Does It Offend You? (The Last Ninja, The Last Starfighter, Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf)

Okay, phew. I'm sorry for that. Didn't quite mean to go to that dark of a place with the last entry. It was firmly supposed to be positive, and at least one person was honored that I took that much time to write something about her. The power of inspiration, kids. It's a two-way street that fuels us both. Now then. Two games that begin with "The Last" and one I've been looking forward to talking about if only for the title. This entry is going to be fluff, but that's okay. I'm banking all my creative energy for two entries from now. It's gonna be fun.

"Fun" is the polar opposite of The Last Ninja. I know certain things about it. I know it was developed by Beam Software and they made that Red October game I'm not fond of. Be that as it may, Red October did get me to where I am now so I owe it some gratitude. How unpleasant. I also know that this was a game for the Commodore 64. As I've never touched one of those, I can't say much about it. Phil Sandifer, being a voyager in time longer than I have, has memories of it. Due to its presence early in his life, video games have become iconoclast with his own existance. The same could be said for me, seeing as how I came into the world at around the same time as the NES in America. The song of the NES's life is the song of my first nine years, as I've stated earlier. The song of the Commodore was not one I knew, but I respect its influence on the world. Now, maybe The Last Ninja lit up the world and maybe it didn't. I'm really out of my depth here, but it came out in 1987 for the Commodore. This version isn't even a port of that, but of Last Ninja 2. Yet it's called The Last Ninja. Ah, the heady days of name changes! How I yearn for thee! Whatever history led to this cartridge, I can see one truth before me. The Last Ninja on NES isn't very good. It's some sort of isometric action-adventure. I advanced a few screens, but found some... issues. Fighting people is basically a slugfest where I kicked them in the groin a few times as they punched me back. Jumping and kicking are the same button. Then you come to the first jumping puzzle of the game. I had to jump on a boat sailing down a river. I failed, yet it didn't look like I should have. Some sort of rules were being fiddled with. I didn't care for The Last Ninja, but hey. It got three games on the Commodore, so someone must have. Not me, though. Not me.

The Last Starfighter, on the other hand? Good lord. Where do I begin with this? The best way to describe it is... that it's a bullet. A bullet I have avoided for 20 years but has now finally hit home, tearing into my flesh and causing considerable pain. This was one of the many Nintendo games that were available for rent at our local rental store. I'll have more to say about this place two entries from now, but for now know that I never rented The Last Starfighter. I am thankful that I did not because this is foul. This is wretched. The conceit of the film (which I've not seen) is that some space arcade game is a secret training mission for people to become real star pilots in some intergalactic war. If you do well at the game, they teleport you to the future and recruit you. I am not about to be recruited any time soon, and thank God for that. We have a horizontal space shooter where you can speed up or down, and turn backwards to go to the left. Sounds nice so far, except one hit and you're dead. The enemies give you about a split second to react. Some things shoot homing bullets at you. The worst offender, the thing that again goes against the rules. Some parts of the space cruiser you're flying under will kill you if you collide with them. You can shoot THROUGH them, but touching them will kill you. This is a violation. This is horrifying. It is offending. It took me four full continues to beat stage 1. I would not continue this game. It appears to have unlimited continues, but I don't have unlimited patience. How dare you, Mindscape.

Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf. I have no idea who Lee Trevino is, but we're once again playing in licensed territory. And golf, to boot. Still, the game is named FIGHTING GOLF. I knew there wasn't going to be any fighting, but this is passable for golf. I got to play as a lady named PRETTY AMY. That's something unique, right? Otherwise this is golf. It's a half-decent golf game.

Um. I'm out. I got nothing else on golf. The sports games I don't have much for, and there will only be 40 million of them in the future. Lovely. Maybe I should just pull a Phil Sandifer and consolidate them all into one mega-entry. Get it over with. In the meantime, I've got to start planning. There's something coming on the horizon. Can you hear it approach?

It's the whispers of adventure.