ROMERO: "Well, hrm. Sales didn't work so well on the PC... so... let's try the N64!!" Oh dear.
Ha.
Anyway, we all know the story. The game was delayed countless times, and when finally released, it ended up being the flop of vaporware gaming that we all know and love today. Obviously, though, I'm not here to review the Pc version of the game, which was the version my dad purchased and played for the week that he was orgasming rainbows through his ignorant phallus (and please do not force me to use that metaphor when describing any sort of bodily function of my father ever, ever again). No, I'm here to review the N64 version, which is a game that I managed to play some years later at a forgotten friend's house. Now, as you may or may not have already guessed, the game is just as bad, if not worse than, it's original counterpart: the voice acting sucked, the guns were pretty boring, and everything new that it tried to throw at us basically got thrown in the trash compactor. My purpose, though, is to ask one question, one that will more than likely fall upon deaf ears, only because the time for asking has long since passed and mistakes have been realized, not to mention that the individual being asked, more likely than not, doesn't go through game reviewing sites to look at all the thrashing reviews for his failure of a project...
WHY DID YOU EVEN THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE, JOHN ROMERO!?!?
Duke Nukem, that was a good port. DOOM 64 was not that great, but it was forgivable. Do you see the similarities between these two games, though? See, they were both good games. You, sir, produced what we in the biz refer to as a "bad game." One that can not, will not and should not be played by the general public. So in the event of seeing how poorly the sales were for your precious Daikatana, Mr. Romero, what went through your head to have you make this decision? What, at any point in your life, made you think that there were more willing owners of a Nintendo 64 gaming console than there were of a computer? And finally, why would you want to do this to the ignorant ones that were only looking for a decent shooter for their brand spanking-new console that was not Goldeneye?
I want you to understand what you have done by making this decision, Mr. Romero.
Remember Freddie Mercury? Yeah, he was a great guy. Everyone loved him, if not for his singing and songwriting ability, then for his incredible charisma when performing onstage. No, I'm not going to go into the fact that he was basically the man that invented the gay stereotype back in the eighties, that is not my point, nor should being a homosexual be an issue at all when dabbling on to a topic like this.
See, what a lot of people do not know is that Freddie didn't have HIV throughout his entire career as a performer (nor did he have a moustache all through it either, but again, that is straying from the point). He was diagnosed with HIV in 1987, at a time when he was a very, very promiscuous man (means he liked to have tons and tons of sex, loves). This was also a time when AIDS was a relatively new thing, so the only danger on having an unprotected "time" with someone else was getting one or more of the parties present impregnated. Being a gay man, this was an impossibility for Freddie.
Another tidbit that is unknown by the general public is who he actually contracted HIV from, who happened to be a good friend of his. Ex-Russian soldier, as well as a rampant homosexual (again, not that it has anything to do with it). Now, the Ex-Soldier loved to have "times" with other people... much more than Freddie did. He got around. He got around a lot. And through it all, he eventually got around to Freddie. Since they both got around to each other at one point or another, and seeing as Mr. Ex-Soldier got around with more people than numbers I can count to, it can only be assumed that Freddie got HIV from the man that got HIV from one of the many thousands of people that he got around to.
SPOILER ALERT:
:: Freddie dies of AIDS. ::
END SPOILER
So why did I go off on a tangent about the late lead singer of Queen? Well, think of it as metaphorically as I do, Mr. Romero. Pretend that you have never heard of Daikatana before in your life, and are looking for a game to have a good "time" with. Completely unaware of what you are getting into, you pop the cartridge into the console and expect to have a rip-roarin' good time... that is, until the actual game kicks in. You see, Mr. Romero. By allowing this game to be reached by those who do have a N64 at the ready, while at the same time are ignorant to PC game dos-and -don'ts, you are subjegating them to a really poor game. What's worse, you can't really even say that it is their fault for purchasing the game, only because there were so few varied FPS games out there at the time of the release of Daikatana for the N64. What I'm getting at, Mr. Romero, is how you contract a disease to the ignorant by allowing purchase of this port of an already disasterous game.
You've contracted Video AIDS.
Don't play this game.