Musya

I never trusted people when they said they were swamped with school. I mean, how much time can you spend literally just doing school stuff around exams? It turns out, a whole hell of a lot, even if a lot of it is procrastination. I haven’t bugged writers who are late or even LOOKED at the Excel sheet in weeks. But, now I realize that, not only is the site languishing, but I am the most behind out of all of the live writers (well, tied. With Travis. That fuck.)

But, I have a game here called Musya that I was supposed to write about nearly am onth ago, so, in between not writing my paper and not studying math, I am going to play it and write about it!

Apparently you play a pikeman or something from the past in Japan, I guess. That’s a thing. It is pretty dumb. You go around piking things with your passive pike and many of the enemies, at least, from what I saw, are disembodied body parts. Some eyeballs, a lot of heads, and some vagina-type creatures that latch on to your head are there to grind down your health.

Then, there’s a boss, who is a BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, as mentioned by the main character (who is probabaly named Musya), when he says “She’s… Beauti…”

That stays on the screen for about 5 seconds before she “interrupts” him and turns into a bear-dog that breathes fire. Whatever. My pike could not tame her so I gave up.

I hate that this is the first thing I have written since Kotaku linked us, but… well… sorry. I never pretended I could make myself care every single time I wrote something.

Monopoly

AW HELL NO I WOULD SOONER SLEEP ON THE STREET THAN PAY GARY CANT 26 DOLLARS

Confession time: I’m a part of the “system.” I work in QA. Right now, I’m in school, so I had to take a QA job doing the most ignoble type of QA work possible: mobile phone games testing.

However, I worked on the most recent version of Monopoly for cell phones, and: it is better than this game.

This should be not a sad point, but a beacon of hope. The games being made for cell phones have more care put into presentation, playability and overall awesometude than full-price console games once were. This one runs too slow, doesn’t display the information you want when you want it, and looks like crap. A regular LG cell phone (we’re not talking iPhone, here) not only has nicer graphics, but they are presented in a more user-friendly way.

Luckily, since the team I am on at work is testing ports of previously-released games instead of pre-launch titles, I can actually talk about them. I’ve tested Monopoly, and several Tetris titles, and even a Sims game on the phone. Heed my words, gamers: the garage is less garbage than it once was. Rejoice.

By the way: for some reason you can select someone named “Gary Cant” as an enemy. I’m not sure if that’s funny to me because it sounds like the name you give a loser (as in Can’t), or the name you give a pretend philosopher (as in Kant), or a name you give someone you hate very, very much (as in _______) (you fill it in, I can’t write that here).

Might and Magic III

Magic war. Magic war never changes.

The Glass City of Sparklecoat is in dire need of heroes. An attack by the Orcbearish Powersleuth of Mudbutt is threatening to tear this fair (albeit poorly-planned — really? A city of glass? Hope the Orcbears don’t show up with stones) city to the ground.

You, armed with nothing but a frame within a frame equalling maybe 20 kilopixels and one frame a second, have been called in to mastermind the counterattack. But, as you are but a simple dork with no weapons (as you are required, at almost all times, to hold a Super Nintendo controller in at least one hand), a crack team of specialists have been called in to help you.

Let’s meet them!

Todd Sinbad, 31 year old human

Todd is the leader of the group. Cursed with a brutally boring first name by parents (Thunder and Jeanne D’Arc Sinbad) who hoped that he would not become an adventurer later in his life. However, genetics, like baldness, homosexuality and skateboarding, reared its scientific head and forced him into the life of his parents. How, after 12 years of leading parties against enemies (a particular highlight being his delichification of Baron von Schtrucklefuck), he is the go-to man for rallying troops, murdering adults in the name of adventure, and long, determined looks into cameras that imply some sort of inner fire. And ladies, he’s single!

