Genre
Racing

Dominant Algorithm
Get Ready/Toob

Gameplay
Put your gnarly butt in that inner-toob, radical dood and toobe a toobular river! Or, something like that. You know you are in for a most non-heinous journey down the Okefenokee when the programmers of the game eschew the proper spelling of Tubing for something like TOOBIN’.

Tack on a half-baked attack system where you chuck cans of pop at off-river obstacles and you’ve got another Tengen classic.

Sweetness
The game induces minimal stress. The easy-going title is the perfect precursor to the adventures coming your way. Even the Game Over screen lets you down easy.

Why the ‘O’ looks like a smiling cyclops is beyond me…

Weakness
The game sucks.

You might think that’s the same screen shot from above. I assure you it’s not. The game is a marvel of shitty, repetitive graphics. Case in point:

Invaluable Life Lessons Which I Still Apply To This Day

  1. Any pieces of entertainment media with extreme slang in the title usually blow, bro. (See Also: Yo! Noid!; Except: Skitchin’)
  2. Races need not be for the quick. Some races are mellow journeys of self discovery in the hot summer sun, bro.
  3. Beware the Tengen carts. They are a risky bunch, bro.

Still Fun?
No. If you’re not bored to death from the first level, don’t worry. You’ll never beat the second one (like there’s a reason to, bro).

Relevance Satellite to the Paradigm Shift From my Youth
Tengen was a subsidiary to Atari, who had effectively ruined home gaming with their stupid ET game. When the name became a burden, Atari formed another company called Tengen in hopes of recovering some of their street cred. There are two easy ways to identify a Tengen game (if seeing the word TENGEN on the side of the box and cart isn’t easy enough.

1) The carts were shaped different from official Nintendo carts:

2) There is a conspicuous absence of the official Nintendo Seal of Quality on the box.

Initially, Tengen was reluctant to agree to Nintendo’s strict publishing contracts (which included such stipulations as 2-year exclusivity for all titles and refusal to allow more than 5 titles per year from any developer). These rules were put in place to avoid another market collapse like what was seen on the Atari.

Knowing that the contracts were designed to avoid a repeat of the damage Atari had done, it’s no surprise that Nintendo wasn’t going to be lenient with these rules for an Atari subsidiary.

Nintendo built all games with a lock-out chip. If the carts didn’t have this chip, then the games wouldn’t work. Programmers at Tengen tried unsuccessfully to replicate the chip, but the encryption was too complicated and they never cracked the code. Instead, they requested the original lock-out chip & scripting from the US Copyright office under the auspice that they needed it as evidence for litigation they were planning against Nintendo. They got the specs and were able to replicate the chip, going on to produce a series of games which were not approved by Nintendo.

Needless to say, Nintendo was not happy. Their lawyers came in like tanks.

Ironically, the fictional litigation that Tengen used to get the chip and code resulted in actual litigation in which Nintendo accused them of stealing their protected technologies.

Nintendo won.

It was this methodical control of the games and technologies that allowed Nintendo to save the gaming industry from the wreck that Atari left behind. However, this approach cost them dearly in the 3rd generation with the release of the Nintendo 64.

But, that’s a story for another night, kiddies.

Fan Art
Yeah right. Like anyone is going to do loving oil renditions of the lone beach bum who populated this stinker.

Seeing as the fan art is sparse, I will give you instead who I imagine Tengen imagined their target market to be.

RADICAL!

AWESOME!

GNARLY!

PUMPIN!

BODACIOUS

CHEVY NOVA?

Jesse Koester is a film producer working in Tokyo. His work can be seen at www.iceblockfilms.com. You will never crack the 10JES Chip. And if you do, I will drown you under an avalanche of litigation even if Gauntlet and Golden Ax are fun.