Terrible Video Games And Other Stuff

Galaga Legions - Nostalgia All Fucked Up

I was a huge fan of Namco Bandai’s Pac-Man Championship Edition. The game did an awesome job of updating an admittedly stale gameplay mechanic (eat dots, ghosts, repeat) with some truly unique level designs and pedal-to-the-metal gameplay speed. It was the impossible - a positive update to a classic gaming experience. But, Namco Bandai is greedy. They’ve shown this time and time again with laugh-out-loud and worthless downloadable content for their Xbox 360 games (Ace Combat’s plane downloads are probably the worst offenders), including the recently announced “feature” of being able to buy character levels in Tales of Vesperia. So, it didn’t really surprise me to see how they royally fucked up their modern-take on one of their most beloved franchises - Galaga.

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The Soul Still Burns…When I Pee

As a lifelong (or franchise long) fan of Soul Calibur, I was pretty excited for Soul Calibur IV. I didn’t keep track of all the coverage before the game came out, but the idea of Star Wars characters, a deep create-a-character and customization mode, and online multiplayer piqued my interest from the start. They had me at hello. But, after getting the game and spending some time with it, I find myself conflicted.

What starts off as an excellent foray into fighting turns into a mish-mash of hurried ideas and lost potential. The soul still burns…but maybe it’s about time this fire was put out.

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Ninja Gaiden - 2 Bad, 2 Terrible

So, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Screw you, I’ve been busy - with work, with life, with other things. But, even though I’ve been busy, I’ve still had some time to play someg games. I’m speaking, of course, of Ninja Gaiden 2. Hailed as ex-Team Ninja frontman Tomonobu Itagaki’s farewell swan song for the Ninja Gaiden franchise, I was entirely looking forward to one of the best action/adventure games of all time.

Instead, I got a buggy, glitchy mess that will remain a tragic reminder of what COULD HAVE BEEN.

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Fatter Princess - Fat on the Attack!

My buddy the Space Oddity just put up a good post about Sony’s upcoming PSN game “Fat Princess.” Long story short, it’s a game where two teams try to rescue their damsel in distress but with a catch - the opposing team has been fattening her up with cake to make rescue more difficult. Feminist Gamer and Shakesville picked up on the story and, naturally, they weren’t happy.

Despite all the nasty words and insults being bandied about on both sides, I think we’re all missing the big picture here. Sure, the lasses at Shakesville are pissed off, but c’mon ladies, Sony is doing the entire video game industry a huge favor.

They have effectively uncovered the golden goose of video games - fat chicks. For too long fat chicks have been absent from video games and with no good reason. Kameo would have been a great game if Kameo herself would have been pushing a deuce-and-a-half and had to stop for a breather every two minutes lest her tiny little heart explode under the stress of her mammoth corporeal heft. Halo would have been a CLASSIC if Cortana was less Joanna Dark and more Roseanne Barr. Kane and Lynch would have been a masterpiece if….well, nothing could have saved that piece of shit.

But, I digress. Here’s my list of games I think should be re-made to prominently feature fat chicks.

1. Fatter Princess: the princess is back and she’s even fatter. Teams need to assemble cranes to rescue their little fatty. But, don’t feed her too much cake or she’ll get diabetes or go blind.
2. Nintendogs - why should fat chicks only be human? Give us some morbidly obese female dogs and let us fatten them up even more. All unlockables for your dog would be food related.
3. Metroid Prime - Samus Aran must save the universe all while trying to squeeze into her trademark suit. Built for the Wii, mini-games would consist only of trying to pull up zippers and unwrap Twinkies. You would eat Mother Brain upon defeating her.
4. Wii Fit - now dubbed Wii Fat. The Balance Board would have no built-in sensors and would instead only feature padded cushions. You sit on the board while watching your “stories” on TV.
5. Mario Kart - Princess Peach becomes a 500 pound abomination. She requires no go-kart since she’s already so fat, she covers both the starting line and finish line simultaneously. She is not available as a multiplayer character.
6. Soulcalibur IV - usually sexy character Ivy is now 300 pounds, but still wears her revealing outfits. The sheer sight of her makes opponents constantly lose health. Her special move has her pulling a rotisserie chicken from between folds in her “brisket.” There is no counter-attack.
7. Resident Evil 5 - oh wait, that game has black people in it. Nothing to see here, move along.
8. Beijing 2008 - Sega reprograms the game to feature fat athletes alongside the fit, attractive ones. Long jump records remain untouched.
9. Halo 3 - Master Chief battles through the Flood to rescue Cortana, only to realize she lied to him in her Match.com profile and is “just a bit” more than her stated 125 pound weight description. The rest of the game is spent making awkward excuses on why you can’t go on a second date with her.
10. Super Monkey Ball - Sega decides to ditch the balls and make the monkeys horribly overweight. The core gameplay is the same, but consumers still compain because the female monkeys are being objectified and are overweight.

E3 Was A Bust

So I was at E3 (work related). I’ve been to the past five E3s, so I remember the glory days of the big, ugly, overcrowded mess that used to attract like 60,000 people to the LA Convention Center on a daily basis. I also remember the bastardized E3 that took place in a bunch of Santa Monica hotels. Needless to say, both formulas were problematic, so it was with some anticipation that I jetted off to LA early last week for what would become E3 3.0. Would the show recapture its former glory? Would the ESA finally figure out how to hold a proper show? Would I be able to see awesome and new unannounced games?

Answer to all above questions: no.

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The E3 Blahs

I didn’t post all this week because I was at E3. I’ll have more in-depth impressions of the show later, but in a nutshell the show was: terrible, lackluster, a waste of time, embarrassing, and/or shit-tacular.

Stupid ESA.