 27), video games are the best aren't they? There's few things more satisfying than getting super overpowered and wrecking everything in your path. In stuff like Sparkster or Mega Man X, yeeaaah, or the gratification that comes with solving a puzzle in Brain Lord or Link to the Past, or just chilling out and building a huge city in SimCity. Developer visual concepts didn't care about any of that though, when they made Leicester the unlikely in September of 1994, they made the bold and confusing decision of, let's make a game that's the opposite of gratifying and satisfying. Visual Concepts also made pretty decent platformers like Claymates and Harley's Humongous Adventure, but with Lester the unlikely, it's like they deliberately set out to come up with the dumbest idea for a game that could possibly conjure. I mean, everyone's familiar with the Angry Video Game Nerd video about this game from years ago, so most of us have heard of or at least seen footage of this one. But is this game really that bad? Well, yeah, it is, but it also kind of isn't in a weird way. This game reminds me of Shaq Fu, and hold your laughter for a second while I explain. I still maintain that Shaq Fu really isn't that bad of a game, it's not good, but there are much worse fighting games out there. But it is a really, really stupid idea for a game. I mean, Shaq and a one-on-one fighting game against crazy looking creatures and monsters from another dimension, exactly nobody asked for a game like that. Lester the unlikely is the same way, the game itself really isn't that bad? There's much worse on the Super Nintendo, but the idea of this game is pretty dang stupid. You play as Lester, a sniveling cowardly dude who meekly tiptoes across all sorts of environments, being terrified of turtles and crabs and seagulls, to the point that sometimes when you try to, you know, actually do something, Lester instead recoils because he's too scared. What's really frustrating is that these reactions just happen, they just pop up out of nowhere, and you have to sit there and wait a couple seconds for this dude to stop wetting his pants. Does that sound like fun to you? Here's the thing though, this game isn't all that it seems, yeah it's a side scroller and you get three lives and three continues to get through seven levels, split up into a few stages each with no saves or passwords, but if your stomach is strong enough to get at least toward the halfway point of this game, your character changes a bit for the better. To start out though, the story has Lester wandering around reading his latest issue of SuperDuperHero Squad, and he makes the brilliant decision of taking a nap in a loading dock and he mistakenly gets loaded onto a freighter, which promptly gets attacked by pirates. He drags his sorry ass over to the nearest island where he whines and complains saying he'd rather go home, ah yes, going home and being left alone, the goal of every great hero. It's at this point where you get to experience the controls for the first time, and it's also at this point that many, many people will reach for the power button on their console and throw this game into the garbage. See, this is one of those cinematic platformers where your character's movement is very slow and deliberate, reminiscent of games like Blackthorn, Prince of Persia, or Out of this World. Only in those games, you play as a total badass, and in this game, you play as a total wuss. It's not until you fall into this cave before you get your first weapon, and it's a rock you pathetically toss at stuff, then you have to go pick it back up yourself. Eventually, you stumble upon a treasure chest full of gems, and you use one of them to open a door to get out, and it's back to the beach. Ugh. Here's the thing, though. Lester does not stay this pathetic throughout this entire game. You end up defeating a gorilla with a boomerang that you find, and hey, look at this. Lester is actually walking around with some confidence now. That's really the whole premise here, having your character level up, so to speak, throughout the entire playthrough. Eventually, you're moving a lot faster, the automated sprite animations of being scared to go away completely, and you even get a sword so you can fight the pirates that hijacked the ship you mistakenly stowed away on. Believe it or not, the structure in this game is pretty smart. You get to actually watch this dorky kid become a little bit of a badass. But man, it can't be overstated how freaking annoying those first few levels are, and it's not just one thing. It's the way the character moves. It's the fact that you're scared to use your pathetic attack against random everyday stuff on the beach. It's how slowly everything is paced. It's the sound design. It's everything. So imagine my surprise when it turns out that this game actually becomes halfway decent. Now, it's definitely not good, but once your character gets some confidence, gets faster, and actually gets some decent weapons, then this game turns into an average cinematic platformer. Yeah, the controls are still stiff and awkward, but just like games like Out of This World and Blackthorn, you gotta play it by its rules. You can't approach it like Mario or Sonic or whatever. But the question remains, why would I ever want to take the time to master the controls and level layouts of Lester the unlikely? I feel dumb just saying that sentence. But I just wanted to make the point that this game was actually kind of ambitious. It's got some ideas that help make it immediately stand out from anything else. But yeah, that doesn't necessarily make the game good. And the overarching point still lingers in that there's really no point to spend as much time as required to get good at this one. One fun fact about this game I want to point out is that Lester is actually based on a real person, a dude named Eric Browning, who was the lead artist for developer visual concepts. He himself didn't work on the game, but he was the rotoscoped model they used for Lester. How'd you like to be known for that the rest of your life? So yeah, Lester the unlikely is both exactly what you'd expect and what you wouldn't expect. The game starts out worse than almost any other game on the Super Nintendo. The first few levels are so incredibly slow and annoying. But once you reach a certain point, Lester actually starts walking differently and using weapons proficiently. It's actually not as bad of an idea for a game as I initially thought. But this game gets off to such a terrible, terrible start that there's no way on earth I could ever recommend this one. But I do commend the developers for at least having a broader idea for a game like this. Still, if I could sum up Lester the unlikely in one word, it would be the sound sideshow Bob makes when he shudders. All right, I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.