WEBVTT

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It's the mid '90s. Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were the two big competitors.

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The 16-bit era was coming to an end, while the next generation consoles were on their way.

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The Sega Saturn, the PlayStation, and the Nintendo 64 were ready to hit the scene.

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The graphics were getting better, and video game companies were racing their technology to a never-ending finish line.

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During the ongoing delay of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo announced a new product to fill the time,

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and continue their successful line of portable game systems, beginning with the Game & Watch games and the Game Boy.

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The product, originally dubbed "VR32", would become known as the Virtual Boy.

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It made use of 3D technology, where each eye would see two separate screens and create the illusion of three-dimensional depth.

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Virtual reality seemed like the way of the future. Just the idea of feeling like you were in the game was an awesome concept.

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But instead, it turned out to be the grand motherlode of shit.

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The first problem was that it was marketed as a portable system.

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Yeah, portable! My ass is portable!

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You could barely find a comfortable way to play this big, red, ugly piece of shit at home,

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let alone bring it somewhere! Like, you couldn't play it in a car or something like that!

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And...come to think of it, you wouldn't want to play this thing in public anyway! You'd look like an asshole!

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Why isn't there a head strap? Let's think about this.

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This must be one of the worst designs for any invention in history! It's basically a pair of goggles on a stand!

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To me, that translates to a pair of eyeballs on legs.

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The controller's really weird, too. It has two D-pads and the battery pack is attached to it.

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You can swap it with an AC adapter, but when you're playing on a table, it can come loose and shut off your game!

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The 3D effects are hard to focus and they strain your eyes. There was even a warning on the box that said it could cause headaches and seizures.

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That's great, right? That's like the cherry on the shit sundae!

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How would you like to play bad games and have a headache, too?

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But, before I say the games are bad, let's take an honest look.

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Unfortunately, the only way I can record these games is to zoom into the eyepiece. So, please excuse the guerrilla-style videography.

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Let's begin with Mario's Tennis. This was one of the first Virtual Boy games to be released and it's usually the first one that most people have played.

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It starts out with Mario hitting a tennis ball right into your face.

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The 3D effect is actually pretty effective. But without experiencing the actual game, you can't see it.

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Now, the main thing that disappointed everybody right from the beginning was the fact that the games were all in red and black.

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Now, the original Game Boy was in black and white, or black and greenish-yellow, whatever.

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But the Virtual Boy was supposed to be cutting-edge, so, it was fair to expect it to be in color. What a letdown.

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Now, as for the game itself, it's just tennis, but with a selection of Mario characters.

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Not bad, but nothing special. The big problem for me, personally, what the hell kind of virtual reality game is this?

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I don't feel like I'm on the court interacting. I would have expected this to be in a first-person perspective.

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The whole idea of virtual reality is to simulate the experience of the game like you're actually in the environment.

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It's supposed to feel like reality, hence the term, "virtual reality".

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Here's another one, Galactic Pinball. Well, it's just a pinball game with a space theme.

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The 3D effects are pretty shallow on this one. Nothing ever really comes up in your face.

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To use the paddles, you hit the buttons on the bottom of the controller,

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which feels like using a real pinball machine, but you expect to be able hit the button harder to hit the ball harder.

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So, in the long run, it just makes you wish you were playing a real pinball machine instead, or, anything other than this!

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I feel like I'm taking an eye exam!

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And speaking of that, my eyes are starting to hurt already.

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If you play this long enough and go blind, you can really become the pinball wizard.

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Okay, now we have Teleroboxer. Kinda like Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots.

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And holy shit, it's a first-person perspective! This is a little more like virtual reality!

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The gameplay is pretty much the same as Punch-Out!. You can punch to the face,

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punch to the body, hook, upper cut, duck, dodge, and you can make use of both D-pads,

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which individually control each arm, so you can block with one arm and punch with the other at the same time.

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It's not bad, and the 3D effects are cool, especially when your opponent knocks you out.

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Next up, Red Alarm. Well, "Red" is right. All the games should have had "Red" in the title.

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It's basically a flying game, like Star Fox. Remember what the graphics looked like on Star Fox?

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Everything was a polygon. But imagine that in red and black without any rendered shapes whatsoever.

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Everything's just a wire frame. It looks like a game that hasn't been finished. Worst of all, it's disorienting!

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If only there were some kind of texture, you'd be able to see where the boundaries are.

