The Adventures Of Bayou Billy

Okay, what the hell happened with this one? Bayou Billy for the NES was hands down one of the worst games I have ever played. It is like the designers took everything that was good in the beat-em'up genre and twisted it into a barely recognizable heap of crap. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with something decent to say about this game so I'm just going to trash it instead.

Lets start with the commercial (Watch the video below). What the hell was Konami thinking? I mean, they couldn't come up with anything better than this? What was their target audience, hurricane bait kids in the deep south? Seriously, this game doesn't even fit into any demographic category! Just take a second and watch that bad commercial and I think you'll see what I'm getting at... It's okay I'll wait...

Lets take a second to talk about the control and game play. The control is wobbly and rigid at the same time, and the fighting moves are ridiculously ineffective. I mean, the only move that seems to work is kicking. I guess I could shoot everyone, but then I run out of ammo for the "boss".  The enemies are pretty generic except in the first level where you fight a steady onslaught of Billy (Bimmy) and Jimmy Lee lookalikes, other than that they are pretty stock. Eventually when you pass the first stage you need to load up your Zapper and take down some random swamp hicks and the like in a level that moves painfully slowly to the right. Why can't they ever make those things move a little more quickly? I swear I spend most of the time wondering how far I am from the end of the level, damn.

Okay, sound effects and music is bad, not too much to say there. When you get more into the story you come to find out that Billy's girlfriend or sister or something was snatched up by some greasy cigar smoking tycoon of some sort. Personally, I think his sister or whomever should have been happy to be snatched away from this awful terd-fest of a life Billy undoubtedly provides, but then we wouldn't have a crappy game to play or review. When I play the game, I like to pretend that Billy is trying to get his sister back so that they can make little Billy's so that they will be eligible for a children's tax credit. Sometimes you have to try to get into the mindset of the target audience, and I'll tell you, from my trips through the deep southern United States this isn't too far fetched.

Having said that, don't waste your time on this one. Save your money for something else.