Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Video Game Tribute #7: DuckTales

What do Pogo Sticks, Ice Cream Cones, Diamonds, Vampires and Ducks all have in common? Absolutely nothing unless you love Disney and you love Nintendo. DuckTales was probably one of the best games ever put out on the NES... why that is is still a mystery to me. I wasn't exactly a huge Uncle Scrooge fan, and I was actually annoyed that Disney's second most famous duck shared a name with Ebeneezer Scrooge... it just struck me as a rip-off. Not to mention, watching him swim in his money made me nervous, all that bacteria...

So why is it that a video game based off of Scrooge McDuck was so amazing? Let me ask you something, is there anything un-amazing about a greedy duck who smashes animals in the head with a pogo stick? I rest my case. Okay, I know, it was his cane and he used it as a pogo stick... but with NES graphics, is there really a difference? It's just a brown line. Do those sort of minute details really matter when we're discussing a talking Scottish duck looking to expand his already abundant fortune? Whatever, it's a pogo stick.

Everything about the game just screamed "amazing". The music was brilliant, for starters. It's one of the many memorable 8-bit midi sound tracks that made the Nintendo era so wonderful. And let's be real, Scrooge was BAD. Yeah, there's been a lot of hardcore video game characters over the years, Solid Snake, King Koopa, Samus, etc... but Scrooge was a glutton for wealth, he killed animals, ate ice cream on the moon, fought vampires... there was even a point in the game where he left his nephews in a cart as it plummeted over a cliff... and why? To be the richest duck on the planet. You may not be thinking it, but I'm almost positive that this game was the inspiration for anti-hero games like Grand Theft Auto... Oh yeah.

I think what made Scrooge all the more messed up was the fact he was creating all this carnage to happy midi music with a happy-go-lucky smile on his face... If ever there was a "Bad Boy" in the Disney lineup, it was Uncle Scrooge McDuck.

...

He's so bad!
~ Mark

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