This is Menace Beach, a little-known NES game released in 1990 by a company that called itself Color Dreams (an ironic name for a company whose products caused more nightmares than the Boogeyman, Jason, and Michael Jackson combined). As you can see, this company was so small that the game's entire credits fit on the title screen. Yep, this game was appearently produced by two people. Maybe it's just me, but if I were responsible for this game I wouldn't put my name on the title screen. I'm guessing that's why "Nina" opted to go by her first name only. Aside from having a title that sounds like a very poorly made action movie (the kind even TBS will only show at one in the morning), Menace Beach also features the most annoying skateboarding character in the history of video games. He wears a skin-tight white shrit, with red hot pants and knee pads (which I suppose sends a good message to children: if you're going to dress like a gay prostitute, do it safely).

The epic story of Menace Beach goes like this: You were arranged to have a date with your girlfriend, who unfortunately has been kidnapped by a guy named Demon Dan. As we all know, the police can't prosecute demons because they fall outside their jurisdiction, so it's up to you to save her! Now about this screenshot: Who has dates at malt shops anymore? I thought malt shops were destroyed by Wal-Mart, along with all the other Mom-'n'-Pop-type stores, a long time ago.

As soon as the game starts, you know things are going to be a little weird. You start by traveling through the part of Menace Beach where the residents of one-foot-thick houses throw their beer bottles out the window instead of in the trash.

Nobody likes you in this game. That includes clowns. I'm not sure what agenda the clowns have, but somehow it involves killing you with water balloons. Seeing as how I've been hit with many a water balloon without deadly (or even painful) results, I'm assuming these balloons are filled with something horrible, like snake venom or clown urine.

Remember when I said it would get weird? I wasn't screwing around. Because for some reason, this ninja was just waiting for you on top of a green shed. This is exactly the point of the game where nothing makes sense anymore, because your character never gets off his skateboard. You attack the ninja either by jumping on him and spinning your skateboard or by punching him in the face. The funny part is that you can easily defeat him. That in itself is evidence of how ridiculous this game is -- ninjas are far too awesome to lose a fight to some skateboarding idiot with a massive head. Otherwise all those kids wouldn't want to dress like them for Halloween.

In between levels, you're presented with screens of your girlfriend begging to be saved. Notice that rip in her shirt? The further you progress in the game, the more of her clothes dissolve. Now I tend to wear clothes for prolonged periods of time, and this has never - never - happened to me. This leads me to believe that either her clothes are made out of wet Cheerios or sand.

It's weird for a kid to take a shortcut through a sewer. It's extremely odd for a kid to be attacked by an Elvis impersonater. Combine the two, and you have something so freakishly insane that you'll begin to question humanity. This, of course, is the only good part of the game (other than your increasingly naked girlfriend): everybody loves killing Elvis impersonaters because Elvis impersonaters are as annoying as mimes. At least mimes don't make poor attempts at a southern accent (in fact, they don't talk at all, which is double good).

More almost-naked girlfriend goodness. You know, for a woman chained to a wall S&M-style getting more nude by the second, this chick dishes out some pretty G-rated insults. Notice how the perverted creators of this game tried to justify their softcore 8-bit porn by saying that her clothes were "rotting." I'm not making that up -- check the screenshot. "My clothes are starting to rot." Look, lady, the only time your clothes rotting is justifiable is if you're a zombie. You're not a zombie so you can't use that excuse.

So, you've fought ninjas with ease, avoided malicious clowns, and killed an Elvis enthusiast who lives off of sewage -- what do you want to do now? If for some reason you said kill a sumo wrestler by tricking him to walking on top of bombs, you're in luck. That's exactly what you do in world 3. And it's as dumb as it sounds. Do these odd characters just decide to attack this annoying yet harmless skateboarder, or did Demon Dan organize a daring prison break from Menace Beach Mental Hospital with the craziest patients he could find?

If the locker-sized houses, constant littering, and free roaming insane clowns didn't convince you that Menace Beach is the crappiest city in America, than this should: an endless pit right in the middle of the sidewalk, and the city does nothing about it. Appearently all that money from the tax hikes that was supposed to go towards sidewalk construction somehow found it's way into the mayor's personal hooker and cocaine fund.

At this point, you start to not care about saving this woman anymore. "If you don't rescue me soon, I'll never go out with you again!" Umm, listen, if I don't rescue you soon, you'll die. I don't think you're in the position right now to judge how well I'm doing, especially considering the fact that I'm killing sumo wrestlers and ninjas with my skateboard and you can't even prevent your clothes from melting.

The fourth level takes place on a pier. I don't know much about this level because I didn't really get that far, but I did get far enough to see this:

Yep. A crackwhore throwing a mysterious red bottle into the air. You might not like her profession, but you have to admire her business tactics -- having set up shop right on the pier, she has ensured that she will be the first stop for drunken sailors who stop at the port. That is if she can calm her bottle-throwing impulses.

I honestly have to say that I didn't get any further than that in the game. I had already been through ninjas, Elvis Presley covered in sewage, and a coked out woman living in a box on the pier -- if I had continued any further somebody would've put me on suicide watch.

Think the madness ends there? Guess what, you're wrong. Color Dreams decided to further test the public's threshold for pain, which resulted in the re-release of Menace Beach as a Christian video game called Sunday Funday (I plan on having a page about that game up pretty soon).

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