The Horrible World of Smartphone Bootleggery

When I was a kid my family would annually go on vacation to Florida to see family and do vacation stuff. We would often go to flea markets and outlet malls and stuff like that to find weird stuff for whatever reason was not in the flea markets and outlet malls of Michigan. At one point I got a wall scroll of Iori from The King of Fighters, and another I got an amazing bootleg toy of Zero from Mega Man X. It was clearly based off of the mold for the old Bandai model kits, but it was already assembled and the colors were all wrong. All his armor was metallic silver and his hair was blue. Sure it was janky, but it also looked cool and it was very cheap. Also, the paint was so thick, though probably also poisonous, that the joints would actually stay together, unlike a certain X model. My point is that bootlegs are awful, but entertaining, and on occasion might accidentally do something right.

Yo Dawg...

The fervor has died down now that the show has ended, but Pimp My Ride was a rather popular show for a while there. I remember hearing other people talk about it and I dismissed it as a stupid concept, but after actually watching the show I had to admit it is pretty entertaining. The host, Xzibit, comes off as a likable guy that just likes to help people out and do retarded things to cars. Near the end of the show's lifespan, in 2006, a video game developed by by Eutechnyx was released for the Xbox 360, PS2, PSP, and Wii. Eutechnyx is most known for their various racing games such as Big Mutha Truckers, so it is surprising that they resisted the urge to put racing into a game about cars.

Perfect Dark: Flawed Color

I'm a big fan of Perfect Dark, a fact found in the couple of hundred hours I put into the game on the N64, because it just does a lot of stuff that I like. It has a near-future science fiction setting, a strong female lead, objective-based level design, a bunch of crazy weapons, and some great multiplayer maps. Sadly, I am not here to illuminate the game I love, or even the embarrassing prequel everyone tries to forget that is Perfect Dark Zero, but the embarrassing prequel that most people have had the good sense to forget, Perfect Dark for the Game Boy Color. Also developed by Rare, though presumably by a different internal team, and released a couple of months after the original game in 2000, it is a game that offers very little justification for its own existence.

A Fate Worse Than Game Over

One feature of video games I like that I don't seem to see as much as I'd like lately is the ability to fail without a simple game over or restart. I just think that is really entertaining to make a bad choice or just generally screw up in a game and be rewarded with the game changing in some way that is meant to make me feel guilty. It sort of bothers me when I see the lazier side of this, like in the first Assassin's Creed didn't do anything to discourage the player from wanting to kill civilians, so attacking them just drains the player's health. I find it way more interesting when a game predicts the bad behavior of its players and responds to it in a unique way. A good example of this is getting swarmed by angry cuckoos in Zelda games.

Poverty Haul 12/15/2011

Today I was out shopping for the holidays, and I figured that, since I was out, I should hit up some of the usual spots in search of poverty games. I was in the same plaza as a Game Stop, so I went there first, but it was a waste of time as usual. There was some Friends trivia game for PS2 for a couple of bucks, and I probably could have been talked into purchasing it if I were out with friends, but since I was alone I walked away from it. Maybe another day. Next, I went to my preferred local used game store, Game On, which generally has games in pretty good condition for a reasonable price. They hadn't had a new influx of SNES or NES game in a while, so I was pleased to see that they had restocked a bit. I picked up Pit Fighter for the former because it is awful and StarTropics for the latter because I know people that like it.

Mega Man & Bass: Not A Fishing Spinoff

I've written about Mega Man quite a bit here on the site, probably because with the sheer amount of games in the series there is bound to be some overlooked gems and some bad games. I am quite fond of the series, so that is probably why I have mostly focused on the stuff that I like, so I guess that makes this article something of a turning point. Now, Mega Man & Bass isn't really a bad Mega Man game, but it isn't a great one either. Don't be surprised if I ever write about another game in the franchise that I like, considering I haven't written about Maverick Hunter X or the Zero series yet, but with this game it feels like things are probably trending down into the inevitability of things like Mega Man X7, Mega Man Network Transmission, and Mega Man Soccer.

The Disappointment of APB

Very few games have disappointed me as much APB: All Points Bulletin. I was initially sold on the concept alone: a GTA-style MMO based around cops and robbers. It seems like such a great idea, and since it was being developed by Realtime Worlds, the company formed from ex-GTA staff that made the excellent Crackdown, I had a lot of faith that it would be pulled off. Add on to that a really complex system of character customization, and I was really excited for the game. When I finally played the game I was massively disappointed because it just isn't fun. The concept is still great, and I don't think the game itself isn't salvageable, but it will never be the game I wanted it to be.