Granite Thunderbottom, 50 year old dwarf

Granite is known for his stubbornness. Too stubborn to leave his parents house, they one day moved in his sleep. Too stubborn to pay the bills, he as evicted. Too stubborn to find a new house, he is homeless. Thanks to a plucky bit of thinking by Elyphissia (below), a hypnosis spell was cast convincing him he’s always bene in this party. Now he’s too stubborn to leave. He enjoys axing down orcbears and speaking in an affected Scottish accent (he’s really from New Mexico), and ladies, he’s single!

Scud Skraggtaint, 7 year old orc

An orc born without a bear penis, he was cast out by his orcbear forebears. No pun intended. Seriously. His blood-soaked revenge plot has led him to join this party so he can kick the grizzly out of those who teased him growing up. Orcs have a shorter lifespan than humans, so while he is seven years old, that’s more like twelve in human years. And ladies, he’s single!

Henning 'My Eye Doesn't Work' Fassbinder, 40 year old human

A tactical mastermind whose nickname is curious at best (the eyepatch is cosmetic, a nod to his favourite actor, Labyrinth’s David Bowie), Henning ensures that everyone’s in the right place at the right time like some sort of martial stage director. He is also an expert archer (which he flips up his glamour patch to do). He’s kind of an asshole, to be honets. And ladies, he’s single!

Elyphissia Flugelhornne, 99 year old elf

The token female, token mage, token elf, and token wearer-of-spiderweb-hats, Elyphissia (or Barf for short) is a mystickal wielder of the magjickale artez. Barf was cloistered for decades in a secret Elfin magic farm, not entirely like a puppy farm, until she escaped by making one million gold coins appear behind every guard’s ears, crushing them. And ladies, he’s single!

Jambi, the 500 year old Genie

Mekka lekka hi mekka hiney ho.

I didn’t play this game for long. I have better things to do than play cheesy western RPGs where a ragtag bunch of heroes with mommy issues battle an evil wave of monstrous analogs for some foreign force that reminds me of vaguely racist imagery. If you’ll excuse me, Dragon Age: Origins won’t beat itself! And ladies, I’m taken.

Metal Morph

Thrilling.

Metal Morph. You are bald man in the future. You can turn into a blob of mercury-type metal stuff and go through pipes. You are shot at by enemies, who generally shoot you as soon as possible, meaning you hae no time to dodge or return fire, and you die. Often. This is Metal Morph.

The game’s central gimmick could have been far better implemented than it was, surely. The ability to turn from human form to globular comedrop form? That could be used for puzzles in a far more engaging way than it is (which is sub-Mario level “warp pipe” type stuff– you know those levels where oyu enter a pipe and actually watch Mario “move” through it, and come out in the smae level? Like that).

But there’s plenty you could say that could have been better. The character design reminds me too much of Kano from Mortal Kombat to intrigue me in any real sense (it is possible, even likely, that this game predates MK but it’s irrelevant, the character archetype was played out lnog before; I just lack the pop culture vernacular to pinpoint when, precisely, this became boring). I don’t care for side-scrolling gun games anymore. Better games have made the rest redundant. And this game is as redundant as they come.

I will be straight with you: I believe that, while we hold this time in games very dear, I truly believe that game design has gotten far better since these days. Well, let me be more specific: bad game design is far better than it once was.

To explain: picture all of the worst games on the NES and SNES and Genesis and remember how uniquely awful they were. They were often unplayable. Unenjoyable. Without purpose. Without even justification for their own existence. Fast forward to now, and think of where the dregs are, gaming-wise: cell phones and Flash games, perhaps?

Now think: when is the last time you played a mobile game worse than Metal Morph? I bet it has been quite some time. At some point, the bottom of the gaming pack moved up. The nadir is no longer as filthy as it once was.

It’s games like Metal Morph that remind me to have hope for the future. Happy Hallowe’en.

