[Subtitles by danielsangeo] Welcome to the Game Dungeon. This is going up on the 4th of July so I want to cover one of the
most American games I know: Arcade America. Not only is this an American
game but it's all about America and was developed in Dallas, Texas, which
as we all know is the capital of America, so it does not get any more
American than this. [phone ringing]
Oh, here's the intro. ["Uhhh... hello?" ["Hello Joey, baby, sweetheart!
It's Boil! Lance Boil! How ya doin'?!" ["Ummm... well, uh..." ["That's terrific! Listen, I'm calling
about your spot in the Woodstock lineup. ["You're going on between Peptic Ulcer and--"]
[static] ["It's a done deal.
Joey and the Monsters!" ["Coo'. Why us?" ["Because... uh... freaks like freaks!" ["Freakin' A." ["Besides, The Band couldn't make it,
Yes said 'No', The Who said 'What?' ["I don't know." ["Third base." ["Whatever. Look, this is the big time,
kid. I need you here ASA-Pronto! ["Don't blow it or you
and your monsters will be ["tearing tickets at
the local multiplex!" ["Ooh. What's playing?" ["GO!"] I like the view of California
from Joey's house here. Okay, the intro's a little long,
so I'll try to explain what's happening. From what I can surmise, you
play as our hero, Joey, who's part of a band,
Joey and the Monsters. And, as you can see, they're
literally monsters. He lives in Southern
California--obviously--- but he has to get to Woodstock with
his band in time so he can perform a show. Problem is he's a heavy sleeper and
the monsters just can't wake him up. But then one of them has a bright idea. Yeah, this should do the trick. ["Are you sure this
is the right thing to do?" ["Trust me."] Yeah, c'mon! Don't be a pansy. ["Hey, that was my soft spot!"] So, the monsters go a little overboard and rocket themselves
all across the United States. And, incidentally, cause
California to fall into the ocean. But, c'mon, that was going to
happen anyway. And, hey! Joey wakes up! ["What time is it?"] Mission accomplished! ["Yep."] ["Vavoom."]
Ba-broo. ["Uh, anybody? ["AAAAAAAAAAH!"]
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! ["They're loose! I gotta find them!"] Joey has his work cut out for him. He has to haul ass across America, find his
band members, and get to the show on time. So, what is this game? Well, it's mostly an
arcade-style platformer broken up with some driving
minigames, but this game is a JOURNEY. In fact, for this episode, well, it's
not going to be a playthrough, exactly; I'm going to show you what I think
are all the highlights of this game, from beginning to end. So by the end
of watching, you'll hopefully get a feel as if you've played it yourself. And, as a spoiler, this game has
an ending worth watching. But, before we start, I want to
show you the difficulty options. "Tough Guy", sounds good. "Mondo Tough Guy". ["Mondo Tough Guy! Heh-heh."] "Mondo Weenie". ["Mondo Weenie? C'mon!"] I feel like all difficulty menus
should be described this way. There's a catch here, but I'll
get to that later. For now, let's go with "Tough Guy". I'm a tough guy. I have an eight-inch scar on my left arm, a one-inch scar above my carotid
artery--almost died from that one, scar tissue on my right knee, multiple scars on my right hand, and I can bring my tongue to a point
because a small chunk of it was cut off. I think that makes me qualified
to play this game. ["Tough guy, yeah! (singsong)
["Look at the tough guy!"] Hell yeah! So, let's go! ["Ready? ["Set... ["GO!"] First you get thrust into the
driving portion I mentioned earlier. Looks like Joey's driving on Interstate 5. Good thing it survived the rest
of California sinking into the ocean. In my opinion, this part of the
game sucks. All it is is a minigame where you switch
lanes to get powerups to use later, or crash into things that take
time off the clock. There's a timer in this game. Remember,
you have to make it to your show and you only have four hours. Nice! It's ironic you shouldn't be
running over things because that's easily the best
part of this minigame. Most collisions are generic, but others are
custom animations I think are hilarious. For the sake of this review, I'm going to try and run into every unique obstacle
I can find so you can see the animation. You get different obstacles depending
on what part of the country you're in, too. And those are the only good things
I have to say about this minigame. It feels lazy and there's a LOT of it. I mean, look at the map. You have to drive all of that. Nice! Or, I guess *I* have to drive all of this. I mean, sure, this isn't
Desert Bus, nothing is THAT awful. But Desert Bus was designed to
be torturous as a joke game. This is the real deal. They
expect you to play this. But we made it. Alcatraz! ["Hey-hey, everybody! It's Doughy Joey!"] [rimshot] This might be funnier if
I had... context. I love these overview shots,
though; they look so cool. ["In this corner, Serf of LA. ["And, in this corner, 10,000 of the
roughest, toughest criminals that ever died!"] I think, this game has
trouble counting 10,000. ["Uh-oh. Better save them ghosts."] ["How long you in for?"] ["I got life."] ["You're dead."] ["Oh. I'm outta here!"] This game is loaded with
cornball jokes like this. So, here's the main game. Again, it's a platformer. You can jump and climb up ladders. You also have this belly bump
attack to take out enemies. As you can see, it's VERY easy to get hit. Your life is represented
by the Twinkie bar. The goal of each level is to get
to the exit where you pull a cord to leave. And I just got shocked by electricity. Some of these hazards feel like
they come out of nowhere. ["Rock and roll!"]
ROCK! [telephone rings] ["You think you can get out of Alcatraz?
YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF BED!" ["I got out of bed!" ["OH, YEAH?! TRY GETTING
OUT OF THIS CONTRACT!"] Throughout the game, you can
pick up phone calls where you just get totally
random conversations. They're either funny or strange. And, I'm dead. Yeah, you may not have noticed but your
health does NOT replenish after each level. Also, if you die, all the enemies respawn
and you go back to the start of the level. And in case that's not enough of
a challenge for you, you also have timers within timers. Remember how you had four hours
counting down while driving? Well, it keeps counting down here, too. And, you have ten minutes to beat
every level in the location or you're dead. And unlike health or lives
which you can find more of, there's no way to get more time;
it's always counting down. You can only lose it. All right, almost there... DAMMIT! I hate these grand timer games where, if you take 20 seconds longer
than you're supposed to you've already screwed yourself but you
won't even know it until way down the road. Not that I seem to be having that problem; I'm finding this game pretty
damned hard so far. ["Not bad! Not bad!"] Yeah, I don't know about that, Joey.
I lost three lives in this level alone. So, I continue through the prison and, naturally, I get to see an
inmate ghost take a crap. ["Get outta here, kid!
You're botherin' me! ["HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGHHHHHH!"] [fart] Oh, and I forgot to mention, you DO
have a ranged attack with your slingshot, but each shot takes away ammo
which you have to find one piece at a time. Except Texas. There's always
plenty of ammo in Texas. And I make it. ["Okay, okay, okay! LET'S GO!"]
Yeah, let's go! [telephone rings]
Hey, there's a phone call coming up. Listen carefully to this one. ["Joey!" ["Yeah?" ["This Pete from the
Plumber's Local Union 101. ["Joey, I gotta tell ya, you're going
way below the 2-inch tolerance line! ["Hike 'em up, buddy!"] Okay, did everyone hear that? I must've listened to this ten times by now. What I heard was, "This is Pete
from the Local Poller's Union 101. "Joey, I gotta tell you, you're going
way below the 2-inch tolerance line." What the hell does that mean? Does Joey also work as a pollster? What's the '2-inch tolerance line'?
Is that a joke about gerrymandering? Well, I listened to it
again, then I realized, I think he's talking about
the BOWLER'S Union, but wouldn't that be a league? So this guy call him up to tell
him his bowling could be better. Either way, do you see what I
mean about these phone calls? You never know what you're going to get. I like how Joey doesn't even
reply. He just hangs up. I would, too. AMERICA! Okay, I'm about to complete this
level and the whole area, but let's pause things a second. It turns out, I was supposed to
find a secret item in order to get the "good
ending" to this level. Kind of like Ghouls and Ghosts
but not as extreme. When you get the "bad ending", you're
given a hint what item you were looking for. Now, let's watch and see if you
can guess what the item is. ["DUDE!"] Yeah, don't eat that, Joey. ["Where's the mallet?" ["You're supposed to have the mallet!"] [overlapping voices] ["THE MALLET! THE MALLET! THE MALLET!
