Shrek on Xbox: A Twisted Fairy Tale Indeed

It pretty much goes without saying that the majority of movie-licensed games are very poor quality, with the exception of great games like EA's Lord of the Rings series, and the recent Batman: Arkham Asylum/City games.  Back in 2001 a particularly painful movie-licensed game was released alongside the original Xbox: Shrek.  Why am I picking on a kids game you might ask?  Well the reason is I played it back in the day and I found it to be an odd game, so I feel it belongs in our blog of strangeness.

Judging by this cut and paste artwork, we can tell the game will be high-quality.

Begin Rant

Ok there's a few things I want to complain about before I get into some of the weird things about this game.  First of all, this game probably tricked many unsuspecting people into purchasing it, leading them to believe it would follow the hilarious plot of the first Shrek movie.  This is not the case at all; the game shuns the plot of the film, opting to go with the “Merlin is evil, go stop him” route.  Because of this we don't get any of the characters from the film besides Shrek and a very brief appearance of the Magic Mirror (supposedly Merlin has kidnapped Fiona, but we never see her, unless she's in the ending credits.  I never bothered trying to beat the final boss so I don't know for sure).  Words cannot express my disappointment at the absence of Donkey.  Nothing says “I'm cheap and I don't give a damn” like not licensing everyone's favorite characters, and on top of that not providing a voice actor for Shrek.  How can you make a Shrek game without at least hiring a Mike Myers sound-alike?

M.I.A.

End Rant

Now that we got through the rant, let's talk a little about this strange (and bad, very bad) game.

The Environment Art Style

Whereas the environments in the first Shrek film were clearly inspired by medieval times, the environments you encounter in the game look like they were rejected from the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Structures have crazy proportions, and everythingis bump mapped so that Bill Gates could flip the bird to Sony by showing off his more powerful hardware.  It's kind of interesting and kind of cringe-worthy as you wander around these areas.  However you'll spend most of your time lost due to horrible level design.  The art style in this game should have made the environments more enjoyable, but as a whole it somehow feels soul-less.  Maybe it's because the areas are so sparsely populated?  Maybe it's the crap soundtrack?  Either way, when playing this game you get that weird feeling you only experience when playing budget games.

The Characters

One of the things that made the Shrek films so enjoyable were the comedic re-creations of classic fairy tale characters (I can't help but laugh whenever the cross-dressing evil stepsister has a line of dialog).  Fortunately we get a little of this in the Xbox game, with such classics as Humpty-Dumpty and Little Bo Peep.  However the remaining characters/enemies are mostly uninspired, such as witches, skeletons, bats, court jesters, and many more things from Blandville.  There are a few really weird character creations though, such as Gumby-like kids with slingshots:

Shrek takes out his frustrations on half-assed character design.

the candy monstrosity Frankendrop (who happens to also be a boxer), and the oddly funny disco-dancing cow that appears in a few of the levels.  Something that I also found a little odd are the human characters.  In the films they were portrayed as exaggerated but semi-realistic people, but the game tends to show them as dwarf-like with bland faces.  Did the developers care at all about being true to the source material?

This ends my quick look at Shrek for the original Xbox.  This is really one of those games that you have to play for yourself to experience how bad it is, along with how awkward the environments are.  I feel like I should end this post with a Smashmouth song like the movie, but the game devs didn't bother to license their music either.

It pretty much goes without saying that the majority of movie-licensed games are very poor quality, with the exception of great games like EA's Lord of the Rings series, and the recent Batman: Arkham Asylum/City games.  Back in 2001 a particularly painful movie-licensed game was released alongside the original Xbox: Shrek.  Why am I picking on a kids game you might ask?  Well the reason is I played it back in the day and I found it to be an odd game, so I feel it belongs in our blog of strangeness.

Judging by this cut and paste artwork, we can tell the game will be high-quality.

