wonky sum bitch. Then I fall down a hole. Again. *sigh* I tried, and I failed. While I will never forget this land, I also leave knowing that I'll never return.

HOW FAR I GOT: about 13 seconds total.

PROJECT NES IS LARS NEW TIME WASTING PROJECT: THE CHRONICLES OF A MAN WHO GOES THROUGH AND PLAYS EVERY NES GAME EVER MADE (except probably the games you need the Zapper for, we'll see).

Follow Project NES and more at The New Yawker!