Can you imagine what would happen if Brad and Rob worked together?
HALO WARS (X-Box 360)Brad: My first reaction on seeing that cover was "Wow! General Grievous has his own game?!"
Rob: Is it me or do the Covenant look kind of like penises?
Brad: What is it with video game developers and their complete inability to design usable weapons? Explain to me one situation where using those plasma-blade things would be preferable to just punching someone.
Rob: Well, surely a plasma blade is more like a lightsaber...without the license obviously.
Brad: I guess so. I suppose they’re more like plasma-knuckle-dusters.
Rob: Yeah, like a lava lamp that's slightly sharp.
Brad: Assuming you had no prior knowledge, what does this art say to you about the content? To someone like me, (who genuinely doesn't know), I don't even know what gameplay it entails. It could be anything from a MMORPG to an RTS.
Rob: I think it's a dancemat game. It's the position of the soldiers that makes me think dancemat game
CHRONO TRIGGER (DS)
Brad: I genuinely have no idea what to make of this one. I'm guessing that there's a rational explanation, though. Perhaps a Seven Samurai theme? No, wait, there's only six of them.
Rob: That does obviously put an immediate damper on the plan. On the far left, it looks like Toad of Toad Hall has gone rogue
Brad: I like the non-racist way they've given the frog a Frenchy moustache.
Rob: Surely two of those six characters are useless as the large robot in the middle has just punched through both their faces?
Brad: And I'm fairly sure the robot in the middle is the fat legless Jedi from Dark Empire. Note that neither of us has commented on the one who's obviously the protagonist...
Rob: He's wearing pretty gay boots, how's that?
Brad: I think it speaks volumes that, as potential purchasers of this game, we're so embarrassed about the main character that we're not even acknowledging his existence.
Rob: In all honesty, he's probably one of those really super-effeminate protagonists that you're embarrassed to play as too.
Brad: Games did that for a while. I'm sure that Metal Gear Solid, Devil May Cry and Legacy of Kain all gave you a really shitty emo character for a large chunk of the game. It was immensely unpopular as ideas go, but for some reason they kept doing it. "I've bought Max Payne II. Why the fuck am I playing Jackie from That 70s Show?
(Left: Mona Sax. Not pictured: Dignity)
Rob: Metal Gear Solid 2 had Raiden.
Brad: He sucked,
Rob: The implication was that he sucked, yeah
Brad: What's your score out of 10 for Chrono Trigger?
Rob: Having never played it, 6/10.
Brad: I'm giving it a 4/10, as it obviously harnesses technology that was old when Shining Force came out the first time.
Rob: But then, using the Chrono Trigger, they could presumably go back and use the Unreal III engine...except they didn't.
CSI: NEW YORK – THE GAME (PC)Rob: What's Sarah Jessica Parker doing in CSI?
Brad: And the T-1000, apparently. As an aside, did you ever notice that they did a hundred re-themes for the Cluedo boardgame, but not one based on CSI?
Rob: They did a CSI board game, apparently it sucks arse.
Brad: It does. It's basically a series of party-game style mini-levels, with no real connection to the series bar the box art.
Rob: Think about it, though...if a CSI board game followed the show, this is the format: A person goes to see the crime, that's like "Go" on a Monopoly board, then you would go to somewhere the equivalent of the Red properties, like Trafalgar square or something...
Brad: The thought has just occurred that that's supposed to be Gary Sinise...and some sort of bizarre hybrid of (as you mentioned) Sarah Jessica Parker, and Celine Dion.
Rob: That is genuinely Gary Sinise, by the way, it's a photo.
Brad: I know. That's the really scary thing. How can a photo of him look so little like him? What sort of game do you suppose this is anyway?
Rob: I've played the CSI: Las Vegas ones. They're point-and-click adventure games
Brad: Were they any good?
Rob: They're actually not bad. Except the voice actors drove me nuts, because they only had one or two phrases each.
Brad: Which seems awfully lazy.
Rob: Have you watched the show?
Brad: Yes. Which is what strikes me as odd. None of those actors had time to record more than two lines of dialogue? How hard was that to squeeze into their hectic schedule? Those CSI teams have a bizarre hierarchy anyway. That police force seems to swap manpower to various tasks like a fucking tag-team match.
Rob: That's what the Las Vegas Police Department is like: a wrestling faction.
Brad: What's your score for the CSI:NY - The Game?
Rob: Modern forensic techniques give me the foresight to say 4.
Brad: I'm giving it ten, because I think there may be a level in there that features Gary Sinise having to swab Sarah Jessica Parker's vagina...and that's been missing from most games I've played. Except that pirate copy of Joust.
Rob: Would you give My Horse Vet a 10 too?
Brad: Only if Gary Sinise was in it.
FUN PARK (WII)
Rob: I sense a rip-off. Cleverly done, isn't it?
Brad: On first impressions this does appear to be a knock of off Theme Park, but I would never have called Theme Park, "A Quest filled adventure".
Rob: Ultimately it was, but the quests were fairly basic
Brad: Theme Park was the game this generation wasted hours on before The Sims was invented.
Rob: Yeah, games like that are great for when you want to play a game that has no ultimate reward.
Brad: One time I made a Theme Park that contained nothing but toilets.
Rob: What did you call it?
Brad: "Bog World." The thing is, no-one came into the park because there weren’t any rides to attract them, so I had to put in a bouncy castle to attract people in.
Rob: I bet that bouncy castle wore out within a day.
Brad: It was a wonderful sight to see two hundred glass-eyed mongoloids wandering around in a daze, trying to figure out why they'd paid 50 quid to wander round a field of full of nothing but port-a-loos, the occasional shrub and one worn out bouncy castle.
Rob: You've never been to Margate have you? Dreamland was pretty much that
Brad: Management games in general are hard to play seriously. There isn't a man alive who hasn't made two women as roomates in The Sims purely for the purposes of making them kiss.
Rob: I find management games hard to play intermittently. Any time I get into one I go absolutely nuts on it. My first Sims couple was a man I made gay with my dad
Brad: Do you mean that you and your Dad made a couple who were gay, or you created a Sim of your Dad, and made him gay? I hope it’s one of those, because the alternative is some sort of Weird Science scenario...
Rob: The second one.
Brad: Does "40 minigames" refer to the rides, you think?
Rob: Nah, it's on the Wii. It refers to some sort of waggle controls.
Brad: I thought "40 mini-games" was a summary of the Wii's discography...
Rob: Nah, there's a Mario game too.
Brad: Wii: It's all about innovation. Are we right in assuming this is a Theme Park clone?
Rob: Oh, I dare say it is
Brad: Score out of ten? I'm going for a 4, because I'm feeling generous.
Rob: 3, matching the score to the age demographic that doesn't remember the infinitely superior Theme games.
NANCY DREW: THE MYSTERY OF THE CLUE BENDER SOCIETYBrad: I don't know what a Nancy Drew is.
Rob: She's basically Scooby Doo for idiots. Which is already a stretch...
Brad: I seem to remember someone recommending me some Hardy Boys books whilst I was at school. And I also remember being disappointed at the lack of top-rope action.
Rob: It's essentially the same thing as Nancy Drew
Brad: Looking at the Snowmobiles in the foreground, there's every chance that this is actually the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.
Rob: Now that game I'd play
Brad: You can, but not on a computer system. Ameritrash FTW.
Rob: That's superb. Almost as superb as the next game i have in mind
Brad: What's that?
Rob: Patience....Score for this one?
Brad: Actually, this cover’s bollocks, let’s not use it...
CLUB PENGUIN: ELITE PENGUIN FORCE (DS)
Brad: What the fuck is that little purple thing?
Rob: This game instantly gets a 9 from me, just because the term "Club Penguin" is possibly the most hilarious inadvertent joke ever.
Brad: This appears to be an avian knock off of James Pond.
Rob: Which wasn't overly original itself...
Brad: Jesus...only when Nintendo and Disney combine can you get a 3+ certificate.
Rob: The kiddiness should actually tear the whole Earth in two...
