Game: Monster Truck Rally, Realtime Associates, 1991, NESBeer: Schlitz Malt Liquor, 40 fl. oz., 5.9% abv
# of beers consumed during play: 1
Level Reached: Level? There's no levels, just one plateau of terrible.
Level of Intoxication: Three Sheets to the Wind
Game
I'm going to be brutally honest here, this little section where I typically give some sort of background on the creators and maybe the pedigree of the game in question is not going to house such insights this time around. I know nothing about the designers of this game, anything else they've ever done, or if this game was even influenced by anything other than bad acid trips during the Truck-O-Saurus segment of the local monster truck rally. I imagine these are questions that will remain unanswered for all time, because a game as terrible as Monster Truck Rally usually causes it's creators to engage in mass suicide. Heaven's Gate? Those were the guys behind the Atari version of E.T.
Gameplay
Go to the kitchen, once there, find the longest, rustiest, dullest knife you can find. Got it? Now stab yourself in the hand. Ask someone else to stab you in the other hand. Now go play R.C. Pro Am. You now understand what it's like to play the monstrosity that is Monster Truck Rally. Monster Truck Rally (heretofore abbreviated as MTR because a game this bad doesn't deserve to be called by its full name) is what happens when a bunch of people who hate games almost as much as they hate each other get together to design a video game. One of the problems that plague this game is that they essentially took everything that was good about a game such as R.C Pro Am, and eliminated it with extreme prejudice. Clean, clear graphics? Gone. Tightly refined controls? Gone. Predictable and innately understandable gameplay mechanics? Gone. Funfactor? It was gone before these guys even sat down at the table.
Like many games that saw the light of day during the NES's reign, the game was a relatively disjointed mish-mash of modes and options that when taken all at once form the most rudimentary of game concepts. In fact, the component parts are so loosely assembled that I blindly hit "Go Race" thinking it would immerse me in the core of the game's offering. After three play-throughs of the exact same track I decided to go exploring. Only then did I discover that hidden in the myriad offerings was the option--way at the bottom--to engage in the titular Monster Truck Rally. For some reason I'm not fully able to comprehend, the game defaults to the "combo track" which is just a huge, grueling amalgamation of all the other modes combined, and creates in the user a feeling that can be best equated with the dual feelings of frustration and exhaustion. Make no mistake, the combo track is a secret CIA torture test, designed to make anyone subjected to it crack under the immense pressure of having to experience something so unabashedly deplorable. In essence, what Realtime Associates have done is stumble upon what can only be classified as the digital equivalent of "enhanced interrogation".
Allow me to take a moment to give a detailed look into the actual gameplay of this crime against humanity. For starters, you are not driving anything that even resembles a monster truck. What you drive more closely resembles a 1995 Nissan Truck. I realize that the game was released in 1991, I'm not implying they had a licencing deal or anything, I'm saying MTR managed to capture the shittiness of a 1995 Nissan Truck 4 years before Nissan even thought it up. Any 13-year-old who had played this when it was released and then had their unhappy parents give them a 1995 Nissan Truck for their 18th birthday instantly got a lesson in two things: art imitating life, and life being a huge disappointment. If those same individuals went on to become school district superintendents, now we all know why.
Colorful musings on the origins of people who run the public school system aside, the game itself gives you a decidedly non-monster-truck and requires you to guide it along a predetermined path strewn with angry rednecks and discarded tires. Your truck will not control well, or even sorta-kinda okay-ish. Your truck will be all over the place, and you will hit the wall, and you will hit the other 1995 Nissan on the track, and you will run into the stupid goddamn barriers on the track and be involuntarily turned 180 degrees. All of these obstacles will be placed at the most inopportune moments and will ensure you lose ground to the dirty, rotten computer player. This is what makes this game challenging, not the fact that the tracks are well designed and laid out, and not the fact that strategic planning and learning the core gameplay mechanics will help you to prevail. No, the game is challenging because like many other games from its era, the computer cheats and the gameplay mechanics are stuck in the dark-ages. If I had a huge cage of orangutans hopped up on assorted amphetamines, they could not come up with a game as manic and disjointed as MTR.
Graphics/Sound
I just want to say this outright: the graphics in this game are abysmal. I'll really have a hard time explaining them without an example or two, so if you have been paying attention, or at least looking over the shoulder of the person reading this to you, you'll already have seen what passes for visual stimulus in this game. If you take a bunch of cucumbers, a handful of grass from outside, some pine needles, and a bunch of reddish brown dirt and then throw them in the blender, not only will you piss off everyone else in the house for ruining the blender, but you will get a real life approximation of how this game looks. In comparison to the hideous Jackson Pollack that is the game's background, the "monster trucks" are positively nuclear in color and intensity. This is actually a good thing as it is very easy to see when you hit the wall, other trucks, barriers, invisible obstacles on the track, or anything else that may hinder your progress and suddenly your truck spins somewhere in the vicinity of 540 degrees. While this may be awesome for your typical skateboarder, this is most certainly not awesome in the context of this game and every time you see it happen you will wish you had an extra controller to throw against the wall.
The sounds are what would happen if Ben Stein was a robot...Well, more of a robot than he already is. The drone of your 1995 Nissan's engine is the sound I would imagine Ben Stein making if he were a dubstep album. The sound of your truck is just dull and flat enough to make you wish you had been born without ears. Of course just as you reconcile the brain-drill that is the sound of your vehicle, you are "treated" to the musical stylings of whatever homeless, mentally defective Russian immigrant the designers hired to score the game's music. The screeches and caterwauling that pass for music in this game is so grating, you may just take to listening to Chalkboard's Greatest Hits on your headphones to escape the torture. Long story short: turn the TV down and listen to your little sister's Justin Bieber albums, you''l be much better off. At least Bieber has a team of audio technicians who are getting paid to try and make him sound good. That's more than can be said for the audio of MTR.
Story
Again, we are talking about a game that was made during the 8-bit era, meaning there was never a requirement for this game to even attempt to justify its existence with a story. Because of that, I will substitute a story of my own in its absence:
You are the lucky owner of a 1995 Nissan Truck, and have been summoned to participate in the most grueling competition since the Japanese version of the Iron Chef. Using every ounce of precision engineering on your 1995 Nissan Truck, you will traverse small rivers, large hills, and completely out-of-place automatic barriers in the track in order to prevail against other 1995 Nissan Truck owners in a contest of who can decipher the incredibly confusing track layout the fastest. Your prize for winning will be the apathetic attention of all the angry rednecks who thought they were coming out to see a real monster truck rally.
Beer
Smell
As soon as I uncapped this, I took a big whiff, and the first two words to pop into my head were, for no explainable reason, "Cambodian ashtray". These words baffle me, not only for the simple fact that I know nothing about Cambodia, but by extension, why an ashtray located in Cambodia would be any different than anywhere else in the world. Word association games aside, the odor released by this particular beverage struck me as somehow dirty. There were very earthy tones and saturating all of that was the unmistakable odor of malts and disillusionment. I realize that the particular demographic that Schlitz is marketed to will never hold the mouth of the bottle up to their nose, close their eyes, and absorb the heady bouquet in any attempt to more fully understand and appreciate their beverage of choice. People who drink this as a matter of course just don't even expect that out of this product. Really, that's just fine. When I go to McDonald's and order a Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets, I don't hold it up to my face and savor the scent of the food before taking a slow, glassy-eyed bite. I shove it into my gullet as fast as I can because I'm usually in a hurry and hungry. People who drink Schlitz are in a hurry and sober, so I won't judge them for skipping the pleasantries and getting to the point. By the same token, I won't blame Schlitz for recognizing this and not putting too much effort into something nobody really cares about.
Taste
You know what people do care about? Whether something tastes like the dishrag used to wash out all the used beer mugs at the end of the night. Now don't get me wrong, Schlitz actually gains a few points for managing to still taste distinctly beer-like. All the same, while not nearly reaching the same depths as something such as Olde English "800", Schlitz isn't going to get written in on any ballots as being the best beer of anything. Of course, then we return to the previous point that Schlitz isn't trying to impress anyone, and furthermore, they don't have to. They know who buys their beer and they know what those people want. They cater to their core market and as far as I can tell, there's no one standing on street corners protesting the taste or smell of Schlitz Malt Liquor, so while it may not be up my alley, it obviously works for someone out there. Then again, there isn't much room on a piece of cardboard to write "Schlitz tastes and smells terrible, end the tyranny!" When "Homeless and hungry, anything will help" is already there.
Intoxication
I can say that this is where this brew actually shines. Schlitz really has a nice, healthy intoxication. The slightly above average alcohol content gives an easy buzz at first. Each subsequent swig from the bottle will intensify that buzz until before you know it, you're slurring your words and bumping jovially into walls, couches, and small, unsuspecting house pets. Talking good-naturedly to inanimate objects is not out of the question, even if you are slurring so badly the refrigerator can't understand what you're saying. Concentration gets a little tougher, so don't go swilling 40's of Schlitz right before you take your SATs. Also, I can't speak for anyone else, but my mood steadily improved until I was smiling and laughing animatedly at the travesty of a game I had chosen. The unrelenting horribleness of the game only bolstered my good mood and by the time I finished the 40 and shut the game off, I was in the perfect mood to hang out with people and be entertaining. Perhaps the cult draw of Schlitz lies in that singular facet, that this beer is uniquely tuned to a social atmosphere and hanging out with friends. While one may contend that all beer is designed for this purpose, I can say that there are certainly beers that give a less-than-ideal type of intoxication to those ends. As it stands, while Schlitz's taste and smell don't exactly make me a fan, I have to admit the intoxication is quite in line with what I would expect out of a good beer.
Feel
Schlitz is only slightly flatter than the average bubbly brew, and in fact, on a couple of occasions, I went ahead and tried to guzzle this for a few seconds. While I couldn't keep it up for long, I was able to get a few extended pulls out of the bottle before feeling uncomfortable, and overall, the beer's carbonation was unobtrusive and actually a bit refreshing. While as a general rule, malt liquors aren't known for being fresh or clean in their feel, this one was actually light enough to offer a bit of pep while depressing my nervous system. The drink went down surprisingly easy, and once down in the stomach, only caused a bit of unease, which was less than I would have anticipated for a beer with the dubious pedigree that Schlitz has. The truly interesting thing is that the next morning I wasn't besotted with a hangover like I had thought would have been the case. I woke a bit bleary-eyed, feeling a bit worse for the wear, but all in all, only the teeniest pang of a headache ever hit me, and getting my morning started was relatively unchallenging. To be sure, this unobtrusive feel from the mouth to the morning after was unexpected and more than welcome. With most malt liquors, I steel myself for a tough night and an even tougher next morning, as is simply the nature of the beast. It was fortunate then that with Schlitz I found myself sunny-side up rather than scrambled.
The Matchup
Really, these reviews are as much a journey of discovery for me as they are for the reader, since unless I'm going into a game and beer I know quite well (see my most recent review), I'm going to be surprised by something. In this case, I was surprised by not only how truly bad some of the old NES games were, but also by how not-bad a cheap fawtie of malt liquor could be. I mean, heh, don't get me wrong, Schlitz is anything but good, but it's far from the terrible I had originally anticipated. I'm just going to be happy when I don't have to type that name any longer, seeing as how when you get a bunch of consonants together, they always seem to arrange themselves in unfriendly ways. At any rate, a very bad game and a not-entirely-terrible alcohol can actually combine to be a pretty good time. Go figure.
Cheers/Game on.