Yo! Noid

"When advertising gets out of hand, insane gaming ensues."

Nintendo has always been an easy to use platform for brainwashing the youth of America. Heck, it's been about 12 years since I first played Bad Dudes, and I still hate ninjas. A number of different companies were unable to resist the temptation of inserting their mascots into a Nintendo Game. Yo! Noid features the former spokesperson for Domino's Pizza, the Noid!


At first glance, Yo! Noid is another one of your typical side scrolling Nintendo Games. In this particular game, your primary weapon is a yo-yo, which, oddly enough is not the first Nintendo to feature a main character who fights villains with a yo-yo. (I am, of course, referring to Goonies 2)

The play control is pretty comfortable, and the levels are interesting. On the other hand, the levels and enemies make absolutely no sense at all. I'm still not sure what the story of the game was supposed to be. Apparently, The Noid is traveling to different locations through out the city, and challenging the city's other Noids to pizza eating contests. The last boss of the game is actually just another pizza eating contest.


The Pizza eating contests involve you and your opponent taking turns choosing cards with numbers on them, and matching them up. Who ever picks the card with the higher number gets to eat the difference of the two cards in pizza. Who ever fills up their pizza meter first, wins the contest. The contest is pretty easy when you start, but as you progress through the game the contests become more and more difficult. Your opponents start to have cards that have higher numbers than yours, and the only chance you have of winning is by using one of your special cards.

Special cards are usually hidden in the levels that immediately precede the pizza contests. There are four types. The double and triple multiple cards are used in conjunction with a pizza card to increase the value of the card. The other two special cards are the pepper and hot sauce cards. The pepper is thrown in your opponent's face to negate whichever card he has chosen for that turn, and the hot sauce removes five pizzas from his total.


It only takes one hit to kill you, and when you die you have to start the level all over again, so this game can be pretty tough once you get past the first few levels. One of the worst levels would have to be the one where you have to use the helicopter backpack. You have to press either A or B repeatedly to keep the helicopter going. If you don't, you immediately fall off the screen. The worst part is that you being the level falling without any sort of warning. If you aren't ready for it, you'll die at least once right at the beginning.

I guess the most notable thing about the game would be the unyielding insanity of the game. The Noid's quest is never really explained. I guess he just woke up one day and decided to make a journey through what appears to be the most insanely dangerous city ever. For Pizza.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/03