The Grownup Gamer is a seriously damaged man. The difficult videogames he played as a child have turned him into a neurotic bag of mush and has made his psychotherapist a rich man. To get over his issues, his therapist has asked him to go back and beat those videogames that were so difficult for him as a kid.
Shark Week has come to a close on the Discovery Channel and I am afraid to leave my house. Sure, I live a thousand miles from the ocean, but any moment evolution could bestow those death factories we know as sharks with legs and I'm not gonna take the chance.
The ol' therapist has suggested that this fear may be born of my inability to beat Jaws for the NES as a child. I called him a bitch for opening up that wound, but he may have a point. I remember opening up that game with my dream of destroying Jaws Roy Scheider-style, but I could not even measure up to a Richard Dreyfuss. He is right, it is time to beat Jaws.
That is an awesome title screen, but it does a terrible job of digitizing both notes from the theme song. I have pressed start and am on my way. I remember this, I have to ride around on this boat and find Jaws... what the eff? I just "hit something." Oh, yeah, this is the part from the movie where they keep getting into random battles.
That David Attenborrough is full of shit, this ocean is not teeming with life. There are like two different kinds of creatures down here, Jellyfish and manta ray. There are a lot of them, though, luckily I have some harpoons. Scratch that, I have a metric fuck-ton of harpoons and I can throw them at an inhuman rate. A little know fact about Roy Scheider, he has an on-board harpoon manufacturing plant built into his torso.
What is the point of this? I'm sailing around the world's smallest ocean killing mantaray without discretion and for what? Conch shells, crabs, and stars. These are the powerups. Unfortunately, they don't seem to do a damn thing. And, I'm a little hesitant about catching crabs.
I have sailed around and have docked at the other harbor and picked up the receiver -- which tracks Jaws. I have seen Jaws a few times, but have avoided hitting him so far. A neat thing about this game is always seeing his life meter at the bottom of the screen, it makes his invisibility that much more foreboding. I have already died once, so I suppose I should not put this off forever, though, it is time to fight Jaws.
That didn't go so well.
How the shit are you supposed to beat this game with only three lives? I took away a third of his life and then it sent me to a bonus stage where I bomb jellyfish from the sky -- because that makes sense -- and then when that ended, I was back to sailing around on the boat and Jaws had all of his life back. Fuck you, Jaws. Right after that I went back to the normal fish-killing screen and got attacked by a Baby Jaws. I killed BJ just fine, but I got attacked by a diagonal swimming jellyfish from out of nowhere, which killed me and took away half of my shells! I don't know why that upsets me!
Game over! I don't get it. Wait! I still have the manual.
What? There is a friggin' flow chart in here that pretty much explains the entire game. There are only five "scenes." This game is smaller than my johnson. I just have to sail back and forth from the different docks, powering up my character until I am powerful enough to kill Jaws. As it turns out, Conch shells are the currency, I remember that from the movie as well, "we are going to need a bigger boat, how much money shells do you have?" Oooh, there is submarine, also.
Now that I am armed with the information, I am feeling much more confident. I'm not four, anymore, Jaws! I'm not afraid of you!
Alright, I'm sailing back and forth upgrading my power level, just like in the movie, and I'm already up to level three. I also found the submarine -- which I have decided is piloted by Richard Dreyfuss -- and was just been attacked by Jaws. This is way easier. I am shooting him with my underwater cannons, because physics do not apply to Richard Dreyfuss, bitch! I'm going to kill this shark.
All of Jaws power-meter is gone and now I am at the screen where Jaws is coming right at my boat. In the manual it said to press A to have the strobe lights pop Jaws out of the water and then press B to ram him.
Okay, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it... BLAM!
I just stabbed a shark with a boat! That was awesome. It makes little to no sense, but I don't care, because I STABBED a SHARK with a BOAT! That was easy, no wonder I have felt like a failure, little-kid-me was a pussy. Thankfully, as The Grownup Gamer, I was able to get my revenge and I can now walk the streets without the fear of legged sharks.
See you guys, next time, when I defeat or am defeated by another classic game that made my childhood miserable.
Deadpixels
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Great read GG! I myself have suffered years of Jaws-induced phobias, from my fear of cannonballs falling from the sky and crushing my skull while swimming, to an unnecessary need to keep a shoebox full of seashells under my bed in case the stock market implodes again. Can't wait for the next episode, here's hoping you revisit Renegade sometime. |
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