Madden NFL ‘97

As a part of my research for this piece, I watched some football. It was the New York Giants and the New Orleans Saints. New Orleans won the game. Which I guess is a pretty awesome thing, since their city had a tragedy more massive and heartbreaking and incredibly relevant than the Giants’ city ever did (don’t freak out– the New York Giants are from East Rutherford, NJ and Wikipedia says nothing of catasrophes there).

What I learned from this time watching was probably non-indicative of the sport in general. I watched the saints, play after play, do incredibly cool things such as throw the ball and catch the ball with great athleticism. It was sort of fun to watch. Now, I’ve watched this game before, and for the most part, it bugs me. In concept, I like the idea of getting a bunch of little mans to line up and do battle with each other with a set group of rules, allowing one set piece to bounce off of another; after all, I play tactical RPGs.These are virtually the same thing, only less deep (you can’t win every game of football by getting four linebackers to simple surround and circle-kick a quarterback).

now, videogames have, over the past, taught me most of what I need to know about football. I never got into the Madden series, but I had NFL Quarterback Club ‘96 for the SNES (which cost only $1 or something at the time) and Blitz: The League II for the Xbox 360 (which I won in a Destructoid contest, only a few spots outside of winning a whole PS3). I assume I picked up the actual rules at some point (it can’t have been those games that taught me a single thing).

It doesn’t matter, though. Nothing I learned about sports taught me how to properly play this game. It took me a quarter to figure out how to throw the ball. I never completed a pass or got a first down. I think my only gains were 2 yard rushes that I accidentally did instead of failing to throw the ball.

Madden might be an incredible simulation of the port these days, or whatever, but let’s be honest: there’s nothing like playing the real thing. Or even watching the real thing. I shouldn’t be struggling with ideas like “where is the Y button?”

I should instead be struggling with, “where do I inject these delicious steroids?”

Lethal Enforcers

It's not actually easier to see what's happening when it's in motion. That dude is behind a window, which apparently makes him look like a ghost.

It wasn’t as hard to get this game to work as I thought it’d be. Not that I’m saying I was illegally emulating it or anything, but if I were it would have been pretty easy. Just turn on the… vindicators or whatever the peripheral is called. Then you get to play a game that is based on real photos, on your SNES.

Was it worth it, stupid? Are you proud of yourself? You are playing this game. On your SNES. It looks like eight piles of turds. But you just had to play it, didn’t you? Well, good job. Amazing. You are seriously the master of everything. I’m sure there’s some way to run it on MAME, or, you know, find an actual cabinet out there somewhere. But, why do that when you can play an emulated version of a port of a light gun game and instead of using a MOUSE, or a LIGHT GUN, you get to use a DPAD?

This was a weak idea for a piece: berating someone for playing this particular version of this particular game using this particular platform. But the point still stands: from a historical perspective, the SNES ROM for Lethal Enforcers is beyond irrelevant. Just don’t bother with it, ever. The only reason to have this ROM is if you, for some insane reason, are one of those obsessive foks who must have EVERY one at their fingertips. The only reason to play it is it you are obsessive about playing all of the games, despite the fact that that would be stupid. And, the only reason to write about it is because you are super charming.

Lamborghini – American Challenge

This is a man dressed as a woman enjoying a million-dollar car ride.

I’ve probably said this before, but among the many things I do not know how to do that are important, driving is one of them. This extends to the racing game genre of video games; I just don’t do well. Be it on one end of the spectrum like Gran Turismo where you have to actually pretend like it’s real life or something (thrilling), or the other end like Wipeout HD where floating, shooting guns and seizures are part of the everyday occurrances of commuting to work (confusing), I just suck at it. Walls are like Brilliam magnets.

That said, I enjoyed this game a fair bit. You can probably read that as “it’s boringly easy,” but I don’t care. I am definitely a product of the 90s, but I love driving a little yellow Lamborghini around where the streets have no walls and I never hit anything.