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But without it, you're just flying around with a bunch of lines! Often, I think I'm flying into an opening,

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but then I just find I'm butting against a wall! Look at this! Where am I supposed to go?

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One thing that's cool is that you can switch camera angles. I choose the POV because, after all,

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isn't this supposed to be virtual reality? Unfortunately, Red Alarm and Teleroboxer are the only two Virtual Boy games to have this feature.

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Next up is Wario Land. You take control of Wario with one basic goal: reach the end of each level.

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Along the way, you gotta find keys to open doors, collect treasures, and fight enemies.

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You stomp on them, throw them, or dash into 'em.

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There's also parts where you can leap into the background, obviously trying to cater to the 3D gimmick.

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But it's actually a good game. Damn good. But, only one problem: it's on Virtual Boy.

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Next, we have Panic Bomber. It's a puzzle game and a decent one, I might add.

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Basically, things fall down and you gotta match three of a kind in a row, in a column, or diagonal.

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The matched pieces disappear and you get bombs. When a lit bomb falls, you can use it to blow up the other bombs.

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Now, I have one question. Why in the holy mother of fuck does this need to be on Virtual Boy?

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It's a puzzle game! This is the kind of thing that belongs on Game Boy!

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Not only is there nothing remotely 3D or virtual reality-based, you can only play it alone.

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Aren't puzzle games most fun when you have friends to play with?

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Well, Virtual Boy actually had an extension port for a multiplayer cable.

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It would have been used to link two Virtual Boys, much like the Game Boy did.

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But the only problem, they never released the cable or made any games that supported it,

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because the Virtual Boy sucked so hard, it was retired before such a thing could be released!

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Next, we're up to Mario Clash. Every Nintendo console had its own definitive Mario title.

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And this, you would hope, would be decent.

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But what you get is basically a remake of the original 1983 Mario Bros. arcade.

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Each level is just one screen, and the goal is to knock out all the enemies,

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except for the Koopas, you stomp on them and use their shells to throw at the other enemies.

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Some of the enemies, like the ones with the three spikes on their back, have to be killed from a distance.

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So, it's basically Mario Bros. with a background and foreground.

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What bothers me about this game is just one simple problem. They swapped the buttons!

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B is jump and A throws shells! How did they fuck up the controls for a Mario game?

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Why change what we grew up with? Why change what's been firmly planted in our brains since childhood?

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There's also a bonus stage, and look what we have here: texture! It's nice to see a floor that's fully rendered for once.

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Overall, Mario Clash isn't bad, but it's repetitive. And it goes on for 99 levels,

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probably making it the longest Virtual Boy game. And since it causes eye strain, it shouldn't be finished in one sitting.

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Next, Nester's Funky Bowling. Any subscriber to Nintendo Power knows who Nester is,

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and this is probably the only game he's ever been in. All I can say is it's bowling. That's what it is.

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But I don't know what's so funky about it. It's just an average bowling game with the same ten pins over and over.

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The animation on Nester's reactions is pretty fun to watch, but other than that, there's not much to say.

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Okay, next is Virtual League Baseball.

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You bat, you run, you pitch, you catch, you run, you throw, it's baseball.

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The music is pretty cool, and you get a nice 3D effect when it shows the field,

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kinda like you're sitting in the seats, almost like a (ahem) virtual reality feel.

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When it comes to batting, the hit detection is kinda awkward,

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and when you're in the outfield, it's like you need a microscope to see the players.

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It's such a strange sensation to be controlling sprites the size of ants, kinda like North & South on NES.

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Now, let's do Vertical Force. This one is a 2D shooter, kinda like Galaga, 1942, or R-Type.

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It's a genre that's classic. As classic as a good old TV screen.

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The only 3D part is that you can switch between two different altitudes, so it's kinda like 2D-3D.

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Sometimes, you gotta fly up or down to avoid obstacles. But most of the time, you can just stay where you are.

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The 3D effect isn't even that deep anyway. This is another perfect example of a game that doesn't need to be on Virtual Boy.

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Next is...Golf. That's it, just golf. Of all the games with this title, I'd stick to Golf on NES.

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You pick your club, you line up your shots, and that's about it. Just the idea of playing an 18-hole course on this makes me sick.

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The graphics are decent, but they beg to be in green and black rather than red and black.

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Well, it would be nice if it was in color, but let me tell you, if there's one color that I imagine when it comes to golf, it's fucking anything but red!

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Next, we have 3D Tetris. Now, anyone who's familiar with Tetris will immediately understand the concept.

