Shitty Box Art Round-Up

It's the return of E14's funniest one-man double act, Brad Harmer!

My Friends
Nintendo DS
You know what’s even sadder than being one of these people who collects 332 friends on FaceBook and 82 on MySpace? Being the guy playing this game. This is a friend simulator. That’s not to say that it’s a game like The Sims, where you basically create some people and play make-believe-soap-opera-dolls-houses with them. This is where you make up some people, and pretend to be friends with them. Five hundred years ago, you’d have been burned at the stake for partaking in acts such as these.

Now, with the aid of this “great” game, you can wander around in a daze, on your own, on your little hand-held console, pretending you’re interacting with people. Surely you could play exactly the same game (in 3D, no less), by just tilting your head upwards by 20° or so?

It’s got mini-games. There’s a surprise. One of the mini-games is called “Ball Rush”. I’d like to believe that’s based around playing Roshambo with a Canadian prog-rock band. - 5/10

Casper’s Scare School: Spooky Sports Day
Nintendo DS

Christ. This is an automatic 1/10 for me. When I was a kid, there were three things I hated above any other – Casper The Friendly Ghost, Nintendo consoles and Sports Days. Firstly, I hated Casper because he was just too fucking cutesy. Come on, I’d seen Poltergeist, and I knew what ghosts were capable of. For him to mope around all day like a whining little bitch and then get further with Christina Ricci than I was ever going to pissed me off even more.

I hated school sports days because, primarily they consisted on sitting out in the sun for seven hours, and watching (or sometimes doing) things that weren’t anything to do with sport. When I got to Secondary School and they actually had track and field events that lasted about two hours from start to finish – that wasn’t so bad. But when I was in junior school, and the day consisted of events like “Hopping One Way, Jumping The Other” and “Walking With A Bean Bag On Your Head” I couldn’t stand it. Come on, I’d seen Rollerball, and I knew what sport was capable of.

I was once tempted to become a PE Teacher, purely to see if I could get Rollerball added onto the syllabus. Unfortunately, I got turned down on application to study for my PGCE, because in the space where it said “Please state the reason for your interest in this course:”, I wrote “I want to get a bunch of kids to run around in a circle and pummel each other. Did I mention a couple of them are going to be on dirt-bikes? I think I did. If not, then Blood Fucking Bowl LARP, fairies!”.

I got turned down for a chance to study gynaecology for a similar reason with my answer, “I would make sure all my patients felt valued by re-assuring them with a heart-felt “Oh, yeah...You like that, don’t you, bitch?” half-way through each examination.”.

Royal Horticultural Society Gardening Guide – How To get Green Fingers
Nintendo Fucking DS

Christ, as if the Ready, Steady Cook game wasn’t proof enough that Nintendo’s seal of quality no longer meant “This is a quality game” and instead signified “This object exists.”. A game...about gardening. Ladies and Gentlemen, video games are something you do when you are young, and gardening is something that you do when you are old, and never the twain shall meet.

Seriously, who decided that this would make an interesting game? Gardening is a hobby (if, indeed it is a “hobby” and not a “chore”), that revolves around two key things – getting dirty, and waiting for things to happen. Bearing in mind that the fact it’s a virtual garden will eliminate the former, this is a game that is going to be about sitting around and waiting for your plants to grow. Or die. Whatever seems more likely depending upon your skill level.

Ha-ha! Check it out! The handy-helper character – Paul The Gardener – is billed on the blurb as your “garden angel”! Ha-ha! Oh, Jesus, I’d best retire from this comedy gig. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to compete with gags of this quality! Ha ha!

Seriously: cunt off, Nintendo. - 1/10

Section 8
PC/360

This is a humorous point and click adventure that sees everyone’s favourite big-nosed transvestite, Corporal Klinger, desperately try and convince everyone in the 4077th, that he’s completely off of his little frock-wearing-rocker and needs to be sent back home to Toledo. You can interact with all the top characters like Hawkeye, BJ, Frank, Radar and the dude from Dragnet in your desperate bid to prove that you’re completely barmy.

At least, in a perfect world, that’s what this game would be. In actuality, it’s probably just another Fallbioshockout of War type-thing. Face it, though. You’d buy the shit out of my M*A*S*H game. - 9/10