THE MALLET! MAAAAALLLLLEEEET!" ["C'MOOOOOOOON! FIND THE
MAAAAAALLEEEEET!"] Hm. ["Hey, wait. You left
your fart in San Francisco."] Jesus Christ... Okay, I think I was
supposed to find a mallet. So, let's retrace our steps. Can you spot the mallet in any
of these pictures? No? Well, maybe that's because it's NOT THERE! Here's what I was supposed to do: [phone receiver jangles] ["Looking for a good time, fat boy?"] [blows kiss] Ah, of course! I was supposed to
smack that particular piece of rebar, listen the poltergeist pinup girl and
hop into the hidden dimensional portal. And there is the mallet. I grab it and head back out. ["Ooh!"] And, of course, all the enemies respawn. I'll skip through this but not
first without showing you how to flush away the ghost crapper. [toilet flushes] So, here's what SHOULD have happened: [ding] ["Serf comes out. The ring of the bell." [bong] ["He's dancing. ["Right cross and POW!
The first ghost's out. ["Second ghost comes in, BAP!
Ooh, that must've hurt. ["Third ghost, he looks up and
says POKE! Ooh! ["Okay, Joey's dancing.
Left-right combination! Serf goes down! ["Oh my god, TOTAL MAN!"] I think Joey is a good boxer. He
reminds me of Butterbean. ["Wait, Joey! I gotta use the can! ["Not now. We gotta go. ["That's what I said, I gotta go!"] Ha ha. Ha. Ha ha. Yeah, the humor is all over the
map in this game. You have no end of cheesy jokes
and toilet humor, but you also have great slapstick and
pockets of madness creeping into this game, so there's something for everybody...
who doesn't run away screaming. So, you beat the crap out of your drummer
so you can make it to the show on time. An experience I'm sure many
musicians can relate to. Then you start heading to Las Vegas. Although, the reality here is
this is a death march. I burned through four lives in Alcatraz. I'd be dead right now if I
hadn't found an extra one. I'm going to die near Las Vegas
out in the desert like so many before me. But then, maybe that's fitting as I wouldn't be the first person to
come to Las Vegas in utter desperation. I've heard Las Vegas described
before as a place to go to when you want to ruin your life
and you don't have a lot of time to do it. That sounds about right to me. Up ahead is the real Desert Bus territory, although Joey's coming in from the north because his navigation skills
are rather creative. Score! Y'know, I've actually driven
across the US like this. Except I was going from
Los Angeles to Virginia. There's a lot of nothing out west. Did you know on many highways out west they've artificially added turns to them just
because they used to go in a straight line forever and drivers would start getting
hypnotized by the road at night and fall into a trance? Nothing like having zombie drivers going
70 miles an hour or more at night. I guess cell phones are in the lead for
turning drivers into blind missiles nowadays. Alright, we can skip the rest of this. Although, in this game, you can
see the other half of Potty Pigeon. [splat] On to Vegas! [applause] Great view of Nevada. ["Uh oh." ["Hey, Joey! You're in luck. ["You're just in time to
catch my second act."] [off-key singing] [glass shatters] Oh, so he's dead. That means
we don't have to rescue him now, right? So, it's pretty much more of the
same, except with a Vegas theme this time. I'll be frank, I'm really not
into this kind of gameplay. It's very Donkey Kong-ish with
some extra dimensions to trip you up. I'm not saying it's bad. After
all, some people REALLY like Donkey Kong. But this difficulty is rough. I mean, we have health that
doesn't replenish, traps that are hard to see or
feel like they come out of nowhere, you're timed every step of the way with
constant roadtraps to cut your time shorter-- ["AAAAAAH! That's all the time I
got to get to Woodstock!"] --you have mandatory secret items which
you can miss and not realize until it's too late, you also have secret areas
that are just red herrings and don't take you to the item you need, you have limited ammo you have
to collect piece by piece (except Texas), You have pure cheap shot traps, and the hit detection can be bullshit. Gee, that burger sure looks good!
