Around this time of year most websites put out lists of the top games of the year to help you, the discerning consumer, with their holiday shopping. But chances are, if you don’t already know which games to get you’ll probably end up buying the first one that catches your eye on the shelf, so here’s a list of eye-catching games which should only be purchased if you plan to include them in some high-tech torture device.
Rogue Warrior (PS3, XBOX 360) – There are many games that make you wish you could have the hours you spent on it back, but Rogue Warrior is not one of them, simply because if you could get that fragment of your life back it would be poisoned by the intense displeasure of playing Rogue Warrior. Hot off the success of The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke has taken the next logical step in his career – voicing cheesy one liners for the protagonist in sub-par video games. The game is unpolished, glitched beyond controllability, and the AI is about as smart as a suicidal goldfish I had once. But surely Mickey Rourke’s performance makes for all that, you’re saying to yourself. Unfortunately not even constant profanity and classic lines like “Boom time, baby” can save this one. The single player mode lasts 2 hours and I was still upset that I’d finished it. The only redeeming quality the game has comes after trudging through the glitchy mess of the story mode. In a failed attempt to be this year’s Portal, the game’s end credits feature a slow jam rap performance by Mickey Rourke, made up of his in-game one liners. Thankfully, in an attempt to reduce the number of broken controllers that could result from actually playing the game, some kind soul has put the credits on YouTube (Lyrics NSFW).
How painful is it? (from death by glitching to death by stabbing): As painful as Mickey Rourke’s face looks.
Tony Hawk: Ride (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) – Listen, Tony Hawk, there’s a reason I play video games, and it’s to avoid embarrassing attempts at physical coordination, not because I want to make as much a fool of myself as I do outside on a real skateboard, on a piece of plastic in my own living room. I used to play Tony Hawk games because it was fun pretending to do skateboard tricks with a controller, but when you have to pretend on a fake skateboard which is less accurate and harder to use than a regular controller you might as well go outside and fail in real life. Remember when the Wii came out and all your fat friends were offended by the mixing of exercise and video games, like Nintendo was trying to tell them how to live there life? Well Ride is like that; only instead of judging you, it throws your head against the floor and then makes you think it’s your own fault for not being good enough to get it right. Basically, Tony Hawk’s Ride is like living with an abusive step-father.
How painful is it? (From scraped elbow to full body cast): As painful as enduring the emotional trauma of growing up in an abusive home.
Kids Wii titles – There are so many awful shovelware Wii titles that the list could have easily been changed to the top 100 games no one should ever buy, and consisted of every Wii game about animals. Obviously these don’t appeal to the core market, but since the Wii is billed as being a family console anyway, you’re likely to get parents who don’t know any better snatched up games about ponies for their daughter that are more likely to crush her dreams of becoming a veterinarian than provide any semblance of fun. Rather than going into detail about every single bad Wii game out there and risk looking like a bully who picks on the kid in a wheelchair, we’ll just say that if the box looks like it was designed to appeal to 5 year olds, it’s actually part of a secret French conspiracy to make children hate both video games and adorable animals. Put down the game licensed from a crappy kids movie and pick up a Mario game instead. You’ll thank me on your child’s wedding day.
How painful is it? (from being tickled by elephant trunk to being trampled by a pony stampede trampling): As painful as being gored by a Baby moose.
Damnation (PS3, Xbox 360) – Steampunk cowboys? There’s finally an original idea for a game. How could that possibly end badly? Oh, it looks like an early PS2 game? And it still stutters and freezes? Yeah okay, but I bet the story is fantastic. Entirely forgettable you say? Well as long as the gameplay is fun. Driving missions? Well of course they suck, but the rest of the game is probably amazing. What’s that? Enemies just stand there? Poor collision detection means enemies sometimes just won’t die no matter how many head shots you pull off? Sorry steampunk cowboys, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.
How painful is it? (From being beaten with a metal cowboy hat to death by steam powered laser): Decapitation by paddlewheel.
Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings (Wii) – Like its fellow Lucasarts property Star Wars, Indiana Jones as a video game franchise has had its highs and its deep and shameful lows (I’m looking at you Empire at War), but the idea of flinging the Wii remote like a bull whip had awesome written all of it, save for the increased possibility of TV impaling remote slippage. The game itself seems like it might be fun, but good luck controlling it. It turns out that repetitively shaking your remote to punch or whip is about as much fun as real life archeology. Add to that the frustration of inaccurate detection that goes along with most motion controls and you’ve got a recipe for intentionally broken TVs.
How painful is it? (From having your heart taken out of your chest to being splattered by a propeller blade): As painful as being crushed by a runaway boulder.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
You should see what I did to my wii remote – your picture puts it lightly.