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description [Music] below when I came to my head was throbbing and my mouth tasted of stale booze and ashtrays my brain was fogged over over and my memory was as blank as a Commodore 64 load screen somebody had put me under and I had the feeling they had taken more than just my memories the Hat on the floor matched my trench coat but gave no answers I couldn't recognize the face in the mirror nor could I tell where I was I seemed to be in some kind of video game Library there were random [ __
] stains a roll of toilet paper an empty drink and a game cartridge that was incinerated beyond recognition there was a pistol which I identified as a Nintendo zapper it had been fired its warm touch could have only come from the coldest of Hearts I thought I could smell the faint scent of perfume from a Dame or perhaps it was some kind of nostalgic Allure to something else all I knew was it smelled of trouble and it wasn't a Dame that did a number on me it was a game and I was going to find
out which one I didn't recall ever playing Roger Rabbit before it looked pretty swell so I gave it a try and then something dawned on me I wasn't playing the game the game was playing me the controls were as slippery as a fish in a bucket of grease and my optimism went out the window faster than a bullet through a bag of piss so I tried other games that to my memory I had never played before Top Gun Back to the Future Dick Tracy the last ninja Goonies 2 the covers were designed to seduce you
to lure you in only to break break your heart was it possible people could have remembered playing these games as kids thinking they were great only to find that their memory wasn't fully intact I realized that looking for a good game in this mess was as rare as finding a diamond in a back alley dumpster I tell you this game library was a plastic Jungle full of electronic predators and I was the prey the shelves Rose like buildings with colorful labels hiding the sins of the corrupt game corporations somebody ought talk about these games I
thought if only there was some kind of obsessed nerd who could spread the message of this filth and then it hit me like a lead pipe who was I why was I wearing this get up did it offer any clue to the game genre I was playing no that would be silly that would be like dressing up as Batman to play Batman games who does that but it seemed all too familiar like I was having Deja Vu wait I investigated the NES Shelf and realized something was missing under D and it all came back to
me earlier that day I was playing Deja Vu on NES it was a crime solving game that made me feel so much like a detective I was practically sitting in my own private Dick Office sprawled across my desk were the pages of Nintendo Power it returned me to my youth but since we're already in a flashback here let's just say it piqued my interest I always remembered that image of the guy holding the photo of himself holding the photo it begged the question how did he take that photo the title was memorable too as a
kid it was my first time ever hearing the term Deja Vu I didn't know what it meant I assumed maybe it was some form of kung fu must be an action game I thought until I realized it was a point and click adventure and dismissed it prematurely but here again as an adult I was back on the case Deja Vu was first on the Macintosh computer in 1985 back when controlling a pointer on the screen with a mouse was a big deal appropriately enough it was in black and white like the 1940s detective films it
was inspired by the multis Falcon Double Indemnity the big sleep but it went to color when it was ported to Commodore 64 Amiga and so on it was created by iom simulations who also made Uninvited and shadowgate using the same engine and interface together they're known as the Mac Venture series or is it like MC Venture like McDonald's but de Vu has the distinction of being the only NES game to truly capture the spirit of those classic noir films sure there were other detective games but only Deja Vu had that dark cynical Vibe even though
the blood was toned down if you compare it with the other computer versions it was much more adult themed than what you'd usually come across on the NES as we'll soon see it's also the only NES game I can think of where you start out in the [ __ ] literally the first screen is in a bathroom of a bar boy that's one hell of a way to kick things off your character has no recollection of how he got there or who he is then you find a dead body and realize you've been framed for
murder so the goal is to find out what happened and who's behind it all and a clever thing here is that you're not just trying to obtain evidence you also have to get rid of evidence that would implicate you I have to give credit where credit is due the text is very amusing it's a man who appears to be lacking something namely life yeah you think even simple things like if I examine the sink it tells me it appears to be a sink gee thanks or better yet if you open the toilet lid it says
you are relieved that you find nothing inside okay that is funny and one of my favorites if you examine the fire escape it tells you it's a fire escape when there's a fire you use it to escape my chest heaved with a Feeling more rare than a $3 bill in this town a feeling called laughter on the bar you find a shot glass which they call Seltzer but when your character Downs it he reacts as if it's really harsh stuff so clearly it's meant to be booze and as I contemplated that I took a good
hard Swig of apple juice but then you find gambling tables and slot machines in the back of some Speak Easy and it's the best way to earn more money I mean the only way so the game encourages you to gamble the music is great it has that Jazzy mysterious [Music] Vibe but the part that's ass is the controls of course this is not a computer and you have to move the pointer with a d-pad instead of a mouse so it's kind of doomed from the start it takes way too long to do simple tasks like
