[bad soda]

I suppose it’s appropriate to mention at some point the beginnings of Bad Soda. A web log for our video game reviews has always been an idea we were going to run with, but that is not exactly what Bad Soda is, or was, or is to be, or… something.

Bad Soda is actually the title of my comic strip, which was going to be the real spring-board into more internet publications. It was with Bad Soda that I hoped to create enough of a web site to house my NES reviews and game musings but with the realization that the strips looked terrible on the computer I decided I would never post them on the web like that. And, of course, being as lazy as I am I only put half-assed effort into learning how to better draw digitally.

The above is honestly my best work, so you can see how Bad Soda would remain, uh, a secret.  So, here we are, living the Bad Soda dream backwards where the video game part of the site has come first. But Someday, which I intentionally capitalize, there will be a reckoning.

A crisis.

And in the retcon that follows we will see that Bad Soda has always been about the comics. But in the meantime, I will consider to bemoan the fact that, well, I’m not a good artist.

Last week we talked about Luminous Arc and D&D Tactics, and while the former was fun, neither was a real stand-out. I promised looks at Jeanne D’Arc and Heroes of Mana, hoping to find among all four of these games at least one must have, and luckily this week we have a solid winner.

[PSP] Jeanne D’Arc – FIRST IMPRESSION: Great
I already had a small bias towards this title, having been looking forward too it since Stu pointed me in it’s direction back in May. I picked up the demo at Gamestop a month ago and it wasn’t disappointed. It hadn’t sold itself yet, but it was fun; and it looked gorgeous. The premise was a little nuts: some kind of Japanese video game take on Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War. Apparently the English have allied themselves with the Demon King and Joan/Jeanne has inherited a magical gauntlet that lets her transform (a-la Sailor Moon) into some kind of badass. Whatever.

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[NES] Kabuki Quantum Fighter – SCORE: 6.75
Highest Level Achieved: I don’t try too hard on most crappy games, but I spent even less time than usual on Kabuki and only beat level 4.
Description: Kabuki is a lacking action game with a protagonist wielding his hair as his weapon. It has a weird story that quickly loses steam in the between-level cut scenes. At least you can speed up the text.

Kabuki came out a couple of years after Ninja Gaiden reached the NES, and the imitation is poor. In Ninja Gaiden the hero had a sword, our Quantum Fighter instead uses his hair like a whip.

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[SODA] Mountain Dew: Game Fuel – SCORE: 8.5
Highest Level Achieved: Three cans in as many minutes; and that’s about as far as I’ll likely go with this one. After all, at 73 mg of caffeine (compared to standard Dew’s 55 mg) per 12 oz can, I think the natural diuretic effect is going to be rough enough without overdosing on this shit.
Description: Mountain Dew’s new Halo 3 inspired limited flavor. Orange in color, and described as “cherry citrus,” which differs only from the original with the addition of the word “cherry.” It is surprisingly different than Code Red, which is supposedly a “fruit citrus” kind of thing.

Game Fuel was a no-brainer for me. I mean, not only am I a Dew connoisseur, and a video game addict, but I write for a web page called BAD SODA for f!@#’s sake. That said, this soda is not bad at all. It’s the cherry soda version of Mountain Dew where Livewire is the orange and Pitch Black (and subsequent sequel) is grape. All three proudly representing the flavors of the brandless, nearly fizzless sodas that created the sugar summers of my youth. Code Red is strange and gross, and Baja Blast is just atrocious, but this Game Fuel goes down smooth and gives almost as much of a buzz as a Red Bull.

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This is a crazy time for turn-based strategy enthusiasts like myself, at least those with either a DS or PSP. This week Luminous Arc, Heroes of Mana and Dungeons & Dragons Tactics hit, and next week is Jeanne D’Arc with Final Fantasy Tactics due out later this year. I’m a huge fan of the genre, but I often get burned for my eagerness to try anything; hopefully someone can benefit from my addiction, since I’ll still be trying all these new games.  This week: Luminous Arc for the DS and D&D Tactics for the PSP.

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You may have noticed, if you’ve been paying strict attention, that there have been no updates to Bad Soda lately.  Like, in the last few months.  Today I added several new reviews (that were written long enough ago that they ought to have been simply posted weekly as promised) in the vain hope that I could somehow win back any lost faith.  I mean, I’m practically buying back your affection with amazing NES reviews.  It’s like virtual currency.  Take it, take the bribe with the promise of more of these mythical updates.  And come back soon.

Come back for another sip of Bad Soda.

[NES] Anticipation – SCORE:  7.75
Highest Level Achieved:  I played through two games with two human players and two computer players, both on medium difficulty.
Description:  A 4-player game that is best described by its own proclamation on the label:  “Nintendo’s first boardgame!”

Anticipation is basically an electronic form of Trivial Pursuit that has moved away from quizzing knowledge on things like facts, and instead challenges your ability to identify connect-the-dot shapes before they’re completely drawn.  It’s pretty lame for the first few minutes except for the natural high that comes from competition.  As you play more and ascend to the higher levels of the game the pace and challenge really being to pick up.  After a player has moved to the second level his questions no longer have the dots (guessing must be made on the shape alone as it’s drawn) and the number of letters in the answer is taken away.

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[NES] Wario’s Woods – SCORE: 3.25
Highest Level Achieved: I finished about ten rounds before I had to be physically restrained from gouging my own eyes out.
Description: Heinously awful puzzle game starring Toad and Wario. You know, since the fans have just been begging for more Toad and Wario. As one of the last NES titles it does have some kind of autosave feature that I will never investigate, since the game will never be turned on a second time. There is also a 2 player versus mode.

This game is a terrible Doctor-Mario-inspired puzzle game with stiflingly unresponsive controls and a retarded design. There is nothing fun involved in playing this game. The only redeeming features that keep this game above a score of zero are that the graphics are such that I can distinguish my character from the background, and the playability is simple enough that within a few moments of playing I had a general idea how to play the game. Kind of. The only thing that makes this game better than Deadly Towers is the 2-player versus mode, which wasn’t fun but at least made for a lot of loud screaming on both our parts.

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