Look at that title screen. There are so many different political metaphors in that snapshot I'm waiting for Stalin to jump out of my monitor and start gunning down the Jews. That unintentionally epic title screen is the only thing that's even close to entertaining about this rebuttal of man's leap forward in the 20th century. Color Dreams has done the unthinkable: before the deliciously bad Bible Adventures exploited all that is holy, the company created a game to capitalize on the relevance of Saddam Hussein's torture tactics in the late 80's and created Pesterminator: The Western Exterminator. Normal quantifiers do not express how truly abysmal this unlicensed, plastic plug-in is. I've ingested broken glass (long story) that went down easier than the near hour I spent giving the low-down on this mess. It's amazing that in a world with a Bush-led foriegn policy and the continued dominance of soccer as the world's sport, this game is the most disgusting thing I've had to sit through all year.
I downed a whole bottle of Tylenol trying to rationalize the creative session that came up with this storyline. "[A] registered trademark?" Are you stating this mick-mock Uncle Pennybags is actually a video game tie-in the likes of which The King and Yo Noid can only compare? Thanks to the Western Exterminator Company and Color Dreams, fans finally got to play as one of the fifty most revered mascots in the pest control business! Gameplay: Pesterminator, the flamboyant, Eastern European pimp from the 1920's, has travelled to 1990 in order to make the world safe for democracy through eight failed attempts at using that Game Maker program a couple of the Color Dreams programmers stole from a K-Mart clearance rack. Much to my dismay, someone actually had the gall to write a full-length FAQ for this game that informed me I couldn't simply play the first four levels and get the gist of this game. Fathom this: you're out to stop Ronnie the Super Rat, his billion-bug army, and his secret pest factory on the moon (which obviously isn't very secret) by smashing them all with a mallet one by one. And you know what? You're not leaving on until you've left an insecticidal, genocidal mess in every room. This won't be an easy run-down of the pest control business. Some bugs (as highlighted in red) may not be the easiest targets. Bugs will spawn right below your character, forcing you to take damage. Bugs which require multiple hits to kill will convulse wildly around the room with each hammer shot, often flying back into your face and concussing our protagonist with a swift shot to the groin. Bugs will respawn in rooms that you had previously cleared, forcing you to backtrack through slightly ugly rooms and past four-window Cadillacs. And don't think that makes the punishing platform play any less monotonous, which will often force you to make perfect jumps while combating both bugs and the controls. Padding the life of your game is only fun when the game is fun, and this game is not fun. Your Weapons:
Pictured: Range of hammer in combat. Hammer: Color Dreams plagiarizes a much more clever people by making the primary weapon the hammer. These people, prehistoric humans, believed disease was caused by evil spirits that would be released when the head of the ill was cracked open with a blunt object. With this weapon, you too can recreate the excitement of trashing insects with a large hammer! The hammer in Pesterminator is the only offensive method in video game history (excluding trying to run the football with Dan Marino) with a range of three pixels. While bugs with one hit point merely require sharp reflexes to buffer the horrible controls, bugs with two hit points will flail wildly across the screen (often hitting you) before they land in a spot where you can't kill them. Yes, this makes it impossible to clear the level without suicide. Bad controls, bugged gameplay, enticing reasons for the player commit suicide...these are the telltale signs of a Color Dreams product.
Helicopter: Given that the Western Exterminator Company believes swinging a hammer is a conventional method of dealing with rodents and bugs, it's a natural fit to suit up with a bomb-loaded helicopter to fight bugs the size of my room. Military helicopters are renowned for their precision, which is why you will get none of that in this Channel Six rent-out with the firepower and mobility of a Zeppelin. I'm not quite sure if the one level you play as a pilot is more exciting because it shatters the monotony of sledgehammer-based gameplay. But I'm also not quite sure why reward awful games that no one has played for fifteen years with recognition while great games like Beyond Good and Evil and Psychonauts become financial disasters for their companies. I'd say I'm part of the problem, but games like these also are; they make hidden gems a risk when it comes to their forty bucks. And if it comes down to premium condoms or a three year-old copy of the Gamecube classic Eternal Darkness...shit, that's a rough choice for the clueless 19 year-old.
Harpoon Gun: Much to the credit of Color Dreams, level six's incomprehensible water level features the most exciting gameplay in Pesterminator, although that's like earning Play of the Week honors in a WNBA highlight reel. Using the mighty, infinite-ammo harpoon gun, you'll hunt the deadliest chickens of the sea, including the product of Southerner-Sea Bass beastiality and barrels of toxic sludge. While not commonly associated with the insect species (unlike sharks, squids, and jellyfish), shooting these barrels of waste and releasing their contents into the ocean is the only way which you can stop Ronnie the Super Rat's plan to mutate the planet's animal life and use it for his own purposes.
Final Verdict: If you do manage to lose all of your lives, you'll be prompted by the above screen, which fails to tell you "CONTINUE" means "CONTINUE AT THE START BECAUSE WE COULDN'T FUCKING CODE A REASON TO PLAY THIS GAME". It was at this point I realized there was no more reason to play this masterpiece. I had learned the moon was populated by super pests that lived outside the need for oxygen. I learned the sewers are laced with unconnected pipes. I once read on Wikipedia, the reliable source that anyone can edit, that Malcolm X once said "[t]hem white faggots be stealin' my color and my dreams." I believe he was prophetically referring to this game, which would not come out for another thirty-five years after his death. Pesterminator did such a job to tarnish the hammer's legacy that it took Triple H ten world titles to bring it back into popular culture. It will be many more years before the death of everyone who worked on this game. As a result of that, I support nuclear war. Now. Gameplay: 0.5 / 10 |
