A short, simple video this time, the Nerd takes on his first unlicensed game on the NES, Wally Bear and the NO! Gang! Unlicensed NES games always had odd traits about them, and James wastes no time in this episode mocking the “Press Here” on the cartridge. His joke is perfectly valid – not a single person who had a NES back in the day didn’t know where to press to insert or remove the game. Maybe it was intended for super young children? Who knows, the logic is absurd here, as with the whole game!
Unlicensed games always tended to come in odd cartridges.
This whole game is a mess. A mess with an anti-drug message. A time capsule, if you will, of late 80’s PSA culture and technology wrapped up inside of a Nintendo game. What a mess it is (just look at the wallpaper in the house about a minute 10 seconds into the video!).
The game looks like crap, plays like crap, and does a crap job at getting its message out. James riffing on the game seems to cover it quite well – short, sweet, and to the point.
Unlicensed games also often turn out to be bad.
Now, the original upload of this video was about 3 minutes long, but when it was re-uploaded to Cinemassacre, a clip was added to the end of this video, a clip which was previously found on the DVD version of the episode was added showing James calling the now-defunct Wally Bear hotline!
James took some liberties to make a very creepy ending scene showing some dusty old, forgotten basement (his apartments basement, if memory serves) as the setting for where this old automated phone system was residing, and is a subtle nod to James’s horror movie roots.
Final Rating: 3/5
The episode is pretty average, but way too short! Nothing in the episode is really all that funny, but it isn’t a bad one. The bonus ending adds to the episode but not enough to give it a better score. It would be a 2.5 without that ending, but as it stands currently, it’s a solid 3. Good enough, I guess, but a weak point on the early series.