Too bad the game doesn't care. Although, it has no problem
turning the tables with a bouncer knocking me
out cold with his eyebrows. None of these are game
breakers in themselves, but all together, this game nickels
and dimes you into terms of difficulty. I'm sure there are some people
out there who can ace this, but I'm not one of them. As predicted, I died in Las Vegas. So, it looks like I'm NOT a tough guy.
Not by Arcade America's standards! The thing is, my spider-sense tells me
I'm not even "Mondo Weenie" material. I'd just die somewhere else. I guess I'd better go back to easy European
games like Serious Sam and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., because this game is a little
too hardcore for me. In fact, even the developer
that made this, 7th Level, wasn't tough enough to handle THIS game
as they shut down two years after it was made. Well, thank GOD this game
came with cheat codes, otherwise this video would be almost over. I decided to give myself the
50 lives cheat code. ["Cool!"] Think of this like the
Konami Code for Contra. And to give you an idea of
this game's mentality, being able to shoot down
is a cheat code. I am not kidding. What you are
seeing right now is a cheat. So, back to Vegas. Y'know, I've covered some hard
games on the show already, and some of you probably think
I just suck at video games. Well, this game isn't likely to
change your mind. It's about taking things slowly,
memorizing patterns, and then throwing that all in the
garbage so it can sucker punch you because you need to move
through it as fast as you can. Kind of reminds me of my old
tech support job on the phone. As far as platformers go, I'm just okay. I was able to make it to Hell in
Super Meat Boy. That's about my limit. ["Movin' and groovin'!"] Groovy! Although, comparing Super Meat
Boy to this game is kind of like comparing Formula One racing to dump truck parking. ["Joey!" ["Uh huh?" ["You belly bumping fool! Go man, go!"] ["Rock and roll!"] Rabba dabba. Now, I DID find a secret demonic
portal, but it wasn't the right one. Story of my life. Could've gone better, too. So, we continue on and Joey
shows off one of his many talents. ["Power pucker!"] [fart] Here we get to see the giant
clown statue licking the world. That's a famous Las Vegas attraction. And I find it annoying that the
monster I need to grab is right here, just dancing around. Why can't I just throw him in a
sack and be done with it? I know I shouldn't be applying
logic to a game like this, but I feel like they're rubbing
my face in it with this one. And, hey, another portal. And this one is, uh... ["Hey, Joey, babe!"] Uh...
["Puke puke ["Hurl hurl ["Puke puke ["Hurl hurl" ["I'm on my knees
'cuz the flyin' trapeze ["Sent me a twirl
And now I'm a swirl! ["Right through the casino
I roll on the Keno ["And the great big slot coin
Is now in my groin. ["Oh... HURL!"] Mm-mm. Mm-mm... ["I love it! I love it!"] Yeah, yeah, yeah. This level is an elevator shaft. Yeah. And we end Vegas with some slots. I could not find the secret item
so I get a musical number instead. ["Hey, you can't play
'cuz you don't have a co-oin ["You can't stay
'cuz you don't have a co-oin ["Well, I guess you are a stupid kid ["You must have rocks inside your lid ["You can't play
'cuz you don't have the cooooooooooooin! ["Bye!"]
Bye! ["C'mon! Find the coin! FIND!
THE! COOOOOOOOOOOOOOIN!"] The coin, huh? ["Ooooh."] ["Joey, I wrote a new song,
just for you, babe. ["HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"] The game doesn't do a very good
job of making me WANT to rescue this guy. But, here's what should've happened: I did that earlier! ["Cool."] ["Hey, boss. He's got the lizard." ["Get him, Vinny."] So, what do you think? Will Vegas have a
giant protective dome over it in the future? ["Perform that one more time,
will ya, pal?"] ["LAAALAAALLAAAAA!"]
OKAY! JESUS! On the road again. Just about nothing at all
happens in this driving section. It is worth noting that your ammo
switches to chipmunks at this point because, hey, why not? This route is one of the longest
in the whole game and even more convoluted than the others. I mean Joey's adding, what, a thousand
miles by taking the scenic route? It makes me wonder if they originally
had something planned for Montana, like maybe a dinosaur bone park,
but then it got scrapped for time. Anyway, we'll skip through this though things get interesting once
you get closer to the Grand Canyon. ["RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"]
