5.) Big Bird's Hide and Speak (NES)
How many words can you make, before the sun goes down?
I can think of a whole lot of words, Mr. Bird. Too bad they can only be three letter words..
This isn't a game I had the privilege of playing. It was purchased for my sisters way back when they were wee tykes. Purchased for MY NES. I was enraged at the sheer audacity my parents had to purchase this for them to play on MY system. But I got over it, only to rage at the repetitive garbage coming out of our TV's speakers.
Now, don't get me wrong, edutainment is edutainment. The game did exactly what it set out to do. It gave you until the sun (arbitrary timer!) went down to spell as many three letter words as you could. Why when the sun goes down? Maybe it's to avoid being drained by the Count, or tied to a chair and tortured by Grover. Who knows.
The real demon in this game is Big Bird. This game was the first NES game I know of to feature digitized voices, and our friend Mr. Bird sure loved to talk. His voice is iconic, and was delivered in lines so slow, you could fall asleep mid sentence. And that was all I heard. All the time. And it was insanity inducing.
And if anyone thought of that Surfin' Bird song once while reading this, please punch yourself. Thank you.
4.) Demon Sword (NES)
This was the first NES game my Mother purchased for me. And like most surprise video games your parents buy you, this game was a total garbage fire.
If you've ever played Legend of Kage, also for the NES, you've played this. The premise is simple; run from left to right as the stage infinitely loops, killing jumping guys until the level arbitrarily decides to let you finish. The main character looks to be some sort of super athletic drag queen, which is a bit different from the burly Fabioesque warrior hulk on the cover. But that was pretty standard for box art back then.
So is this game an exact shameless ripoff of Kage? Yes. Yes it is. It's a little better looking, I suppose, but running around in an infinite loop killing the same flying skeleton men gets old in a hurry. And this was pretty much the only video game I owned. The best way to equate that would be to say its like the only book you own being the Yellow Pages. Yeah. It's that boring. It's five levels of boring. If I ever meet a man claiming he had the patience to beat this game, I'd call him a liar.
3.)EverQuest(PC)
Yes, that's right. I'm picking on Everquest, the first MMO that people actually PLAYED. I'm aware of games like Ultima Online, but nobody gave a damn about them.
What is there to say about this game? It lacked quests, leveling was terrifyingly slow, and it was ugly. But it was made ages ago. It was before World of Warcraft, which was far superior.
No, I'm going to talk about Dyllin. Dyllin Starsine. My roommate camped this asshole for 16 hours, just to get his hands on a page for a book. And after 16 hours, his lame ass didn't drop the page. So...another 16 hours of camping later, he kills Dyllin again, and he doesn't drop the page. That's 32 hours. Of camping. He waits ANOTHER 16 hours, and luckily Dyllin finally gives it up. TWO FULL DAYS OF SITTING AT A COMPUTER SCREEN for a page of a book that gives you a minimal stat boost. How is that game balance?
Oh wait, it's not. Screw you Everquest.
2.) Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
Speaking of MMOs, here's a sad excuse at a wannabe if I've ever seen one. Squaresoft got into this mode of thinking, and decided that since MMOs were so popular, they'd not only make one of their own, (Final Fantasy XI,) they'd also style their next mainstream game as a sort of "offline MMO." And this was an unmitigated disaster.
The ability to control your party? Gone in favor of micromanaging your character's AI, also known as "Gambits." There is nothing lamer than this. Exploration also became more MMO like, favoring big open areas full of roaming enemies. While this might not sound SO awful, all it takes is two steps in the wrong direction for your entire party to get wiped by a monster ten times your level. Fun!
I'd comment on the characters in the game, but I didn't play long enough to get to know them. Vaan, the main character, is annoying as hell.
The sad thing is, this bullshit has continued on in the forms of Final Fantasy XIII and XIV. Another "Offline MMO" and another actual MMO. Way to suck, Square.
1.) Halo: Combat Evolved (XBOX)
Really. Say you were surprised.
Halo was, at its core, a mediocre shooter. But what it lacked in gameplay, it made up for in multiplayer wackiness. It ushered in a whole new era of online play, and brought a lot of people into the world of gaming.
People like these fine gentlemen:
Yes, Halo brought douchebags to gaming. And they never left. No matter what game you play online today, it's more than likely that 90% of the guys you playing come from Camp Douchebag. And I'm not about to whine that gaming was always a nerd's sport, but I will say that they're not the ones teabagging your corpse, calling you "fag", or talking about how they know how to play shooters because they are/were in the military.
It's these guys who make it hard to even go into a game store on a release date. There was a whole crowd of people like these guys waiting outside of Gamestop to buy Call of Duty last week, all giving us looks as we wandered in to buy our non-shooter game. That's the funny part about these guys; they play games, but they judge those who play anything but Madden and shooters. I don't give a crap if you like Haloz, but you don't have to be a dick about it.
Halo is like that one woman in a zombie movie who thinks she sees her dog or loved one outside, and throws the doors open to let them in, only to flood the place with death and chaos.
And there you have it. There's my list. Maybe I'll do one of games I love next time, just to prove that there's some things out there I don't hate.
Or not. Whatever I feel like.
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