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Blocks fall down and you have to put them together without leaving gaps. Any time you fill a whole row, they disappear.

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And the only difference is that it's in 3D, but that means it moves along a lot slower because there's a lot more space to fill.

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The A and B buttons turn the blocks around in the second dimension, while the right D-pad flips them in the third dimension.

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The left D-pad moves the pieces around to where you want to drop them, and it works quite well.

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3D Tetris and Teleroboxer are the only two Virtual Boy games that use both D-pads to do something different.

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Until the blocks drop down, they're transparent and they have little shadows to help you tell where they're gonna land.

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Also, the layout keeps moving, so they basically tried everything they could so that you won't get confused, but still, it's a little hard to tell what you're doing.

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The 3D aspect isn't even very unique. They could have made a game like this on just about any other console at the time.

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While the Virtual Boy does place parts of the graphics in front of other parts,

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the blocks here are just two-dimensional shapes drawn to give the feeling of the third dimension without actually doing so.

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It's like if I just draw on a piece of paper. There, that's 3D. I'd say just stick to regular Tetris.

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Well now, we saved the worst for last. It's Waterworld. Now, let's just stop for a moment and take this in, okay? (deep breath)

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Waterworld...on...Virtual Boy.

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It's like puking on a pile of shit!

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Alright. Here we go. Ocean presents Waterworld. How ironic.

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Well, as far as the graphics go, too bad they couldn't use the color blue.

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I mean, they had two choices for the water. It could have been red or black.

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Well, at least they chose black because if it was red, we'd be calling it "Bloodworld". Either way, it looks like shit.

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The object of the game is just to shoot everybody and rescue the people. It's basically a remake of Defender.

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There's not really any goal, other than getting a high score, which really helps, since it doesn't save any data.

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There's actually a 9-player mode, which I honestly find hard to believe.

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Could you imagine passing the Virtual Boy around a room to eight other people? I'd rather drink Kevin Costner's recycled piss water.

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Waterworld is the only movie-based game on Virtual Boy, and doesn't it seem like a match made in heaven?

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It's a perfect analogy: an over-budget, over-hyped movie turned into a game on a gimmicky, over-priced anal atom bomb of a console exploding with diarrhea!

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Well, that's it. The Virtual Boy was such a flop, it died in less than a year.

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Yeah, now I didn't pick these games - this is all of them. I just reviewed every Virtual Boy game to be released in North America.

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That's right. I am holding the entire library of games for this piece of shit in my one hand,

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with the exception of Jack Bros., with is rare, expensive, and probably not worth jack shit.

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It's time for an update, because now, I have Jack Bros., thank you very much!

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It's like I talk about shit, and somebody sends me shit. So, let's give it a look and make this whole episode complete.

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Jack Bros., here we go. It's in Japanese, and since this game's story-based, I'm not gonna be able to read any of the text.

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But the story doesn't concern us, we wanna know how it plays. You get a choice of three characters who look like Halloween mascots.

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Jack Frost, Jack Lantern, and a skeleton named Jack the Ripper. He's the coolest character,

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but his attack is just a sword, while the rest of the characters can shoot projectiles.

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That's real deceiving! It's almost like they planned it that way.

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Obviously you're gonna pick the fuckin' skeleton, but they give him the shittiest weapon!

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So it plays like a typical overhead view, where you have to fight monsters, collect keys, and find an exit before time runs out.

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Instantly, it reminds me of Gauntlet. And that's not a bad thing. For such a rare game, it's not half-bad.

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But it doesn't utilize the Virtual Boy in any unique way. It goes 3D a little when you drop to a lower platform,

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but overall it just comes down to the same thing. This should've been on Game Boy. This has nothing to do with virtual reality.

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I don't feel like I'm there! They didn't even try to make it virtual! Instead, they were just jackin' off!

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And that takes care of the whole Virtual Boy catalog.

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Now, to be fair, most of the games were okay, but they're the same kind of games you might as well be playing on a regular TV screen.

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I mean, they tried to take advantage of some 3D elements, but this wasn't called "3D Boy", it was called "Virtual Boy"!

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They didn't even attempt, they didn't even attempt a virtual reality concept.

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What it needed was some first-person shooter games. Like Doom. That would've been awesome!

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Now, it's been about ten years, the technology's gotten better,

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but nobody really gives a shit about virtual reality anymore. And maybe, that's for the best.

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[explosion]