OMGJeremy

Humpday Gaming: Jaws (NES)

It was Christmas, and I was headed to my Mom’s house to receive my annual haul of presents from her side of the family. I had high hopes, as I had not had my Nintendo for too long, and had been namedropping games like a drug fiend for months. Once I stepped through the door, my anticipation had boiled over to the point where I thought I may throw up at just the idea of being handed a bunch of poorly wrapped presents to open. Once the presents started being passed out, I was wondering just what awesome NES games I could be getting. Castlevania? Contra? I had asked for both repeatedly, after all. My young mind could barely comprehend it all. Finally they finished passing things out, and the OK was given to start opening them. I rifled through them like a fat person going down on a fondu buffet. After a few toys, I finally found the box that most obviously looked like a NES game. I ripped it open a bit to find that yes, the Nintendo Seal of Approval was showing in the corner. The rest of the paper came off with the quickness to reveal the full game. Finally! The game I had wanted for months was… JAWS?! It’s fucking JAWS?! What the FUCK?

Yeah, Jaws. How the fuck did I end up with Jaws? I have no damn clue. I never asked for it. I never even watched or liked the damn movie. But somehow, some way, I had ended up with Jaws on Christmas day. A classic victim to what would later be known as “Clueless Parent Syndrome.” At some point, my Mom had gone to purchase one of the many games on my list, but was finding none. Getting frustrated, she was assured by some old woman in K-Mart that this here Jaws game was all the rage with the kids. Convinced, my Mom picked it up, and called it a Christmas. Leaving me with something I would curse for the rest of my life. I could have forgiven it all if the game was fun. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded even if it was passable. But no. Jaws might as well have been me fishing up a shark-sized turd from the depths of the shit ocean. Yeah, it sucks.

What the Hell do you even do in this game? I don’t know. I just drive my ship around until it crashes into water, and I’m forced to go scuba diving to kill fish with my harpoon. Why do I do this? From what I gather, you have to upgrade your ship enough so you can do enough damage to kill Jaws. Who fucking cares. None of it is the least bit of fun save for the Galaga-like bonus missions that has you killing jellyfish that dance around the screen. That’s a great sign of when your game is good, right? When the best thing you can say about it is that there’s one part that is sort of okay since it reminds you of a much better game that you’d rather be playing? The rest of the game is literally sleep-inducing, thanks to super slow pacing, and the sort of relaxing nature of swimming around.

This is about as exciting as it gets. IE: Not at all.

So what happens when you finally get all upgraded? Well, you go find you some Jaws to kill. Once he’s found, you have to shoot him like 82805454 times to make him go down long enough so that you can ram your boat into him. While I was able to take Jaws down several times, I was NEVER able to actually ram my ship into him to end the game. To this day, I swear to God it’s impossible. The timing has to be so precise, and aimed juuuuuust right, that doing so is like a 1/100 chance that it may actually hit him. I never did. For years, Jaws sat next to my NES. Taunting me that I never beat it, even after I had beat both Contra and Castlevania.

It still taunts me.

I now realize this is the shit I’ll probably be telling a psychiatrist in a few years. Thanks, Mom. And fuck you, Jaws.