Brad: I can't figure out what this game is about, can you?
Rob: Not as far as a plot is concerned, no.
Brad: All I can tell is that it's a shitty platform game with penguins and a grinning little imp of the perverse. Plot isn't important when your target audience is three years old, I guess.
Rob: Hence, Attack of the Clones.
Brad: Say what you want, Attack of the Clones is still the seventh best film ever made. I'm going to give this game a seven. It's not my kind of game, but it's probably okay...
Rob: I'm gonna stick by the 9 because of "Club Penguin". Next is "Club Seal" or "Club Toddler"...
CAKE MANIA II (DS)Brad: Amy Winehouse has cleaned herself up a bit.
Rob: It looks like she's slinging the cake at the photographer. Maybe that's where the "Mania" comes in?
Brad: I didn't realise that Cake Mania 1 was a big enough a success to justify a sequel.
Rob: The game's apparently been downloaded 35 million times
Brad: Wow. There really is not limit to the complete lack of taste amongst Nintendo owners...
Rob: On PC, numbnuts...they sold 280,000 on the DS, which is actually not that many considering they've sold about 60 million units.
Brad: Another game that uses the word "adventure" on the cover. I don't really know how "adventure" and "cakes" would work together. Unless Winehouse is baking them, I guess.
Rob: I think a "Cake Assault" game would be good.
Brad: Me too. The Wii controls virtually write themselves.
Rob: Absolutely. You could probably have an upgradeable library of cake-related weapons ranging from the Bakewell Grenades all the way to Black Forest Nukes.
Brad: We should be game developers. I'm still not clear on the nature of this game, however.
Rob: I think the game is against nature.
Brad: Score?
Rob: Can we give minuses? Holy shit, this game has 6 endings! That's a bit like Fallout III, so it gets an 8.
Brad: Okay, 8.
MR PHYSICS (DS)
Brad: Why would you want to dissect a lightbulb?
Rob: I'm still not sure how a lightbulb can perform even the most basic experiments.
Brad: It is, to be fair, an anthropomorphic lightbulb. I don't really think that this is even a game, you know.
Rob: I think you may be right. It seems the DS has just shrunk down all nerdy kid's hobbies from the early 90s. There's a book collection on here, and this is essentially the chemistry set...plus there are LEGO games.
Brad: What's next, I wonder?
Rob: Perhaps Scalextric?
Brad: I was going to say "Play-Do", but I think that's Little Big Planet's department.
Rob: That game's awesome by the way. The most fun I've had with sacks since i discovered masturbation
Brad: I had a physics computer game when I was revising for my GCSEs. Every now and again, it would throw up a quiz, and if you got a question wrong, Albert Einstein turned up and was very condescending. I once revised solid for three days and ended up screaming "shut up you German cunt" at the computer.
Rob: How did your history GCSE go, on a related subject?
Brad: I have a B grade History GCSE. I know more history now than I did then, though. At least to the point I'm co-writing a book on Jack the Ripper. My teacher was just blindingly incompetent. Why do you ask?
Rob: Because shouting "Shut up you German cunt" may have come up in the exam?
Brad: Score out of ten?
Rob: 6/10
Brad: I'm going with a 1/10, because I'm not even convinced this is a game.
ONECHANBARA: BIKINI ZOMBIE SQUAD (360)
Brad: This is a 10/10.
Rob: Agreed. Do we even need to talk about it?
STREET FIGHTER IV (360)
Brad: I can't lie. I didn't know there had been a Street Fighter III.
Rob: Does it seem like they've been put into close quarters for no reason? Ryu's arm seems to be a bit jammed
Brad: Yeah, this is blatantly posed.
Rob: They seem a bit annoyed by the whole thing.
Brad: Maybe they're trying to figure out what happened to Street Fighter III?
Rob: Perhaps. I get the feeling they don't get on outside of the game
Brad: Final score?
Rob: 7, because Ryu seems to be devoid of underarm hair.
Brad: 8, because this is one of the few games for which I can picture the gameplay and it is awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment