Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance

"The little-known history behind this blight on America."

The White House war room, 1986.

Secreatary of Defense: ''Mr. President, I'm afraid that the Soviets may have done us in this time. We beat them in the nuclear arms race, but as soon as they slipped a copy of Tetris into the computers of our nuclear launch technicians, we might as well have just told the nation to repent its sins at the first sign of an ICBM. This mesmerizing game is soon scheduled to be shipped into the country on Nintendo cartridges, where it will undoubtedly corrupt the minds of American youth with its subliminal pro-communist messages. What do you suggest that we do?''

Reagan: ''I thought this day would never come. Mr. Secretary, do you remember the top-secret project we were working on in case our Star Wars Defense System failed?''

Secy of Def: ''Game X? You mean...the one which would drive all who played it slowly insane? The one which caused several play-testers' heads to explode...and those were just the monkeys? The one which made a former SS officer promise to become a rabbi if only they'd let him stop playing?''

Reagan: ''That's the one. Desperate times call for desperate measures.''

Secy of Def: ''So, your plan is to send it over to the Russians in a retaliatory game release?''

Reagan: ''Yes. But for heaven's sake, MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T GET OUT HERE! You know how these American youth buy anything! Here are the authorization codes to unlock the storage vault. Make sure the media doesn't hear of this. What we're about to do is on the scale of what Cortez did to the Aztecs. I expect to see Moscow in flames 10 minutes following this release.''

Secy of Def: ''I'll do my best...Mr. President.''

Epilogue: Turns out the Secretary of Defense was a Soviet spy, who immediately sprung this game on the American public as soon as he opened the vault. Amazing, the sort of information you can get from Bruplex's time machine. Like the address of this particular Defense Secretary. I sent it, along with a copy of the game, to every milita, gang, and NRA chapter in the US. Let's just say....for all the guns, he still took a VERY long time to die. Normally I abhor violence, but after playing this game...I'm willing to justify my actions. I mean, look at the horrible

Graphics: Deadly Towers was a da Vinci compared with this crud I saw on my screen. Eight different characters, all so horribly drawn and animated that you'll cheer to see them die! Backgrounds which repeat, repeat, and repeat again! All done to horrible

Music. Almost made me cry. And not with joy either. The sound of your guy dying is perhaps the only remotely pleasant thing you'll hear out of this cart. Since I only had the ROM, I couldn't release my anger by smashing the cartridge. So I slapped the file around, infected it with as many spare viruses as I had to spare, and banished it to the prison of an old 286, where the viruses will slowly digest its code over a thousand years. Unfortunately, I did this after figuring out the

Gameplay. I actually figured out the controls. No, seriously. Before, my characters were merely walking around randomly and occasionally jumping into pits. Now they could advance far enough to get kicked in the shins by evil midgets. Surprise, surprise, knowing the controls does NOT make the game more fun! In fact, knowing anything that conceivably lengthens your playing time only strengthens your desire to slaughter the creators of this monstrosity. Unless you're either a certified exorcist or a sadomasochist, do everything in your power NOT to get this game! Even after banishment, the ROM still left traces of its old demon buddies on my computer. After a wild night of pea-soup vomiting floppy drives and floating moniters, everything SEEMS to be back to normal. But that's only due to the fact that I had the guy from Spiritual Warfare(complete with exploding Sword of the Spirit) there to help. And my little ''Exorcism for Dummies'' book. If you see an NES cartridge marked ''Heroes of the Lance,'' buy it and destroy it immediately. SMcFadden would be proud. And you'll save some poor idiot the trouble of having to sprinkle holy water on the Nintendo after ''playing'' this horrible title.

Nintendo Logic: The fact that this game earned a ''Seal of Quality'' is enough to make me doubt that there's ANY logic in the licensing process.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/00, Updated 04/13/00