Begin Rant

Ok there's a few things I want to complain about before I get into some of the weird things about this game.  First of all, this game probably tricked many unsuspecting people into purchasing it, leading them to believe it would follow the hilarious plot of the first Shrek movie.  This is not the case at all; the game shuns the plot of the film, opting to go with the “Merlin is evil, go stop him” route.  Because of this we don't get any of the characters from the film besides Shrek and a very brief appearance of the Magic Mirror (supposedly Merlin has kidnapped Fiona, but we never see her, unless she's in the ending credits.  I never bothered trying to beat the final boss so I don't know for sure).  Words cannot express my disappointment at the absence of Donkey.  Nothing says “I'm cheap and I don't give a damn” like not licensing everyone's favorite characters, and on top of that not providing a voice actor for Shrek.  How can you make a Shrek game without at least hiring a Mike Myers sound-alike?

M.I.A.

End Rant

Now that we got through the rant, let's talk a little about this strange (and bad, very bad) game.

The Environment Art Style

Whereas the environments in the first Shrek film were clearly inspired by medieval times, the environments you encounter in the game look like they were rejected from the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Structures have crazy proportions, and everythingis bump mapped so that Bill Gates could flip the bird to Sony by showing off his more powerful hardware.  It's kind of interesting and kind of cringe-worthy as you wander around these areas.  However you'll spend most of your time lost due to horrible level design.  The art style in this game should have made the environments more enjoyable, but as a whole it somehow feels soul-less.  Maybe it's because the areas are so sparsely populated?  Maybe it's the crap soundtrack?  Either way, when playing this game you get that weird feeling you only experience when playing budget games.

The Characters

One of the things that made the Shrek films so enjoyable were the comedic re-creations of classic fairy tale characters (I can't help but laugh whenever the cross-dressing evil stepsister has a line of dialog).  Fortunately we get a little of this in the Xbox game, with such classics as Humpty-Dumpty and Little Bo Peep.  However the remaining characters/enemies are mostly uninspired, such as witches, skeletons, bats, court jesters, and many more things from Blandville.  There are a few really weird character creations though, such as Gumby-like kids with slingshots:

Shrek takes out his frustrations on half-assed character design.

the candy monstrosity Frankendrop (who happens to also be a boxer), and the oddly funny disco-dancing cow that appears in a few of the levels.  Something that I also found a little odd are the human characters.  In the films they were portrayed as exaggerated but semi-realistic people, but the game tends to show them as dwarf-like with bland faces.  Did the developers care at all about being true to the source material?

This ends my quick look at Shrek for the original Xbox.  This is really one of those games that you have to play for yourself to experience how bad it is, along with how awkward the environments are.  I feel like I should end this post with a Smashmouth song like the movie, but the game devs didn't bother to license their music either.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Crazy Controllers: Steel Battalion

Recently I came across a preview for a game I never thought would exist.  The game is Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor for the Xbox 360.  We all remember the first game in the series, Steel Battalion for the original Xbox.  Well ok, we don't remember the game itself so much, but it's hard to forget the incredibly crazy/awesome/expensive controller that came bundled with the game.

And to think, so many people were complaining about how huge the standard Xbox gamepad was.

It's obvious that Capcom was very serious about creating a proper mech simulator.  This incredibly complex controller had 40 buttons, which performed in-game actions such as starting the mech's engine, firing the weapons, and even washing the windshield.   Let's not forget the almighty eject button; if your mech was on the brink of destruction, you had a limited amount of time to hit the eject button, or else your saved game would be automatically erased.  Brutal.

This controller was required to play Steel Battalion, so those of us who couldn't afford the $200 price tag were left out of the party.  Out of curiosity I did a quick Ebay search to see what these controllers were going for these days, and the price range seems to be $70-$100.  Not bad if you want to see what you missed back in the days of the original Xbox (I for one have always wanted to try this game out).

For the newest installment in the Steel Battalion series it looks like Capcom is doing away with monstrously complicated controllers.  The game will use Kinect to allow you to interact with all the controls in the mech's cockpit.  The Kinect is still a bit pricey at $150, but on the bright side it can be used with multiple games, as opposed to paying $200 for the original Steel Battalion setup where the controller was only good for Steel Battalion.

This concludes an installment of Crazy Controllers, hope this brought up some nostalgia!

Recently I came across a preview for a game I never thought would exist.  The game is Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor for the Xbox 360.  We all remember the first game in the series, Steel Battalion for the original Xbox.  Well ok, we don't remember the game itself so much, but it's hard to forget the incredibly crazy/awesome/expensive controller that came bundled with the game.

And to think, so many people were complaining about how huge the standard Xbox gamepad was.