The first thing that left an impression on me when playing this game was the character selection screen. There are three choices: a guy who looks like Mr. T, a guy who looks like Sylvester Stallone and a lady who looks like… I don’t know, a beefy Jamie Lee Curtis? Geena Davis? I’m not sure who the hell she’s supposed to be but it scares me. I picked her.

Racism: Alive and well in car racing.

My first match was against a ninja and a sumo wrestler. Uhh… yup.

There’s a delicious floatiness to the physics as you glide around the track with icy non-friction.

Actually, you know what? I’m done writing about this game. Even though I like it, I can’t forgive myself for writing “glide [...] with icy non-friction.” I mean, non-friction? Really? I quit words.

King of the Monsters 2

This game is awful, but that gross monster thing is pretty cool.

Move around slowly and isometrically.  Mash the attack button.  Take mostly inevitable damage.  Eventually die.  Hit continue.

In the arcade, this game and its horrible kin, the beatemup, had a purpose: to empty your pockets of quarters.  That’s all there was to it.  These games don’t even count as games, in my mind.  They’re more mindless than snakes and ladders.

On a console, its true ugliness is revealed. Now, this game exists solely to waste your time.  It offers nothing whatsoever beyond that.  It is the purest of bad video games.  It is revolting.  It is counting down the seconds until you’re a corpse.

To play this game is to stare into an existential void, because you have nothing else to look at.

Joe and Mac 2

Dear _____,

As you may know, Data East receives multitudes of game design suggestions every months. We examine each candidate carefully for sound design and profitability and decency (family is very important to us, we’re certain you’ll agree). We are certainly glad to hear about your enthusiasm for our earlier release, Joe and Mac, and some of your ideas may come into consideration when we plan our future title.

It must be stressed that we appreciate the rigor of your design, sketches, and document, as well as going to the considerable expense to ship the design document to us. To that end I feel that as a Producer here at Data East I might lend some suggestions to your future designs. If you apply your unimpeachable work ethic to future projects there is no telling what you might accomplish!

First, I would suggest removing some of the many rich locations you have created for the game. Lonely huts 1-37 may not be the most effective way to market your material, especially given the lack of palette swaps to differentiate them.

Today's videogame consumer has little appreciation for repetition or metaphor, we question this addition.

Far be it from me to question your artistic vision, but you may want to consider clarifying what it is to say to the modern player of video games. The mechanics you suggest (we are especially fond of the “eating” and “spitting” abilities) are excellent and many of your platforming challenges seem appealing. There seems, however to be a fairly large amount of worm-riding challenges. I am not attempting to make any implications that may not be relevant, but this seems unusual.

You may consider using upper and lower case text, it tests with our focus groups as less coercive.

Now normally we would complete this scene and move on, but when compared to some of your later designs (fig. 421c, for example), there are some troubling similarities.

See fig. 4214 and phi respectively.

Fig. Phi

And yes, I have thoroughly read Appendix C: “On the dethroning of the archetype of the father through metaphorical castration and assuming the godhead”, and am unconvinced of its marketability.

However, we thought that your use of entertainment and education together was very clever, let me be the first to say that if you were to create more concepts like this it could do great things for the industry indeed. Many of our top speculators anticipate big sales from so-called ‘edutainment’ titles.

This is exactly what we are looking for.

We found the use of the pirahna as an obstacle while also teaching basic pirahna facts is fascinating; though it may be a good idea to remove the cutscenes you illustrate of various prehistoric animals being stripped of their flesh in record time. Keep to basic dinosaur facts and I assure you, your ideas will be irresistable.

Please feel free to submit again, but for the moment we regret to inform you we will not be able to publish your work. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Shane Johnstone

Producer

Data East

Justice League Task Force

This is a game

Where you can play as Batman

And headbutt the entire cast of the Justice League

And it's canonically okay because it's robot versions of them.

You even get to headbutt robot Batman.

Are you still here? Play this game!

*It’s important to note that I beat this entire game with Batman headbutts.