GameWTFs.com

So, this week's lesson is:   if you go in to a video game store and you've lowered your standards to buy one specific game they've had on the shelf for months,

Here to illustrate that concept...would you believe it's a NES game by LJN?

Let's try to cut through the bluster: The top of the cartridge says, "T&C Surf Designs", the cover art implies it might be called, "T&C Surf Designs: Wood and Water Rage", but given that I don't feel like scanning the cartridge, I'm going to go back to the title screen for guidance.

If we read the title screen, it's clearly called T&C Push Start Button!, so I think that's probably it's "official" name. That's because everything that appears on-screen is definitive*

Anyway, if the Menu screen doesn't fill you with unabated dread, you haven't been playing 8-bit video games for long enough. Yes, this could be described as...a cartridge of multi-sports-like mini-games!

However THIS game has something that MOST sports-mini-game cartridges doesn't: different character choices for each event!

But don't get too excited: there's only two events (the 3rd is "alternate between Skateboard and Surfing levels", but given that the only way to get past the skateboard level is to discover the secret of the non-useless jump, and only 1% of all gamers have EVER gotten past even one surfing level, its moot). And the character choices don't play any differently. However, they're all really weird, and I'm pretty much just going to talk about them for the rest of the article*

So, who are these T&C Push Start Button! competitors? Well, here's what their mini-menu-faces look like:

Now, let's take a closer look:

Given the limitations of the skating interface (hammer one of the buttons to skate faster, press "back" to skate slower, jump off your board and fall on your face because your board hits something, OR MOST IMPORTANTLY: press "back" while jumping and actually perform a jump that can avoid obstacles), here's the view you'll most often see of this intrepid stereotype:

But at least we can say with 93% certainty that he's not wearing a goofy little towel around his neck like he thinks he's in the sauna room at a health club or something. Unlike, say...

This is because he's over-compensating to counteract the uncoolness factor of his grandma glasses and teensy washcloth he's got draped around his neck. If any 8-bit street toughs were to make fun of those things (or his odd Christmas colors of his board and trunks), Joe Cool could whip out a legal document asserting that he is, in fact, COOL.

Then he skateboards skates 'boards replace this with whatever slang the kids call "skate boarding" leaves, pulling crazy stunts like this:

Which, of course, ends in tears, because again: bad play control.

However let's leave all that baggage by the wayside. Let's even ignore the fact that this is one of the worst mini-games in all of mini-game-dom, and that no matter what you do, you basically fall off the wave to the left or to the bottom, and it happens within seconds.

I'm even willing to look past the fact that this game suffers the Pre-XTREME letter-swap of "C" for "K", because, as you may have noticed -- Kool Kat is surfing while wearing a FULL TUXEDO. I'm not sure how he could be any cooler kooler.

Oh wait, I've found out how he could be kooler: while taking screen-prints for this game, I somehow managed to hold the "RIGHT" button and either "A" or "B", and scooted far enough to the right I reached the pier before I fell below the screen to my (immaculately tailored) doom.

And what was my reward?

Well, I guess you've got sunglasses and a cute florescent green bandana/cap/something (it blows kind of unnaturally in the wind), but...Ye Gods, when you take a tumble, you seem a little too pleased to show off your barely-sufficient swim garment:

Chilling stuff. What else do you have to say for yourself?

Oh, I guess we could give you "extra credit" because you're willing to put in overtime by serving as a inner tube-riding obstacle on Kool Kat's course. Because Kool Kat is clearly too good for that kind of thing, he's hired some generic guy with a shiny black pompadour to run interference during Mr. Gorilla's waves:

...and you're also the star of this game's (presumably) woebegotten sequel? You know what, Thrilla Gorilla? You're gettin' nothing from me but an anti-Mario-style backlash: Kool Kat is the Luigi to your Mario, the Ken to your Ryu, the Kim Hoon to your Han Baedal -- and I want no part of your bland white-bread heroism!

Let's just look at the Wood and Water Rage tag-teams and call it a day:

Now, let's wrap up this article -- and indeed, the Summer of 2013 -- with the same kind of high-quality feedback that the game itself gives you with alarming frequency: