MY BRAIN HAD A THINK ABOUT A GAM3

Did we ever do a thing (I think we did, but if not, I have an idea) where we talked about games that were objectively crap, but we absolutely loved/or at least found ourselves fascinated with?
I'm far too lazy to search any more

I'm pretty sure we haven't. I'm struggling to think of any that weren't ones I played when I was very young due to a lack of alternatives, but I did finish Yoshi's Universal Gravitation? I could tell it wasn't top-notch at the time though.

Coincidentally, I'm seriously considering downloading DOSBOX again for the exact purpose of replaying all the weird Windows 95 shovelware CD games I had as a kid. The original disks have long since been thrown away but archive.com houses a lot of theGalaxy of Games compilations of tat now. If I ever get around to that I'm sure I'll have lots to say

One of the few threads I remember making in the past was called Crap But Amazing, "where we talked about games that were objectively crap, but we absolutely loved/or at least found ourselves fascinated with". Thing is, that must have been on NGamer, I can't find it here.

Go with your idea, Jimbob! Muss mentioning old PC has brought up some very nice memories for me of a game that I loved, but was clearly utter dug meat 

This will not come as a surprise to any of you, but I fucking love King Kong. 1930s stop motion? Classic. 60s Japanese cheese-fests? Sign me up. 70s money-soaked remake? Okay then. Peter Jackson love letter? You know I'm there. Skull Island? Who needs plot when you have MONSTERS.

So, when the movie was the big film of the year and all the magazines were talking about this amazing videogame adaptation, in which auteur film-maker and master game designer would team up and finally break the curse of movie adaptations, I was ecstatic. Many of my friends had XBox 360s already at this point. I had my gamecube, naturally, but this was still at the time when I had no TV in my bedroom, and could only play videogames in the living room for like an hour before my parents told me to turn it off.

I had a DS though.

This game is infamous, getting scores in the 20s and 30s from NOM and NGamer when it came out. But you know what? I liked it! D-pad and stylus isn't the best way to play an FPS, but it works. Playing as Kong and punching a dinosaur is fun whatever machine you do it on. If you squint a little bit and move quickly, it looks just as impressive and cinematic as the XBox version!

A few times I've gone back to this in the intervening years, to prove to myself that it was fun. It was! Don't get me wrong, it is pretty shonky, but it has enough charm for a King Kong fanatic like me to be satisfied.

Just before I moved to Japan, I did actually acquire a copy of the Gamecube game, but I didn't have time to play it before I flew. I don't need to, though. The DS one was great.

I need to play the proper console version, it's supposed to be really good

Never got the full version but played the heck out of the demo back on the ps2

Hmmm... I feel a Gintendo article coming on...

Want some rye? 'Course ya do.

"MY BRAIN HAD A THINK ABOUT A GAM3" to do with Jimbob's Gintendo article. I'll probably add comments to that, but for now:



I’m massively nostalgic for Popstar Maker! It’s a music management simulator where you’ve got to form a band, stylise each of the band members with the trends of the time (like rhinestones on your teeth, butterfly clips and jeans where your arse is showing) and record music for the charts. You’ve got to promote your band in magazines, schedule their tours and get them onto talkshows, while managing their vocals, energy levels and happiness, bollocks like that. You can make your own record covers too, and either buy pre-made tunes or create your own songs.

It’s a cracking idea for a game, but it falls apart by being thoroughly rank-rotten and seemingly made on a budget of 3p. Still, my mate and I enjoyed a couple of Popstar Maker sessions when he picked it up in a Blockbuster clearance sale, probably for about 3p as well.

Objectively crap, but interesting enough and amusing enough for me to bring up here.

Oh wow, that brings back memories. My (ex) wife made me hunt that down on an emulator site to run on my laptop - objectively awful game but one she had fond memories of. It's also a game that hasn't really been replicated, as far as I'm aware. Like a Smackdown vs. Raw GM Mode, but with pop stars instead of wrestlers. Guessing it released around the same time as Pop Stars or Pop Idol.

Wowsers! Nowadays that'd be some indie edgy comment on the commercialisation of music.

Indie curators (well, not really curators) itch.io have launched a bundle with proceeds going to racial justice and defense funds. I've paid up, and got 742 games. I've spent 1.5 hours in Backloggery just to try and take it all in, and I'm only halfway down the list.

Now, games is sometimes pushing it: Quite a lot are PDFs for tabletop RPGs and the like, quite a few are Visual Novels (I really worry about what historians will make of the "Giant Portrait of Character and Text Box at Bottom of Screen and That's Everything" era), and some are bundles of assets to make your own games (2 of which are a male and female wizard for use in your own Visual Novel). However, at the upper end: Night in the Woods and Minit, which are worth at least $5 (the minimum donation for the bundle) a piece. And anyway, I'm not complaining, it's for a good cause.

I did see it and saw it had a few top tier games like Night in the Woods along with a few others. Personally just overwhelmed by how many games in the bundle & not sure I'd play any of them either (or trying the game to play out of the 700) that I might just donate directly instead.

Have donated now to Stop Hate UK

Definitely buying that. Going to do a big BLM monetary splurge this weekend and this'll be part of it, although The Lady's a bigger PC gamer than I am so I'll probably fund her to pick it up.

It is overwhelming - I've attempted to finish off logging the ones I'd like to play BUT THEY WERE ADDING MORE THINGS AS I WAS DOING IT. Now including a game you may not be familiar with - "Celeste", it's called.
Well, here's hoping I at least start one of those one day.

The Lady's actually gone, 'nah I don't want a bajillion games gumming up my library', so I'll be making some other less gamey donations over the weekend.

Rum Rapture wrote:

Balla do you actually like video games

Erm... At the moment, I'm not actually sure! I have two games in my frontlog, both of which I'd describe as pleasant yet unambitious, neither of which excites me. I have six games in my backlog, an even split of RPGs and Metroidvanias, with some more challenging and ambitious games that I don't feel mentally up to. There's nothing with a release date that I'm excited by on Switch. Meanwhile the BBoPs (hm, the PS5 isn't even black any more) are gearing up for big old launches, and all I can see is a lacklustre opening period for a machine that it doesn't feel like it does much of note that its predecessor didn't!

This is at least 80% my problem (inb4 'no s**t mate'), due to an increasingly restrictive interest in games recently and a generally apathetic attitude towards the medium that feels like it's becoming self-fulfilling. I've been wondering if I just need to splash out on, say, New Super Lucky's Tale or Deadly Premonition or something to shake this, but again, I'm not excited by those possibilities.


So that this post isn't entirely self-indulgent navel-gazing: assuming that rest of us are all keen gamers at the moment, have you ever had a period where you've just struggled to be interested in games? What shook you out of it? Was it a big new game, a big new machine, a change in attitude? I recall Cappa saying that Wii Sports did it for him.

(Having said all this I am quite keen to get out Smash and have a go with Min Min (not like that).)

Had some spells where I've not played much and will suddenly watch a load of anime or something but then a big game will come out on something.

Guess doesn't help you're limited to one platform and don't play that many genres, so harder to find something to play unlike Sakurai with his two TV's and multiple consoles.

I had one for most of the first part of this year. I stuck with Pokémon and Animal Crossing, but didn't really put time into anything else. I bounced off various indies until I played through Luigi when I had a week off but had to force myself through that a little. Deadly Premonition was a bit different, but even with that I only played it sporadically because I often just wasn't in the right mood.

I think a lack of prime, juicy Nintendo First-Party stuff and an increasing interest in other, outdoorsy hobbies has taken a toll on how much I want to game.

Balladeer wrote:

assuming that rest of us are all keen gamers at the moment, have you ever had a period where you've just struggled to be interested in games?  What shook you out of it?  Was it a big new game, a big new machine, a change in attitude?  I recall Cappa saying that Wii Sports did it for him.

I was on the way out with gaming in the mid 2000s, it was definitely Wii Sports that brought me back. There's been spells since where I've been deeply disinterested though. Does anybody remember when they had absolutely bugger all lined up for the 3DS after it's launch? That was about nine months of utter nothingness. I tried to stay interested, but when I'm resorting to paying £35 for Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, I knew I was in trouble. They repeated that same stunt with the Wii U too, just nothing happening during that first year. What regained my interest was new Mario games, 3D Land on 3DS and 3D World on Wii U.

That year-and-a-half between Super Mario Maker's Wii U release and the Switch coming out was deathly dull. Even though stuff like Kirby Planet Robobot and Pokemon Sun/Moon were quality, virtually nothing else was. The Wii U and 3DS were on their arses, and the Switch took ages to be announced and then launched. I mostly switched off from games during that time - I think I even took a few months off from here too. I don't really remember what shook me out of that, but I've been regularly gaming since.

Good to see that I'm not alone. Seems to happen to most people when their available line-ups are a bit barren of the big titles they want, although I'm surprised it ever reaches that point for Mas!

Buskalilly wrote:

I had one for most of the first part of this year. I stuck with Pokémon and Animal Crossing, but didn't really put time into anything else. I bounced off various indies until I played through Luigi when I had a week off but had to force myself through that a little. Deadly Premonition was a bit different, but even with that I only played it sporadically because I often just wasn't in the right mood.

I think a lack of prime, juicy Nintendo First-Party stuff and an increasing interest in other, outdoorsy hobbies has taken a toll on how much I want to game.

Also: colour me slightly surprised that Buska's/you've been feeling pretty much what I have, for pretty much the reasons I have! The hobbies have been more indoorsy but otherwise it's pretty much what I've felt: bouncing off indies, forcing myself through games, having to be in the right mood, lack of Nintendo first-party stuff (with a firmer gameplay structure anyway). I'm surprised because you tend to be more optimistic about the state of Ninty than I do - heck, you're even looking forward to Origami King. Makes me feel a bit less like something's wrong with me.

(Inb4 'oh there is'.)

Yeah - I agree about the mid-2000s thing, like Mr. Cappucciinnoo said - there was something very derivative about a lot of things that are happening.

I do think that - Nintendo offerings aside - in the last few years, I've had trouble being excited for many of the big AAA releases; this with a new console generation on the way. I'm kind of sick of seeing the words "after the apocalypse" or "survival horror" or "rare weapon"; and if your first screenshot is first person holding a gun, I wondered why you bothered getting into the industry. But the antidote to this - as well as Nintendo with their magic-weaving - is that we're in an age where it's a lot easier for smaller studios or individual people to produce things that no-one has seen before; or at least bring back styles of game that the larger market have abandoned.

Now there's a post I would've hit with a like, well said Jimbob.

Agreed, thoroughly agreed - but then I've never really liked 'man with gun' games.  There's also no denying that the Nindie scene is stronger than it's ever been, which is really helping fill in some schedule gaps.  Unfortunately, with a few exceptions it's hard for me to get as excited for an indie as for a big engrossing adventure.  They're good stop-gaps, sometimes really good stop-gaps; but for the most part that's what they feel like, and at some point I'd like the gap they're filling to... stop.

That's interesting - I feel like I can live with hundreds of stopgaps - and then a Zelda - and then more stopgaps.