You know those crappy licensed shovelware games you see in the video games isle? They put pictures of popular cartoons in the cover to catch the clueless relative's eye, and then they see the price tag and BAM. Sold. That is their whole marketing strategy, and it works.
They work so well that a close relative, who I’ve warned about these on several occasions, got Guinness World Records: The Videogame for my kids this Christmas. Although I understand the poor variety when purchasing gifts in Christmas eve, plus spending a whole lot of dough on extra controllers, nunchucks and motion-plus-es can somewhat justify this decision.
However, a Wii Points card would've been a far better choice. I failed to mention that to her as an alternative. I SO want Bit.Trip!
Anyways, on the subject of this rant: GWR:TV. When we first played it, we all got a very bad impression. I put down the Wii-mote and went to the Interwebs to see what I could find about it. What I found was disturbing, it had gotten decent ratings from most magazines and gaming sites! According to them the minigames were fun.
So I went and played it again, thinking, maybe I was a bit biased by the fact that it’s clearly shovelware just by looking at the box. Or maybe I was judging the game by the completely ambiguous menus and interface. I navigated through the game menus by trial and error and fired up one or two games. I was decided not to let the use of hideous avatars in a system that has an excellent built-in avatar system (They’re called Miis) cloud my vision of what could be an awesome game. The horrible announcer (Ben Stein would’ve been better) was constantly muffled by the constant groans of my kids when they clicked something expecting this and that happened, this was more often that I expected thanks to the fact that all cursors look alike. Maybe they should’ve taken a clue from the Wii’s system menu, in which every cursor (hand) is clearly numbered. To this point I’m still not sure how the player select screen works, does the system assign the avatar to the controller that clicks it or are they assigned in order they are chosen? I swear it was either way every time I tried. I totally don’t get it why they have to be so creative when half the game has been built for them already.
First we played “Highest Videogame score”. It was an OK Geometry Wars-ish shooter. Then it was “longest nails”. Gross. You get to follow the “nail” with your cursor and if you wander too far it breaks. It was actually fun. Creepy, disturbing family time fun. Then a few more but those were crap, either the concept was stupid, the controls were awkward or it was boring. Keep in mind none of these games are coo-op or VS. You have to take turns. Kids love that. After all players have taken their turns player one goes back on again. You never get a sense of “Yay! We’re done playing this one!” Instead you have to “cancel” out of the game, which can be done at any point, perfect for quitting halfway through and leaving the middle-child out. That way he’ll hate you all when he grows up. He will kill you and stay in your home living off your social security checks.
There is a sense of competition in which at the end of a “session” the one with the best record gets to be on the spotlight (literally). No “You win!” Instead you are treated to a scene of your nasty butt-ass-ugly avatar breakdancing. I wish I hadn’t won.
Allright, I’m off to play Wii Sports Resort Bowling with the kids. Good times.