going through a door I mean first you have to select open then you drag the pointer to the door click it now it's open and then you have to select move drag the pointer over and then click the door again so basically the simple Act of going through a door is four actions not to mention navigation is confusing but they gave you these blue dots to help you out which you can alternatively click on to move yourself around I mean I mean I would explain how this works but I really have no [ __ ]
idea the verbiage can be confusing if you try moving through a closed door it says it can't be moved if it's not open wait is move meant like to move something or is it to move myself leave doesn't mean leave the room it means to leave something like leave a [ __ ] because who actually takes a [ __ ] but about the word take if I see medicine on the counter does take the medicine mean to take it into my inventory or to take the medicine to consume it actually if you want to eat
or use anything on yourself you're supposed to take the item first like gum for instance and then select use and then select self wait wait hang on that's gum right not gun okay okay that would be a big mistake if I selected gun instead of gum that would be a bad move a BM a real shitty move but hey let's see what happens oh my God good job that's a great way to go out with a bang so much for your dreams and aspirations blam rip Ace Harding well that's one way to find out your
identity from the beginning the odds were against you it was only a matter of time until you reach the end your history that's brilliant that might be better than you and your friends are dead because not only are you dead your whole life was a fail so I got to an elevator and I couldn't figure out how to get it moving eventually I found out I had to hit the buttons the same action you use to punch people imagine going into an elevator and punching the ever loving [ __ ] out of it next thing
he goes into a wine cellar and to open a secret door he has to punch the [ __ ] wine who goes around punching wine bottles it won't open gosh how am I going to get this [ __ ] door to [Music] open then you meet a Dame in an alley and she says she has a surprise for you in her purse is that a good thing or a bad thing I guess you can't take the chance so really is this what I'm supposed to do Sako she's out like a light and her purse drops
to the ground I couldn't believe my eyes was this some kind of rude joke it looks like you hit her pretty hard she's out cold and then you take her money of all the dirty crooked things you could do in an NES game this one Takes the Cake next thing you walk into Pizza all night gun Palace wow you buy a gun using gambling money could you imagine kids playing this mean not to mention the gun is only $20 $20 but anyway the thing that sucks here is that you have to buy each bullet individually
you think they could have come up with a less tedious way to do this if you walked into a store wouldn't you buy all your items as one transaction who the [ __ ] does it this way then you still have to load the gun and by the game's terminology that means using the bullet on the gun so you select use and then page through the inventory find the bullets click it and then page all the way back over to the gun click it and there you go you've loaded one bullet you're probably asking wait
wait now did you really have to do that six times you better believe it six times six times I think that's the main problem with this game everything takes too long a Mugger with a gun approached me my first thought was to try and shoot him but you have to go through the usual hoops and hurdles to select the gun and use it on the guy but oops he shoots you first what did you expect you thought he was just going to stand there and wait it reminds me of that new Star Wars Special ultra
Edition the one where Han is too slow yes I bet you have [Music] so clearly using the gun on the mugger ain't a good idea so what's the real solution take a guess punch them of course this guy is like the master of the Fist all you do is go around punching people you arrive at a house and the butler doesn't let you in you just punch them in the [ __ ] face punching is always the solution at a certain point you start punching people just for fun to see whatever hilarious text comes up
and just when you thought you could punch your way out of every problem the game pulls cheap shots like this I fell into a construction pit how did that happen the game just decided hey you know what you're dead and then there's a random alligator in the sewer well this time I tried the gun and it worked in fact the computer versions show blood which makes the animal cruelty feel so much more shameful I mean what was I thinking going into the sewers everybody knows there's alligators down there there's many times when you have to
ride a cad it's the only way to reach certain spots where you have to find items and clues before returning to where you were but here's the problem if you don't have money for a round trip and you forget to check ahead of time you could get stranded at least I thought imagine my dismay when I rode the cab paid the driver explored the property and then realized I didn't have the money to get back my first instinct was to try punching the driver but for once it didn't work because of the glass using my
gun didn't help either because the glass is bulletproof and I got sent to jail I tried running from the cab but he called the cops and again I was sent to jail it seemed I desperately needed to find some money but I was stranded at a location where there was no money to be found I felt trapped like a rat my world narrowed down like a cage closing in on me how was I to get out of this mess would I have to reset the game after all that work I put in so I began
retrying the same [ __ ] I rode the cab and once again I ran I ran and then all Hope Came flooding back in an instant like a rainfall in Death Valley the driver cut cut me a break he said I could pay him back later I don't know what was different this time but I wasn't complaining there is only one Cino in town and that was the only place to get money aside from stealing it out of wallets the game forces you to gamble it's an absolute necessity in this crooked world this time I
