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Captain Novolin

Posted on January 13, 2002 - Arts/Entertainment - 0 Comments
 Captain Novolin Title Screen

As a kid, I never really felt sorry for any one with diabetes. This is because the only person I knew who had diabetes abused the hell out of it. She was this wickedly evil girl who would use her diabetes as a tool to threaten her parents into getting her anything by eating sugary foods until she went into shock if they refused her demands. Now, more than a decade later, I play Captain Novolin, and I realized the horrible truth that some parents made their diabetic children play through this game as an educational device. They now have my pity.

Plot

 Captain Novolin vs The Evil Sweets

In whatever damn forsaken city this game takes place in, an evil horde of sugar coated aliens have landed and kidnapped the diabetic mayor. The catch here is that although these aliens are intelligent enough to have mastered the science of intergalactic travel, their most advanced military tactic is "Walk, fly or swim to the left." This leaves the country with a choice to make. Do they mobilize the army for a battle that might last a whole fifteen minutes, or find some other means of rescuing the mayor? Well, in the end, they decide to give the cities most inept super hero his one chance at greatness. Thus enters Captain Novolin and his ivory white smile.

The Cap'n

 Captain Novolin: Joe
Figure A

First, I want to assess Captain Novolin's abilities as a superhero. Lets start with a list of his super abilities:

  • -

Judging by the list I guess we can't classify Captain Novolin as the same type of superheroes like Superman or Spiderman since he has no super abilities, but Batman never had any super abilities. Batman just had a lot of nice gadgets and a ton of courage to help him fight evil. So let's see what kind of fancy tools Captain Novolin has at his disposal.

  • Shoes: These were given to Captain Novolin by Joe at the docks. [Fig A] I have no clue how these helped the Captain.
  • A Little Red Boat: Lets the Captain travel over water. Other then that, adds no extra added mobility over his own two legs.
  • A "How to revive me" card: This is for any hikers that may stumble across the Captain in case he should pass out from having too low of a blood sugar level and they don't know how to help him.

Well, I guess this knocks him out of the 'Batman' class of superheroes, so I guess all that is left is the Jackie Chan type of hero. The type that relies on no special powers or expensive gadgets, but just their own physical strength and training. So let me now compile a list of Captain Novolin's physical abilities.

  • Walk Right
  • Walk Left
  • Duck
  • Jump

No ability to punch, throw, bite or break a bottle on the sidewalk and lunge at an opponent's neck with the remaining stump of jagged glass. In fact, it seems the only thing Captain Novolin can do is dodge and flex his pecks. Sometimes though if he lands on an aliens head after a jump, he knocks them out that way, which I think is pretty weak. Think about Mario and Luigi that has been their trademark move for decades, but at least when they do it, they do it with flair and turn the enemy into damn gold coin. Captain Novolin on the other hand, is just an amateur ripping off somebody else's moves. So it looks like poor Captain Novolin is a pretty inadequate excuse for a superhero. His incompetence is further reinforced since it is stated early on that Captain Novolin is named after Novolin Human Insulin, which is a trademark of Novo Nordisk A/S. So much like the other super heroes Dr. Listerine, Miss Monostat and The Headandshouldernater, Captain Novolin is just another corporate created puppet who is only a champion of his own narcissism, and weekly paycheck.

Fin

 Captain Novolin Rescues The Mayor
You win Captain Novolin! Now kiss the handsome prince and live happily ever after.

Since this game was uneventful, and painful to play, I'll just cut out the mean and give you the fat of storyline. In the end, you electrocute a big fat cripple to death and save the mayor. [Fig B] Then the mayor gives you a big key and the aliens leave. I hope I didn't ruin it for you, but it was a crappy ending for a crappy game. I can't image why anybody would want to play it through without a good reason like somebody has a gun to your head and demands you to play this in exchange for your life, but I don't think the roots of evil in humans can run that deep

On one final note about this game. While searching for some background information on it, I found something horrible in the Archived December 1993 issue of Wired. It is here that I found the retail price of the game in 1993 to be a whopping US$69.95! Holy Sodomy Batman! Even today the best or most over hyped games rarely hit $60. I really wouldn't have been surprised if on start up there was a splash screen that said "Hey kids, now is the perfect time to tell your parents about Novelan, our new blood pressure medication." to try to get the parent to shell out more money after the robbery and rape that occurred after spending seventy dollars on this incredible piece of programming.

The Final Verdict

Any hero that can die from eating too many crackers is not very super.


Tags: Corporate Shills, Video Games

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