It's obvious that Capcom was very serious about creating a proper mech simulator.  This incredibly complex controller had 40 buttons, which performed in-game actions such as starting the mech's engine, firing the weapons, and even washing the windshield.   Let's not forget the almighty eject button; if your mech was on the brink of destruction, you had a limited amount of time to hit the eject button, or else your saved game would be automatically erased.  Brutal.

This controller was required to play Steel Battalion, so those of us who couldn't afford the $200 price tag were left out of the party.  Out of curiosity I did a quick Ebay search to see what these controllers were going for these days, and the price range seems to be $70-$100.  Not bad if you want to see what you missed back in the days of the original Xbox (I for one have always wanted to try this game out).

For the newest installment in the Steel Battalion series it looks like Capcom is doing away with monstrously complicated controllers.  The game will use Kinect to allow you to interact with all the controls in the mech's cockpit.  The Kinect is still a bit pricey at $150, but on the bright side it can be used with multiple games, as opposed to paying $200 for the original Steel Battalion setup where the controller was only good for Steel Battalion.

This concludes an installment of Crazy Controllers, hope this brought up some nostalgia!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Strange Gaming Moment: Gravemind the Talking Plant

Remember back when you had your first play through of Halo 1?  The suspense as you made your way through the dark and creepy swamp level?  The anticipation of what kind of terrifying enemy would make the Covenant run for their lives?  I admit I was a bit let down upon finding out that the main reason for the suspense was just the zombie-like Flood, but it was still a nice change of pace to have a new enemy to battle.  The Flood were a pain in the ass to fight, mainly because of how resilient they were to most weapons except the shotgun and the rocket launcher.  Even the sheer numbers of the parasitic forms could be a nightmare if your shields were down.

Go ahead, unload that entire assault rifle clip into him, he can take it.

I was content to think of the Flood as a bunch of zombies who were controlled by the parasitic forms, each with individual mindless goals (attack anything that isn't a Flood).  However, with the release of Halo 2, Bungie decided to make the Flood a hive-minded species, controlled by one supreme Flood creature.  The problem is that they chose one of the most laughable ways of doing this.  Meet Gravemind:

It's a little hard to tell from screenshots, but Gravemind is essentially a gigantic talking Venus flytrap.  Kind of difficult taking the story seriously when something so comical is introduced isn't it?  Gravemind's main goal is for the Flood to consume all sentient life in the galaxy, apparently while they all die of laughter from seeing a talking plant pretending to be a badass.

Despite all the negative feedback from Halo fans, Bungie again included Gravemind in Halo 3 as one of the main antagonists.  Thankfully the Master Chief and the Arbiter destroy him once and for all, but it remains to be seen if another Gravemind-like creature will make an appearance in Halo 4.

Remember back when you had your first play through of Halo 1?  The suspense as you made your way through the dark and creepy swamp level?  The anticipation of what kind of terrifying enemy would make the Covenant run for their lives?  I admit I was a bit let down upon finding out that the main reason for the suspense was just the zombie-like Flood, but it was still a nice change of pace to have a new enemy to battle.  The Flood were a pain in the ass to fight, mainly because of how resilient they were to most weapons except the shotgun and the rocket launcher.  Even the sheer numbers of the parasitic forms could be a nightmare if your shields were down.

Go ahead, unload that entire assault rifle clip into him, he can take it.

I was content to think of the Flood as a bunch of zombies who were controlled by the parasitic forms, each with individual mindless goals (attack anything that isn't a Flood).  However, with the release of Halo 2, Bungie decided to make the Flood a hive-minded species, controlled by one supreme Flood creature.  The problem is that they chose one of the most laughable ways of doing this.  Meet Gravemind:

It's a little hard to tell from screenshots, but Gravemind is essentially a gigantic talking Venus flytrap.  Kind of difficult taking the story seriously when something so comical is introduced isn't it?  Gravemind's main goal is for the Flood to consume all sentient life in the galaxy, apparently while they all die of laughter from seeing a talking plant pretending to be a badass.

Despite all the negative feedback from Halo fans, Bungie again included Gravemind in Halo 3 as one of the main antagonists.  Thankfully the Master Chief and the Arbiter destroy him once and for all, but it remains to be seen if another Gravemind-like creature will make an appearance in Halo 4.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad