Who's Bad?
Who's Bad?
It's tough being a bad dude. No matter what stupid locale your quest to rescue President Ronnie takes you to, you end up surrounded by ninjas. When we last saw Bad Dude, he was in a forest. Where to now? Up until this point, the game has had a semi-logical stage progression. You start off in a city, then you're on a street. Next, you're in the sewer under that street. Finally, you end up in a forest because sewers have to drain somewhere. So what's the next level? Mountain trail? Abandoned mine? No, of course not.
You're on a freight train. The kind that picks up passengers. In the forest. Fantastic. This level is a lot like the truck, but it scrolls from right to left instead of left to right. Also, it's a lot longer. I mentioned earlier that you can get weapons in the game, daggers and nunchuks to be precise. As you can see in the boss screenshot above, our guy totally has a dagger. I don't know what the deal is with this boss. He's a got a weird weapon, a weird mask, and he doesn't die easy. I think he might be a member of the evil biker gang that Stallone fought in Cobra.
Now you're in a cave... what the fuck? I guess you took a ride on the old Forest-Cave Express Line. Or you derailed the train. Or you took Amtrak, in which case it probably derailed all by itself. The boss of this level is some guy with a big red stick. He spins around like a retard and tries to hit you with it. He's actually pretty good at doing it. Either learn to dodge or bring lots of quarters.
It looks like all that time you spent wandering aimlessly from place to place has really paid off. After you fight your way through the cave, you end up in secret hideout of the Dragon Ninja. You can tell, because he clearly marked it with some very nice graffiti. He also filled it with palette swaps of most of the bosses that you killed in earlier levels. Yes, it's one of THOSE games. I'm kinda disappointed with this level. I would have thought that a man capable of kidnapping the president would have a secret base that was a little less... rusty. This is long, long level. It's all worth it though, because you're very close to rescuing Reagan.
Meet the Dragon Ninja, the laziest boss in the game. He flies around in his NINJA-HI Helicopter and throws flaming ninja stars at you. Meanwhile, a never-ending string of attack dogs tries to take a bite out of your face. As you fight the Dragon Ninja, you can't help but wonder why you didn't just take a helicopter to his secret base. You also wonder why the fuck a ninja would have a helicopter. You consider asking Dragon Ninja about it, but you just kill him instead. The moment of truth is at hand....
You've done it! Once you kill the Dragon Ninja, the pilotless helicopter magically lands and out steps President Ronnie. Since you went to a lot of trouble to rescue the president, you're sure to get a great reward. A cabinet position, perhaps? A Congressional Medal of Honor? Assloads of money? Nope, you get a burger. And then that bastard laughs at you. Video Game Reagan is a lot less cool than Actual Reagan. Fuck you, Data East, for coming up with such a bad ending.
I don't know what else I could possibly say. Bad Dudes is one of those games that's so bad it's good. In a world filled with ninjas, crime, dogs, and muscle shirts, one man rose to the occasion and became a hero; he is The Bad Dude. Well, unless you somehow tricked a friend into playing this ridiculous game with you, in which case THEY are The Bad DUDES. Godspeed, Bad Dudes. Godspeed.
Posted by: Syd Lexia
12/02/04
