16-Bit Boy: Why, Babylon, Why?

By Michael Sterrett

Trawling through the hundreds of games once available on the likes of the Super Nintendo, Atari and Sega Mega Drive is much like leafing through an old photo album. Some of the moments captured forever will swell the jaded heart with fond memories of times gone by, whilst other pictures will catapult you backwards to days you have tried to eradicate from your consciousness with a steady diet of Class A drugs, booze and self flagellation by means of a selection of big sticks.

Indeed, popping a game of Double Dragon into your dusty console can feel like slipping on a pair of old slippers that you found in the attic, delighted to see that they still fit and are as comfortable as ever. Alternately, entering the infernally interminable world of Genghis Khan 2: Clan of the Gray Wolf or the equally baffling bore-fest Dungeon Master is the equivalent of having the guy who beat you up and stole your girlfriend when you were sixteen trying to add you on Facebook: nauseating, morally questionable and downright bizarre.

Yet for me, the most pervasive feeling upon looking back at games of the past is a sense of how frankly rubbish the majority of them were. For every Donkey Kong Country there are a dozen titles like Chester Cheetah – Too Cool To Fool. In fact, a number of these games actually manage to transcend their relative innocuousness through virtue of sheer direness, genuinely taking on a nightmarish and hallucinogenic quality more normally found in the work of Italian horror supremo Lucio Fulci.

//Noel Edmonds’ eyes
Bassins Black Bass Fishing with Hank Parker is a terrifying exercise that has to be seen to be believed. Aside from the tedious and clunky gameplay, the colours used in the visuals are enough to induce at best a brain-thudding headache followed by an hour long bout of vomiting, and at worst a potentially fatal epileptic fit. Even more troubling is the music, which sounds like the theme tune to Last of the Summer Wine as realised by a suicidal robot trying to communicate with a ghost through a knackered Casio keyboard. The overall effect is a hollow churning within one’s soul that can only usually be obtained through back-to-back viewings of Werner Herzog films, looped NSPCC adverts and black and white photos of Noel Edmonds’ dead, emotionless eyes.

William Burroughs once stated that to create the future we must cut up the past, and through the haze of smack and sodomy old Bill was right. Let’s take the cream of the retro gaming crop and hold them closely within our hearts as we embark on new and bold adventures. By acknowledging the mistakes of our forebears we can forge a brighter tomorrow.

Yet deep inside the psychological scars inflicted by games like Troddlers and Porky Pigs Haunted Holiday will continue to gnaw away, blighting everything that is pure and good until finally you collapse in the street, budget gin and blood running from yours lips, as you scream in a coarse and wholly inhuman voice, “Welcome to the exciting world of bass fishing!”