Our Video Game History Part V

June 27, 2008 on 5:27 pm | In Insanity, Weak Attempt, video games | 1 Comment

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and when life gives you awful video game art from the 80’s and 90’s, you jump on it. You pounce on it and you make it feel bad. You tell it that it will never get chocolate again, because it is so bad.

Yes, more video game art.

Oh, this is also probably a good place to say that the opinions on this site are my own, and in no way reflect those of Wizard Magazine, Wizarduniverse.com, or ToyFare Magazine. It’s all me, baby.

So…in the future we’ll be holding these games up as the standards of the past. Well, it’s 2008 CE, and I don’t recall the gaming world being irreversibly altered by a game where a man tries to save a floppy disk from a magnet, a fat man escaping from fattening food, or Michael Dukakis. Now, I’m not totally in touch with the gaming world, but there is the chance that “Temp the Tummy: Cholesterol Blaargh” was a major hit, but I’m 99.99% sure that the makers of Halo aren’t looking to that game for inspiration.

Despite the title, it’s about 100% obvious that this kid is not having anything even remotely resembling fun. He’s in his immaculately spotless room with a ton of sports equipment on a nice day yet he’s wasting his time watching a computer shoot out sparks. And he knows that his time could be better spent. Look at his arm positioning – it doesn’t say, “I’m ready to play Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Simulator!” it says, “Curse this lupus, I am forced to stay indoors.” He could be surfing, but he’s not. He could be playing squash, but not that either. He could be skiing, but he’s not. Hell, he could even be hustling his ass down on the boulevard to pay for that sweet muscle car, but he’s not. All he’s doing is sitting there, barefoot, watching sparks fly out of his monitor. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we needed the internet.

Heartlight: the game that undresses you with its eyes.

I suspect that this was one of those things that Kirk Cameron denounced as satanic once he found Jesus, but for the time being, he’s dressed as a teal knight being eaten by a meatball. For those of you who felt that his career had collapsed by the time his show Kirk was released, just remember that The Horde was released prior to that event. Also, some additional research turned up that when you installed early versions of this game on your computer, it would erase anything else you had saved. A perfect example of consumers actively and happily buying and installing a computer virus.

The only comment I have for the tagline to this game can best be summed up in an existing television show that used the same syntax for comical effect:

“Hey guys. I know we’ve been marketing extreme sports lately, and getting a lot of success from it, but I want to take this company in a new direction. I’m talking a sensible direction. No more wild head butts or hail Mary kicks. I want our next game to be sensible. Focus on dribbling, passing, and passively approaching the goal. There’s no need to go overboard on this at all, we just need to step back, take a breath, and play some slow, relaxed ball. Who’s with me?”

“HELLO! WELCOME TO TENNIS! YOU IS PRETTY LADY AND WE PLAY TENNIS! HELLO!”

WHA-? What the hell is this? Deformed hand baby + robot vulture + stupid geometrical house = video game. It’s in German which might explain a few things, since they like David Hasslehoff, but this is just a shoddy-looking cover. What the hell is wrong with that baby? And why did they add it to a perfectly good game cover where a giant robot vulture threatens a lighthouse? That in and of itself is cool, but the baby just ruins the game. So there’s a baby in it. Well, I don’t want to play a game with a baby, I’d rather play a game where a giant vulture robot tears up the coast. And if I find one baby in that game, back to the store it goes.

You buy this game, your name goes on a list in Washington DC. Good luck finding an apartment again, pervert.

“Hey man, got any spare gold?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m just here to see the art gallery opening.”

“Oh, thazz ok man, thazz ok. I was jes’ hopin’ you might have some gold so I could buy a cuppa coffee.”

“Please, I’m telling you, I don’t have any spare gold. No leave me alone or I shall call the police.”

“Man, it don’t gotta be like that…why you gotta be like that? I fought in the Elf Wars. I’m a veteran.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. You probably just smoked too much pipeweed and never went to college.”

Level One: The bad guy cuts your head off.
Level Two: There is no Level Two.