wasn't messing around I was determined to turn this casino into my personal ATM and just when I started winning I began to lose lose lose until till I was at [ __ ] zero luckily there was always a spare coin laying around to get you started again so after much time passed I finally hit big with a Triple 7 and got 30 coins I had beaten the odds I had earned my piece of Victory so I set out again to pay back the cab driver and continue with the case but then a Mugger showed up
one whom I had not seen before a bigger brute tough and mean so I decid to punch him what else but he socked me laid out and next thing I was waking up with a full headache and empty pockets all my money was taken everything I had worked for was pulled like a rug from under me what a rotten move I had never seen a game do something so wretched and cruel have you ever played a game where you had to collect items or powerups for what seemed like hours well farming items is one thing
but imagine if out of nowhere the game throws a monkey wrench at you and says hey you know what it's all gone [ __ ] this game [ __ ] it [ __ ] it [ __ ] it to [ __ ] hell I was ready to throw the goddamn thing out the window but instead I just took another Swig of the hard stuff and soldiered [Music] on back to the casino back to square one many losses and few wins later I finally had what I would consider enough money so after that whole debacle I
wrote another cab and found my way to a doctor's office where I raided a whole shelf of drugs this is unlike any other NES game where you might find a pill or a first aid kit something like that here it's an entire medicine cabinet and it tells you the names of the specific drugs the idea is to ingest them to restore your memory and reveal more parts of the story in fact this is the big moment where Ace remembers who he is can you think of any other game where the whole mission culminates in swallowing
a bunch of unprescribed medications not to mention the way you have to do it is by selecting the drugs then putting them into capsules and then using the capsules on yourself why does everything have to be so complicated anyway let's round up the familyfriendly wholesome entertainment this game brings to the kids you have drugs alcohol murder punching ladies on the street stealing wallets guns gambling buying guns with gambling money and if that's not enough it adds body shaming to the mix a large woman in a trunk is referred to as a tub of lard and
it's not a character calling her that it's the game's narration oh man as I got closer to wrapping up this case I couldn't help but dwell on how complicated the items are if you examined a diary you may have assumed that you had read it but then you realize all you had done was look at the cover to read it you have to open it it's like game logic trying to apply to real logic while you're trying to think of it as a [ __ ] video game at one point I stole somebody's mail yes
stole their [ __ ] mail right out of the goddamn mailbox of course you can't just examine the envelope you have to take the envelope then open it then take the letter inside and then you still have to examine the letter even item you've taken already sometimes have more items inside them like a wallet you can't use the card that's in your wallet unless you open the wallet take the card and then use the card it's as if the game doesn't consider you have that card unless it's out of your wallet that's like saying if
you go into a store and you have a credit card with you you don't really have that credit card because it's inside your wallet I mean maybe they overthought this just a little as your inventory grows it becomes even more tedious to page through it all I mean I mean look at look at this look at how long this takes how is he holding all this [ __ ] anyway this detective is walking around trying to be inconspicuous but his trench coat is packed to [ __ ] with everything but the kitchen sink he strolls
into a bedroom where there's a sleeping woman which is creepy as [ __ ] he opens her drawer and just starts taking [ __ ] I mean this guy's more Curious than a cat hm pen glasses why does he have to take everything he sees a tissue really now a tissue what do I need that for the text says you know how to use them don't you you just put one to your nose and blow well thanks this guy is the ultimate hoarder he has so much random [ __ ] but you want to make
sure to take everything because you don't know what you're going to need later oh yeah trust me if you forget something and have to go back that's the worst it turns out you really don't need that much in fact before the game's over you have to get rid of all that incriminating evidence so you spent all that time getting that stuff just to throw it away and of all the ways you'd think to dispose of it you have to use a storm drain yeah all the guns the ammo case everything goes down that [ __
] storm drain you're throwing away yarn condoms LJ and rolling rockers a sailboat and then the clown from It comes up so now that you have the correct invent ventory you head to the police station as long as you have the proper evidence the text explains how there was a trial and the real murderers were brought to Justice You're congratulated for a job well done and then you get a cool epilog with a nice graphic showing your character Ace Harding for the first time it's quite a satisfying ending far better than average for NES I
started to feel woozy like the world was spinning was it the drink no I realized it was the feeling of mind Nostalgia even though the game had shitty aspects it had some redeeming traits and was rather captivating I couldn't help but fall under that good old NES spell I stumbled back into my nerd Lair as my senses began to fail me my brain shrouded in that same childhood fog I grabbed my zapper I took aim remembering all the heartaches the game had brought me I could hear it telling me how it had no choice it
did what it needed to do I could have given this baby a Fair judgment I could have said hey it wasn't that bad but since this is a nerd episode somebody had to take the fall and it wasn't going to be me so long sweetheart so that's how it all went down and as I sit now amongst all my games I know the next case is just around the corner the nerd is always on the hunt for the next item the stuff that [ __ ] is made of I [Music]
