Weird Steps in Gaming: Yo! Noid

Seeing as there are only so many games that are awesome/shitty depending on my (flawless) viewpoint, maybe it's best to take these games one at a time, and really appreciate what they do (or don't do).

Yo! Noid for the NES was one of those games that you picked out when you were 7 or 8 because it had the Noid on the cover, and you heard of those "Avoid the Noid" commercials. Or, more likely, you picked this game out because you were told to grab "the cheapest game they have." Or, at least, I was.

Here's a brief overview of what's going on in Yo! Noid:








#1. Forget anything you know about the character. Yes, he likes pizza. Yes, he has the signature pogo stick (at one point). But did you know that the Noid also has the ability to utilize ancient ninja techniques that bring pain and suffering upon dock workers? No one realizes the true power of the Noid until it's too late.

#2. The Noid has the stamina of Terry Schiavo. In this strange world where yo-yo's can cause death to the lower class workers, it's one hit and you're dead.

#3. There's actually some originality.

Really?





Well, first of all, let's look at the "boss" system.

As you can see here, the Noid clearly has an adversary in his homosexual brother Earl, who also shares the same mental retardation and pizza fetish. (Ed's Note: May or may not be accurate)
In order to defeat "Earl," you actually have to use LOGIC. Unlike contemporary games of the times, the boss wasn't a "rinse and repeat" series of patterns. Instead, you were given a series of "pizzas" in a rock/paper/scissors type card game. 3 pizzas is better than 2, and so on. The objective was to eat the most pizzas first. There were also other items such as the hot sauce (pictured above) which basically negate
d any amount of pizza that the other guy ordered (good for when Earl busts out the occasional 8 or 9 pizzas).

What else is original about this game? Well, it's only the SECOND NES game where Nintendo admitted to changing an existing game. Observe:




















Well lookie that! These two screenshots are from the Japanese game "Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru" (Trans: Masked Ninja Hanamaru). You can see where things got changed around. Also, in the second panel, the character is saying: "Sukukita! Ninjiyutsu Kuchibeda" (Trans: I really hope that we don't get ripped off by a fucking pizza mascot and fade into obscurity).

OK, it's really not the best game. But look at it this way -- the manual came with a coupon for $1 off of a Domino's pizza!